On Kassadin and how to fix him
My thoughts on Kassadin are pretty simple. The iconic part of his kit, his ultimate, is also what makes balancing him impossible as it currently exists. Instead of forcing Kassadin into a pick/ban or garbage situation, I think it would be wise to consider a way to change his ultimate so that the rest of his kit can be buffed after some rather big ultimate changes.
So, without further ado, lets look at some of the ways his ultimate could be made more balanced so the rest of his kit could be buffed back into a viable state.
1. Straight up nerf the cooldown
This is my least favorite option. While it would help to balance Kassadin, it also takes away from his identity in a big way. The ability to flash in and out of combat is a huge part of Kassadin. While I acknowledge it is his big problem, such a blunt solution feels pretty ungratifying when other choices are available.
2. Slightly increase the cooldown, but give it a reset mechanic
I like this option a lot more. There are lots of ways to make his ultimate a reset. Obviously you could have it reset on kill, and that could be the best solution. But, given certain thematic elements of his kit, there might be better ways. Reset on taking a certain amount of magic damage (whether shielded or not). Reset after Kassadin has been around a certain number of allied or enemy specific spellcasts (similar to force pulse, but limited to one team, not both). It could also have a CD lowering component based around amount of distance traveled while it is on CD. Meaning that more Kass moves around, the faster the CD goes down (think, goes down by 1 second for every 1000 units traveled or something like that).
3. Increase the cooldown, but give his ultimate a higher point of CDR scaling
All abilities stop at 40% CDR. You could substantially increase the CD on his ultimate cooldown, but if you unhinge the limit on CDR for his ultimate that gives the Kassadin a choice: do I want to build 60% CDR to have a lower cooldown or is ~40% enough given that I am sacrificing damage to have that much CDR. It creates a choice for the Kassadin player, allowing the original fantasy of a hyper-mobile champion, but making it a choice between that and being less mobile with a higher amount of damage. Riot has already proven they are willing to give champions specific kinds of mechanics (Yasuo doubling crit chance, Soraka subtracting armor/mr into ap, etc) so its not like it would be too odd.
4. Increase the cooldown, but give force pulse/null sphere a CD reduction mechanic
Think similar to Ezreal Q with with his kit, except specific to the CD of Riftwalk. You could attach however many conditionals you wanted to it, both to reward good play and to limit the ease with which Riftwalk could be brought off cooldown. It still allows the fantasy of a super high mobility mage, but again attaches conditional circumstances to limit the often stifling power of his ultimate.
Conclusion
I have long been a proponent that too much of Kassadin's power is in his ultimate, and if Kassadin wants to be good without being broken, his ultimate needs a change. I don't know if any of these ideas are 100% the change that's needed, but i think they're the kinds of changes that could allow Kassadin to become viable without being broken. I am a fan of more champions being viable, and seeing any champion in a bad state is kind of depressing. Especially when Kassadin has always been stuck in the land of pick/ban or terribad. Just a thought on ways to possibly fix Kass.
