Boards›Gameplay

Why I think Kassadin's rework was ultimately a failure

thinking man··5 votes·538 views

There are several problems created and several problems that weren't fixed with his rework. I'm not saying that he needed to be an abomination with a 99% banrate, but his newer kit has caused a lot of issues that aren't as apparent.

1) His pre-six is too good now

While his pre-six is really terrible against something like Zed, his pre-six is oppressive against a lot of mages. Riot made him go from a champion that usually needed to work to survive lane against everything to varying degrees to a champion that is either countered or bullies the matchup. His Q shield is completely broken in lane and combined with the high ratio/early base damages on his Q, it is awful to play against as a mage since instead of being unable to cast a spell, you waste mana without actually hurting him.

Continuing on this issue, his W change is a big problem in two ways; it made his CS'ing much easier so there's less of an excuse to miss minions, and the AA reset made it easier to CS under tower. He is getting a lot of compensation to his laning phase for the silence removal/ult changes, and the W by itself is an incredibly broken ability since it's an AA reset that not only does a lot of damage, it also gives you a big chunk of mana. It's just an all-around overlaoded ability.

2) He still does the same stuff he'd do before, he just needs to be a bit more ahead

That might be a bit confusing, but it's about his general attack pattern. If Kassadin would've one-shotted you before the rework, he'll still be able to do basically the same thing. He just requires a bit more gold. His attack pattern of instantly appearing from nowhere and then melting your health bar in the blinnk of an eye still exists. It's just a bit easier to get away if he's not able to completely one-shot you, and his damage is a bit lower. He's just a watered down version of the monster he was before

3) His ult feels more powerful in some situations even if it's completely weaker

The reduced ult CD means that in short fights, he is going to be completely ridiculous looking. He blinks around even faster and fights even faster. Even if he cannot do it for as long and it does less damage, it has the illusion of being way more powerful than it actually is, which is demoralizing to the opponent and makes him annoying to play against. His ult was also buffed in a few niche situations in conjunction with his W, since there's one really troll AD/mana build that you could do to get a 1.8 second CD on his ult and always be guaranteed to have enough mana to ult as long as he had a champion to W. His ult was a lot stronger in this situation. Basically, it had the illusion of being stronger and more mobile even if it was definitely weaker. It isn't too bad anyways, since a good Kassadin can manage his stacks.

4) He is less complex and ultimately less rewarding for understanding his kit

This complaint is one that's a bit more personal and less about how unsatisfying and annoying he is to play against as a bursty mobile death machine. With the rework, the changes to his passive and the many buffs to his pre-six laning phase made the few cases of smartly abusing his passive to win a fight disappear entirely. He was made much more skill-less since his pre-six went from being defined more about survival to being defined about how quickly you could win a war of attrition by abusing Flask/Q trading power. I can't really speak too much for his pre-six abuse cases pre-rework since I was bronze and played on 200 ping for most of his time before the rework, but right now, it is hilariously easy to kill most mages in lane as Kassadin. His Q shield added a lot of durability and room for mistake while his W change and passive change made it less necessary to commit for a chance of winning a duel. Riot pruned strategic options from him in favor of just making him more reliable to play in a very binary manner.

tl;dr kassadin lost most of his depth, still feels oppressive to play against, has too easy of a pre-six, and all-around has a lower skill floor/cap.

5 Comments

AyRe CoNteMpT2 votes

kassadins laning is still weaker than that of STRONG laners. the biggest misconception here is that the "most popular" champions are in fact the stronger laners. for example, a mordekaiser DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDEMOLISHES kassadin in a way that he WILL uninstal the game afterwards. in fact, many champions do.

the problem arises from another, entirely different thing. people tend to play LCS champs preferred to champs they either LIKE to play or which are just STRONG.

