Kayn's Darkin form is infinitely better than his Shadow Assassin form atm

Akali is SO HOT·Jul 13, 2017·66 votes·28,982 views

There is never a situation where Shadow Assassin should be taken over Darkin. Just a heads up.

145 Comments

MysterQJul 13, 201746 votes

Just like every other assassin, right.

SzGamer227Jul 13, 20174 votes

Not even with the Lethality buffs? Do we even know yet?

SweedishGunnerJul 13, 20178 votes

I've seen ADC's building Lethality again if that means anything.

SteelflameJul 13, 20174 votes

They are probably just running on how powerful Duskblade is, but the other items are probably not worth it.

MegagonJul 13, 201718 votes

It's good if you like the color blue!

[slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

KnoyleJul 13, 20179 votes

Bitches love blue

Azure DancerJul 13, 20175 votes

I love blue

AlfayxJul 13, 20172 votes

WOLOLO you love red now

Azure DancerJul 14, 20172 votes

Noooooo

KnoyleJul 13, 20176 votes

Let me smash?

Azure DancerJul 14, 20173 votes

No ron

PrinceOfStormsJul 13, 201717 votes

Honestly, Shadow Asssassin form should increase the range of his Q by a fair amount rather than increase the duration of his E.

Shadow Assassin ult should probably also do more damage.

WimbledofyJul 13, 20179 votes

his ult resets his passive which gives like a 40% damage increase

Champion SkinJul 13, 20174 votes

His passive looks way stronger than it is....

Kayn's basic attacks and abilities deal 12% - 44% (based on level) of post-mitigation damage as bonus magic damage lasting for 3 seconds when entering combat with an enemy champion

44% sounds like a lot.... the problem is POST-mitigation so if Kayne deals 100 (%) damage against a target with 100 armor then it gets reduced to 50 (post-mitigation) and 44% of that is 22 (which is 22% of the original pre-mitigation damage) and not to mention it is magic damage so it is also further reduced by MR

With 200 armor the damage is reduced to 33 and the bonus magic damage is 14.52 (% of the pre-mitigation damage) and that is also before MR is counted

WolfeurJul 13, 20174 votes

It's because it's meant to be better on squishy targets. You know, since he's an assassin.

Voluug13Jul 13, 20175 votes

Assassin mains think they should kill tanks and bruisers along with squishies lmao

FedairkidJul 13, 20172 votes

thing is even squishys can easily get to the 100 resistance stats . imo kayn is weak af and desperately needs a buff. like just staright up dmg buff and yeah, his shadow assassins shouldnt extend e but increase q range.

EschetonJul 13, 201716 votes

Meanwhile noone builds triforce on him while his power comes in part from his passive. Combined with IE he is strong. But everyone just build assassin items and complains he is weak. He's not Talon.

GelsominoKillerJul 13, 201733 votes

Triforce on a jungler budget can be tricky. Moreover, Auto attacking as kayn isn't that easy. In my opinion he should not be focused on his autoattacks.

SzGamer227Jul 13, 20173 votes

Shadow Assassin Kayn's passive specifically buffs his auto attacks, and his ult refreshes this passive. Methinks you're doing something wrong if you're playing Shadow Assassin and not using your autos.

SqueyJul 13, 20171 votes

He doenst have to jungle. I dont think i have seen him lose lane yet in top or mid. Obviously short sample size but so far i actually prefer his laning because its so safe and easier to get passive.

Glory ln DeathJul 13, 20172 votes

I've found that Taric destroys him pretty well in top lane. But, dang, is it hard to gank him in lane, with that wall ability thing.

BeatzBoyFTWJul 14, 20172 votes

Who the hell still plays Taric top...

Glory ln DeathJul 14, 20173 votes

Did you not see the changes he got this patch? You can cast his Q (and therefore get his Bravado attacks) literally every second, as long as you have the mana. He can deal so much damage just by smacking people, and he keeps himself topped off on health.

RainbowIceeJul 13, 20173 votes

Not only this but fiora is still a current menace, aswell as the ridiculous amounts of peels the adc's have. You do not want to be an all in champion atm in league.

khorneyJul 13, 20171 votes

i wrote the samething. I think people are building lethality to be honest. The keystone is a hard one to figure out, but im thinking straight ad is better. I tried lethlity and was not impressed. Like with rengar do not build lethality it works but its not that good on him your better off building rh, triforce rapidfire cannon or something.

