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Evolved Claws Has Zero Evolutionary Benefit Unless Isolated (Kha'Zix)

Nocturnes··34 votes·3,284 views

It's readily known that Kha'Zix is on the weak side right now and I am of the opinion that in order to make Kha'Zix a more reliable and effective champion pick, and to be more than just a jungler, two simple things need to happen:

  • Turrets no longer count as allies for the sake of negating his isolation benefits ~ Recall the saying, "You are there to protect the turret, it is not there to protect you." As it stands, Kha'Zix is currently being punished by a change that was put into place long ago before all of the sweeping turret changes of patch 4.20. The towers were changed so why didn't Kha'Zix?
  • Evolved Claws now again deals % missing health damage, regardless as to whether or not the target is isolated. ~ In the patch preview for 3.8, FeralPony says the following, "The problem with Taste Their Fear was that all of its evolutionary damage was based on your target being isolated and low on health but you got nothing if they weren't. We still want to reward you for catching isolated targets but we didn't want the evolution to rely on it so completely." Well fast forward to today and Taste Their Fear has gone full circle, being completely useless when evolved unless the target is completely isolated and with the nerfs to the range necessary to actually isolate a target, one might say this ability is even worse than when it started.

32 Comments

Variks the Loyal12 votes

Riot walks a fine line with Kha'Zix's evolutions. They want all of the evolutions to be viable, but not completely necessary to his kit or burst pattern. Essentially, they're bonuses that support your Kha'Zix playstyle, without there being a set 'best' evolution. Currently, they're failing at that, but it's a hard problem to solve.

Hard, but not impossible. These are my suggestions.

Buff Taste Their Fear. The current evolve bonus should be baseline. Kha'Zix's theme is isolation? Reinforce it without requiring you evolve his claws. Evolving the claws grants the increased range, and bonus damage. This damage can be whatever. It can be execution based, it can ignore a portion of the target's armor, it could apply Unseen Threat on hit, whatever. But it adds to the isolation burst while also adding damage when the target isn't isolated.

Void Spikes is fine, but weird. I think it should be buffed to always fire three lines of spikes. Maybe nerf the slow to compensate. Evolving Void Spikes would be Evolve Venom Sacs, which makes the Void Spikes envenom the target with a psychotic void toxin, making them feel paranoid and isolated. This evolution would give Kha'Zix more reliability late game, but good players could function without it. It's a bonus.

Leap should have it's range slightly buffed, maybe halfway between current unevolved and evolved, and have the damage nerfed. Evolving Wings would buff the range, make the damage true damage instead of physical, and allow the Leap resets. It promotes the playstyle of, get in, kill, get out.

His ultimate is really good the way it is. Evolving it should promote a stealthy playstyle for sneaky Kha's that want to subvert wards. Evolve Active Camouflage no longer allows a third cast - That promotes more of a duelist playstyle where the Kha'Zix has extended, one on one fights where he benefits from Unseen Threat multiple times. Make it so that, if Kha'Zix is moving towards a bush, the stealth duration is increased infinity until he either moves in a different direction, or reaches a bush. This makes Kha'Zix a sneaky one who can subvert wards by ulting towards a bush. Even if the bush is warded, he won't be spotted until he's in it already. And then he can cast Void Assault a second time for the ambush.

Just my ideas.

HailFire Dragon1 votes

HELL YES on your evolved void spike idea

grLKQ9ma0o1 votes

I like most of this, but the issue I see is that he still lacks the amount of reliability that every other AD assassin has. Hitting someone with W shouldn't make them isolated. The problem is the lack of counterplay that results from that situation.

Instead of making them instantly isolated, what if hitting a champion with void spikes decreased the isolation radius by 100-150? That gives it counterplay by still sticking with your team, but also opens more windows for playmaking.

Additionally, I think isolation Q should be calculated on cast, not on hit. If this were the case, you would know for sure when you were getting isolation damage, as opposed to the BS where you hit them while they flash into their team and you do like 1/3 the damage you thought you would. That would make it easier to actually calculate whether you can get the reset or not.

As for the evolved ultimate, I think that's a good start, but it's still not worth evolving it. The evolved R is tricky because you want the evolution to actually enhance his stealth gameplay, but if you choose the stealth over another ability, it doesn't actually give you any snowball potential.

