Let us remember Kassadin

Mira Arya Enthe·May 28, 2016·28 votes·2,360 views

Let us remember Kassadin cannot silence. But can still 100-0 people. And champions like Zed, Ekko, Azir and Yasou are still allowed to do their OP garbage. Let us forget that Kassadin lost he theme of being somebody who takes away the enemy's power(Originally stealing mana, converting ability damage into Attack Speed, Shredding Armor, Silencing and slowing by gaining charges from sucking the energy out of abilities used near him). Let us know that he is no longer an epic void anti-mage or epic void mage assassin. But is just a teleporting damage dealer in a game full of those that do much more. Let us remember that Kassadin is boring now.

58 Comments

DefendedMay 29, 20169 votes

Kassadins damage is a fucking joke.

MunchCrunchLunchMay 29, 20162 votes

thats why hes only good late game. or if fed. because his base damages. are non existent. he literally has the lowest burst of any mage. hell. I bet you his entire kit. is outdamaged by a single leblanc Q ult combo. the only reason he does damage is his lichbane W proc. other than that the rest of his kit has low ratios and low bases. go check it out he literally has the lowest damage out of all burst mages. and maybe out of all mages in general.

I gotta love when the lane is like 0-0. and I go for a kill. because you know why the hell should i be thinking am leblanc or fizz or zed or talon. as an assassin that should be able to 100-0 with a full rotation with 1 item. and you know run out of gas after one rotation and their squishy still has half their health. its a shame.

how the hell is a champion that has magic reduction built into his kit is outdamaged by fizz and leblanc. wtf. they out damage him so much that he cant do shit against them. bet you if he had twice his damage reduction he would still lose the laning phase.

and yes. hes incredibly boring. hes simply. hes punishing to play because how fucking bad he is in the early game. i mean there are a lot of champions that are as simply as kassadin. point and click and not much skillshots. i don't mind it. but i mind it when it feels awful to play.

hell anivia outdamages him now in a straight up 1v1 and hes supposed to counter her.

meanwhile leblanc can 100-0 a squishy with just two dorans rings at level 6.

hes just as bad as eve right now. both kassadin. and eve are in the same category. overnerfed garbage that is waiting for rework to be healthy. because you know its healthy that a leblanc can delete you in under half a second from behind 2 walls.

TWITCHTV ERONATEMay 29, 20165 votes

I don't know, everyone has his opinion, you hate him and he's boring but for a reason i fucking love him, even when i lose lane i feel like i'm having fun and i never have fun in league.

he gets outdamaged because as you said, he's garbage now unless you know how to roam with him fizz is a fucking joke right now, i can't imagine how much damage he deals and how insane he scales, kassa is just left behind with the buffs and who the fuck beats lb in a 1v1

QjTHqo3RTqMay 29, 20164 votes

Not sure why people are downvoting you, I'mma leave an upvote and hope that helps

Mira Arya EntheMay 29, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Not sure why people are downvoting you, I'mma leave an upvote and hope that helps

Not sure. Possibly Riot admins in disguise who are mad that everyone doesn't approve of their design. But thank you friend. Also, awesome name XD

TWITCHTV ERONATEMay 30, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Not sure why people are downvoting you, I'mma leave an upvote and hope that helps

Thanks man <3

TWITCHTV ERONATEMay 30, 20165 votes

Maybe his E could only be used on 6 stacks but the stacks would be capped at 10, and when you use a 10-stacked E it would reduce incoming magic damage (%) from all the enemies hit in the AoE for a certain time

So you have options, you are getting ganked and only have a 6 stacked E, you'll use it for the slow and then riftwalk out If a teamfight/1v1 is about to start, you wait for your 10 stacks and then use it to reduce incoming damage

just an idea tho, thought it would make him more fun

Keira HelshMay 30, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Maybe his E could only be used on 6 stacks but the stacks would be capped at 10, and when you use a 10-stacked E it would reduce incoming magic damage (%) from all the enemies hit in the AoE for a certain time

So you have options, you are getting ganked and only have a 6 stacked E, you'll use it for the slow and then riftwalk out If a teamfight/1v1 is about to start, you wait for your 10 stacks and then use it to reduce incoming damage

just an idea tho, thought it would make him more fun

That's actually kind of cool, though I would still want to reduce Kassadin's burst potential through scalings, increase his bass damage, and change his W back to a dps tool.

TWITCHTV ERONATEMay 30, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Keira Helsh,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=000a0000,timestamp=2016-05-30T14:21:51.851+0000)

That's actually kind of cool, though I would still want to reduce Kassadin's burst potential through scalings, increase his bass damage, and change his W back to a dps tool.

His base damage, yeah, if riot increases it I can consider myself in heaven What do you mean by making his W a dps tool though? How would it work

Sorry I only played/play the new kassadin, I'm probably an idiot xD

Keira HelshMay 31, 20162 votes

{quoted}

His base damage, yeah, if riot increases it I can consider myself in heaven What do you mean by making his W a dps tool though? How would it work

Sorry I only played/play the new kassadin, I'm probably an idiot xD

Old Kassadin's W had gone through several iterations, among them was a 5 second buff that made your auto attacks do bonus magic damage per hit, kind of like his W currently does passively, but with much better damage since it didn't do it passively, or reset his swing timer.

