The Reason Nasus Works...

And Darius, Garen, Morde, and Skarner won't.

(TL;DR: at the bottom for those in a rush)

First, we have NASUS. Nasus is one the most balanced champions in the games and successfully captures the "Juggernaut" archetype that Riot is aiming for with the newest set of changes to these other fighters. He has a large set of pros (great scaling damage, sustain, good split pushing and teamfighting, team utility, excellent durability, satisfying gameplay pattern and thematic) and a balanced set of cons (weak early game, can be shut down reasonably well, easily kited, immobile, low CC) which together make playing against him feel challenging but rewarding when you succeed in bullying him during lane phase to keep him down, while as Nasus, he has a distinct and satisfying gameplay pattern that requires a degree of skill and leads to big payoffs when you succeed. He is one of the best balanced, healthiest champions in the game since his pros and cons are clear, but there are ways for a skillful player to still work with and around them.

Now for DARIUS. In general, the changes to Darius are actually quite well done. They toned back his lane bully power by reducing Q's damage and made it easier to itemize against his early damage with armor, and they buffed his late game by giving him tools to both survive through a team fight so he can get off chain alts more reliably. they took a page from Nasus' book and gave Darius a natural way to achieve high late game damage through bloodrage and his true damage ultimate even when built for durability (which is a strength of Nasus that they emulated pretty well), while adding a bit more counterplay to his kit in the form of decreased mobility and slightly more telegraphed abilities. Overall, these all sound like positive changes, right? WRONG. They fail miserably in one extremely blatant way: Darius isn't, and shouldn't be a slow sluggish juggernaut to begin with! these changes will arguably make him much healthier to play as and against, but they are wildly off target for who Darius is. Nasus is an ancient demigod who attains super human levels of durability and damage at the cost of being sluggish like you would expect from a giant, Darius is a cunning, tactical fighter, nothing about him says slow. Deliberate and powerful would be one thing (which old Darius has, immobility and high impact) but downright sluggish and driven by brute rage is simply the opposite of who he is as a character. That's Sion's niche, the Noxian juggernaut with a giant axe who plods through a battlefield smashing all resistance. Darius is precise and calculated. This rework succeeds in terms of balance, but fails abysmally in terms of identity.

On to GAREN. When you think of Garen, you think of a loyal armored brute. Thematically, Garen is a perfect candidate for this style of rework, since he already feels like he ought to fit in alongside Nasus and Mundo as a super tanky late game damage threat. Garen's rework fails in almost the exact opposite fashion to Darius, since his thematic is perfect, but the execution is sloppy. Garen already offers excellent counterplay in the same way Nasus does, but more than half of the changes he received with this PBE patch have been nerfs to his kit in a way that makes him even more easily countered. The reason Nasus is such a successful champion is that he has very clear strengths and weaknesses, but those can also be played around by a skillful player, which allows his success case to feel rewarding. Garen's rework introduces needless complication and nerfs that cripple his ability to achieve anything in a teamfight. The "Villain" passive on his ultimate is genius, and adding that change along would have been all Garen needed to become unique and viable. The E nerf that removes Crit scaling and increases spin rate is understandable and still maintains the goal of giving him high innate damage so that he can get away with a single damage item into full tank (like Nasus and Mundo) and remain relevant (basically, it forces him to rely more on built-in damage than item damage). however, the W changes are nonsensical; killing units doesn't make a knight tankier, buying armor does, so the % increase actually makes much more sense on many levels. Tenacity after cleansing CC and gaining Damage reduction is Garen's only tool that gives him any chance to get anywhere near a target (and anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows that it is already hard as hell to get to a target with the tenacity still there). E's self slow has zero purpose in his kit. Nothing Nasus does hurts himself like this, in fact, his Wither is designed to be a soft gap closer of its own. Riot allowed their emphasis on immobility to spiral out of control. Karen does need a way to prevent him from spinning his lane opponent to death early game, and the simplest way to maintain that restriction without gutting his late game like this is to have the self slow decrease with champion level (starts at something like 30% at level one, decreasing by 5% at level 3/6/9/12/15/18 leaving him at 0% slow through minions late game). This would restrict his bullying without knee-capping him for the whole game. Also, nerving his passive makes no sense when you're whole goal is to emphasize his durability and juggernaut style. This rework should have been the pinnacle of this batch of changes, but the changes are dreadfully uninspired and so timid about his potential power that it handicaps him brutally before he can even get off the ground.

