Jutsu's logic
Assassins should be extremely strong, while mages must be weak and forced to fight near enemies
Also known as "Fuck MOBA, I just want to get kills"
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But that's what assassins do. Kill mages. Kill squishies. Assassins also needs a lot of skill to not slip up and let the prey run away.

Quote from Chimero

Yi...

Also, speaking of assasins, try ap trist. The burst is absolutely insane.

Except for Yi, as Jutsu pointed out.

Quote from DiPi

Jutsu's logic
Assassins should be extremely strong, while mages must be weak and forced to fight near enemies
Also known as "Fuck MOBA, I just want to get kills"
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That's not what I said at all, you idiot.

I bet you're just pissy because you play one of the low risk high reward mages I was talking about.

cough Ziggs cough

Quote from _Ai_

Except for Yi, as Jutsu pointed out.

Yi takes very little skill. He's so good I don't even know what to say about him anymore. Riot doesn't want kha'zix to be able to kill mages but I've seen Yi activate his ult and literally chase down an entire team. He takes almost no skill for the power he has.

Other than that, the assassins I personally believe take the least skill are the ones with teleports, like kassadin. I don't even like the mechanic of a teleport on assassins. Whenever I quadra kill with kassadin it feels so illegitimate, I don't feel like I earned it at all. It's easy to dodge and close distances with a teleport too, which I feel absolutely takes away from the thrill of being an assassin.
When I play Kha'Zix my heart is pounding and I'm focused like a laser, when I play kassadin I'm leaning back in my chair and killing their whole team without even batting an eyelash. It's just boring and it gets to the point of asking myself "Does my ego need another quadra kill?"

Quote from McRhook

cough Ziggs cough

yeah he was going to be my first one to point out. I believe I posted my remarkable scores with that champion previously in this thread.
But I felt like Vel'Koz would click for most players.

Only mages I play are Swain and Mordekaiser. I like to be up in my enemy's face as they die.

Me too, I love to feel their blood on my claws.

Well now Kha'Zix has got two floppy dildos where his claws should be.
It's ironic that they call his Q "taste their fear", they should call it "Reach around".
Because clearly they want him to be a lover, not a...fighter?

It was almost a perfect joke.

The idea behind the kha'zix change is very good imo. They buffed his isolation damage by a ton. At level 5 his Q does 155 + (10 * Champion Level) + (+2.204 Bonus AD). That is ridiculous amounts of damage, which means he is going to absolutely decimate squishies if they are isolated. However, they turned his non-isolation damage into merely a tickle. The problem with this nerf is that it doesn't compensate for the previous nerfs where they made it much more difficult for champions to be isolated. What Riot needs to do is revert the isolation range to what it was pre-nerf, or make towers and minions not affect isolation as much.

The changes to his ult were much needed because now he is forced to be played as an assassin, and not be both an assassin and a tank at the same time. What I fear that is going to happen to Kha'zix if Riot doesn't fix his Q is people will build tear, evolve W, and play kha'zix as a poke machine as he used to be.

Quote from Jutsu

They should rename the game to League of Mages.

I could play a high speed assassin that takes sharp skill and reflexes "unless they're assassins with cheesy teleport abilities."and still get utterly decimated if I slip up and get caught once. OR I could just play a mage and constantly fire off insanely powerful spells from half way across the map.

But then I'd be entitled to bitch when an assassin eludes my insanely huge trap ability "looking at you veigar" and kills me. Waaaah, that's bullshit, why doesn't riot just force him to stand there and let me bombard him with my death ray? Wahhhh, why can he kill me? Riot should cut his damage in half so I have the durability of a fighter. Waaaah.

Edit: What I'm trying to say is this. I was advertised a speedy, high risk and high reward puritan assassin capable of excellent damage if played properly. I purchased this product and was pleased, even after the last two nerfs. But now I don't have the same product I purchased.
Now Kha'zix is going to be an INSANE risk for average rewards champion. So what's the point of playing him? When I could simply play a no risk for great rewards mage like Vel'Koz?

This gameplay design doesn't make sense and if you disagree you don't understand the fundamentals of game design and balance.

This simply isn't true. The only long range safe mages that are very strong right now are Nidalee and Ziggs. The reason these picks are so strong is because they are extremely long range AND they have mobility spells. Nidalee has her pounce on a 2s cooldown and Ziggs has his satchel charge with completely separates him from divers. There isn't a single mage that is extremely strong right now that doesn't have some form of mobility. The reason being immobile champions get destroyed by assassins, bruisers, and tanks. Champions like Syndra, Orianna, and Veigar get destroyed by diving champions. This is why the top tier picks almost always have a mobility spell: LeBlanc, Kassadin, Nidalee, Kayle, etc.

Quote from jdogg

The idea behind the kha'zix change is very good imo. They buffed his isolation damage by a ton.

Actually that's incorrect, his isolation bonus damage decreased from 45% to 30%. A very significant decrease since they greatly increased the distance a champion has to be to be considered isolated recently.