To go along with your idea, I would take his W, remove on next hit damage, and make it like... An activation that gave a burst of attack speed, bonus magic damage on hit for the next X seconds, and restore mana per hit.

Just as a random example, I'd give it a lot more thought if I were to actually design another Kassadin rework.

TWITCHTV ERONATEMay 31, 20162 votes

Wow, that would be nice, but with his current ult range it would be a pain in the ass to get the autos off. They will simply run and because his ult range is so small he will only be able to auto once per rift walk, or that's just me His w would be kinda useless until he gets a lower cd on his ult

What if it gave bonus movement speed for half the buff's duration?

Keira HelshJun 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Wow, that would be nice, but with his current ult range it would be a pain in the ass to get the autos off. They will simply run and because his ult range is so small he will only be able to auto once per rift walk, or that's just me His w would be kinda useless until he gets a lower cd on his ult

What if it gave bonus movement speed for half the buff's duration?

Possible, though we don't have to keep Riftwalk the same, either. If we're talking about reducing burst and his AP scalings, we could buff Riftwalks range, or just give bonus movespeed after a Riftwalk, also.

TWITCHTV ERONATEJun 3, 20161 votes

I wouldn't really want to reduce his burst, nowadays it's just that you have 2 seconds to kill or either get killed in a teamfight, if he had consistent damage he wouldn't be able to utilize it in any scenario besides in a 1v1 imo

I really don't wanna see full tank kassadin with only roa only for him to be able to deal his consistent damage and then die, bc that's how people will probably build him then

Wild GeeseMay 29, 20164 votes

Removing the silences was a mistake, especially on these old champions that don't have as much going for them as newer ones. What's so bad about a silence? Why is it any worse than a root? It's certainly less than a stun!!

Kassadin Talon Leblanc All should get their silences back.

AhristocatsMay 29, 20167 votes

[{quoted}](name=Wild Geese,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2016-05-29T17:23:17.705+0000)

Removing the silences was a mistake, especially on these old champions that don't have as much going for them as newer ones. What's so bad about a silence? Why is it any worse than a root? It's certainly less than a stun!!

All should get their silences back.

reliable silence combined with burst is impossible to play against. at least not in lol where the only thing you can do is buying qss which reduces a lot your damage.

Mira Arya EntheMay 29, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=playfive Koopska,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2016-05-29T17:44:04.267+0000)

reliable silence combined with burst is impossible to play against. at least not in lol where the only thing you can do is buying qss which reduces a lot your damage.

So lower Kassadin's damage. He wasn't originally about instagibbing. Or read

[{quoted}](name=Keira Helsh,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2016-05-29T07:42:47.639+0000)

Yes, with proper planning, positioning, and engaging, Kassadin still deletes people like before. The only difference is that they moved some of his E and Q damage onto his W, which now does burst damage unlike the DPS damage it did before.

And no, Mira is right, Kassadin is just boring now.

Before the rework, I got to the point where I started playing a game in normals and having the enemy team pick my items, and was still very, very often able to make it viable. Obviously, building AP was always the best to play an assassin role, but his old high base damages, and his silence, and attack speed steroid opened up fun options, game after game after game when I was messing around with a tank Kassadin build, I received several messages asking how it worked, but these things are literally not possible anymore.

They lowered his base damages. Now sure, AP Kassadin was an incredible early game bully, but even back then people were finding ways around it. Now, if I try to hold off on buying AP, I'm just going to get bullied out of lane.

They removed his silence. This change also hit Kassadin's trade potential, because while the shield is good, it doesn't compare to keeping your opponent from using an ability for 2.8 seconds.

They took away all of his dps potential. Now this one is a bit of a moot point, because of how League has evolved, dps itself isn't viable in most situations, but his old W and the attack speed on his passive gave him fun decision making and versatility. A silly example is when I was playing around with a tanky Kassadin, and discovered that tanks like to stack up his passive quickly, and when you have a Gunblade, with 2.5 attack speed and his old W, it was really hilarious ;D

The most annoying thing about the riftwalk changes is the absurdly long debuff timer, though I still prefer his old riftwalk for the sheer utility.

But, that's just the thing, is that Kassadin became an AP assassin because of the strength of his AP ratios back in the day, but what made him FUN was the utility, it was because you had versatility. Now, I understand if someone were to feel that old Kassadin's versatility was too powerful, but...

Old Kass Magic damage taken reduction Attack speed conversion Ranged silence Mana regeneration AOE slow Short cooldown Flash

Ekko Move speed increase passive slow Ranged slow Percentage missing health execute AoE slow AoE stun Self Shield Short range dash Blink Strike Return to previous location Self heal

As you can see, a modern champion has double old Kassadin's utility, and interestingly enough, we have seen a similar thing I was doing on old Kass done with Ekko recently, build him tank. The difference is, with my old Kassatank build, ADC's could still shred me, and burst damage still took me down, it was only ever overpowered when I was taking small amounts of magic damage bit by bit.

Tank Ekko's base damages were so high that it literally didn't matter.

