Nazarah

## Lore

* Nazarah, The Fugitive
* Female Mausk

*Manipulated for political gain, Nazarah is driven by only two things: her desire for vengeance and the need to untangle the chaotic fabric of her past.*

## Abilities

**Passive - Tail Draw:** Nazarah can successively fire her basic attack as long as she has a needle readied. Nazarah will ready a needle at a rate equivalent to her basic attack cooldown and can have a very small number of needles ready to be fired at a time. The rate at which Nazarah will ready a needle is increased by a % per point of Haste.

* *Nazarah’s passive serves as the base that the rest of her kit is built on top of, allowing her to unleash a flurry of basic attacks. This synergizes well with both her Hot Pursuit and Afflicting Acupuncture abilities, as well as defining her basic attack-centric playstyle. Combined with Hot Pursuit and Afflicting Acupuncture, she will naturally favor on-hit, haste-heavy builds. We expect this ability to be one of the more defining features of Nazarah’s kit.*

**Ability 1 - Afflicting Acupuncture:** *Passive:* Successive basic attacks against the same target grant a moderate movespeed bonus. This effect can stack up to twice after three successive basic attacks against the same target.

*Active:* Nazarah’s basic attacks deal a small amount of bonus physical damage for a short amount of time. This damage increases by a % per % missing health of the target. While this skill is on cooldown, Nazarah cannot gain any stacks of Hot Pursuit.

* *This ability, in conjunction with her passive, forms the core of Nazarah’s kit. The passive component of this ability, Hot Pursuit, serves to fill the same design space as a slow being tied to basic attacks without creating a permaslow scenario or requiring an internal cooldown. This aids Nazarah both in kiting away from danger and closing in for the kill. This should not, however, be seen as a cover-up for poor positioning. Her movespeed buff is potent, but not extreme; overextending as Nazarah will still prove just as fatal as with any other carry. Without the time to create the necessary distance otherwise if dove on, she relies on having set up a Bound and Rebound off a nearby wall to escape harm.*

*Once she’s softened up her enemies and is ready to go for the kill, the active component of this ability, Afflicting Acupuncture, will help her to finish off her target. Doing so, however, requires a commitment of forfeiting Hot Pursuit for a duration afterward, ensuring that Nazarah must pick the opportune moment to go for the jugular or risk her primary source of precious mobility.*

**Ability 2 - Flurry of Needles:** Nazarah throws a cone of needles dealing a moderate amount of damage. These needles stop at the first unit hit and needles beyond the first that hit an enemy deal heavily reduced damage.

* *As Nazarah will take longer than most carries to scale into her full potential, due to her basic-attack focus and hyper-carry nature, this ability is aimed at easing some of her early woes in the laning phase. This ability will allow her a means of limited harassment and also serve as a means of farming if she’s being zoned too hard. It isn’t intended to be a large source of damage nor to contribute to her DPS, but in the stages of the game where the players are delicately posturing around each other, it can serve to soften up the enemy slightly before a fight breaks out.*

**Ability 3 - Bound/Rebound:** Nazarah dashes a short distance. If Nazarah collides with a wall with this ability, she will immediately dash a moderate distance off the wall with a direction relative to the angle she hit the wall at.

* *While Hot Pursuit gives Nazarah a slight amount of mobility passively, we felt the kit could benefit from having a more active means of repositioning. This thematically ties into her being a swift assassin while also providing the mobility safety-net a ranged carry like herself so desperately craves. Due to her hyper-carry nature and scaling so well into the late game, however, we did not want a large amount of mobility on this ability, at least not in a reliable fashion. Her initial dash will be quite short, roughly half the range of her basic attack range. However, if she’s able to dash into a wall at a very shallow angle, the rebound off the wall will be a notably longer distance than the initial dash. This serves to double down on her focus around positioning, allowing her to swiftly cross a large amount of ground, while also being kept in check due to the extended range being telegraphed and conditional.*

**Ultimate - Pincushion:** Nazarah targets an enemy forger, throwing an enormous number of needles in a flurry over the next several seconds, dealing a large amount of total damage split among each needle evenly. Nazarah is able to move during the duration of this ability, but cannot cast any other abilities or basic attack. Needles are thrown to where the target is located at the time of the throw. If the target moves while a needle is in transit, they will remain moving in the direction of where the target originally was when they were thrown. Needles stop at the first enemy forger hit.

* *Nazarah’s ultimate serves to fill a handful of roles. Due to the long range (notably longer than basic attack range), coupled with high total damage and ability to stay mobile throughout the duration, Nazarah will be provided invaluable versatility in how she uses this ability. After a fight has mostly ended and weakened enemies are attempting to back off or flee, this can be used as an execute to finish someone off as they thought they’d reached safety. During a teamfight, the large amount of damage dealt will undoubtedly soften even the hardiest of enemies, meaning that while those on the tankier end of the spectrum might want to block a large amount of the damage that would hit a more vulnerable teammate, not even the more defensively-oriented will want to be hit by the entire duration. One could even use this ability to deter someone focusing Nazarah, should she be able to remain safe for long enough without the benefit of Hot Pursuit. The ability to keep moving throughout the duration means that if someone were to focus her and charge through her team towards her, she can kite backward while her ult is firing, softening up the assailant for her to deftly handle afterward.*

* *The primary means of intended counterplay comes from a combination of blocking part of the damage by positioning behind allies more suited to take the damage at the moment as well as burning any mobility abilities to dodge a portion of the damage. The needles will fly quite swiftly, having little travel time, and will be near impossible to sidestep simply by walking. However, any ability that provides mobility ought to provide enough movement to cause a handful of needles to miss their intended target.*