@Riot, let's talk about Kassadin and his Role as an Anti-Mage.

Hi guys, we're here to talk about Kassadin overall, not just nerfs or buffs but more of an overview of how his kit is suppose to work and what he is suppose to do as an anti-mage.

So what is Kassadin and what does he do?

Kassadin is an anti-mage assassin, he excels at mostly beating mage champions like, Azir, Syndra, Ziggs, Lux (who you say is oppressive to play against, when that's his main role). Annie Xerath etc from killing him or really getting ahead of him with his kit and how it revolves around blocking more magic damage than most other mages. Even with his anti-mage kit he still has a lot of problems against AP mages such as Xerath and Annie, just the fact that their burst is higher than his magic resist or not. The anti-mage factor was more so true with old Kassadin who had a silence and insane base damage/scaling.

Now let's look at his rework,

Q, Null Sphere:

Damage changed to 80/105/130/155/180 + 0.7AP Shield Strength 40/70/100/130/160 + 0.3AP for 1.5 Seconds.

These changes made Kassadin keep his anti-mage identity a little bit, but nerfed it severely, when they buffed it to 40/80/120/160/200 + 0.8AP The shield buff was a little bit overwhelming for most AP mids to lane against since he would block virtually all their damage, but obviously you guys buffed it that high to help him out a bit, re nerfing it to the same pre values was a large mistake, it should have been toned down to 40/70/120/160/180 + 0.5AP, this helps him block at least 1 attack from an enemy mid, which is understandable for an anti-mage, he's going to shut you down in some way.

W, Nether Blade:

Revised Passive: Kassadin's basic attacks deal 20 (+ 10% AP) bonus magic damage on-hit. Revised Active: Kassadin next basic attack deals 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 (+60% AP) bonus magic damage and restores 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 % of his missing mana, increasing to 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 % of his missing mana if the attack is against a champion. The passive and active damage stack. Mana cost reduced to 0 from 25. Cooldown reduced to 6 seconds from 12.

This all in all was a good change to Kassadin, he never really felt like someone who would be an auto attacking champion. He felt like an assassin that would go in, kill a high priority target, then either die or get out, this helped satisfy that feeling. The reduced cooldown was nice cause it meant you could sustain mana in lane for your Q, and other abilites. When Riot changed the cooldown to 9 seconds it completely killed tank Kassadin, since he relied on spamming his W to gain mana for his insane mana cost on his ultimate. This also hurt AP Mage Kassadin since he didn't usually have as much mana as tank Kassadin. All in all a poor decision to nerf the cooldown on netherblade so much, possibly 6.5 seconds.

E, Force Pule:

Damage reduced to 80 / 105 / 130 / 155 / 180 (+0.7AP)from 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+0.7AP).

I never understood the decision that Riot took to reduce the damage to the same numbers as most of his other kit on an ability that he had to stack to make available in the first place. The nerf/buff (depending on how you played him) to the slow later on is understandable, a 50% slow for 3 seconds on a team is such a great engage tool that something had to be done about it. Overall damage nerf was uncalled for, but slow nerf was.

R, Riftwalk:

Damage changed to 80 / 100 / 120 (+ 2 % maximum mana) from 80 / 100 / 120 (+80% AP). Maximum empowerment stacks reduced to 4 from 10. Empowerment stack bonus damage changed to 40 / 50 / 60 (+1 % mana) from 50 / 55 / 60 (+10% AP). Empowerment stacks now increase the costs double the mana, changed from 100 mana.

• Effective mana cost: 75|150|300|600|1200 Empowerment stack duration increased to 12 seconds from 8. Base cost reduced to 75 from 100. Cooldown reduced to 7 / 5 / 3 seconds from 7 / 6 / 5. No longer refunds 50% of the mana cost if the ability strikes a champion.

Ok here we go, on his rework, the possibility of using Riftwalk for damage was somewhat taken away, it still does damage but now you have to actually wait till like 35 mins to get a reasonable amount. The maximum empowerment stacks being reduced meant you couldn't stack the damage as high and abuse the mechanic of 1 shotting people with just 1 ult like old Kassadin did, however you significantly reduced the damage those empowerment stacks did meaning you weren't going to 1 shot people in the first place. The effective mana cost made it that since the empowerment stacks were reduced, you would hit a higher mana cost about 2.2x faster than old Kassadin did, higher mana costs at that. The Empowerment duration mean't it would be a little bit harder to spam ult for chasing someone down, or simple fleeing from a foe, understandable. Base mana cost reduction is nice for the first 2 ult casts and people that actually know how and when to use Kassadin's ult were rewarded with this change. This next change I don't quite agree with, Riot reduced the cooldown so it now scales as so, 7/5/3 instead of 7/6/5. So now if you manage to reach 40% CDR on Kassadin his ult has an effective 1.8 second cooldown... That's just tooooo much, it should have been increased to say 9/8/7 to prevent spamming his ultimate, and the stack duration should have stayed 12, instead of nerfing it to 20 seconds. His ultimate no longer granting mana on champion hit is understandable with the new Nether Blade active.

So let's talk about the recent changes, rather disgusting changes in my eyes, and especially after playing him.

Patch 5.4 Riot reduced Kassadin's ult range from 700=>450, they also reduced the mana to 60/120/240/480/960... They not that people overlook the mana reduction changes. No one is overlooking anything, other than the mana change does not make up for the massive range gutting that took place, it still costs 960 mana at max stacks, I'm sorry but for someone who has a base mana pool of 2.2k with Rod of Ages at 18 is not going to notice this difference, let's take a look

2200=>2125=>1975=>1675=>1075=> He can probably cast one more with W, and that's it he can no longer cast riftwalk as the casting cost is too high, If old Kassadin before the mana reduction was to cast his ult this is what his mana pool drop would look like, not including Q and E mana costs, which would probably drive it down to 500-600

2200=>2140=>2020=>1780=>1300=>340 (he wouldn't even reach this last one with Q, and E costs. possibly if he used W,

So we see that old Kassadin and new Kassadin can pretty much cast Riftwalk the same number of times. But apparently Riot thinks we are overlooking the reduction, it's not overlooking, it's pushing it aside because it doesn't matter, you reduced the base range from 700 to 450 with no REAL compensation, just a blanket cover up.

My point to this thread is that Kassadin will need some major kit overhauls in other parts of him if they want to keep this ult change and keep him viable at the same time, cause as it is now you can't even really flank with how stupid registration is in this game, normally if the range of a jump ability is at least 75% of the wall, it will register and let you jump over it, when I try to jump over nexus and fail 90% of the time, it's honestly discouraging...

Please don't let this thread go unheard of, make Riot notice that us League players, non Kassadin or Kassadin mains are extremely unsatisfied with these latest nerfs, I know even people who hate Kassadin think this nerf was taking it a little to far,

Thank you for your time guys and your support on this plaguing issue that is "Overnerfing".