Nowadays, even when I'm doing something weird and trying to have fun on Kassadin, I find myself having no choice but to pick up a lot of AP, or be weak. There is no versatility anymore, and it's for the exact reason that Mira had stated, they took the fun stuff away and kept the damage, just shifted it over to his W.

For reference New Kass Q: 170+70% W: 125+120+60% This is because it resets his attack timer and does his AD in damage, Kassadin's W has a technical 100% total AD ratio. For this, I took only his Base AD E: 180+70% R: 120+20%+2% mana with an additional 60+10%+1% per stack

Total damages at 0 riftwalk stacks

715+220%+2% mana If we are talking about a burst combo, you would want to get an auto attack off before hitting W for the instant extra attack, so you could add another 125 damage to the base for a total of 840 base damage.

Old Kass Patch 1.0.0.125 Q: 280+70% W: 125+90+15% He has to auto attack to activate it E: 280+70% R:120+50% AP ratio does not increase with additional stacks.

895+205% The burst combo from old Kassadin does not get a free auto since his W did not reset his attack swing.

Now, here's where things get interesting. Kassadin wasn't getting picked or banned a lot at this time Riot decided that he needed buffs

1.0.0.143 Riftwalk damage reduced to 80 per stack, AP ratio increased to 80%

Xpeke backdoors as Kassadin, winning a tournament match

1.0.0.151 W AP ratio increased to 30%, but no longer works on nexus or inhibitors

Now lets look at our stats. 895-40 from riftwalk base damage reduction 205+30% riftwalk buff,+ 15% W buff

855+250% Let's take a look at the damage difference between these AP ratios. Say a Kassadin late game has 600 AP

New Kassadin would deal in a burst combo, before Lich Bane and Ludens procs, 840+1320=2160 Before armor and magic resist, that's enough to instagib most ADC's, now that IS before armor and magic resistance, BUT, that's also not including a potential Lich Bane and/or Luden's proc.

Old Kassadin before Xpeke at 600AP 895+1230=2125 Still instagibbing most ADC's before armor and magic resistance.

But now lets look at the buffed Kassadin After Xpeke at 600 AP

855+1500= 2355 , a whopping 230 extra damage at 600 AP over pre xpeke Kass, and the damage difference just goes higher the higher your AP is. This is where Cancer Kassadin started, this is when he was picked or banned in every game, because between these numbers, and other effects of items such as spell pen, procs, etc. Kassadin had become a hyper mobile, instagibbing god. Kassadin had become unhealthy for the game, so Riot reduced his Q's base damage... by 60, so he was still doing 170 more damage than he had been doing....

But lets break down some of this problem. Old Kassadin was doing 2125 damage on his burst combo What happens when we break it down? For time constraints, lets say, just his Q and his E, each did 280+70% at 600 AP, those two abilities come out to 1400 damage, out of 2125. that meant that literally 2/3r'ds of his damage came from only half of his active abilities, and when we're dealing with numbers this dangerous, yes, it is absurd to do that much damage from far away, and then also have mobility for escape and chase. As Riot would put it, it's too safe.

So what about his new Q and E? Well, it's certainly going to be lower, let's take a look 170+70% 180+70% 310+140% At 600 AP the total is 1150, compared to the 2160 it's much, much more balanced damage output than before, but the damage is actually around the same... Because they increased the burst potential of Kassadin's W, with the resetting, and equivalent base damage and the increased AP ratio. In fact, Riot did such a gloriously bad job at 'fixing Kassadin's unhealthy gameplay' that they actually nerfed him several times after the rework, because the problem remained, he jumped on someone and instagibbed them, while simultaneously gutting the viability of any other playstyle than AP in lane.

Now, what if instead of doing an entire rework, they just... Lowered AP ratios?

280+50% 125+90+15% 280+50% 120+40%

895+155%

At 600 AP 1825 His kit is still loaded more towards the Q and E for burst, but in DPS his ult and W are favored

Plus, if we take a look at the biggest problems when it comes to Kassadin's Safety, his Q and E 560+100% 560+600= 1160 Only ten more than the current iteration already is, AND because we actually nerfed Kassadin's total damage output, we get to keep his utility, AND because he remains decent base damages on his Q and E, while also retaining his DPS, it retains alternative builds and playstyles for players to HAVE FUN in the video game.

We could even take it lower, hell even remove AP scaling at all from Riftwalk, though that might make AP Kass unviable compared to other builds.

The whole point of this is, Riot seemed to have been so afraid of a backlash towards just nerfing Kassadin for the health of the game, that they instead GUTTED his playstyle and character, and it's a dangerous trend that they've been on for a while, and it gets worse and worse.

On a side note, I just mathed up Ekko's burst combo, over three thousand damage, so not only does he have double the utility, he also does about 50% more damage than Kassadin! =D Oh, and that's before calculating the execute on Ekko's W passive.

MiraweaveMay 29, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=000600000000,timestamp=2016-05-29T19:24:33.164+0000)

So lower Kassadin's damage. He wasn't originally about instagibbing. Or read

Actually, he was.

AhristocatsMay 29, 20165 votes

originally he was a late game carry. But originally every spell used to scale with AP this turned SO MUCH Ad champ into AP like old sion.

ArakadiaMay 30, 20162 votes

My mouse broke trying to scroll this post....

