The Kassadin nerf is a slap in the face to every League player

Sennargy··7 votes·2,092 views

Really I've never been offended by the Riot balance team. Sure the changes have always been questionable from time to time, but in general they still made the game pretty balanced to play around.

Lately though with the burst meta becoming ridiculous a lot of my friends have taken breaks and my usual league group haven't played league in about 2 months now and refuse to practice with me for the upcoming ranked season.

I disagreed and had a lot of hope for Season 10 and really looked forward to this year thinking we can get to a fresh start.

But Riot what the actual HELL are you even doing with the Kassadin Nerf?

Kassadin has skyrocketed to one of the most played mid laners right now and even though he's supposed to be a high skill level late game assassin he steamrolls teams with one item and abuses runes that aren't even meant for him e.g. Conqueror / Fleet to easily walk away with full health after bursting 1v4 with just ROA.

This -5 ms nerf is one of the most pathetic nerfs to a genuinely oppressive and meta defining champion in the current state of the game and it actually feels like you are slapping every league of legends players in the face.

You are literally ignoring the problems that are happening with this champion being allow to go even or slightly behind in lane to suddenly steam rolling once he finishes ROA or even just components for an item.

Kassadin is just the more oppressive version of Ryze and Riot refuses to admit to themselves he has become a cancer.

Riot this -5 ms nerf will NOT EFFECT A CHAMPION WITH A 2s BLINK ABILITY THAT DOES MASSIVE AOE BURST DAMAGE.

and I'm not stupid I get the whole idea of the nerf is to hurt his laning phase, but all he needs to do is play back and wait til 6 and this miniscule nerf doesn't effect him anyway.

I'm seriously debating even playing season 10 ranked unless this cancer of a champion is allowed to exist in his current state.

Riot balance team I hate to say it you actually have 0 clue what you're doing and it's becoming completely obvious.

19 Comments

Butterwood3 votes

Holy exaggerated reaction, Batman!

Sennargy3 votes

{quoted}

Holy exaggerated reaction, Batman!

it's not exaggerated. There is a problem when I played with 7 people on a regular basis of League of Legends. and now I am the only 1/8 that still wants to play this game.

Kassadin shows up almost every other game and the only reason we can't ban him is there are more oppressive champions and I don't play mid lane. However, almost every time Kassadin shows up and steamrolls the game even if we get him behind in lane.

He is one of the most played champions in mid lane that is SUPPOSED to take skill. Nonetheless, once he gets one item he manages to get a 53% win rate and 1v9 every game and Riot really expects me to swallow a -5 ms nerf will fix him?

Butterwood5 votes

When I graduated college, me and 5 friends used to go to the bar together every Saturday

Now I might only get drinks with maybe 1 or 2 of them every once in a while

There must be something wrong with bars, right?

Sennargy3 votes

{quoted}

When I graduated college, me and 5 friends used to go to the bar together every Saturday

Now I might only get drinks with maybe 1 or 2 of them every once in a while

There must be something wrong with bars, right?

Don't compare apples to oranges here

League of Legend is a video game and just like every online game relies on a player base to keep steady que times and revenue.

If you really want to compare bars? then fine let's talk about bars. If a bar you and your friend go to was good, but start making bad service decisions (beer not as good as it used to be) your friends understandably will go to a new bar.

You seem to not be concerned by the basic fundamentals of competitiveness in markets?

for your argument you seem to imply I think bars aren't inherently wrong for losing business which translates to me believing video games as a whole aren't wrong for losing business.

When in reality people are leaving League of Legends to play other games because of stupid balance changes like this. Especially with ranked season starting in a couple days a large influx of players will come back to league, and if they have to fight unbalanced nightmares like Kassadin who can get through without being effectively nerfed than people will leave this video game to play a more balanced one.

League is HAVING problems because my friends and many others have stopped playing this game and are now playing Overwatch, Dead by Daylight, etc. because they're tired of the continued befuddling balance changes made by the teams and they don't have intentions to come back.

Just look at graphs of League's player base and interest (usually have to be based on search interest) and it shows a marked decline especially in North America since 2016.

Dreamspitter1 votes

{quoted}

Don't compare apples to oranges here

League of Legend is a video game and just like every online game relies on a player base to keep steady que times and revenue.

If you really want to compare bars? then fine let's talk about bars. If a bar you and your friend go to was good, but start making bad service decisions (beer not as good as it used to be) your friends understandably will go to a new bar.

