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Ideas about Nasus.

The Tang Meister·12/23/2015, 6:58:46 AM·1 votes·950 views

I came up with a few ideas about Nasus recently and I'd like to get some feedback on them. I don't want this to just be a qq thread about just how OP he is, though inevitably that attitude and behavior will likely end up here. So, I ask the people who are willing to contribute to the conversation to stick with me and see what kind of discussion we can get going about them.

First, I'd like to highlight exactly what I think is unbalanced about him. Secondly I'll provide my reasons for those and lastly I'll give my thought up solutions to what I consider are problems with him.

1a) I'll start with the obvious first and say the infinite stacking on Siphoning Strike. 2a) His sustain in lane without having to buy sustain items. 3a) The armor shred on his E and painfully long slow from Wither. (I have a reason as to why I grouped these two up under one item. Please keep reading if you're curious.)

Now for why I think these particular attributed create a recipe for an unbalanced champion.

1b) Theoretical infinite scaling is, at least to me, a fundamentally flawed mechanic to have in a game that seeks to balance itself. I know there are drawbacks to this mechanic. Weak early to mid game, ability to snowball other lanes since there is a condition to be met for the scaling to happen, etc etc. This would be all well and good if the reward for reaching that point wasn't so exceedingly high. Especially in the case of Nasus. For just having to take harass from your opponent early game while building full tank and gearing towards an unstoppable late game is more than enough to warrant some changes in my eyes. To me, the risk involved with playing him is hardly relevant for the reward.

2b) His sustain. His passive life steal is a rather essential part of his kit, I do see that, however, I do not agree with just how well it works with his kit. Starting out at 10% life steal he already has a higher base life steal than most ADC's with a Doran's blade unless they have life steal quints or points in the Vampirism mastery. And vice versa a summoner can use these runes and masteries while playing Nasus themselves to further increase his sustain to continue to be higher than other champions with items and gold sunk into reaching that kind of sustain. Now I'm not saying that these should be removed outright, not in the slightest. But, I'm saying that the current state of League itself has passively buffed this ability to great heights.

3b) The debuffs from the other parts of his kit. Importantly his E and W. I combined these two into one item to address because I don't think that any of these abilities in of themselves are not anything too overwhelming. But in combination with his massive damage output at 20 minutes and countering the only real way play against him (IE kiting and building armor). Now I don't feel that a total rework is necessary to balance this potent combo out. Maybe a slight nerf or two but not to the point of him being butchered and unusable. I think he could be a promising champ in the current meta that is powerful but at the same time has more viable counter play.

And for last I'll list the solutions I've come up with for these.

1c) A punishment system for his stacking. While it will be hard to kill him where he is at his best. That being the late game with a significant amount of stacks on his Q and enough defense items. The system I have in mind should remove some of his stacks upon death. Thus forcing him to play safer in the late game in order to retain his damage. I came up with the idea to remove 15 stacks per each rank he has in his Q upon death. So at one rank in Q he will lose 15 stacks, 30 at rank 2 and so on. I thought of either a flat or percentage amount on death but I feel like this will hurt him too much. With this method I believe he can still be punished late game but still able to retain his threatening late game.

2c) At first I had trouble coming up with a way to solve his sustain in lane without leaving him unusable. But, after careful thought I came up with this: Don't let his passive life steal proc on his Q. Nerfing the amount of life steal on his passive will hurt his usability too much. But taking away his ability to life steal from a 300 stack empowered Siphoning Strike seems like a very viable way to make him play safer and have him back more often when his health is low. I'm sure some other community members have some ideas about this and I'd love to get some discussion going about them. (And everything else in this post as well.)

3c) Now this is also a bit tricky. Maybe they don't need changes at all but I figured his combo and his kit as a whole was worth mentioning in this post. So I guess I'll leave it at some slight nerfs to the numbers in his abilities. Again, if anyone has some ideas for these please mention them. Maybe a rework is in order, or maybe just some changes to the numbers. But at least to me I think just a slightly longer cooldown on Wither and a slight nerf to the armor shred on Spirit Fire would suffice in conjunction with the other changes I have brought up.

Conclusion and final thoughts.

As I'm sure a lot of the community probably thinks he's in a good spot and has viable counterplay and are likely tired of hearing about "nerf susan rito plz". I think some of these are at least worth bringing up for a community discussion and maybe we can either reach a consensus as to either make some changes to him or to help others play better against him. I apologize if this is just annoying to some of you and I also apologize if this does just end up becoming a Nasus QQ thread. Regardless, I just hope some quality discussion can come from this. Oh, and also sorry about the long post. Wanted to make sure my ideas and reasons were clear.

Cheers and thanks for reading.

21 Comments

SaltyKracka12/23/2015, 7:33:32 AM4 votes

Here are a few things you seem to have missed.

  1. Q stacks don't actually make him a late game God. He's an entirely immobile Melee character who will take at least 4 seconds (two Qs) to kill a squishy and has no hard CC or real innate tankiness. Thus, he's shit in the teamfights that late game tends to revolve around.

  2. He's melee. He should have the sustain he has compared to ADCs, because he has to get right up next to a creep wave to use it.