With only 3 evolutions in a normal game, the easiest evolution to drop given your solution is and always will be evolved R. It just doesn't help the kit. Q damage is necessary. W's easier isolation is incredibly valuable. E's resets are a necessity. Being invisible for longer is not important compared to those abilities. It just isn't. No matter what, you can always do without. Either through increased vision control and sweepers, or outplaying the opponent, you just don't need it. Here's what I'm thinking:

Evolved R: Gives increased movement speed of 80% instead of 40%, and bonus % AD per rank of R of 4/8/12%. If not bonus AD, maybe damage amplification against the first champion he attacks out of stealth of a similar value. For me, that makes it actually worth something. It promotes him as a stealthy killer, and it might actually be worth getting instead of one of the other evolved abilities. It forces the choice. Do I get easier isolation? Do I get moar damages? Do I get reliable stealth with damage for ganks and assassination ability? Do I get the invaluable reset? That's actually a tough enough choice that wouldn't always follow the same evolution cycle every game.

Ulquiorra99511 votes

It's Riot balance team's logic at his finest.

On release it only affected isolated targets. Then they changed it to affect all enemies with greater effect on isolated ones, specifically stating that it was because isolated-only evolution bonus is too situational...

...then they reverted it to work only on isolated targets AFTER making isolation much harder to achieve.

PoisonedPeace1 votes

Maybe they hire a new balance team every patch?

Saianna5 votes

I've faced awesome kha'zix about a motnh ago.. He was trashing our team like we were made out of paper... But yeah skill gap between bad-good-awesome Kha players is too huge considering that for example Nidalee has by far stronger finisher in her cat from, than Kha with his isolated target

grLKQ9ma0o1 votes

Kha'zix is still incredibly strong after a snowball. The problem is that instead of requiring him to have good positioning, he requires the enemy to have BAD positioning. It's the opposite of what makes sense. Normal champions have the ability to actually outplay an opponent by forcing them into a mistake, or just being stronger. Kha'zix has to actively wait for them to fuck up before he can take advantage of it. Even if the window opens up, because isolation is so large, it's not hard for them to completely fix the positioning while you engage, leaving you a sitting duck.

Shinjusuke2 votes

Lol you think Riot cares about us Kha'Zix players.

We aren't Lee Sin or Nidalee. They don't give a crap if our champion is a pathetic husk of what his design is supposed to be.

Death by Kayn1 votes

You are wrong my friend. I'd have a look at this.http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/0o9f7Ebu-riot-meddler-would-like-some-red-opinionsdiscussion-on-khazix?comment=0000

Shinjusuke2 votes

Oh, I'm aware they know he's too weak, I just think they don't care. You'll note Meddler says he doesn't know an ETA and they're "planning to look at, see if there's potential buffs they can give him."

That not only puts them even examining him up in the air, but the idea of buffs once/if they do look at him up in the air as well.

Riot is actually fairly aware of balance-states of champions. It all comes down to what champions they like and what champions they don't, and that's a fact they've proven over and over and over and over during the last 4 seasons. They don't like Kha'zix much (if essentially reworking him through sheer number of nerfs is any indicator). Therefore, even if he does get buffs, they probably will have very, very little impact, so they can say "yeah we buffed him so he's fine now" even if he's still in a really crappy state afterwards.

Not to mention, they have little-to-no respect whatsoever for preserving a champion's design and character vision. The Casseiopeia fiasco, which Cass mains (at least, every one I know and every one I see on the forums) are still feeling completely shit on by Riot about, is evidence of this. They don't care about the preserving the character and design direction of the champion, they just care about the champion's balance state. It doesn't help any that despite Kha'Zix players being able and willing to provide every possible suggestion and bit of feedback Riot needs about the champion, Riot still refuses to respect the champion or listen to his players (remember how Bruiser Kha'zix happened?).

I apologize for the salt, I'm just still incredibly infuriated by how ridiculously they handled the champion and where they left him. They learned absolutely nothing from how they handled Shaco years ago: Dumpster the assassin, force a completely different playstyle, then leave them in obscurity.

Visigoth1 votes

tbh I just want the execute back. I've played Kha'Zix since I started playing this game last January when he was pretty much broken. He's the reason I jungle now and I'd like to think that I wouldn't even play this game, or at least buy RP, if it weren't for the fact that I loved playing this champion. The 4.10 patch ruined his gameplay for awhile. Then he got 10 damage, only to get his w nerfed.

The biggest problem I ever had was the isolation to towers. I always thought it was so stupid. If someone was under tower it meant they went from nearly dying instantly to you shooting them with a marshmallow gun.

