i think nasus is held back by the strength of wither

Big Lincoln·Jul 6, 2017·97 votes·6,099 views

the spell itself being powerful is fine, but late game even if he isn't a carry any more wither still might as well be a disable for any auto attacking champion he's in range of.

imo the biggest thing that gates the rest of him is the fact that wither has absurdly low downtime. with 45 cdr you have 1 second before either comes back up which is insane for being targeted and with no other conditions to it. the sheer power this spell has for its reliability is nuts and guarantees he'll at least have SOME relevance in any game

i think weakening wither might be necessary in order to free him up for power elsewhere, or by giving him a condition to fulfill in combat like most other juggernauts have. some quick ideas would be making wither have an initial tether on it or making it stronger when the target is on his E. these are just spitballs but I think adding a little more complexity to his spells would be a good start to modernizing him

134 Comments

AhristocatsJul 6, 201717 votes

[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7tzaWieZ,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-07-06T19:33:39.164+0000)

might as well be a disable for any auto attacking champion he's in range of.

No wither is completly garbage at the moment, and that since its range nerf+ attack speed nerf (from 95% to 47.5%)

however it cannot be allowed to be good because of the nature of the spell that you explained well

no clue why you're being downvoted, here i got you also makes me wonder if you're not a hatedaddy smurf, you said the same thing he said

Big LincolnJul 6, 20173 votes

im just a juggernaut enthusiast, I love all of them even if I don't

if possible id like all of them to be in a strong and healthy spot, so I want to facilitate discussion for a lot of them. I wish I could get momentum on volibear threads going too but nobody cares about him

also you're probably right, wither has always felt very powerful to me though, even after nerfs

BlitzidiousJul 6, 20172 votes

I'm pretty sure I've went against a single Volibear in my three(admittedly off and on) years. What are his issues? I know one them is that he has no ranged abilities, so he can get kited all to hell. What else is there?

Big LincolnJul 6, 20173 votes

zero complexity, he's even simpler than garen. you run at people, slow them, and then auto until you bite.

he's kept undertuned because if he's good enough to be meta he just slaps everyone with no counterplay

also he's boring so nobody plays him, so riot doesn't have him on high priority as far as we know

rework trundleJul 6, 201734 votes

I've had soooo many people flame me because how stupidly broken his W is, in 1v1 scenarios. Point and click "snare" that lasts 5 seconds, doesn't decay but becomes worse over the duration. It's not even good, just brainless (compare to yi vs bronzes, but against silvers and golds for nasus).

@OP 100% agree. I wouldn't mind nerfs to his W as long as the powet loss shifted to Q, his bread and butter ability that should make him late game but sadly doesn't, apart from one shotting turrets. If Pantheon can have 60% w/r early game, Nasus can certainly have 60% late game (ps : Panth goes from 60% early to 51% late, while Nasus goes from 30% early to 50% late - isn't that frustrating?)

RavoreJul 7, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=le un le seul,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7tzaWieZ,comment-id=00000001,timestamp=2017-07-06T20:22:57.423+0000)

I've had soooo many people flame me because how stupidly broken his W is, in 1v1 scenarios. Point and click "snare" that lasts 5 seconds, doesn't decay but becomes worse over the duration. It's not even good, just brainless (compare to yi vs bronzes, but against silvers and golds for nasus).

@OP 100% agree. I wouldn't mind nerfs to his W as long as the powet loss shifted to Q, his bread and butter ability that should make him late game but sadly doesn't, apart from one shotting turrets. If Pantheon can have 60% w/r early game, Nasus can certainly have 60% late game (ps : Panth goes from 60% early to 51% late, while Nasus goes from 30% early to 50% late - isn't that frustrating?)

Thing is i don't think Nasus's W is gating him. He's a pretty okay champion but he definitely has a few faults because Qss can really ruin his slow and he can be kited out hard and frozen mallet is also a way to destroy nasus among other things such as champions kit's having more natural mobility. I'm not sure if just taking away his gap closer is going to do better for him.

Masala ChaiJul 6, 201713 votes

95% attack speed slow is complete bullshit. You pretty much cripple a champion's ability to fight back or run with that amount of utility on a single target ability. Weren't you guys all willy nilly whining about Fiora's non-spammable 50% attack speed slow that isn't even spammable?

