Talk:Kassadin/@comment-77.122.110.214-20120501172955/@comment-88.186.19.90-20120502022203

You wanted what good Kass players thought about this. I think you are wrong.

Kassadin is probably the burst assassin with the greatest late-game potential out of the entire roster. Leblanc, Talon, Pantheon, Shaco... all of these become particularly ineffective in teamfights and/or lategame. Only Kassa and Poppy still remain good. In both cases, it's thanks to their very good survivability: Poppy never dies, Kassa never gets hit.

Albeit low ratios and a 2-spell burst, Kassadin has an extremely high potential DPS thanks to his Nether Blade. If left alone, he'll deal good damage, if targeted, he'll just riftwalk away. It's a loose-loose situation for the opponent, and a win-win in teamfights, since chasing means more DPS for Kassa's team. Furthermore, with decent CDR he can spam his FP for good damage and slow on most of the opposing team every 5 seconds. His teamfight utility is actually very good. If his ratios were increased, he would become imbalanced due to the fact that he can deal his damage perfectly safely.

His pre-6 is the only hardcoded weakness Kass has that you'll never be able to get rid of, but if you practice last-hitting under your turret you should be able to keep up. There are a champions that hard counter him, notably Talon, Olaf, Caitlyn, Xin Xiao, Zilean; probably in higher numbers compared to the rest of the roster, but it's nowhere near as extreme as you make it out to be; and from a counterpicking point of view, Kassa counterpick so hard so many mages that it's only fair he gets shut down that hard. Other champs are completely manageable, including Sion: what is dangerous for Kassadin isn't a large HP pool or good AA damage, it's damage that you can't escape from (which is the reason why Olaf's axe is so strong against him) and good regeneration. Furthermore, Kassadin can be built as an AP caster or as a tanky AP/AS assassin that remains in the middle of the teamfight, depending on who you are up against. I can handle Sion, Gangplank, Ashe, Corki, Wukong, Cho'gath, Warwick, any AP and most other champions in lane very well.

Your buff propositions aren't very good. Armpen on his W is pointless, because he scales with AP and deals magic damage. Increasing his ratios, as I said before, would put him at the same level as pre-patch ryze: too much damage compared to his survivability. Kassa's sustain isn't particularly an issue; you can regen health via spellvamp that applies on nether blade; via mana which Kass scales well on; or via pure HP regen. Also, Nether blade is a very unique ability with several interesting perks (like applying Rylai's slow), that synergises with Kass' passive and allows you to choose between building him pure AP or AS hybrid.

By the way, you shouldn't diss dominion like that. Even if it's not recognised as much and working differently than 5v5, it's actually perfectly balanced for competitive teamplay (unlike 3v3 which is flawed).