What if evolving Kha'Zix's Q decreased the Isolation radius? (I.E. enemies are more easily isolated)

darkdill·May 22, 2015·80 votes·3,498 views

One big problem Kha'Zix has is that it's very hard for him to find isolated targets in pro-level games, and he has no tools with which to shove someone out of a bunched-up group on his own. He'd generally have to rely on someone like Blitzcrank to pull a victim out for him to slash apart.

Worse, even a single minion can spoil his Q's isolation damage, leading to a lot of frustrating losses due to a random minion appearing at the wrong time. Can't tell you how much of a bitch that is...

To remedy some of this, and to make Evolved Claws more appealing, I think having Evolved Claws should make the "Isolation Radius" smaller. In layman terms, your enemies would have to be closer together to avoid being Isolated.

Would this be an okay direction, or would it be one of those "eliminates skill gap" bad buffs?

35 Comments

GigahappytownMay 22, 201524 votes

Or just give him dynamic isolation The closer champions are together the lower the damage up to 0%

junglerboy16May 22, 20155 votes

This is the kind of thing that they probably were like "This would be awesome! but we don't have the technology..." back when they initially made Kha. So now the question is, DO YOU HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY RITO?

I would hazard a guess that they could use something like the tech that moderates Hydra's AoE damage fall off or Rek'sai's proximity/knockup duration scaling on unburrow, so I really hope they try this out.

Joe DreddMay 22, 201511 votes

they obviously do based on the hydra changes

Corrupto123May 22, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Or just give him dynamic isolation The closer champions are together the lower the damage up to 0%

I wish there were people like you on the balance team. May god bless your soul.

ArveanorMay 22, 20154 votes

Someone from riot has talked about this, but they said it'd be bad for readability. They'd rather allow kha'zix and his target(s) to have a clearer picture of his damage profile.

For CarthageMay 23, 20152 votes

While great on paper, it'd result in a crapshoot. Trying to judge if you'd be able to kill an ADC just by eyeing it would call in calculations that you wouldn't be able to make without precise measurements, and then picture how you'd look when you find out that you misjudged the distance by a fraction. While it would definitely enable him to have better damage output in teamfights, it'd be inconsistent and would boil down to more guesswork than crit chance.

As of currently, I'd say his isolation distance could use a tone down more like, just not drastically. And to balance this a bit more, the isolation mechanics need to be changed: currently the circles on minions and champ calculate the distance from the unit's hitbox to the edge of the circle. Now, if we reduced the circle size and switched up the mechanics to work that isolation is calculated from the edge of a circle to the edge of another circle, you can make it so that you'd have to be closer to minions to lose isolation, but you can keep a wide birth of your friendly champs and still be unisolated from them. That way the Kha'Zix jungle doesn't have to be like, "Okay, now's my chance to gank - oh, no, wait, there's still one more minion there... and now the next wave has come. Shit." Now you really can just wait for them to be out of minion range realistically.

Naomi CoffeeGoatMay 23, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Or just give him dynamic isolation The closer champions are together the lower the damage up to 0%

I think this was addressed in a post somewhere from a rioter. Something about it being for clarity's sake of enemies not sure why they took so much damage despite being near things that would stop Kha's isolation. I'm not sure when it was last made though, but I'd be up for a change like this.

Knight SoIaire May 22, 20158 votes

i cant tell whether this would end as a good thing or not, it certainly sounds like a nice change that would suit kha zix

but what bothers me the most is the entire logic of his evolutions those evolutions were meant to specialize kha zix in certain roles and make him better at fighting certain enemies (adapting and stuff) what i consider the problem and the owerall reason for gutting kha is the fact that his evolutions are made bad owerall, instead of specializing him they just upgrade his skills

in the end kha is just a big pile of generalist gated by levels, every time riot buffs him a little he becomes a monster

so in my opinion his entire evolution system would need to be reworked so it wll fuffil its purpose instead of making kha unballanceable

IxozielMay 22, 20157 votes

You have to be careful with his Q because it hits obscenely hard late game. You can easily do over 1100 damage (if they're isolated) with a single Q, and it will have less than a 3 second CD. Making those conditions easier to achieve probably isn't the best idea.

