My thoughts on Kassadin

Hey so I mained Kassadin from seasons 1-3 and played him a bit recently before the nerf. Please consider what I have to say.

Kassadin went out of control in season 3 because after many item and champion changes, the game reached a point where Kassadin could easily get enough damage output to take over the game. Riot never wanted to nerf his scaling because they didn't want people to think he's not supposed to build glass cannon, but this has made it impossible to fix him.

Another thing that I really don't understand at all is why Riot has left Kassadin's Q as such a solid laning tool. So much of his overall power budget is in spamming Q in lane, which is both annoying to the opponent, and boring to the Kassadin player. Keeping his Q as a targeted ability in a game increasingly about skillshots doesn't make sense. It made sense when his Q was primarily a utility skill which the timing of was important, and a skillshot version would have felt like poop... but it's not a silence anymore. There is no reason to keep it as a targeted ability unless you want to tie up his power budget in it.

Also worth mentioning is his new W has improved his pre-6 a lot, because it allows him to spam Q more than before, so even though is Q scales less with ability rank, he actually bullies harder than before.

The nerf this patch has been the most disappointing change I've ever seen to this game in my nearly 6 years playing it. Kassadin's identity is all about Riftwalk? Then why did you nerf it instead of the rest of his kit? With 450 range it's not special at all. Many champions have mobility that rivals his after the nerf. There's nothing special about him anymore.

So, personally, I believe Kassadin's identity is supposed to include a relatively weak pre-6. Changes to him have not been consistent with this identity for the past year or so but I think he had a more clear identity before all of his changes. He is currently a lane bully that scales really well, although he's likely not viable after the ult nerf.

I dunno what else to say right now. I hope I get a Riot response. I'd like to get some discussion with Riot about Kassadin for once.