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

Zalinthel·Dec 7, 2014·2 votes·1,031 views

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?

6 Comments

eux0rDec 7, 20141 votes

good thinking, the problem with balancing kass atm truly is his blink-nuke pattern, a more sticky-dps-pattern is probably far healthier, i especially like the silence-on-cast debuff

ZalinthelDec 8, 20141 votes

Agreed. I think the number tuning is going to be the important but delicate part here. Especially things like cooldowns, mana costs and how much mana he can get back.

The MechEDec 9, 20141 votes

good thinking, the problem with balancing kass atm truly is his blink-nuke pattern, a more sticky-dps-pattern is probably far healthier, i especially like the silence-on-cast debuff

No, people hate fighting sticky dps. That's what Skarner was before he was reworked.

Eve The RipperDec 8, 20141 votes

While I like this, wouldn't it be better to play some other melee AD who kills people fast enough that they don't need to have a blink? Or, perhaps, one that can cc the enemy long enough to kill them? Or, maybe an assassin that just deletes them instantly?

Kass got forced out of his intended role (after it was changed) because he can't compete with the likes of Riven/Irelia/Wu Kong (in terms of ccing to death)/ Yasuo or other melees with mobility and cc. Granted, he's no fun for anyone as a mage, but a return to his roots would destroy him completely and we don't do the Eve Treatment anymore (unless it's Eve).

ZalinthelDec 8, 20141 votes

When Kassadin lost his mana burn none of those champions existed; the only comparable melee DPS type champions were the original Yi, old Tryndamere, and the released-same-patch Xin Zhao (whom of course was superbly broken.) By the time he lost his armor pent only Irelia had come out that had a similar role. The primary reason people stopped playing him as a DPS and as a Burster was because there wasn't a prevailing reason to play with any kind of sustained damage output in mind with how strong his AP ratios and bases were. The only thing his armor pent W was generally useful for was (if it was even bought) making Lich Bane (which was physical for a long time and had 1:1 AP scaling) hit crazy hard.

In the modern day, the things Kassadin would need to perform a role like I've described would be proper scaling/steroids, a way to get to his target quickly(R), and a means of holding it down long enough to get it done (Q/E both help here). Kassadin has always been similar to assassins or people like Yi, where he waits for CC to get thrown around a little, hops in out of nowhere and goes to town.

With the DPS playstyle in mind this would likely mean he'd build somewhere in between Irelia (1-2 damage items into tank) and Riven (lots of damage with 1-2 defensive items), so he can kick ass without blowing up (partially helped by his passive, which conveniently becomes more powerful later in the game, where being CC'd and bursted is more of a problem than earlier on.) Items like Maw that accomplish multiple goals would be ideal.

Even if it wasn't ideal or possible for Kassadin to immediately hop in and murder an important target, his Q could still disrupt and bother tanks or casters if used effectively, his E could provide somewhat regular slows to help peel, and his damage output could help to shred down the frontline (especially since with an AD setup he'd be doing mixed damage.) His R would give him the freedom to reposition instantly between going for squishies and peeling for teammates as he chose as well.

Again, this was just a concept that came to mind. I think that it's better to brainstorm ideas on how to change Kassadin instead of leaving him in his underpowered, un-buffable state that he currently is sitting in. If you have any ideas on how else we could change him, please share.

Eve The RipperDec 9, 20141 votes

I wasn't quite clear, there. The 'after it was changed' aside was meant to show that I knew that one thing didn't cause the other, but my point was that he can't go back to that now because the new assassins/fighters are all leaps and bounds better than he was ever meant to be, with the exception of actual leaping and bounding.

I do, however, like the concept. It would have been nice back in the day, but now it's not 'forceful' enough. If enemies have a chance for meaningful interaction with an AD melee, it's already out of top-tier. Not because anyone wants it that way, but because that's just where we happen to be right now.