Why do they keep their utility, identity and base damages?
Sure, Kassadin is still viable, and sometimes too strong. But he is just a mobile, scaling damage stick now. And lost his anti-mage theme, silence and had his design gutted in favor of keeping his damage and scalings.
Malicious Metal38 votesBecause they actually removed Ekko's slow on his passive, lowered Nidalee's heal and made Fizz actually have to land PERFECT ultimates.
Yasuo is just...too much and all of them are annoying because of the safety nets of their kits.
Off topic though; Any tips for someone wanting to pick up Shyvana?
Mira Arya Enthe1 votes^That but also
Read this guy. He is Shyvana smart. Now, he is slightly bias and has unusual ways of doing things. But well... he is a Shyvana player. He is in the process of updating for the new season, don't mind the mess.
Is there any particular thing you were looking for however?
I personally am building her melt tank atm. My favorite builds are move-speed on hit and move-speed AD, but they are not as viable atm since the nerfs to Fervor and Strength of Ages removal.
AgeOfTheMage1 votestip 1: DONT FIGHT LEBLANC 2. i like to rush titanic and then frozen mallet long with jaurims fist. rageblade is nice
Big Lincoln1 votesbork is going to be good again next patch
i'm considering 
/ 
, probably going to take titanic over bork if I run bloodrazor and vice versa
farm your jungle and then invade with impunity, you shit on most champs early especially if you catch them doing a camp. ward as much of their jungle as you can and if you see them on one side, go clear the other. new jungle gives shyvana a huge advantage like this since spawns are less frequent and much more punishing if you get robbed.
Keti2 votes-D2 shyv main
bork is getting buffed, but don't get it, it's still a trap item. rageblade might be worth a look though.
bloodrazor -> titanic -> full tank is the basic build.
courage is the best keystone IMO, especially once shyvana's ult is unstoppable.
Runes I take Attack speed reds and quints , armor yellows, scaling MR blues or maybe cdr if you want.
AFK Push1 votesA keystone that can only be proced off of an ult isn't much of one. Not saying she has many choices right now, it's pretty much that or fervor which isn't that good anymore.
Pierce The Veal1 votesA keystone that can only be proced off of an ult isn't much of one. Not saying she has many choices right now, it's pretty much that or fervor which isn't that good anymore.
It has a cooldown slightly shorter than that of her ult. I can see it. But yeah I agree it's meh. Actually though, if you aren't utterly focusing in attack speed, fervor is the best, because you burnout also scales with AD.
Poske1 votesCourage yet you have 1 cc ability ugh? I agree with the build
rtbf2256182415 votesThat Shyvana rework is a huge buff. Nothing more. Just do what you did before and get more dragons.
Poske1 votesJust become a powerhouse by clearing everything in your path once you are few levels ahead fight
Only gank with ultimate
Lots of people play her with exhaust smite for easier ganks try it
Hybrid pen Marks and quints
Off Meta Evan13 votesi just want his mobility to actually be good. like he gives up having a big all ult like 
or 
that can delete a target in exchange for mobility. but he's not even the most mobile champion in the game anymore. champions like 
can out run him. his roaming is dwarfed in comparison to 
he's only really good against AP and even then champions like 
and 
can beat him. he needs really good damage or really good mobility. but has an awkward meh of both. so there literally no reason to pick him over another assassin.
Astôlfo10 votesI don't know everything about the history, but didn't Kassadin have like one of the highest banrates in all of LoL history? 98% or so? All of the above have dashes (Ekko's E is a dash-blink, but still initial part is a dash). Kassadin had just a pure blink on a relatively low cooldown, which is massive amounts of freedom in mobility. And Kassadin also used to have a silence on his Q, if I remember correctly. So he probably got gutted as a result of trying to kill the abomination he once was, and then got stuck in a sort of hard-to-balance position out of PTSD from his peak days.
ReshiKillim11 votes99% banrate iirc, and he did use to have a silence. But so did Leblanc and Talon, and they were arguably as abusive or more so of it. In Kassadin's case, he wasn't really broken OP. He just pissed off anyone that played against him. Think a hybrid between Yasuo and Zed and you get the picture for how much people hated him.
I'd personally prefer a charge system for the number of blinks Kassadin can have, with the mana cost not changing between uses instead of the current system.
Are1 votesRemoving LB's silence was justified, but since Talon doens't really have an escape (ult for damage or to get away) his silence was okay imo.
Spice POWAH3 votesthey didn't consider his silence okay because he could silence for 2(?) seconds, while also being able to kill anything in less than 2 seconds. I can only imagine being a mage on the receiving end of that...