Dominick DestineMay 30, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=000600000000,timestamp=2016-05-29T19:24:33.164+0000)

So lower Kassadin's damage. He wasn't originally about instagibbing. Or read

tldr man

Keira HelshMay 29, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=playfive Koopska,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2016-05-29T17:44:04.267+0000)

reliable silence combined with burst is impossible to play against. at least not in lol where the only thing you can do is buying qss which reduces a lot your damage.

Reliable stuns combined with burst is impossible to play against as well, but Pantheon QWE 654 damage, plus a 400 damage auto attack we are looking at 1054+440%AD 400-105 is 295, so at 295 bonus AD, in total, Pantheon's burst combo is 2352, did not include his ult due to it's unreliability as a damage source.

This is about the same as 100% pick or ban Kassadin, but with a hard stun instead of a silence.

The point is that there's a lot of champions in this game that have equivalent or better hard CC with tons of damage.

MiraweaveMay 29, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Keira Helsh,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=000600000001,timestamp=2016-05-29T21:45:28.377+0000)

Reliable stuns combined with burst is impossible to play against as well, but Pantheon QWE 654 damage, plus a 400 damage auto attack we are looking at 1054+440%AD 400-105 is 295, so at 295 bonus AD, in total, Pantheon's burst combo is 2352, did not include his ult due to it's unreliability as a damage source.

This is about the same as 100% pick or ban Kassadin, but with a hard stun instead of a silence.

The point is that there's a lot of champions in this game that have equivalent or better hard CC with tons of damage.

Except that pantheon doesn't have a four second cooldown blink.

Mira Arya EntheMay 29, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Except that pantheon doesn't have a four second cooldown blink.

Fizz, LeBlank, Ekko, Ekko, Zed, Ekko, Ekko, Ekko and... Ekko are all stronger and do more than Kass. Again Kassadin was designed to be an anti-mage carry, not an assassin. All champions at the time had AP scalings on certain abilities, which is why it was called Ability power. It was so high so he did not have to buy a lot to deal effective damage, that way he could buy other useful items. Which is also why his base damages were high. However, people realized they could build massive AP on him and just instagib people. Just like how Teemo, literally in the champion spotlight is suggested to be built bruiser or marksman, not pure AP. Riot supported the AP gameplay, and took away half of his kit to do it. And that is what Kassadin players are mad about. Now he is just a less versatile Fizz with medium assassin damage. Instead of just nerfing his AP scalings and letting him remain an anti-mage carry, they made him INTO an assassin. And don't deny it, facts are louder than you. His design included armor shred, MR that gave him attack speed and a silence. He was not meant to instagib people, just as Teemo was not built to shroom nuke. The difference is Teemo players are happy with the new design. Kassadin players are not.

And Kassadin's actual gameplay is too easy to be a nuke assassin. It's toxic. He doesn't demand much skill to play at a medium level. He fits in better with medium or low skill tier bruisers and anti-carry champions.

My Waifu VanillaMay 29, 20162 votes

1 second at level 16 with 45% CDR (it's like 1.1 but w/e). The only problem with Kass right now is you are basically playing an incomplete champion until level 16 when you are somewhat playable by having an actual ultimate and mana to use it. His ultimate cool down gets halved (?!) between level 15 and 16 and it makes the world of difference since you can actually do decent damage with it at that point.

Mira Arya EntheMay 29, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=My Waifu Chocola,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=00060000000100000001,timestamp=2016-05-29T22:53:32.569+0000)

1 second at level 16 with 45% CDR (it's like 1.1 but w/e). The only problem with Kass right now is you are basically playing an incomplete champion until level 16 when you are somewhat playable by having an actual ultimate and mana to use it. His ultimate cool down gets halved (?!) between level 15 and 16 and it makes the world of difference since you can actually do decent damage with it at that point.

Yeah, his riftwalk is insanely OP. So is his damage. But there are millions of leaps in the game. That's nothing special anymore. Meaning his unique part is no longer his jump.

Spicy RiceMay 29, 20165 votes

Leblancs silence was bullshit, and you know it

ShahamutMay 29, 20162 votes

Silence+Assassin= no bueno

KONO RUBICK DAMay 28, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-05-28T23:39:04.694+0000)

Kassadin is boring now.

that's not what riot is trying to saying. anyway Kassadin is now an other leblanc/fizz or something liike that, except that he brings less cards, does the same thing jump--->unleash burst one could arg that he has 15% magic damage reduction, but that's what fizz has at lvl 18 by having mr/lvl.

Remember that kassadin was the only true roaming champ in season 2. Season 2 had a lot of farming mages like orianna, galio, karthus (the true afk farmer), kassadin back in s2 was picked by alex ich he would go through wards and gank at lvl 6. Now a lot of champs can do that.

league's champ are just becoming similar.

Mira Arya EntheMay 28, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Kassadin is boring now.

that's not what riot is trying to saying. anyway Kassadin is now an other lablanc/fizz or something liike that, except that he brings less cards, does the same thing jump--->unleash burst one could arg that he has 15% magic damage reduction, but that's what fizz has at lvl 18 by having mr/lvl.