I think making his evolved Q hit a second target if the original isn't isolated might be a safer buff. It would make sense, if the target isn't alone he hits the closest enemy with his other claw. If the target is alone, he's free to hit the single enemy with both of his claws. It would boost his farming speed, which is pretty terrible right now.

Another option would be making his evolved W isolate his enemies for a single Q. This would give you a reason to evolve W in the first place, and you would have to sacrifice evolved wings or the double duration / triple ult for it. There would be counterplay, since you can dodge the missles or hide behind an ally. It has a fairly long CD compared to Q, so he wouldn't be able to spam it. It would just give him a way to deal real damage in teamfights where the enemy doesn't split up.

LittleBlastMay 22, 20151 votes

This would be amazing

ArveanorMay 22, 20152 votes

Right, because then kha'zix could do, before resistances, an entire ad carries health pool in damage if they dont have any defensive items and he gets off the full rotation. That would be so broken, imagine if other assassins could do that, or, perhaps, do even more than that.

Silvur 5 SmerfMay 22, 20151 votes

{quoted}

You have to be careful with his Q because it hits obscenely hard late game. You can easily do over 1100 damage (if they're isolated) with a single Q, and it will have less than a 3 second CD. Making those conditions easier to achieve probably isn't the best idea.

I think making his evolved Q hit a second target if the original isn't isolated might be a safer buff. It would make sense, if the target isn't alone he hits the closest enemy with his other claw. If the target is alone, he's free to hit the single enemy with both of his claws. It would boost his farming speed, which is pretty terrible right now.

Another option would be making his evolved W isolate his enemies for a single Q. This would give you a reason to evolve W in the first place, and you would have to sacrifice evolved wings or the double duration / triple ult for it. There would be counterplay, since you can dodge the missles or hide behind an ally. It has a fairly long CD compared to Q, so he wouldn't be able to spam it. It would just give him a way to deal real damage in teamfights where the enemy doesn't split up.

Lol, the AD ratio is lower than an IE crit AD ratio, so adc's are doing a lot more damage than you at that point. If you build IE and crit, you just did more damage than an isolated Q. His Q is very lack luster ATM.

IxozielMay 23, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Silvur 5 Smerf,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Xf5egOWl,comment-id=00040002,timestamp=2015-05-22T23:43:04.508+0000)

Lol, the AD ratio is lower than an IE crit AD ratio, so adc's are doing a lot more damage than you at that point. If you build IE and crit, you just did more damage than an isolated Q. His Q is very lack luster ATM.

His Q is very lackluster... if they arn't isolated. Which assassins are you talking about that can hit for 1100 with a SINGLE ability? And which carries can crit for 1100 Without six offensive items? You would need over 400 AD (400 x 2.5 = 1k) to reach those kinds of numbers.

AliExpressMay 22, 20153 votes

This is how you fix khazix:

Option 1: If khazix has his passive active, his evolved Q does isolated damage. -This means he must either use ult to refresh his passive or be limited to running around trying to find naturally isolated targets.

Option 2: Evolved Q applies Kha zixs passive.

This adds another layer of difficulty in playing kha. Making sure you have your passive up in elongated fights and timing your ults to get the most passive procs off.

SnazzyTheMisterMay 22, 20152 votes

let me buffer this by saying i dont play kha, but i was thinking about a similar idea recently however instead of the q evolve reducing isolation make his ult evolve reducing it. that way you have to choose if the shorter isolation is worth it over the other evolves this game.

JimmyNtheKudosMay 22, 20152 votes

I'd love to see this guy come back and break some this tank meta. He was hit way too hard, at some point in all this nerfs he was still very viable even for LCS. I don't know what Riot was thinking continuously nerfing him.

NoMonkuMay 22, 20151 votes

I say this could be fine. I feel a problem with this, though, is that it might allow him to be a laner. I personally like him in lane, but I don't know if RIOT wants him there, so this buff may not work.

ArveanorMay 22, 20151 votes

Theoretically they don't care what roles any champion is in.

Ryu the firstMay 22, 20151 votes

.......theoretically

ArveanorMay 22, 20151 votes

Eh, on the one hand, it was a strategic word choice, on the other hand, I can't think of a time riot's nerfed a champion that was finding success outside it's traditional / main role, where I didn't understand the reasoning riot was using, and it wasn't "oh no soraka is playing mid and she's meant to be support".

