A simple idea for nasus buffs and changes

Basten GreyHound·Jan 7, 2016·3 votes·603 views

So lets see here... In the recent season 6 - or I guess preseason changes - There have been a few champions who have... faded away. I haven't seen Urgot picked. I haven't seen but two Nasus picked (one was ap not tank btw). i've seen one Draven. It's like all the Draven mains at my level went into hiding or something. I have no plans for Urgot since He's pretty strong right now, he's simply unpopular. kinda sad that's the reason but what can you do.

For Draven a simple quality of life changes my help yeah? My thoughts for him were to make it so when his ult returned he would have 2 Spinning axes. and to compensate for this his Q would last for 5 seconds not 6.

However this page is for Nasus mainly so lets get on him. I believe Nasus isn't being picked except, of course, by die hard Nasus mains (I love you all and you make me so proud) There could be a few positive changes to Nasus to make him more flowing in the current game state. As it is right now, you go top lane, sit and farm till 500 stacks, and maybe MAYBE help the team. True Nasus mains know power spikes. However, what if Nasus didn't need to stack damage on his Q to be effective. There are ap Builds out there that make use of the Spirit fire. And there are full damage builds to abuse the Q damage. My thought were on a COMPLETE rework to Nasus. Not to the point to where he loses his identity as the stack master of top lane. However just some quality of life changes to make him relevant early and mid game, but still keep his AMAZING late game alive.

Here were my own thoughts

Nasus

Q: Nasus toggles between ranges attacks and melee attacks. When he kills a unit in melee, he gains a stack for his passive. (10/9/8/7/6 sec cooldown)

W MELEE FORM: Nasus marks the enemy with a slow that increses in power the closer to Nasus they are. slow from max distance(10%,12.5%,15%,17.5%,20%) slow from 125 units away from nasus' hit box (30%,45%,60%,75%,99%) (15,14,13,12,11 sec cool down)

W RANGED FORM: Nasus throws out three shuriman sundisks in a cone. Any champions they collide with get marked. If they are caught in the blast of spirit fire they are stunned for .6/.7/.8/.9/1 Damage (80, 120, 175, 215, 260)+( .8% bonus ad) (.3% ability power) (15,13,11,9,7 sec cool down)

E: Nasus releases a bomb of fire in a target area that does damage over time damage (55, 97, 135, 175, 215) + ( .4, .5, .6, .7, .8% ability power) DoT (10, 20, 30, 40, 50) + (.15% ability power)

R: Nasus increases in size and gains 100 – 300 health based on rank, an area around nasus swirls with sand, dealing max health magic damage in the area, stealing ad from up to 5 champions, 5 to 30 based on level. This is given to nasus, total bonus ad is 25 – 150 based on level damage (1,2,3% maximum health) Based on spell rank

Passive: upon leveling your Q you gain access to this ability, upon reaching a specific amount of stacks you unlock modifications to your spells. These amounts are unlocked based on your level and you will not receive these bonuses until you are that level

Now thats a lot to read, TL;DR : Nasus has a stun and a slow, 3 damaging spells, and a stance system. as well as a new passive

The new passive said that you unlocked new abilities once you meant a stack requirement, AND a level requirement. Here are some of the bonuses I thought of that would be appreciated by players who liked being rewarded for stacking.

lvl 1 at 5 stacks : Nasus' range in melee is increases from 125 to 150 and his range in ranged form is increased from 400 to 450 lvl 2 at 12 stacks : Nasus gains 5% life steal in ranged form lvl 3 at 20 stacks : spirit fire shreds 10 armor based to enemy champions inside lvl 4 at 33 stacks : wither range is increased by 50 lvl 5 at 50 stacks : wither reduces attack speed by 5% - 15% based on distance from Nasus lvl 6 at 64 stacks : siphoning strike now grants 2 stacks as well as Nasus' ult granting a bonus 250 more health added to the base lvl 7 at 100 stacks : Nasus gains 10% life steal in ranged form lvl 8 at 130 stacks : Nasus gains 25 armor shred with spirit bomb lvl 9 at 165 stacks : wither range increased by 100 from 50 lvl 10 at 190 stacks : wither reduces attack speed by 20% - 35% based on distance from Nasus lvl 11 at 225 stacks : Nasus gains 15% life steal in ranged form lvl 12 at 250 stacks : Nasus range in melee is 175 and in ranged is 500 lvl 13 at 300 stacks : siphoning strike now grants 3 stacks as well as Nasus ult granting 500 more health to the base lvl 14 at 350 stacks : Nasus shreds 50 armor with spirit bomb lvl 15 at 400 stacks : Nasus gains 20% lifesteal in ranged form lvl 16 at 500 stacks : Nasus reduces attack speed by 45% - 70% based on distance from Nasus lvl 17 at 750 stacks : Nasus ult now grants 30 armor and 20 magic resist while active lvl 18 at 1000 stacks : Nasus becomes enlightened, doubling all bonuses he has from his passive when he ults. As well as the percent max health damage dealing true damage instead of magic damage. Nasus also gains a permanent size increase and glowing particles

