So patch 4.11 is still pretty fresh, but already Nasus is starting to see a lot of play in normal and ranked gameplay. I go to look at my spectate live tab on my League client and I see him in 3/5 games available. Seeing this, I decided to take a look at him myself this last patch and came to the conclusion that immortality is pretty fantastic. With a Doran's Blade and the right runes and masteries, and the usual careful play early, Nasus can sustain through most any lane and maybe even trade harder.

Let's take a quick look at what happened last patch to bring Nasus to this point. Last patch, Riot saw how dominant lifesteal items were, namely Bloodthirster and BoRK. A global nerf to lifesteal went through, lowering total lifesteal on vampiric scepter by 2% and getting rid of Bloodthirster's stacking AD/Lifesteal passive being the two larger impacts on the stat. However, to compensate and give a survival and sustain option to carries and other champions who found themselves wanting or needing the sustain, Doran's blade was changed to how it once was during season three, with 3% lifesteal being tacked on and the on hit heal passive removed.

So with all of the reduction to lifesteal on a global level in game it's somewhat surprising to me that Nasus and his passive went untouched. A Nasus with the new Doran's Blade, his passive, and lifesteal quints can walk into lane easily with 18% lifesteal, giving him around 30 health gained per Siphoning Strike at level one. While this doesn't mean Nasus can't be zoned out of farm (believe me he still can be), it does mean he can stay in lane and sustain through the pain longer, miss less farm doing so and wait for that teleport cooldown to return. If he manages to win his lane early he becomes a very large problem for the enemy laner and their team to deal with.

I have no idea if this means that Nasus will start seeing LCS play or not, but it's brought him into a really good spot for solo queue. I've done many research games before to learn champions, and while usually I am learning one from scratch and get forty or so games in before writing, I've actually played Nasus before, and going with eleven wins to two losses (one against Nasus destroying me and my team.) I believe he's in a great place for Solo Queue. However, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, let's start off just looking at Nasus and his basics.

Champion Overview

Difficulty: 3/5 :Nasus is very straight forward with his kit, he has a slow, an AoE armor shred that deals magic damage, an on hit ability you need to farm, and a very nasty survival steroid for diving, team fighting, or any situation that requires survival really. If you can farm well on any melee champion then you've already mastered one of the most important parts of playing him, and farming with his Siphoning Strike is really only problematic under tower or when zoned. The one thing to keep in mind as Nasus is simply never stop farming. If your lane gets steam rolled then keep farming and last hit with that Q when you can. Try to make sure you're always getting Siphoning Strike stacks so you can continue scaling.

Safe First Pick?: Yes and no, many matchups depend on your own ability and willingness to lose out on farm early game. Nasus is pretty vulnerable in lane to a number of bullies, such as Rumble, Riven, Darius, or Teemo and can be zoned and dominated rather easily if the player is not prepared to deal with their opponent's capabilities appropriately. With no built in escapes and a weak early game, Nasus' kit leaves no room for error when it comes to positioning in lane, warding, and map awareness. If you decide to first pick Nasus be ready for whatever may come, and continue playing with the late game in mind.

Pick for: Late game, diving, zoning, snowballing, dealing with carries (especially low mobility ones)

Abilities

Soul Eater (Passive)

Grants Nasus passive lifesteal 10/15/20% at levels 1/7/13.

This is going to help you sustain through your early game and stay in lane as long as possible. Last hitting minions is even more important between this and Siphoning Strike, as your scaling and your sustain depend on it.

Siphoning Strike (Q)

Nasus' next attack within the next 10 seconds will deal bonus physical damage. Siphoning Strike resets the autoattack timer.

If the target is killed with the ability Nasus is granted 3 stacks of Siphoning Strike, which is doubled for champions, large monsters, and large minions. Turrets and wards also grant stacks along with minions or stationary targets champions can spawn, such as Teemo mushrooms or Tibbers.

Wither (W)

Applies a slow for 5 seconds that grows stronger over the course of the duration of the ability. Also lowers attack speed by half the amount of the slow. Pretty straight forward ability and great for catching squishy or out of place targets.

Spirit Fire (E)

Places a circle of magic damage on the ground that deals both initial damage and damage over time, this ability also lowers the armor of those caught inside. You'll want to throw it down when engaging, especially in a teamfight situation where you can lower a bulk of the enemy team's armor if they're grouped together.

