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Kassadin [Adding Counter-play Changes]

Stacona··2 votes·375 views

I am just going to get into my concept ability ideas right away and then talk about them after. A quick preview is bringing back Kassadin's ability to shut down one specific mage similar to a silence without giving (back) a silence, while taking away Kassadin's ability to safely poke/harrass to force him into more of a melee stand-point, and changing Riftwalk to still be that very high mobility champion but changing the spell in a way that offers proper punishment from his opponents when he miss uses this spell.

Void Stone (Passive): Kassadin takes 15% reduced magic damage and ignores unit collision.

Null Sphere (Q): Cooldown: 9 seconds; Cost: 70/75/80/85/90 Mana; Range: 650 units Kassadin fires an orb of void energy at a target enemy to deal 60/70/80/90/100(+50%AP) magic damage, interrupt channels, and apply a mark on the target for 1.5 seconds that causes the target to deal 10/20/30/40/50% less magic damage.

If the target is a minion or monster then Null Sphere deals 120/140/160/180/200(+100%AP) magic damage. If Null Sphere executes a minion or monster then the base cooldown is reduced to 3 seconds and refunds 75% of the mana cost.

Nether Blade (W): Cooldown: 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 seconds; Cost: 30/40/50/60/70 Mana Passive: Kassadin deals 10/15/20/25/30(+20%AP) bonus magic damage on-hit.

Active: Kassadin empowers his next basic attack for the next 5 seconds to gain +50 units range and deal an additional 30/40/50/60/70(+40%AP) bonus magic damage. Additionally Nether Blade reduces the cooldown of the next Riftwalk charge by 10/15/20/25/30%, if the target was a champion then the next Riftwalk charge is reduced by 80/82.5/85/87.5/90%.

Force Pulse (W): Cooldown: 6 seconds; Cost: 80 Mana; Range: 700 units Passive: Kassadin draws energy from spells cast in his vicinity, gaining a charge whenever a spell is cast near him (including his own spells). Upon reaching 10 charges, Kassadin gains the ability to cast Force Pulse.

Active: Kassadin can emit a pulse of void energy to deal 100/140/180/220/260(+90%AP) magic damage and slow enemies by 50/60/70/80/90% in a 80º cone in front of him for 1 second.

Riftwalk (R): Cooldown: 1.5 seconds; Cost: 100 Mana + 1 Riftwalk Charge; Range: 700 units Passive: Kassadin gains a Riftwalk Charge every 50/40/30 seconds up to a maximum of 2 charges.

Active: Consume a Riftwalk Charge to cause Kassadin to instantly teleport to the target location to deal 80/120/160(+40%AP)(+5% max Mana) magic damage to nearby enemies upon arrival. Consecutive Riftwalks within 7 seconds deals 50% increased damage and mana cost, up to a maximum of 100% increased damage and mana cost.