Up next, the Master of Metal, MORDEKAISER. I personally have always thought that Morde belongs in the niche of an extremely high damage/high durability bruiser following in the exact vein that Riot claims to want from these fighters, so I couldn't have been more excited when I saw him on the update page headed "Juggernauts". My disappointment with the changes can't really be explained. I've tried to keep an optimistic outlook on them, but the longer I look, the more I've realized that these changes fail extremely badly at what they are supposed to do.

• First: Riot gave up on his solo laning and essentially banished him to bot lane. I love the idea of making a bruiser bot lane viable, but pushing him there at the expense of his solo laning is unforgivable. You also cannot hide behind the claim that champs like him are inherently unhealthy in a solo lane, because other champs also categorized as "High durability/damage, low mobility/CC" have been proven to work in extremely healthy ways before, notably champs like Nasus and Mundo. Saying he can't be healthy in a solo lane is an absolute copout that only the laziest game designer would ever fall back on.

• Second: Riot took away/gutted everything about him that could make this duo lane gimmick work. Mordekaiser in theory is a genius pick for a bruiser bot lane since he has strong wave clear, sustain, and strong all in damage, which is exactly what he would need in order to be viable bot lane , since he could outpush a standard lane, sustain through ranged harass, and use his special minion exp bonus to outlevel his opponents for a better all in than before. The only problem is they gutted his MS (as if he weren't immobile enough), gutted his shield strength (unless you build super tanky, you have a pathetic max shield capacity), gutted his shield generation (unless you have a lot of damage, you don't get much shield, and the E shield generation buff does not do enough), gutted his waveclear (Q is no longer AoE, E has severely reduced damage, W is useless unless standing right by your support babysitter) they may have buffed his all in damage with Q (seriously, that thing deals astronomical amounts of damage) but drastically nerfed his actual all-in potential by nerving his burst and mobility (Q deals a lot of damage, but takes so many hits to deal that damage that it hardly matters. Where's Sword of the Divine when you need it?)

Mordekaiser's rework fails in execution. the premise is excellent, and the goal is fantastic, bu the changes that have actually been implemented are confused and counter effective to the point of making him even more unviable.

Lastly, we have SKARNER. Ok, show of hands, I can't be the only one who thinks live Skarner is already balanced, fun, and very unique, can I? I thought so. Skarner's rework fails on every level. Thematically, Skarner is a brutal and powerful fighter, not a slow, trudging juggernaut. Second, the across the board nerfs he's receiving are unwarranted and misguided. His "rework" boils down to Riot wanting to add "uniqueness" for uniqueness' sake, even when Skarner is already a very distinct champion (as others have mentioned, he's the "race-car Scorpion that drags unsuspecting victims away to their doom". Nothing about Skarner has ever been "slow and plodding" which is what "juggernaut" implies. Skarner has always been a speedy, sticky, DPS heavy fighter who utilizes his natural steroids to shred the enemy. He actually fits the archetype Riot wants better with NO changes than he does after this gutting. Scarer's rework may succeed thematically to a certain extent, but it does so at the cost of compromising his kit and identity while foisting an artificial identity as an area control jungler on him.

TL;DR: Nasus is a healthy, balanced, and fun example of a juggernaut because he has built in damage and tools to make it to late game, while having clear and natural counterplay in a way that requires skill and strategy from both teams. Darius rework succeeds in matching that play style (if the counterplay is a touch forced) but fails since he shouldn't be a juggernaut to begin with. Garen is a perfect candidate for this rework, but it was executed very poorly and there is now so much artificial counterplay and so many unintuitive and arbitrary changes that it fails. Morde is theoretically perfect for the role Riot is trying to push him towards, but they failed in that they simply gave up on his solo laning, pigeon holing him into bot lane, and then proceeded to gut everything about him that made bot lane Morde a redeemable idea. Skarner succeeds thematically, but does so at the cost of a healthy, balanced, and very fun kit in exchange for a champion that is now a liability to his team without offering rewarding strategic play.