Fury of The Sands (R)

Nasus empowers himself and gains 300/450/600 bonus health and increases his attack range by 50. Enemies close to Nasus take magic damage over time for 3%/4%/5% of their maximum health per tick for up to 45%/60%/75% of their maximum health and Nasus gains bonus attack damage equal to 6.375% of the damage dealt for a maximum of 300 AD.

This ultimate is a benchmark point for Nasus, upon hitting level six you can look to dive low hp targets (within reason) or even use Fury of the Sands as another means of escaping a bad situation with its spellvamp and health steroid. Later in the game it's an excellent team fight tool and can help you single handedly zone out or even wipe out the enemy team's backline.

Runes

For this build of Nasus I ran only one rune page type, and while other options are most certainly viable, these are simply the ones that this guide functions around. There are two different choices you can go with in marks, but I'd suggest you stick with the others that are suggested.

In most cases you'll want to take Attack Damage marks over Armor. Armor marks are good if you're worried about snowballing a top lane AD champion such as Tryndamere or Riven, allowing you to have a bit more early game safety at the expense of trades and it being more difficult to last hit. This also hurts your sustain to a small degree since you'll lack damage and thus a few points of life steal, but the impact there is not immense.

Standard flat armor seals to help give you some more survival in lane, not much to be said here.

Same as before, even if there's no AP in your lane the glyphs come in handy if the enemy jungler is AP based or if their mid laner roams. If the enemy team is entirely Attack Damage champions, consider replacing these with CDR glyphs.

Lifesteal Quintessences are going to help make you into the lane sustain monster you'll become with a Doran's Blade and your passive. Your choice here, normally I took only two Lifesteal quintessences and an Attack Damage for the little bit of extra damage and help farming. However, you can also just run a flat 3 Lifesteal Quints.

Masteries

0/21/9

As usual I'd suggest changing masteries according to the lane you find yourself in. For me, this is the page I ended up taking in most of my games, trying to reduce early game hassle and taking masteries that would later help me trade well with my opponent as I scaled and chase down enemy carries in teamfights.

Summoner Spells

 OR 

Mobility is a large concern for Nasus. Ghost is going to benefit you quite a bit more than it would on other champions considering your role in team fights is to run at the enemy as fast as you can and keep up with their carries. If you don't think Ghost is for you, go with flash for wall jumping catches or escapes, this is purely based on what you prefer.

This spell on Nasus is essential in the top lane. When looking to farm, sustain, and scale to late game, this spell is a life saver. If you find that you get zoned out too early you're able to teleport back on top of your outer tower, thus minimizing the amount of farm you'll miss. If you get the gold for that essential item you can quickly back and teleport in with it in hand, and if your opponent takes ignite instead of this spell and is unable to kill you then your advantage will only continue to grow. Use this spell to get to team fights quickly by teleporting in on top of wards or minions and stop enemy pushes in their tracks. Be aware that the cooldown on this summoner spell is much shorter when casted on a turret rather than anything else!

Itemization

Starting Build

You have two choices normally as Susan, and this first one is all about insane sustain through stacked lifesteal through the early game. With Doran's Blade (3%) + Runes (3-4.5%) and Passive (10% at level 1) giving a total of 16-17.5% total lifesteal at level one. However, make sure you'll actually be able to reach your minions at some point if you take this setup, champions such as Teemo are very effective at zoning Nasus from his minions, and you may want to look into other means of sustain as a starting build if so.

This is pretty similar to the idea behind doran's blade, but with the shield instead and lower lifesteal. The passive on hit damage reduction along with some health regeneration will help keep auto attack champions from zoning Nasus as hard early on, and if you find yourself without minions to hit at least give you some health regeneration to benefit from while you wait. Champions such as Tryndamere, Jax, or ranged top laners will be easier to handle with this item rather than Doran's Blade.

First Back

Now, here's where we're going to start looking into what to build depending on your lane matchup and how things are going. If you find that you're against an AP based champion, consider Spectre's Cowl. This item will give you some recovery from any poke they may lay out and a bit of health and MR to cushion the blows. However, normally your opponent top is going to be AD based more than AP, meaning you'll want to go for your Glacial Shroud instead. Many people vouch to go Sheen first, but this is not a common buy as you need to already be winning your lane for Sheen to pay off more than Glacial, and that's very uncommon as Susan. With Glacial Shroud you'll have some CDR to keep your Q up more often for more stacking and some mana to help along with armor to survive trades. If you're doing well enough in lane and can afford both of them, consider picking up a kindlegem with either item you purchase, the more CDR you can get earlier with defensive stats the better, and Kindle can eventually build into a very much wanted Spirit Visage later on.