Automated Riven3 votesTalons silence was only ever 1 second.
NineTailedMystic1 votesStill a death sentence for any AP mid he laned against.
Automated Riven1 votesand adc being fair. in his prime he could 0 out a carry in under a second.
Spice POWAH8 votesI kinda wish we could make kassadin an AP fighter rather than an assassin. How many actual AP fighters do we even have? (and by fighter i'm thinking like fiora or riven, building glass cannon, not like a zac that builds full ap)
Mira Arya Enthe2 votesHe was originally meant to be. His AP scalings made him into an assassin, Riot instead gutted his utility.
Spice POWAH3 voteswha...
why didn't they just nerf his scalings and adjust him to actually be a fighter?
Only Play Darius6 votesWhy didn't they do any work on Kassadin in the assassin update?
Mira Arya Enthe8 votesProbably because he wasn't meant to be an assassin and the community+high AP scalings made him one. So Riot accepted that and designed him around that.
His original taged were disabler, melee, fighter, mage back in S1-2
Hyrum Graff2 votes[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AMlNlXjW,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2016-11-12T21:02:17.852+0000)
Probably because he wasn't meant to be an assassin and the community+high AP scalings made him one. So Riot accepted that and designed him around that.
His original taged were disabler, melee, fighter, mage back in S1-2
While your information is correct, the reason is wrong. Kass didn't get any work in the assassin update because he's in a reasonably good spot right now -- neither blatantly OP or UP -- and given his history of being one or the other, the team didn't really want to mess it up again.
If/when kass ever gets more work done, he'll be given a lot more resources than he could get in a class update.
DaSarcasticGuy1 votesExcept that exactly describes LeBlanc and she was a major update. I think they left out kass mainly due trying not to take on too many champs at once. I expect him to get minor tweaks to his numbers without a full update.
NightmareAmazoX1 votesMeddler said that ''Kassadin right now is in his best balanced state'' Something like that.
Keira Helsh5 votesYeah, I would have played old Kassadin if they took ALL his scalings away so he only had base damages. xD It was so much more fun.
Photos of Ghosts5 votesFfs, they HAD to remove his silence. It was a ranged point and click silence, that could slow with Rylai's, which guaranteed for him to catch up to any target and delete it.
Bladerunner77774 votes"anti-mage" is a terrible thematic that they should abandon completely
Kassadin is the "Rift Walker", he shouldn't be the:
http://cdn.dota2.com/apps/dota2/images/heroes/antimage_vert.jpg?v=3689119
Right now he is the "Rift Walker That Can Only Lane Against AP"
BUUUT I still think he's fine and still very fun to play
Need Gold 4 Tent1 votesSomeone already said Magina is called the anti-mage, inferring that he should be most effective against mages, yet he ended up being even stronger vs other carries with small mana pools, "silencing" them by making them oom.
crippler381 votesyeah but if they're oom his dps DROPS and he reduces magical damage so that plus the ult that punishes you for being oom with a huge pool means well, he's better vs int heroes of any kind than say, axe with a magic stick.
Automated Riven1 votesKassadin was originally an anti mage. His q had mana burn and this was in a time where mages were vary vary gated by mana. Ezreals q at this time cost a third of his mana pool.
Need Gold 4 Tent1 votesWell, MOBAs have evolved, and so has the concept of "mages", and with it, the anti-mage needs to be updated too. Mages used to be those twiggy figures that stayed behind the frontline throwing fire, lightning, stuns and shit, mostly in AoE. They also were usually magic. Thus you had a supermobile champion, that silenced, blocked magic with nukes of his own to kill them (hint, his name starts with Kass).
Now mages are more loosely defined as "casters". And about half of them are now AD. And a lot of them are manaless. Tricks like silences and magic damage reduction are not as anti-magey as they used to be. Not to mention they are just as mobile as he is. Kassandin is outdated, Riot's concept of anti-mage is also outdated. But that being said, if they did design a champ to counter the caster class, it would be rather toxic now considering they now occupy a huge part of the roster.
We'd end up with another , which is kind of not a pleasant thought.
raishinari4 votesi think if kassadin had a 700 unit R, he would be ok.
right now he is weak. 500 unit R is too close. he can't get away or gap close to his target efficiently.
JedenVojak4 votesKassadin doesn't do damage. All of his bases are crap, and he doesn't have any kind of steroids unlike ANY OTHER ASSASSIN. All he has is okayish scalings, which he can utilize in late game since in theory he doesn't have a pre-determined sequence of abilities he has to execute and a low-cooldown blink.
Fizz doesn't have "utility", he has gapclosers and evasiveness, unless you're somehow counting the slow on his ultimate.
