How is black cleave on nasus

[{quoted}](name=Spicy Rice,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=REy6RvR5,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-05-22T21:50:45.643+0000)

Not really, the Nasus end game fantasy is 1-shotting people, not slowly q'ing them to death. If you need more than 2-3 q's to destroy anyone but a super tank, and your w isnt enough armor shred, you've done something wrong as Nasus.

Instead of cleaver, I'd rather have a Triforce as a damage Item. It still gives the movespeed from the phage, but also has the sheen proc, along with crit chance and some extra movespeed. It helps take towers, and makes people back the fuck off once they see it in your inventory

Armor counters nasus hard

I don't think is really correct. Late-game, you're going to end up being kited by their backline because you'll have to get through the frontline and the peel before hitting someone important. You're often going to end up smacking their frontline a lot, and you're not going to be able to get around that. Even squishies are going to get harder to kill in the late game than in the mid game because the one defensive item they may purchase will mitigate a lot of your Q damage. 1-shotting people all the time just isn't a realistic expectation for Nasus in the later game. Some armor penetration can be very useful for enhancing your Q damage. It also can be useful to fill a CDR gap if you don't have a significant need for MR.

That said, I'm still not a big fan of it. It's not an item I want as one of my first 2 items, but the CDR on it means that is the only place I could build it because I need to max out on CDR as fast as possible. It does also end up competing with triforce. Unless we had 4 physical damage champions, I would generally prefer to get Last Whisper or Bloodthirster as a secondary late-game damage item.

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Seemes pretty sub-optimal.

Nasus deals such an extreme amount of mixed damage he doesn't get as much from armor penetrations as he could. Spirit Fire has solid bases (and comes with more flat armor/mr pen than any ability in the game to begin with) and Fury's %HP damage is pretty solid on the magic side. Also - I'm pretty sure debuffs (reductions) still run with flat before %, so Spirit Fire's 40 armor pen is going to apply prior to the 25% of Cleaver, which is much less useful than applying the 25% first than 40 afterwards (which is how Brutalizer and Whisper interact for that crazy AD caster end-game damage).

Additionally - Cleaver has 5 stacks now rather than 4, and you don't get the pen on the same strike it's applied with. Nasus needs to smack a target 6 times for the 25% armor reduction. All Nasus has in his arsenal to do that is auto-attacks and Siphoning Strike, which is about as slow as you can get for shredding armor with Cleaver.

Finally: Nasus deals plenty of damage without building any damage items. 300 AD steroid and infinite-stacking Q, along with 40 armor/mr pen and 5% max HP shred. Nasus is not particularly durable without defensive items though: even with a 600 HP heal/Hp increase. As a tanky DPS unit - you need to build tanky on Nasus for him to be DPS. Unlike mages, marksman, and assassins that have the range and/or mobility to survive long enough to do their damage: Nasus needs to build defense to do the same (but inversely gets the damage he needs). As a typical game only sees 11,000 gold per player: you're looking at 3 major ~3k items, ~1k in boots, and ~1k in the bank when the game ends within an average game. If you want to be tanky at all you do really want 2 major tank items by that point: which means Nasus can only really afford to get 1 major damage item. Tri Force is ~270 bonus damage (~240+30) on Q when Nasus hits 18, and it effects towers. Cleaver is only 50 bonus damage on Q, and towers are immune to armor penetration of any kind.

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With how little synergy Nasus's kit has with: armor penetration applying armor penetration stacks damage items

I'm going to say Cleaver is not a particularly good choice on him. Not that you can't force it to work for you in a few games or you're shooting yourself in the foot: there are just better build paths to pursue.

Last whisper?

flat reduction comes before both percent reduction and penetration, but flat penetration comes after, So they actually stack well.

However since Nasus can't use Cleaver well and reduction can be used by teammates it is better to have someone else use it.

flat reduction comes before both percent reduction and penetration, but flat penetration comes after, So they actually stack well.

However since Nasus can't use Cleaver well and reduction can be used by teammates it is better to have someone else use it.

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Personally, I don't really see much need for it. Between your ultimate and the low cooldown on your Q, you should be able to wear through tanks relatively quickly even without armor penetration.

Though, keep in mind that I typically build Nasus purely with tank items due to personal preference. I get 20% CDR from runes and masteries and build something like the following: or , , , , ,

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I can see why it would be a good item, though. Nasus loves pretty much every stat on it (health, CDR, AD, MS, Armor Pen) and it could be a good item to rush when the enemy team has multiple tanks. I've been considering trying the following build at some point: or , , , , ,

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Basically, the main question is whether or not you think you need the armor penetration. Nasus should ideally be able to prioritize, chase down, and/or zone off the enemy squishies who won't really be able to build a significantly amount of armor in most situations.

Armor penetration would only really be valued when he expects to have to focus the enemy front-line (either because he can't get past them or the enemy team has multiple tanks). However, you can't really apply Black Cleaver stacks quickly and you would likely have to change your focus multiple times in a fight, so Last Whisper would probably be a better purchase since you get the penetration immediately and don't have to stack it.

What about 6 stacks black cleave vs last whisper