Am I the only one who feels like Nasus is a little too opressive?

L0ve Is Blue··62 votes·6,134 views

Everytime I play against a Nasus I just feel like there is nothing I can do against him at any state of the game. Of course, he is "weaker early game", but I feel like his early game is not that bad for the late game he can have. Every part of his kit is made around him not having to build damage and being able to have thousands of gold worth in stats.

late game, most nasus have 40% CDR if not 45%. let's go with 40%.

Q gives 110 damage+ 2.25 times your AD item 3025 + your stacks in physical damage. Let's say nasus has 350 stacks, wich is considered not that good late game. nasus base attack damage: 119. If nasus has leggit 0 bonus ad, he can deal 727.75 damage.

110+(119x2.25)+350= 727.75. Add 1 for every stack over 350. And that is, every 2.8 seconds.

Without a item 3065 , nasus heals for 20% of the damage his basic attacks deal, wich in this case is 145.55 hp every 2.8 seconds. With item 3065 , it's 174.66. And if he isn't dumb he will probably get a Spirit visage.

W at this point in the game, is just a better version of exhaust. a 95% slow is leggit a root that doesn't prevent you from dashing. And it also reduces attack speed by 47.5%. 95% slow is the strongest slow in the game, and I am pretty sure 47.5% is also the strongest attack speed slow in the game. In one spell, nasus can:

  1. Make up for his low mobility, because he can just target someone and he will get to them.
  2. Make anyone that uses auto attack to deal damage unable to duel him. Even AD casters use an auto attack or two while trying to get a kill.
  3. Supress any AD carry in the game for 5 seconds.

So items such as item 3153 item 3142 or Vayne and her 12% max health true damage can't do much because the user can't apply the %health damage enough for it to be impactfull. "Attack while his W is on cooldown" you say. Well good luck because you only have 1.6 second between the end of the slow and the end of his W cooldown.

At least he only deals physical damage right? So building armor should counter that hehe. Well no. E will deal 430 BASE damage on 5 seconds (the duration of his slow/root) and it also reduces your armor by 40. yes 40. Flat. That is 2 youmuu's.

Talking about mixed damage, nasus will deal 5% of your max health every second you stand close to him while he has his ult on. It's on a 72 seconds cooldown. It also gives him 600 bonus health. And bonus AD. Yes that is all in 1 spell.

So basicaly, late game Nasus is:

  • An INSANE mixeddamage dealer.
  • Able suppress pretty much anyone but mages. He can only make those unable to move.
  • Immune to burst thanks to his ult and build path that allow him to not build a single offensive item and deal insane damage with mediocre stacks.
  • One of the best damage soakers in the game, due to his build path.

So you can leggit do nothing against a late game Nasus. You can shut him as hard as you want early on, he can still do well with not that many stacks. Your whole team can focus him, but by the time you do that his team will kill yours. If you don't focus him he can easily kill all your team while you focus his squishies (or whoever you are focusing). And if you manage to hurt him, he will probably heal that in one or two Qs.

My point being, it's ok to be strong late game. A lot of champion do. It's ok to deal a lot of damage. A lot of champion do. It's ok to soak up loads of damages and deal insane damage. Look at Malphite.

But if nasus is going to be that strong late game, I think he should have either one of those dissavantages:

  1. Very, shitty, miserable, insanely weak, early game where he can barely trade with anyone. Like, pre rework Kog'Maw level of bad early game. He has the potential to be the bast late game champion that no one can deal alone with, so he should be really, and I mean, REALLY bad early on. Maybe super shitty base stat but more per lvl stats so he still scales very well in the late game and can wreck anyone (Riot seems to like this side of him since he has always been like that)

  2. The other proposition would be some actual weakness late game. right now, he can heal, deal insane damage, soak up insane damage and have 2 of the best CC in the game. Can he please have some counter play other than "catch him when he is alone with 3 of your teamates"?

TL;DR-> Nasus doesn't have enough early game weakness early on for the potential monster he can become late game, or he should have some counter play when he reaches late game.

118 Comments

TheOvermind22 votes

"Nasus for a late game champion doesn't have early game weaknesses" i ve lived to hear that too. So if u think Nasus early game is oppressive then what about Yasuo and Jax?? both very strong offenders of the "weak early strong late" rule.

