Nasus and his Gameplay Pattern

Skias·Mar 6, 2015·18 votes·3,656 views

Maybe some in Riot can elaborate, but with their current design philosophy, why is Nasus allowed to keep a gameplay pattern that encourages him to not interact with his team or opponents?

His basic pattern encourages him to ignore his opponent through lane phase with is about 15-20mins of the game, then encourages him to continue farming, which means he doesn't assist the team through midgame skirmishes.

Now, I understand that there are some Nasus players that run teleport and do show up for things, but I think we can admit that the greater number do not. What is Riot's opinion on this and what can be done to encourage Nasus to leave his lane and help or to actively fight his opponent?

He's dreadfully boring to fight, what can be done to change that without ruining his core character?

65 Comments

Sailor MintMar 6, 20159 votes

It's a player perception issue and probably the hardest thing to understand about Nasus (or any top laner).

It's okay to sacrifice stacks/farm to help your team (personal judgment is important).
If someone else on your team is fed, you don't need a ton of stacks/farm to be useful.
Top laners are not always expected to carry games.

With lane swaps not being a thing in SoloQ, Nasus shouldn't be seen or played any differently than any other split push oriented top laners.

lojicianMar 6, 20156 votes

Op's point isn't that he has a problem with a champion staying top. His point is that he has a problem with a champion that plays solitaire and doesn't give his opponent a window to "beat" him.

SkiasMar 6, 20151 votes

Basically this. I'm not saying that a Nasus doesn't exist that does the above. I'm saying without tons of games under your belt -> most soloQ games, his kit Encourages being afk top. Even laning against him is very unengaging. His lifesteal passive could also be more interesting.

EedatMar 7, 20152 votes

Nasus has plenty of a window to beat him. His early game is extremely weak. He has no ability to reliably poke. His Q is very weak early. He can't spam E or he will OOM very quickly and won't be able to Q stack. Champions like GP, Riven, Panth, Darius, Olaf, Teemo, Trundle, Rumble, Lissandra or Ryze can harass/out-trade him out of lane very easily. A lot of mistakes players make is that they also shove their wave while harassing him and give him free farm under tower. This also leaves them vulnerable for ganks. Stand at the front of your minion wave and harass him whenever he goes in for a Q stack. He can't out trade you early, especially when he is trying to use his main damage ability on minions all the time. Yes, there will be a point where you may not be able to duel him anymore, but he is sacrificing early game strength for late game power.

Steal My NameMar 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Nasus has plenty of a window to beat him. His early game is extremely weak. He has no ability to reliably poke. His Q is very weak early. He can't spam E or he will OOM very quickly and won't be able to Q stack. Champions like GP, Riven, Panth, Darius, Olaf, Teemo, Trundle, Rumble, Lissandra or Ryze can harass/out-trade him out of lane very easily. A lot of mistakes players make is that they also shove their wave while harassing him and give him free farm under tower. This also leaves them vulnerable for ganks. Stand at the front of your minion wave and harass him whenever he goes in for a Q stack. He can't out trade you early, especially when he is trying to use his main damage ability on minions all the time. Yes, there will be a point where you may not be able to duel him anymore, but he is sacrificing early game strength for late game power.

Unlimited late game power. It doesn't matter how well you do against a Nasus in lane. He will eventually get to the point where he's tanky as hell (because literally every item he has built is a tank item save for trinity force) yet he does more damage than anybody on your team. Nobody can 1v1 him at that point, and few teams even have the tools to 2v1 him without him still getting a kill, simply because of how tanky he is. Other champions have to build damage to do damage, and when they don't, people complain that they're broken. He is capable of doing insane amounts of damage to towers while barely taking any himself - he's a champion that requires so many of your team's resources to deal with, that the rest of Nasus's team can do whatever they please in the meantime. Other pushers and burst-melees can be killed, other tanks can be kited, Nasus gets the best of both worlds.

They should make his Q work like Thresh's souls - infinite stacking, but diminishing returns, with an ideal threshold (no pun intended) for his stacks at a certain point in the game. There is no reason why a champion who builds no damage should have the same DPS as someone who did - otherwise, what is even the point?