For your second purchase, consider at the least buying a pair of boots. While you don't have to finish them just yet there are some matchups that you may benefit more from doing so early, such as taking Ninja Tabi against someone like Riven or Xin Zhao, or Merc boots against a more CC heavy opponent. If your lane isn't exceptionally hard to survive then try to spring forward for the next part in the recipe for your first complete item.

First Two Builds

Depending on the route you went earlier you'll want to finish one of these two items up first. Iceborne Gauntlet is going to give you a bit of extra damage, some more waveclear, a good bit of armor and an AoE slow for added CC, nothing about this item is bad for Nasus. If your lane called for a more MR/Regen heavy approach, finish up your spirit visage. Whichever you don't build first complete second, unless thereis no AP on the enemy team then opt out of building SV for another armor item. After this point, functioning as a tank for zoning in team fights, your build can go a number of different ways, so let's look at some items and discuss a situation where you'd want them.

4,5, and 6 Item Options

Randuin's Omen is a fantastic item on Nasus, no doubt about it. In most games you'll end up building this after you've completed your Spirit Visage and Iceborne Gauntlet. To start, you'll likely be chasing a number of ADC's and trying to either annhiliate or zone them, the on hit Attack Speed debuff will help reduce any damage they'll try to pump out all the while you can use its active (buffed by your additional defensive stats) to slow them further. This, combo'd with Iceborne Gauntlet and Wither make you a carry chasing CC monster.

Sunfire Cape saw some recent nerfs to its early game damage, and even with the slight buff to the damage it puts out at level 18 it's not enough to justify buying this item too terribly often. It's a great item if you know you'll be in the midst of the enemy team often (Jarvan ult, Sejuani ult, etc.) or if the enemy team is heavy on AD. The waveclear aspect of the item is also something to consider, but you won't see a night and day difference buying it for that.

When I see an entirely AD team from the enemy I smile, I literally smile, butterflies start to fly around my head, a rainbow fills the sky, birds sing and a hearty laughter of pure joy rings forward because I know I'm about to frustrate the hell out of my opponents if I can reach the thirty minute mark. This item is wonderful if you find yourself in one of two situations. First, if the enemy team is entirely AD based, it's a great buy, pick it up after you've completed your third item. Second, against a very fed carry of any sort who is AD dependent. In my experience this item levels the playing field, giving you more sustain and damage to trade with even the most fed assassins, keeping them from a high value target or even scaring them off with your impressive ability to dish out damage and remain tanky.

If you're looking for an item for your fifth item slot and decided you don't need the insane armor offered by Thornmail and don't find Sunfire Cape to be effective then Warmogs is a great choice. The extra 1k health can make you very difficult to burst down, especially with your other defensive stats. All and all, it's an item that's great for making yourself an even more fearsome tank.

Are you fed? Do you have five items and more gold than you know what to do with? Can no one on the enemy team stand up to you? This is a great item in any of those situations. As a last item GA is incredibly effective on Nasus, as you may have the upwards of 4.5k health, and resurrecting with 30% of that health with your defensive stats means quite a bit, especially if the enemy team makes it a point to focus you, giving your own carries safety and the freedom to deal damage during exchanges.

Game Phase Mechanics

Early Game - Laning

I'll start with the most elementary thing about Nasus. When you walk into lane you need to have one thing on your mind, farming and surviving. Nasus can be just as dangerous to his own team as he can be to the enemy if he allows a heavy snowballer to get fed top lane. Your farm is important not only to your damage scaling, but to your survival in lane. You can try to regain some health by auto attacking minions without killing them, but be cautious about pushing. Last hitting with your Siphoning strike properly at level one will restore around 35 health with 16% lifesteal.

So you've walked into lane with your first items under your belt, you're Nasus and you say to yourself "I'm going to farm and push because I want my Siphoning Strike stacks quickly!" Right? Woah, hold on there eager future decimator of all who aren't you specifically, you're extremely vulnerable early in the game! While Nasus may have plenty of tools for catching up to and chasing, he has no real mobility for escaping ganks or other bad situations he may find himself in. So, we're going to use this map of top lane from the perspective of blue side to gauge where you want to keep your minion wave.

Each zone is relative to where Nasus is positioned to farm and how far he has to go to reach the back caster minions. So, to start with the most obvious statement, the closer you are to your turret the better, but that's only effective to a point. See, Nasus needs to focus entirely on laning safely and at the same time stacking his Siphoning Strike, and with minions being lost to turret you'll miss out on a few here and there. So, try to keep them pushed just far enough to be out of turret range but still behind your side of the river.