Big LincolnJul 6, 20173 votes

it was only 95 for the last second iirc because it scales with the slow

it was nerfed for a reason though

AhristocatsJul 6, 20172 votes

implying that fiora W only does a 50% as slow

LUL

Masala ChaiJul 6, 20173 votes

Alright it's a 50% slow that has a defensive component that doesn't even last anywhere near as long as Wither.

Sun Wu RyuumokuJul 6, 20175 votes

objectivly both are BS. But u don't need to compare them (there no point to, for begin).

Joseph GladstoneJul 6, 201713 votes

95% attack speed slow is complete bullshit.

well good thing it isnt even close to a 95% attack speed slow huh

SquashCannonJul 6, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dunkin Darius,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7tzaWieZ,comment-id=000000020002,timestamp=2017-07-06T20:36:58.893+0000)

well good thing it isnt even close to a 95% attack speed slow huh

It used to be a 95% AS slow.

My Waifu VanillaJul 7, 20175 votes

It also used to be completely garbage with how it interacted with Tenacity. It used to be that if you had Tenacity you just would never reach the full value of the slows (Irelia for instance would only max out at like a 30% slow or something making it a complete waste).

Im AxiomJul 7, 20172 votes

It's 95% MS, and 47.5% AS slow at max rank and duration. However unlike AS % increases from runes and items, this reflects the total current attack speed of the champion being withered. For example someone with an attack speed of 2.0 will have an attack speed of 1.06. Also this effect stacks multiplicative with other effects such as Frozen heart, and cold steel. Under the effects of whither and frozen heart (a very common item on nasus) the champion would have 0.9 AS. Under all 3 effects, 0.77. The point of this is to say the slow is incredibly substantial to any basic attack based champion. Having your attack speed reduced by roughly 50% before having a chance at even going through his armor is too much power for one ability.

War shrike 97Jul 7, 20173 votes

but that's part of Nasus' bread and butter. You make him out to be op when his early winrate is like 30% and late only goes to 50%. I dont think his w is op because he has no mobility. a renekton is much more scarier because he can have mutliple dashes, an olaf is much scaried since he gains ms and immune to cc. A malphite is much scarier since he can just ult you and is immune to cc during ult and knocks you up. Honestly Nasus just has a slow but you can cc him easily and isn't the biggest concern for any adc. True his W has some power, but aren't champions supposed to have spells? isnt the whole point of having spells is to have some effect in overcoming your opponent? its a good skill. skills are supposed to have effects, and that's not bad. You cant consider it a badly designed spell because even though his w is point click, it has huge weaknesses too.

General Esdeath Jul 7, 20174 votes

"haha this is garbage, it only reduces half of your attack speed!"

AhristocatsJul 7, 20173 votes

on a 500 range? compared to what other spells do? like fiora W? doing damage 250 damage procing passive+ countering so any damage and cc?

if you think wither is good play nasus yourself to realise how bad it is compared to other "engage" spells of juggernauts

General Esdeath Jul 7, 20174 votes

I have played him, it's pretty damn good when laning against champs like Jax Riven Teemo Darius

Darkdemon653Jul 6, 201711 votes

Wither is not as strong as people think. People see the final second of Wither and think it's the same throughout the ability. In reality, Wither slows for less than 65% as its average at its highest rank (with the AS slow being an average of 32.5%). And those slows are all Wither does. It does not deal damage. It does not give Nasus any bonuses. It does not weaken the defenses of his target. It just slows.

ZerenzaJul 7, 20174 votes

For a juggernaut that's amazing, being slowed by 65 fucking percent will put someone with 350 MS(higher than Nasus) to, i believe 123 MS, which basically means, no matter what you do, he's going to catch you especially with Stormraider's Surge. His Q does ludicrous damage when the opponent can't fight back properly, with Sheen? Forget about winning trades past level 9 with him, a very simple rule against nasus, after level 9 if your not already fed, he's going to curb stomp you 1v1. Wither is one of the main reason's why, 99% movement speed slow?! Like, if i have 400 MS, this shit will literally make me move at 4 fucking MS.

Also, 65%? Where are you at, it's 99% at max rank.

