Playing against nasus in solo Que

Archer0001·6/1/2015, 11:55:40 PM·1 votes·981 views

Is it possible riot does not realize how unfun this guy is to play against in solo que. He inevitably becomes a raid boss with 2 defensive items, frozen heart and sprit visage. The counterplay is to take a strong top laner and deny him farm? Negative he will get it under the turret. The counterplay is to continually gank his ass to snowball your top laner who can continually deny him farm? Well hopefully your top laner took a champion who snowballs hard and can solo kill him under tower, because he is going just get his farm under it anyway if not. OH WAIT, nevermind he is going to itemize against them with either a frozen heart or spirit visage which makes this proposition almost nonexistent. Also once he gets his most common starting item the frozen heart his ultimate goes down to approximately a 90 second cooldown. I'm not sure if the cooldown begins after the ultimate form ends or at starting it. But in any case his window of vulnerability (lol) is not very long since we already know it is going to take 2 or more people to kill him. So organize the attack on him within this window or go up there and try to fight him during his ultimate. Good luck... Maybe this sounds like a rant but people who do not main him please chime in if it feels like when the other team gets nasus you are in for an extremely unfun inevitable loss against a braindead champion regardless of your efforts to stop him. That is certainly how I feel. I know how to research his cooldowns, I understand windows of power, and this guy just seems almost impossible to stop. He cannot be killed unless you have an excellent adc player who knows how to kite, and builds quicksilver sash, and a team who knows to to chain crowd control without stacking to continually keep him cced. Seems like a whole lot of things you have to do to even have a chance against this guy... If I am missing some major counterplay please make me aware of it. I am sure this guy probably is not much of a problem at the high skill tiers, but at silver 4 this guy seems like a nightmare. Riot consider making this guy a little easier to play against for us nubs please??

Edit: I should have mentioned that I am a jungler, I do not play top lane, this may contribute to my feeling of helplessness.

4 Comments

EndlessSorcerer6/2/2015, 12:11:59 AM3 votes

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1843290589/38336639?tab=builds&participant=8

Please note that I am not saying this as an accusation, but merely to point out what may have been improved for future games.

Your Renekton kinda screwed your team on that front. Renekton was using AP runes and Utility Masteries which greatly limited his early damage and durability. Due to this setup (and possibly his playstyle), he was unable to bully Nasus out of lane early, which is the point of picking Renekton into Nasus. Eventually, Renekton was unable to get ahead and just got outscaled as the game progressed.

Renekton also built Tiamat and didn't finish it into Ravenous Hydra, so he was missing a lot of sustain. If he wasn't going to get sustain out of Tiamat, Black Cleaver may have been a better rush for the Health, CDR, and armor penetration to let him wear down and kill Nasus.

It didn't help that your team had next to no armor penetration to help shred through his armor. The enemy team had three tanks (Nasus, Wukong, Thresh) and your team didn't have much in the way of percent health damage or armor penetration/reduction. Frankly, Rek'sai (you) and Renekton should have bought Black Cleaver early in the game considering how quickly they can apply the stacks and use the CDR.

Team composition was also an issue. Your team didn't really have any way to get to Kog'maw in the backline through Lux and Thresh, even ignoring the possibility that Nasus and Wukong could disrupt and/or peel for him. Your team was really low on CC and engage, which limited your ability to catch or kite enemies.

Anyways, I've written a post for other threads and I'm just going to copy-paste it below.

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.

That's most of the advice that I can give based on my experienced playing against and as Nasus. Hope it helps.

xaadus creedus6/2/2015, 12:05:40 AM1 votes

Only way to beat a raidboss is with a raidboss, I always pick Sion into Nasus, and win the matchups, do the level 2 trick and you can get clothe and...whatever that sustain thing is called...its kinda like a potion only theres 3 uses? idk why I cant remember but anyways...do the lv 2 trick and you can get that + Cloth, try and q whenever nasus goes for a minion, then e/w combo him if you can, if he q's you to remove your shield then you won.