I don't want Nasus to be gutted and unplayable. I want him to be fair. Every champion in a competitive PvP game should be fair.

EedatMar 7, 20152 votes

Unlimited power if the game goes past 50 minutes. If Nasus wants to do nothing but farm top lane early, then use that to take the rest of the map. Or pick any of the dozen of champions that crushes him early. Using your logic, Veigar is OP because he also has unlimited late game power....

Steal My NameMar 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Unlimited power if the game goes past 50 minutes. If Nasus wants to do nothing but farm top lane early, then use that to take the rest of the map. Or pick any of the dozen of champions that crushes him early. Using your logic, Veigar is OP because he also has unlimited late game power....

There is a reason Veigar was just nerfed. I believe full-heartedly that Veigar was OP, and I still believe that infinite stacking is OP - it's only acceptable on Thresh because he doesn't get armor per level, and acceptable on Sion because of his low base health. Their infinite stackings come with compromises in the rest of their kit.

You have to answer Nasus. He doesn't need to farm for 50 minutes to be a threat. If he stays top and goes Tryndamere mode, he can easily take your towers and inhibitors by himself. If he decides to join the teamfights, he can absorb all the damage you can ask of a tank - and you have to answer it, because otherwise he'll stroll straight to your backline and 1 or 2-shot one of your carries. Again, carries that spent the whole game building damage, because that's what is expected of them. Nasus, who built none, outdamages them. Just like Tryndamere, he is incredibly good at pushing because almost nobody can 1v1 him - and if you send more than one person to stop him from taking your base, that leaves the rest of his team at an advantage.

It's not hard to completely avoid the enemy team and farm all game as Nasus, and then come out of the fog of war and stomp all over your team like Godzilla. You CAN fight people early and mid-game as Nasus, and if you're having a problem against your lane as Nasus, all you need to do is call your jungle to babysit - he doesn't even have to get a kill out of it, because as has been pointed out multiple times, Nasus doesn't have to interact with the enemy team at all to get fed. He is a PvE champion in a PvP game. That just isn't fair.

EedatMar 7, 20152 votes

sooooooooooooooooooo many things wrong with this.

I believe full-heartedly that Veigar was OP

I don't even.... not even going to bother arguing this

If he stays top and goes Tryndamere mode, he can easily take your towers and inhibitors by himself.

yet a mid-late game Trydamere will out duel him (provided ult is up) and is a better split pusher for his duel potential and ability to escape over walls etc. Speaking of which, Nasus has no escape what-so-ever. You are acting like he is completely unkillable. If Nasus continually is just shoving lanes and towers, he is putting himself at risk of dying. He is not this unkillable god you keep implying he is

because otherwise he'll stroll straight to your backline and 1 or 2-shot one of your carries.

Except Nasus has no gap closer? If you just let Nasus stroll through your entire team without CCing him, that's entirely your fault. Again, you are acting like he is completely immortal. If a mid/late game Nasus trys to just waltz through a team of 5, he will get shredded in just a few seconds.

Nasus, who built none, outdamages them.

Except he doesn't? Lets assume its getting late in the game and he has 600 stacks. Going to point out the fact that 90% of games are over before this happens, but lets just assume. How is having a 110+600 damage melee auto attack on a 4 second cooldown the same as having 400 damage twice per second on a ranged auto attack? It isn't. Not to mention the ADC is going to have way more armor pen which skews the numbers even more in their favor.

and if you send more than one person to stop him from taking your base, that leaves the rest of his team at an advantage.

So how about the massive advantage the other team gets while Nasus apparently never leaves top lane the entire game? How about just kill him since he is always over extended apparently? Again, he is not immortal.

then come out of the fog of war and stomp all over your team like Godzilla.

Maybe you should invest in some wards yeah? Choosing to fight in a location where you have no ward coverage is your own fault. Even then, he has to walk up to your carries through the CC of the team.

and if you're having a problem against your lane as Nasus, all you need to do is call your jungle to babysit

You could say that about any champ, any match up, any situation. Problem is is that the jungler needs to do things like farm and create pressure around the whole map. Top lane is also by far the most ignored lane. It's called 'the island' for a reason. So ok, the jungler just sits in a bush top lane and falls massively behind in gold and experience and is now worthless. Logic. So now the enemy jungler notices that the other jungler isn't leaving top so he comes and counterganks. Since Nasus is weak early, and the enemy jungler is now worthless and massively behind in levels, who do you think is going to win?