Any of these champions screw him over btw: Darius Garen Pantheon Olaf Quinn Vayne and the strongest of all our lord and saviour : item 3751 Teemo item 3751

You can still beat him with other champions of course like tryndamere or Jax but only if he fucks up early. IF he plays safe then he becomes stronger than you , as he should be i mean he is playing safe he is losing CS shound'nt he be rewarded for it? Yes your lane may be over past mid game , but why is that bad? you know you can roam right? secure objectives in 4v5s with team while he farms?

YumaS2Astral6 votes

When playing against Nasus, I don't even bother trying to stop him from farming, since I know that I can't.

Instead of bullying him early, I pick something that is tanky, has waveclear, and preferably has teamfighting presence so that I can have a chance to outscale Nasus late.

Example include Malphite - It is really difficult to kill this guy even as Nasus due to his massive amount of armor which even Nasus' E cannot properly counter. With his waveclear, armor stacking, and overall utility, Malphite has everything needed to survive against Nasus and outscaling him.

Actually, most tanks will give headaches to Nasus due to this reason. Nautilus TahmKench Poppy Rammus Maokai even Gragas can work, they can waveclear very well to try to delay Nasus' splitpushing and then use their hard CC to prevent Nasus from being a threat during teamfights when it goes to the point that Nasus cannot splitpush anymore.

Also, although not a tank in the actual sense of the word, Trundle works very well due to still being able to peel Nasus off his carries, but not only that, he STEALS Nasus' tankyness, making him squishier and way easier to kill even with his ultmate.


There is a champion that cannot directly lane against Nasus but will give him problems outside of laning. MasterYi is peharps the only auto-attack champion (save from Trundle and a Vayne with QSS) that is problematic for Nasus. This is because of his tank shredding capabilities, on top of his ult making him immune to Nasus' W. Master Yi is actually capable of outdueling Nasus late game if he is properly built, thanks to Sated Devourer and his ult.

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Mundo will beat Nasus at pretty much all point of the game unless you get really behind. It's honestly pretty easy to kill a lot of Nasus players at level 2 with him. He my go-to counterpick for Nasus.

As you said, Master Yi crushes Nasus later whenever he has his ultimate.

TheOvermind1 votes

im thinking late game mundo's ulti will be more than enough for nasus to tare through, but he can just wither mundo and walk away and when ulti wears off proceed to splitpush again. thats like 70 s where mundo cant do shit to him .

EndlessSorcerer3 votes

You don't really need your ultimate. The effectiveness of slows on Mundo is lower than normal due to his W (CC reduction), Swiftness Mastery (CC Reduction and slow reduction) and possibly Boots (Mercury Treads or Swiftness).

Mundo's primary sources of damage (Q, W, Sunfire Cape, E-enhanced attack) do not rely on attack speed. They deal mixed damage which can be difficult to itemize against and they deal it consistently

Ninja Tabi reduce Nasus' damage greatly both due to the armor (since Nasus doesn't typically build penetration) and the 10% reduced AA damage (which includes Nasus Q).

If Mundo begins losing the trade, he can use his Q's slow to kite Nasus relatively well to hopefully heal up or escape.

In addition, Nasus can't effectively itemize for armor penetration/reduction without compromising his durability. As such, he will have difficulty damaging Mundo through his resistances and his sustain will be lessened.

TheOvermind1 votes

Damn you are right about that, Mundo is some broken shit right here, Ill consider picking him into Nasus next time instead of my usual Darius. With Darius if i beat him once he knows he is screwed and he just withers me and walks away and i can't do much about that. But with Mundo i can just keep sticking cleavers up his butt and ruin his day damn.

Strawberrycocoa1 votes

Ionly learned recently that Yi's slow immunity during Highlander applies to attack speed slows as well as movement slows. It's... frikken mindboggling tbh.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

{quoted}

Ionly learned recently that Yi's slow immunity during Highlander applies to attack speed slows as well as movement slows. It's... frikken mindboggling tbh.

And this is the reason why Master Yi can outduel Nasus late. He laugs at the thing that every other melee carry fears the most: attack speed slows.

Ariel the Cruel1 votes

attack speed slows.

Lucian What's that?