That is a lot of reading as well, However you need to read it all in order to understand what you will receive

The goal is to leave Nasus with a basic kit in the start. a pretty average kit. not overwhelming. and in a lot of match ups. can be frankly underwhelming

However once you got some stacks and hit some levels, you get some choices. " do I want to keep stacking, or do I want to lifesteal?", " Should i stun spirit fire to ensure I get one auto off, or do I slow and then let my jungler help me?" Choices like that to help give players options.

Finally the important bit, with the new passive, Nasus players will be able to see when they are stronger. There won't need to be a wait to see "do I have enough power to 1 Shot the enemy ad yet?" It'll be more like "Is my ult buffed? K LETS GO!"

I would love some ideas for any changes to numbers or how to fit any of the changes into lore. Leave any comments below.

5 Comments

CrimsonCobra3Jan 8, 20161 votes

There is so much here. He seems more complicated than Zed, and potentially overpowered beyond reason (if enough stacks are acquired.) The main thing that I found strange was the toggle range-melee ability. While awesome I don't feel it fits Nasus. I think it would be better to give him mobility or a pseudo-grab ability than make him ranged. <I just think he should be Melee>

~[CrimsonCobra3]

Basten GreyHoundJan 8, 20161 votes

As he looks now you're right. The stance system may not fit Nasus. However, in his lore he is a famed shuriman hero. A hero of the sands would have the tools to face what was any evil. or so i'd like to think. A nasus with a ranged stance and a melee stance fits the lore and the flow i'm trying to give nasus.

...

does he really look that complex... I tried to keep him simple... He's a champ new players can pick up and learn. I didn't want to take that away from him.

KimitoJan 10, 20161 votes

While i don't know a lot about balancing in video games. Especially high profile games such as League of Legends that will effect millions of lives and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars worth of industry. I will attempt to give some reasonable criticism.

Like many design teams in video games, Riot's Balance team and champion design teams do not seem to strive for complexity. While there are champions with high mechanical skill caps. I can't think of a single champion that has as many potential tool tips to learn than the one you've suggested here. At first, I liked this new passive, due to it taking away Nasus' powerful "stack and wack" dullmindedness while withholding actual nerfs. but then I took on a new perspective to your suggestion. Tool Tips: Making tool tips in game that pop up : "Level 6 : 64 Stacks -- ..." for example

While not difficult to do, What if you have tool tips permanently on the screen? Then when you hover it at level 18 there will be a huge tool tip that will appear on your HUD. (These are semantics I'm pointing out). Complexity Every player must learn 18 (17?) new level/stacks effects. New players are already overwhelmed with the amount of information they must inhale into themselves to learn the game. This may be a drop in the bucket in that sense; but nevertheless, it's a complete change to the simple style of current Nasus. As I've stated before I don't know much about the balancing in League; but the stack numbers seem quite low Pre-400 for many of the 'buffs' (scalings) thus making the level the only real requirement and even then. Melee/Ranged Both Jayce and Quinn (pre-Rework) were the experimental Melee/Ranged idea's from Riot and both were challenging for Riot and the player base to gain traction with. Now; I am not saying that this will be the case if this Nasus was in the game. Hardly at all actually. But Does the game need another melee/ranged champion? Old Quinn had numerous bugs (probably not an issue with your suggestions) and is now not a melee champion at all. Is wither not enough to gain an advantage in lane? Along with his incredible scaling that you've suggested. Adding a ranged form sounds like "Let's make Nasus a lane bully in lane, make him do well against to melee fighters in lane (they can run because of 99% slow... they are melee) and scale well into the late game." In my opinion I don't believe that good balance can only come by adding more complex attributes to a video game. I believe that it's easy to think that if you use more tools to get more precision that it would be possible to get more precise balance (I find a comforting example in your MELEE form W in your suggestion). I am not trying to sound cynical of your idea. Actually I'm kind of interested what the game would be like if we put precision balancing into the game such as what I've seen done here.