Steal My NameMar 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

sooooooooooooooooooo many things wrong with this.

I don't even.... not even going to bother arguing this

yet a mid-late game Trydamere will out duel him (provided ult is up) and is a better split pusher for his duel potential and ability to escape over walls etc. Speaking of which, Nasus has no escape what-so-ever. You are acting like he is completely unkillable. If Nasus continually is just shoving lanes and towers, he is putting himself at risk of dying. He is not this unkillable god you keep implying he is

Except Nasus has no gap closer? If you just let Nasus stroll through your entire team without CCing him, that's entirely your fault. Again, you are acting like he is completely immortal. If a mid/late game Nasus trys to just waltz through a team of 5, he will get shredded in just a few seconds.

Except he doesn't? Lets assume its getting late in the game and he has 600 stacks. Going to point out the fact that 90% of games are over before this happens, but lets just assume. How is having a 110+600 damage melee auto attack on a 4 second cooldown the same as having 400 damage twice per second on a ranged auto attack? It isn't. Not to mention the ADC is going to have way more armor pen which skews the numbers even more in their favor.

So how about the massive advantage the other team gets while Nasus apparently never leaves top lane the entire game? How about just kill him since he is always over extended apparently? Again, he is not immortal.

Maybe you should invest in some wards yeah? Choosing to fight in a location where you have no ward coverage is your own fault. Even then, he has to walk up to your carries through the CC of the team.

You could say that about any champ, any match up, any situation. Problem is is that the jungler needs to do things like farm and create pressure around the whole map. Top lane is also by far the most ignored lane. It's called 'the island' for a reason. So ok, the jungler just sits in a bush top lane and falls massively behind in gold and experience and is now worthless. Logic. So now the enemy jungler notices that the other jungler isn't leaving top so he comes and counterganks. Since Nasus is weak early, and the enemy jungler is now worthless and massively behind in levels, who do you think is going to win?

If you spend all of your CC on Nasus, then good job. You just focused and wasted all of your CC on the tank. Have fun while his team's carries do exactly what he was about to do instead.

Tryndamere being able to out-duel him means nothing, pretty much everybody here who has mentioned him seems to be in agreement that Tryndamere is OP. Invulnerability is OP. So is the absurd amount of free stats that Nasus gets.

Not 4 seconds. 2.4 seconds. If you're not maxing CDR as Nasus, you're building him wrong. Also, don't act like Nasus isn't one of the hardest counters to ADCs in the game, there's no "in their favor" unless it's a hyper-fed vayne or kog'maw.

He is basically immortal. The only people who can survive a duel against him are tanks, and they don't have the damage to kill him. Again, because he doesn't need to build damage to do damage.

Nasus is not "weak" early game. Only a couple champions in the game can keep him from farming. Since he's a tank, he doesn't NEED to have a billion stacks to be useful. His Q isn't his entire kit, it's just a MASSIVE bonus on top of an already decent kit. Nasus starts the game with more sustain than a vamp scepter gives, allowing him to sit under tower and farm all day. If you stand on his minions and harass him away from them, you're eventually going to end up pushed to the tower. Denying him stacks doesn't automatically beat him, and a half-decent Nasus player knows how to get stacks despite the efforts of the enemy team.

You seem to be operating under the assumption that Nasus doesn't know how to play Nasus, yet the enemy team knows how to play against him. Nasus players know what counters them, and how to completely avoid that until there's simply too many stats on him for anyone to do anything to him.

Look at this. Name all the champions that are capable of doing this, at any point in the game - tanking an entire team and dishing out the damage to kill them - and tell me that those champions aren't completely broken. An entire team of people didn't have the resources to kill a single champion solely because of his absurd amount of stats.