J E B A ł T E D15 votes

Yes.. his kit is extremely unfun. By the time he gets gauntlets or a spirit visage, he can just shrug off all your pokes and harass with a single Q on a minion, and if you try to trade then he can just W - E - Q you at that point healing for 60 to 80 hp while smacking you with a fridge, pretty much forcing you to stay outside of his W range at all times unless you have a cleanse. It's really garbage having to play against this champ, and he thrives in elo where junglers always forget about the toplane. It's a double edged sword with nasus holding the middle handle.

Really, your only options are to play equally broken shit like Graves or Quinn. Or go the traditional counter route and pick Poppy. If you don't pick a counter or a broken toplaner you're going to be denied CS and you won't be able to trade with him.

A Miss Fortune4 votes

It's annoying how people will say Nasus is balanced because he struggles in the early game, but it feels like his kit is designed to support his late game god status but also nullify his early game struggles. Built-in sustain, wave clear, armor penetration, and his ult gives him a few hundred extra health. It just doesn't feel like Nasus's early game is** that** bad, especially for him able to be a 5k health tank that is able to easily 2-shot any squishy in the game.

YumaS2Astral3 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Miss Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=a5ziHhP6,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2016-03-25T12:13:05.397+0000)

It's annoying how people will say Nasus is balanced because he struggles in the early game, but it feels like his kit is designed to support his late game god status but also nullify his early game struggles. Built-in sustain, wave clear, armor penetration, and his ult gives him a few hundred extra health. It just doesn't feel like Nasus's early game is** that** bad, especially for him able to be a 5k health tank that is able to easily 2-shot any squishy in the game.

The problem with Nasus' early game is that he is incredibly difficult to punish without ganks. With in-built lifesteal, and the ability to skip damage items and just start to build tanky early game depending from the type of damage you deal, there is little you can do to prevent Nasus from eventually farming.

A Miss Fortune2 votes

Ganking him isn't so easy either. His slow can definitely keep someone off, and his ult gives him plenty of extra health. Most Nasus players will just let you shove the lane under his tower anyways meaning it's nearly impossible to gank him without taking hits from the tower and it puts his opponent at risk for ganks.

xl Kirito lx9 votes

The problem is that Nasus's late game is equal to most tanks mid-game currently. Nasus's niche was that he dealt damage, while being tanky. He has a horrid lane phase to compensate. That's not a unique niche anymore. Anyone can build tank and do damage due to items like Tytanic Hydra, Sterak's Gage, and Maw of Malmortius.

There are better split pushers. There are better duelists. There are better tanks. And all of those champions have stronger early games, and mid games.

-- Side note. Nasus actually falls off late game. He peaks around 30min, then falls down. It's only about 1% of win rate difference, but his overall impact in fights is less than impressive.

AlwaysByMySide1 votes

[{quoted}](name=xl Kirito lx,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=a5ziHhP6,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2016-03-25T07:01:42.426+0000)

There are better duelists.

There isn't a single duelist in the game as good as Nasus overall.

The only champion who can potentially duel a stacked Nasus late game is Master Yi due to how their kits interact. Maybe Vayne, if she plays it perfectly and avoids every Q. Tryndamere? Jax? Trundle? Fiora? They all get dunked on.

KING 5HARK1 votes

Fiora and Jax are more like 50/50 tho

SaltyKracka8 votes
  1. Have you ever actually tried playing Nasus? He has that.

  2. It's called teamfights and CC. If he can't reach squishies he's incredibly easy to DPS down. Also, he has one CC spell, and it's hardly the best in the game.

I'd address all the various inaccuracies and omissions in the rest of this, but that would frankly take waaaaaayyyy too much time.

L0ve Is Blue5 votes

Yes, I already played him. It's leggit not that hard you play safe get SOME cs and when you have like 4 items no one can duel you. The only one actualy able to DPS him are ADC'S, since magic resist has been buffed to the point you only need item 3102 or item 3065 to prevent any APC from being threatening to you, and the only ADCs that can fight him are Tristana KogMaw CaitlynJinx since they can deal damage to him while staying out of his W range. If you have to get closer than 600 units from him he can suppress your damage and movement for 5 seconds.

That is considering grevious wounds are applyed on him for the whole duration of him going from 100% to 0, since a nasus with good stacks can heal for about 200HP every 3 seconds, unless he has nothing to hit around him.

SaltyKracka13 votes

...4 items. You know what 4 items is?

It's midgame.

Hurr durr, too oppressive.

And believe me, getting W'd by Nasus is survivable. It's called...wait for it...Tanks! Funny thing, peel works wonderfully for keeping immobile melee champions off of you.

