Does Nasus REALLY need to be a tank AND a carry?

Vettahn·3/21/2015, 4:04:59 AM·10 votes·2,907 views

Before you regard this as just another Nasus salt thread and comment "deny him and gg", please considering the following.

OTHER PERMASCALING CHAMPIONS ABILITIES:

Veigar (RIP): Q: Baleful Strike - Deals damage, and if it kills a unit, grants a small amount of AP. Also allows for his kills to give him somewhat more AP.

Sion : W: Soul Furnace: A shield that also gives Sion a small amount of permanent bonus health whenever he kills a unit.

NASUS'S PERMASCALING ABILITY:

Nasus: Q: Siphoning Strike: Causes Nasus' next basic attack to deal bonus damage equal to three bonus damage per minion killed with the ability and six bonus damage for each large monster killed with the ability.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO OTHER PERMASCALING CHAMPIONS:

Veigar: Veigar's Baleful Strike allows him to scale high amounts of AP into the late game based on however many kills and minions he has taken. However, because this AP alone is not enough to keep him a threat, he still has to build AP items to have relevant damage and maximize his cheese potential. He sacrifices tankiness and survivability for high damage and gimping potential - this is, in my opinion, quite balanced.

Sion: Sion's Soul Furnace allows him to scale high amounts of health into the late game based on however many minions and monsters he has taken. However, because the ability does not provide him enough damage to fulfill his intended role as a tank, Sion cannot afford to build full damage. He sacrifices high damage outputs for tankiness and survivaility - this is, in my opinion, quite balanced.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO NASUS:

Nasus: Nasus' Siphoning Strike allows him to scale high amounts of damage into the late game based on however many minions and monsters he has taken. The ability actually DOES provide him with all the damage that he needs, and allows him to build full tank and still remain a massive threat to enemies and, more importantly, enemy structures, which he can decimate with enough stacks. His ultimate and passive (20% lifesteal are you joking) allow for him to scale quite well with most tank items, and his W and E allow for him to have enough utility to not even need his Q's damage to be useful. This is, in my opinion, not very balanced at all.

BUT HEY, JUST DENY NASUS, RIGHT?

Well, sure, you can try that. And I guarantee you it'll work great, until you inevitably have to back, and upon returning to lane, find that Nasus now has 30 stacks and a Frozen Heart, and can now snowball all he wants.

More importantly though, why do we have to deny Nasus constantly, when we never have to deny Sion and Veigar ? Both of these champions can be left alone to free farm all game, and unless they get kills, will not become massive threats. It just doesn't make sense that Nasus is litterally the only champion in the game that HAS to be denied, or else GG.

SO WHAT CAN WE DO TO CHANGE THIS?

Considering the real problem here is that Nasus can build full tank and still output massive damage, I think it would be reasonable to either:

  1. Nerf Nasus' strengths as a tank (change his passive, lower ult health, lower utility, etc.)
  2. Nerf Nasus' strengths as a carry (lower number of stacks gained on unit kill, remove ability to cast Q on turret, etc.)

CONCLUSION:

Personally, whenever I play top lane and see someone has picked Nasus into me, I know that the upcoming game is going to be far more stress than it will be actual fun. It seems highly unreasonable that a champion can be such an unkillable tank while also doing such high damage and having a more-than-reasonable amount of sustain and utility.

32 Comments

Project Riven3/21/2015, 4:52:58 AM4 votes

{quoted}

More importantly though, why do we have to deny Nasus constantly, when we never have to deny Sion and Veigar ? Both of these champions can be left alone to free farm all game, and unless they get kills, will not become massive threats. It just doesn't make sense that Nasus is litterally the only champion in the game that HAS to be denied, or else GG.

Did I just read this? Leave anyone to free farm and go roam to another lane and I bet you when you return to lane, you'll be behind by a margin.

Nasus is going to get his farm no matter what, it's a matter of how many stacks at what time of the game. Likewise, any champ will get their farm no matter what, just at how many cs and what time. So the solution here is to deny anybody cs.

A Nasus at 100 stacks every 10 min. will pose no threat to the team. On top of that, a well arranged, skilled, and composed team can easily shut Nasus down in a team fight even if Nasus is ahead. Simply put, Nasus is not a very good champ in team fight compared to Wukong, Riven, or even Gnar since he doesn't have an engage/escape and lack the ability to peel for his teammates. The problem people are having versus a somewhat fed Nasus is that they overestimate at how powerful he is when he has stacks but don't realize that he can easily be kited and CC.

Abyssphere3/21/2015, 3:30:53 PM2 votes

Nasus's niche is a tank that does damage. If you remove his damage then he brings nothing else to the game outside of Wither.

67chrome3/21/2015, 5:37:00 AM2 votes

Does Nasus REALLY need to be a tank AND a carry?

He's tanky DPS, he's supposed to be tanky and deal DPS.

As for the Viegar/Sion comparions: Every champion tends to have things in their kit that allow them to survive long enough to do their job. Marksman and Mages have range. Assassins have mobility. Tanky DPS get DPS or tank for free. Forcing them to spend money on both doesn't give them the defense and damage to actually be tanky DPS.

You can only really build in 1 direction in a standard LoL game, so Nasus is set up to build tank and deal damage. And with your claim on imbalance compared to Sion/Veigar - Nasus is completely useless if he doesn't build any defense, just as Caitlyn would be useless with only 200 range.

