Hey, so Iv been playing since beta, and have tried, i think, almost all the heros. I finally got around to trying Nasus out and it turns out I love this hero. Im just looking for some build ideas for him, since I have only really tried out one (Played ~10 games with him so far)

My build:

Sheen > Phage > Zeal > Trinity Force
Bezerker or Ninja Tabi
Starks Fevor
Blood Thirster

Thats about as far as I usually make it in a game. Does anyone have a differnt idea for a build? Maybe a more tank-ish build? Or just an all around better Damage build?

My Masteries:

So far Ive been running as 22/0/8. I assume if there is a tank build for Nasus, I would prob end up going 0/22/8, but again, if anyone has suggestions, please do tell.

My Runes:

My runes are a problem for this hero and I know it. Right now I have about 50% crit damage in runes, which isnt really what Nasus goes for. I also have about 8% in dodge runes, so Iv been running with something like 42% Crit damage, and 8% Dodge.

Obviously Ill have to switch these up once I get some IP, so I was just wondering what runes people have been using on Nasus.


Thanks for the help, and suggestions.

No one has any ideas?

Ive played nasus like once so from personal experience I have no clue. still, the best nasus I ever saw rushed a warmog's and used his aoe to feed it kills from the creeps. By lvl 12 he was wrecking faces. After that he got boots and after that the other team surrendered so thats all I saw.

edit: Btw this was super tank mode nasus too

items i go are:

sheen
whatever boots i'm getting
starks (or some other atk speed item, like last whisper, if someone else is getting starks)
thats as far as i normally get

for masteries i have been going 1/16/13, or x/x/21

taking exhaust/tele

i will try getting mogs early, but i'm not sure if i could skip the opening sheen.

I've probably played around 70 games with Nasus. He's a pretty versatile DPS/tank so you should be flexible with how you build him. The other heroes on your team (do you have a solid primary tank? secondary? is your team full of squishies and casters?) should determine if you build him as more of a tank or a DPS monster or (usually) a hybrid somewhere in between. Obviously the enemy team should impact your item build (eg. merc treads or tabi, banshees or frozen heart, etc etc depending on if they are caster heavy or whatnot).

I typically start with saphire crystal and 2 pots and go for sheen first just because its ownage on Nasus. I also pick up a vampiric scepter for the extra life steal. With just sheen and scepter you hit like a truck and return a good deal of the hp. Don't be surprised to find yourself racking up some kills at this point. Leave that to your enemies.

After that is where it becomes very situational. Overall I have found more tankish builds to be more effective on Nasus though. Sheen alone and focusing on leveling siphoning strike makes thwock like a mofo. Build it into trinity force if you want. I usually don't make it that far because I focus on the tank items, unless you have a good primary and secondary tank... but how often is that?

Here's some good items to consider, just vary them based on what you think will be the most beneficial during any given game:

chalice (i dont usually get it bc i go mana regen glyphs and keep after the golems)
Aegis (I think a lot of people rush this, it is a good item)
starks (awesome item if no one else gets it... you already have a vampiric scepter if you take my tip)
glacial shroud -> frozen heart (glacial shroud + golem buff = all day sf spamathon, and the frozen heart is great for its debuff)
warmogs (you can stack it real fast with your sf)
banshees veil (obviously great item vs casters)
sunfire cape (hp and armor plus synergizes great with your ult)

Notice they are almost all survivability/tanking items. If you really want to focus DPS then bloodthirster and infinity edge (I guess, never gotten it), or atmas impaler is practical I suppose if you stack your HP high enough.

Lately my summoner spells have been cleanse and rally though there are lots of viable alternatives. Teleport and ghost are both logical.

My runes are movespeed quints, armor pen reds, hp/lvl yellow, mana regen/lvl blue, but do whatever makes sense to you here.

I do 0/21/9 masteries but 21/0/9 if you want to be more offensive.

Try and find my older posts I have some good general guides.

Chalice -> Zerk boots (or Merc boots if they are a full cc team) -> Phage/Zeal/Sheen (in that order!!!) to TF -> then depending on the team it wildly varies.

If you go for 100% damage after that you can crit for ~1200.

There are 2 schools of thought with Nasus.

1. Go DPS with Siphoning Strike. It's kinda meh IMO, but maybe I'm just not as good at it.

Level up Spirit Fire to max for the farming
Level up Siphoning Strike as a second priority for increased usage
Level up Wither once to begin with for your ganking purposes.

Skills are Exhaust/Rally/Teleport(eh... not my fav)/Ghost

Masteries are usually maxed 21/0/9.