Again, it is never fun to play against Nasus. There is no outplaying him, just poking him in lane and hoping that he's too stupid to know how to deal with it. Pretty much every game I've seen a Nasus lose, it was because of his team. Even though your PvE god tank/dps/pusher isn't strong enough to carry four complete morons, he's still completely busted.

"I don't even.... not even going to bother arguing this" - Then I'll argue it. Amumu gets an instant AoE root on his ult. Veigar had an instant AoE stun on a basic ability, and was able to literally kill people from full health to nothing with a single point and click ability. Veigar was OP. Deal with it. Inb4 "Oh he had no escape" or "oh he had to wait for his cooldowns before instantly nullifying 20% of the enemy team again".

EedatMar 7, 20152 votes

Name all the champions that are capable of doing this, at any point in the game

LOL OK:

http://youtu.be/NaPLXAJu6H8

RENGAR OP

http://youtu.be/FFQwJ6sGAwI

KENNEN OP

http://youtu.be/-2kEaf_0XfI

KAYLE OP

http://youtu.be/JzAZQQHZv28

YI OP TRIST OP JINX OP

http://youtu.be/rA3xO-MNaQk

CORKI OP EZREAL OP ZED OP! LOOK! HE 1V5 PENTAKILLED THE TEAM WITH A NASUS! WHAT A GOD! JAX OP DRAVEN OP YASUO OP

You want me to continue or do you realize how utterly pointless it is to point at one example as a normal?

Steal My NameMar 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

LOL OK:

http://youtu.be/NaPLXAJu6H8

RENGAR OP

http://youtu.be/FFQwJ6sGAwI

KENNEN OP

http://youtu.be/-2kEaf_0XfI

KAYLE OP

http://youtu.be/JzAZQQHZv28

YI OP TRIST OP JINX OP

http://youtu.be/rA3xO-MNaQk

CORKI OP EZREAL OP ZED OP! LOOK! HE 1V5 PENTAKILLED THE TEAM WITH A NASUS! WHAT A GOD! JAX OP DRAVEN OP YASUO OP

You want me to continue or do you realize how utterly pointless it is to point at one example as a normal?

Oh hey, look, you completely ignored a very important part of what I said. almost none of those champions were TANKING THE WHOLE TEAM while doing their damage. The ezreal one definitely wasn't a 1v5, yi killed them all one by one while taking no damage, kayle was cleaning up a low-health team in her own base while full health (also I already said that invulnerability is OP). If they tried just walking into five people and doing what Nasus can do, they would be killed before they could do anything. Once again, it's no the fact that NASUS DOES DAMAGE that's OP, it's that he GETS TOO MUCH DAMAGE FOR FREE. He is perfectly free to build one way, and get a second build's DPS for free.

You people are so freaking dense when it comes to your own champions. A nerf wouldn't kill Nasus and make him unplayable. All they would have to do is make his Q give him less damage per minions, or implement diminishing returns like Thresh. Even when I love a champion and have fun playing them, I'm perfectly willing to admit when they're OP. There are 123 champions in this game, and too few of them are even remotely viable because people are too terrified of their favorites being changed to even consider that there's a problem.

dunder killMar 7, 20152 votes

Dude, are you really "so freaking dense"? You argue that he can tank an entire teams worth of damage. The reverse argument can be made for any of these examples?

"hurr durr these champs can dodge an entire teams worth of damage with absolutely no defensive items"

I can't believe I'm having an arguement with someone who actually thinks Nasus is OP. His kit has major trade offs. All of his damage is stacked onto one ability that he needs to be in melee range to use. He doesnt have a gap closer to bridge the gap. His early game is pathetically weak no matter how much you try to argue it. If you can't beat a Nasus in lane with Pantheon, Fiora, Teemo, Trydamere, Darius, Lissandra, Rumble, Ryze, Trundle, Shyv, Quinn, or any of the vast majority of top laners that dump on him early, thats your own fault. Maybe instead of blaming Nasus for being "OP", you should figure out what you were doing wrong

EedatMar 7, 20151 votes

+1'd

Steal My NameMar 8, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Dude, are you really "so freaking dense"? You argue that he can tank an entire teams worth of damage. The reverse argument can be made for any of these examples?