L0ve Is Blue4 votes

So you admit that Nasus can't be faced alone. You need a tank with you in order to be able to do anything.

SaltyKracka22 votes

Um...duh? Nasus is a late-game scaling juggernaut whose particular areas of strength are found in duels and splitpushing.

ADCs shouldn't be able to duel him on their own once he's got some items. What an incredibly stupid line of argument.

L0ve Is Blue4 votes

Ok then name me 1 champion that can duel a Nasus late game.

SaltyKracka15 votes

I'll do you 2.

Devourer Yi. Devourer Jax.

L0ve Is Blue8 votes

Of course they can they are probably the 2 most broken champions in this game since sated devourer has been out. The only thing that can beat broken is even more broken XD

MunchCrunchLunch9 votes

a lot of champions. including. jax yi shyvanna. a lot of the devoure melee carries. he cannot be 1v1d by any squishie or any ap/ad caster. the only i can think of is a teemo that is really good at kiting but if there is a minion wave around he will simply heal too fast.

YumaS2Astral6 votes

{quoted}

a lot of champions. including. jax yi shyvanna. a lot of the devoure melee carries. he cannot be 1v1d by any squishie or any ap/ad caster. the only i can think of is a teemo that is really good at kiting but if there is a minion wave around he will simply heal too fast.

Vayne can 1x1 nasus if she has item 3140. She can peel him of herself and kite him to death. Not even Nasus can deal with her tank shredding ability. He is only able to do that with his W, but that's why Vayne has a QSS.

Jet Sett1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lemon Graber,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=a5ziHhP6,comment-id=00000000000000000000000100000000,timestamp=2016-03-25T07:26:08.450+0000)

Of course they can they are probably the 2 most broken champions in this game since sated devourer has been out. The only thing that can beat broken is even more broken XD

A farmed Nasus can own both of them. 1500 bonus damage is a lot to lifesteal back, only Yi has a chance because of his mixed damage and attack speed slow immunity. Even then he's liable to get bursted.

qetzel2 votes

1500 bonus damage? Are you really 80 minutes into the game? Actually, closer to 100.

Jet Sett1 votes

{quoted}

1500 bonus damage? Are you really 80 minutes into the game? Actually, closer to 100.

Oops, had a custom game in my head where my friend got 1500 stacks. Even so, Nasus takes a lot of effort to take down, good luck teamfighting with him pushing your inhibitors. Unless you specifically pick someone to DESTROY him early you won't get anywhere. Pick a mid/early game team with Nasus top and you'll find it's harder to stop him than you think.

Reformed Dunni4 votes

{quoted}

I'll do you 2.

Devourer Yi. Devourer Jax.

Devourer Yi, yes. Devourer Jax, no.

MunchCrunchLunch2 votes

jax can 1v1 nasus late game.

obviously. nasus has the potential to do 1000000000000000 damage per Q. but on reasonable circumstances. equally fed jax beats nasus 1v1 simply because jax can get randuins and ninja tabi. some health. ult and get crazy more armor. and just heal off autoing the nasus.. the best nasus can do is get randuins frozen heart and use wither to destroy jax attack speed but then again jax attack speed is almost maxed out with just 2 attack speed items including devoure and rageblade. so that its not a really big deal. jax does mixed damage. about 50/50 magic and ad so he will hurt that nasus

the problem is that you will hear here is that they will tell you to kite him. and he can be kited. just not in a 1v1 scenario. his wither cooldown with 40% is too low. and his movemnt speed is one of the highest in the game basically if he gets close to you your dead unless you have some crazy escape like lee sin.

i think. to balance him. they need. to either give him a new passive. or make his stacks damage not give him lifesteal as well because i think thats the problem

crippler384 votes

Nocturne especially if you spellshield the slow, but if you throw up the shield nasus CANNOT q you without only doing auto damage I'm pretty sure, plus that gives you enough of an attack speed steroid that you can go ham and rip him up Olaf ult lets you ignore the w and your passive helps mitigate it, that plus your own w as well. If you're both about full build you should both be tanky with a lot of sustain but olaf can apply ruined king fast and hard as well as having some true damage Trundle is a premier tank dueler because of his ultimate, that plus trundle's own healing should allow him to out duel nasus

