Kassadin Rework for real this time (no "add this, remove that". real rework)

okay guys. here we go. i thought about this for a long time. about 10 minutes. which is the time it takes for que->champ select->loadscreen to finish, so its a really long time.

lets first point out what kassadins identity is. i feel like he is an anti mage. a mage himself that specializes in taking down other mages, crippling their power and using it for himself.

he has (had) two iconic abilities that support this. first, he could silence a mage which renders them useless for a duration (SILENCE, the whole CONCEPT of SILENCE, comes from mages having to SPEAK magic words in order to cast spells. if you are silenced and thus cant speak, you cant cast spells. therefore, silence is really an ANTI MAGE ability). and second, he has an ability that charges up whenever an enemy casts a spell (uses an ability). okay, i understand for consistency and balance reasons, this works on ALL abilities. but from a concept-standpoint i would say, whenever someone casts a magic spell, some of that magic dissipates into the nether where kassadin can harness the energy and use it to cast his E.

so, those two abilities make him a clear anti-mage for me. so i would like to revert his assassin-style gameplay into a more anti-mage disruptive caster. his old laning was really weak but you got rewarded a ton by doing it well. then they reworked him and his laning got alot better, tho the reward wasnt as big anymore (still too big though). right now, he is just not satisfying to play anymore, at least for me. hes weak but if he gets fed, he still does his 100-0 uncounterable damage. range nerf back or forth.

so, lets start with the abilities: (sidenote: i dont want to go anywhere into NUMBERS, this is just CONCEPTS. i wont drop any numbers not even as examples, except for his ultimate)

passive: since kassadin is very spell-interactive and also mana heavy (or at least, should be), i want to make his passive still do the "take reduced magic damage" thing but ALSO convert the absorbed part of the damage into mana. plus, it works as an aura, absorbing magic damage dealt as mana to all nearby allied champions. (does not reduce damage for allies though)

Q: i think the current Q is very nice as it is in general. it gives him good dominance over mages and lets him trade good which is HIS PURPOSE. i would alter it slightly by increasing its manacost by quite a bit and also decrease its range slightly. if the range is lower, he cant just fire it at anyone from anywere and "staying out of his range" actually is an option for the enemy. other than that, its a fine anti mage ability. also, it could be granting bonus shield scaling with his mana, so the shield is actually really high if he builds a big mana pool.

QW INTERACTION: as long as his W shield is up, hitting an enemy with Q will silence the target for a small duration (much shorter than the old silence but still a part of his anti-mage history).

W: i dont want to rip off dota too much here, but this is going to be a manaburn. yes, the most anti-fun mechanic according to riot. the passive of the W stays the same but the active does NO added magic damage. instead, it DRAINS mana of an enemy champion, giving it to kassadin. alot of mana. based on both the enemys current mana and kassadins missing mana. like it steals (same% as it is right now) percent of the enemys current mana PLUS the same percent of kassadins missing mana. lets say, both champions have 1000 mana maximum and both sit at 500 while his W is level 1 (20%) it would steal 200 mana. also, this mana is converted into a shield that absorbs magic damage just as the shield from his Q. different to the Q shield, this shield dissipates over time, regenerating kassadins mana. (so lets say he absorbed 200 mana, he gains a 200 health shield that turns into mana over 3 seconds)

E: so, now we get real fancy. NO COOLDOWN. yes, i said that. his E from now on has NO COOLDOWN !AND! it can hold TWO CHARGES, gaining one stack for every nearby ability used and one charge for every 6 stacks (same as now). well, for usability-purpose, it has one second cooldown that cant be reduced by cooldown reduction. it DOES however cost a small amount of base mana plus a chunk of his maximum mana. this means, as long as he has mana (building mana doesnt help because it works off his maximum mana). this way he can spam this ability a couple of times in teamfights in quick succession to deal alot of magic damage while burning through his manapool. reduce the base damage, reduce the AP scaling and add current-mana-scaling (not maximum mana scaling) so this ability gets weaker and weaker the less mana he has, so even if he casts it 4 times in quick succession, it wont be overbearing. he CAN keep up the slow during that time tho.

R: now on to the hardest part. he has to have some sort of really sweet mobility without being completely overboarding. i will tackle it like this: (but first, lets sum up the changes). we made him a really nice anti-mage trader in lane with relatively good outpoke potential but alot less kill potential due to his weaker early E and no damage on W. this means he isnt going to oneshot you in lane or anywhere anymore, but he IS infact very likely to win his lane. which he is supposed to do against mages. for teamfights, we made him have alot less burst due to the fact that his W deals no damage anymore and that i have not spoken up about his ultimate yet. he does deal good sustained magic damage while being rather resiliant against magic himself and providing good AoE slow for his team in fights. more like a magic bruiser instead of an assassin.

so, now on to his ultimate. its going to be renamed into riftstep as this is what it will be. he will teleport not completely without animation but very much like leblanc "shifting" in the direction he choses. although at a MUCH smaller range (about kalistas jump range, even tho i have no idea how long that actually is due to it being different range depending on which direction you jump in and what boots you have... whatever man. ABOUT that range). also, since the range is so small now, it will cost a bit less mana and the stacking will be additive instead of multiplicative (say 50, 100, 150, 200 etc). the damage will also be lowered significantly, as will the cooldown. it'll be on a base cooldown of about 2,5 seconds. since the damage is lowered, it deals more damage on enemies you hit MULTIPLE times. so you cant just stack it up once before the fight and then instagib someone with over 9000 damage but you actually get rewarded by jumping on the same target over and over again. again.

for example, his R deals 40/70/100 magic damage plus 0,25 of of the ENEMYs ap scaling. the damage while hopping multiple times by yourself stacks up by a flat amount every hop, say, 50% of the base damage for 5 times as does the mana. so if you jump 5 times, it costs 250 mana and deals 300 damage + 25% of enemys AP. not very much but the cooldown is low. it ALSO deals a % of your current mana as damage for every hop on the same target. lets say you jump on a target once, it deals 1% of your current mana as bonus damage to him and if you jump on him twice, it deals 2% stacking up to 5% of the current mana. this is CURRENT obviously, so as the mana goes down from using spells, the stacking more or less just compensates for the damage loss thru mana loss. he CAN make up for this though by going for mages with his W to refill his mana drastically.

this way, he is in no way an assassin anymore but very much an anti-mage disruptive caster-bruiser. a build like tear, frozen heart/iceborn, voidstaff, randuins comes to mind.

his role in a teamfight would then be to disrupt enemy casters, who are very much dependant on their big burst and aoe spells, with not only threatening them with damage but also silences and manadrains while dishing out aoe and slows across the enemy team. no burst but SUSTAINED damage from a melee mage. so much innovation!

sorry for the wall of endlessness

edit: this encourages clarity summoner spell too! ;D