How do I beat nasus in lane

RouterSmiter··3 votes·847 views
http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1832043274/218686320?tab=overview

So I was playing a ranked match against Nasus, and I tried to poke him out early, but did 0 damage. He just got free stacks, and pushed me to tier 2, GGWP, Can someone help me like...

How do I deny farm? What Champions do I play into nasus (I FPd hec)? What do I build? What summoners do I take? Do I roam or stay top? etc... Edit: I realize quinn and teemo are good against him (blinds), But they're both squishy..

20 Comments

EndlessSorcerer3 votes

First, the general tips:

  • Try to avoid shoving Nasus under his turret. That makes him very hard to poke and/or kill as most melee champions, leaves you overextended (and wither makes it very easy for his jungler to gank), and limits your jungler's options.

  • Nasus will typically stack resistances. Nasus built a lot of armor against you, so switching lanes with your Kassadin would have been a good idea. Kassadin is really good at poking out melee champions due to his mana sustain, the burst damage on W, and the poke on Q. Hecarim would have worked very well mid-lane, since you could easily roam bottom lane to help them snowball.

  • Nasus deals primarily physical damage and he doesn't usually itemize for armor penetration. If you believe you will have to split-push against him for a significant portion of the game, you want to purchase some armor. item 3047 and item 3075 are especially useful when dueling him since they will reduce and reflect damage from his Q respectively.

Shoving to tower is the absolute last thing you want to do against Nasus. It lets him safely free-farm and sustain, limits your trading opportunities, prevents your jungler from ganking him (in most cases), and leaves you vulnerable to ganks (and Wither is great for chasing people down a lane). Diving Nasus can be risky as well since:

  • Wither slows you and lets him escape
  • Spirit Fire reduces your armor, amplifying the damage dealt by the tower
  • He can get a large burst of health from his lifesteal and his ultimate

Now for your questions.

How do I deny farm?

In my experience, I find that you have to freeze the minion wave and zone Nasus from farm. If at all possible, try and get the minion wave pushing towards your tower, freeze it, and call your jungler up to gank Nasus while he is overextended.

A good Nasus player may know how to handle this situation and break the freeze, but if you can get an advantage against him you can often bully him early. Just make sure he spends as little time under his tower as possible, since they is where he can freely farm and sustain.

Do I roam or stay top?

This greatly depends on the situation. Many counterpicks against Nasus will want to stay in lane with him and deny/bully him for every CS he tries to get. This works quite well when you can do so for an extended period of time, but this isn't always possible (especially when your team is losing). If your champion isn't good for handling Nasus or your team is having issues, you may have to roam to try and snowball other lanes. This can help you end the game early, snowball your team to victory, or get you allies fed enough to help against Nasus. This can be really risky though, since it allows Nasus to freefarm and splitpush.

What champions do I pick into Nasus?

Generally, I find you want some mixture of the following quantities in a champion laning against Nasus:

  • Durability (to survive retaliation and ganks)
  • Sustain (to stay health and outsustain him)
  • Spammable abilities (to punish Nasus whenever he tries to CS)
  • They have some method of sticking to Nasus or don't rely on attack speed (since Wither can cripple many opponents)
  • Anti-tank abilities (armor reduction, percent health, etc)

In addition, it helps if your champion has a strong mid or late game so that they don't fall off in comparison to Nasus. From playing as and against them, I find that the following champions can (or could) do relatively well in lane:

Akali Darius DrMundo Gnar Hecarim Kennen Mordekaiser Olaf Rumble Shyvana Swain Trundle XinZhao Yorick Vladimir

However, you don't always have to counter Nasus solely in lane. There are many champions in other roles who work very well against him.

**Mid laners: **Malzahar Cassiopeia Azir Heimerdinger Karthus Orianna Viktor Ziggs Kayle Velkoz These champions typically offer high sustained damage and methods of kiting Nasus when he tries to approach their team.

ADCs: Ashe Corki Draven Jinx Sivir Varus Vayne KogMaw Kalista These ADCs primarily have CC (knockbacks, slows, snares) for kiting Nasus and deal either mixed damage or highly amplified physical damage. Several of them have percent health damage or anti-tank abilities to help kill tanks like Nasus quickly.

Due to the crippling effects of Wither, your ADC should typically have either item 3140 or summoner 1. This can let them remove Wither immediately and kill Nasus before he can reapply it.

Junglers: MasterYi Nunu Gragas Sejuani Elise LeeSin JarvanIV Nautilus RekSai Junglers can be tricky since you typically want someone who is strong and capable of kiting him late game, but you also want someone with strong early pressure to gank Nasus and set him behind.

Nunu can set the enemy jungler behind, relieving pressure from the top lane so they can keep bullying Nasus. During teamfights, he can buff your ADC to increase their damage, chain-slow Nasus to prevent him from reaching anybody, and is too tanky for Nasus to kill.