  3. Without Wither, he's not able to actually fight people. The armor shred on E is far more effective against squishies than it is against armor stackers. And they're both kept in check by his ridiculous mana costs.

Shonjl12/23/2015, 12:12:21 PM2 votes

The biggest thing I felt you may have missed is while Nasus can indeed be overbearing, and one that really knows what to do is unstoppable. There is a reason he is like the bottom 10 champs in the entire game. He is in a similar boat as Vayne where you need to shut her down early to stop her late game by a lot, difference is Nasus if shut down hard enough is gimped the entire game, since say the first 20 are him constantly dead, the game is never going to give him another 20 to be something, unlike Vayne where if she just cs's well and manages a kill or 2 in teamfights or even just living off assists will become relevant fast.

The meta is never with him, almost every single top laner can beat him and be more impactful than him. One of your things you thought was wrong with him was his lifesteal. What top laner doesn't have lifesteal? Garen and Mundo regen like hell, Darius gets chunks back per Q, Irelia has small bits she gets but it adds up fast if you underestimate it, GP gets oranges which even at first rank heal for like 1/5 of his hp. Its kinda hard to say his is bad when there is others that also have similar and they are indeed fine.

His Q takes ages before it becomes meaningful. The average Nasus player barely gets to 300 stacks in a full game when even 300 stacks is low. Even on a 3 second cooldown at max rank, hitting like 400-500 is pretty damn low. In the laning phase when he has negliable stacks, how to lose to him is always a suprise to me. With no stacks he hits roughly 30-80 on Q depending on his stats and who you are, this is also on almost a 10 second cooldown at first rank. So beat the crap out of him when he is pitifully weak.

His Spirit fire is largely not even worth bringing up since it only shreds when you stand in it and even then it barely lasts long. I play Nasus a lot and if people don't just ran out of it instantly, they don't even care about the shred since it only last for like 1 Q, and trust me, that tiny shred isn't making a difference. If that Nasus sucks, it won't help him at all, if its a good Nasus, he would have killed you regardless if he even casted the spell or not. At most its a tiny chunk more of damage for him that he can deal at range.

His Wither is powerful since overall he has literally nothing going for him at all so he needs some raw power. His Q takes a long time to get going and can easily be severely messed up if not permanently ruined by camping him, his Spirit Fire is basically the equivelant to Morde's circle skill that he can easily live without, since it doesn't even mean much when he can use it. Wither isn't even strong til max points when he can perm slow you if you are alone. Until then its not even a strong slow. Not to mention a good amount of top laners don't even AA too much so they don't even care about the AS slow too much and a lot of them can either cleanse the slow or gapclose and dont care about the slow. Sure it sucks when he uses it on an ADC but thats your teams issue not his for stopping him.

I mean, I just don't see when you type him out and such how people can honestly say he is insanely strong when he barely even exist, for good reason. He isn't good. Out of nearly every normals I play, know how many NAsus's I see? 1. And that is me when I want to jungle. No one else ever has played him. There has to be a reason why? Its since he is just garbage since his weaknesses are so big that its easy to ruin him, that if he is allowed to survive them, he should be rewarded heavily for it, which he is.

To compare him to other champs. Veigar scales infinitely but no one complains over him? And his actually is strong, Nasus isn't going to 1 shot you, and has a hard time catching you to even start hurting you, Vie has an easy way to hurt you and can indeed 1 shot you even as a tank. It wasn't uncommon for me to see a tank with item 3065 on and have like 4-5k hp, standard tank build and still get 1 shot by Vie if he had respectable AP for a Vie, which is about 1k by the time teamfights truly become a thing. Ashe perma slows you with literally no chance of escape other than kill her or die but no one complains about that? Sure you can say she is squishy and Nasus isn't, but Ashe is also hitting you for some 300-1000 every half second while Nasus is hitting you for 300-1000 every 3 seconds. Kinda still makes the example apply still. Urgot has an extremely nasty armor shred which works with BC which he can follow up with an unavoidable very nasty poke. He isn't even played much less complained about. Thats 3 examples of champs that do what he does but why they don't get whined at but Nasus does?

Nasus just isn't strong, that is what it comes down to. If people are losing to him, they are doing something very wrong, not his character being wrong. He is doing his job just well and if you(general you, not you in perticular OP, seems people take offense even though its clear I mean as in you the player) allow him to smash you then grave mistakes were made.

Sneakyy XD12/23/2015, 12:33:09 PM2 votes

Moving some power around is fine. Straight up nerfing an already underpowered champion is not.

Ale non è male12/23/2015, 12:36:59 PM2 votes

When someone post a thread about balance, he/she should have an idea about what does balance mean

I guess you have not grasped that idea yet if you came up with such a post about Nasus

Obungo 12/23/2015, 7:14:24 AM2 votes

delete his passive make his passive his q's passive nerd wither duration/nerf the slow amount

bam balanced

EndlessSorcerer12/23/2015, 12:45:19 PM1 votes

1b) Theoretical infinite scaling is, at least to me, a fundamentally flawed mechanic to have in a game that seeks to balance itself. I know there are drawbacks to this mechanic. Weak early to mid game, ability to snowball other lanes since there is a condition to be met for the scaling to happen, etc etc. This would be all well and good if the reward for reaching that point wasn't so exceedingly high. Especially in the case of Nasus. For just having to take harass from your opponent early game while building full tank and gearing towards an unstoppable late game is more than enough to warrant some changes in my eyes. To me, the risk involved with playing him is hardly relevant for the reward.