Yasuo is not an assassin, he's a melee carry.
Nidalee is sort of a weird case, in that she is a mage that got shoved into an assassin role, but her only utility ability is her heal - and for that she trades out having an ult. Everything else is mobility or damage.
Ekko is really the only legit example, as he seems to be this CC tank that was somehow mislabeled as an assassin. That's kinda weird, but I don't know why that upsets people.
There is one point that I do agree with and that is that Kassadin payed a high price.
SirPurrr4 votesKassadin's not even an assassin anymore unless he gets to 4 items+. His full combo is about half an ADCs HP before that. It's actually a bit sad. :D At 6 items ADCs with escape like Cait can actually 1v1 him if they have BT or Mercurial.
Teridax683 votesAll of the champions mentioned in the OP have mostly back-loaded burst. Kassadin, by contrast, can initiate with all of his damage, even if his E charges up slowly outside of big fights. Kass's fantasy, among others, is also having unrestricted mobility, something he doesn't quite have (he's mana-gated), but achieves better than any other champion, even Talon or Quinn.
In the end, Kass will have to choose between being the most mobile champion in the game, and being the best anti-mage. Those are two distinct core identities, and he can't really be both without paying heavy costs. Personally, I think he should choose the former over the latter, even if his kit could still do well against casters.
Beyond that, Kassadin still has gameplay issues that have been left unresolved for years now. He has a ton of instant, upfront burst on top of near-guaranteed initiation via mobility, something that has never turned out healthy in League, with Rengar as an example. On top of that, all of his current anti-mage protection, i.e. his shield and passive, would be much better suited on a bruiser, and can't be made that great on someone who isn't going to be building much health or resists. He needs a bit less reliability on some of his abilities, namely his point-and-click Q and E, and with that a bit less upfront burst, and with that he could afford to have much more assassin-appropriate utility against magic damage and casters.
Requiemsfire2 votesBecause Kassadin's kit revolves around a 2 second blink which can be used to overcome any obstacle including terrain and traps, he could insta gib you and then blink out with only a small opportunity to punish. It was OP as hell in its prime and since his identity and unique kit is tied to his mobility riot refuses to change it.
Marshbouy2 votesYou forgot the part when all 4 of those don't have a slightly worse flash on a 2.5 second cooldown. just sayin.
WacingTheFind1 votes is a skirmisher, not an assassin, that kinda gives him "permission" to have more utility than assassins (he is melee and doesn't have the high burst they have, so he needs some CC/utility to keep himself in the fight), if that utility is too much, well you could remove it, but what would you give him in return? More dmg? More mobility? Give nothing in return and let him rot in oblivion aka olaf'd?
Legacy Hydralpha3 votesA skirmisher is supposed to wait for people to come to them right? IDK if is the best example of that with his dash-through-minions engage and the blink on his ult.
Trias0001 votes[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AMlNlXjW,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-11-12T19:06:58.642+0000) And lost his anti-mage theme
And that's great. You shouldn't be able to automatically counter a champion or a class of champions by simply picking an anti-something.
4th3t0s1 votes
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Trias0001 votes
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Veigar is not an anti-mage anymore, thankfully. That 80% enemy AP scaling was super ridiculous and unhealthy. Same as Kassadin's silence about whose removal the OP seems to be complaining. As for Galio and Rammus, it's debatable. But at least Galio doesn't automatically counter all mages like Kassadin used to when he had his silence.
4th3t0s1 votesSilence wasn't the only part of his kit that explicitly countered mages, and I was referring as well to Veigar's old AP-sapping passive, same with Galio's passive converting MR to AP .
Trias0001 votesSilence wasn't the only part of his kit that explicitly countered mages
Silence + mobility + tons of damage If he didn't delete you on one combo, he could still jump back to safety before you managed to counterattack in any way other than autoattacks. I guess you nor the other 5 people who downvoted my comment have never played a mage against Kassadin. Then you'd know how incredibly frustrating it was.
4th3t0s1 votesI remember the days when he had a 95% banrate, I've played since early season 2; don't think I don't understand what playing a frustrating lane is like.
Sona x Rubick1 votes adc without utility is no-bueno
reason why juggernauts are trash tier when their kit is nerfed.
crippler382 votesI thought that was because a juggernaut is made to shitstomp anyone they get to but if they do that too well they're oppressive but if they're not good enough at it they're useless at everything else.
I dunno I might just be insane.
MunchCrunchLunch1 voteswhat damage? kassadin does damage? every time i go against one he does more damage from his base ad than his stupidly weak base numbers and ad scalings
