How do you beat Nasus?
Everyone keeps saying " Bully him" but once he's level 6 onward, there ain't bullying the doge cause he heals it all off with his Q.
16 Comments
I have had to put this in so many threads. It's a copy-paste from another post of mine.
In the game you just lost, I'd say team composition was your biggest issue. Your jungle fell very far behind and mid (Leblanc vs Yasuo) and top (Garen vs Nasus) didnt' snowball at all early game and were naturally outscaled as the game progressed. Their team had a better late-game and teamfight while you needed to snowball your lanes to win.
I'd say your biggest mistake was rushing Sunfire Cape; Nasus loves farming under tower and you just ensured you would push the lane no matter what you did. Black Cleaver or Brutalizer into a defensive item would have been a better build for bullying him.
First, the general tips:
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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.
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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.
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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.
and 
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:
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: **
These champions typically offer high sustained damage and methods of kiting Nasus when he tries to approach their team.
ADCs: 
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 
or 
. This can let them remove Wither immediately and kill Nasus before he can reapply it.
Junglers: 
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.
I swear there's like 3 of these threads every week all asking the same question
As a Nasus main I will tell you this. Once he gets stacks, you CANNOT beat him 1v1 as any champ.
However, this is a team game, splitpushing has been nerfed, and his teamfighting is trash. He is a tank with zero hard cc and zero initiation capability, so kiting him is extremely easy in teamfights, since the most he can do is walk up to you at regular movespeed.
As far as laning is concerned, freeze the lane mid (it's even better if you can freeze lane in front of your turret, since he is vulnerable in ganks) and avoid pushing the lane. He cannot 1v1 you without stacks, so get in between him and your minions and try to all-in him early. If you do end up pushing the lane, make sure you ward because wither = death if his jungler comes to gank. Of course, if you don't outright win lane, he will eventually reach a point where you can no longer do anything about him because 1 Q will do about 20% of your HP in damage, and the cooldown will be such that he harvests every single minion in your wave. As far as what you do now, brings me to my next point.
ROAM. I cannot stress this enough. The people who end up beating me in the game sure as hell aren't the ones babysitting me in lane and just watching me farm and waiting for a gank because they can't fight me since I have 300+ stacks. They are the ones who know when to start roaming and helping their team. I have seen people say this and I will repeat it: Fighting a team with 
is like fighting a 5v4. And it's true, IF you roam around. Nasus sits in lane all game because he gets infinitely stronger and no one can 1v1 him, he is rewarded for sitting lane entire game and punished for fighting with the team because he gets kited forever and misses stacks. Don't stoop to his level, the same is not true for your champion, Nasus wants to be putting constant pressure on top to keep YOU from helping your team. Leave lane, go help your teammates out, he won't follow you. Before you say "But if I leave lane and help my team, he will take my inner turret!" Oh well. That's all he can do. Once your done helping your team and getting them fed, your teammates will repay you by coming top and camping him and taking his turrets. Think about it, it took Nasus 25 minutes to take your inner turret, just for you to get help from your team and take both his outer AND inner turrets within 5 minutes. It frustrates the hell out of me personally, and will usually put him on tilt. Just remember, this is a team game. If it wasn't, Nasus would have a 75% winrate.
As far as champion matchups are concerned, there are some you should be careful of:
- Bad matchups:
this is one of the only lanes Nasus can win from the start. Nasus rushes armor and can wither Trynd to cripple his damage output. Wither can also shutdown Trynd for the entirety of his ult.
The free tenacity on her passive counteracts wither during teamfights, but only during teamfights. In lane, it guts her damage output since she depends on her on-hit true damage to win lane. He usually wins this lane, but you are better off rushing BORK over sheen in this lane.
You may think her level 2 all in would shutdown Nasus at his weakest point in the game, but a good Nasus will never, ever, trade with "The Grand Duelist" early game. He rushes armor, and Fiora really relies on getting the kill early game to be useful later on. His wither also cripples her damage output, and although her shield blocks all damage from his Q, a good Nasus will anticipate it and pop it with a basic attack first.
Although he actually does decent mixed damage that can give Nasus a hard time, his counterstrike does NOT dodge Nasus's Q. Not sure if it's a bug or not, but it makes him helpless against Nasus in lane.
Riven can kill him early on easily, but a good Nasus won't let that happen. Instead, he will bait her into using her Q's in his minion wave, pushing his lane. Eventually he will have too much armor for her to make a dent, and since she doesn't build defense items (early on at least) he will be able to nuke her with Q's once some time passes.
Lane swap immediately and without question. Heimerdinger is one of the worst champs you can take vs Nasus. Heimer shoves his lane hard and has no way of freezing lane. Nasus loves having his lane shoved, where he can safely stack under turret. Since top is a longer lane than mid, Heimerdinger is much more vulnerable to ganks as it is, and with wither it means he's as good as dead each time. Nasus can easily rush magic resist, so after his first back Heimer can no longer do meaningful damage to him. And by far worst of all, Heimer turrets are free stacks for Nasus. I am able to consistently get 500+ stacks by 20min when laning vs Heimer, because I Q all his turrets.
