[2.4b] Nasus Guide - The Nasus Support Guide V1.0
The Nasus Support Guide V1.0
Pros
- Great CC able to hinder opponent carry useless unless cleansed.
- Good chip damage with great consistency and less dependence on items.
- Great laning pressure.
- Able to greatly impact objectives when left alone.
Cons
- Lack of kits to synergize with and protect your carry.
- Immobile & squishy
- May cause excessive lane disturbance / negatively impact economy of your Carry if used incorrectly.
Nasus Build
Best Build Guide for Nasus
Item Build Description
Additional information on the items
Early game
Start with
Sapphire Crystal
and build into
Tear of the Goddess
at first opportunity as
Nasus
is very mana demanding; acquire
Ionian Boots of Lucidity
to boost mobility and allow faster cooldowns on
Spirit Fire
;preferably with [locket enchant] as
Nasus
lacks ways in his tookit to protect your carry.
Mid game
Your first major item should be either [luden’s echo] or [liandry’s torment].
[luden’s echo] provides a spike in your damage, drastically boosting the effectiveness of your
Spirit Fire
especially against squishy carries extra mana allows more frequent harassments, grant you an edge in the laning phase.
While [liandry’s torment] is more effective later in the game and against tankier champions, with HP stats helping with survivability, a better choice when behind, and to be a general annoyance.
However it should be noted [archangel’s staff] should not be the first (even second in some circumstances) major item for
Nasus
as he is unlikely to complete stacking
Tear of the Goddess
due to his long cooldowns.
Late game
Late game items can be flexible, magic penetration items, such as
Void Staff
and
Morellonomicon
should be considered if enemy is purchasing MR items to ensure sufficient amount of damage, this is commonly the case in most games.
Due to your
Spirit Fire
being a large AoE ability that is highly likely to hit, acquiring additional on-hit effects according to enemy composition never hurts. [rylai’s crystal scepter] helps you to slow the enemy down and giving you more health against assassins;
Morellonomicon
can seriously disrupt the enemy teams healing and lifesteal.
While
Nasus
does not benefit significantly from raw AP, it may be still optimal to purchase [rabadon’s deathcap] to further boost the high AP stats from other previous items, if there is no priority for effects or magic pen.
Nasus Runes
Best Runes for Nasus
Summon Aery
is the only rune of its kind useful on support
Nasus
, allowing for additional poke damage with
Spirit Fire
.
Brutal
provides magic pen which boosts the high base damage of
Nasus
,
Weakness
can also be considered when paired with a bully.
Loyalty
boosts the survivability of yourself and your carry, other alternatives can be considered when required, such as against strong engravers.
Manaflow Band
is a must have due to the high mana consumption of [nasus:2] and
Spirit Fire
, ensuring sufficient amount of pressure can be applied early game.
Skill Order
How to distribute skill points
Summoner Spells
When to take which summoners
Combos
Learn how to maximize the champions potential
The core ability of every AP
Nasus
and your main harassment from laning to lategame.
You should always keep in mind of minion waves and place your
Spirit Fire
around them to target only enemy champions and avoid disrupting your carry’s farming routine.
Enemy will be aware of this as time goes on, use patience and keep placing your
Spirit Fire
without disrupting your carry farming. Constantly switching positions can give you better angles.
Wither
is the ability that enables
Nasus
to be a good support, using
Wither
in early game fights can seriously cripple the damage output of opponent carry, disrupt enemy farming or just to cause annoyance.
you should always preserve
Wither
if there is likely to be a fight, you can capitalize on the greed of enemy to ‘bait’ them into making mistakes by overestimating their damage; ensure a kill by immobilizing an opponent champion or slow down an enemy jungler gank.
While
Fury Of The Sands
is not as powerful in an AP build, the ability can be used to rush down objectives and turrets, making AP
Nasus
a threat in a fight regarding objectives.
In laning phase
Fury Of The Sands
can be used to simply regen your health - just pop it when it’s ready!
It is crucial for support to play with enemy’s (and your teammate’s) mindset, use of
Fury Of The Sands
, [locket enchant] and [heal] can bait greedy opponents looking for a quick kill.
Combo
Wither
with
Spirit Fire
allows enemy to stay longer in the radius of
Spirit Fire
, however, a well placed
Spirit Fire
followed by
Wither
at the back of enemy may manipulate enemy into wanting to leave
Spirit Fire
by stepping forward while being slowed, causing mispositioning.
Nasus Matchups & Counters
Detailed information on how to play matchups and counters
Sona
can shield or heal off your
Spirit Fire
with her
Aria Of Perseverance
, and can possibly have better pressure using her
Hymn Of Valor
, however due to her low damage and squishiness there should be ample opportunity to engage a fight via using
Wither
either shutting off her carry, negating most damage of the duo, or just to lock down a defenseless
Sona
.