"hurr durr these champs can dodge an entire teams worth of damage with absolutely no defensive items"

I'm not saying that they're balanced, there's a good reason why most of those champions are top tier. This discussion isn't about them. My point is, and has been during this entire discussion, that Nasus gets too many free stats. Being dumped on early is completely irrelevant when the early game only makes up about ten minutes of a game that frequently reaches between thirty and forty minutes, and sometimes up to an hour. All of that time can be spent by Nasus farming as he sees fit, and then kill pretty much anybody despite being "dumped on". While there are plenty of things you can do wrong against Nasus, there are far too few things you can do right.

80% of the time Nasus loses, it's because of his team. That's because his response to everything is to ignore all interaction with the enemy. If, while he is doing this, you aren't able to frantically push down to the nexus and destroy it within 15 minutes, then God help you, "you shouldn't have let Nasus farm".

EedatMar 8, 20152 votes

80% of the time Nasus loses, it's because of his team.

gotta love those "facts" based on absolutely nothing

Steal My NameMar 8, 20151 votes

{quoted}

gotta love those "facts" based on absolutely nothing

It's my own observation. I don't really care if you believe me. Whether you agree with my opinion or not, I think that Nasus is an unfun champion who needs to be changed. Yeah, he's not the only one who needs to be changed, and he's probably not the most overpowered champion in the game, but that doesn't change how I feel about him. People here only ever want other peoples' champions to be nerfed, and God forbid somebody express a different opinion around them.

EedatMar 8, 20151 votes

Maybe if he wasn't in top lane farming the whole game his team wouldn't be getting dumped on when its 5v4 in the rest of the map. BTW I'm a jungle main he's not "my champion".

ArknaMar 7, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Steal My Name,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=c2AyIB4q,comment-id=0001000000010000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-03-07T23:14:56.610+0000)

Oh hey, look, you completely ignored a very important part of what I said. almost none of those champions were TANKING THE WHOLE TEAM while doing their damage.

Enemy team was taking baron damage, their CC was taken out under 3 seconds into the fight, Draven stood in melee with Nasus, Talon had under 40% at the start of the fight, and rengar was obviously built full tank and ate a full rotation from lux at the end, plus got hit by her ult.

dunder killMar 7, 20153 votes

Nasus is not "weak" early game

Dude, he is extremely weak early game. He gets bullied by almost every top laner.

hoping that he's too stupid to know how to deal with it

there isnt anything he can do about it. Either he eats a ton of damage to get a single stack or he hugs turret and hope the enemy laner pushes

SkiasMar 6, 20151 votes

Yeah, I get what you mean. You have to admit though, most Nasus players in SoloQ aren't concerned about any of that. Riot has already said that Teleport is extremely overbearing right now, so I don't know if he would get picked less with a weaker teleport. What do you think?

lojicianMar 6, 20157 votes

Riot used to make a big deal about how the laning phase was one of the important parts of their game and gives players individual agency but I think their new balance team has changed philosophy. They do things like buff teleport specifically to let bad laners survive more easily and they don't care about balancing lane matchups, letting ranged champions faceroll all over melees. They've basically made it so the optimal strategy is to noncommittally farm top on something that scales well and wait to make an lc$ teleport play. Meaning if you want top lane to be a skill oriented kill island like it was at some points in the past I think the ship has sailed.

SkiasMar 6, 20151 votes

Yeah, I see what you mean. It would be nice if he was rewarded for attacking his opponent. Give him some sort of passive that requires him to hit you with his AoE to trigger a dot and then if he Qs you in that window he gets a stack. Maybe boost stack power a bit because it's more challenging to do.

lojicianMar 7, 20152 votes

I think it's possible for a "cop and nasus" lane to actually be fun where you're chasing him around and trying to harass him while he's running away and trying to mitigate damage while outscaling you. It's just that the current combination of his sustain and teleport means he gets to the point where he doesn't have to care about mitigating and can just tank and heal through harass.