Remember that kassadin was the only true roaming champ in season 2. Season 2 had a lot of farming mages like orianna, galio, karthus (the true afk farmer), kassadin back in s2 was picked by alex ich he would go through wards and gank at lvl 6. Now a lot of champs can do that.

league's champ are just becoming similar.

The problem was, instead of just nerfing his problematic damage, and leaving his kit unique. they made his damage just as strong, made his R stronger up to a point, and removed all his unique attributes. making him, as you said, a generic Fizz with less escape and less CC

MiraweaveMay 29, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2016-05-28T23:51:44.048+0000)

The problem was, instead of just nerfing his problematic damage, and leaving his kit unique. they made his damage just as strong, made his R stronger up to a point, and removed all his unique attributes. making him, as you said, a generic Fizz with less escape and less CC

His R is his unique part. Riftwalk is what makes kassadin kassadin.

A bullshit silence that lets him kill you without letting you respond is not fair, not fun to play against, and shouldn't have ever been there in the first place.

AhristocatsMay 29, 20162 votes

{quoted}

His R is his unique part. Riftwalk is what made kassadin kassadin.

fixed

Sire HippingtonMay 29, 20163 votes

Lets not forget that he also still has a silence refference in his joke, but no more silence...It seems he really regrets trying to silence his mother once, as she aparently took his silence away after that.

My Waifu VanillaMay 29, 20163 votes

Now he just interrupts her when she tries to talk.

Morgy MorgyMay 29, 20162 votes

wait kassadin does damage?

Keira HelshMay 29, 20163 votes

{quoted}

wait kassadin does damage?

Yes, with proper planning, positioning, and engaging, Kassadin still deletes people like before. The only difference is that they moved some of his E and Q damage onto his W, which now does burst damage unlike the DPS damage it did before.

And no, Mira is right, Kassadin is just boring now.

Before the rework, I got to the point where I started playing a game in normals and having the enemy team pick my items, and was still very, very often able to make it viable. Obviously, building AP was always the best to play an assassin role, but his old high base damages, and his silence, and attack speed steroid opened up fun options, game after game after game when I was messing around with a tank Kassadin build, I received several messages asking how it worked, but these things are literally not possible anymore.

They lowered his base damages. Now sure, AP Kassadin was an incredible early game bully, but even back then people were finding ways around it. Now, if I try to hold off on buying AP, I'm just going to get bullied out of lane.
They removed his silence. This change also hit Kassadin's trade potential, because while the shield is good, it doesn't compare to keeping your opponent from using an ability for 2.8 seconds.
They took away all of his dps potential. Now this one is a bit of a moot point, because of how League has evolved, dps itself isn't viable in most situations, but his old W and the attack speed on his passive gave him fun decision making and versatility. A silly example is when I was playing around with a tanky Kassadin, and discovered that tanks like to stack up his passive quickly, and when you have a Gunblade, with 2.5 attack speed and his old W, it was really hilarious ;D

The most annoying thing about the riftwalk changes is the absurdly long debuff timer, though I still prefer his old riftwalk for the sheer utility.

But, that's just the thing, is that Kassadin became an AP assassin because of the strength of his AP ratios back in the day, but what made him FUN was the utility, it was because you had versatility. Now, I understand if someone were to feel that old Kassadin's versatility was too powerful, but...

Old Kass Magic damage taken reduction Attack speed conversion Ranged silence Mana regeneration AOE slow Short cooldown Flash

Ekko Move speed increase passive slow Ranged slow Percentage missing health execute AoE slow AoE stun Self Shield Short range dash Blink Strike Return to previous location Self heal

As you can see, a modern champion has double old Kassadin's utility, and interestingly enough, we have seen a similar thing I was doing on old Kass done with Ekko recently, build him tank. The difference is, with my old Kassatank build, ADC's could still shred me, and burst damage still took me down, it was only ever overpowered when I was taking small amounts of magic damage bit by bit.

Tank Ekko's base damages were so high that it literally didn't matter.

Nowadays, even when I'm doing something weird and trying to have fun on Kassadin, I find myself having no choice but to pick up a lot of AP, or be weak. There is no versatility anymore, and it's for the exact reason that Mira had stated, they took the fun stuff away and kept the damage, just shifted it over to his W.

For reference New Kass Q: 170+70% W: 125+120+60% This is because it resets his attack timer and does his AD in damage, Kassadin's W has a technical 100% total AD ratio. For this, I took only his Base AD E: 180+70% R: 120+20%+2% mana with an additional 60+10%+1% per stack

Total damages at 0 riftwalk stacks

715+220%+2% mana If we are talking about a burst combo, you would want to get an auto attack off before hitting W for the instant extra attack, so you could add another 125 damage to the base for a total of 840 base damage.

Old Kass Patch 1.0.0.125 Q: 280+70% W: 125+90+15% He has to auto attack to activate it E: 280+70% R:120+50% AP ratio does not increase with additional stacks.

895+205% The burst combo from old Kassadin does not get a free auto since his W did not reset his attack swing.