"pros" mostly play the super-cancerous champions which are easy to abuse because of their unavoidability. they (mostly) do have weaknesses in raw power tho, thats why you COULD beat them with power champs. "pros" dont do that tho, they tend to try to beat them with even more cancerous champs so its just a cancerfest in LCS.

everything comes at a price so the champs who have the least fancy bullshit have the most power. the less fancyness the champs have, the lower is their "difficulty"-stat riot gave them, which is missleading. a champ like garen or darius or mordekaiser requires A LOT more thought to use efficiently on the map than a lee or a zed.

the "metagame" has been and will always be, in every single competetive game, the thing that allows most room for mistakes. not because its the strongest, but because we all make mistakes and the more we can fnuck up before our action being considered a fail, the better for us. if you play a strong champ like mordekaiser, your positioning, your map awareness, your damage potential and your combos must be ON POINT all the time but it is rewarded with complete cancer-kassadin immunity and dominance.

all thats left to do is to decide yourself if you want to play a champ that forgives most of your mistakes or a champ that teaches you not to make any.

thinking man1 votes

{quoted}

kassadins laning is still weaker than that of STRONG laners. the biggest misconception here is that the "most popular" champions are in fact the stronger laners. for example, a mordekaiser DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDEMOLISHES kassadin in a way that he WILL uninstal the game afterwards. in fact, many champions do.

the problem arises from another, entirely different thing. people tend to play LCS champs preferred to champs they either LIKE to play or which are just STRONG.

"pros" mostly play the super-cancerous champions which are easy to abuse because of their unavoidability. they (mostly) do have weaknesses in raw power tho, thats why you COULD beat them with power champs. "pros" dont do that tho, they tend to try to beat them with even more cancerous champs so its just a cancerfest in LCS.

everything comes at a price so the champs who have the least fancy bullshit have the most power. the less fancyness the champs have, the lower is their "difficulty"-stat riot gave them, which is missleading. a champ like garen or darius or mordekaiser requires A LOT more thought to use efficiently on the map than a lee or a zed.

the "metagame" has been and will always be, in every single competetive game, the thing that allows most room for mistakes. not because its the strongest, but because we all make mistakes and the more we can fnuck up before our action being considered a fail, the better for us. if you play a strong champ like mordekaiser, your positioning, your map awareness, your damage potential and your combos must be ON POINT all the time but it is rewarded with complete cancer-kassadin immunity and dominance.

all thats left to do is to decide yourself if you want to play a champ that forgives most of your mistakes or a champ that teaches you not to make any.

There's like two or three champions that are excluded from this role, but generally, Kassadin will win a mage lane. He wins it hard, too.

Kingsgrave2 votes

It wasn't really a rework. It didn't change the majority of how his spells worked, just rebalanced Q and changed W. They honestly needed to address the majority of his problems thru completely new abilities and a new design, but they were lazy.

Shifting around properties and nerfing bases across the board doesn't fix champions.

qetzel1 votes

Lazy? Firstly, the words are "constrained by resources". Secondly, isn't there an upcoming Kassadin Rework along with Ryze and Poppy? Or is it just a TU/VU... I actually can't remember. I will continue rambling until I feel I have distracted you enough to stop. Did I ever tell you about the time I caused 1000 Emus to coalesce into Jar Jar BInks? Due to the decrease in mass, we got a lot of energy - a fusion reaction - although the waste product - Jar Jar Binks - was so annoying that he had to be buried for 1000 years to save mankind.

thinking man1 votes

{quoted}

It wasn't really a rework. It didn't change the majority of how his spells worked, just rebalanced Q and changed W. They honestly needed to address the majority of his problems thru completely new abilities and a new design, but they were lazy.

Shifting around properties and nerfing bases across the board doesn't fix champions.

The first kit was actually pretty close to okay but the problem was that he was still a burst champion and his numbers were overtuned as fuck.

I don't think his kit can peacefully exist in this game without him being focused away from burst.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by thinking man

how big a step is in league [explained]
Story, Art, & Sound32 comments
175
votes
You can tell something's wrong with Kalista when
Gameplay73 comments
111
votes
How to balance Kalista without nerfing her passive:
Gameplay104 comments
90
votes
Reminder that Jinx has a 32% pickrate and a 54.5% winrate
Gameplay237 comments
89
votes
Eve's E should do 1 less damage to Sion during his W
Gameplay30 comments
80
votes
We need a champion who is really resistant to magic since they don't believe it exists
Gameplay55 comments
43
votes