Also I wouldn't want "cop and nasus" to be the main laning pattern instead of "two guys trying to kill each other", just something specific to the champion. Thing is right now a lot of other champions are sit tight, farm, and scale laners like irelia and mao. Passivity is too incentivized in general.

Btw somewhere else you said riot admitted tp was overbearing right now. Can you link that? My impression was they were perfectly content leaving top a passive farmfest for the teleport plays.

N30NP4NDAMar 7, 20153 votes

OMFG you liked the veiger change didnt you? Cuz thats the stupid shit that makes veigar so boring now.

Only Play DariusMar 6, 20154 votes

Nasus is my main top laner, and you sound like a salty player that plays only champs with super strong early games or ranged tops so you can cripple the enemy CS and collect your free win.

You remind me of this one Quinn top I fought. As expected, she harassed me nonstop, took my turret 6 minutes in, said "GG skrub" in /allchat, then pretty much left lane for the rest of the game.

Fast forward 20 minutes and I have 400 stacks, am 3 levels ahead of her, and my item 3075 is killing her for me while I am sieging the inhibitor turret. And she is crying in /allchat.

Just stop about Nasus. If you want to cry about an old-ass champ with a toxic gameplay pattern, go complain about Tryndamere , I actually believe he needs to be removed from the game.

SkiasMar 6, 20155 votes

I was going to try and have a productive conversation with you, but you're very insulting and it looks like you'll be downvoted into oblivion anyways. This is all friendly Nasus talk here, no need to be a jerk.

Only Play DariusMar 6, 20153 votes

Nasus pays for his late-game power with immense struggles early game, and cannot help his team midgame. There are other champs that rival nasus late game power without paying for it as much as he does.

He also has zero mobility of any sort.

DJ Di0Mar 7, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Jelly Mac,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=c2AyIB4q,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2015-03-06T23:30:02.309+0000)

Nasus pays for his late-game power with immense struggles early game, and cannot help his team midgame. There are other champs that rival nasus late game power without paying for it as much as he does.

He also has zero mobility of any sort.

With all the nerfs to toplaners, buff to teleport, and changes to the level-up stat formula, it's a lot harder for someone to completely shut down a Nasus early unless you're Pantheon and then go around the map and end the game in about 25 minutes. If you don't accomplish this, odds are Nasus will just stack stack stack freely and destroy anyone that bullied him pre-level 4.

KonidiasMar 7, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Jelly Mac,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=c2AyIB4q,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2015-03-06T23:30:02.309+0000)

Nasus pays for his late-game power with immense struggles early game, and cannot help his team midgame. There are other champs that rival nasus late game power without paying for it as much as he does.

He also has zero mobility of any sort.

Early game "struggles" being he can't dominate lane and instead just passively farms and sustains until he is an unstoppable beast in the late game?

I really don't see how that makes it fair that he can 1v5 the enemy team. I hear this a lot from tanky top laners who scale in the late game... Nobody is throwing you a pity party for your weak early game... and nobody feels like you earned the power you got by late game... Nasus is lame all around. There is nothing about his play style that requires any form of skill or strategy... you literally just put on your overalls and farm stacks until you are strong enough to wreck everyone.

Playing Nasus is just like a gamble that your team won't throw before late game... if your team can survive, you are handed a free win, basically.

An undeserved, unearned, free win.

Unless you can somehow explain to me how it's so hard to farm stacks as Nasus? Oh no, Quinn is harassing me! Whatever shall I do?!? Oh I know, buy a few cheap armor items and pots and just sustain and tower farm my stacks until her AA is doing 1% damage to me per hit.

Only Play DariusMar 7, 20151 votes

I am playing top nasus teambuilder on my smurf as we speak, i have lost the past 3 games. I can get 600 stacks by 35 minutes, but I can't 3v1 because they just hit me with all the knockup and ults they have. Then they proceed to wreck my team.

Nasus being Nasus, will be pretty much farming top entire game. Gank him as a team, then proceed to win the ensuing 4v5.

SkiasMar 7, 20154 votes

The point of this conversation is going right over your head. The point is, there is a better way to implement him. Force him to fight his opponent to build stacks. Give him a reason to chase more people.

