My thoughts on Kha'Zix (with some light stats!)

I have seen a lot of talk recently on the state of Kha'Zix and how he is fairing in the modern League. I play Kha almost exclusively these days. I pretty much only played the PBE for awhile but am starting to get back into playing on live and I just love Kha and would like to share my thoughts as one of the few Kha'Zix mains that exist these days. I am only a gold scrub, so feel free to take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I really like this champion and I hope that you find what I have to say interesting! (Note: This will be long, sorry in advance :p)

What is suppose to be this champion's role

_Early and Mid game: _ If you have ever played Kha then you will know how fun he can be. You really feel like a sneaky bug when you play him; hiding in the shadows of the jungle waiting for an unsuspecting enemy to face check the bush you are in so you can light them up with your crazy isolation damage. Kha as a champion essentially serves a simple purpose, catch people by themselves and punish them for not getting enough vision. It is a simple design with tons of counterplay built into it as now days there are so many ways to check bushes from farther away than Kha can leap (see: ), especially before he evolves his E, which generally happens at level 11. Until team fights start Kha is suppose to act as a "lurker" who is rewarded for predicting the movement of the enemy jungler and destroying them with his insane isolation burst. This is the entire crux of his kit. He also makes for decent ganks in the solo lanes especially the top lane where the long lane can allow him to get off isolation damage. This still builds off his core idea of predicting the enemy jungler and punishing a lack of vision. You do not want to 2v2 as Kha so an enemy counter ganking you usually results in a skirmish loss, and no one will put themselves in a spot to get isolated with enough vision as Kha is not particularly fast and cannot gap close exceptionally well until level 11 (evolved E... again).

Late game and team fights: This is the point in the game where all the hate from the pre-nerfed Kha was generated, and for good reason. Kha is a cleanup specialist who relies on punishing poor positioning late in the team fight by using his reset on E to hop around the fight exploding anyone lower than half HP. Naturally, like most assassins, how well Kha does at this point relies very heavily on how the early game goes. He certainly fits in the "feast or famine" champion paradigm. A good Kha forces the other team to ward out their flanks and stay in tight formation because any isolated target is sitting duck to the bursty bug.

Generally Kha is considered a "Strong" early game champion who can snowball hard if played correctly, but suffering massively if not played correctly in the early game. I think this is why most teammates groan when you lock in a Kha, he requires a very good understanding of the early game and how Kha fits into a team comp.

The problem with Kha'Zix

Kha's great dilemma Remember how I was constantly mentioning Kha's E (leap) and how it is the key to his late game kit and helps him get around a lot of the early game problems other assassins have too? Well it might seem to non-Kha players that evolving E first would surely be the way to go then! But, if you play Kha you'll know that now without an evolved Q you simply do no damage... Sure Kha has specific problems that evolving E first would help you get over, but more generically you can't assassinate anyone without doing any damage, and unless you are stupidly, like 10/0 at 10 minutes fed, fed, non-evolved Q does NOT do enough damage especially when someone is not isolated. You might remember to yourself all the times a Kha has jumped on you and exploded you with a Q and a couple autos... Well, sure it is bursty but think about it, he is an assassin who has 1 ability that does considerable burst damage. E is a gap close with little damage, W is a slow that is objectively worst than Rengar's Bola (with little damage) and R gives you no extra damage outside of Kha's passive. So the dilemma really is, do I take E so I can actually get to people, or do I take Q so that way when I do get to people can I actually hurt them? If you evolve E you are like a dog chasing a car, you won't be able to do anything with it once you catch it, but if you evolve Q then you will never even have a chance to catch the car, even in the hypothetical. A buff to E seems like a good way to go and I am happy with Riot for this on the PBE, but based on Kha's play style now, I feel it is not enough, time will tell on that one.

Early game woes Oh Kha's early game, it is such a crucial part of the game because it will determine how the rest of the game goes for you. Yet, you will struggle. W has a huge mana cost and long cooldown and it is simply the only way to survive the jungle now. Kha also starts with the lowest HP of any AD assassin (with the exception of Lee, Yasuo, Riven which I tend to think of more as fighters personally). Coupling this lack of sustain with low HP means that you are more of a ladybug in the early stages of the game. People used to fear running into Kha in the jungle, now you will get burst down by a lower level Kog'Maw waiting by your blue buff (yes this has happened to me, no I don't want to talk about it).

Wait, that's all my ultimate does? When a friend of mine played Kha'Zix for the first time, he hit level 6 and jumped into the bot lane for what he and I, playing adc, thought would be an easy cleanup on a Braum-Jinx (who were way out of position and low on HP). He ulted and used the passive to proc a massive Q onto Jinx. The first rocket crit on him and chunked him pretty good, so he used his ult again only to be zapped, stunned, and exploded all with 4 auto attacks and 1 ability. Kha just does not have the sustain when taking burst to survive till a second round of spells. My friend said to me "Wait, so that's all my ultimate does?" and I thought that was kind of telling, compared to other assassins now, outside of the evolving aspect, Kha's ulti is, well, underwhelming. This is why he can't survive any burst. I compare Kha to Rengar a lot because they have such a similar role, and I am going to do it again here. Rengar's W is simply better than Kha's. W only provides sustain to Kha, which does not help when you are jumping on people. You need to be point blank to get the sustain on it, if you are strong enough to be point blank and not be exploded you don't need the W sustain! But if you DO need it, chances are that after you E Q W you will be running away because you will be at no HP. Not only does Rengars W provide an armor and MR boost when used so it CAN be used early in a fight when you can combo it with the rest of your burst, but to add insult to injury, it actually heals more than Kha's and is a lot easier to hit.

To sum up this whole section, with no way to survive any front-loaded burst, Kha is usually just leaping to his death, like a bug flying into the wind shield of a moving car.

You make good arguments for why he sucks. Now, how do we fix him? Kha in my opinion actually does enough damage, and that's not the fix he needs. Kha needs some way to soak burst damage. Now I am not advocating we return him to the state he used to be when his ultimate was simply too good, but maybe Riot went a little too far with the nerfs. Maybe allow Kha to get his W sustain from range instead of just close up. It does not do enough damage to force people to max it anymore (people even think it's a waste to evolve). It would allow players to be more creative with how they use Kha too. Instead of just jumping on an enemy and using everything for the maximum burst (and wasting the health return aspect of W to boot). A kha could eat that initial burst and use his R to escape and position for a long range W to regenerate some of that burst he took when jumping on the enemy. It sets up for choices too! Do you use the W right away to ensure you hit it to maximize burst? Or do you wait to get the health return because you know that that Annie with her stun ready has an itchy trigger finger? It seems like a needless check on an ability that does not do enough damage to warrant a check.

Anyway, thanks for reading if you have! I really want to hear other opinions. Kha is such a fun champion and I hope you gets some love because he is really damn cool!

tl;dr We need some more creative ways to fix Kha. He can't survive burst at all and that makes him a terrible assassin.