is the ideal assassin
Feast or famine, gotta play your lane right
Niche, can't be first picked and guaranteed a win like most
Kit demands damage , tank items are useless
Counterplay, fair and easy ways to counter him
Mobility is very do or die while ramping up the
cost
Why can't we have more like him?
Because it went like this. Kassadin was the most powerful Assassin in the game. So, because of how popular he was and because Riot used to listen to us, they nerfed the life out of him. Then, they gave him a small rework. It took them almost 2 years to realize that the rework didn't make him any stronger or popular. They then started compensations and buffs. Took some power from his Q and lowered its cost. Raised the % AP damage on his W. Let his E be. And had to drastically lower his R's cost and gave it AP as a bonus (the cost use to be 60(^16 if at final stack) then lowered to 50 then lowered to 40 but raised back to 50 after the AP bonus). It took him years of constant work to get as balanced as he is. He is now a true assassin. But Riot will see this and soon change him. Make him "imperfect" again just like how they're changing Vel'Koz even though he's fine as is.
cannot be like them because her burst is too much and she has little to fall back on for safety. With no safety, she can't get in and out like she should. Riot has not addressed this, and it could be addressed if they just lowered her R a little and allowed it to be cast on allies. In and out cast.
has way too much CC and safety. Having bonus damage on his passive should mean less damage on his Q and E. But, Riot and many don't see it that way. He has to power to get in and out safely, but the amount of damage he deals is more than needed. If tank items didn't have damage bonuses, maybe assassins would have to figure something different or wouldn't deal as much damage.
is far too weak. No one knows what to do with her. Honestly, just allowing her ult to deal the % health damage on full health would make her niche again. She would be just as balanced as Kassadin, but people are too scared of a jungle Evelynn (who can be seen with wards) popping up out of nowhere and taking the % health.
is like Ekko and has great safety but also has a lot of raw power. Able to deal tons of damage within turret range and escape with just his Q and/or E. His E could be nerfed of the damage, at least, since he becomes intargetable. No one is sure what to do to him either.
is hard to say. I'd say she's there at being close to balanced perfection, but not as much as Kassadin. Her ult is not hard to fight against, and she has great escape and initiation. Her power isn't too overpowering. I'd say she's still very close.
is the first and prime example of a champ with lots of raw power and has a lot of safety. Able to deal 300 base damage by dealing damage from her Q + W/E/R means she has a lot of power. That mixed in with the fact her ult is free and has a low CD makes it very strong. If anything, I would nerf the CD on her ult to make it so it isn't like a Yasuo ult that can be used again and again.
also has raw power and little to no drawbacks. Unavoidable Q, healing W, free bonus damage/free true damage active, and a massive MS+AS boost (that's un-sllowable). If anything, Yi makes many games unbalanced. Even if your team is slaughtering the enemy, just having a Yi makes things hard to face. Not sure why deaths lower his CD by certain %s and why it lengthens his ultimate. With a ultimate that is far superior to Olaf's R (which loses the armor and magic resist after activated) that may give 60/70/80 bonus AD, some MS when going towards a enemy, and is unable to be slowed or stopped, it only lasts for about 6 seconds. Master Yi's lasts 10 seconds, and can be increased per champion kill to last up to +20 seconds at most (+4 per kill). He's a marvel that has yet to be actually nerfed (besides his W) due to the power he can just send out after using his ult.
is in a decent place. Her Q was nerfed to not instantly kill after two good shots. Her W was nerfed as well. In fact they also made bonuses to her panther form so that it was better to work with. I must say that she's also balanced now and is in the same boat as Kassadin.
is also pretty balanced. Not dealing too much damage and has great initiate, but seems to lack in getting out. Though he can fear an opponent away, its still hard to see how Nocturne can escape as easily as many others on the list.
is hard to say. He has very strong abilities but they are not overpowered. His passive requires stacks on killing enemies and they aren't too game changing. His ability to get out of a losing fight is iffy at best. He can go invisible, and get away quickly, and snare (or trap) enemies but still... He's on the fine line of balanced though he can deal a great deal of burst.
is probably the best Assassin. Because he was perfect before Kassadin reached perfection. He has great initiation and great safety. He isn't too strong and does what an assassin should do. His kit is well balanced, and if played right you can even beat a Master Yi.
seems like he has had the roughest time as an assassin. Not gaining much over his time in League and losing much. He seems to be close to balanced, but (to me) seems just a tad on the weaker end. Not that he's Evelynn weak, but because he uses AD, he has had a good bit of nerfs over the years. He does have a little safety, but not much in general. It would be nice if he had some safety in his kit besides invisibility. The dude has a blink but no shields or MR/AR boosts, no heals, nothing. He risks a lot to get in close only to deal somewhat good damage. His W could use a buff.
might be the hardest to balance. But, he has great safety and initiation. He is much better than Akili, but seems to have no need for conserving energy. He is able to spam his abilities more than you would like, but he isn't impossible to avoid. Though he is hard to catch.
Short answer: No he's not.
Long answer: 67chrome pretty much sums that up.
Loud answer: ** NO HE'S NOT!**
Rude Answer: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOOK AT THE KASS PLAYER TRYING TO GET HIS CANCEROUS CHAMP BACK TO BEING PICK/BAN! TAKE YOUR KASSAWIN AND GO TO HELL!
Honest Answer: Kassadin is a bipolar champion who is either MASSIVELY overpowered or useless. He needs a rework. The only reason he seems less absurd these days is because mobility creep has given half the new champs released abilities that make his ult seem like less of a big deal. But that makes them ALL poorly designed, not Kass ok because he's less stupid than say... the cancer that is Ekko.
