Kassadin: What he should be

I want to talk about Kassadin for a second. Specifically, I want to talk about his theme, his fantasy, his current kit (and its issues), and the kind of kit he should have. Kassadin has been a problem child for a long time, from being the most banned champion in the game, to being incredibly powerful despite his rework, to now being very weak and undertuned, and rightfully so. There is an underlying issue with how Kassadin has been balanced over the years, and it stems from his playstyle, which I'll get into momentarily.

So what is Kassadin supposed to be, exactly? Well, for most, the phrase “anti-mage” comes immediately to mind. With his passive, the iterations of his Q, and the “cast spells, I dare you” nature of his E, it's clear that he was designed to fight against casting-dependent champions. I imagine Kassadin being someone that a caster would fear, using his ill-gained void powers to disrupt their magics and take them down with his blade, personally.

In practice he falls pretty flat in both of these categories. His passive only protects against magic damage (we have many physical damage casters in this day and age), and he loses scaling MR to have it, which makes it less impressive than it might seem. His original Q fit perfectly with the intended identity (disable the caster so you can murder it), but the way it was originally designed (point click, flat out silence, long ass duration) made it extremely unhealthy. His current Q's shield is, quite frankly, rather pathetic. Tiny base value, low scaling and an extremely brief duration (on top of a fairly short range because it's point and click) make it fairly useless as a damage prevention tool, and the channel interrupt is fairly niche at best, especially since Kassadin often needs his Q to do any kind of respectable damage.

His E is a fairly clunky and awkward ability because of how it works. Kassadin himself has little control over when he gets to use it, and its effectiveness is terribly variable depending on the lineups of both teams, where against some champions (Karthus, Cassiopeia) it's basically always up and against others it feels like it's never up. Additionally, since the (deserved) nerf of the slow, it doesn't really do anything other than some damage and a very brief slow. For an ability that requires such a pain in the ass mechanic to use, it feels very much lacking, which is never a good thing for an ability to feel like.

His W is odd in the sense that it exists how it does currently purely as an excuse to make Kassadin's Q, E, and R do terrible damage. The passive on it might as well not exist bar letting Kassadin last hit easier in lane, and the active is on a long cooldown and is, again, mostly there for the (risky to get) mana restore and added burst. It feels out of place with how his kit is, and I'll explain why later.

His R is the center of a lot of his issues, but curiously it isn't the ability itself that caused Kassadin to be such a terror. It's how it interacted with his kit. Riftwalk enabled Kassadin to dump an entire spell rotation instantaneously from a high range, and then leave a short second later, which led to Kassadin inevitably one-shotting your carries with burst and being untouchable.

So what's the solution? He needs to stop being about burst. He is not a burst assassin, and will never allowed to be healthy or powerful as long as he's treated like one. His spells need to serve as utility/disruption tools and not as a means to delete targets. Riftwalk is not intended to be a burst-delivery system with a built in escape attached, it's supposed to be a sticking tool.

He was designed originally as a melee carry, and his spells were intended to lock down mages, let Kassadin stick to them, and let him DPS the shit out of them. His W was a steroid, which gave him increased damage potential over time. See the trend?

With all this in mind, I've created an example reworked, re-imagined kit of what Kassadin should be like: a high DPS anti-caster who uses his spells for disruption and sticking power rather than burst. Below each ability description, I have included notes that explain details about the mechanical and visual aspects of the respective ability.

_Note: Numbers are just for example. Tuning is always possible. _ Passive: Void Stone

• Kassadin takes 5/10/15/20% reduced damage from spells and abilities, whether physical or magical, and ignores unit collision (this mechanic actually feels very fitting on Kassadin.) The damage reduced increases at levels 6, 11, and 16. Notes:

1. Reduces damage taken from all spells and abilities that apply spell effects, which means basic attacks, on-hit effects, and on-hit abilities such as Gankplank Q ignore it.
2. Has no effect on true damage whatsoever (stating this for clarity.)
3. Stacks multiplicatively with armor and magic resistance.
4. Has a visible “shield” animation to show that he is taking reduced damage; this increases in intensity the more damage it prevents, which also means that it becomes more obvious the higher level Kassadin is. The animation is color-coded to damage type; Purple of Magic, Gray for Physical. This serves to bring visual clarity to an otherwise invisible passive.
5. In addition to normal damage numbers, there is a separate counter for damage prevented by the passive, visible to both Kassadin and his enemies. This is again for clarity purposes.

