Counter-picks

[Jonathan Meer]

Don't mean to be a dick head, but that's wrong.

Garen's is not at all a hard counter to Nasus, because of Nasus's amazing sustain on that 14% lifesteal. Their relationship at top lane at worst I would call it co-existence, at best I would call it Garen waiting to become useless against Nasus. Garen doesn't do enough damage to Nasus at early levels unless he takes ignite as a summoner spell and I argue that Nasus's ult actually counters Garen's ult because of the sudden health increase.

14% lifesteal doesn't mean anything when Nasus is being zoned away from his creeps.

You're talking about level 6. I'm talking about wanton aggression starting at level 2.

Let me analyze this further for you. As Garen, if you're using your Q and Spin to harass, you automatically push your lane towards Nasus's tower. Last hitting off tower is hilariously easy for Nasus so unless you tower dive, Nasus will get the farm. If I start with boots 3 pots on Nasus or clothe armor 5 pots, good luck trying to get me out of the lane because it won't happen. Also I think you may have misunderstood how Spirit Fire works on Nasus, you don't ever use it to farm... Ever.

Good timing/positioning on Q and spin can minimize the pushing effect.

Last-hitting off turret is always disadvantageous. It's easier for him once Q is leveled up a few times. Not so easy in the earlygame.

Cloth Armor + 5 pots would be mandatory against Garen, I'd expect, but even there Nasus is going to get rather torn up by Garen's early damage.

I understand how Spirit Fire works on Nasus. If you have to farm with Spirit Fire, you farm with Spirit Fire. Obviously it's not at all preferable.

It's a known fact that Nasus's only counter is someone with high poke, and eventually these counters will become irrelevant the more the Nasus farms. By the time Nasus is level 13 or 14, no one will be able to push him out of a lane and it's just pure fact. I know this through observation through countless games of playing on Nasus. If you would like to testify this, I would be more than glad to play on Nasus vs your Garen.

I'm not interested in 'arguments' of the form 'It's a known fact.' I'd rather hear the rationale.

The idea behind the Garen counter is that, because Nasus' strength is lategame, earlygame aggression (which Garen excels at) can severely gimp his impact on the game. To say Nasus can't be pushed out of lane at level 13/14 is neither interesting (the laning phase is often long done by that point, and there will be plenty of roaming to put pressure on Nasus' farm), nor relevant to the point behind the counter. Level 13 =/= earlygame.