In the late game,
Morellonomicon
will be a useful item to acquire.
Arcane Shift
Draven
Bloodthirster
Spinning Axe
Thresh
Blitzcrank
Help, Pix!
Wild Growth
Lulu
Quicksilver Enchant
Annie
Jinx
Rocket Grab
Lux
Prismatic Barrier
Light Binding
When or not to Nasus sup.
When to pick support
Nasus
:
- When you have a caster / lane bully as your carry such as
Miss Fortune
and
Ezreal
and wanting to maximize the early game pressure.
- When your team has low AP damageas your
Spirit Fire
can deal surprisingly amount of chip damage.
- When your team need good single target CC to hinder enemy champions such as
Jax
and
Tristana
.
- When you want to play something you are farmilliar, but enemies have no idea how to play against - a niche build AP nasus support is!
- When you just want to play a fun build!
When NOT to pick support
Nasus
:
- When your teammates strongly objects your choice, in this situation it may be more effective to pick conventional supports to prevent negativity.
- When an AP poke squishy support is not the ideal, if your team has too many AP and would require a tank, different support will do the job a lot better.
DOs & DONTs of sup. nasus
DOs of support
Nasus
:
- Be fully supportive of your carry, from both gameplay and communication point of view. Even as an independent support as
Nasus
is, it is still important to look out for your carry, even when he’s having a bad game.
- Always be considerate when using your
Spirit Fire
, as when used incorrectly
Spirit Fire
can be greatly disruptive to your carry’s farming, avoid minions in general while hitting champions, especially low health ones to prevent taking unnecessary farm.
DONTs of support
Nasus
:
- It is best not to stack
Siphoning Strike
, as AP support
Nasus
would struggle to find a chance to ever safely land
Siphoning Strike
making stacks irrelevant, stay safe and poke, while only use
Siphoning Strike
for pushing,
Tear of the Goddess
stacking and objectives.
- Don’t take economy from other teammates, even if you are carrying, as
Nasus
has a low dependence on items the economy is likely to fare better on even other teammates with a bad score. Try to hand over minions and kills to team in most situations.
- However, don’t hesitate to finish enemy off with your long range
Spirit Fire
for securing a kill if your carry is out of range, bringing [ignite] can also help with the situation.
How’bout other lanes?
AP
Nasus
can be a solid toplaner, and a below average midlaner, however picking
Nasus
into solo lanes can be very situational due to him being a one trick pony in what he does best - poke and single target CC.
AP caster
Nasus
top would mean requirement for a tanky jungler or support such as
Dr. Mundo
and
Braum
, and preferably an assassin midlaner. Hybrid
Nasus
top build also exists including AP tank build with
Lich Bane
and AD build with AP items, it may be interesting to give these builds a try.
AP
Nasus
mid may depend on the enemy midlaner, even as AP,
Nasus
will struggle to farm against majority of midlaners available. As AP
Nasus
only excels in poke damage, it may be a good idea to ensure existence of another AP damage source before picking.
Synergy’s of sup. Nasus
A few example of carries goes well with
Nasus
are as below:
-
Miss Fortune
has a solid early game lane pressure, this with
Spirit Fire
will be highly likely to disrupt enemy early game;
Wither
is also able to support landing of abilities such as
Make It Rain
and
Bullet Time
or scoring takedowns.
-
Ezreal
has good poke and burst damage in early game, while
Wither
can ensure
Ezreal
’s abilities land nicely.
-
Corki
has high amount of burst early to mid game,
Wither
can lock down a single target for
Corki
to feast on.
Thoughts on the build.
As a laid-back support main, after hundreds of games with AP Nasus support, mostly solo and duo, one of the hardest thing is to convince your team that you are not trolling - if they really insist, pick a different support instead, that’s the golden rule.
The strongest aspect of AP
Nasus
support is the lack of popularity of the build, in most games, you’ll be playing against opponents that have only seen the build once or twice in their carreer, this allows you to fully capitalize the surprise factor of the build - an early game
Wither
leading to a take down, then a long range
Spirit Fire
to snipe low HP recalling support, and a surprise
Fury Of The Sands
plus [locket enchant] to trick enemy jungler into a failed tower dive, the possibility is endless.
But the most important factor is to have fun - WR is a game and I’d say there is nothing more fun than recking slinging an off meta build!
Additional information
First of all, gratitude to the mad lad LieuVijay on Reddit for creating this guide for AP Nasus support and inspired me for refining my build: https://www.reddit.com/r/wildrift/comments/l5n0n4/introducing_nasus_support_a_dog_is_a_dragon_lane
As you can see this guide is not finished in the current state - I will add additional matchups on the go after gaining more experience with the build.
Meanwhile please feel free to express any opinions or criticisms in the comment below, and please do share your experience with the build!
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