Nasus is the only champion who beats you by being ignored for twenty minutes, and Wither [W] makes sure you can't do anything about it once the twenty minutes are up.
There's no ability in the game quite like Wither [W]. It doesn't damage you, it doesn't displace you, it just removes your ability to participate for several seconds while a very large dog hits you with an axe. Combine that with a Q that grows forever and you get a champion who's genuinely miserable to face late. The whole answer lives in the first fifteen minutes.
Check out our top Nasus counters below for more information on how to beat him!
Counter Guide
How to Beat Nasus
Nasus is the only champion who beats you by being ignored for twenty minutes, and Wither [W] makes sure you can't do anything about it once the twenty minutes are up.
There's no ability in the game quite like Wither [W]. It doesn't damage you or displace you. It removes your ability to participate for several seconds while a very large dog hits you with an axe. Pair that with a Q that grows without a cap and you get a champion who's genuinely miserable to face late, which is why he's a common ban even when he isn't the scariest name on our solo queue tier list. The entire answer lives in the first fifteen minutes.
Garen- Range or poke that denies last hits, because every stack Nasus has comes from one
- A silence, a cleanse, or enough tenacity that Wither [W] stops being a death sentence
- The discipline to keep punishing a lane you've already won
Nasus Overview
Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous
- Siphoning Strike [Q] has no cap and drops to a 3.5 second cooldown at rank 5, so every last hit he takes is permanent damage he keeps forever.
- Wither [W] slows move speed and attack speed at once and worsens over its duration, which for most carries is simply a death sentence on a 15 second cooldown.
- Fury of the Sands [R] makes him bigger in every direction at once: health, attack range, armor and magic resist, and it shortens his stacking cooldown on top of all that.
- He never has to buy sustain. The lifesteal is free from level 1, so the gold you spent staying healthy is gold he spent on the thing that kills you.
- He farms safely through the exact stretch where he's losing. Spirit Fire [E] clears from range and shreds armor while it does it.
Weaknesses: Where You Get In
- He's slow with no dash and no escape. Every gank works on him and every ranged champion gets to bully him for free.
- Everything before level 6 is bad for him. He has no kill pressure and no way to stop you from taking his wave or his plates.
- Wither [W] is one target. It's devastating on whoever gets it and completely absent for everyone else in the fight.
- Stacks come from last hits. Shoving the wave into his tower denies them, and denied stacks never come back.
- His damage is one basic attack. A blind, a disarm, or anything else that removes a single auto attack removes his entire turn.
Countering Nasus
Based on the strengths and weaknesses above, beating Nasus comes down to champions who can accomplish at least one of the following:
- Deny the stacks before you chase the kill. Shoving the wave under his tower costs him permanent damage. Killing him costs him 30 seconds.
- Bring a silence or a cleanse for Wither [W]. It's the one tool that lets him convert a stacked Q into a dead carry, and removing it removes the threat.
- Punish him before level 6. He has no answer at all in that stretch, and the plates you take are the reason the late game never arrives.
- Fight him away from a wall. He has no gap closer, so an open field is a Nasus walking slowly toward a team that's already moved.
If you're already locked into the matchup without any of those tools, these strategies still work:
Playing a Bad Nasus Matchup
Keep shoving even when the lane feels won (and a bit boring). Every wave he doesn't get to last hit is permanent, and it's the only thing in this matchup that actually compounds in your favor.
Buy Plated Steelcaps and stack tenacity early rather than late. Wither [W]'s duration is the problem and both of those cut into it directly.
Never fight him inside Spirit Fire [E]. The armor shred stacks while you stand in it, and stepping out is free.
Take the objectives during the window where his ultimate is down. Fury of the Sands [R] is 120 seconds at rank 1 and he's a slow melee champion without it.
Best Nasus Counters
The three answers here are a silence, a poke advantage and a stat check (one for each way a Nasus game actually gets lost).
Garen Silences the Wither
Decisive Strike [Q] removes all slows on Garen and silences on the next attack, which is a two-for-one answer to Wither [W] specifically. He shrugs off the move speed component and then prevents the recast, which takes away what makes Nasus scary in a duel.
Judgment [E] out-damages a single Siphoning Strike [Q] over the same window, Courage [W] gives him tenacity and damage reduction on demand, and Perseverance [Passive] regenerates the poke back between waves. Demacian Justice [R] then executes, which is the one thing a health-stacking juggernaut has no answer to.
Jayce Denies Every Stack
Shock Blast [Q] fired through an Acceleration Gate [E] lets Jayce contest the wave from outside anything Nasus can threaten, and the wave is where all his damage comes from. Every cannon minion he denies is permanent damage Nasus never gets back, and there's no version of the kit that punishes him for it.
Thundering Blow [E] then knocks Nasus off the wave outright and deals magic damage doing it, and Hextech Capacitor [Passive]'s free move speed means the slow half of Wither [W] doesn't catch him. Granted, he can still win a late team fight, but he'll be doing it with half the stacks he expected.
Malphite Armor Beats the Axe
Nasus deals his damage with one large physical basic attack, and Malphite is the champion in the game most specifically built to make that not matter. Granite Shield [Passive] absorbs the first hit and recharges out of combat, and stacking armor cuts every hit after it.
Ground Slam [E] then reduces his attack speed (worse than it sounds on a champion whose entire damage output is one attack on a cooldown), and it scales its own damage off the armor Malphite bought to survive. Seismic Shard [Q] also steals move speed, so the Wither [W] chase never actually connects.
Itemizing Against Nasus
Nasus deals almost all of his damage with a single physical basic attack, and he heals off every one of them:
Frozen Heart is the best item in the matchup by a distance, since it cuts both the attack speed and the damage of a champion whose output is one attack at a time. Plated Steelcaps is the early version. Bramble Vest applies grievous wounds to Soul Eater [Passive]'s free lifesteal, and Randuin's Omen slows him during the chase that Wither [W] was supposed to guarantee.
Where Nasus Actually Sits Right Now
Counter picks age with the patch, so check the current numbers before you trust a matchup:
- League of Legends Solo Queue Tier List, updated every patch
- Tier List Changelog, for what moved and why
- How to Beat or Counter Series, for every other matchup guide
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