Boards›Live Gameplay Balance

[Nasus Balance] Let's open up some counter play.

JeDo Nimble·11/27/2013, 3:34:33 AM·1 votes·546 views

Just a worthy opening note, I'm not a terribly good Nasus player, but I do play him often and almost always win top lane with him. I also have the Riot Nasus skin, thanks LiQuiD112.

However, before we talk about how to open up Nasus to some counter play, we need to take a quick peek at how Nasus works as a champion. Nasus is effectively a late-game hypercarry who can deal extremely high bursts of damage building only tanky, so long as he maintains his Siphoning Strike stacks. However, due to his high base movement speed, low mana cost on his Siphoning Strike, and base lifesteal, his weakest point--his early game--doesn't feel that weak considering how strong he is later on.

In season 3, we saw a lot of champions with really strong early games in top lane, Balls' Rumble or Voyboy's Olaf among others. This lead to the popular jungle Nasus pick, which nearly circumvented his weak point of bad early game.

In the preseason we're still seeing a lot of the early game power in top lane, with Riven and Fiora top picks right now. But despite this, Nasus maintains up to a 53% win rate in ranked. For as hard as he should be countered in the current top meta, he still manages to win games, even with gold flowing faster to carries and AP champs.

Riot did nerf his passive in patch 3.14, but I feel there should be more to separate the good Nasus players from the bad, so I have a list of suggestions to raise is skill ceiling and make him less of a faceroller (coming from somebody who plays quite a bit of Nasus.)

I feel that any one of these changes would put Nasus in line for how much skill it takes to get results from a champion.

Change #1

Increase the cooldown of Siphoning strike at early ranks from 8/7/6/5/4 to 12/10/8/6/4.

Reason: Denying Nasus Q farm should be exceptionally important, and freezing lane isn't always an option, especially with pressure from the enemy jungler. Nasus timing his Q incorrectly or wasting it on the enemy champion should be emphasized as a misplay.

Change #2

Increase the mana cost of Siphoning Strike to 40 mana from 20 mana at all ranks. If Siphoning Strike kills a minion, monster, or champion, 20 mana is refunded.

Reason: In much the same vein, missing Q's should be highlighted as a misplay. Q's used to damage enemy champions or that don't succeed in killing anything should cost a bit more. A properly built Nasus running Gauntlet/Trinity and Frozen Heart shouldn't have much mana problems anyway.

Change #3

Revert the change to Nasus' passive.

Soul Eater's life steal only applies to Siphoning Strike.

Reason: Nasus gets too much free sustain, especially if the wave is pushing his tower. Even with the changes, if he kills his enemy in lane and gets reduced to 1/3 health, Nasus can easily heal up to full before his enemy arrives. If a Nasus wants immediate life steal, he may have to sacrifice Q farm to get it.

5 Comments

JackAqua11/27/2013, 3:40:08 PM2 votes

I only like Change #2. Nasus isn't OP. His Pros are just sustain and incredible late game scaling. I don't play him personally, but I know very well how to counter him ( most of the time ).
Also, learning how to counter certain 'OP' champions makes you a better league player.

ploki12211/27/2013, 4:52:55 AM1 votes

I highly disagree wih Change #3, the problem with Nasus is the fact that he can sustain himself while farming while stacking Q without even asking for your opinion...

eKatSS11/27/2013, 4:10:39 PM1 votes

I agree that his late game scaling (damage and sustain) is pretty OP. But since he can be kited quite easily, I think that balances it out.

I pretty much only agree with change number 2. Ganking a Nasus is pointless most of the time, since he can Q you for days, even if he seems OOM, (low cost for Q) while sustaining damage.

MackleDoge11/28/2013, 5:02:34 PM1 votes

Nasus already has plenty of counter play, there isn't any reason to damage a champion that is in a good spot when you compare the game flow to other champions that need clear help and changes (either increasing power or decreasing power). If you or your team can't be consistent in trying to deny Nasus queue farm that's just tough, either commit the resources to counter his early game dependency or focus elsewhere to draw him from lane or gain significant advantages that his farm can't counter. As someone who has played Nasus, I don't know how you can say that mistiming or messing up his Q doesn't already hurt. Only thing I can think of is that the people you are playing against don't understand how to apply the right pressure to Nasus in lane.