Should you have storm raiders surge or grasp of the undying on nasus

Gold main here.

So ALL of the keystones are not great on Nasus.

The "Best" Keystone for Nasus is Strength of the Ages. It gives him what he needs, which is health, and it scales awesomely in the late game. Carnarius (the top Nasus in the world) uses this Keystone along with Storm raiders.

However, the issue with SoTA is that it takes too long to get much of a return with Nasus. It does not immediately benefit him in his early game. His early game, is where he needs the most help and SoTA offers marginal health returns pre-6-9.

Grasp is really good for early game sustain in lane. This is probably the "go to" keystone for Nasus since it is pretty safe. It makes it so that Nasus can actually trade with an auto attack while laning. I prefer this keystone, despite the nerfs, because it acts as another proc to lifesteal along with my passive.

Grasp however, scales poorly and it largely is unnoticeable in by the mid-game. It is purely a keystone for early laning, especially with the recent nerfs to it.

Storm Raiders Surge is GREAT on Nasus giving him mobility and resistance to slows after striking an enemy with a highly stacked Q.

The problem with Surge is you give up the 15% tenacity from the resolve tree, making it so that you have to buy regardless of the enemy composition. Nasus is easily kited and the lost points in tenacity from the resolve tree is VERY noticeable.

Against high Crowd Control comps that have harder CC (Stuns, Knockups, Roots, etc) it is very difficult to run Storm.

Taking Storm is essentially you throwing caution to the wind, you want to win lane, you want style points for kills, and you don't give a shit about grouping or teamfights.

Any moderate CC comp can easily handle a Nasus with Storm.

Overall, SoTA is the most practical for the late game, Grasp is the most practical for the early game, and Storm is best to win lane hard and split-push only.

In terms of "risk", Storm is by far the highest risk keystone for Nasus, then SoTA, and then Grasp which is the safest.

I have tinkered with all three and I run Grasp the most because it helps me with early laning. I get an immediate return with it when I am at my weakest point. SoTA I like because it helps in the late game, but their is no immediate return on it. You don't think "SoTA is pretty helpful and helped me get through laning" at level 4 or 5.

Storm is the dream, but it is just that...a dream. You will likely play against a high CC comp when you pick Nasus, if the opponents are smart. You will be perma-CC'd and all that movement speed from your Q will feel meaningless if you group ever.

For example: Comps to run Storm: Comps to run Grasp or SoTA:

It depends where you want your strength to be. srs will help more when you're obliterating people really late, grasp will help a lot more sustaining.

Depends on the matchup, If you are against a tanky champ and just want to spit push, take grasp. If you are not against a tank or you want to teamfight eventually take Stormraiders. It is very difficult to proc stromraiders vs tanks.

I run SotA because I'm a huge badass.

I am a gold 5 Nasus Main and this is just my opinion.

You could run Warlords Blood lust as well. I have had decent success with this. If you get chunked a bit in lane and you get a few good SS for stacks you can almost be topped off health wise very quickly. It's great in the early game vs Riven and other early damage dealers. But like Swift said you will miss that sweet tenacity later and Mercs are not nearly as effective without the free tenacity in the resolve tree.

I've been running Grasp the most lately however. It helps the most early game if you are forced to trade and is really still useful mid game where Nasus shines the most if he didn't die and got decently stacked. Also the damage you can deal with it if you build enough health is nothing to sneer at either. With about 3000 health it will give you 90 extra damage as magic damage. That's not bad especially if they itemized mostly armor against you. But it also probably won't make or break you in a fight either.

I hate the cunning tree for Nasus. It really offers nothing useful outside of the CDR (which really doesn't make a huge difference) and SRS which requires you to trade to benefit. So you will see no benefit until mid game or if you die too much early b/c you don't have any tenacity outside of mercs early then you'll never get to use it. I much prefer 12/0/18 on Nasus or 18/0/12. The only way I would concede to the cunning tree is if you go 0/12/18 but I prefer the AS, LS and free extra damage on my withered opponents from Oppression in Ferocity.

Again this is my opinion and this is what works for my play style. One last thing Storm only helps against slows and does nothing against any other form of CC where as tenacity applies to everything. Consider that as well.

Take Warlords with Lifesteal quints. Also buy a vamp scepter if your lane is going well. Its very fun.

stormraiders

I looked at your masteries and you kind of give yourself some of the stats I like in ferocity in your runes. Not a bad idea at all. My build is mostly centered around waiting for the mid/late game as well as focusing on the inherent strengths of Nasus and expanding upon them.

Reds- Hybrid Pen

Yellows- Health per level

Blues- Mix of flat and scaling CDR for 10% at level 18

Quints- Armor or MR depending on matchup.

Masteries- I am pretty firm that going 18 in resolve is the best option in almost every case. However i do like Savagery in the cunning tree and wish it were the option over feast in the Ferocity tree. It would make more sense thematically I think. The second tier really doesn't do anything for Nasus. We will rarely have one of the jungle buffs, biscuits are useful but only for lvls 1-6 and Assassin could work if you only split push with no help but let's be honest split pushing is really not that successful with Nasus anymore unless massively ahead. Merciless is good but only when we get to the point we can trade (usually somewhere around level 9) and dangerous game is probably my favorite b/c I like to team fight and as long as I get an assist I am a happy camper so huzzah for sustain.

5 AS allows me to not have to give up any of my pen runes which I find massively important later in the game.

Feast is good for laning but it kind of falls in the same category as biscuits.

Vampirism- Amplifies your AA's, SS and your E and R b/c it gives SV and LS. It's not huge but I do think it helps.

Oppressor- I will argue that you can start applying more damage without them being below 40% health but you are not wrong that 5% is better once you hit them below 40%.

The other problem I have with the cunning tree is many of these are conditional on your team, are just outright useless early game or useless after the laning phase is over (looking at you biscuits). But this is all LARGELY my opinion and maybe it's just b/c it doesn't fit my play style. Though I am adventurous so I am going to try 12 in cunning in my next few games and see how it goes. Maybe it is better than I gave it credit for initially.

I appreciate all your idea's and will definitely take them into consideration.