I don't understand why Kassadin's riftwalk is getting nerfed when there are champions like Nidalee who have a gap-closer that is almost as long and doesn't cost any mana .(and its on a 3 second cooldown) Compared to other champs, his ult is balanced because of the stacking mana cost. I don't even play Kassadin but I have empathy for actual Kassadin players who feel the same way that I do.
I think the change is justified.
But the rest of his kit should get some power back. Problem is that his should of been the first change they did.
Because Nidalee, unlike Kassadin, doesn't have tons of damage to go with her mobility.
... BAHAHAHAHA sorry I couldn't say that with a straight face.
There's a really important difference between the nidalee gapcloser and kassadin gapcloser: nid has to do something first. She either has to land a spear or trap. We can argue about how easy/hard that is, but that's not really my point... the bummer about kassadin ult is that he can blink long distances whenever he wants with no proactive play (like nidalee) beforehand. Nidalee's gapcloser involves additional strategy/gameplay; kassadin's is a low-cd "I-positioned-poorly-but-oh-well-who-cares-R" ability.
I don't think kass is misbalanced by much (if at all) but if they were to change something about him I think they should do something besides tweak the numbers on his ult. Maybe reduce the mana cost/mana scaling, increase the damage, but have **a significant cast time that decreases with ult stacks. Something that bugs me about his kit is that he's nearly untouchable unless he wants to go in. I think there should be more risk/reward involved in his play style; with a change like that, Kass would have to proactively decided whether or not he wants to be mobile in the near future. The reward for choosing correctly is that he gains additional damage (and said mobility), the penalty is that he stacked his ult at an inopportune time and blew through a lot of resources.
TLDR I don't like the change to Kass's ult either but for different reasons.
I think limiting the mobility in the game is a good direction. Maybe Nid should also get hit, but I don't think she's a good argument for why Kass should be left to eat up a ban slot for yet another year.
Yea, I really don't see why they are nerfing him. He isn't even an issue.
The change is only justified if he gets power back in the rest of his kit. If this change just goes through without any other changes then he will be a garbage champion. Ahri will be the new kassadin.
He is the new Olaf :( It just sucks because i love his fluid style :(
I played Kassadin a few games just to try him out.
He's difficult to play, extremely high skill cap, and has many weaknesses. I don't know why they nerfed his ult when Nidalee just has to Q you and if you live past that she has a gap closer that you can't get away from, or Zed just has to make a clone/throw a shuriken.
I liked it better when Kassadin was terrible in lane.
It justified his annoying mobility and targeted damage Q that was so oppressive late game.
Kassadin's power right now is inevitable, while before you could do something about it (shut him down in lane and win before he got going).
Now, to fix the issue Riot has decided to absolutely gut his mobility.
They should just weaken his laning, and allow him to be powerful and hyper-mobile later on.
Riot in 2 patches ''We think the Kassadin nerfs hit him a little too hard, so we're gonna buff him beyond 35% win rate''
They're more likely Olafing him until a rework is ready is my guess.
Cons: -Bad Early Game -Item Reliant -Low Base Mana -Predictable -Melee -Not Tanky -Combo leaves a squishy mage in the middle of the team
Pros: -Strong against AP -Multi-Cast Gap Closer.
Yep,reason enough to nerf him.
it's quite a heavy nerf the one Kass is eating, undeserved though? probably not, mobility happens to be really good in this game, look at kalista for example, or Zed, both of these need to do something in order for their mobility to kick in, Kass just needs to hit R...
So it's not just that he has crazy good mobility, but that it's super easy to do if compared to pretty much any other champ, except Ezreal I guess but his cd is way longer.
Now, since these nerfs are a huge slap in the face, I think Kass should get a compensation buff somewhere, perhaps lower significantly the time between riftwalk stacks, like 10/8/6 seconds or so and instead of loosing stacks immediately you'd loose stacks one by one so you can juggle it, of course it's cd should be modified properly like 5/4/3 seconds, his mana stacks would remain the same since now you can wait out your stacks a bit better.
I have nothing against Kassadin, and I have respect for those who play an off-meta champion (seeing as I'm a Veigar main), but his passive is enormously powerful for midlane. Passively resisting 15% of all magic damage (the primary damage source in midlane) while also never getting creepblocked is something that a lot of people don't talk about, and it's a pretty powerful passive. Add onto that a damaging AoE slow, a point-and-click attack that grants him a shield, bonus magic damage and temporary range to his AA's, all topped with a 700 range instant teleport that he can use multiple times and that damages you in an AoE area makes for a pretty frustrating matchup for many champs.
Now like I said I don't hate Kass, but I feel like the nerf to his teleport range isn't that devastating considering he can just use it multiple times anyway. Just be glad that's all they changed about him, at least he didn't get steamrolled like Veigar did.
The problem i always see with kassadin is that he will ult over a wall and wait for the teamfight to break out, ult back over and sweep the fight, he has a lot at his disposal in the means of lots of damage and a low cooldown blink. Thats not to say he deserved these nerfs, i feel the nid situation should be dealt with first before thinking of kassadin, but then again kassadin top can be opressive, all he does is sphere you for poke, slow you if you get close and ult away to safety, so i can see where they want to add some counterplay to his kinda new top lane position.
Kassadin's Riftwalk got nerfed because he essentially had super flash up the entire game, super duo-flash up most of mid game, and super triple-flash up most of late game. It's one of those things where you had an insane amount of safety.
Now....... now he just has the same thing but it's the same range as flash. ..... I never get the thought process behind these things. It's like Veigar's E. They need to just spike the thing into the ground already and buff to compensate. If they had done that a while ago instead of trying to nerf everything else to compensate, Kassadin wouldn't be about to suck.
Well to be fair, The range on it now is akin to Ezreals E, or a flash.
And using Nidalee who is currently a bitch right now isn't helping your case much. Nid pretty much does everything better.
I'll agee that it's a hefty nerf, however he does have a VU coming which may prompt more game play changes for the rift walker.
Sometimes power picked get nerfed to the ground...see Fizz & Gragas.
How about implementing something similar to his E's passive to his ultimate cost? When he ults, Kassadin would use all the charges that he had.
is getting buffed, 
counters :)