Master Yi is a special case since he isn't that great against Nasus in teamfights but he can absolutely murder him when they splitpush against one another. Master Yi can deal a lot of mixed damage (Devourer, Blade of the Ruined King, Wuju Style), build somewhat tanky against Nasus (Ninja Tabi, Thornmail), can use Meditate to reduce Q damage, and ignores Wither. He deals far too much damage for Nasus to heal through and deals it too quickly for Nasus to kill him.

Supports: Pretty much the entire support pool can help counter Nasus due to the CC they provide and how good they are at kiting/peeling immobile squishy champions from their carries.

What summoners do I take?

You typically want to take Flash and Teleport. While Ignite gives you some extra kill pressure, you may still lose your level advantage if you have to walk back to lane. In addition, if you don't have teleport than Nasus can freely splitpush and still join fights so you will either lose towers 1v0 or lose teamfights 4v5.

What do I build?

That greatly depends on the champion you are playing. However, I would recommend building your percent-penetration items relatively early in the lane since Nasus will be stacking resistances against you. Afterwards, you may want to get some armor (such as Ninja Tabi, Chain Vest, Seeker's Armguard, or Warden's Mail) or continue building damage.

If you want an example, I would typically build Ionian Boots, Hextech Revolver, and Void Staff as Vladimir when laning against Nasus (or most tanks) so that I could quickly poke him out of lane and prevent him from sustaining through my damage. As Darius, I would recommend rushing Black Cleaver into Randuin's Omen to render his armor ineffective and to become durable enough to ignore his damage long enough to kill him.


I hope this helps. If you have any questions, reply to me and I'll try and help if I can.

RouterSmiter1 votes

you mentioned Hecarim was a good matchup, I was trying to out poke him but cloth 5 was just to strong, whenever I tried to go in for poke, my q would shove the lane, and he would come out equal because of the agro from the caster minions

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

I believe Hecarim can work decently for a few reasons.

  • You have some innate sustain and durability with your W
  • You can poke Nasus with your Q whenever he tries to CS without drawing minion aggro and when he's under tower (you can move while Qing, unlike when autoattacking)
  • You scale very well into the late game, so you can take advantage of the freefarm

However, I believe the biggest advantage is the potency of Hecarim's teleport ganks. Hecarim can get Ninja Tabi + Homeguard early in this matchup (the MS is good for chasing and poking, you get from AD from your passive, and the armor and passive reduce physical/AA damage) and use his teleport to gank bottom or mid lane with the increased movement speed and initial burst damage.

While you will spend most of laning phase fighting Nasus, you can back when teleport is up and gank an allies lane which can put your team ahead and let you secure objectives. By the time laning phase is over, you should have been able to gank 2 or 3 times, which should put your team in a position to carry the game if they are competent with the lead you have given them.

Basically, the idea is that you can greatly impact laning phase for your team to get them snowballing, take advantage of the freefarm, and scale into a late-game monster.


Going by the game you linked, I think the biggest issue may have been your early purchases. Around 9 minutes into the game, you returned to lane with Ninja Tabi, Ruby Crystal and Long Sword compared to Nasus' Frozen Heart. While your purchases were good, Nasus had a large amount of armor and CDR very early in the game and you didn't really have the damage to break through it.

In addition, you took Teleport/Smite. While this can work, it forced you to build towards Cinderhulk and reduced your early damage. As a result, you finished Cinderhulk and Trinity Force relatively late in the game, by which point they were relatively ineffective against Nasus. If you had to play the matchup again, I would recommend taking Teleport/Ghost or Teleport/Ignite and rushing Black Cleaver -> Iceborn Gauntlet. This should give you some additional durability, burst and consistent damage, and armor reduction to cleave through Nasus's defenses.

RouterSmiter1 votes

thanks for the advice

Dangerous Man1 votes

ADC anti-tank+kiting abilities You forgot Kalista

EndlessSorcerer2 votes

Kalista is a bit of a tricky one. She can easily kite out Nasus when she has Quicksilver Sash, however she doesn't typically build Critical Strike chance and doesn't have any real abilities to handle tanks (you can't reliably proc the W passive multiple times in a fight and she doesn't get magic penetration). Kalista can kite him backwards, however Nasus' Wither can completely screw with her damage and mobility. Since Wither is targeted and has a longer range than her autoattacks, Kalista either needs her allies to peel for her or some method of removing Wither to be able to fight Nasus.

Kalista can work, but I'm not sure how reliable it is. I will add her though; I honestly just forgot about her.

Lauricella31 votes

someone with super high hybrid damage and ranged harass is also good. so he can't itemise against you. -jayce -vlad -teemo -olaf -darius -udyr you also need to ward alot

you also need to stant in front of your minions so that you can harass him hard if he does go for a cs. Also take ignite not tp. If he has 90 stacks or less at 10 mins you are going ok, and should shove the tower and help other lanes. Also always rush damage against him to punish him harder.

Z Statistic1 votes

Denying him in lane doesn't really beat him. It just slows him down. The main way to beat Nasus is to make sure that you have enough kiting prowess and dps to kill him before he gets to you. He has a really hard time getting to you even with Righteous Glory. A fed Nasus deals 0 damage if kited.

