The Kayn Prediction.

Rainfall·Jun 28, 2017·2 votes·523 views

No one is gonna play him as an assasin 2 weeks after his release. He will be a broken bruiser top. Wtf is that heal from this ultimate riot?

7 Comments

Winters DawnJun 28, 20171 votes

Have you played him on the pbe? He's not that scary I promise

LimmieJun 28, 20171 votes

Nobody is gonna play him at all because he will be permabanned. Camille had a ridiculous banrate with a much less overloaded kit until she go seriously nerfed, and that was before the 10 bans. And when you consider he's a jungler (meaning every lane has a reason to ban him), I'd say he'll be a blind normals only champion.

Killed InactionJun 28, 20171 votes

I think the only modification I'd make is to move his ultimate heal to his shadow assassin form. I feel like the assassin form is undertuned a bit and that'd even him out with the bruiser form. He's really not OP at all, though, in either form. The clips and games shown on Youtube are cherry-picked to make him look super strong, but he's actually quite balanced. This coming from someone who played against him top and won lane slightly, but our Kayn jungle lost to Warwick in ganking a bit.

HåppyJun 28, 20171 votes

Shadow Assassin form is bursty as fuck and the Shadow Scythe or w/e passive he gets for a Corki effect, is well placed. Darkin's hp drain makes sense thematically - Darkins like to be draintanks.

Killed InactionJun 28, 20171 votes

I played with and against him on PBE, and either his burst on Shadow Assassin form needs to be buffed slightly and the ultimate heal weakened, or something needs to be switched out. He's pretty balanced as is, but SA form is a bit weaker than Darkin form, from an objective standpoint, and that one aspect needs to be rebalanced a little; the ultimate is honestly the one thing that sets them apart in power. He really isn't all that bursty right now, IMO. Have you played with or against him (do you have PBE)? It might be a thematic decision, but the power is misplaced, so something needs to change. Again, nothing major, but a bit of a rebalance.

HåppyJun 28, 20171 votes

I do have PBE! I haven't been able to play normal PVP because he's banned every game, but here's the thing, right?

Shadow Assassin can't scrap with tanks or fighters that well, he isn't build for that. What he's good at is being Danny Phantom and coming at the ADC/Mage through the wall, wracking them with W, then critting them with a sheen proc autoattack that mixes physical and magic damage and boom, that's a one-shot. His W does so much damage and then a crit autoattack that mixes, that's too much. If they survive that, a Q will definitely eliminate them, and if not THAT, his ult will seal the deal by letting you get the combo off again.

Darkin is very good when scrapping with tanks or fighters, constant %hp and healing, a knockup, a massive heal+%hp burst on his ult, it's very good. But when faced with an ADC his damage will be lackluster because his Q's flat damage is converted to %hp, so he'll only ever be dealing the same %hp damage to adcs as he would tanks. A lot of his potential for fighting them is gone.

Killed InactionJun 28, 20171 votes

They changed it to Blind Pick last night, IIRC.

The problem I see with the Shadow Assassin is that his combo just takes a bit too long. If the ADC is focusing him, unlike with other assassins, by the time he takes them down, given current lifesteal and healing/damage reduction effects, he's also going to be almost dead or at least more than 50% down if the ADC is equally fed and/or any good at the game. If the 3 second window for damage was reduced to 2 seconds and the damage increased by 50%, he'd be able to assassinate more effectively and his ultimate would mean more. Sure, he could be CC'd down more easily, but he'd also have a quicker time killing squishies. This wouldn't increase his ability to fight off tanks more, either. Again, his burst is just a tad bit too low. And certainly, if you get fed you can instakill the ADC, but if Zed goes even in lane, he can still destroy the enemy ADC easily if they're alone, whereas with Kayn, if he has a decent jungle or lane phase, he'll have trouble doing the same. It's just a matter of the windows of opportunity and how strong that opportunity is.

I like that the Darkin form is basically anti-tank, but the damage is almost as high as the Shadow Assassin's against squishies if he builds pure AD, and he gets sustain. Maybe his abilities could be set up more like item 3034 , or give him more sustain based on his resistances or max HP. Regardless of the method, he should have his damage reduced by comparison in return for hard CC and healing.