He'd be fine if they either made it to where towers didn't unisolate targets again or if he got the execute back on evolved Q. Until then he will remain a sub-par jungler and poor laner.

BaronBargy2 votes

[He'd be fine] if they either made it to where towers didn't unisolate targets again or if he got the execute back on evolved Q. Until then he will remain a sub-par jungler and poor laner.

I don't necessarily agree with that statement. By all means, let him have his execute back, but if they restore his ability to delete targets who are recalling under turret without minions nearby (and let's be honest: if you're recalling under your turret in the first place, that's probably not the case), then Bruiser Kha'Zix (which Riot tried very hard to get rid of) will return, regardless of the fact that his ultimate doesn't reduce incoming damage anymore, simply because they will want that extra tankiness to survive diving turrets and taking out those high-value, low risk targets.

Now, the reason(s) Kha'Zix does so bad in the jungle right now are two-fold; the first reason being the one everybody complains about: he's just too damn squishy, and has no sustain unless he maxes W (or builds AP, but that'll get you reported for trolling for sure.)

The second reason is, quite simply, that most people still try to build and play him bruiser-style, even though Riot went to great lengths to ensure that wasn't possible. (Keep in mind that Bruiser Kha'Zix is the whole reason they nerfed him so hard; they saw an assassin being played in an unhealthy manner that allowed very little counter-play, so they removed everything that made it possible, and then some.)

Death by Kayn1 votes

{quoted}

I don't necessarily agree with that statement. By all means, let him have his execute back, but if they restore his ability to delete targets who are recalling under turret without minions nearby (and let's be honest: if you're recalling under your turret in the first place, that's probably not the case), then Bruiser Kha'Zix (which Riot tried very hard to get rid of) will return, regardless of the fact that his ultimate doesn't reduce incoming damage anymore, simply because they will want that extra tankiness to survive diving turrets and taking out those high-value, low risk targets.

Now, the reason(s) Kha'Zix does so bad in the jungle right now are two-fold; the first reason being the one everybody complains about: he's just too damn squishy, and has no sustain unless he maxes W (or builds AP, but that'll get you reported for trolling for sure.)

The second reason is, quite simply, that most people still try to build and play him bruiser-style, even though Riot went to great lengths to ensure that wasn't possible. (Keep in mind that Bruiser Kha'Zix is the whole reason they nerfed him so hard; they saw an assassin being played in an unhealthy manner that allowed very little counter-play, so they removed everything that made it possible, and then some.)

This is what I'm saying with the fact the he needs W buffs. Once you get rangers trailblazer+ tiamat you are fine, but just killing three camps leaves you at 100-300 health (if you start gromp, which is highly recommended). Even then, you only have enough gold for the trailblazer. Kha desperately needs EG W heal buffs, and then he will be in an overall good spot. Luckily, however, Riot HAS said that they are looking into buffs on him, which I am looking for excitedly

Sicom1 votes

Honestly, I'd rather see some damage put back into W before anything else. They gutted that ability so much, doesn't feel good to skill it up.

RoyceRollin1 votes

Evolved Q: Isolation is now what it was prenerf (aka need to be closer and towers dont count)

Anidan1 votes

The saying is "In League of Legends, the tower protects you; in DotA, you protect the tower," or something to that effect, last I knew.

But I do agree to point one regardless. I don't know why it counts as an entity to prevent isolation other than the fact it probably has some strange code, like those weird siege creeps in DotA2 (fun fact: In DotA2, if you attack a siege creep with a single creep or hero standing next to it, it will take isolation damage from Spectre's isolation true damage on-hit effect. However, if the siege creep is completely alone, it will not take the isolation damage.)

Champion Skin1 votes

Nope they actually deliberately added it as a nerf to Kha'Zix tower diving or to increase your protection from Kha'Zix under turret or something like that

Anidan1 votes

Ah, I wasn't aware of that. My bad. I'm not too familiar with Kha'zix, unfortunately, so thank you for clarifying.

It sounds kinda clunky and outdated for this game, so I thought it sounded like some of the clunkier coding in DotA. Kinda helps prove that saying though. :P

SerBlaise1 votes

In my opinion, What kha needs is a means to create isolation for himself, instead of relying on your enemy to be foolish enough to isolate themselves. W should provide a knock to the side for any minions/champions in the vicinity of the target (or vice versa; you knock the champion you hit away). This would allow you to hit a skill shot that could provide you with the means to properly deal isolated damage.

