User blog:U N Ovvrn/Kha'Zix rebalance

Alright, i decided to make a blog post regarding Kha. First, lets state the obvious. Kha is in a very bad place. He is worth- and useless. And with the upcoming Manamune change hurting him even further, he might drop even lower.

His problems are many, his weaknesses multifold, and his strengths non-existant. There are a lot of problems with his current iteration. So i decided to do some theory-crafting and looking at a potential fix.

First things first, the obvious one. Isolation range. Its plain and simply too high. Its not realistic. And he entirely relies on the damn mechanic. However, there are people who say that 300 was too low, and while i dont agree, i think it is wise to start midway, and correct it if it turns out to be too far after all. So, Isolation range reduced to 400, potential to go even lower.

Now, his Q. There are quite a few problems with his Q. In particular the Q evolution. There are multiple problems with it. First off, the fact that you are forced to evolve Q. This is a problem because now there are 2 forced evolutions, Q and E. This not only reduces variety, removes any chance of "adapting" and on top of that just doesnt fit his theme of an evolving adapting predator.

On top of that, we get the problem that Kha is entirely reliant on his evolved Q, and if he hasnt evolved it yet is far far worse off. He is useless without his evolved Q. This not only makes it so he is forced to evolve it, no he also has to evolve it early, or severely handicap himself and his team on top of his already existing handicap from his low power level.

Now, his damage being mostly reliant on Isolation is fine. After all, its his core mechanic, and it can be played with and against. Its also a good limiter to his assasination abilities that lead to more healthy gameplay. However, 20% of his damage being locked away by his Q evolution is not. While Q evolution should increase the damage, it shouldnt be that your damage with the evolution is only slightly weak, while it is borderline trash without. No, it should be decent damage without evolution, and even better damage with evolution. Naturally, the goal is to give his unevolved Q more power when isolated, while keeping the evolved Q damage the same.

So, new Q. Same base damage, but when the target is isolated deals an additional 30/40/50/60/70+1.0 per bonus ad in damage. Essentially, 85/120/155/190/225+2.2 per bonus ad damage. Evolving Q gives the same benefits as now, so the damage gets increased by at max 155+0.4 per bonus AD. Thats still significant, and can boost your damage quite a bit, but no longer is the only way you will actually deal damage. However, to make a bit of room in the power budget, and to make sure that both lane and jungle Kha will be on equal level so they can be both played, Isolated Q only deals 70% damage to monsters.

Now, there are some problems this can have. His early damage can get high, and his early dueling is quite significant too. This is especially bad in the jungle. So now there will be a second limiter. At half the isolation range jungle monsters get counted as well. Meaning you have ways of reducing the damage while in the jungle. This excludes Baron and Dragon due to their spots being common battle spots.

Next, a minor w change, it now also deals 20% extra damage to minions. Gives him some better farming in the lane and helps with roaming. Might be too much, but im not sure.

E remains unchanged. Initially wanted to give it back its old scaling, but i think he might be fine without it. We will see.

Now his ult is another interesting case. As it stands, its not worth an ultimate slot by itself. Its a weak, 2 second stealth with a decent movement speed bost. Its evolution doesnt fare well either. The problem is its classification as an ultimate. It would be fine if his basic abilities were very powerful to compensate for the lack of an ultimate, but really, outside of his Q thats not the case. Evolved E is a weaker tristana jump, w not impressive either, and so on. Now im not saying his ult should be pushed to be a true ultimate. Instead, it should be a fourth basic spell level ability.

The idea is to make it a stealth ability with a far lower cooldown and higher uptime, but also ensuring that the mobility doesnt get too much. So, here is one idea for a new ult: 8 second static cooldown (unaffected by cdr), 100 mana cost, gives 2 charges with 2 seconds of stealth each. You gain 20% movement speed when an enemy is in a 800 range 300° cone around you (to make sure you dont get the movement speed when running away or when you are just using it when moving somewhere).

The cooldown starts with the first cast, not when the second cast is used. Minimum time in between stealth is 1 second. Essentially, this has a 50% uptime. This gives him more in-fight mobility and outplay potential, while not increasing his damage or map mobility at all. Now the ult evolution. Removes mana cost and adds a third charge. I had another idea which would give him half the movement speed (10%) when he is unseen (doesnt stack with 20% in stealth, but works in stealth if you dont get the 20%), but i think that might go overboard.

This would make him less reliant on his Q evolution, give more variety in evolution, make him more adaptable with his evolution, and give him strength without pushing his damage too far. Now one problem that some might have is the stealth. After all, people dont like stealth. But the thing is, there is clear and easy counterplay, and its even pretty cheap. Not like certain other abilities that have only counterplay in form of a high cost MR item (QSS), or no counterplay at all (Looking at you Vi).

These are the ideas i came up with so far, might change some things later. Thoughts?