You seem to not be concerned by the basic fundamentals of competitiveness in markets?

for your argument you seem to imply I think bars aren't inherently wrong for losing business which translates to me believing video games as a whole aren't wrong for losing business.

When in reality people are leaving League of Legends to play other games because of stupid balance changes like this. Especially with ranked season starting in a couple days a large influx of players will come back to league, and if they have to fight unbalanced nightmares like Kassadin who can get through without being effectively nerfed than people will leave this video game to play a more balanced one.

League is HAVING problems because my friends and many others have stopped playing this game and are now playing Overwatch, Dead by Daylight, etc. because they're tired of the continued befuddling balance changes made by the teams and they don't have intentions to come back.

Just look at graphs of League's player base and interest (usually have to be based on search interest) and it shows a marked decline especially in North America since 2016.

What games though? I wanna know where they are going.

Frostbit112

They literally said what games in the 2nd to last paragraph maybe read the post before commenting something snarky like this.[sg-miss-fortune]

Dreamspitter1 votes

{quoted}

They literally said what games in the 2nd to last paragraph maybe read the post before commenting something snarky like this.[sg-miss-fortune]

And yet......that's not what people say on the Overwatch forums.

[slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

It wasn't snark. But this is.

Butterwood1 votes

Here's my point, guy-who-clearly-doesn't-go-to-bars:

No matter how good any game / hobby / activity is, eventually people move on.

6-8 years ago League blew up and people flooded into the game, and despite all of the updates and new content a large portion of the playerbase has moved on. Some of this may be due to balancing issues (although my money is on toxic nonsense in-game and on the forums not being worth it), but a lot of it is just people moving on. Look at the Google search trends for any game that's been out for 3+ years - World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, Overwatch; interest is declining in all of them. That's just the way it goes.

People are not leaving the game because Kassidin is too strong. Certain champs are OP with every new patch that comes through, and it's been like that for a decade. He'll get nerfed, another champ will get buffed, and then people will throw a fit over that champ next.

There's no reason to be this upset about something that will inevitably change over the next few patches. Just enjoy the game - until you don't (which will happen), then stop playing.

TL;DR - "Holy exaggerated reaction, Batman!"

haaaaaaalp1 votes

League revenue is up in season 9 compared to last year. The drop in players happened in season 8 due in large part to a string of poorly made champions and reworks (i.e. zoe/akali/irelia era). Riot has since changed their design policy.

Minimac20002 votes

{quoted}

When I graduated college, me and 5 friends used to go to the bar together every Saturday

Now I might only get drinks with maybe 1 or 2 of them every once in a while

There must be something wrong with bars, right?

Rito plz buff bars, not enough drunk people playing league anymore

Butterwood1 votes

Doing my part to keep those numbers up

Vlada Cut2 votes

It's Irelia -5 MS meme all over again

iiGazeii1 votes

A -5 movement speed nerf hurts his pre-6 pretty substantially, while forcing him to use his ult to stick to enemies, disengage, or roam effectively.

Sennargy1 votes

{quoted}

A -5 movement speed nerf hurts his pre-6 pretty substantially, while forcing him to use his ult to stick to enemies, disengage, or roam effectively.

on paper it looks like a good nerf.

In practice people playing Kassadin will just adapt to these miniscule number changes and stabilize the win rate at what it is currently.

This will turn out just like the -5 ms Irelia nerf mark my words because Riot balance team refuses to learn from their mistakes.

Just like the -5 ms nerf for Irelia it looked like a good idea to make her rely on q more, but in reality the numbers on other parts of her kit needed to be nerfed e.g. damage reduction on w and disarming on ult.

Ragnaveil3 votes

pre-6. No one was having any problems with his pre-6. Everyone's problems with him is his 11+.

iiGazeii1 votes

And Kassadin is a scaling melee mage. He's SUPPOSED to have a wickedly strong late game. That's the whole point of his design.

Rather than hurt his high points, they're making his low points less forgiving so enemies have an easier time shutting him down before he scales into a monster.

WoonStruck3 votes

A shitty pre-6 doesnt mean anything when item 2033 exists.

Toss on bone plating or timewarp tonic and nobody's stopping you from hitting 6 safely no matter what champion in mid.

Ragnaveil2 votes

Ok, and it doesnt need to be this strong. Like, 90% banrate Kass wasn't doing this much damage late game.

Hordes661 votes

Ahri - 4 easy buttons and more safety than Kass.

More from Gameplay