Once you begin extending past that point into the yellow, make sure you have one of a number of things as a precaution. You need to have a summoner spell up for escape (ghost, flash) or a ward in river to see oncoming ganks. Past that point into the red use extra caution, you can even consider backing at this point and buying while the wave pushes up if you feel like proceeding further or to the enemy turret would not be safe.

Mid Game

Mid game for Nasus is going to be comprised of one of two things. One, you are going to out sustain and out farm your opponent, your scaling slowly creeping up and making it harder and harder for your opponent to kill your single handedly, in which case you will try to roam the map to help take objectives and take farm whenever you can and use your teleport to either return to lane after leaving it if the tower is threatened or use your teleport to turn a teamfight or objective challenge in your own team's favor.

Two, you had a rough laning phase and you're not too terribly useful. Stay in lane as much as you can, if your tower is down put some wards in the entrance to your own jungle and next to your buff camp, as winning top laners will often wander off after pushing to try and steal red/blue buff camps. While behind stay top and keep farming your Q and simply wait for scaling to take its place. If a fight breaks out or your team needs you for something else, make sure it's something you are either absolutely needed for the fight before leaving lane. A wasted teleport for a fight your team is already winning means you've missed out on applying pressure elsewhere, and teleporting just to die in a bad team fight can be even worse. At this point in the game you'll also notice that you do considerable damage to towers and other structures, if you catch your opponent too far from lane you can easily shove out your minions with spirit fire and Iceborne Gauntlet if you have it already, punishing them with pressure and even quickly taking down a tower with your stacked Q.

Be sure you're not completely ignoring your team during this phase, many Nasus players (myself included) make the mistake time to time of prioritizing farm so heavily that they lose a bit of map awareness to tunnel vision farming.

Late Game - Team Fighting

Reaching your late game as Nasus means you've both built a good bit of tankiness and you've been able to farm your Siphoning Strike to do considerable damage towards softer targets, maybe even enough to trade and zone off your more tanky opponents.

It's likely you'll see a team fight before this point, so be ready to do your job before reaching the thirty-five minute mark. In a teamfight, Nasus excells at taking out and zoning squishy targets. Even a well positioned carry can have trouble escaping him between his active items, on hit effects, and his W. Be sure to try and stick to and zone out whoever is the largest threat on the enemy team. If you pull three people to your attention during the fight, then you're doing a great job. The more people they're forced to throw at a large, tanky target, the fewer people there are on your own carries and the harder a time the enemy team's own frontline may have killing your laners and jungler.

To make a long story short, you're a damage sponge that the enemy team is going to try to either peel off immediately to save their carry, or that the enemy team will ignore as you are left to their backline. So long as you're trying to zone out and keep their carries from doing their jobs in team fights, you'll be doing your job as Susan.

Matchups

So normally I'd cover lane matchups at this point. However, I'll instead just list some simple lane matchups that you want to try and avoid or play cautiously against, and some champion types that Nasus can decimate overall.

Play Safe Against

Early Game Aggressors

Riven, Xin Zhao, Darius, Renekton, Rengar, Teemo, anyone who can pump out a lot of damage early on to zone you out or go in for a kill. Getting an opponent fed is one thing, getting an opponent fed and being out of the game and unable to farm after you go 0/4/0 at ten minutes is another. So much of your scaling is reliant on your ability to farm that without it you'll be more of a wet sponge than a brick wall when the time comes to tank in teamfights. Play safe, play smart, and watch your positioning when playing against these types of champions, even ask for a gank if you can get one from the jungler.

Strong Pick Against

Low Mobility Champions

There are some champions that it is simply unwise to pick when Nasus is on the enemy team. Champions with low mobility such as Jinx or Kog'maw may have some CC built in with their kits, but their inability to create actual vast distance between themselves and Nasus can wreak havoc on them. Some may say that Jinx's passive provides mobility, but not reliable mobility for escaping the Q farming monster. Mages or supports without movement speed, dashes, jumps, or a large amount of hard CC are also vulnerable to Susan's wrath (Zyra, Syndra, Lux for example) And even though their abilities may have a short cooldown, it may only take two Siphoning Strikes to finish them off. If you see low mobility on the enemy team's backline, Susan is an excellent choice for dealing with their carries.

Conclusion

I've really enjoyed getting to play Nasus again in the top lane, it's been a pretty nice change of pace for me and the feeling of becoming an unkillable juggernaut as time rolls on is just too much fun. I hope you found this short guide on him helpful and informative, good luck on the fields of justice!