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 the highest structure damage output in the game (referred to as internal raw damage) 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 untargetable and are not destructible in any way whatsoever, although they may be pinged.

Gameplay

On Summoner's Rift and Howling Abyss, the Nexus Obelisk sits in the very corner of the map, behind the spawn point itself.

In all of its iterations, the Nexus Obelisk attacks using a single-target laser that deals 1000 internal raw damage per tick at two ticks per second (or 2000 per second). This damage is a unique form of true damage that additionally bypasses every damage-event related effect in the game, including shields, damage transfers, death immunity, and invulnerability effects. Furthermore, since it doesn't register as a damage event, it will not flag the champion with the in-combat status. There are a few specific exceptions to this, such as Sion's Glory in Death and Kled's Skaarl the Cowardly Lizard effects triggering.

Untargetability may drop turret aggression, allowing for passage in any enemy fountain, but will not prevent an attack that is already being executed from concluding, because of the turret's windup time.

The Nexus Obelisk does not prioritize champions over other units, even if those champions are in combat with opposing champions; it always targets the closest unit in range. It also ignores the presence of neutral units ( monsters) ( Rift Herald is no longer neutral when summoned).

Effects ignored

The Nexus 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. Guardian Angel is not put on cooldown when ignored.

• Resurrection
• Invulnerability and Undying effects
• Shields
• Damage transfers

Effects respected

• Untargetability
  • A unit targeted by the laser will still be hit if it goes untargetable during the laser's wind up, but the turret cannot start the wind up against them.
• Zombie State transition after Death
• Anivia's Rebirth
• Zac's Cell Division
• Kled's dismount

While Sion's Glory in Death, Zac's Cell Division and Anivia's Rebirth's will still trigger as normally if they are taken down by the laser, their resulting form can be targeted again. Sion goes untargetable shortly and Zac spawns new units to be targeted while he goes untargetable, which means aggro can be traded away for them, while Anivia will imminently keep the aggro on her through the instant transition to Eggnivia.

Strategy

Because of its remote location, incorporating the Obelisk into any large strategy is usually impossible. It simply exists to prevent players from being spawn-killed in their fountain. 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 displacement effects such as with Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab) can be used to force them into range of the Obelisk, usually resulting in a quick 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.

Diving an enemy Fountain is a seemingly nonsensical endeavour, however players will sometimes still want to do so, for example to finish their prestigious Pentakill. For this case, it's important to remember that the Nexus Obelisk will target the first targetable unit of the enemy team that enters its range, and will only switch to a new target whenever either the current target leaves the range, dies or becomes untargetable otherwise. It cannot target multiple people simultaneously. This means that while whoever tanks the laser may go down to it, if executed correctly you can specifically keep certain players alive for longer than others.

Since champions are not prioritized over minions, one champion-specific strategy to dive the Fountain more easily is to use Ryze's Realm Warp to teleport a number of allied minions into the fountain, so that allied champions can freely enter for a short while without getting targeted.

Trivia

• In Spectator Mode, the Obelisk can be highlighted before the match begins (i.e. before Champions spawn and the timer starts ticking). During this time the Obelisk has 9999 HP and 25 AD. Once Champions spawn, the Obelisk's AD will increase to ~1100 and ramp up from there until reaching its full value.
• Despite not using a visible model a Nexus Obelisk that is considered destroyed will use the turret ruins model from the red (Magus) faction, facing southwest.

Media

• Pictures

• Summoner's Rift Blue Nexus Obelisk
• Summoner's Rift Update Nexus Obelisk Concept
• Summoner's Rift Update Blue Nexus Obelisk Concept 1
• Summoner's Rift Update Blue Nexus Obelisk Concept 2
• Summoner's Rift Update Red Nexus Obelisk Concept 1
• Summoner's Rift Update Red Nexus Obelisk Concept 2
• Summoner's Rift Update Nexus Obelisk Models
• Arcade Nexus Obelisk Concept (by Riot Artist Ayhan Aydogan)

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References

Map Features

Gameplay Elements