Kassadin is the ideal assassin
After living through 100% pick/ban 95% ban-rate Kassawin, I'd have to strongly disagree.
After seeing every assassin in the game become a FOTM Q_Q target - I'd probably have to go with Zed as the ideal assassin, seeing as he's been widely regarded as pretty fair and fun until this season, where being the best assassin and in the top 3 mid lane picks for 3+ years is wearing on everyone. Zed's build has maintained an assassin dynamic, his strengths and weaknesses are where they should be, his mobility scales very well to be where it needs to in team-fights without being game-breaking outside of large fights, his counterplay is really solid, he offers good counterbuild options that aren't just limited to tanks, and he's got a great aesthetic and visual language for being an assassin.
Feast or famine, gotta play your lane right
I don't see feast or famine as being a plus, especially not in a ~33 minute long game like LoL that can have up to an 8 minute pick/ban phase.
Feast or famine is nice in games like Poker or Candy Land, but in competitive games it's a lot nicer to be relevant an entire game where small advantages and disadvantages seem important. When playing a game, it's nice to play a game while you're playing a game. Sucks to win or loose on 1 coin-flip and then just spectate for the rest of a match.
Niche, can't be first picked and guaranteed a win like most
Most assassins a niche and can't be first picked. Take away Zed and you're left with a lot of awkward champions that struggle in lane matchups and fitting into the meta.
But on the 1 coin flip and autopilot tangent: being niche doesn't really make for a great champion, as again: in a ~33 minute long game is nice to be playable for 33 minutes. Falling into a rock-paper-scissors dynamic where you just get shafted as first pick isn't good for long-term game health.
Kit demands damage , tank items are useless
are both extremely common items on Kassadin, and Kassadin has always had a 
thing going where he scales well with mana items: allowing him to build extreemly tanky.
RoA in particular being a core item on Kassadin makes this point awkward: as that's pretty much 50/50 between tank and damage. Tank Kassadin has been a thing as long as Kassadin has been around.
Counterplay, fair and easy ways to counter him
He's not to bad in this area now, though I wouldn't really point to him as a beacon of counterplay either. If Kassadin gets a lead he pretty much Rengar's all over someone's face and kills them with no warning, and Kassadin's roaming and chasing potential is so godly it can leave very little room to counter him without the right team composition.
Why can't we have more like him?
A lot of the older assassins are pretty similar to Kassadin in their overall kit and gameplay, it would just seem a lot of the design space around Kassadin has been taken up: and Kassadin's kit is a little outdated and complete with some design issues that aren't that attractive to mirror.
Biggest issue with Kassadin's kit is his mobility doesn't adjust well to fit team-fight needs vs. general roaming/rotation/skirmishing/dueling/chasing needs. When Kassadin's mobility is strong enough in team-fights to justify a glass-cannon build, it's game breaking in every other scenario. Hence Kassadin holding the record for the highest ban-rate of any champion, holding a 95% ban rate for weeks at a time in the past.
Kassadin is the ideal assassin
Feast or famine, gotta play your lane right Niche, can't be first picked and guaranteed a win like most
Kit demands damage , tank items are useless Counterplay, fair and easy ways to counter him Mobility is very do or die while ramping up the costWhy can't we have more like him?
If a champion is easy to counter he's bad.
Kassadin is the ideal assassin Counterplay, fair and easy ways to counter him
please excuse me while i laugh my fuckign ass off.
kassadin is THE worst assassin design ive ever seen. even now he sits noticably below 50% winrate and barely ever sees play.
in 6 years existing he has never seen a phase where his kit was balanced. he has a history of either being so terrible that hes generally considered a troll pick, or imediately LCS top pick with 70% ban rate and upwards, followed by being spammed in solo que with absolute ridiculous winrates when strong.
ranged assassinations coupled with giving a champion an inbuilt flash on a short cooldown are practically impossible to balance. we repeatedly see the same shit with leblanc and to some extent with ahri.
for the first half of the game, this guy does nothing else than flash over walls, pick up enemy champions on low health with his q and flash back out until hes so fed that he can 1 combo any squishy without giving him ability to react.
his entire relevance to the game depends if his numbers are high enough to back up this cheese reliable enough to snowball and go on a rampage flashing all over the map, picking up enemies left and right.
i have never seen someone call kassadin either balanced or fair with a straight face. his kit is tryndamere level all kinds of broken. or more specifically - his ult.
The most healthy and balanced assassin in the game is . Hands down, no contest.
Nothing veigar can't handle
can't even counter mages.
not to mention his level of uselessness in blind pick
Hmm, no, sorry, I have to disagree.
Kassadin just sits in lane, buying as many defensive / sustain items as he can and trying to use his Q to avoid damage. His goal is just to sit in lane and try to be as immobile as possible, so that he can farm up and become strong late-game.
Then, eventually he starts to deal damage once he gets some levels. He also usually builds tanky items (like rushing RoA), rather than pure damage.
I don't know. I'm pretty sure I've seen Bruiser Kassadin long before I've see Bruiser Ekko.
And Feast or famine is a Knife's edge that you can't balance, either you end up OP, or near useless. Yet I don't feel like Kass fit's that mold either. With his ult and his E, he has enough wave clear to split push, so he can't be made useless if he falls behind.
Kit demands damage
Yea not really. He has very direct affinity for mana items, what also means affinity for tankier 'battle mage' builds - as it is with Ryze or Swain. Thing is Kassadin is now so weak that if you don't go full-on derp damage rekting faces he is to weak to be worth it.
kassadin is pretty bad right now. if the enemy somehow lets you farm and go even or even not end the game before he gets 4-6 items then you deserve to lose because its too hard to win over a 4-6 item kassadin. especially if he completed roa and archangel