That being said, in practice most champions become exponentially harder to balance around multiple roles, so kha'zix probably won't spend a lot of time as a strong jungler and laner, sadly.

XeroKimoMay 22, 20151 votes

I'd like this, or if you evolve q, theo riginal isolation dmg becomes it's base dmg, that way it'll be more reliable dmg late game and for assassination in team fights or so

qetzelMay 22, 20151 votes

Well... Speaking from the point of view of counterplay, before the nerf the isolation range was too small. You actually had to bunch up, not just stay close, to avoid being blown up. This was Kha'Zix specific counterplay that was too restrictive.

Decreasing the radius now would just undo the - in my mind necessary - fix once Kha reaches 6.

I agree that he needs something. While he doesn't feel bad to play, he doesn't feel that great. I just don't think that this is the solution.

ArveanorMay 22, 20153 votes

This has to be the solution. Either that or they don't let him be an assassin. He needs to have some control over his own burst from q, because that mechanic is so central to his play. The former 250 range might be too small, but right now it's definitely too big unless there is some method to force isolation.

KingsgraveMay 22, 20151 votes

Readability issues for opponents and makes evolving his Q first mandatory

FastAsHeckMay 22, 20151 votes

or (combining it with what you said about minions) when q is evolved, the champion distance for isolation is the same but everything else (towers, minions etc) must be closer to prevent isolation.

ArveanorMay 22, 20153 votes

actually, let's get rid of that pointless tower isolation interaction altogether.

AltricadMay 22, 20151 votes

I honestly want Volty to come out and talk to us about Kha'Zix. I love him to death, but he's too reliant on snowballing and crushing enemies before late game/ teamfights start happening. Currently, the isolation mechanic is holding him back soo much.

How about just getting rid of that stupid isolation and replacing it with the "slow" element, given that Kha'Zix has 2 ways to slow down enemies and would force him to use his ulti to get back unseen threat proc to keep slowing enemies

bradMay 23, 20151 votes

what if evolving kha's abilities gave them drawbacks, so that their strengths could be more defined

like an increased cooldown or mana cost or something on his e and give it something in return, like more range or more damage or whatever

what if kha'zix was actually about 'evolving and overcoming' as he so proudly yells when you evolve an ability

KatarikenMay 23, 20151 votes

Personal advice on Kha'zix buff (not all together, obliviously!!!!)

W isolates every enemy hit for X seconds
AD scaling or just physical damage on his passive and a little visible aura when it's active, for the enemies
after Q he has a buff on next basic attack
Q applies on-hit effect (:° O)
return of the damage reduction on his ultimate, or give him some armor or magic resist when he is in stealth (or in a bush...rengar is that you? ehehe)
when he uses R and he is in stealth, every enemy is isolated

I love write these...things :Q___

darkdillMay 23, 20151 votes

There actually is a visual indicator for when Kha'Zix has his buff available that enemies can see, but it's not very well defined. You just see it and don't realize what it is, most of the time.

KatarikenMay 23, 20151 votes

Really? I just see an Icon and nothing more °.°

Smitty ManjensenMay 23, 20151 votes

Only if the lower his iso damage, it's extremely strong.

FasmodeyMay 23, 20151 votes

His kit damage is so limited, all damage of he has got together in Q. If his isolating range decreases, board will be in tears a lot.

DecrousMay 23, 20151 votes

Completely random thought, but what if they made it where his W (or maybe just evolved W) did 150%-200% damage to minions(and maybe monsters). That way it would be easier to isolate enemies (by killing the minions with that) and it would also make his jungling a little bit faster.

If he's able to kill those minions in lane then it would just kinda effectively make enemies easier to isolate without having to reduce isolation range or the damage.

FlashnFuseMay 24, 20151 votes

I think they should add a "smokescreen" style blind to his w, in the same vein as Graves smokescreen and Nocturne's ultimate. If he hits someone with his w, they get "blinded" and become isolated for a short time (.75seconds pre evolved-w, 1.25ish seconds post evolved-w)because they can not see their team mates. Thematically it comes across as more terrifying, has excellent clarity in game of when/why you are getting hit for isolated damage, and can add in the self-reliance that an assassin needs.