I also posted about twitch because twitch in ult just kills nasus so fast that nasus can't do much about it even full build once you get lord dominiks, because of twitch's massive steroids from ambush and his ultimate

also, tank duelest Shaco has a chance I think, haven't tested it, because both him and the clone apply blade of the ruined king and attack pretty fast, if nasus goes for the clone you can backstab him, you're both kinda tanky but you can throw your boxes down around while fighting and nasus has to either try to kill the box or keep taking damage from yourself, you can also hide when you see his Q is up to waste his time then go back to fighting

but dueling him isn't usually your best option since he's a duelest, someone who can kite him is much more handy if you ask me

B1naryB0t8 votes

Nasus is balanced, yes. Nasus is enjoyable to play against, no.

Nasus' power comes from telling the enemy toplaner "we're playing by my rules now", similar to laning vs a Soraka Sure, he's pretty immobile, melee, and no hard cc (yes he has a slow, but you can play around that) But he turns toplane into a farmfest all game and if you opt out of the farmfest, he punishes you hard. That's very frustrating, because a farm fest is literally exactly what he wants, he's infamous for farming until the enemy is in the base.

But he's balanced. He has counterplay, his numbers aren't overbearing, and he doesn't bring much to teamfights, especially if shut down. I think he's in a good spot, even if an annoying one. If you gave him an early game comparable to pre-rework Kog, he'd be useless and never be able to get to late game if the toplaner has any shred of intelligence. And he does have a major weakness lategame, those that I mentioned earlier. He has no engage potential other than just walking towards the enemy, so he's very easy to kite.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

{quoted}

Nasus is balanced, yes. Nasus is enjoyable to play against, no.

Nasus' power comes from telling the enemy toplaner "we're playing by my rules now", similar to laning vs a Soraka Sure, he's pretty immobile, melee, and no hard cc (yes he has a slow, but you can play around that) But he turns toplane into a farmfest all game and if you opt out of the farmfest, he punishes you hard. That's very frustrating, because a farm fest is literally exactly what he wants, he's infamous for farming until the enemy is in the base.

But he's balanced. He has counterplay, his numbers aren't overbearing, and he doesn't bring much to teamfights, especially if shut down. I think he's in a good spot, even if an annoying one. If you gave him an early game comparable to pre-rework Kog, he'd be useless and never be able to get to late game if the toplaner has any shred of intelligence. And he does have a major weakness lategame, those that I mentioned earlier. He has no engage potential other than just walking towards the enemy, so he's very easy to kite.

He may not be unbalanced, but he, for sure, has a toxic and non-interactive kit. Why he is non-interactive? Exactly because of his tendency to transform every matchup into a farm fest, and he benefits from that. Why it is toxic? Because it has very little counterplay. If you try to punish him he can just heal everything back with his passive lifesteal. Then he returns with armor/magic resistance and just shrugs off all your attempts to punish him. And with enough stacks, he is the one who actually starts to punish you. And with his W, you cannot avoid his punishment. Even if you somehow manage to get him to low health, he then presses R and undo all your efforts.

Not only that, but his kit is boring. You just Q all day and then try to slow the enemy. He has no mobility or anything that could make him a little more fun to play.

Those are all signals that someday, Nasus will need a rework.

Only Play Darius6 votes

Nasus isn't hard to deal with. His early game is trash, he dies in early ganks and can't farm safely against anyone who knows how to freeze mid and not shove. Once he gets to the point you can't deal with him anymore, you roam the map and take objectives. Just had a game against a Quinn top who was unable to stop me from stacking, but rushed down my turret ASAP (junglers rarely gank for Nasus so she wasn't punished for overextension) and used her ult to win teamfights around the map and return in time to stop me at inner turret. I could 1v1 her easily every time she returned to lane but it didn't matter because her team was more than willing to help her fight me each time. I had about 800 stacks at 35 minutes but it meant nothing because my team was so far behind from Quinn's roams that her team could afford to focus me.

Only hardcore Nasus mains can make him work past gold where people know how to freeze lane and then force objectives, and you need to be able to average 20-30 stacks per minute or else you get punished too hard for your lack of pressure. Nasus is only good against people who think this is a 1v1 game.

Great Ozymandius6 votes

I can't believe people are now complaining that Nasus is OP.

