Why does Kayn have a "recently damaged" requirement on his ult?

Mgbox·Dec 6, 2017·1 votes·1,434 views

I started playing this edgelord champ recently, bare with me. He's fun to play but his kit can be frustrating at times.

Kayn's ult makes him untargetable as he "jumps inside" an enemy champ, he can then ult again or after 2 seconds he jumps out dealing damage. However before any of that can occur, there's a condition where Kayn has to have damaged that champ recently, and the window is very small. The wiki says its 3.5 seconds but feels much smaller, I'm not sure does it only allow one champion to be the target at a time? If I've damaged two champions within 3.5 seconds, is only the second/most recent one eligible to be ulted?

I've also had circumstances were I'm dueling with someone and they dash away (Lee Sin dropping a ward and jumping out, J4 doing his pole arm thingy, etc) where I'll try to ult to stay on them and get hit with a big fat NOPE "must have damaged recently" when I was literally just attacking them. Feels bad man. Or I'll be fighting someone and the enemy carry shows up, I need to switch targets but I don't have Q or W because well that's your whole kit so obviously you used it already on the first guy. Can I ult into the carry to juke their damage and maybe put a beating on them? Nope. Feels bad man. Or team fight, going deep on someone, they are low, should I finish with ult? Well someone else on your team got the kill, so you stand there deep in the middle of the enemy team, can you ult into another enemy so they can't focus you? Jump out (and heal if Red Kayn) and re engage another target? Nope because you only recently damaged the dead champ.

So why the limitation? It feels so bad to be restricted in when you can use an ability, am I missing a way it would be overpowered otherwise? It's your ultimate ability and it just feels so wrong to be told you can't use it mid fight.

9 Comments

GlîtchyDec 6, 20172 votes

Well it's absolute bullshit so it needs a drawback

MgboxDec 6, 20171 votes

In what way?

The Minion huntDec 6, 20171 votes

assassin kayn shreds carries, if u lvl w, u can w r q and they are dead, if you get assassin early enough.

MgboxDec 6, 20171 votes

So Red Kayn can't ult because Blue Kayn "The Assassin" does his job of killing squishies?

The Minion huntDec 6, 20171 votes

sorta but is it so bad that his ult is skill shot reliant. A lot of champs ults are skill shot reliant.

GlîtchyDec 6, 20171 votes

{quoted}

In what way?

Well let's take a look,

Umbrella Trespass(ing)

Upon reactivation or at the end of the duration, Kayn wrenches himself free from their body in the cursor's direction, dealing physical damage to the target.

Physical Damage: 150 / 250 / 350 (+ 150% bonus AD)

Shadow Assassin: Umbral Trespass gains 200 bonus range and emerging from the target resets The Darkin Scythe's cooldown.

Rhaast: Umbral Trespass is modified to deal 10% (+ 13% per 100 bonus AD) of target's maximum health physical damage, and heals him for「 7% (+ 9.1% per 100 bonus AD) of target's maximum health 」「 70% of the pre-mitigation damage 」.

ResterDec 6, 20171 votes

It's no different than a Reksai ult. The main drawback is, you can't do anything when Kayn ults YOU except either get heavy shielding, Zhonyas, group up. Or if you're an unlucky adc, just accept your death.

Actually i lied, Reksai ult you can at least dodge with proper flashes or have someone like a Thresh back you up. The damage from Kayn ult is pretty much unavoidable apart from the above criteria (I probably missed some things).

MgboxDec 6, 20171 votes

I'm not familiar with reksai's kit.

There's many ults where you can't do anything about it. What's the counterplay to Darius dunking you? Vi's flying punch, Viegars skillfully click R. The way Kayns ult is scripted does offer some counter play like you mentioned, depending on your team's abilities and awareness of course.

I don't think the damage on the ult is the problem, it doesn't do that much. Imo, the main benefit of his ult to being untargetable briefly allowing your CDs to come back.

Existential BardDec 6, 20171 votes

So each champion has a power budget. As such, I feel a lot of Kayn's power comes from his wall entering ability since it is really strong and heals him.