Nasus rework suggestion

Nasus has been weak for some time. He was designed to be late-game champion, but currently is a mid-game champion with a highly problematic win condition.

Riot is afraid to buff Nasus because he can be un-fun to play against when strong. Many people think that the "infinitely scaling" nature of his q-stacks is what makes him tricky to buff, but Riot is more worried about a different part of his kit -- wither. Indeed, Riot has buffed q twice -- by increasing stacks on cannon minions and by reducing mana costs -- but has nerfed wither -- both its range and its attack speed slow. An additoinal situational nerf to wither will allow other aspects of Nasus to be buffed.

Wither was frustrating to play against before it was nerfed. Wither-max jungle nasus, for example, could simply wither the enemy adc in a teamfight at long range, cutting the enemy adc's dps in half, allowing Nasus' team to ignore the enemy adc. This was frustrating to play against and had limited counterplay, particularly in early game before the purchase of QSS, for example. Wither was, and arguably remains, the strongest part of Nasus' kit. From a gameplay perspective, the only redeeming virtue of wither is that it is one of the few movespeed/attackspeed slows that feel satisfying to use (aoe attack speed slows, like that from Frozen Heart, are powerful without feeling powerful).

Nerfing the range of wither and halving the attack speed slow made wither weaker but did not change the fundamental problem with wither -- Nasus simply has to point and click on the enemy adc to substantially reduce the adc's dps, giving his team an advantage in the fight. Nasus has been left weak with past nerfs to wither but he can't be buffed without bringing this unfun mechanic back into the spotlight.

Here is my suggestion for a situational nerf to wither: (1) on cast, it deals only the movespeed slow (on live patch). (2) landing 'q' on a withered target adds an attack speed slow equivalent to the current movespeed slow. The attack speed slow lasts for 4 seconds. Because the slow from wither increases over time, q'ing the target early results in a smaller attack speed slow. q'ing a withered target again replaces the current wither attack speed slow with an attack speed slow equivalent to the current wither movespeed slow.
(3) range of wither is reverted (increased) to pre-nerf levels.

This change allows wither to remain useful for catching targets and allows Nasus to retain his advantage in melee duels. But it also eliminates Nasus' option to wither-and-ignore the enemy adc in teamfights. For Nasus to proc the attack speed slow, he needs to actually get to the target. This is difficult for Nasus to accomplish because he is extremely kitable. In a teamfight, even a slowed adc will often have dashes and will have a team providing peel.

This is a fairly large nerf to Nasus' teamfight, even though it may not look like it. With this nerf, we can buff other parts of his kit to allow him to enjoy his late-game fantasy (and allow him to be impactful in team fights).

This is also a nerf to Nasus' laning versus ranged champions. Yes, he can still easily slow them from range, but he can't reduce their dps unless he gets to them. Ranged hampions with disengage or blinds, like quin, vayne, gnar, cait, and teemo have ways to avoid this the q-proc attack speed slow. This is a substantial nerf to Nasus' laning versus ranged champions.

Another situational nerf would be: (1) reduce nasus passive lifesteal (relative to live); in combination, (2) increase nasus passive lifesteal while ult is active. So without ult, Nasus lifesteal would be 4/8/12. With ult, Nasus' lifesteal would be 20/35/50 (scaling with ult). This situational nerf/buff would reorient Nasus' lifesteal away from laning and towards combat. While 'wither' has historically been the most problematic part of Nasus' kit, many find his passive lifesteal annoying to lane against. However, Nasus' lifesteal also feels weak in combat. Nerfing his passive lifesteal without providing a compensatory buff would make him even weaker in teamfights. This nerf/buff allows enemy laners to more effectively push nasus out of lane, hurting his late game, while also giving Nasus more dueling/teamfight sustain.

These two nerfs would be very painful for nasus, especially in the early game. These two issues with nasus' kit are unfun to play against, anti-interactive, and do not allow much counterplay.

With the substantial nerfs to the most problematic parts of his kit, we can now also provide substantial buffs Nasus. Here are some buffs I would recommend:

(A) additional wither passive: landing a 'q' on an enemy champion increases Nasus' movespeed by 3/6/9/12/15 for 4 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times. Auto-attacks refresh the buff. why -- this rewards Nasus for getting onto an enemy champion. If he can get to his target and proc q several times, then he will do a much better job sticking to his target.