As an avid Nasus player, here are some things I've learned about him:

  1. his late game is not actually that good and revolves around splitpushing. If Nasus' opponents group 5v4 and quickly go for objectives, Nasus has to choose between continuing the split push or backing (potentially blowing teleport and thereby weakening future splitpushing). With towers as weak as they are, the other team should be able to win 5v4's under towers late game and wreck, unless Nasus' team is already significantly ahead (in which case Nasus isn't the source of the problem). If Nasus joins the team fight, and the other team has a modicum of cc, Nasus gets kited and his theoretically high damage becomes moot. Sure, he would like to wither the enemy carry, but wither has a short range. If the other team has a proper formation with the adc in back and a tank with cc in front, he will never get in range to wither the carry and will be obliterated.

  2. What this really means is that Nasus is a mid-game champion who needs to farm very well in the early game to get a sufficient midgame power spike. That is, he needs to farm q very well up to 20 minutes, then overpower his lane opponent and become such a pushing threat that he either takes a lot of towers on his own, or forces the enemy team to send someone top to fight him (without Nasus dying).

The reason why this works in midgame is because the other team is not powerful enough yet to dive towers 5v4 while he splitpushes, so they need to stop his pushing directly in the midgame (that is, by sending someone else top against him rather than forcing him back by threatening an objective).

That's a pretty rough win condition for Nasus. He needs to dominate farm for the first 20 minutes so he is powerful for the next 10 minutes. Then he needs to leverage the next 10 minutes to either get important tower objectives or force two people to stop him top so his team can win 4v3's. After 30 or 35 minutes, it's late game. Then it's very difficult to splitpush without his team getting crushed and it is very difficult for him to teamfight without getting kited into oblivion. Not only does this require that Nasus farm very effectively for the first 20 minutes, it also requires him to quickly translate his advantage into towers in the next 10 minutes, and it requires that his team quickly take objectives when they have a 4v3 advantage.

So how can Nasus be stopped?

A) Pick someone effective at denying him farm for the first 15 to 20 minutes. Teemo, Vayne, Quin, Garen, Darius, Riven, and many other standard picks excel at this when properly utilized (Pantheon, despite what many people say, does not. Nasus just starts cloth + 4, and keeps stacking armor and health pots. Panth will run out of mana before he can force Nasus out of lane and Nasus will get all the q farm he wants. Then pantheon falls off hard mid and late game). Many off-meta picks also excel at this, such as Leblanc and Yi (his ultimate counters Nasus' wither, which means he can zone Nasus off of a pushed creep wave after level 6).

B) pick someone who can prevent Nasus from taking towers during minutes 20-30, but then contribute a lot to teamfights thereafter. Tanks do this, such as Malphite. Malphite can clear waves, keeping Nasus off the tower, and he is tanky enough that Nasus will not kill him even at 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, Malphite groups with his team and forces 5v4's. If Nasus stays top, his team should dive towers and quickly win teamfights and destroy the enemy base. If Nasus comes back, the team with Malphite has the better teamfight.

People who have trouble with Nasus make one of several mistakes: 1) they don't group lategame to force nasus out of lane by threatening objectives; 2) they picked a team without good cc, thereby failing to exploit Nasus kitability; 3) Nasus laning opponent both didn't effectively harass Nasus early (either by picking the wrong champion or by failing to properly utilize the correct champion) or didn't pick a champion that can clear waves through midgame and contribute significantly to teamfights late game.

I think Nasus is actually fairly weak because his win condition is so narrow and can be thwarted a number of different ways.

YumaS2Astral2 votes

He is not OP, but has a boring, toxic, and non-interactive kit and if he is buffed he actually becomes OP and if he is nerfed he becomes useless.

He is somewhat strong in this meta now, though, because he is very potent against ADCs.

Great Ozymandius1 votes

I disagree. I think his kit forces interaction. Nasus himself doesn't want to interact, but the other player wants to force trades. In fact, Nasus, makes it optimal for other champions to be way more aggressive than they normally would. Don't tell me a Nasus versus Riven lane is not interactive. It's a different sort of interaction, to be sure, a game of cat-and-mouse, but it is in fact highly interactive.

Elwynn5 votes

How to play nasus 1.Survive until you get gauntlets. 2. Win game.

Mhihnj1 votes

how to play against nasus:

looks up on google

10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 pages later....

still searching

Knoyle3 votes

Deny farm Gank early Anti- tank items are your friends item 3033 item 3165 also help.