-Kimito

Basten GreyHoundJan 12, 20161 votes

Thank you for the critic. I have listened to some of my High Elo friends and I've thought about these changes accordingly. Your concerns also greatly influenced this so read it and I hope it meets your concerns.

Tool Tips : While it's true that if you go into an intro game and pick Nasus, There may be overwhelming amount of messages shown. However in normal games, only 3 show up at a time. They shouldn't be to overwhelming. However maybe learning the new and individual power spikes for each set of stacks for the passive might be a little hard at first. Its like... 6 times Cassiopeia's passive right? If they can also understand all that over time. and all of Ekko's kit and Tahm Kench's kit. It shouldn't be to much of a problem right?

Complexity : So when it comes to complexity, I don't think this champ is that hard. You are in ranged stance, throw out a sun disk and spirit fire bomb stun-chain. Switch to melee, walk up and wither catch up and try and trade with your autos. It isn't meant to be complex, but simply give Nasus mechanics to master so you can feel a better understanding of the game (Not saying that right now Nasus doesn't have mechanics. His animation cancels are hard to master). Kinda like a stepping stone for other combo based champions like Elise or Jarvan, or Ekko (I like Ekko). He also has enough complexity in his kit to keep the average player engaged in playing him while he is used in a game.

Melee/ Ranged : So. We have come to this... one of my diamond friends made the comment "You can't kite this nasus." which, at first, hurt my feelings but after some thought I realized he was right. The range makes him hard to fight. If you go slow into range, other champions wouldn't be able to run away and Nasus could beat them down with auto attacks until they died or the slow wore off. But at the same time, there does need to be some give and takes to melee/ range stances. Kinda like a checks and balances system so one can't be better then the other. However the way it is now, range is superior in most fighting situations, while melee is better for farming and laning. To me that's not okay. there are meant to be a middle ground that I failed to find. Or maybe I did and I think to much.

Either way, In creation for the spell, all I thought about was the laning. Not the mid and late game. I just assumed people would go into melee stance and be normal melee Nasus and slow people. or stun people in ranged for to catch stragglers. So here were some changes to make the stances check each other

Melee stance : Nasus gains stacks for minion and large monster kills, gains access to a wither, and deals 100%, 105%, 110%, 115% (Based on ult rank) auto attack damage

range stance : Nasus gains life steal once a number specific number of stacks, a level 2 are acquired , gains access to Sun disk toss, deals 75%, 80%, 85%, 90% (based on ult rank) auto damage

Wither duration : 4.2 , 4.4 , 4.6 , 4.8 , 5 seconds

This set change is to show scaling for late game. You make the choice to either do less damage, heal, more range, and gain access to a mini stun. or to go into melee, gain access to a slow, and deal increased auto damage.

Now there can be choices. "do I want the stun or slow?", " do I want to heal or stack?", and now my personal favorite. " do I want to apply my frozen mallet in range form or apply my dead mans plate in melee?"

You made a comment about the stacking system and how some stacks seem to low. here is some very simple numbers to know

It takes 9 cs deaths to hit level 2 in a solo lane.

For about 50% of players I would GUESS the average cs is 4 after 9 minions have died in the early game. With that, 50% of players would achieve the level one passive bonus AFTER level 2 was reached.

the other 50% tho, (the percent i'm in and what i'm used to) gain about 5-7 cs before 9 minions have died. and for excellent players most would meet about 7 to 8 minons before 9 minions die. they would gain the level one passive AT level one.

If you get zoned as most Nasus players do. you can be level 6 with 40 cs. Lets also say that only 12 of those minions turned into stacks Because you've been last hitting in range form or with spirit bomb. You have access to the level 2 passive, but you're level six and a bit weak. However you can heal with range and walk up and try to get stacks in melee when you have enough health. It's a little frustrating to do, but It happens sometimes.

In another match up, you could easily keep up in the level requirement and stack requirement. Making it to the requirements on time if you are an average player.

So yeah I hope that answered all your questions about this stuff. Sorry if it was long.