DaedricTerror135/13/2016, 10:48:10 PM2 votes

"To find that Nasus now has 30 stacks and a Frozen Heart and can snowball hard"

ooo wow, 30 stacks, the feeeaaaar.

Aaravos3/21/2015, 8:57:42 AM2 votes

Nasus don't have teamfight pressence or at least very low and with qss lots of adc can duel him in late game. His only cc is his sort ranged w without any mobility spell. He is balanced but very boring to play against thats all. He has also a lots of rough match up. Focus on kiting him and try to deny as hard as you can and you will be fine.

Strawberrycocoa3/21/2015, 4:19:36 AM2 votes

Honestly, kinda yeah. Nasus is fun and awesome but he benefits from the Q farming WAY too much. Being able to delete a squishy while also face-tanking the entire enemy team with impunity is just all kinds of awkward.

I suspect he's a case of "safe from nerfs until he sees tournament play" though.

I'd rather see him as a tanky damage dealer than a hard Tank, though. He'd need some CC in his kit to be a proper Tank and nobody wants that.

Vettahn3/21/2015, 4:45:07 AM2 votes

I can feel the wave of Nasus mains coming.

brace yourselves

Leti the Yeti3/21/2015, 4:18:49 AM2 votes

Alright so first of all let's not compare Nasus to a carry, people will definitely attack you on this claim like I'm about to right now.. and the actual argument will be lost before you know it ahem Nasus has high damage, no doubt.. but for a tank's standard his output is no where near high and fast enough to be compared to carry' now that's out of the way

Nasus is an investment, he kinda isnt worth the investment if you were to either gut his damage or tank seeing how nasus doesnt function very well as it is without his stacks nerfing any of his departments calls for compensation buffs

gut his tankiness? I think people would just play any other bruiser over him nerfing his damage would probably call for buffs to his Q, and o god the horrors that may await if we do gut his damage? again, this requires buffs to all other areas or I'ma just go play some other tank with that "OOMPH" that I'm looking for in a tank's kit

SaltyKracka5/13/2016, 11:11:35 PM1 votes

Did I seriously just read this? Lawd lawd.

Veigar gains AP from his stacks. AP that scales with his three of his spells, his tower pushing, and his itemization. He's allowed to do this because he has quite large ranges and an incredibly powerful hard CC spell.

Sion's health stacking passive is neat and all, but it's really incidental to where his actual power lies (i.e. his base damages, power in lane, and hard CC), even if it does incentivize building straight resistances (though his shield already does that). And of course his ult does quite nicely as an escape if you position right.

On the other hand, Nasus stacking Qs only affects his Q. So he has to itemize for survivability and the ability to get off as many Qs as possible, because he has no other safety mechanisms besides getting off damage with his Q. Not mobility, not range, not hard CC.

Then of course there's the standard "He's not a tank, you fucking idiot" boilerplate...

...anyways, study up before you spew bullshit.

MISTAFUNKTASTIC5/13/2016, 11:13:40 PM1 votes

Do you honestly have a recurring problem with Nasus, or was this thread the result of a handful of games that a highly skilled Nasus player carried late game?

rtbf2023292065/13/2016, 11:16:07 PM1 votes

Nasus needs some tenacity, in his abilites or passive because this way he is completly useless. People just cc him when ever he tries to do anything. He can't even kill ADC unless is MF or ezreal

SpecterVonBaren3/21/2015, 5:03:11 AM1 votes

My only real beef with Nasus is that he completely warps any lane he goes up against by making it a farming simulator for him and a babysitting job for the other laner.

Shadow Gilgamesh3/21/2015, 5:09:10 AM1 votes

I'm fine with him having that powerhouse ability in fights despite being a tank. The best (and only) tanks left in use are ones that DO significant enough damage that you don't just ignore them. My only problem with him is that Q hits towers, I've seen a couple games in relatively high level streams (plat and diamond), and played games in low levels where Nasus basically split pushed the entire game and won because he killed any tower he got 20-30 seconds on, and because he's so tanky, he HAD to be repelled by a carry every time.

Hell someone gave me him in nemesis mode and I never use him and I pushed down 3 towers and an inhib in one push and 4ish minutes because they all stalled 4v5 at drag for ages.

DoFr3/21/2015, 5:23:41 AM1 votes

nobody have fun with Nasus, you either play as him and focus on Farming the entire game, or play against him and try to deny him farm all game

it's a Stupid Boring lane everytime a nasus is ingame

The Fat Punisher3/21/2015, 9:00:49 AM1 votes

i would say just lowering the amount of stacks he gets to 1 per kill. 3 per large minion / champ.

Then lowering the CD of siphon strike and making him more of a tank

Uperior3/21/2015, 2:59:25 PM1 votes

Least he's a tank who can actually do that role, do some damage (maybe), and not melt as easy as every other "tank"

BeatzBoyFTW3/21/2015, 3:43:36 PM1 votes

Darius : You're so cute.

Garen : So terribly cute

Teemo : I feel jealous of Op now >:(

Bresn3/21/2015, 3:47:36 PM1 votes

Basically, beating a Nasus team has two ways.

Shit Nasus. Shit team.