Sasogwa5 votes

Nasus is ridiculously overrated late game. Right now, he's one of the shittiest teamfighters in the game with just a single target slow, gets kited to oblivion, only has a small HP boost for defensive steroids, his damage is actually rather average even with 500 stacks (compare him to Jax, he only wins the duel if he kites him and because he slows attacks speed, but he has way less DPS). He's good if he can reach the squishies but in practice he never does it unless his opponents are bad. I play a lot of Nasus so that could ofc sound biased; but the higher elo he's in, the more useless he becomes. Games are decided kinda soon and can snowball fast, and Nasus can't do anything. He needs his farm early and has absolutely no pressure for around 15 minutes, more if he gets denied well. Every time I pick Nasus in D4 + I feel goddamn useless, it's sad. Even in some games where I get like 500 stacks in 20 minutes, start roaming but get kited to oblivion and can't really help, or splitpush and get beaten 1v2 aka I can't pressure sh*t, some ppl like Sated Yi can even 1v1 fed you with a lot of stacks without breaking a sweat. Nasus isn't bad, but he certainly isn't great. Also, if you compare him to Malphite, Malphite does have an insane teamfighting and is in more serious games (high elo, competitive) a much better pick EVEN IN LATEGAME, because of his engage, great tankiness.

Just because Nasus has infinite scaling doesn't mean he is broken in lategame. Even 1k stacks Nasus is easily dealable with in teamfights. He can become a great splitpusher but tbh that's everything he is good at right now and there are other picks that do this job really well too.

DesolationKaizer4 votes

As stated before, Nasus isn't actually all that much of a monster lategame. 1v1 yes. But in teamfights? He's honestly pretty fucking horrible compared to a Darius in a teamfight. He's got only one form of crowd control and he's fairly immobile with no gap closer. He's prone to being kited around in teamfights. No matter how many stacks you get as Nasus, you'll never be a truly effective teamfighter. As Nasus, you're basically regulated to splitpushing and 1v1s.

His biggest power spike is midgame where resistances are just really starting to get solid and the squishies have no defensive items yet, since a decent Nasus will have 400-500 stacks.

Swiftstrike44 votes

As a Nasus main, with 1 mill mastery on the champ, I can say he is very strong if you decide to fight him on his terms. Basically, if you try to 1v1 him, away from any escape routes, you will most likely lose. But most higher level players, or people that play against Nasus often, understand this and avoid trying to contest him in that scenario. Many silver and bronze players think he is strong, but most gold players know how to deal with him.

Nasus is very beatable through team fights and high crowd control. Nasus can only focus on one target at a time and is easily kited. Two champions with hard CC in their kit will give Nasus a lot of problems if they focus their skills on him exclusively in team fights. Also if he decides to split-push and never group you send a squad to kill him. Typically, lower level players that are teammates to the Nasus do not understand that when squads are sent to kill him to take an objective. Silver/Bronze players do not think "they sent 4 people to kill nasus we can probably take an objective". Instead they simply continue farming or assume nasus got caught out. Sometimes they will send help but in the end a team fight "to save nasus" often ends up being a wash if the game is even.

I often tell my friends after losses, that it doesn't matter how many stacks I have, if I am chain crowd controlled in a team fight or my team does not take objectives when I split push we will lose the game. Nasus is really bad at teamfighting, he is mostly good in skirmishes with 2-3 champs not 4v4 or 5v5 scenarios.

His base stats and early kit are already pretty poor. Since the mastery changes to be a trade-off tree to the keystone I can't simply put ALL my points into that tree. I still have to pick which one to allocate points too. Prior the change I could just put everything into that tree, which gave me the ability to survive early with some better base stats. With the new "tenacity" tree I can't put all my points into tank stats and get each of the masteries, I have to choose Runic Armor or Veteran's Scars or select tenacity or legendary guardian. I actually had to rearrange my rune pages for Nasus because of this change to masteries to make it easier to survive the early game with the champ.

Nasus is only strong if your team has no CC or is uncoordinated. He hits his power spike mid-game before people realize how strong he is. Believe me after the first team fight or skirmish with Nasus when they realize how much damage he can do, the enemy team will prioritize keeping him under control with high CC.

HowPlayGAEM4 votes

[deleted]

YumaS2Astral2 votes

[{quoted}](name=OMG halp meh plz,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=a5ziHhP6,comment-id=0013,timestamp=2016-03-25T11:09:18.048+0000)

The only thing I have a problem with is his W.

