Just like Ekko wasn't supposed to be a tank, Nasus isn't supposed to be a lane bully.

The lane bully E max Quasus totally warps what Nasus' gameplay identity is supposed to be. He should be weak in the early game and farm up his Q to then become a splitpushing monster juggernaut in the late game. His early game should be his weakness, not his strength.

What he actually is right now is a lane bully that can destroy a whole minion wave with one E and casually poke his opponent as a side effect. Because the enemy laner would have to not only stay in his spirit fire but also walk into a full minion wave to stop him, Nasus can free farm and poke as he likes.

You'd think that the winrate curve of Nasus would rise as the game progresses but absurdly enough it drops by 4% at the 35 minute mark.

So how would you fix this? After looking at his kit I think I found what is so strong about his E - it's the flat armor reduction that it has. The reason why flat armor pen was reworked into lethality is because it was too strong in the early game and Nasus' E takes that to a whole new level. At level 9 spirit fire will reduce the enemy's armor by 40, that's two old Youmuu's Ghostblades not even 10 minutes into the game. Even worse, because minions have 0 armor, the 40 flat reduction will make him deal 1/3 bonus physical damage against them at max rank.

So instead of being 20-40 flat armor reduction, I say let's make it 12-20% of the target's armor instead. This will a) make it so that he doesn't deal bonus damage against minions anymore since there is no armor to penetrate, b) not make it an early game spell anymore but something that excels in the late game and c) make it an anti-tank shred spell instead of an anti-squishy shred spell. Nasus is a frontliner and a Juggernaut, so it just makes sense that he would have more percentage penetration to deal with the enemy frontline instead of having flat penetration to deal with the enemy squishies. Flat pen is nothing that a Juggernaut should really have, it's more of an assassin and skirmisher stat.

This would bring his power curve back to where it should be without nerfing Nasus into the dust.

Let me know what you guys think.