AFTER NOTES: Null Sphere - The 'gutting' of damage here is to make Kassadin not about being this poke/harrass champion, but more about being an all-in mage-assassin and giving Kassadin a risk to his kit and less safe. Now the Q-E combo damage is the same, since the damage I took away from Null Sphere was added to his Force Pulse, more detail on this in a bit. Another thing I wanted for this ability is grant Null Sphere a similar aspect of shutting down a specific mage similar how silence worked, but silence grants too much power for a high mobility champion such as Kassadin so instead the spell grants a debuff for a short time that causes the marked unit to deal less magic damage so the spell is about shutting down a specific (mage) target rather than becoming tankier to all magic damage (his passive already does this). The increased minion (and monster) damage is for that Kassadin has a way to farm without being completely denied early on especially with the rewarded small cooldown and low mana cost for successfully executing the little guys. Nether Blade - First off, removing the mana restore effect means Kassadin actually has mana costs and must manage his spells a lot better to not go out of mana. The most notable point is that the spell does pretty much the same thing as it does now and synergizes with his Riftwalk just the same, but instead of granting an infinite amount of mana he now reduces the cooldown of his next Riftwalk Charge (if he does not have 2 charges readied already), more on the charges later on; but this means that Kassadin can keep on pursuing when he stays in melee range, which is mechanic he currently has. Force Pulse - Not much to say here since the spell is basically the same. The spell's damage has been increased but the overall Q-E burst of damage remains the same, there is an interesting point that this will buff his waveclear and late game teamfights since this is an AoE spell (overall goal is to have Kassadin has a late game hyper anti-mage, mage-assassin). The reason to have the damage here rather than Null Sphere is because this ability allows for more counter play in a 1v1 scenario because of the charges it has to accumulate to be used so Kassadin's opponent can consciously have better spell management to take less ranged harrass from Kassadin. The charges required going from 6 to 10 seems like a nerf, but this is to compensate for the Null Sphere last hitting reward system and lower cooldown on Nether Blade so his 1v1 and solo Force Pulse happens just as often as it does now and in teamfights this spell will always be available because of amount of champions and spell spamming. Riftwalk - The same spell we all love and hate, but the charge system can both allow Kassadin to remain as a mobile champion but with the ability to punish Kassadin very hard if he miss uses the spell because there is a real cooldown attached to the Riftwalk Charges. 2 Charges allow Kassadin to either Riftwalk in, full combo harrass his opponent and have the option to either keep going in or to jump out to safety. While (Kassadin) running away you know Kassadin can only have two Riftwalks so he can be punished greatly and actually caught out if he does something stupid, so playing Kassadin will require actual thinking and skill rather than mindless gameplay more so than Sona (I have played many games as Kassadin, he is pretty face-roll to play, do not think he is a difficult champion despite he is suppose to be difficult).

Enjoy and have a nice day! ~ Stacona P.S. Post your thoughts and ideas, you do not need to be aggressive or passive-aggressive here.

EDIT: Null Sphere - Damage increased to 60/70/80/90/100(+50%AP) from 40/50/60/70/80(+40%AP); minion/monster damage is now doubled instead of tripled; magic damage debuff adjusted to 10/20/30/40/50% from 20/25/30/35/40%

Nether Blade - Active base damage lowered to 30/40/50/60/70 from 40/50/60/70/80

Force Pulse - Damage lowered to 100/140/180/220/260(+90%AP) from 120/160/200/240/280(+100%AP)

Riftwalk - Ratio lowered to 40% AP from 50% AP

It may be fair to say some of my numbers were over tuned and Null Sphere damage was lowered too much (Q-E damage remains the same as of LIVE still). I want Kassadin to be more of a healthy champion so I do not want him to blink out of no where and one-shot someone, but want Kassadin to have counter play when playing against him.

7 Comments

Lord Dusteon1 votes

"hey you know this squishy mana mage/assassin who uses a lot of mana for his mobility? Let's remove most of the mobility and importance of mana, and then gut his damage while making him hard counter anyone based on magic damage"

Stacona1 votes

Please read the notes - overall:

  1. He does not need mana management because he has infinite mana, this change makes him forced to actually have meaningful mana costs because he actually needs to manage his spells or fear of going OOM

  2. mobility is not removed, escaping mobility has been greatly weakened, while his offense mobility is still there (rank 5 nether blade here grants him 5/4/3 second cooldowns on his Riftwalk, please read and do math) the charge system allows him to have options to quickly jump in and then choose to jump out after his spell combo or keep jumping in

  3. his free poke/harrass damage is 'gutted' but he can still farm very well, even better, with my change, the damage taken away from null sphere has been added to force pulse

  4. force pulse appears nerfed with 10 charge requirement from 6, but with the proposed nether blade and null sphere changes this is a net equal to how often he gets the spell solo--- overall since this ability is AoE this does buff his late game team fighting and roam potential since he can clear a wave and then go roam as Kassadin to try to snowball yourself and your team

  5. It is reduced magic damage debuff for only 1.5 seconds- it is not a silence and it does not grant damage immunity, your damage is weakened as a mage, sure, but the point to this spell initially was to dampen the blow of Kassadin's target mage--- overall there is counter play here because the enemy mage can fight back and damage Kassadin, sure Kassadin is in favour to win the trade most of the time but his identity is the anti-mage mobile mage-assassin

  6. YOU PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN TO FKING READ BEFORE STUPIDLY COMMENTING AND DOWNVOTING

JedenVojak1 votes

Okay....