If you're playing a champ without a dash or something, you're fucked.

Nasus got some stacks? W, he goes up to you and Q. If you're not a tank, you get chunked MASSIVELY. Then death. His jungler coming? W, and you get gangbanged. Death.

You need specific champs to lane against him, and TO THIS DAY when you search on google how to deal with Nasus, there is no fucking consensus.

Yeah, his W is toxic as hell. Even his Q is fine, although it can infinitely scale and do massive damage, it is single-targeted and Nasus has to farm for it. Not to mention, it requires him to be on melee range, making him incredibly vulnerable (and this is the main reason why he should build tanky). But that W... Unless you are a MasterYi or has item 3140 you have no way to do much against Nasus.

SlaktarTasken4 votes

The problem is that the same changes to minions to make ranged less oppressive against melee top are also benefiting Susan, all this while Susan had a range buff to Q not that long ago, I complained about it since I thought it was unessesary and got called a pleb,: COz durp Nasus isn't doing so hot blablabla.

So what's the dilemma? It's simply this:

You can't touch him early because even if you go full offensive runes and masteries, with his stacked armor you simply won't be killing him, to make matters worse, as soon as you touch him you start pushing your lane, since taking minion aggro = his minions aren't hitting yours = lane being pushed = Susan happy like a swine in muck since he can freeze and stack safely on his side of the map.

I've found that the only thing that works is trying to keep up in farm, getting some kind of heavy penetration item then all inning him at around lvl 3-5 or so, don't bother trying before then.

Yes, he will be free farming stacks till then, but he won't have that extremely many by then. Getting cleanse might not be a bad idea since he will wither you if you try to all in him. Basicly you have to give up map pressure to get control over Susan (no tp) and perhaps go ghost instead of Flash then wait for when he overextends trying to stack. Chase his ass down and kill him. Rince repeat every time ghost and cleanse is of cd and maybe try to snowball other lanes while he's down.

People that say go ham on him early don't know what the hell they are talking about, good Susan will abuse anyone who tries to go ham on him from lvl 1.

Imo, what makes Susan a drag is that if his team is even slightly ahead of yours, it's basicly GG, since you can't leave your lane unattended to try help your teammates since he will free stack and probably tear down a tower or two giving his team global gold and thus mitigate whatever help you manage to give to your teammates all while getting even stronger.

Over Innsmouth3 votes

In my experience - if you'll permit me to argue - you don't counterpick Nasus with someone who can shit on him in lane since (as with Gangplank) he'll just farm up and become a terror regardless if the game goes too long. You counterpick him with someone who can cc him and peel for your team, since Nasus's biggest weakness is not his earlygame, it's his Trundle-ness. That is to say he has immense dueling power, but his weakness lies in his lack of tools to get to his target beyond walking.

Picture this; he withers your adc and starts walking towards them. That's gonna happen whether he's 1/14 or 14/1. How do you stop that? Put enough cc between him and your adc that he can't get to them ever.

A personal favourite of mine to pick against Nasus is Sion, because he has enough cc (especially with 40% cdr) to singlehandedly hold Nasus off his adc. Maokai is also good, and even Trundle himself (since his ult makes Nasus's built-tankiness less of an issue in teamfights).

Basically, Nasus isnt actually a god-tier lategame champion because the nature of lategame is teamfights. Nasus is a god-tier mid-lategame champion because everyone is roaming solo during the midgame and he's a god-tier duelist. Pick someone who can peel Nasus off the targets he wants to kill and you're made in the shade.

If I had an RP for every frustrating Janna tornado I walked into as Nasus, I'd be able to buy Infernal all over again.

Tychusfindlay9192 votes

Nasus is the antithesis of oppressive.

Oppressive top laners that come to mind are Darius Quinn

Fat Bastard GOD2 votes

As a Nasus main, he can be shut down quite easily. If you pick Maokai, Malphite, or a pure tank against him, he is going to be able to farm easily. The point is, if you pick a bad matchup into him, you are probably going to have a bad day mid/lategame.

Champions like Olaf, Darius, Yi or a well played Riven can snowball the lane easily. Yi and Olaf DESTROY Nasus because they can remove his Wither, and wreck him. Trundle is also great against Nasus because of his ultimate.

More from Gameplay

More by L0ve Is Blue