Talk:Kassadin/@comment-4372473-20140422044443/@comment-1330314-20140422214009


 * 1) It's there so that you don't pack too much immediate burst as you enter a fight, but wear down your target faster and faster as you chase them down. This is a fairly typical combat situation. Just because you yourself cannot fathom how to make use of Riftwalk's stacking damage other than in extremely sub-optimal scenarios doesn't mean the ability itself is badly designed. You're thinking in terms of old Kass, who was much more at liberty to stack his damage up before going in with an instagib RQE burst. Here you need to gauge when exactly to ult, which in most cases will be only until you're within blinking range of your target.
 * 2) A 1.5 second shield is better than you think, particularly now with its super-high scaling. 1.5 seconds is more than enough for Kass to execute his full burst: either you throw down CC now and lose a portion of your burst, either you wait 1.5 seconds before retaliating and putting yourself at risk. Also, Riftwalk's AoE is 150 units: while consistent with Kass's own AA range, this is 25 units out of the range of most melee champions. Landing Kass's full burst also requires him to stay for long enough to throw in an autoattack, something he did not need to do previously. Basically, if his RQE combo dealt any sort of comparable amount of damage to what it did pre-rework, Kass would again fall into the playstyle where he'd just have to blink in, burst his target down for a significant amount and escape while they're slowed, greatly limiting their options when it comes to counterattacking.