Darkdemon653Jul 7, 20173 votes

{quoted}

For a juggernaut that's amazing, being slowed by 65 fucking percent will put someone with 350 MS(higher than Nasus) to, i believe 123 MS, which basically means, no matter what you do, he's going to catch you especially with Stormraider's Surge. His Q does ludicrous damage when the opponent can't fight back properly, with Sheen? Forget about winning trades past level 9 with him, a very simple rule against nasus, after level 9 if your not already fed, he's going to curb stomp you 1v1. Wither is one of the main reason's why, 99% movement speed slow?! Like, if i have 400 MS, this shit will literally make me move at 4 fucking MS.

Also, 65%? Where are you at, it's 99% at max rank.

It's 95% at max rank for the final second of the ability. It's only 35% for the first second. The average slow it does is (35% + 50% + 65% + 80% + 95%)/5 = 65%. HOWEVER, movement speed slows diminish when they get strong enough. The absolute lowest movement speed it's possible to achieve outside of things that simply prevent movement is 110.

Let's take your example of 400 MS and see what the true average slow is over the duration of Wither. For the first second, movement speed is slowed by 35%, resulting in 260 for the first second. For the second second, movement speed is slowed by 50%, resulting in 200 MS for the second second. For the third second, movement speed is slowed by 65%, resulting in uh oh. Movement speed is reduced below 180, so a new formula is introduced. The would-be MS is halved, and then gets added to 110. So, for the third second, MS would be 140/2 + 110, which is 180. That is a 55% slow instead of 65%. Let's see what happens on second four. 400 reduced by 80% is 80. 80/2 + 110 is 150, meaning a 62.5% slow. And, finally, for the fifth second, 400 reduced by 95% is 20. 20/2 + 110 is 130, meaning a 70% slow.

Averaged out, Wither slowed for (35% + 50% + 55% + 62.5% + 70%)/5 = 54.5% slow.

VallalanJul 6, 201711 votes

Nasus has a lot of problems. his E is a strong pushing tool and armor/damage reduction, but it doesn't really seem to fit his kit.

wither is just a broken mechanic overall. a point and click CC that basically slows you to a root. and it slows attack speed too still no?

point and click cc is very strong. no idea why a juggernaut has one of the best ones. takes way too much of his power up.

the real issue though is the way the Q stacking works. Q is your primary damage/trading spell, but you need to use it to farm/get stacks which means you can't trade if you want stacks. so his early game is not just bad, its borderline unplayable. its trash tier.

you know who else had this problem? veigar. they let veigar gain stacks by hitting enemy champions with his abilities. maybe let nasus stack his Q by using it on enemy champs so he can actually trade in lane. it could even stack at a slower rate on champions, but at least something. right now he has to pick between farm and trading which is just not a good playstyle for league of legends.

Big LincolnJul 6, 20174 votes

good idea, I feel the same way

just trying to figure out how to allow it in his power budget

Glory ln DeathJul 7, 20172 votes

Killing a unit with Q grants 2 stacks, instead of 3. Killing large minions, large monsters, or champions with Q grants 4 stacks, instead of 6. Hitting a champion with Q grants 1 stack.

If that ends up being too much, make it 1 for regular minions, 3 for big things.

Darth StepVaderJul 6, 20176 votes

People with enough experience on Nasus would tell you that, if wither was to be nerfed, no matter other stat buffs his other abilities might get, he'd become even worse. Right now, most of the meta top laners already can escape him easily. With his wither further nerfed, he would not even be able to proc his stormraiders in time(which might also get removed soon).

Wither nerfs, especially in such a carry centered meta, sound kind of out of place. All Nasus needs is some % arm pen. Nothing more.

Bob the ToastrJul 6, 20171 votes

I think some kind of slow resistance or movespeed buff would help with him getting kited. Maybe a defensive steroid besides his ult? Like make him gain 1/2/3/4/5 armor and mr when he hits a champion with a q, stacking up to 8 times or something and lasting 8 seconds.

Darth StepVaderJul 7, 20172 votes

As a guy who plays Nasus quite a bit i can tell you this, you do no want Nasus to get ms steroids. Him being kited in teamfights against teams with coordination is healthy for the game.

