Kha'Zix needs slight tweaks to his skillset design, not more nerfs, Riot!

Isababa··7 votes·1,485 views

TL;DR


Because I know that this is a long a strenuous read, I'm placing the TL;DR on the top. Khazix Kha’Zix is always in a state of imbalance and has been overpowered whenever he’s become relevant. In my opinion, this is because his skillset has always put him in an ambiguous state. I personally feel that Khazix Kha’Zix’s kit should revolve around his Taste Their Fear (Q) and Leap (E) because those motivate an Assassin playstyle. To promote this playstyle, Riot should add mechanics in Evolve Spikes and Camouflage to benefit two different styles of Assassin play. so people would Evolve Spikes or Camouflage depending on their own playstyle.


Thesis


As we all know, Khazix Kha'Zix has always been in the spotlight to receive nerfs and changes to his playstyle because Riot never seems satisfied with the new playstyles that Khazix Kha'Zix players adapt to. The constant changes to Khazix Kha'Zix have always confused players as to what type of champion Khazix Kha'Zix actually is. Is he a sieging poker, a tank, or an assassin? He's always held more than one identity to players, right now you would argue he's a sieging assassin which is definitely problematic. Before this, he was a tanky assassin which is again, problematic. But before that, he was just a full-fledged assassin. This is what Khazix Kha'Zix's identity should truly be, a full-fledged assassin.

Obviously Khazix Kha'Zix had a lot of counter play errors when he was a full-fledged assassin, back before his isolation range got massively increased and before his Void Assault gave him crazy damage reduction. The**biggest counter play error **was that he was able to jump in while stealth and one-shot just about anyone that wasn't within 350 range of a teammate. Erased from existence until their death timers would call for them.

As everyone knows, Riot does not like Assassins that can instantly burst you without counterplay. The reason why Assassins like Zed Zed are so great design wise is because Zed Zed wants to be in combat with his marked target for the duration of the mark, usually he'll be in the middle of the fray for about 2 seconds before getting his ass out. There is good counter play in that because there's a decent enough window to know who's killing you and you can definitely fight back before his mark pops.

My proposal is that Khazix Kha'Zix should become a full-fledged Assassin and have his playstyle based around his evolved Claws and Wings. Why? Because those support an Assassin playstyle; you jump in to kill your target and if you succeed you get to jump out. To promote this playstyle, I would suggest that instead of directly buffing the evolve bonuses of Khazix Kha'Zix's Taste Their Fear (Q) and Leap (E), Riot should change the evolve bonuses of Void Spikes (W) and Void Assault (R) to work with Khazix Kha'Zix's Q and E.


Evolve Spikes


As of now, Spikes is a heavy poke tool and back when the evolved form used to pop your passive as well, it was even more of a headache to balance. However, this is/was incredibly problematic because Void Spikes is such an easy spell to hit when it has been evolved and it allowsKhazix Kha'Zix to poke before team fights and siege at towers with ease. In response to that, Riot is nerfing Void Spikes' damage on the PBE to make the spell less effective as a poking tool. This is a correct response by Riot in regards to Khazix Kha'Zix's poke being way out of control. However, this does not solve the problem with Khazix Kha'Zix players prioritizing the poke playstyle because there is still no better alternative to evolve.

I propose that Riot should change the spell as a whole to work with Khazix Kha'Zix's Taste Their Fear (Q) and Leap (E) and nerf the damage on Void Spikes (W) as a whole so it wouldn't be a problematic poking tool, maybe even increase the mana cost so Khazix Kha'Zix would be required to think and decide when to use it properly instead of just casting it to cast it. My suggested changes would be:

  • Increase the mana cost of Void Spikes to promote good use of Void Spikes.

  • Change the damage scaling on Void Spikes so that it will be just as strong at early levels but will be considerably weaker at later levels so it may not be abused as a poking tool.

  • Give Void Spikes the ability to mark a target once that may be popped with Taste Their Fear (Q) or Leap (E) giving bonus damage upon successful cast or Void Spike’s heal respectively.

  • Enhances Void Spike to fire three spikes in a cone, increases the slow to 50% and grants vision of champions hit for 2 secondsmarking all enemy champions hit by the explosion twice. Casting Taste Their Fear on marked Targets will deal additional bonus damage and consume one mark. Additionally, casting Leap on marked Targets will heal Khazix Kha'Zix for the amount Void Spikes heals for and consume a mark. Multiple explosions upon the same enemy do not deal extra damage and the vision does not apply to stealthed units. Being within multiple explosions does not heal Khazix Kha'Zix for an extra amount.

With this, Khazix Kha'Zix will be motivated to jump in after landing a successful Void Spike on prime targets. Also, the 2 marks system allows Khazix Kha’Zix to both jump on an enemy champion to Heal via Leap (E) and then deal bonus damage instantly via Taste Their Fear (Q), or in duels, he may choose to save his marks for 2 Taste Their Fears (Q) and deal more damage in the long run.


