Nocturne Rework Suggestion
So I've been thinking a lot about Nocturne. He needs a rework, his kit is antiquated and seriously needs some changes. His passive feels weak and is, in game, weak.
So the thought popped into my head before I went to sleep. It kept me up for at least an hour. Some of the numbers might need changing, but I like the general idea of all these.
Nocturne
Passive: Trail of Darkness
When Nocturne is out of the enemy's sight for 2 seconds, Nocturne gets 30/40/50/60/70/80/90 bonus out of combat movement speed. This movement speed persists after entering combat for 0.5/1/1.5/2 seconds.
Q: Duskbringer
Nocturne Sends out a shadow claw in a line that grabs hold of the first enemy champion hit, dealing 60/105/150/195/240 (+80% bonus AD) physical damage to enemy units it passes through. The enemy champion it has grabbed hold of is slowed for 10/12.5/15/17.5/20% for 2 seconds. Duskbringer leaves a Dusk Trail in it's wake that interacts with Nocturne's other abilities and ghosts him while Nocturne is standing in it.
W: Unspeakable Horror
Nocturne begins to spread nightmares into nearby enemies, sending tendrils of terror out to all enemy champions within 800 units range. Unspeakable Horror lasts 3 seconds and takes 2 seconds to reach enemy champions (Travel time halved when an enemy champion is on a Dusk Trail.) Once Unspeakable horror attaches to an enemy champion, they take 60/95/130/165/200 +(85% AP) magic damage and begin to flee from Nocturne for 1.5 seconds.
E: Umbral Harvest
Nocturne slices with his blades in an area around him, dealing 45/90/135/180/215 +(75% bonus AD) physical damage. After activation, Nocturne sends blades to eviscerate anyone unlucky enough to find themselves on his trail. All enemy targets standing on his Dusk Trail when this ability is activated take 25/40/55/70/85 +(25% bonus AD) physical damage and heal Nocturne for 10/14/18/22/26 +(15% AP) each.
Ultimate: Paranoia
Passive: When Nocturne hits an enemy champion with an ability, he gains 10/20/30% bonus movement speed that decays over 1.5 seconds, stacking.
Nocturne applies Nearsight to all enemy champions for 4 seconds. While Paranoia is active, Nocturne can activate it again to dash to the target enemy champion, dealing 175/300/425 +(120% bonus AD) physical damage.
If the targeted champion is on his Dusk Trail when Nocturne collides with them, they become slowed by 20/25/30/35/40% for 4 seconds.
My thinking
I liked Nocturne's passive, but it really doesn't do much. 20% AD bonus damage on your first basic is nice, but that coupled with an attack speed buff and basic time reset makes him less of an assassin. Which he should be. He doesn't have that much mobility and the way he procs it is unreliable and unintuitive. Nocturne's kit is antiquated and just makes him a ball of stats, which is honestly kind of shitty. I like his old passive but it needs a change, so I'm putting it to the side right now.
If he wants to be an assassin, he needs a more fitting passive. Something bursty, something scary.
Nocturne's Q, while looking really big and generic- is actually pretty unique for a skill. Skillshot leaves a trail, Nocturne gains stats while on the trail. I want the idea of this to stay, but I want the skill to be changed somewhat. Especially since it's got a very unique look to it, but doesn't make use of it.
Pretty much the same thing, but the rest of his abilities interact with the trail in different ways. A way to remove the "He gets stats woohoo" part of his trail but also making up for the loss of move speed and flat AD bonus.
Nocturne's W just... nothing about it can stay. I like the spellshield but man it just doesn't belong. I'm moving the fear from Nocturne's E to his W, I'll explain later.
So Nocturne's fear looks really unique and it looks really cool, but in the game it's kind of stupid short and really generic. Especially considering what it does. "Form a tether, after tether completes, hard CC champion." Yeah. We've never seen that before. So while thematically it works real nice and also good, it's kind of missing something. Something unique to Nocturne. Sort of. It took me a while but I realize exactly what I want. He activates his W and imagine him basically being a moving Varus ult. Nightmare tendrils start to stretch out from within him, fearing everyone they come into contact with, travelling faster when on his Q trail.
His E is now empty, and he's been hanging on to his old passive for a while. I think you get the idea. Move his passive to his E. Keep it pretty much the same, remove the healing. The way it interacts with his trail? If he's standing on his trail and he uses it, he'll like send out a pulse of blades that deals damage to enemies that are standing on the trail, healing for each unit standing on it. I think that would be really fucking cool.
His ult is pretty much unchanged, but any enemy on his trail is slowed.
