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Why DPS Kassadin Is So Friggin Hard: An In-depth Guide
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Choose Champion Build:
Spells:
Exhaust
Clarity
Ability Order
Void Stone (PASSIVE)
Kassadin Passive Ability
Pros:
Has good escaping and chasing skill (mobility)
High AP burst damage and decent AD with fast auto-attack capability
High armor penetration
Silence and slow
Moderately easy farming
Cons:
Mana issues (sometimes)
Hard early and late game (but is a great carry when done properly)
Survivability issues
NOT newbie friendly
Has good escaping and chasing skill (mobility)
High AP burst damage and decent AD with fast auto-attack capability
High armor penetration
Silence and slow
Moderately easy farming
Cons:
Mana issues (sometimes)
Hard early and late game (but is a great carry when done properly)
Survivability issues
NOT newbie friendly
Just so you know this is my first time making a guide so please be gentle when making criticisms. By gentle I mean direct to the point and blunt but with no insults whatsoever.
I have no guarantee that this is the best way to use Kassadin in a DPS build nor do I say that this is the best way for
Kassadin to go overall. I believe that AP
Kassadin is a lot more easier to play and is also a great AP burst damage champion but I like playing him the way Riot seemingly intended him to be used. A hybrid that utilizes both his great scaling AP skills with low cooldowns and his ultimately neglected feature, which is his great armor penetration capability.
Pick
Kassadin for DPS if there is already an AP burst character on your team (
Annie,
Fiddlesticks) and maybe if you're lacking a ganker or carry. Otherwise just go for AP
Kassadin.
Just remember that you are required to have good last hitting skill, GREAT map awareness, and decent teammates. This
Kassadin build is by no means a walk in the park. