Nexus Obelisk

The red Nexus Obelisk on Summoner's Rift.

The blue Nexus Obelisk on Summoner's Rift.

The Nexus Obelisk (colloquially called the Fountain Laser) is a type of turret in League of Legends that possesses among the highest damage outputs in the game and presides over a team's spawn platform, mainly for the purpose of preventing spawn-camping by an opposing team (or the act of slaughtering enemies immediately as they re-enter the game). They are not targetable or destructible in any way whatsoever, although they may be pinged.

On Summoner's Rift, Proving Grounds, Twisted Treeline, and Howling Abyss, the Nexus Obelisk sits in the very corner of the map, behind the spawn point itself. On the Crystal Scar, there are three Nexus Obelisks on each team: two located at the base entrances, and one near the shop.

In all of its iterations, the Nexus Obelisk attacks using a laser that deals 1000 damage per shot at two shots per second (or 2000 damage per second). This damage is of the pure type, meaning that not only will it ignore all forms of resistances as true damage does but it will also bypass death immunity and invulnerability effects such as Guardian Angel, which in practice means that it is almost impossible for any champion to stay within its range for long.

The Nexus Obelisk is the only example in the game to deal pure damage outside of bugged mechanics. Notably, in versions prior to patch V1.0.0.108, the Nexus Obelisk did deal true damage, effectively allowing some champions to "safely" dive into the enemy spawn.

Effects ignored

• Aatrox's Blood Well
• Anivia's Rebirth
• Kayle's Intervention
• Poppy's Diplomatic Immunity
• Tryndamere's Undying Rage
• Zilean's Chrono Shift Chrono Shift
• Zac's Cell Division
• Guardian Angel
• Shields

The Obelisk will not acknowledge any of these effects should a champion within range possess them and will behave as if they did not have them. Any revive effects a target has will not be put on cooldown if they are killed by the Nexus Obelisk.

Yorick's Omen of Death and Sion's Glory in Death will still function as normal if their recipients are killed by the laser, but they will likely have another death after they are retargeted.

Effects respected

• Elise's Rappel
• Fiora's Blade Waltz
• Fizz's Playful
• Kalista's Fate's Call
• Lissandra's Frozen Tomb
• Maokai's Twisted Advance
• Master Yi's Alpha Strike
• Rek'Sai's Void Rush
• Shaco's Hallucinate
• Vladimir's Sanguine Pool
• Zhonya's Hourglass

Activating these effects at the right time within the Obelisk's range will prevent damage for that given time.

Strategy

Because of its remote location, incorporating the Obelisk into any large strategy is usually impossible. Nonetheless, it can see significant use at times when a team is on the brink of defeat and conducting a last stand at their Nexus. Champions with crowd control that is able to reposition enemies (particularly pull effects such as with Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab) can be used to force them into range of the Obelisk, usually resulting in an instant kill.

Baiting enemies into the Obelisk's range can also achieve the same result. As many players are aware of this trick, this is usually more effective with enemy minions than champions, although their priority system and low aggro range can make this difficult to pull off with large groups.

Map Features