Now, here's where things get interesting. Kassadin wasn't getting picked or banned a lot at this time Riot decided that he needed buffs

1.0.0.143 Riftwalk damage reduced to 80 per stack, AP ratio increased to 80%

Xpeke backdoors as Kassadin, winning a tournament match

1.0.0.151 W AP ratio increased to 30%, but no longer works on nexus or inhibitors

Now lets look at our stats. 895-40 from riftwalk base damage reduction 205+30% riftwalk buff,+ 15% W buff

855+250% Let's take a look at the damage difference between these AP ratios. Say a Kassadin late game has 600 AP

New Kassadin would deal in a burst combo, before Lich Bane and Ludens procs, 840+1320=2160 Before armor and magic resist, that's enough to instagib most ADC's, now that IS before armor and magic resistance, BUT, that's also not including a potential Lich Bane and/or Luden's proc.

Old Kassadin before Xpeke at 600AP 895+1230=2125 Still instagibbing most ADC's before armor and magic resistance.

But now lets look at the buffed Kassadin After Xpeke at 600 AP

855+1500= 2355 , a whopping 230 extra damage at 600 AP over pre xpeke Kass, and the damage difference just goes higher the higher your AP is. This is where Cancer Kassadin started, this is when he was picked or banned in every game, because between these numbers, and other effects of items such as spell pen, procs, etc. Kassadin had become a hyper mobile, instagibbing god. Kassadin had become unhealthy for the game, so Riot reduced his Q's base damage... by 60, so he was still doing 170 more damage than he had been doing....

But lets break down some of this problem. Old Kassadin was doing 2125 damage on his burst combo What happens when we break it down? For time constraints, lets say, just his Q and his E, each did 280+70% at 600 AP, those two abilities come out to 1400 damage, out of 2125. that meant that literally 2/3r'ds of his damage came from only half of his active abilities, and when we're dealing with numbers this dangerous, yes, it is absurd to do that much damage from far away, and then also have mobility for escape and chase. As Riot would put it, it's too safe.

So what about his new Q and E? Well, it's certainly going to be lower, let's take a look 170+70% 180+70% 310+140% At 600 AP the total is 1150, compared to the 2160 it's much, much more balanced damage output than before, but the damage is actually around the same... Because they increased the burst potential of Kassadin's W, with the resetting, and equivalent base damage and the increased AP ratio. In fact, Riot did such a gloriously bad job at 'fixing Kassadin's unhealthy gameplay' that they actually nerfed him several times after the rework, because the problem remained, he jumped on someone and instagibbed them, while simultaneously gutting the viability of any other playstyle than AP in lane.

Now, what if instead of doing an entire rework, they just... Lowered AP ratios?

280+50% 125+90+15% 280+50% 120+40%

895+155%

At 600 AP 1825 His kit is still loaded more towards the Q and E for burst, but in DPS his ult and W are favored

Plus, if we take a look at the biggest problems when it comes to Kassadin's Safety, his Q and E 560+100% 560+600= 1160 Only ten more than the current iteration already is, AND because we actually nerfed Kassadin's total damage output, we get to keep his utility, AND because he remains decent base damages on his Q and E, while also retaining his DPS, it retains alternative builds and playstyles for players to HAVE FUN in the video game.

We could even take it lower, hell even remove AP scaling at all from Riftwalk, though that might make AP Kass unviable compared to other builds.

The whole point of this is, Riot seemed to have been so afraid of a backlash towards just nerfing Kassadin for the health of the game, that they instead GUTTED his playstyle and character, and it's a dangerous trend that they've been on for a while, and it gets worse and worse.

On a side note, I just mathed up Ekko's burst combo, over three thousand damage, so not only does he have double the utility, he also does about 50% more damage than Kassadin! =D Oh, and that's before calculating the execute on Ekko's W passive.

Mira Arya EntheMay 29, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Keira Helsh,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2016-05-29T07:42:47.639+0000)

Yes, with proper planning, positioning, and engaging, Kassadin still deletes people like before. The only difference is that they moved some of his E and Q damage onto his W, which now does burst damage unlike the DPS damage it did before.

And no, Mira is right, Kassadin is just boring now.

Before the rework, I got to the point where I started playing a game in normals and having the enemy team pick my items, and was still very, very often able to make it viable. Obviously, building AP was always the best to play an assassin role, but his old high base damages, and his silence, and attack speed steroid opened up fun options, game after game after game when I was messing around with a tank Kassadin build, I received several messages asking how it worked, but these things are literally not possible anymore.

They lowered his base damages. Now sure, AP Kassadin was an incredible early game bully, but even back then people were finding ways around it. Now, if I try to hold off on buying AP, I'm just going to get bullied out of lane.

They removed his silence. This change also hit Kassadin's trade potential, because while the shield is good, it doesn't compare to keeping your opponent from using an ability for 2.8 seconds.

They took away all of his dps potential. Now this one is a bit of a moot point, because of how League has evolved, dps itself isn't viable in most situations, but his old W and the attack speed on his passive gave him fun decision making and versatility. A silly example is when I was playing around with a tanky Kassadin, and discovered that tanks like to stack up his passive quickly, and when you have a Gunblade, with 2.5 attack speed and his old W, it was really hilarious ;D

The most annoying thing about the riftwalk changes is the absurdly long debuff timer, though I still prefer his old riftwalk for the sheer utility.