Nasus' scaling isn't really an issue. While he can deal a significant amount of damage mid-game, he is an immobile melee champion. If the enemy team plays properly, he will be kited during teamfights and/or collapsed on if he resorts to splitpushing.

Quite frankly, Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Frozen Mallet are two of the most effective items ranged champions can get against him late-game since he can't kill people if he can't get within melee range of a squishy. While Nasus could theoretically hit the enemy tanks in that case, he does not itemize for armor penetration so his damage will be reduced significantly and he will receive very little sustain for doing so.

2b) His sustain. His passive life steal is a rather essential part of his kit, I do see that, however, I do not agree with just how well it works with his kit. Starting out at 10% life steal he already has a higher base life steal than most ADC's with a Doran's blade unless they have life steal quints or points in the Vampirism mastery. And vice versa a summoner can use these runes and masteries while playing Nasus themselves to further increase his sustain to continue to be higher than other champions with items and gold sunk into reaching that kind of sustain. Now I'm not saying that these should be removed outright, not in the slightest. But, I'm saying that the current state of League itself has passively buffed this ability to great heights.

He is a top lane bruiser. The majority of top lane champions have some form of innate sustain or damage mitigation. This is not an issue.

3b) The debuffs from the other parts of his kit. Importantly his E and W. I combined these two into one item to address because I don't think that any of these abilities in of themselves are not anything too overwhelming. But in combination with his massive damage output at 20 minutes and countering the only real way play against him (IE kiting and building armor). Now I don't feel that a total rework is necessary to balance this potent combo out. Maybe a slight nerf or two but not to the point of him being butchered and unusable. I think he could be a promising champ in the current meta that is powerful but at the same time has more viable counter play.

Spirit Fire is flat armor reduction; it does not make building armor against him less effective. Quite frankly, it is significantly more effective against champion who don't purchase armor.

1c) A punishment system for his stacking. While it will be hard to kill him where he is at his best. That being the late game with a significant amount of stacks on his Q and enough defense items. The system I have in mind should remove some of his stacks upon death. Thus forcing him to play safer in the late game in order to retain his damage. I came up with the idea to remove 15 stacks per each rank he has in his Q upon death. So at one rank in Q he will lose 15 stacks, 30 at rank 2 and so on. I thought of either a flat or percentage amount on death but I feel like this will hurt him too much. With this method I believe he can still be punished late game but still able to retain his threatening late game.

This is a horrible idea. If Nasus is behind, this would make it pretty much impossible for him to actually catch back up.

In addition, it forces Nasus to Q-farm continuously to the detriment of his team. While some people have to deal with Nasus players who just refuse to group, this would pretty much enforce it as the only playstyle. He would have no incentive to group (since he dies and gets kited during teamfights) when he just can splitpush like a Tryndamere and leave when people come to kill him.

2c) At first I had trouble coming up with a way to solve his sustain in lane without leaving him unusable. But, after careful thought I came up with this: Don't let his passive life steal proc on his Q. Nerfing the amount of life steal on his passive will hurt his usability too much. But taking away his ability to life steal from a 300 stack empowered Siphoning Strike seems like a very viable way to make him play safer and have him back more often when his health is low. I'm sure some other community members have some ideas about this and I'd love to get some discussion going about them. (And everything else in this post as well.)

This pretty much makes his passive pointless. Nasus doesn't build attack speed, attack damage or critical strike chance (he can't afford to except for possibly Trinity Force since he's an immobile melee champion) so all he would lifesteal from is his basic attacks which would be enhanced by his ultimate in teamfights.

3c) Now this is also a bit tricky. Maybe they don't need changes at all but I figured his combo and his kit as a whole was worth mentioning in this post. So I guess I'll leave it at some slight nerfs to the numbers in his abilities. Again, if anyone has some ideas for these please mention them. Maybe a rework is in order, or maybe just some changes to the numbers. But at least to me I think just a slightly longer cooldown on Wither and a slight nerf to the armor shred on Spirit Fire would suffice in conjunction with the other changes I have brought up.

These are the only changes you suggested that don't make Nasus completely unviable, but they aren't necessary.

Carnarius12/23/2015, 1:17:51 PM1 votes

in short, nasus can be really strong in lower elos and might feel overwhelming where people have no clue how to deal with his obvious weaknesses (and there are many), while he becomes weaker and weaker as you climb higher, being a trash tier in master/challenger tier in current patch

Potato KehPeh12/23/2015, 4:01:19 PM1 votes

I don't feel like he is a problem right now. If anything, there's better top laners to choose from in the current meta that synergizes with a team easier. Also to mention, mortal reminder would crap all over his life steal anyways. I don't see a nerf being necessary for him at the moment since it's hard for him to stay relevant in the first place.