[Patch 4.9] RIP Kha'Zix General Discussion

Karthus

Karthus has received a Visual Update and is ready to reap the living in style. Check out the full details here!

General

Q - Lay Waste

W - Wall of Pain

Braum

We padded Braum's punches, Q does less damage at all ranks, and W gives less defensive stats (also scales less).

It's tough to pinpoint the strength of a new champion while also accounting for how quickly players adapt, and Braum was picked up very quickly as a strong lane bully with his combined high damage and defensive power. When we want to reduce power in a champion, we first look to trim 'hidden' strengths that aren't really appreciated in their core playstyle, like Braum's W, which was giving a pile of free defensive stats to both himself and his protected target. That said, Braum's offensive strengths are also very high for a protective champion, so we also decided to trim back that 'stache.

General

Passive - Concussive Blows

Q - Winter's Bite

W - Stand Behind Me

E - Unbreakable

Kassadin

We reverted the W damage buff and base movement speed buffs to Kassadin from patch 4.6.

Following up on our champion update, we've been keeping track of Kassadin as he continues to become a more and more dominant force. We think we released Kassadin in a good state but then gave him a little too much strength as we saw folks struggling with the new kit. After our buffs, however, we saw a lot of players learning to play the updated Kass (and well), so we're peeling back the layers we added to get him back to a correct power level.

General

W - Nether Blade

Kha'Zix

Q does less damage and less isolation damage. Evolved Q no longer deals bonus damage on missing health, but deals more overall damage to isolated targets. W deals bonus damage to monsters. Evolved W now slows enemies by 50% and grants sight of their location to Kha'Zix. Evolved R no longer grants damage reduction (but keeps his increased stealth duration and additional stealth charge).

Up to now, most of our changes failed to give Kha'Zix meaningful weaknesses for an assassin because evolved R's damage reduction was letting Kha'Zix force fight initiations whenever it was up while his high base Q damage was letting him take out squishy targets even when they were actively trying to prevent isolation. As an assassin, Kha'Zix should be an opportunistic killer who needs to find isolated targets to munch on while the rest of his team jumps into the mosh pit of the team fight. What Kha'Zix shouldn't be able to do, however, is directly engage a full team fight with the expectation to live while also taking out high priority targets without isolation.


With that said, our philosophy behind these changes is aimed at reducing some of Kha'Zix's many strengths while refining his core identity as an assassin. First, we pushed more power to his evolutions so that he'll have to think more about the choices he makes in life (or the game). Kha'Zix's base Q is lower compared to live, but his evolved Q is guaranteed to deal more damage to isolated targets in the mid to late game. The added power to W and its evolution was to give Kha'Zix more fallback strengths when evolving W. It's also worth pointing out that while evolved R took a significant power hit with the loss of its damage reduction, it's still offering a lot of extra mobility for Kha'Zix in a fight (doubling his stealth duration while also adding an extra charge).


We'll be watching how these changes pan out, but we're hoping to see more opportunistic Kha'Zixes (Kha'Zixi? Kha'Zii?) who seek out isolated meals in team fights but can't just jump in to scrap with the frontline while also having the mobility and explosive damage to take out the backline.

Q - Taste Their Fear

Q - Evolved Enlarged Claws

W - Void Spike

W - Evolved Spike Racks

R - Evolved Active Camouflage

Pantheon

When we made the Pantheon changes back in patch 4.7, we also introduced a bug where Pantheon could be hit by area-effect spells before he physically landed on the screen. Ultimately we made a fix that leaned more in Panth's favor, where he can 'pop' all projectiles as he jumps off screen (so that pesky Sion stun won't follow him through the sky) and remains untargetable until he physically lands. In terms of other tweaks to Grand Skyfall, we've been keeping a close eye on how Pantheon's performance has been affected by the 4.7 changes, but he's remained pretty strong in both top lane and the jungle. We're going to keep watching for now!

R - Grand Skyfall

Rengar

We're very aware of Rengar's champion-eating capabilities (unlike the poor squishy targets he's surprising), but we're going to be watching how these changes / bug fixes affect the kitty before we take any larger action.

Passive - Unseen Predator

Q - Savagery

Rumble

Rumble had a few strange bugs that were causing his Flamespitter to deal less damage.

Q - Flamespitter

Soraka

In our zeal to reduce solo lane Soraka's obnoxiousness, we kicked her a little too hard in the shins. These changes may not get her up to par, but we're committed to supporting her beyond these buffs.

Q - Starcall

Elise

E - Rappel

Volibear

Volibuff. Buffibear? Bam, context.

Q - Rolling Thunder

Kha'Zix

We initially changed Kha'Zix's isolation damage for Dominion / TT based on his old kit, but now that additional modifications have been made, we're going to revert to his new kit to get a better feel for the overall changes.

Q - Taste Their Fear / Evolved Enlarged Claws