Q: Simply bad. He needs the ranged harass to deal with mages, so he isn't completely poked down to death while farming. Trying to use the Q as a farming tool is paradoxical, since any time he needs to harass (or reduce enemy damage) he now is without his tool, where as now there's no reason to do anything but hang back and Q farm, and the only way to shut down Kassadin is to not let him farm. Whuhhh?? W: I see you lowered the cooldown on this and removed the mana regen. Since your version of his ult no longer scales his mana cost quadratically, the mana regen on this ability is no longer required. However with the 4 second cooldown, this can put out some serious damage; early lichbane is a must now. E?: The damage on this ability is insanely powerful. I'm not sure about that 10 charges, but with as much as he can spam his W now, this should be up reasonably often. And the damage on it. Oh man. In teamfights I see no reason for Kassadin to do anything other than hang back and spam this ability. R: only costs 100 mana now, but has a "Charge" system. Also, now it has a 1.5 second cooldown. And has ap scaling now. Ehh, it's basically the same as all the other reset gapclosers now. That is to say, boring.

My first reaction looking at this was, "okay looks like a damage nerf," but I was wrong. Way wrong. This is some kinda weird poke nerf?

Like this Kassadin can insta-blow people sky high. I can see it now - level W to 3, then max E, then max W, then Q, since Q is basically worthless anyway. Come lv6 you can blow up anyone, instantly, anywhere if they have like 70% hp remaining -> riftwalk + W + Auto + E + Q.

You basically turned kassadin into an ap Talon with much weaker poke and AOE range, but with explosive close range damage and an escape.

My score:3/10

Stacona1 votes

His Force Pulse is still ranged and you can stack it by farming with his Null Sphere (this is why I increased the charges required to use the spell, but it is neither a nerf or buff to how often he gets the spell solo play, so force Pulse can always be up or never be up depending on the opponent's spell usage- team fights = always up)

Kassadin does not have trouble farming currently

Kassadin can proc lich bane with his ultimate anyways, no changes with lich bane interaction has changed, lich bane has its own cooldown

Force Pulse, the 10 charges is because of the lasting hitting reward system on Null Sphere and Nether Blade has half the cooldown, it is neither a buff nor nerf in solo play--- the damage added to Force Pulse is the damage taken away from Null Sphere (both ranged spells) this is so that the opponent has counter play in being conscious about spell usage laning against kassadin (teamfights it is always up), this helps his roaming and late game teamfighting a lot in exchange to the guaranteed no counter play harrass of his Q getting weakened (roaming because AoE spell kills the minions wave so he can roam)

Riftwalk is a 100/150/200 mana based on consecutive riftwalks plus the cost on your nether blade--- basically i want to nerf the safe run away kassadin but still allow him to be the mobile champion so he can keep jumping when he jumps into melee range with nether blade- sort of like he is now, but cooldown instead of mana means easier to balance and forces him to think of what he wants to do first and makes mana costs meaningful for he HAS to manage his mana instead of getting an infinite supply of mana

Q is not useless at all, just more utility focused with the ability to weaken a mage's power for a short time- there is counter play since the opponent can fight back here

overall his damage is not any greater than what it currently is- but if it appears the damage is too high then it gets toned down, simple--- but i made sure his damage is not any higher than what is currently on LIVE

JedenVojak1 votes

As far as force pulse up time, that's only the same uptime if Kassadin spams all of his abilities as soon as they come off cooldown, which, is not really gonna happen. 10 stacks is a long time when you need to stack up your e - it's more constrained than before, only it's also nukier. It's just less satisfying in both regards.

