Kassadin "needs to pay respect to the enemy's tank line" -Riot, patch 5.4

Sooooo, here's my rant on Kassadin.

PATCH NOTES (5.4): Kassadin ult range reduced from 700 to 450

MEANWHILE: ult range: 625 Not only does Zed have a 625, combined with living shadow (550), he can get past your front line at a range of 1175. Not only that, but he has an instant escape. Like literally, he pushes R, and he's safe. Yup, please respect the front line Kassadin, while the real men go from one and a half of your ults.

pounce on hunted targets: 750 Not gonna go into much detail on some of these, since there's enough on Nidalee, just pointing out all of the ranges of jumps in the game.

cutthroat: 700 Honestly one of the most balanced assassins in the game, in my opinion, talon's cutthroat is pretty fair to me. In order to get past the enemy front line, you have to stand right in front of it first. Not only that, but he does not have an escape afterwards, leaving him to the mercy of the enemy team.

audacious charge: 600 600 range isn't that bad, just listing ranges.

shunpo: 700 (resets on kill/assist) This is probably the biggest fucking insult to Kassadin to ever exist. Katarina beats Kassadin in almost every way now (not in a 1v1, he still counters Kat, but Kat brings more to the team). Katarina essentailly has the same mobility as Kassadin, with the exception that she can't jump over walls to get around the map faster. Katarina can run away with the same tactics as Kassadin, provided that she has a ward, which is not hard to come by. Not only that, but in an actual teamfight, her mobility far exceeds Kassadin's with her passive. She also does not have to be "smart" with her shunpo's as she's a resourceless champion. Not only that, but if she messes up one of her shunpos, she doesn't even get punished that hard. Her shunpo has a 6 second cooldown at level 5, making it easy to recover after a mistake.

Let's calculate damage now. Assuming both champions are level 18 and have 500 AP against a 0 MR enemy, here are the damage statistics: Katarina: Bouncing Blades damage: 160 + 225 (dagger) + 75 + 75 (proc) = 535 damage Sinister Steel: 180 + 125 = 305 Shunpo: 160 + 200: 360 Death Lotus (1 second, out of 2.5): (75 + 125) x 4 = 800 Total Damage: 2000 (PLUS 1200 PER KILL, FROM RESETS) Kassadin Null Sphere: 170+350 = 520 Nether Blade: 140 + 300 = 440 Force Pulse: 180 + 350 = 530 Rift Walk (3100 mana, with tear + roa, assuming he uses it three times in a teamfight): 120 + 62 + 120 + 62 + 60 + 31 + 120 + 62 + 60 + 31 + 60 + 31 = 819 Total Damage: 2309 (This is assuming he builds tear and roa, and uses every rift for damage. I usually don't build tear, and some people build tear, without building roa.)

Katarina - balanced, since she can be countered with hard cc. Kassadin - op, since he ignores the front line.

distortion range: 600 (x2 for a total of 1200...) This is like kat, but with higher initial burst damage, without the kill resets. Not going into detail, since everything said about kat pertains here.

shadow dance: 700 Exactly the same as kat, since she gets more ult stacks for every kill/reset.

playful/trickster: 400 each (x2 for a total of 800) KASSADIN - OP BECAUSE HE IGNORES THE FRONT LINE AT 700 RANGE FIZZ - NOT OP, BECAUSE HE CAN GO UNTARGETABLE FROM 800 RANGE

because logic.

Lunge: 600 See Xin Zhao.

evolved leap: 900 (resets on kill/assist) Kha is a little underpowered if you ask me, but his e defies Rito logics.

rocket jump: 900 (resets on kill/assist) See Kha, but balanced.

assault and battery: 800 See Fizz. She can't be disabled, except by killing her. Most Vi players usually build tanky, so if she ults at full heath, not much you can do.

nimbus strike: 625 See Xin.

infinite duress: 700 Ermmmm, so point and click 700 instant blink plus cc? Hm. Seems fair, when you compare it to the Kassadin riftop.

Pre nerf Kassadin already had a terrible win rate of 45%. Post nerf Kassadin dropped him down to a whopping 35%. That was the lowest in the game. He's slowly come back since, dangling at around 42%, if you can call that a come back. I usually am on Riot's side with most balance changes, but this is the first stupid retarded idiotic absurd, ahem, balance change that I vehemently oppose (I've been playing for a year).

Here are some changes I propose, since Riot is obviously having some trouble with one of my favorite champions

Make his ult range scale with his level. This is by far the best suggestion I've seen browsing the forums. Not only would it preserve his weak early game, it would allow him to regain his former glory of a 45% winrate.

Reduce his stack resets, and lower his ult cooldown at levels 6 and 11. Cooldown: 6/4/2 --> 4/3/2 This would give him a more "rushed" feel, where he is designed as a champion to literally be everywhere at the same time.

Rework his kit into a top lane fighter mage. Lower all of his cooldowns, and reduce their damage. Make his ult not do damage, and lower its mana cost again, and make the maximum number of stacks five instead of four. This would force him to use his ult for utility, and not damage. It would allow him to seem to be in multiple parts of a team fight at once, allowing him to help his teammates as a "firefighter", giving help to those who need it. He would need a better peel ability, such as a knockup, to protect his teamates (especially his adc).

Rework his ult to be similar to Ahri's ult, with a twist. When he ults, give him four stacks to use, which have a 100 second cooldown after 15 seconds. Lower the individual riftwalks to have a 2-4 second cooldown. Add a new effect: "Kassadin's walks through the rift leave infected areas on the ground, trapping anyone who steps on them, rooting them for 1/1.5/2 seconds." This would be an awesome change to his ult. It maintains his identity of a mobile assassin, while giving him a small amount of cc, in order to allow him to chase like he did before

Also, for those that are curious, last season I was a silver II jungle Shaco main, but I usually played Kassadin mid lane when I didn't get/feel like playing jungle. This season I am a Fiddlesticks jungle main, and play Thresh support when I don't get/feel like playing jungle.