Honestly, patch 5.16 was the biggest "Fuck You" riot could've done to Nasus

His winrate saw an immediate drop by 4% from 51% to 47% in 5.16 alone, it went down to 46% in 5.17 but that was likely due to his Qs bug.

5.16 saw a huge buff to the fighter class and as not only just a Nasus main but a fighter player in general, I was ecstatic about this. Finally, after 3 freaking years, the class of fighters can finally be viable again. But in that same sense, as a Nasus main, I realized what this meant.

Fighters are traditionally very good against Nasus because they can beat him down pretty hard in lane and then snowball while he's trying to catch back up. Is this a problem overall? Yes and no, but mostly no. The few problems I have with this are that Nasus wasn't compensated for the frozen heart nerfs like other true tanks were, when quite frankly, as a champion with no innate defensive steroids, could've probably used it over all of them. And the other part is Nasus has lost his role.

Nasus is a mid game champ but he was also one of the few bruisers who could be very threatening late game if he got farmed enough, not to mention he's fairly versatile since he's more than just a dive bot. He's good at anti-tanking front lines because of his E and ults %HP burn, he's average at peel but again very good anti-tank mechanics for his carry. He was a massive split push force to be reckoned with. He had his uses and he had his roles, and that was fine. But that's all been nerfed one way or another or now, with new items and direct kit changes, juggernauts are doing it way better.

When top lane was full of tanks who could perform well with farm, Nasus has no issues with this. They couldn't threaten him in lane and he was more relevant than they were mid game where he'd be just as tabky but do way more damage. Late game tanks were better because they could peel him easier, were much tankier and and offered more utility. At this point Nasus would split push, that's how he remained relevant when he couldn't really teamfight anymore. He had his roles and uses, never much of a thing in competitive but good enough in solo queue.

But now? He doesn't have a role anymore. He can't lane against bruisers. He is outperformed by them both mid game and late game. Even if he manages to farm or get ahead, it likey comes at the expense of a Jungler living in his lane to help him - why take that risk when you can just play olaf? Jax? Darius? Fiora? Gangplank? Garen? Renekton? They all have items now, they're all allowed to scale now. And that's great, I'm so fucking happy about that, honestly I truly am.

But this is where Nasus' set of heavy nerfs from s3 and s4 are finally catching up to him. You gave these bruisers scaling, you gave them the ability to do more in teamfights than just damage soak. You gave Darius heals to stay alive longer for resets. You gave Garen a mechanic that allows him to fuck something up with almost no damage items. You have gangplank consistency, more depth and more impact. You gave Fiora utility and the ability to defend herself in a fight instead of being an R bot. You gave older bruisers items that allowed them to scale and offer utility or prolong their lives in fights to do more damage. None of this helped Nasus because these items aren't good on him (aside from plate and steraks) or these champions greatly outperform him with it.

In season 3, you nerfed his AS slow - that nerf was needed, it should never be reverted. 95% AS slow is retarded. But you nerfed his sustain, at the time I agreed with it. Dorans shield and LS quints were absurd and Nasus was abusing this in combination with his passive. But you nerfed d-shield. You nerfed LS quints, but you never compensated him for that. At the time it was fine though, you didn't need to. It balanced him. But then you nerfed the range on his wither while releasing 50 more absurdly mobile champs with impassable terrain, hard CC, the whole 9 yards. At the time it was fine, Nasus was the only thing that could be that durable late game while doing that much fucking damage. It balanced him. Since then? There are way better options for picking something to dive carries, they're sticking power is better. There are way safer and better bruisers who will be just as durable and just as strong late game and much more consistent.

See the thing is, last time Nasus was truly bad kinda like he is now, it was season 2. But back then if you managed to get farmed on him, it was fucking GG. The game was simpler, his strengths were made for late game and he had his weaknesses. But since then you've done nothing but take away his strengths and never compensate him for it. There's no reason to play him now, you would be stupid to do so honestly unless it was just love for the champ. He doesn't do much when he gets farmed because others do it better. Why take the risk of playing him now? He's been hit so hard directly and indirectly and 5.16 has finally made it all go full circle with how pointless it has made it to play him since he's been nerfed so hard with zero compensation since any of those buffs but a measly 25 range on Q that bugged him for a whole fucking patch and feels clunky as fuck.

I know the idea of nasus buffs aren't popular on here but I'm telling you now, in a few patches he's going to be considered the worst champion in the game again. I didn't think it would be this bad because I didn't realize how good bruisers would actually end up being and I don't want bruiser nerfs to be stacked on them, it's about damn time they're good. But Nasus needs some of his strengths back that you've stripped him of and never given back while indirectly only shitting on him harder and harder with each patch.

Thanks for the read, that's all I got