- Good matchups:
Capable of harassing him from range and gets tanky enough to withstand a few Q's, but I have not played this much so tread carefully.
Just flips Nasus when he tries to farm, and Nasus has no way of harassing him at range. Gets way too tanky for Nasus to deal with. However, DO NOT PROXY FARM. Doing this prevents Nasus's own minions from attacking yours, which means that Nasus has a way of making sure he gets a Q stack off of every single one of your minions.
Nasus beats him once he gets armor, but Rengar can jump from the bush for his level 2 all-in and 100-0 Nasus before he can react. At the very least you are forcing Nasus to stay far away from bushes, which denies him stacks and farm. Also, his ult allows him to escape Nasus, even when withered. Scales well into late game and roams very hard, so he can get kills and help his team even if he can't stop Nasus from stacking.
Point and click harass that Nasus can't dodge. Ranged autoattacks. Can outsustain Nasus easily. Gets tanky enough to withstand many Q's. Doesn't have to worry about getting bullied out early game. Scales very well into late game.
I don't have to explain this one.
Point and click harass can punish him for every single stack. Decent sustain and can cleanse wither easily. Able to help lanes without leaving his.
Doesn't have to worry about getting destroyed early game like he usually does in lane. High sustain, true damage bypasses his defense and his ult completely negates wither, and scales well into late game. However, I have not played this matchup very much so be careful.
Point-and-click resourceless harass Nasus can't dodge. Decent sustain and gets too tanky for Nasus to nuke with his Q's. Best of all, Nasus has zero channel interrupts so Shen can ult in front of him to help his team out and Nasus has no way of stopping him, map awareness is key here.
She doesn't have to worry about her weak early game in this lane. Her mixed damage and %MaxHP damage can wear him down and he can't retaliate. Nasus relies on big hits with Q to fight, and her passive counters that directly. If he freezes lane under his turret as usual, she can ult him and outright kill him under his turret without taking damage. Best of all, she scales extremely hard, so she is still able to deal with him through the mid and late game stages of the game.
As a final note, don't rush 
or 
vs Nasus. It pushes the lane to his turret and makes it impossible for you to take his turret while he is sitting under it. Common mistake I see all too often.
In my experience the biggest problem with nasus is his inability to roam if he has low stacks. If going against nasus I usually go with a top lane champ with high mobility to harass him pre 6 for cs. I like Irelia in that regard because her Q reset helps you freeze minion waves and keep nasus in the middle of the lane. If he comes at you you can use your e to stun and walk away. Post 6 nasus should be dying for some stacks if he's been harrassed correctly. In that time I usually roam and feed the rest of the team or counter jungle with ally jungler to throw back the enemy jungler. If this happens successfully you should have your mid lane and jungler fed and you stacked with a decent number of assists to build nice and tanks. Then in team fights late game you function normal and delete the carries with your mid laner and watch the doggie Q for cuddles. <3
Fuck nasus early game . Thats about it.
Try not to push your lane because a good nasus will farm under tower.
Get 
this so you dont run out of mana and hp when trading with nasus when he trys to farm.
You will generally win trades at lvl 3 as long as you dont fight nasus on his purple aoe thingy.
Have short fights with him where you use qwe and then back off. nasus dosent have enough burst damage (atleast early game ) and this wont give him time to q you more than once. Dont play passively becasue he will just hurt more and more every trade if you let him free farm.
Just use Riven. She beats him at every point of the game.
just farm and use your spikes to your advantage. Keep moving around as he does so your spikes hit him, it will mess up his Q farming. If he tries to farm or gets mad at you or tries to attack, silence with W and Q knock up.
One does not simply beat Nasus.
You have poke? He can just heal back with his passive lifesteal.
You want to all-in? He'll just wither and disengage.
You want to zone him? He'll just farm under turret.
Worst part is that even if you manage to do well against him during the laning phase he will just continue farming and split-pushing until he becomes the late-game monster that he is destined to be.
Farm and split-push...
Da fuq.
Ur gold V bro u should know this stuff.
there are many ways
Harrass him when he comes to cs. (You should be doing way more then he can heal) Shove him in and cc him when he comes to cs, turret will screw the minions and make it almost impossible to last hit Freeze wave at your turret so he has to jungle for stacks
Lastly my fav way
Use quinn and kill him 3 seconds after he gets 3 stacks so that way he will have to use tp then u kill him again and he has no tp then loses minions then he doesnt get to cs and u can shove turret and fly like a burd around the map and yolo ur life away while ur team rides on ur back.
the best way to keep nasus down is to instakil him once he shows his face annywhere where minions are