The offense tree goes 1/1 Cripple (if you grabbed exhaust) 3/3 Deadliness 4/4 Alacrity 3/3 Sunder 1/2 Offensive Mastery 3/3 Brute Force 1/1 Improved Rally (if you grabbed rally), 1/1 Havoc.

Utility is 3/3 Perseverence 1/3 Good Hands (Swap for something else if you got ghost/teleport) 4/4 Awareness.

Runes I stack MS for chasing, CD reduction on Blue, Armor Penetration on Red, and whatever's left over on Yellow. Health, Dodge, are all fine.

Build:

Sapphire Crystal + 2 health pots
Sheen
Boots of Speed
Vampiric Scepter
Treads of whatever, look at their team to decide
Stark's Fervor- the reasoning behind this item, and not something else is...

1. You're going to be in the middle of things. Your ult encourages it by draining hp away from them, so to maximize it you need to be surrounded by enemies. And unless your team has just totally screwed you over, your allies should be with you too.

2. The armor debuff works well with Spirit Fire. Other carries will love you for it, because it makes them stronger and their enemies weaker.

3. How else are you going to stack lifesteal? Executioner's Calling increases your chance to crit... and unless you've gotten crit damage runes already, it doesn't help as much. Somebody else did the math on this one, not me, I'll try and find the post. Bloodthirster's requires kills to work, and also for you to not die. Kills you can work with. But deaths... The survivability with DPS Nasus is honestly not that great, one CC and you're pretty much screwed if you aren't lifestealing.

One survivability item of your choice: you need the survivability in order to get the full duration out of your ult. Guardian Angel is a decent all purpose item, but if they're stacking AP/Phys specifically there are better options.

BF Sword - increased damage, yay! Pretty much a given for any dps character.

Trinity Force - I feel that getting this before the BF Sword makes you more reliant on your initial triple cast combo, and not DPS-y enough. Dunno, experiment with this one yourself.

Bloodthirster/Infi Edge/More BF Swords, whatever you want. The game should really be over at this point.





2. The Tank build.

There's a million other guides/words of advice on it. Aegis, Warmogs, Sunfire Cape, Sheen, etc. etc. Not covering it.




3. Farmer/Anti-Phys build (aka, I lied about 2)


I really wish I'd thought of this, but I didn't, Lee HWAITING did. So yeah, full credit to him.

The way this works is with phys carries dominating the current metagame (twitch!yi!trynda!), and casters almost nonexistant, you lose most of your ap resist for armor, and the ability to farm well enough to go toe-to-toe with carries late game.

Go 1/21/8 or 1/8/21 with this build. The one point in offense is for exhaust, which is great against almost all phys carries.

Runes: Standard Nasus runes, 3x Quints of MS, etc. etc. Whatever floats your boat really. I've been using caster runes for a better early game.

Skills-
Ult is your priority
1 point in Siphoning Strike to last hit with in the beginning
Max Spirit Fire for farming
Max Wither to help shut down phys carries
Max Siphoning Strike last

Build-

Start with the Sapphire Crystal + 2 hp pots, then build into Sheen.
Go Mercury Treads for the only ap resist you'll have, I don't recommend going for any other shoes unless they have literally no CC whatsoever, because this is again, your only ap resist whatsoever, so it's pretty **** important.

Now...
Stack 4x Heart of Gold.

Yes, that's right, stack four Hearts of Gold.

As retarted as it sounds, it really does work... as long as your enemies are pretty much all phys dps. The armor to hp ratio is pretty **** good, and with an extra 2 gold every second, you could be dead for half the game and still farm like a god.

Which isn't going to happen, right?

Then buy your Trinity Force all in one go.
2870 is the magic number I believe, and it's really not that hard to hit with 4 fricking gold generators and an amazing farming skill.

Finally
Buy whatever you need. Thornmail, Sunfire Capes, whatever floats your boat at this point.
Siphoning Strike should be doing large portions of their hp at this point, and you should be reaching what, 70% damage reduction? Laugh that in Twitch's face.

Editing this later because it was a sleep-deprived rant.

I'm assuming the HoG -> Sunfire stacking is most effective vs a highly physical/dps team?

I remember seeing this suggested in the forums in a thread a few months back, and I tried it for a while with some success. I haven't been doing the HoG stacking lately, but I do still enjoy ending up with a sunfire because it seems to synergize well with the ult, plus it's great HP and armor. Even with this build I still recommend at least sheen though. I'd never build Nasus without it.