But, that's just the thing, is that Kassadin became an AP assassin because of the strength of his AP ratios back in the day, but what made him FUN was the utility, it was because you had versatility. Now, I understand if someone were to feel that old Kassadin's versatility was too powerful, but...

Old Kass Magic damage taken reduction Attack speed conversion Ranged silence Mana regeneration AOE slow Short cooldown Flash

Ekko Move speed increase passive slow Ranged slow Percentage missing health execute AoE slow AoE stun Self Shield Short range dash Blink Strike Return to previous location Self heal

As you can see, a modern champion has double old Kassadin's utility, and interestingly enough, we have seen a similar thing I was doing on old Kass done with Ekko recently, build him tank. The difference is, with my old Kassatank build, ADC's could still shred me, and burst damage still took me down, it was only ever overpowered when I was taking small amounts of magic damage bit by bit.

Tank Ekko's base damages were so high that it literally didn't matter.

Nowadays, even when I'm doing something weird and trying to have fun on Kassadin, I find myself having no choice but to pick up a lot of AP, or be weak. There is no versatility anymore, and it's for the exact reason that Mira had stated, they took the fun stuff away and kept the damage, just shifted it over to his W.

For reference New Kass Q: 170+70% W: 125+120+60% This is because it resets his attack timer and does his AD in damage, Kassadin's W has a technical 100% total AD ratio. For this, I took only his Base AD E: 180+70% R: 120+20%+2% mana with an additional 60+10%+1% per stack

Total damages at 0 riftwalk stacks

715+220%+2% mana If we are talking about a burst combo, you would want to get an auto attack off before hitting W for the instant extra attack, so you could add another 125 damage to the base for a total of 840 base damage.

Old Kass Patch 1.0.0.125 Q: 280+70% W: 125+90+15% He has to auto attack to activate it E: 280+70% R:120+50% AP ratio does not increase with additional stacks.

895+205% The burst combo from old Kassadin does not get a free auto since his W did not reset his attack swing.

Now, here's where things get interesting. Kassadin wasn't getting picked or banned a lot at this time Riot decided that he needed buffs

1.0.0.143 Riftwalk damage reduced to 80 per stack, AP ratio increased to 80%

Xpeke backdoors as Kassadin, winning a tournament match

1.0.0.151 W AP ratio increased to 30%, but no longer works on nexus or inhibitors

Now lets look at our stats. 895-40 from riftwalk base damage reduction 205+30% riftwalk buff,+ 15% W buff

855+250% Let's take a look at the damage difference between these AP ratios. Say a Kassadin late game has 600 AP

New Kassadin would deal in a burst combo, before Lich Bane and Ludens procs, 840+1320=2160 Before armor and magic resist, that's enough to instagib most ADC's, now that IS before armor and magic resistance, BUT, that's also not including a potential Lich Bane and/or Luden's proc.

Old Kassadin before Xpeke at 600AP 895+1230=2125 Still instagibbing most ADC's before armor and magic resistance.

But now lets look at the buffed Kassadin After Xpeke at 600 AP

855+1500= 2355 , a whopping 230 extra damage at 600 AP over pre xpeke Kass, and the damage difference just goes higher the higher your AP is. This is where Cancer Kassadin started, this is when he was picked or banned in every game, because between these numbers, and other effects of items such as spell pen, procs, etc. Kassadin had become a hyper mobile, instagibbing god. Kassadin had become unhealthy for the game, so Riot reduced his Q's base damage... by 60, so he was still doing 170 more damage than he had been doing....

But lets break down some of this problem. Old Kassadin was doing 2125 damage on his burst combo What happens when we break it down? For time constraints, lets say, just his Q and his E, each did 280+70% at 600 AP, those two abilities come out to 1400 damage, out of 2125. that meant that literally 2/3r'ds of his damage came from only half of his active abilities, and when we're dealing with numbers this dangerous, yes, it is absurd to do that much damage from far away, and then also have mobility for escape and chase. As Riot would put it, it's too safe.

So what about his new Q and E? Well, it's certainly going to be lower, let's take a look 170+70% 180+70% 310+140% At 600 AP the total is 1150, compared to the 2160 it's much, much more balanced damage output than before, but the damage is actually around the same... Because they increased the burst potential of Kassadin's W, with the resetting, and equivalent base damage and the increased AP ratio. In fact, Riot did such a gloriously bad job at 'fixing Kassadin's unhealthy gameplay' that they actually nerfed him several times after the rework, because the problem remained, he jumped on someone and instagibbed them, while simultaneously gutting the viability of any other playstyle than AP in lane.

Now, what if instead of doing an entire rework, they just... Lowered AP ratios?

280+50% 125+90+15% 280+50% 120+40%

895+155%

At 600 AP 1825 His kit is still loaded more towards the Q and E for burst, but in DPS his ult and W are favored

Plus, if we take a look at the biggest problems when it comes to Kassadin's Safety, his Q and E 560+100% 560+600= 1160 Only ten more than the current iteration already is, AND because we actually nerfed Kassadin's total damage output, we get to keep his utility, AND because he remains decent base damages on his Q and E, while also retaining his DPS, it retains alternative builds and playstyles for players to HAVE FUN in the video game.