Death by Kayn1 votes

I am actually quite happy with Kha's current evolved Q. I feel like more should be done with W (you always have to b after wolves on first clear) and evolved ult. Q numbers need to be tweaked a bit. He's in a really good spot lategame, but his early game is absolute shit, and ganks don't do much until 6.

Droogzy1 votes

I'd be fine if they'd just remove the ability to avoid isolation by being around minions, that to me was going completely overboard, turrets, I can understand, but minions?

What the fuck are minions going to do to help you?

Sirsir1 votes

They are of limited help as is anyways. Hydra baybe

CubedJustice1 votes

I think the point of that is to make it so a lane freezing Kha'Zix top isn't extremely overbearing.

Sypher The Poro1 votes

I'm a huge Kha'Zix fan. I saw him a while ago, back at level 10 or so, and he was the first 6300 champion I ever bought. I learned how to jungle on Kha'Zix, and I still play him now.

Currently, I feel he is rather weak in the jungle. His sustain is rather bad due to the heal being a AP ration with a 10 second CD, and his Q does very little unless you kill the smaller minions first (which results in a ton of damage taken) or finish Hydra. If you catch someone out with your Q evolved, they will usually die. The damage is insane, I played a game where I went 25/1 and I was at the point where could jump on an isolated target, Q then Hydra for the instant kill. However, as fed as I was, I could not solo the enemy Nasus if he had so much as a minion near him. He was actually the person who killed me once.

My big thing, is he needs the % missing health damage back, but only on evolved Q without requiring the target to be isolated. It would give Kha'Zix a way to do damage to targets other than people who positioned poorly. I hate ganking bot lane with him, as the support and ADC are usually smart enough to stick together when I show up.

P.S. In regards to my build that game, I don't usually build BT but my jungle item would go there. I built it last because I was super fed, the life-steal was for soloing Baron, and the 80 damage was nice.

Migrañaboy1 votes

Evolved Claws now again deals % missing health damage, regardless as to whether or not the target is isolated.

Very unlikely to comeback, unless there-s a new tweak or there-s a weaker version of its old self. This enabled tank kha zix which Riot despised. Though I don't remember what happened when nerfing K6, did they remove first the shield comming from ultimate? Or did they nerf both the ultimate and the %hp from Q at the same time?

Shinjusuke1 votes

it was the combination of the dmg reduction on R and %missing health on Q that made bruiser kha'zix a problem, either/or was perfectly fine. Riot failed to understand this, as is the case with many of their nerfs, and they just kept piling nerf after nerf after nerf onto Kha until it was a stupid idea to try to play him any more.

If they didn't remove both at the same time it was so close together (as in, consecutive patches) that they didn't bother to see how the first nerfs affected him before adding more, I remember that much.

Migrañaboy1 votes

{quoted}

it was the combination of the dmg reduction on R and %missing health on Q that made bruiser kha'zix a problem, either/or was perfectly fine. Riot failed to understand this, as is the case with many of their nerfs, and they just kept piling nerf after nerf after nerf onto Kha until it was a stupid idea to try to play him any more.

If they didn't remove both at the same time it was so close together (as in, consecutive patches) that they didn't bother to see how the first nerfs affected him before adding more, I remember that much.

I reember at s4 worlds how almost every game that k6 was picked ended in a lost game.

Shinjusuke1 votes

Usually happens when you give a champion more heavy nerfs in succession than any other champion in the history of the game and leave them in the dirt.

Migrañaboy1 votes

{quoted}

Usually happens when you give a champion more heavy nerfs in succession than any other champion in the history of the game and leave them in the dirt.

Yeah, though I remember that most matches of K6 where against lee sin or Rengar. His damage throughput wasn't delivering like lee sin, he wasn't as assasin-like as Rengar. He only ganked with void spikes I guess?

Now that jungle hits harder and cinderhulk is reliable, I don't feel that great with K6 who relies on resets or being in isolation to deliver, at least from my point of view.

Riot has put efforts to counter snowballing and make comebacks more possible, why not restoring k6 old identity?

H0riz0n2341 votes

Riot killed the bug now he doesn't do enough damage to make much of a difference. While rengar is still OP as fuck with his 1v1 capabilities almost impossible to beat against him. Kha needs a serious buff because hes honestly isn't a viable jungler anymore.

Earl Eulrich1 votes

I agree they should make him more consistent...but they have to tune down his ridiculous isolated dmg as part of that process if they want to improve the overall performance. just buffing him won´t be a good idea.

Chespin20131 votes

but the turret does protect me but it shouldnt from kha's isolation

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