(B) additional spirit-fire passive: 'q' ignores 5/10/20/40/80 percent of enemy armor if enemy target is in spirit fire (in addition to flat armor pen debuff of spirit fire). why this synergizes with q and allows nasus to feel impactful fighting the enemy front line. Nasus does not naturally build armor pen, which makes him feel pathetic versus enemy tanks in teamfights. Enemy tanks will need to play around spirit fire in the late game. Nasus will need to properly use spirit fire to deal with tanks.

(B') increase spirit-fire duration to 7 seconds.

(C) additional ult passive: (i) while his ultimate is active, Nasus gains 5/15/35mr and 5/15/35 armor per empowered q on an enemy champion, stacking up to 10 times. After his ult expires, these bonus resistances last as long as Nasus remains in combat. why this conditionally adds substantial teamfight/dueling power. For nasus to stack the resistances, he needs to survive and proc q multiple times in the teamfight. However, once nasus has built up a large number of ult resistance stacks on rank 3 ultimate, and combined with his ult's bonus lifesteal, he becomes incredibly difficult to kill. This change also opens up Nasus' build, allowing him to more effectively use health items like sterack's gage. Gage was meant for juggernauts, but Nasus does not currently use it effectively.

(C') remove the flat resistance bonus on activating ult. Nasus will need to work to get the durability from his ult.

(D) reduce mana costs/increase mana pool

(E) increase Nasus ult duration to 18 seconds.

(F) landing a 'q' on an enemy champion grants nasus 2 q-stacks (not 3 or 6 as he would get from a kill on a champion or minion/canon minion/jungle moster). Nasus will not stack q as fast trading with the enemy in lane, particularly since q is heavily gated by cooldowns early. But it makes using 'q' to trade with an enemy early game less punishing for his late game q damage. This change would encourage somewhat more lane interaction.

(G) While ult is active, q cooldown is reduced by 1.5 seconds (this matters little early game but matters a lot after Nasus has max cdr and rank-5 in q). This does little to buff Nasus' q-stacking but does allow Nasus's q-stacking to be more impactful in late-game fights.

These nerfs and buffs would do several things:

(1) Make nasus more of a late-game champion again. In particular, make him a late-game teamfighting monster. The scaling on these spells work synergistically, so he needs high ranks in all spells and good q-stacks to fully take advantage of these buffs. (A) All four of his spells now scale with cooldown on his q and/or q stacks: q itself from damage; stacking resists from his ultimate; q-proc'd wither attack speed debuff; wither passive movespeed buff; and q damage from spirit-fire armor debuff. He needs high cooldown on 'q' both from items and ranks in q to take advantage of this. (B) Spirit fire ignores substantial armor but only after high ranks in spirit fire (and this only matters in the late-game when nasus both has high damage from q-stacks and the enemy front-line has stacked armor). Thus, nasus needs to have both spirit fire maxed, q maxed, and good q-stacks to take advantage of this. If he maxes q and e first, has good q-stacks, and is facing a tank, then he will feel a power-spike at level 12, which is usually late-midgame. (C) wither passively provides a situational movespeed buff in addition to its movespeed slow and situational attack speed debuff. For this to meaningfully benefit nasus, nasus needs both high ranks in wither and low cooldown on q (from cdr and ranks in q). (D) The ultimate can now provide nasus with enormous durability but only if he can survive in combat long enough to proc multiple q's on enemy champions (which will benefit from low cooldown on q and high ranks in wither).

Nasus needs to be the terrible late-game god he should be when his ult is active. One thing that got me into league was watching a friend playing league being terrified by an ulting nasus (this was back in season 1 when nasus was actually good). I still remember his face and his girly screaming when the ulting nasus charged after him.

(2) eliminate the "wither-and-ignore adc" tactic that is unfun to play against.

(3) increase incentives for nasus to interact in lane; make it easier for enemy champions to push nasus out of lane and feel rewarded for doing so.

(5) provide Nasus with substantial durability and in-combat sustain while his ult is active. Combined with conditional mobility increases from the new wither passive, this will allow Nasus to effectively teamfight. Note that a huge portion of his teamfighting strength now comes from his ult combined with being able to proc 'q' on champions many times in a teamfight. The enemy can play around this situational weakness.

(6) give Nasus the ability to fight the enemy front-line in teamfights. 'q' ignoring substantial enemy armor when the enemy is in spirit fire allows nasus to kill tanks (and lifesteal off them), but because the enemy tanks must be in the spirit fire, it forces both sides to position correctly.

Thoughts?

I think this kit is one that would make Nasus both more fun to play as and more fun to play against.