Akali is SO HOTJul 13, 20174 votes

Are you talking about lethality on darkin or shadow assassin? Once you get some lethality on darkin you are basically doing %health true damage against squishies. Get in an auto and maybe w and they'll be pretty much dead.

khorneyJul 13, 20171 votes

both, lethality is trash. think of rengar .....lethlity sounds good but really isnt as good as if you had built straight ad

HappyAxidenctsJul 13, 20172 votes

Try lethality Riven with the reworked lethality. My friend played It, had 80 lethality and 8 lethality gave him 10 armor penetration. Thats 100 armor penetrated. He did true damage to people who bought some armor. He killed an enemy at level 4, like He was an overfed Riven, cuz He already had 20+ lethality and He did true dmg.

How did He have so lethality? Full lethality rune page, lethality in mastery and only lethality items. He still had 400 ad and 2,5k + hp and 80 or so armor and mr and 40 cd reduction, so... Seems like lethality build is good.

FefnilJul 14, 20174 votes

Mmh... what? Ok, first, lethality gives you armor penetration between 60% and 100% of its value, based on level... this means that 8 lethality will NEVER give you 10 armor penetration. Second, with 20+ lethality at level 4 you get between 14 and 21 armor penetration... which is far from true damage, since champions at that level have at least 30 armor.

HappyAxidenctsJul 18, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Mmh... what? Ok, first, lethality gives you armor penetration between 60% and 100% of its value, based on level... this means that 8 lethality will NEVER give you 10 armor penetration. Second, with 20+ lethality at level 4 you get between 14 and 21 armor penetration... which is far from true damage, since champions at that level have at least 30 armor.

Yeh, just got into custom game, serrated dirk, 8 lethality writes that It gives 10 armor pen, sorry for you.

FefnilJul 18, 20171 votes

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor_penetration Formula: Flat Armor Penetration = LETHALITY × (0.6 + 0.4 × level ÷ 18) With 8 Lethality at level 18: Flat Armor Penetration = 8 × (0.6 + 0.4 × 18 ÷ 18) = 8 × (0.6 + 0.4) = 8 × 1 = 8 But anyway, Serrated Dirk gives 10 Lethality, not 8. Are you sure you had 8?

HappyAxidenctsJul 19, 20171 votes

{quoted}

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor_penetration Formula: Flat Armor Penetration = LETHALITY × (0.6 + 0.4 × level ÷ 18) With 8 Lethality at level 18: Flat Armor Penetration = 8 × (0.6 + 0.4 × 18 ÷ 18) = 8 × (0.6 + 0.4) = 8 × 1 = 8 But anyway, Serrated Dirk gives 10 Lethality, not 8. Are you sure you had 8?

Riot saw my comment and did a hotfix then. Both me and My friend saw that It gives 8 letality. We both went multiple matches with Lethality and It was 8, not 10, not 12, It was 8.

FefnilJul 19, 20172 votes

I have seen a random Youtube video from 4 days ago, and it gave 10 Lethality...

AirKingNeoJul 13, 20172 votes

Kayn is weak. His Q and W are basically his only damage abilities (his ult deals shit damage, it should deal 50% more than it does) and doesn't deal nearly enough to compensate.

His base HP sucks and his E heal scales too poorly with rank.

MonkeyMadnessJul 13, 20178 votes

Are you recommending item 3078 + item 3031 ? On a jungler? Dood...

EschetonJul 14, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Are you recommending + ? On a jungler? Dood...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQZtDuRZpC4

NB3 did it. He's no bronze scrub or anything.

MonkeyMadnessJul 14, 20176 votes

LOL in a game where he had 7 kills before laning ended...

also this was on PBE, so he may not be a bronze scrub, but half the other people are, and literallly 0% of players take it seriously.

MogarlJul 13, 20174 votes

As someone that played Viktor back when you could choose 1 of 3, but really didn't have a choice. I, certainly, didn't see this coming. Kayn needs to have different ratios and maybe even bases in his different forms if Riot wants them both viable. otherwise Rhaast's healing and damage are always going to outweigh Kayn's extra bits of range.

How in the hell is

Kayn's basic attacks and abilities deal 12% - 44% (based on level) of post-mitigation damage as bonus magic damage
Blade's Reach's range is increased by 200, deals 10% bonus AD bonus damage and the Slow icon slow decays over 2 seconds. Additionally, Kayn conjures a living shadow at the casting position to perform Blade's Reach in his stead, allowing Kayn to perform other actions.
Casting Shadow Step removes Slow icon slows, additionally if Kayn enters terrain at least once, Shadow Step will be improved for the remainder of its duration to grant 70% bonus movement speed and make Kayn immune to Slow icon slows.
Umbral Trespass gains 200 bonus range and emerging from the target resets The Darkin Scythe A.png The Darkin Scythe cooldown.