Here's some math I found
"Hello summoners, in the recent patch kha'zix received some pretty obvious nerfes in order to make him more of an assasin champion (he was origionally designed as an assasin). we all know that a 50% damage reduction is not that is suitable for an assasin. Let's give his (unevolved) Q nerfes a look:
70/100/130/160/190 (+1.5 bonus attack damage) ⇒ 55/80/105/130/155 (+1.2 bonus attack damage)
The fact that the new isolation bonus damage is just 30% instead of 45% is also a big nerf to the damage.
I bothered to do some maths to compare the new envolved q with the old envolved (both isolated and at max ranked) against a 100% health target:
0 bonus attack damage: old envolved q: 275.49 dmg
new envolved q: 205.00-295.00 dmg (level 9-18)
note: level 9 as minimun because you have rank 5 envolved q on level 9
100 bonus attack damage: old envolved q: 493~ dmg new envolved q: 429-519 dmg (9-18)
200 bonus attack damage: old envolved q: 711~ dmg new envolved q: 653-743 dmg
Kha'zix new envolved, isolated q is better than the old envolved, isolated at level 15~ (depending on his bonus ad; the more bonus ad the earlier). All the previous calculations were just to show that kha'zix damage nerfes are really slight nerfes. If you consider the new utility of the envolved voidspikes the whole changes dont make kha'zix necessarily weaker but they changes his play style. he is now harder to handle (less tanky) while dishing out about the same amount of damage. Playing kha'zix after 4.9 will be more of a challenge. Therefore i appreciate the changes.
Edit: now after playing him a few times i think that his early dmg was nerfed quite hard and it can be considered again to level w in a bruiser/jungle role. playing him as ad assasin is probably the most effective way to win games, but he is really weak in his early laning and can be shutdown easily."

So instead of almost always evolving Q first, now you basically have to.

My mistake I meant to say his Evolved Q isolation damage. The added bonus they gave him is ridiculous, and it is a change I am fully in support of, however Riot needs to revert the isolation nerfs they made previously. It's currently extremely difficult to find an isolated champion, which is why these changes do a lot bad than they do good. Once again I believe that if they lowered the distance required to be isolated, I think these changes would be appreciated. Right now however he is going to be utterly useless for the most part other than poking well with W, which is a very stale way to play.

I just don't think it's going to work out.

Making it so he can only do real damage versus isolated enemies will outright kill his potential in team fights.

Quote from jdogg

This simply isn't true. The only long range safe mages that are very strong right now are Nidalee and Ziggs. The reason these picks are so strong is because they are extremely long range AND they have mobility spells. Nidalee has her pounce on a 2s cooldown and Ziggs has his satchel charge with completely separates him from divers. There isn't a single mage that is extremely strong right now that doesn't have some form of mobility. The reason being immobile champions get destroyed by assassins, bruisers, and tanks. Champions like Syndra, Orianna, and Veigar get destroyed by diving champions. This is why the top tier picks almost always have a mobility spell: LeBlanc, Kassadin, Nidalee, Kayle, etc.

I can see the incoming argument about how we can only consider balance changes from the perspective of top play and I'd love to go into detail about how this mentality is absolute rubbish. Not only in this game, but in starcraft or any of the other competitive games I've played.

I'm only describing from my experience, with proper positioning Vel'Koz can do quite a bit of damage for very little effort.

I actually don't think it should be balanced around competetive play, but I think my point still stands, unless you disagree with what champions I listed as strong right now then I don't see how that matters.

As far as Vel'koz goes: Yes, he can do lots of damage very easily, but his problem is that he dies so easily and has no escapes, like I said before. These immobile mages seem like they are extremely easy to play because of how much AOE damage they do, but in reality you have to have extremely good positioning in order to not die immediately. Especially someone like Vel'koz who is required to stand still in order to do damage with his ultimate.

Quote from jdogg

I actually don't think it should be balanced around competetive play, but I think my point still stands, unless you disagree with what champions I listed as strong right now then I don't see how that matters.

As far as Vel'koz goes: Yes, he can do lots of damage very easily, but his problem is that he dies so easily and has no escapes, like I said before. These immobile mages seem like they are extremely easy to play because of how much AOE damage they do, but in reality you have to have extremely good positioning in order to not die immediately. Especially someone like Vel'koz who is required to stand still in order to do damage with his ultimate.

Wait, you don't think that a competitive game should be balanced around competitive play? That doesn't make any sense.
I only mentioned top level play because you described those champions as top picks.

You did nothing to invalidate my opinion of these low risk, great reward mages. Just because the champions you listed are popular right now, doesn't mean the other mages I was describing are weak.

They are extremely easy to play, because I have an extremely easy time playing them. That's my reasoning here.


I feel like we're discussing too many points at once here.

League of Legends is intrinsically a competitive game. All level of play in League of Legends are to be considered competitive play by the standards of almost any other game. Because you're facing other players in a contest to win. That's competition. Whether you play to win, or, like me, find entertainment in it regardless of winning or losing. The goal of the game is inherently competitive and because of this I believe the game should absolutely be balanced around competitive play.
I don't however think it should be only balanced around top level play. I hope this helps clarify.
The idea that a players opinion is invalidated because they are not top level or that their opinion is invalidated because it doesn't adhere to the current zeitgeists of the metagame is illogical. Especially considering the ever changing nature of the game. This is a path of thought I first experienced playing starcraft and experienced the most playing starcraft 2. I feel like this mentality stems from players feeling it necessary to defend the developers of the game they enjoy, almost as if a perceived failure of the developers is also perceived as a personal failure. This is easily reinforced by the recent studies that came out about video game console fanboys, you should look it up it's fascinating.
Anyways.
You see the percentage of players who are to be considered "top level" is so minuscule that it doesn't make any sense to only expect the game to be balanced for those players. I don't understand why players of certain games are willing to accept gameplay that isn't balanced on all levels of play, especially when it isn't really that hard to pull off. If you've ever played competitive pokemon, you'll understand that it's balanced on all levels of play. But pokemon isn't dictated on a competitive level by the developers, instead the fans. It stands to reason that the people who understand the game the most, are those who play it the most. The players. the fans run the servers, the fans make the websites and analysis for each pokemon and it's the fans who establish the rules for competitive play.
So why settle for a game that isn't balanced on ALL levels of play? Especially when it could be.

A lot of my opinions shouldn't be considered from the perspective of me as a rookie League of Legends player, but instead from a veteran competitive game player.