Q: Null Sphere Mana cost: 50/55/60/65/70 Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 Active: Kassadin fires an orb of unstable Void energy _in a line _, dealing 60/70/80/90/100(+30/40/50/60/70% of Total AD)(+40% of AP) magic damage to the first target hit. If it hits a minion or monster, the orb explodes, dealing the same damage to targets in a small area around the target. If it strikes an enemy champion, they are charged with negative feedback energy for 2/2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds. While charged, enemy champions that cast spells suffer 20/30/40/50(+10/20/30/40/50% of Total AD)(+30% of AP) magic damage and are silenced for .5 seconds. Notes:

1. Spell effects are applied as Single Target on initial hit, Area of Effect on minion/monster explosion, and as a DoT on Feedback.
2. Feedback does not trigger off of Summoner Spells or Item Actives, and unless the spell that triggers it is channeled, does not cancel the spell.
3. Champions that attempt to cast channeled spells while they have Feedback will be immediately interrupted, but the orb impact does not prevent channels already in progress. In other words, to stop channels you have to mark them before they cast, not after.
4. Feedback can occur an unlimited number of times over the duration.
5. The explosion on minion/monster hit does damage champions if they are close enough.
6. Champions with Feedback are very clearly covered in Void-esque energy.

W: Nether Blade Mana cost: 20/30/40/50/60 Cooldown: 15 Passive: Kassadin's basic attacks deal bonus damage on hit equal to 5/10/15/20/25% of his total AD (+.10/.15/.20/.25/.3 of AP). Active: Increases Kassadin's attack speed by 20/30/40/50/60% and doubles the passive damage of Nether Blade for 5 seconds. Notes:

1. The active acts as an auto attack reset.
2. When the ability is ranked, the blade will light up and “come alive.”
3. The passive is not lost while Nether Blade is on cooldown.
4. When active, the blade glows a bright red color during the duration (same as live.)

E: Void Pulse Mana cost: 40/50/60/70/80 Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14 Passive: Void Pulse's cooldown is reduced by .5 seconds whenever a spell is cast in Kassadin's vicinity (double for his own spells.) Active: Kassadin releases a wave of energy in a cone, dealing 80/90/100/110/120(+10/20/30/40/50% of total AD)(+40% of AP) magic damage and slowing affected enemies by 30/35/40/45/50% for 2 seconds. If Void Pulse strikes an enemy champion with Feedback, it spreads the Feedback to other enemy champions within the cone. Notes:

1. Void Pulse does not refresh Feedback, only spreads it. It cannot be spread back to a target it has already spread from.
2. Has a visual on Kassadin displaying when it is off cooldown, visible to everyone (similar to live.)
3. A visual effect of energy moving towards Kassadin shows when Void Pulse's cooldown is reduced, coming from the casting champion.
4. Summoner Spells and Item Actives don't count as spells towards reducing the cooldown.
5. When spreading Feedback, a visual effect showing electric energy sparking out from the Feedbacked enemy champion shows.

R: Riftwalk Mana(Base): 50 Cooldown: 45/35/25 Passive: Kassadin restores mana equal to 3/5/7% of the damage dealt by his basic attacks or the passive damage of Nether Blade. Active: Kassadin blinks to a nearby location, removing slows and granting 40/50/60% bonus movement speed for 1 second that decays, during which he is immune to further slows. If Kassadin blinks nearby an enemy champion, the cooldown is reduced to 5/4/3 (unaffected by cooldown reduction) and the mana cost increases by 100, stacking up to 5 times. This cost increase lasts a duration equal to Riftwalk's base cooldown. Notes:

1. The passive effect is always active, whether or not Riftwalk is on cooldown.
2. The passive effect does take into account the increased damage dealt by Nether Blade when it is active (and therefore returns more mana.)
3. The mana cost increasing debuff does not apply when used away from enemy champions.
4. Kassadin begins glowing visibly as the mana cost increases, becoming very obvious as it approaches the limit.
5. The radius to trigger the reset is shown as a circle around visible enemy champions, visible to Kassadin.
6. Displays a ghost image where Kassadin will appear (Riftwalk has a delay.)
7. Riftwalk has no damage component.

This is an interpretation of mine of what kind of kit Kassadin should have. His damage is focused in his W, while his other spells provide utility aimed at enabling him to DPS. There is counterplay and interactivity available with his entire kit, particularly notably in his Q. One of the problems with Riftwalk was that it let Kassadin eventually be everywhere on the map, chase really well, and have guaranteed escapes from just about anything. Now, it's very powerful as a sticking tool and less frustrating to deal with when trying to kill him, especially since he isn't going to blink in, instantly delete your carry, and blink out.

Critique me all you want, I want discussion. Kassadin as he is right now clearly isn't okay, and he needs to change.