Kassadin does have trouble farming in any lane where he can be outranged by his opponent, at least pre-5.

Yes, with your ult Kassadin can proc lich bane, but given the nature of your charge mechanic, it's not something he can really afford to spam just for lich bane procs. Plus, pre-6 vs any melee opponent, he can bop them a lot more often. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it is something you should be aware of.

On riftwalk, the whole point of riftwalk is that you can spam it. If you want to have an engage only dash with resets on being aggressive, I could just play Akali. The point of Kassadin is he jumps around all over the place, it's what makes him tricky. If you take that away, he just becomes a super generic ap assassin like all the rest. It's kinda his thing. Now it's just like... Ahri ult + Akali style resets.

I'm not understanding your constant no-counterplay Q complaint, like somehow his Q is this overpowering force which dominates a lane. Does a sheen carrying ranged auto attack have counterplay? No you just get hit when they click on you. This is no different: in the first place, most mid lane mages can easily outrange his Q and poke him from a distance. Second, it only does damage (that is, to the enemy), nothing else. I get that you're trying to turn it into a "utility" ability, but he already has a utility ulti - he needs more damage, not less. If he were a support tank or fighter, that would maybe be another issue, and even in that case it STILL doesn't do enough damage. Your Q is useless for an assassin character. Period.

Stacona1 votes

The charges are 10/8/6 seconds cooldown at rank 1 nether blade and 5/4/3 at rank 5 nether blade -- if i were to keep the cooldowns the same then the charges would be 70/50/30 seconds per charge as how it is on LIVE --- anyways, offensively you can spam your riftwalk corresponding with Nether Blade if you get it off- defensively you don't need to worry about sheen items anyways--- currently sheen items are fine with Kassadin anyways this change and LIVE give Kassadin the same sheen efficiency- do not see the problem here

You can spam Riftwalk up to 2 times to get it back faster you spam nether blade on anything even faster against champions- i didnt take away the mobility of kassadin, but the running away mobility needed to get toned down so that he can be punished if he makes a mistake, this is just to create a healthier kassadin within league- same with the point and click damage of his null sphere constantly poking you down and nothing you can do about it - at least with Force Pulse the opponent can manage their spells better to avoid taking harrass less often Riftwalk is nothing like Ahri or Akali - it is still Riftwalk and functions the same way as LIVE values and gameplay - just more punishable if he messes up (2 majour blinks should be plenty to get you to safety, even just one is required) plus the change makes his mana costs meaningful because he doesn't get free mana while functioning in the same manner as it does now

Q is a point and click ability, there is no counter play here- his E is basically guaranteed damage as well but here in a 1v1 match up you can slow down his harrass by using less spells so this is why there is counter play on the E for range harrass rather than Q -

This Null Sphere is not useless in the slightest for a mage-assassin, one of the goals (and Riot is trying to do this too) is create healthy assassins within the game and not something that 100 to 0 out of no where with no chance to fight back at all--- the point to the Q change is bring it back to its roots of being about denying a mage's damage output since he is the anti-mage and not about the mage-tank-assassin-poke champ--- the Q is in line with what silence does but without making overpowered of giving him a silence so that mages can still fight back, but with Null Sphere damage reduction debuff and his passive Kassadin will probably win the trade against mages / be able to do his job as an assassin - assassins (especially for league) should be about neutralizing your target whether it is to kill, zone away, or to jump in to apply a debuff to weak your target it all does the job of an assassin- jumping out of no where to 100 to 0 is very unhealthy for the game and have an all-in assassin to also be a tank and poke/harrass champ is not good either - we have the mundos for the tanks and the xeraths for the pokes

his ultimate does damage and has mobility- the damage increases with multiple riftwalks within a short time- as i said before the Q-E combo is the same damage when combined so i didn't take away damage, i did remove some base damage from the active W because of the lower cooldown but his ult got a little bit more - in total his damage is about the same / exactly the same, just got moved to other abilities of what gotten taken away from others

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