Evolve Camouflage


Right now, Camouflage is debatably the worst Evolution, mostly because it just doesn’t do much in terms of utility or damage. In history, Camouflage was only evolved when Taste Their Fear (Q) was at its weakest state (Khazix Kha’Zix release) and when it was hilariously broken. The only reason this spell was problematic was because it created a phase where Khazix Kha’Zix would be able to run in and out of team fights unscathed, it also opened a tank build for Khazix Kha’Zix which is incredibly unhealthy for any Assassin. Riot’s response to this was to directly nerf Taste Their Fear (Q) into the ground so Khazix Kha’Zix wouldn’t be able to deal immense single-target damage and be tanky at the same time. Although this was the correct response at the time balance wise, this was an incredibly unwise decision design wise. Riot basically removed any possibility of Khazix Kha’Zix becoming a pure Assassin again unless they were to rework Taste Their Fear (Q).

I propose that Riot should add new evolved bonuses to Camouflage so that it would work with Khazix Kha’Zix’s spell kit as a whole and benefit Khazix Kha’Zix’s Assassin playstyle and would reward Khazix Kha’Zix for prioritizing prime targets. My suggested changes would be:

  • Allows Void Assault to be cast up to three times and the stealth duration is increased by 1 second (total 2 seconds). Killing an enemy champion during the time that Void Assault may be recast and within 3 seconds of the last cast will grant Khazix Kha’Zix a shield for 3 seconds. Additionally, Khazix Kha’Zix will gain bonus movement speed for each enemy champion damaged by Leap up to 3.

With this proposed change, Khazix Kha’Zix is motivated to get into team fights quick and execute targets allowing him to gain a shield. The shield’s purpose is to reward Khazix Kha’Zix with safer clean up potential when killing priority targets quickly. While this evolution doesn’t provide quicker clean up potential, it provides a much cleaner and safer clean up by granting bonus movement speed for landing Leap on multiple champions and a shield for killing champions.


Conclusion


Although the evolution changes I have suggested may not be the best, I hope that it will steer Riot towards a different direction when changing Khazix Kha’Zix; there are other options out there to motivate a healthy Assassin playstyle instead of just dropping numbers and raising others. I feel the evolution changes I have suggested really mold two healthy Assassin playstyles that are completely different. A Khazix Kha’Zix that looks for quick opportunistic kills and also a Khazix Kha’Zix that seeks to clean up in a slow, but safe manner. I hope that with this thread that I have expressed my thoughts on how Khazix Kha’Zix may be redesigned into a pure Assassin.

11 Comments

Imperial Red4 votes

Change is good. Kha'Zix should be in a state of flux to fit his lore. Completely joking.

Spiritun1 votes

Kha'Zix invaded this thread!

67chrome1 votes

I counted 36 Khazix .

Hullabaloo9071 votes

so i dont play khazix, so im not sure about the specifics, but i think you made some good points. Im not sure if khazixs needs another nerf, simply becuase i feel like the last nerf was enough since i dont have bugs flying at me as much as they used to.

HVN1 votes

This is good, but I am almost certain that this would change kha into a mid/top laner. the "mark" on his void spikes are an amazing idea, but the fact that you'd nerf the sustain and amp the mana cost would mean no sustain in the jungle. In my opinion, you should keep the mark idea, but have the mana and heal stay the same. that being said, w would be the exact same thing it is now. This is my suggestion: Void spikes would have a miniscule slow (reducing poke), scale a little worse (reducing poke), and Evolved Void Spikes would only shoot 2 missles, effectively A. reducing poke and B. taking a bit more mechanical skill to hit so its not just "oh their whole team has kha's marks on them, gg". Just my 2 cents.

Champion Skin1 votes

Well it is easy to reduce the poke damage... simply load most of the damage of W onto the marks forcing Kha to get in and proc the marks to get the most out of W this means that W could possibly even be buffed (if you consider all in's/assassination) though putting most of the damage on the mark procs would remove the poking problem however it might make W feel rather unrewarding when not going in... then again so does Akali Q and I think that's fine just the way it is

Champion Skin1 votes

I do not think you need to nerf Spkes (W) so hard if you just move majority of the damage onto the marks so that triggering the marks will be necessary to get damage out of W and making it rather useless when it comes to poke unless you can go in and come out on top though I guess then it is an all in and not poke

Teridax681 votes

I don't think keeping the multi-spikes themselves on Khazix 's evolved W is a good idea in itself, as part of the reason why Kha is a good poke champion now is because he can damage an entire line of enemies from far away without having to aim much. The mark idea sounds great, though: I think the best solution would be to strip the ability down to one spike, but increase the AoE and have it mark the first target it hits as isolated for a few seconds: Kha is meant to be a situational assassin who's dependent on isolation to make the most of his damage, and this change would allow him to work better in teamfights while still encouraging counterplay (the frontliners could bodyblock the spikes to protect the squishies, and hiding behind a minion would avoid the isolation effect, so Kha's enemies would still have to stick close to their own allies for protection as per normal).

Creamy Seaman1 votes

How about he nerf him again? He does retarded damage while building tanky.

A0 SHIN1 votes

I actually like your idea about his W. Its always been a problematic spell to balance for riot. Its either too strong or too weak. Giving it the nidalee treatment would be pretty cool and enforce Kha's assassin playstyle.

TEEMOcalypse1 votes

a slight change to his spikes would be nice. just dont nerf his damage again. please. that hurt him

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