SkiasMar 7, 20153 votes

Not much of a need for mobility when you remove your opponents with a massive unmissable 90% movement reduction.

Chaotic ReksMar 6, 20153 votes

go back to COD kid

SkiasMar 6, 20152 votes

Nice man, productive addition to the conversation.

Chaotic ReksMar 7, 20151 votes

not even, just trying to be an unlikable douche

SkiasMar 7, 20151 votes

Good job?

shark musicMar 7, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Jelly Mac,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=c2AyIB4q,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-03-06T21:38:56.151+0000)

Just stop about Nasus. If you want to cry about an old-ass champ with a toxic gameplay pattern, go complain about , I actually believe he needs to be removed from the game.

This. Tryndamere is the cheesiest character in LoL by a long shot.

SkiasMar 7, 20152 votes

I never said that he wasn't. But this conversation isn't about Tryndamere .

Steal My NameMar 7, 20154 votes

Nasus is not punished for building all tank. He is a tank who gets an entire build's DPS for free, all on one ability with an incredibly short cooldown.

Let's pretend that Nasus's Q didn't stack upon minion kills, and only had its base damage to go off of. At max rank, it is adding 110 damage to his total AD. Compare this to Jax, who actually has to build damage to do damage. Nasus's Siphoning Strike has a four second cooldown to Empower's three seconds. Assuming that Jax has a trinity force, his W is only doing 88 more damage than Nasus's Q. Jax is a champion who is rewarded for jumping into dangerous situations, his E and ult are there to keep him alive because his build prioritizes damage before tank stats. Even with this additional survivability, Jax can be outplayed, and he can be killed. It is within the realm of possibility to 2v1 a late-game Jax without somebody dying. Nasus's Q with zero stacks is doing a fairly close amount of damage to Jax's E, and this is on a tank.

Now let's add back all those stacks we conveniently forgot about. Assume Nasus has 400 stacks, and now his Q (with basically the same cooldown as Jax's E) is doing 312 more damage than Empower. Assume it's 600 stacks, and that Nasus has a Trinity Force. With 119 base AD, Nasus just hit you for 987 damage, before armor reduction. This is on a champion who has built basically nothing but health and resistances, whose build path conveniently allows him to build CDR as well. This champion will only become more and more of a problem as the game goes on. You can't stop him from farming, because he can and will just ignore you as OP pointed out.

Nasus gets an entire build's worth of damage for free, on a single ability with a ridiculously short cooldown (2.4 seconds with 40% CDR). He still gets the same amount of gold for farming as everyone else does, he's just given twice the reward. Everyone in the game needs gold, Nasus does nothing special to get the benefits he gets. He is a great tank, thanks to his instant 600 HP boost and a stronger version of exhaust (with a 1.6 second down time with 40% cdr, coincidentally making him impossible to escape). He can also one-shot your carries just as effectively as a LeBlanc, who has half his health and a third of his armor/MR.

This champion simply gets way too much for free. This is a problem that all of the most broken champions have (cough Riven cough) and needs to be addressed. The only reason Nasus isn't played competitively is because it takes LCS-level coordination to prevent him from single-handedly winning the game, something that's quite conveniently present in LCS games and absent from solo-queue.

EDIT: Unless you're Rumble... but Rumble is Rumble. EDIT 2: Let's not forget his passive, as well. A flat life-steal bonus, giving him the equivalent of a free vampiric scepter, which becomes two free vampiric scepters later on. Even more free stats that make a champion designed to sit and farm all game have an even easier time doing so.

SkiasMar 7, 20154 votes

His ult is completely automatic reward as well. If Jax's ult is meant to keep him alive, Nasus' does it better as well. A giant pile of HP and and AoE shred.

Kitten of EvilMar 6, 20153 votes

It is difficult to prevent a Nasus from getting stacks, especially once laning phase is over and/or he has Sheen. You just cannot stop him from free-farming, even if you beat him in lane and poke him whenever he goes in to Q.

SkiasMar 6, 20153 votes

Doesn't it feel like you are wrong, no matter what choice you make? You stay top and your team has to fight without you. You fall asleep and lose the game. If you head mid-map to help your team, he blows down two towers.

