Kassadin- A look at his roots and what he could be.

Kassadin is currently in a state of existence where he is more or less forced to be bad because otherwise he goes nuts. The reason for this is obvious given his current play patterns: go in, ka-boom, get out. His kit was never designed to nurture such a role and this is why his current design is so problematic.

If you dig into Kassadin's past, you'd be surprised to find an Anti-Mage-esque kit. His passive was the same as it is now bar an attack speed increase from soaking damage. Q was his infamous silence, which in the context of his creation was very logical; CC was common place and mages melted face, so Kassadin needed a way to shut them up long enough to put some hurt in. His W had a mana-steal mechanic as a passive (caster minions used to have mana explicitly so he could leech off them) with an active of a massive armor pent boost (50 for 5 seconds at max.) E was the same as it is, R was how it was prior to his current rework. It's noteworthy that Kassadin has superb base stats; his base AD is one of the highest in the game, his base attack speed and scaling are quite good, and his health and armor aren't shabby.

So what happened? Removal of his mana-burn took away a lot of incentive for him to hit stuff, and then people realized he had fairly high AP ratios. So he started being played as a burst Mage instead of a Melee Anti-Caster DPS, because he was better at the former. Nail in the coffin was changing W to give AP on-hit instead of armor pent.

I suggest that we go back to his AD roots while still holding onto some of his AP scaling. Make him a DPS champion whom uses Riftwalk to be sticky. An example kit could look something like:

Passive: Kassadin takes reduced damage from spells and abilities (physical and magical.) This reduction scales with level (1/6/11/16).

Explanation: Casters aren't just magical anymore, AD assassins are not unheard of and Kassadin should be equally competent at reducing some of the pain they can deal him. The reduction scales so that it isn't stupid early game but still helps him survive later (I imagined it looking like 5/10/15/20% at 1/6/11/16. And again, this only effects SPELLS, not on-hits or auto attacks.)

Q: Kassadin fires an orb of void energy in a straight line, dealing a small amount of magic damage (scales AP.) Afterwards, the target becomes negatively charged with void energy, which causes them to take magic damage (small AD and AP scaling) and become silenced for a brief period whenever they cast a spell (I.e. .25-.5 seconds.)

Explanation: The complaint about his silence was that it was point and click "fuck you" that made it impossible to retaliate. The goals here were a few: one, make it fairly weak as a poke tool, make it have counter play (don't cast=no damage, your spell still happens if you do cast a spell, so you can stun him), and make it retain the intent (make casters hesitate to cast at him. Also, the way it works it's intended to disrupt combos (I.e. Syndra tries to Q->E but gets silenced** while Q'ing, throwing off the stun.) and stop channels if you apply it before the channel is cast. Skillshot suggestion here for obvious reasons, though depending may not be needed.

W: Passive: Kassadin's basic attacks deal a percentage of his attack damage and ability power as bonus magic damage (% goes up per point) Active: Kassadin gains increased attack speed and doubles the damage of the passive for a short time.

Explanation: the on-hit part of his W is cool enough to maintain (it also makes logical sense considering what he attacks with), and this way it allows AD and AP setups to have differing power curves while still both being DPS oriented. Plus the total AD ratio means it has significant base damage regardless of setup (helps Kassadin last-hit as well.) The active serves to cause a significant part of his presence to be counterable while also being a strong steroid.

E: Passive: cool down reduced whenever a nearby champion (Kassadin included) casts a spell.

Active: Kassadin releases a wave of void energy in a cone, dealing magic damage (AD and AP scaling) and slowing briefly.

Explanation: the concept of Force Pulse is a good one but it's current implementation makes its usefulness fluctuate severely based on team compositions, game state (ahead or behind), and how Kassadin is playing, making it oddly inconsistent. This change aims to make it more reliable while still maintaining the idea of "casting around him be a bad idea."

R: Passive: Kassadin's basic attacks return mana based on a percentage of the damage dealt by his basic attacks and by W. Active: Kassadin teleports to a target location, removing and granting brief immunity to slows. If Kassadin teleports nearby an enemy champion, the cooldown is significantly reduced and the mana cost increases for a duration, stacking a number of times up to a cap (the base cooldown is far higher than current.)

Explanation: Kassadin's R currently makes him really, really annoying. He's essentially immune to ganks, can move around almost as he pleases, and can escape certain doom on a regular basis if the need arises. The damage it deals is tiny and serves little purpose anymore. In light of this, I suggest above that Riftwalk be tuned to be a highly powerful sticking tool (short CD and constant slow peel if you're being aggressive) with much more limited escape potential, which is still mana-gated (his mana sustain is also now derivative of his Ult rank because its the ability that commands it, additionally it promotes the ideology of hitting things that he used to have.)

Again, this is purely a concept idea, and I didn't provide numbers because they are likely quite complex to work out, beyond my ability.

Any thoughts?