Talk:Kassadin/@comment-973379-20111122234135/@comment-155.104.37.66-20111128142905

Kassadin excels at killing squishy carries and squishy mages. That's his role. He is an assassin. Focusing on AP allows him to do this to his fullest potential. At a minimum it can strike fear into their hearts. Due to the CD's on his abilities, it really doesn't benefit him very much to always be in the middle of combat tanking damage. His Rift walk allows him to get out after unloading his damage. It allows him to jump into a fight from an unexpected location and burst down the squishy. If they don't have a squishy then you probably also want to build tanky, but it's pretty rare that the carry or mage aren't relatively squishy, and that's who you should be focusing on when playing Kassadin.

And as someone else said, Rod of Ages, Zhonya's, and Abyssal Scepter are usually enough survivability for Kassadin and health further his AP needs.