Hey! I consistently see changes to Kassadin on the PBE and for good reason, with such a high ban rate all around (LCS and Solo Queue)
I was just interested in what is seen as the biggest challenge in balancing a champion like him?
His ult if you ask me. That's what eliminates a lot of his counterplay.
In fact his lack of counterplay in general and all the options he has makes him unfun to lane against.
His entire balance problem is his ult. lets for comparing sake compare Kassadin to Talon. both have somewhat simmilar kits. aoe slow single target silence and they are both fairly mobile. Now imagine if Talon also had Kassadins ult how hard would it be to balance his kit then?
Until Riot changes Kassadins ult he will forever have the high ban rate. Lets for example say he gets cought out of place and stuned, if he is near a wall and isnt dead by the time he gets unstuned he is gone because of his ult. There have been many instances where kassadin gets away with sub 100 health because of his ult and how short of a cd it is. Its essentially a flash with damage on a short cd the only downside of it is having an increasingly higher mana cost.
Honestly, I think its the silence. His ultimate has a long enough cooldown that if you start hitting him as he comes out of it you can easily kill him before he gets away. But that silence removes the potential to fight back, meaning the entire thing that determines the fight is whether or not he hit his R and E. You have no choice but to hope he sucks.
I don't get why they haven't butchered him until his mini-rework is finished. I'd really like my 6th ban back.
The thing about Kassadin is that he's one of those champions who's kit in itself gives him a boat load of power. In terms of balance, he's one of the cases where nerfs make him useless, and buffs make him godly powerful, all because of that kit.
This is why Riot is hesitant about nerfing him at the moment, because they could just give him the Olaf treatment, where they nerf him in to oblivion until a rework comes along, or they can bide their time and figure out better ways to re-adjust his power. One of these things is better than the other, wouldn't you agree?
Some interesting ideas I've had or seen around for Kassadin are:
Ultimate
1 Have him store up charges. He is capped at say 3-5 charges and they accumulate over time. He still has the assassin, hop in, kill someone, hop away potential. But it is limited to once per fight instead of once every few seconds.
2 Raise the cool down on his ult (I personally don't like this idea because it forces him to retreat by walking which makes him a lot harder to use in team fights. People like Ahri, LB, Zed, Kha can all hop in then hop out after their work is done.
3 As per Kha, make his ult on a high cool down but have the cooldown refreshed or reducded on a kill or assist. This has the potential to make pentakill Kassadin a bigger problem because one assist can send him spiraling out of control.
4 Raise the cool down of his ult, but halve it if it damages a champion. This way he can jump in and jump back out, but the escapes through the jungle or the rift walk up mid until your ult is stacked high enough to 1 shot someone is no longer doable. It would also reduce his roaming potential.
5 Have his ultimate use stacks, but have the stacks gained through the same mechanic on his slow, where spells have to be cast around him. This opens up team synergy and counter play. If Kassadin jumps in and we all use skills on him, he gets a new charge. If we let the ADC/bruiser take him down, he has no mobility. Likewise, a teammate could spam skills to give Kass charges to make his great escape.
Other Skills
1 Reduce the silence duration - it's what makes him the god of mid/assassination. You can't fight back and you can't escape.
2 Reduce/remove his slow - he has two strong CC abilities and nearly unlimited mobility. You can't escape him. If I could at least try to walk away if he jumped in, I would have a better chance.
3 Reduce his AP ratios - I don't like this idea that much because he is supposed to be that one wombo combo type of champion. It may be better to scale some power away from mid game though so he doesn't turn into a god at level 6.
4 Reduce the cast range on his silence. He basically jumps on top of you post 6, so that wouldn't make a big difference in him, but it would hamper his early game harass quite a bit. This would provide more opportunity to beat him down in lane. It would also enable you to get closer to CC him without the fear of the silence in teamfights.
5 Add synergy based on a combo (like brand or leblanc) Right now Kassadin is actually fairly easy post 6. You just keyboard smash starting with R and ending with R. Really bad Kassadins get shut down early, but can often even make a comeback after sniping a few kills. Leblanc has a lot of the same power as Kass, but has a much higher skill cap. Therefore she is rarely banned at lower levels especially. Make Kassadin have to chose a form of CC for example.
