Why nasus needs a rewrork (patch 7.13}
Nasus current state patch 7.13
Riot’s design intention on nasus was to make a late game hybrid between a bruiser and tank. Unfortunately, just because u do a lot of damage on your Q, it doesn’t make you a late game champion. As the seasons went by, there were champions which could do the same things as nasus but better. I will first go over each ability and what changes I would make to improve the champion as a whole.
Passive: This passive used to be good. Now with the easy access of grevious wounds, your lifesteal is cut down to (20% x 1.33) X 0. 6= 15.96% lifesteal. 25% increased healing from spirit visage and 8% from runic armor. The problem of this passive is that it is very dependent on the damage you can inflict with your Q.
Q: siphoning strike This ability is weak early game because of the low base damage in all ranks. 100 base damage at rank 5. In the late game, the damage done by Q is mediocre. In the late game, tanks will stack at around 200 armor depending on team comp and the nasus Q will do around 400 damage(assuming 1000 stacks). Tanks having that much armor will have around 3.5khp if not more therefore you will never kill the tank late game if u taken in to account of the shield meta. In a nutshell you Q is only strong in the mid game and trying to kill the adc late game is really difficult since u have to get past the support and the tank peeling for the adc.
W: Wither The progressive slow from 35% to 95% is great against immobile champions. However when u cast this on a riven, she has 3 dashes from Q and another dash from E. You will never catch a riven. The attack speed slow in wither is underwhelming. The first problem is that it doesn’t work on all champions since there are champions which don’t need attack speed to delete you. Also the average attack speed reduction is around 30% since the slow starts at 17.5% and then ends at 47.5%. Champions like yasuo will still delete you even though u wither him.
E: spirit fire This ability has a ridiculous mana cost of 130 and it is weak compared to Lux’s E ability. In comparison her E has higher base damage, much higher cast range, a slow and a lower base cooldown.
Changes I would make. Q ability Allow nasus to also gain stacks when he kills an enemy with an auto attack. This small change fixes so many problems.
- mana problems: nasus can conserve mana and still get stacks since autoattacks don’t require mana 2.faster splitpush: as a splitpusher, going e max is now viable as he can clear a wave and acquire stacks more efficiently.
- less CDR reliant: nasus can itemize against the lane opponent and not worry about reaching max cdr since he can get stacks with autos.
- item synergy: This increases the value of trinity force as it is an attack speed item with CDR.
W wither Remove attack speed slow: This type of cc is very situational and against that niche champion, the reduction is mediocre. Give the wither a grounded cc for the initial 3/3.5/4/4.5 whole 5 seconds. This change will make sure any champion including mobile ones are slowed for 30% initially. This change will make nasus an anti- assassin front liner. Mana cost: 60/65/70/75/80
E Spirit Fire Armor shred before: 20/25/30/35/40 Armor shred after: 20/30/40/50/60 Armor shred remains in effect for 5 sec when enemy champions have stepped onto the fire. This change will increase the value of the ability since the mana cost is 130 at max rank. This change opens up the lethality runes as a possible change.
Conclusion If these changes go through, nasus will definitely have an identity in the meta as an niche pick because atm, there are champions which does nasus’s job better. The ultimate doesn’t require any changes. This part of the kit is nicely done by riot. Thanks for reading this post.