10% bonuse ad ratio and 12-44% of your damage becomes magic

Supposed to compete with

Rhaast heals for 26% - 43% (based on level) of the post-mitigation damage that he deals with spells against enemy champions.
Both instances of Reaping Slash's damage are modified to 50% AD (+ 5% (+ 4% per 100 bonus AD) of target's maximum health) physical damage, capped against monsters.
Blade's Reach Airborne icon knocks up enemies for 1 second.
Umbral Trespass damage is modified to deal 10% (+ 13% per 100 bonus AD) of target's maximum health physical damage, and heals him for「 70% of the pre-mitigation damage.

26-43% spellvamp, 50% AD (+ 5% (+ 4% per 100 bonus AD) of target's maximum health)x2, 10% (+ 13% per 100 bonus AD)

Idk what Riot was thinking Rhaast has so much healing damage and utility that there is never going to be a right time to pick shadow assassin because Raast is going to do more damage to those targets anyways while being tougher and healing.

KuroCaliberJul 13, 20172 votes

The damage from scythe is bonus magic meaning you do 100% physical and 44% magic for a total of 144%damage.

MogarlJul 13, 20173 votes

fair point I misread that, but it's not as simple as 144% damage. Kayn doesn't get any magic penetration so once it's at 44% that damage will be cut by at least 27%. But that magic damage also ensures blue Kayn is fucked over by his team if they have relevant magic damage. Runes and item 3102 will pop champions up above 100 so his bonus damage get's cut in half.

Red Kayn on the other hand builds black cleaver and has good penetration on all his percent health physical damage.

There is of course merit to the fact that Blue Kayn likely has a higher skill floor. He requires better positioning and intelligent use of cooldowns so no one can actually play correctly right out of the gate.

Riot will solve this by over buffing blue Kayn obscenely and making him pick or ban. Riot will then slowly (very slowly) nerf him down to an "acceptable" level. This allows all the people that want to learn him do it while he's op and impossible to fail with so that they don't feel bad, and will buy the 3 skins (salt) they release for him before he's finally put where he belongs.

Champion SkinJul 13, 20173 votes

Not only does it get reduced by MR it is also POST-mitigation.... This means that if Kayne hits a target with 100 armor and 100 MR If we say that Kayne deals 100 damage (100%) and then his damage gets reduced to 50 (this is the post-mitigation damage) which is then increased by 44% for +22 and then this is reduced to 11 by MR (so about 11% increase)

And it gets even worse for higher Armor and most champions have pretty high base armor at level 18 so having 100+ armor isn't that unrealistic (especially with how good/common item 3026 )

ReconsJul 13, 20171 votes

43% Spellvamp at level 18 is ridiculously strong with runic shield and item 3065 8% (From mastery) +30% (Spirit Visage) =38% extra of 43% is 11.31% extra which ends up being a grand total of 54.3% Spell Vamp, adding to that he deals % health damage to tanks... and he's pretty much unkillable.

EDIT: OH and I forgot Death's Dance effectively giving him another 15% spell vamp and 30% damage reduction

ReconsJul 13, 20176 votes

I guess Darkin Kayn core would be: item 1412 For the damage reduction. item 3812 For even more damage reduction and Spell Vamp item 3065 Healing item 3071 For Max CDR and tank shredding.

HappyAxidenctsJul 13, 20171 votes

Yeh, but Id go for black cleaver first and mb titanic second and just then spirit and deaths dance.

My Waifu VanillaJul 14, 20172 votes

I honestly don't think Titanic is necessary tbh. He doesn't auto attack THAT much and he only gets the spellvamp and such from abilities so playing off of his MASSIVE ratios is arguably better. Getting a Lethality item would arguably be a better choice since it gives more AD and damage (to heal for more). Sadly enough Rhaast uses Lethality MUCH better than Shadow Assassin since Rhaast at least does only Physical damage and gets even more bulk from doing damage.

TwitchInMyPantsJul 14, 20172 votes

TBH shadow assassin seems to be more about increasing your mobility and combos. You lose the cast time on W, even if the knockup is alright for chasing you cant use it and also be pursuing a target, there are going to be situations where being allowed to move matters. The passive is also pretty good after 2-3 items when you either have the CDR to get multiple qs off or the AS to combo some autos to maximize it. R reset is ok.

Though really you're right, all the math favors Darkin. I think the unique utility on Shadow Assassin is a fair upgrade but Darkin is just this absurd sustain monster and even factoring assassin's passive Darkin straight up does more damage on R and it enables more build paths (AS, Raw AD, or Bruiser). These forms are imba atm, I think its fair to say about 10% of the time Shadow Assassins damage and chasing over extended fights makes it better but even then you could just do the same build on Darkin and have an easier midgame transition and the rest of the time Darkin is just straight up better.