Kitten of EvilMar 7, 20152 votes

Yeah, I often have that problem with top-laning, but going against Nasus is the worst for that.

Ice Cold WazMar 7, 20153 votes

I think the lane interaction problem with Nasus is that for newer or inexperienced players they will be fine with not fighting and let him AFK farm up. Nasus' lane interaction is that you as his opponent have to realize that to beat him you have to bully the shit out of him early, (Maybe ask for a jungle gank) and then press your advantage.

For instance, I hate scaling champs because personally I feel like they are ticking time bombs just waiting to carry their teams.

Recently, I decided to play Hec top because I'm a huge fan of the horse and got matched with a Nasus top. Needless to say I was scared shitless but I had one gank where we forced a flash and for the rest of the match I harassed him. Oh, you're going to Q, lemme Q you back and attack a bit. You out trade him and after continuing to force these trades I was able to kill him multiple times and continuously push him back all the way to his inhib turret.

MAIN POINT: NASUS counterplay is in his opponent knowing they have to bully him and give him a tough lane, and new players don't know this.

SkiasMar 7, 20153 votes

But that in itself is flawed. As an opponent, that is extremely unengaging and super boring. He is encouraged to ignore you and given free damage and lifesteal to shrug you off.

UnSeenDeath88Mar 8, 20152 votes

What if the nasus sits back far enough where he is only soaking xp?

For me every matchup against Nasus recently leads to me getting strong enough I automatically push the lane, so he now farms under tower with 20-30% CDR, now I have to be the one to play passive in lane, because if he uses wither, spirit fire, ult I'm dead. So since I'm fed cause I've only been out of lane 2-3 times just long enough to buy so he isn't farming alone for too long I'm fed by a level or 2 and I have a lead in CS over most everybody, now it's my job to roam and help the team, what's Nasus got to do? He farms for another 15 minutes getting 200 stacks now he can almost 1 shot a squishy champ. And my team can't end because while I'm trying to slow Nasus down, bot lane fed super hard, and mid lane and jungle went even.

Yea you might beat Nasus in lane, but it seems to me if his team can draw the game out to 40 minutes he's going to be strong and super tanky. I've seen 5 people chase nasus all the way down a lane and almost not get him killed before he gets to safety.

Slamurai JackMar 8, 20153 votes

Im my mind, playing, and especially laning against a Nasus is infuriating because his lane win condition is, "The wave pushes far enough that the enemey laner can't all in me without going into tower range." Because once it reaches that point, he just heals everything back and you have no hope of denying him stacks anymore without help. Not that he's the only one with a retarded laning phase; Tryndamere, "build full fury and then win the lane off a couple BS crits." and Vladimir "I got my revolver without feeding." are both pretty retarded as well.

But, Nasus is still worse than either of them because not only does he win lane extremely easily because of his stupidly easy lane win condition, he also gets massively rewarded for doing so because he gets disproportionately more value for each CS than any other champion. Tbh, if Nasus didn't have such a meh kit other than that, he would be the most broken champion in the game. I don't even think Nasus is OP, just extremely annoying to deal with an a solo q environment. I've seen many Nasus players state that you beat Nasus by beating his team, and thats a totally valid weakness. It's just extremely frustrating as a top laner to know that I don't really have that much control over my own fate.

Doktor XMar 6, 20151 votes

I'm not sure I agree with the premise: that his lack of interactivity with his team or opponents is a bad thing. It's just his niche. That said, sometimes when I play Nasus, this comes back to bite me when the enemy top laner joins his team and forces 5v4s around the map.

Now, if you accept the premise that he needs more interactivity, what if using Siphoning Strike on champions gave him 2 stacks (instead of 3 for a minion kill). It would encourage Nasus to fight the enemy top laner. He'd require a nerf elsewhere, maybe a reduction in his passive lifesteal? If you want to make his passive more interesting, you could reduce his lifesteal against minions.

A Slime AppearsMar 7, 20155 votes

I don't think "makes the game boring for the enemy laner for 20 minutes" is a niche we should have in a PvP game. If all I wanted to do was PvM there are many other games that would be much better options.