Nasus

Detailed Tips

1. 01

   Abuse Wave Manipulation - Renekton’s whole objective and identity against Nasus, is simply denying Nasus from Q stacking. The Renekton vs Nasus match up simply doesn’t favour Renekton, mainly due to Nasus's history of buffs, as well as many gameplay systems changing within the core game and top lane itself. Overall this match up can only be won if you’re focusing on waves, otherwise Nasus will slip through the cracks and overpower Renekton if played incorrectly. Renekton has to abuse wave states on his side, to help him zone off Nasus and create his windows of opportunity. If Renekton plays too aggressively while shoving the wave vs Nasus, Nasus will simply farm under his tower with Q, while taking away Renekton’s space to do extra trades. As Renekton, we must refrain from over committing our damage on our side of the map, or we must be more creative to use our abilities without hitting the wave. A few ways Renekton can manipulate waves against Nasus, is using Nasus’s attacks or abilities. Renekton can bait Nasus to either auto attack him, allowing Renekton’s minions to focus on Nasus, while Nasus’s minions will keep fighting back against Renekton’s minions. Renekton can also potentially bait Nasus to use E on the wave, allowing Nasus E to damage Renekton’s minions, allowing the wave to gradually push back towards Renekton’s ideal side of the lane. Renekton can also crash waves into Nasus tower, with the intention of allowing Nasus’s wave to push naturally back onto his side of the map via reinforcement waves. Renekton can also utilise bushes from Nasus’s side of the lane, to help him create a slow push. Renekton can also pull the minion wave in between Tier 1 and 2, to help him create a faster slow push, while Renekton’s minions die quicker under Nasus’s tower. Overall, these are essentially the main things you should know when playing against Nasus. If you fail the concept of denying him stacks, Nasus will snowball and overpower Renekton within the side lane regardless of how behind he is. Stick to the gameplan, abuse playing the wave on your side, and punish it with your team or your own play.

2. 02

   Level 1/2 Wave Understanding - From the start of the laning phase we should be opting towards manipulating wave states. Level 1, we should play with either the intention to crash the first 2 waves into a slow push on our side, or we can let Nasus hit us just once to make our minions target him instead of the wave. Whichever one you choose, you need to make sure that Nasus pushes the wave on your side. Once the wave is on your side of the map, you can freeze on him or dictate your trade patterns to get his HP down.

3. 03

   Play Wave On Your Side - Playing the wave on your side essentially means playing wave states on your side of the map, via abusing wave manipulation tactics or freezing on your side of the map. Simply use this to help you combo on your laner, taking away any space from them being able to trade you back (This also helps prevent the enemy running you down with their extended or sustained movement speed abilities). You can also use this wave state to run down your opponent with your abilities up, helping you obtain kills a lot easier vs stalemate or ranged match ups. Look to do this when your opponents are below 50% HP, or potentially make a mistake to provide you an all in opportunity to run them down.

4. 04

   Abuse Nasus Weak Early - Nasus’s early game is very weak, meaning most times you fight Nasus he has to expend a lot of mana to survive against Renekton’s bursts. Through this period of the game, as long as you do whatever you can to deny his stacks, or play around your jungler to get them ahead through ganks or objective secures, Nasus won’t be able to contest or deal with Renekton’s pressure.

5. 05

   Respect Nasus E Shred - Later on in the game, Nasus’s E starts providing Nasus way more value within the game, as he’s able to place his E and shred from 30% to 50% armour. When fighting Nasus, try to always avoid fighting in his E as it provides so much utility in fights, as Nasus’s teammates can also utilise the armour shred to help kill you easier.

6. 06

   Abuse Empowered E - Through mid game fights, Nasus can amass past 300 armour with his R active, making him super tanky and hard to deal with as Renekton. When fighting around your team, make sure to use empowered E to shred 25% to 35% of his armour, as well as being able to use Black Cleaver to help apply even more shred against his armour stacking playstyle. This will allow you to easily take care of Nasus with your team, tanking away his potential unkillable status.

7. 07

   3 Points Q > W Max - This playstyle allows you to constantly have W’s to help you stay onto Nasus while abusing your high damage ratios, allowing you to snowball and neutralize Nasus within the mid stages of the game. Make sure to put 3 points into your early wave clear and poke, then look to max W throughout the rest of your points. Once completed, max your E for additional mobility to help enable your up close stun abusing playstyle. W also helps you peel off Nasus from extended 1v1’s, as well as helping your teammates fight him within teamfights.

8. 08

   Avoid Nasus R Fights - Once Nasus gets R, duels against Nasus will become a lot harder due to his increasing armour and magic resists through fights, on top of his lower Q CD. Renekton’s R in comparison is not even close to being as strong, so unless we already gained a lead to help us use against Nasus, Renekton R won’t be as game changing as Nasus’s own ult.

9. 09

   Build Eclipse, Black Cleaver or BoTRK - Go Eclipse for consistent power through mid game and damage mitigation with the shield. / Go Black Cleaver for additional CDR and other versatile stats for utility based gameplay. / Go BoTRK to one shot and snowball with a damage focused build.

10. 10

    Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - The Renekton vs Nasus match up as constantly reiterated through these notes, is all about making sure Nasus doesn’t stack. If Nasus could not successfully stack, Renekton should make sure to use his giant lead after taking tier 1 tower, to roam the map and make sure he uses his lead to get his teammates ahead. Make sure to appear at every dragon, help dive enemies with your presence and if needed, make sure to swap out your mid or scaling champion to farm against Nasus. Overall Nasus cannot help deal with Renekton’s presence when he’s behind, and all he can do is utilise farming and split pushing for towers. If Nasus is ahead, the game does become infinitely harder as you cannot do much to deter him out of the lane, or roam when he can easily take towers. The only thing you can really do, is try to spam ping your team to help shut him down and use your empowered E and potential cleaver to help shred his armour to make him killable within the fights. Make sure you always prevent Nasus from hard split pushing, using TP or having someone there to wave clear with TP to stop Nasus constantly pressuring that side of the map. Within team fights, try to protect your carries from Nasus’s engage, using your empowered E and Black Cleaver to shred his Armour. If your team isn’t around, make sure just to wave clear and wait for your team to come before committing to any fights. Following on from that, use your W’s to help CC Nasus and exploit his mediocre teamfighting. Overall, Nasus cannot really do much even in teamfights and Renekton has the upper hand to help lock him down, allowing his teammates to play around him a lot easier.