Only Play Darius1 votes

I'm a Nasus main, and the players who screw me over the most are the ones who frequently leave lane to go get other lanes snowballed, which happens quite frequently in bronze where people don't pay attention to MIA's. Even though he let me farm and I can 1v1 him, it doesn't mean much when his botlane got so fed that they started camping top. Nasus cannot interrupt channels, so you can teleport bot right in front of him and he can't stop you. Other than that, try to freeze lane mid or in front of your turret, and force him to 1v1 you for farm.

AP tops also tend to screw him since there are no starter MR items, and he can't rush item 3110 which is core on him.

Hecarim was a pretty bad matchup because hecarim shoves the lane with his Q, but Hec roams extremely hard. Use that to your advantage.

LordGeovanni1 votes

i see alot of shove the tower but i dont think that is the answer nasus can infinitely stack q so i find that any time that you arnt in his lane to poke and zone him he is getting stronger. I personally consider when i see nasus picked against me i focus on pokeing him early and not being out of lane fore more than 15 seconds buying items only takes a few seconds. fighting nasus is a full time thing not leaving lane but if you dont leave most of the brain dead people in the game wont realize that you trying to save the whole team from a fed stacked nasus cause they cant hold their lane

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Shoving to tower is the absolute last thing you want to do against Nasus. It lets him safely free-farm and sustain, limits your trading opportunities, prevents your jungler from ganking him (in most cases), and leaves you vulnerable to ganks (and Wither is great for chasing people down a lane). Diving Nasus can be risky as well since:

  • Wither slows you and lets him escape
  • Spirit Fire reduces your armor, amplifying the damage dealt by the tower
  • He can get a large burst of health from his lifesteal and his ultimate
LordGeovanni1 votes

I like to shove to nasus Tower but only for 2 waves max in order for him to lose farm and he gets a big wave but i go around it to keep him from farming and getting exp and let the tower get closer to my tower then start farming again. he loses lost of exp no gold from farm and what ever you lose will be minimal compared to what he does but should only be attempted when you know where enemy jungler is and have a ward down. But what you say is largely right if you cant play with flexibility

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Eh, we can disagree on that. I enjoy playing Nasus and I have gotten a lot of experience last-hitting under tower in the early levels and freezing the wave outside my tower. It can work, but it can also be risky since it leaves you open to ganks (and Wither can let them chase you down the length of the lane.)

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Eh, we can disagree on that. I enjoy playing Nasus and I have gotten a lot of experience last-hitting under tower in the early levels and freezing the wave outside my tower. It can work, but it can also be risky since it leaves you open to ganks (and Wither can let them chase you down the length of the lane).

LordGeovanni1 votes

i find its not problem when you keep a ward and know where the jungler is also zoneing nasus out so he doesnt get exp from my minions dieing if i can do that i prioritize it over my own farming it also leaves it open for me to get massive waves of minions safely with out my own minions taking my last hits when im early and dont have the damage to kill a minion from half health yet its usually a plan that you start when you see enemy gank bottom lane when the nasus thinks he can finally come to get exp its the best time for your jungler to gank though they rarely know this

darkmatchwaldo1 votes

One word: Teemo

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted}

One word: Teemo

Teemo gets crushed by a competent Nasus.

The lane is somewhat hard at first for Nasus, but once Nasus gets the components to his spirit visage Teemo can't do much to stop him from farming.

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Teemo is squishy and has no escape (Wither pretty much negates his MS boost). While he can beat Nasus in lane 1v1, Teemo tends to push the lane doing so which leaves him vulnerable to jungle ganks (especially pre-6). If Nasus calls his jungler up and gets Wither on Teemo (which is not hard, since it outranges Teemo's autoattacks), it's generally an easy kill.

NemeBro1 votes

Even without a gank, once Nasus has his spirit visage and 200+ stacks he can easily 1v1 Teemo (as long as you're not so dumb that you'd chase him through his mine field).

Sohleks1 votes

Your best bet without outside lane influence are champions with high burst damage abilities. Abilities do not draw creep aggro unlike auto attacks allowing you to poke more and minimize lane pushing and maximize your zoning. You will probably still push trading aggressively but the burst damage makes it much easier to have kill pressure.

Riven + item 3071 Olaf + item 3074 or item 3071 or shrug Darius ha

Another reason you want to look for high damage abilities is because auto attack reliant champions are somewhat countered by Nasus whither and the frozen heart he will probably build. Only the most extreme auto attack scaling champions can hope to fight Nasus through this MasterYi

Squishy ranged champions like Teemo or Quinn work well 1v1 too... until he outscales you and shuts down your auto attack based damage with whither. It is harder to secure kills this way through poke alone when he has flask and teleport. And you need to secure kills on Nasus and get fed in lane, or you need to group with your team and win 5v4 while Nasus farms/splitpushes.

The sad part of playing vs. Nasus top is if your teammates lose lane and you need to be a huge influence in the game to possible hope to win.

More from Gameplay

More by RouterSmiter