It would force a Kassadin to chose how he wants to use his combo. If he wants to get the slow off, he can't initiate with Q. If he wants the AoE slow, he has to initiate with the E, therefore exposing himself. He would still be able to do crazy tons of damage, but it would significantly raise the skill cap and make people actually have to learn how to play him properly.
Just thoughts, some of them are original, some I have seen elsewhere but don't remembe who to give credit to (so sorry in advance if I "stole" anyone's idea)
Kassadin's problem is that he gets the game's most useful spell (flash) on a 5 second cd and also has a silence, which means he can make plays against mages.
I think a good change would be to take his Q and make it a skill shot. Turning free hits into skill shots seems to be a tried and true way to take a champion from top tier to balanced, this is what happened to Ahri.
Alternatively, it might be a good idea to give him a passive like "Stuns affect kassadin for 33% longer than other champions," which would increase the opportunity for counterplay and make his moves more risky.
I played him on the pbe yesterday. Here are my thoughts.
Q- With out silence is ok ( not great by any means) there is no initiate for going into melee range to harass. The shield is way underpowered at early levels.
W- nice mana boost but damage is lack luster if he's supposed to be a melee AA assassin.
E- change to 6 stacks makes no sense whatsoever also the damage is wayyyy under whelming because you aren't stacking nearly as much ap as you would in a glass cannon build. Also means keeping someone slowed to stay in AA range is harder if they are just kiting and forcing you to rift walk to chase.
R- Gutted. Plain and simple kass was able to chase you down and secure the kill meant that as an adc your position had to be solid and that the front line had to know how to peel and if they didn't bam dead. Now its prohibitive to chase beyond 1 or 2 rift walks because the damage to mana cost isn't worth being left out waiting on the stack debuff to wear off so you can run. Some of you will call it counter play I call it taking one of Kassidan's strengths and his hidden pressures and throwing it out of the window. Now with the change to a max of 4 stacks and making the mana cost 1200 per walk its never gonna be worth it to chase because once you get on them or close you will have no mana to deal damage and with AA damage being lackluster means he cant secure the kill.
Over all my opinion of the Kass rework isn't great I see what they are trying to do but I think they are going about it all wrong. I know kass needs changes but you cant just gut the core of the champ (Assassin) and try to turn him into something different I agree his power is way off but they need to trash this revision and go back to the drawing board.
Id personally make these changes
Q- remove silence and replace with slow allows him to initate with a high damage spell on a 8 sec cd allowing him to come into range to AA. (.5ap)
W- change the mana return on charged blade to a damage bonus to chanps (.6ap maybe)
E- rework completely into something like a riven shield make it based on bonus ap.(.4~.6ap)
R- Leave in in its live form increase the CD to 10 sec from 8 and put the silence here and take the mana return away. ( this is to reward a kass for jumping on the target not just near to close the gap.) Id even look at the current pbe version and add the silence there I think with would be useful. it wiould allow him to keep the iconic silence but move it to a mid game power so his early game wouldn't be as strong but his mid and late game would still make him scary and require you to know where he is because that's what assassins do they scare you. Also with this adding the silence you reduce the area of effect.
But I know you Kassidan haters out there wont like this kit rework because he's is still powerful which he's supposed to be. But he's not without weakness he will still be dependent on kills to snowball he has a terrible time vs ad mids and ad bruisers and his early game is going to be harder but with a big payoff if you play well. Just my 2 cents on my favorite champ.
Id like to see my build on the PBE (Im sure everyone else says or thinks this). I'm not saying I'm the greatest game designer (Which I know very little) but this is a champ I'm super passionate about. I've loved him since I started playing LOL. Way before he was super op way before he was the meta. I just want to know what Riots thought process on the direction on Kass is and why there are minor changes that would bring his kit into balance without completely gutting his identity and play. I just don't want to see him Olafed or Ireliaed into oblivion.