We could even take it lower, hell even remove AP scaling at all from Riftwalk, though that might make AP Kass unviable compared to other builds.

The whole point of this is, Riot seemed to have been so afraid of a backlash towards just nerfing Kassadin for the health of the game, that they instead GUTTED his playstyle and character, and it's a dangerous trend that they've been on for a while, and it gets worse and worse.

On a side note, I just mathed up Ekko's burst combo, over three thousand damage, so not only does he have double the utility, he also does about 50% more damage than Kassadin! =D Oh, and that's before calculating the execute on Ekko's W passive.

Oh my goodness, that was very detailed. Thank you for your input. Riot should just let you redesign Kass XD.

I7A6X2v2May 29, 20162 votes

Kassadin should not be listed as an assassin, his dmg is too damn low...

MiraweaveMay 29, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Kassadin should not be listed as an assassin, his dmg is too damn low...

He's actually fine right now.

CerealBoxOfDoomMay 29, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Kassadin should not be listed as an assassin, his dmg is too damn low...

he isnt, he's a mage/assassin

mage/assassin != assassin/assassin

also dealing heavy damage is not the job of an assassin, dealing enough damage is the job of an assassin.

QuephaMay 30, 20162 votes

he converts your health into a magic shield

Illâoi Evê SiônMay 30, 20162 votes

Maybe the next update should be for Assassins to give them each a definitive reason to be picked with clear strengths and weaknesses (looking at you Zed).

The DeckownerMay 30, 20162 votes

Kassadin's damage is a joke right now, when stupid champion like lb ,azir and nidalee flying around.

The WhamboozlerMay 30, 20162 votes

On the one hand, I always hated Kass, because I remember the age of Kassawin.

On the OTHER hand, he even got his crusade against the void thing stolen from him. There's been several champs with anti-void stuff going on with them and not a single mention of Kass. Kass mains... I hate you, but even I have to admit you got a raw deal.

Lady HammerlockMay 29, 20161 votes

Kassadin was riots attempt at making the Anti-mage(from DOTA) into league but in a different way He does it perfectly to,he is hyper mobile has the ability to disrupt some cast times and all channeled spells with his Q has a Slow passive Magic damage reduction and spell shield And has a Slow

AhristocatsMay 29, 20165 votes

{quoted}

Kassadin was riots attempt at making the Anti-mage(from DOTA) into league but in a different way He does it perfectly to,he is hyper mobile has the ability to disrupt some cast times and all channeled spells with his Q has a Slow passive Magic damage reduction and spell shield And has a Slow

the difference between magina and kassadin is that kassadin was an assassin, this is impossible to balance. They should have made him a carry anti mage like magina, release kassadin was like this with his old W, problem is that players realised that his burst was high (Q had 260+0.8 AP) they should have nerfed his damage.

Second problem is that during some patches some picks were weak (like TALON), which made kassadin increadibly lane bully.

Mira Arya EntheMay 29, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=playfive Koopska,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2016-05-29T09:28:15.187+0000)

the difference from magina and kassadin is that kassadin was an assassin, this is impossible to balance. They should have made him a carry anti mage like magina, release kassadin was like this with his old W, problem is that players realised that his burst was high (Q had 260+0.8 AP) they should have nerfed his damage.

Second problem is that during some patches some picks were weak (like TALON), which made kassadin increadibly lane bully.

Kassadin use to be a carry anti-mage. He had an armor shred on his W on release, a Silence that was useful early and late game, DPS on his W, attack speed from magic damage on his passive, a long lasting slow on his E that was stacked up by the enemy's ability usage, and of course his R to catch people. Originally he could play as a semi-tank, a dps, a burst champion or a disruptor. But his AP ratios were too high so people played him pure AP, thus resulting in Riot favoring this gameplay and removing all of his utility instead. Then they released burst champions are miserably unbalanced and hard to make fair. So they gutted some of his early damage, making laning atrocious as Kassadin. So he is just a weaker version of LeBlanc, Fizz or Kat right now with no place in the meta. Meanwhile, Ekko gets utility, deleting, DPS, tankiness, more utility and more deleting.

Akali is SO HOTMay 30, 20161 votes

lol most of the people posting in this thread probably weren't around for 98% banrate Kassadin

ACENOXMay 30, 20161 votes

it was 90% retard, and it doesn't matter what a champ used to be when you buff him you generally don't revert nerfs.

Mira Arya EntheMay 31, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akali is SO HOT,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=000f,timestamp=2016-05-30T19:10:28.822+0000)

lol most of the people posting in this thread probably weren't around for 98% banrate Kassadin

So? what does that have to do with now. And yes I was, I even posted on the old boards to nerf his DAMAGE! but instead they destroyed his kit.

Keira HelshMay 31, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akali is SO HOT,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZBEda0oY,comment-id=000f,timestamp=2016-05-30T19:10:28.822+0000)

lol most of the people posting in this thread probably weren't around for 98% banrate Kassadin

I've been playing Kassadin since Vladimir came out.

The thing is... That even during the PBE for the new Kassadin, I and a vast majority of other posters on the old PBE boards were begging Riot just to nerf his damage instead of do this rework. They ignored them, much like the feedback on the Xerath rework was ignored.