Talk:Kassadin/@comment-1990160-20140319012701

Not a Kass main, but I'm quite familiar with him, probably having racked up a few dozen games with him, mostly on Dominion. Discussion mostly deals with power on Crystal Scar with reasoned theorycrafting on the changes' relevance to SR laning.
 * Background


 * Thoughts
 * Stats - +25 range - who gives a f***. He's not a ranged carry where this translates to a game-changing buff. This isn't going to help him win lane. Maybe he ineffectively compensates for reduced chasing power?
 * - unit collision? big whoop. You don't get the feeling of  and  about the waves, or the sensation of an  through the peasantry. You get the passive damage reduction, but not the fun super attack speed buff. Post-6 laning, you get to walk though creeps instead of awkwardly around after blowing your combo, but it doesn't feel rewarding.
 * - they took away silence and gave him magic dmg shielding. The not-a-silence thing is stupid in its complete lack of intuitiveness, and the shield doesn't feel special at all. Maybe it matters more in SR mid lane, where it allows him to trade, but his laning ability is crippled because opposing laners are actually able to respond and equalize the damage dealt.
 * - I like this change. If you can do a rank 5 W on an enemy champion, BOOM MANA. That said, it feels weird that they did this to balance out the ridiculous things they did to his ult. More on that in a bit.
 * - to summarize, damage reduced by 0/25/50/75/100. Straight up damage nerfs. No fun at all.
 * - the big stuff. Let's divide it up.
 * Base damage unchanged.
 * Scaling changed to 2% mana from .8 AP. Oh my gods, this is terrible. Nobody else has damage that scales off mana except for, whose kit specifically centers around it. Everyone else with mana scaling has it as a fringe benefit (think /, ). To put this in numbers, if you invest 2.7k gold into mana in the form of an , you will have just over 2k mana at level 18. This translates to all of 40 damage, 20 of which is from your base mana. Do you know how much AP you would need to build on old Kass to match that damage? Fifty. A and a little more. Some more numbers while we're on the subject:  adds 13 damage...and every other mana item is mediocre comparatively (considering amount of mana).
 * Stacks
 * Cost - non-linear mana cost growth cripples Kassadin. Yes, the cooldown is shorter, and yes, he has mana refund through W. I mean, if you have 3k mana (base mana + 2 AAS), you can get your full max stack ult cost back with one empowered swing. Realistically speaking though, you're going to get 4 ults off, then have to consider "do I want to burn half my mana pool for that gap closer / mediocre damage?" He gets a ton more instant mobility, being able to cast it 7/5/3 seconds later, way better than before, but then the mana starvation kicks in that much faster.
 * Stack damage - before, stacking ult charges was cool because you get bonus damage. But, back then, it scaled at the same rate as mana - additively. Now, while mana costs go up exponentially (technically, doubling), your damage increases to a maximum of 200/300/400 + 6% max mana for the low price of 1.2k mana. Returning to the mana scaling, you get 120 damage off of that fifth ult with a heavy investment into mana. Before rework, that fourth ult cost 500 mana, dealing 280/320/260 + 1.2 AP.
 * Utility change - this is pretty major. I never noticed it before, but now that it's gone, I miss it terribly. W compensates, though.
 * Stack duration - worst part of all. Okay, you get 3 cheaper dashes for 75 + 150 + 300 = 525 mana, but then after that you're stuck for 12 seconds unless you want to blow 600 mana (roughly 40% of your max mana). Worse, if you ever use that 1.2k cost fifth ult, you're a sitting duck for 12 seconds (translation: a long time).
 * Cooldown / base mana cost reduction - they're nice, but they don't compare to the weaknesses created by the insane mana cost ramp introduced.


 * Summary
 * Damage reduced in all areas except for W.
 * W is crucial to trading (compensating for damage nerfs, keeping mana topped up).
 * Marginal utilities removed, compensated for by a shield, AA reset, better single target mana restore, and ignoring unit collision. Overall... possibly a net positive.
 * Ult gimped as hell. Absolutely awful on Dominion, comes with insane costs on SR with crappy damage.
 * To reiterate, absolutely awful on Dominion because all damage was reduced except on W, ult got the damage/cost nerfs without the CD buffs, and none of the marginal utilities help except empowered W.