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Countering Nasus

Discoinfernape·7/15/2015, 7:29:02 PM·1 votes·1,128 views

I main Nasus when I have to go top, and all the tricks I read about countering him are about denying him farm and killing him early. However I haven't really run into anyone that's been able to do that to me. I play safe and I might be behind in cs a bit, but I still get my stacks and just let them push lane to my tower. Even if they're not trying to push lane, it still pushes towards me when they are cs'ing and I'm not (which sometimes I'll do at beginning to get it to my tower right away) or when they attack me and I don't attack back. And I can farm pretty much the same or better under tower than I can when not. More often than not I get an early kill on them then they do on me because they get too desperate/cocky and tower dive and I wither and run away. And this usually leads to free kills for my jungler whenever they want it too. My question is how do people actually counter Nasus if the Nasus can farm under turret and they don't push the lane? I really only lose when the opposing player plays someone who is good and scales up well too and can make a bigger difference in team fights (Wukong, Gnar, others) and my team lost lane, or the other team has really good peel and knows how to kite very well (which is almost never in silver where I am). As I keep climbing divisions, what can I expect as actual countering in lane? Because all the advice so far I've run across is just wrong, and I want to be prepared.

12 Comments

Darkvaine7/15/2015, 7:57:39 PM2 votes

i am not a pro or anything, i main garen top, and see Nasus nasus pretty often, the way i win lane is pretty much decided in the first 4 lvls, if can force him back or early kill this gives me the upper hand. however if he is playing passive, then i coordinate a tower dive with my jungler, which for Garen garen is easy do to ult+ignite flas out (jungler dmg). if i fail to poke him down in the first few levels then there's no stopping him, and only forcing a early win before he turns into a monster is my other way to go.

excuse my writing, English not first language.

StealWolverine7/15/2015, 8:03:27 PM2 votes

The not pushing is correct. If possible they should be standing on your side of the minion wave zoning you away from even getting exp. Last hit only and 0 ability uses on the minions. if they have to lose a few cs to slow down the push then so be it. losing 1-2 a wave is still 4-6 up from what you get. Eventually however the lane will inevitably end up at susans tower. (barring him drawing minion aggro or using spirit fire(wave will instantly reverse direction if you can bait him into doing that)) at that point you need to reset the lane by killing all of his minions quickly and pushing wave to tower that way all minions end up dead before next wave arrives. the minions will then be once again battling it out in the very middle of the lane and you can just try to freeze it there again.

AyRe CoNteMpT7/15/2015, 8:10:56 PM2 votes

well since you are pretty nooby, its obvious you play against noobs too who have no idea about lane dynamics, so they will keep pushing into you and keep "poking" you under tower and dying to ganks.

truth is, if they dont push fast, wave will be in your tower only by the fourth wave, meaning at about 4:10 or so. even tho this gives junglers an opportunity to gank, playing a bit careful around usual jungle timings and placing your ward thoughtfully actually gives very good safety against this first, predictable gank. after the wave pushes back, he can simply zone you and trade with you whenever you come to farm. also, if he managed to push in correctly, the wave will now push to HIS tower and he can freeze easily, since nasus has little means to push the wave in fully except with his spiritfire which you, most likely, didnt max.

now the lane is frozen and he has a much much MUUUUCH stronger champion like renekton or darius or garen or wukong or olaf or basically anyone except soraka.

what will you do now? you are level 4 now. hes level 4 too. you have lvl 1 spirit fire. maybe lvl 2. you cant push the wave in fully, he freezes. if your jungler doesnt come to help you, it will stay like this for the rest of the game and you can never get a single cs anymore without instantly getting super outtraded or even dying.

if your jungler comes, sure he can push the wave in for you. if its a darius or renekton, he might even go and doublekill you depending on how long your jungler took to come and how stupidly you tried to trade. like if he is lvl 6+ allready and your jungler isnt lvl 6 (which is likely) or is a weak jungler, its still problematic and the enemy jungler might show up too and you have literally NO chance.

also, if you ever get the wave reset, hes allready even stronger than you and has more gold, so now he will just push you in and re-freeze the wave, and you will be in the same position.

your best shot probably is rushing frozen heart or iceborn gauntlet and maxing spiritfire so you can farm from afar and push the wave in fully sometimes to break his freeze. even tho this will deny you alot of Q stacks, you still get to stack it a bit and you will at least get some farm and are not removed from the game entirely.

tho some strong melee champions outscale nasus pretty hard, like darius or garen. so if you cant get infinite stacks, you will never be able to fight them in the game and their teamfight potential is much higher than yours.

this means, if dealt with properly, nasus has incredible problems due to his weak body and bad kit.

his power tho is against another weak fighting-champ (mostly ap champs) who have trouble either pushing the wave in fully so he can freeze, or trouble freezing so they cant really deny him. also, since most ap champs only deal their damage through "poke" and cant really just go and kill nasus (like darius and wukon can), he sustains everything up and outsustains their mana decently, allowing him to free farm and eventually win his lane.

having said this, the conclusion is that nasus is a "counterpick" at best but definitely nothing you should depend on.

FarRockBF7/15/2015, 8:17:05 PM1 votes

Sorry if I am being forward but your post sounds like you are bragging not asking advice. No one asks: "I want to be ready for it" in League. When it comes you'll see what happened and how you could have avoided it. Really seems like you are just bragging.

Anyhow Nasus has a couple of weaknesses:

Useless in team fights early
Must focus 100% on farm early game. If opponent wants to fight, he is screwed.

So it's pretty simple. Go ham on Nasus. Force him to trade with you. I think every single champion wins vs Nasus until he has a decent amount of stacks. If he fights, not only does he lose trade; but he wastes his Q on you and not on minions. Plius if you can get a gank; Nasus can only wither one of you...

Secondly, force early dragons and/or mid pushes. Nasus either has to abandon his team to 4v5 or come and help as a useless almost no CC tank.

MohawkBird7/15/2015, 9:30:15 PM1 votes

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Kelvinwop7/16/2015, 1:50:36 AM1 votes

Lel I teemhoe (satan) and blind whenever I see the purple thing. Just take a chalice and you can blind to your heart's content. Freeze the lane in front of your tower and plant shrooms around the minions path so he is quite literally unable to reposition.

Also, if for whatever reason your freeze failed, and you have a massive creep wave, "accidentally" get too close and let him hit you once then slow him down and make him take massive creep aggro.

Deathchewy7/16/2015, 11:46:39 AM1 votes

Once you hit atleast mid silver, Nasus becomes a gamble with uncoordinated teams as a good aggresive top laner. E.G. Darius Will choose to freeze the lane removing your farm and allowing the other lanes to win as your tank and mid-late game turret buster will be underfarmed.