@ Riot - Q Stack Nasus is really weak since the rune change please help him

I hope a member of riot takes the time to read this post. To begin E Max Nasus is really strong right now and this is mostly because you can really get a lot of damage out early with the new rune system. This post is mostly referring to the traditional Q stack Nasus, which IMO is the most fun way to play him!

I main Nasus, have close to two million mastery on the champion and I really enjoy playing him. He has never been a particularly strong champion, in any meta and I am not the best Nasus (only Plat II), but I can say since the rune changes he is noticeably much weaker. There is very little reason to actually play him at the moment unless you plan to E Max. His early game is just atrocious against comparable competition.

Nasus has a lot of little problems that the old rune system alleviated. I hope that riot considers tweaking his base stats so that he has stronger early laning, or at the minimum doesn't get pushed out as easily.

• First, the old rune system allowed Nasus mains to apply instant defensive stats, that were not conditional, to help prevent being pushed out of lane early. This was huge for most Nasus players since our rune pages were mostly composed of armor, health, and CDR. Other times, in tough match-ups it was a lot of armor. Right now, it is really easy to get shoved under tower and pushed out of lane. Only the resolve tree offers flat resistances at a lower amount than what we could get through runes.

• Second, damage is really high in early laning. I am seeing a lot of Aery in the top lane from champions that aren't suppose to really use Aery. Champions such as Riven and Pantheon are taking Aery because of the guaranteed early damage. The lack of defensive choices and the early offense of level 1 and 2 champions makes him really easy to push out of lane. I have to use TP pretty early to return to lane. I can't sustain through a lot of that damage. That or I am blowing through ALL my potions very quickly.

• Third, the 10% CDR problem. Most Nasus players ran anywhere from 10-15% scaling or flat CDR for early stacking. We can't do that now and we are not hitting the same stack rates. This is probably not too important for novice Nasus players, but the experienced Nasus player could achieve 350-450 stacks regardless of their performance in the game at 20 minutes pretty regularly. Now, most of us are hitting about about 300-350 per game. This isn't a big deal, that's enough damage to be relevant. However, based on a typical Nasus's itemization route we can't hit the CDR cap as fast as in the past. We have to build ONE additional CDR item now to hit 40% or 45%. and both have 20% and has 10%. We now have to build something else in addition to those items to hit the CDR cap. Usually, the item is , but it basically means that our power spike is a bit later and we have to build another component early or sit at 30% CDR unless Nasus takes transcendence. This simple slows Nasus down, already a champion that has a slow start.

• Fourth, meditation and the old potion mastery were great to take as Nasus. This allowed us to stay in lane early via or . Now unless a Nasus run in the inspiration tree they don't get these things. It has reduced our staying power in early laning and the removal of siegemaster (+8 MR and Armor under tower) really hurt Nasus. Perhaps not a lot of champions took this mastery, but it was almost required if you played Nasus. This was simply a great mastery to have on Nasus. Unless I take mana band I also run out of mana very very quickly if I use E at all prior a mana item.

• Fifth, new stormraider's surge in the form of phase rush is terrible. Now I personally didn't use storm on Nasus, I used grasp of the undying, but A LOT of Nasus mains used storm to have additional staying power on targets. Not only is this tree pretty weak on Nasus, phase rush is underwhelming and a bit more difficult to activate.

• Sixth, the resolve tree is good for hyper tanks and NOT good for Nasus. Grasp is by far the best keystone for Nasus, but Nasus players don't do too much early trading in lane. So our benefits from grasp (the health gained) are pretty marginal in comparison to other tanks. We get some health, but not as much as say Maokai. The other runes down the resolve tree are OK, but if I don't take second wind I am shoved out of lane easily by Aery Riven. Nasus also avoids many early trades because we like to use our Q to stack minions.

• Seventh, this is a little thing but most Nasus players ran some attack speed in their reds. Not a lot, somewhere between 3-6. This was incredibly beneficial for last hitting under tower at levels 1-3. Now it is much more difficult to last hit and prime caster minions to avoid losing early CS. We are easily shoved to tower and now it is just more difficult to last hit the minions at level 1 or 2.

Overall, I believe Nasus was indirectly nerfed from the rune/mastery changes. Other champions became more powerful in the early game and he became much weaker losing the old rune raw stats. Corrupting start, and the pot 4 armor start are both very weak and to have ANY survivability in lane I have to take . He also cannot run in a lot of the new rune trees because he derives very little benefit from them. I actually want to try some of the new runes and I am finding that all of them are great to have (the precision tree notably) IF I can survive the early levels.

The resolve tree is the best, but his early laning is so weak it is difficult to run in ANY other tree if you plan to Q stack. Essentially, my choices are very limited since the change and I have fewer mastery options than in the past against comparable opponents unless I E Max.