What Nasus needs to return to him from previous seasons, is his split-pushing power and solid duelist identity. Currently, due to how resistances and the items/masteries that offer them have been nerfed, Nasus gets outscaled by other champs in both those departments. That is unfair, considering the terrible price you have to pay early for using him

All in all, buff his dueling power(%arm pen) and leave him weak in teamfights as he already is for game health reasons. It would be great if we at least had a jugg that scales into a duelist hypercarry and not so well in teamfights like the rest of them

BlåbæretJul 6, 20176 votes

[{quoted}](name=Darth Tyrannus,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7tzaWieZ,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2017-07-06T20:41:08.574+0000)

People with enough experience on Nasus would tell you that, if wither was to be nerfed, no matter other stat buffs his other abilities might get, he'd become even worse. Right now, most of the meta top laners already can escape him easily. With his wither further nerfed, he would not even be able to proc his stormraiders in time(which might also get removed soon).

Wither nerfs, especially in such a carry centered meta, sound kind of out of place. All Nasus needs is some % arm pen. Nothing more.

Finally somone who has actually played the champ and is not just spewing BS. Wither is not Nasus' problem at all. The problem is that his damage is garbage in this meta where every AD champ is a draintank while he can't deal with tanks either.

Oakleaf RangerJul 7, 20172 votes

Tell that to my ADC's, apparently Nasus is OP yet they never have the intelligence to build mortal reminder. Once you get that, he gets melted in teamfights.

arghilostJul 7, 20176 votes

its his last maxed spell and not even relevant in most games, not sure you've ever played nasus in high elo. Rarely do people play champs top that rely on attack speed, its more casters like riven/fiora (fiora has so many AA cancels with tiamat and E that its irrelevant basically) or tanks like gragas and gnar currently.

You cant actually get into range of any competent ad player. It's an average/ok ability at its new range/power, people think its still the old wither with a billion range and insane attack speed slow still but it's not.

Nasus is weak right now simply because of the state of items, which are in a horrid spot. everything he buys except triforce is in a disgustingly bad spot. Support items reign supreme and anything selfish is currently weak. When bruiser items are buffed back to viability he will be playable again, for now though you have to embrace the support tank top meta or Death dance meta.

Big LincolnJul 7, 20174 votes

fair assessment thank you

do you think he needs any direct buffs or purely his items?

arghilostJul 7, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7tzaWieZ,comment-id=001a0000,timestamp=2017-07-07T04:04:42.436+0000)

fair assessment thank you

do you think he needs any direct buffs or purely his items?

Mostly items but he could use more strength on his ultimate. For a champ focused around his ult it still feels underwhelming, especially with the recent change thats terrible against all the true damage top, it wasnt a direct buff since it made every true damage matchup harder. the ad --> armor/mr change actually made it so that irelia can now win the matchup and things like fiora and darius you might as well afk

Big LincolnJul 7, 20172 votes

that sounds about right. did he get any damage compensation for losing the AD bonus on his ult? that seems like a huge loss

My Waifu VanillaJul 7, 20176 votes

No, but the new ult is arguably still better since after like 30 minutes the bonus AD you got from R was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things anyway. 100 damage on your Q doesn't mean a whole lot when it is hitting for like 700 on a 2 second cd while (at max duration) 155 bonus Armor/MR goes a lot further espeically since Nasus is the squishiest of the juggernauts naturally (has to get Trinity and more CDR than the others while having worse overall sustain). If anything he just needs slow resist somewhere in his kit so he isn't "required" to take Stormraider's to avoid getting kited to death by the absurd amount of random slows or an inherent Phage passive in his kit.

Nasus's problem is definitely not his damage. It's the fact his overall game plan is significantly inferior to the other juggernauts. The other main juggernauts (Illaoi, Darius, hell even Voli) are all much more early game centric and transition into excellent teamfighters once late game comes around. Nasus has a VERY match up dependent early game, a VERY good mid game if he doesn't get shitstomped, and a bad late game ONLY because he can never actually utilize his stacks on a moving target since the only thing he can actually hit in teamfights are tanks which take next to no damage from him since they all stack armor naturally, have Ninja Tabis (a big bonerkiller for Siphoning Strike), and Nasus simply doesn't do enough damage to do anything about it.

I have a few suggestions that MIGHT help with Nasus. We can go with some sort of slow resist or move speed boost in his kit if they want Nasus to actually stand a chance at hitting ranged champions or we can go down route B and make him actually deal with things he can hit. In order to deal with tanks we have 2 solutions that might help out. Solution 1 is give him a Trundle like effect on his ult instead of what he has now where he just starts taking their stats instead of gaining some of his own. It would obviously be WORSE than Trundle ult on the steal (since it is AoE), but it would make him a better teamfighter overall and let him actually damage a tank without a Last Whisper. Another option is to give his Q the Mundo Q mechanic in some manner. It would still stack like normal, but it would also stack a %max health damage part on it and it would choose the larger of the 2 numbers on it when hitting someone. It would still get reduced by armor, but it would at least let him dent tanks a bit (while probably only using the flat on monsters since adding a 400 damage cap like other spells would simply do worse than whatever the flat would be).

Big LincolnJul 7, 20172 votes

thank you for the write up

im partial to letting him hurt tanks, I think that should be a juggernaut staple

AlienPrimateJul 6, 20173 votes

Here is a thought. Make wither worse but make it so if his target is being damaged by E or R, it spreads to everyone else being damaged by E or R too. This would make him more relevant in team fights but less powerful in 1v1 situations.

SquashCannonJul 6, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Here is a thought. Make wither worse but make it so if his target is being damaged by E or R, it spreads to everyone else being damaged by E or R too. This would make him more relevant in team fights but less powerful in 1v1 situations.

No, I actually want nasus to stay a duelist champion. I don't think there's anything wrong with a duel-oriented juggernaut.

Big LincolnJul 6, 20172 votes

is there any juggernaut that can't duel?

TusutakiJul 6, 20173 votes

He isnt being held back because of wither. He's being held back because his items keeps getting nerfed while high mobility champs keeps getting stronger. Since Riot buffed Trundle's Chomp to where it's bonus damage can apply to turrets, there is no reason to pick Nasus over Trundle in any scenario.

I dont know why they did that if their intention was to nerf his split pushing. I would've been fine if using Chomp on turrets consumes the skill without applying the bonus damage but now he's a better Nasus.

Archon AdagioJul 7, 20173 votes

kek nerf wither? its the only thing keeping him in the game

RalanrJul 6, 20171 votes

Would making it a small AoE work? With a reduced debuff obviously.

Big LincolnJul 6, 20173 votes

I don't mind it being single target focused

making it aoe seems kinda funky, would require a big change to the spells functionality

maybe situationally AoE

iDemaciaJul 6, 20174 votes

What if it worked like this -->

Nasus W is now a passive/active with no mana cost.
While passive it could give some sort of buff like increased Q range, increased move speed after Q'ing or something else (help with ideas here).
Now for the active portion it can only be activated when someone is hit by Nasus E which would then mark them for X seconds for his W. When W is activated if only a single enemy was hit they could get hit with a slow similar to the one he has now (or possibly a root or stronger slow?), and if it's multiple people the slow gets weaker per x person but hits all of them.

Edit: Forgot to mention when activated the passive part would not apply

What do you think?

Bob the ToastrJul 6, 20173 votes

I like the idea. How about he gains 3 stacks when he hits a champion with his q that way he has to decide between very short trades or longer trades?

iDemaciaJul 6, 20173 votes

I like that idea. That and he can still get stacks going for the longer trade as well if he's able to snag the kill so that mitigates the possibility of feeling like you can never use it for fear of losing stacks.

A Basic IslandJul 6, 20171 votes

I think his insane lifesteal passive has more to do with it.

Big LincolnJul 6, 20176 votes

necessary for him to survive laning and scale.

i would like his healing to scale directly with stacks so that it's target agnostic sustain but having healing is necessary if you want his early to actually be weak

YumaS2AstralJul 7, 20174 votes

They could increase his health regeneration, then scrap that passive and give him a more interesting passive. It doesn't even have to be a completely different passive; it could be one that is still healing focused, but not one that gives him lifesteal.

This passive also doesn't help against targets with a lot of armor since armor reduces the lifesteal effectiveness. If Nasus is meant to be a duelist, they must replace the lifesteal with something else.

Or at least reduce the lifesteal on his passive but make it ignore armor (like what they did with old WotA).

SenzaRespiro89Jul 7, 20173 votes

No it is not. He spikes literally the hardest in midgame where he twoshots any squishy with Q while being incredibly tanky. That's the reward for playing smart and stack well. So you have to punish him early but you can't do that due to his passive if your bonobo jungler doesn't help with that. 'So you will just watch how he sustains infinitely any poke you throw at him if you don't have some powerful all in. Same reason why vlads sustain got gutted against minions. If his lifestel is good against champs, fine but not on minions.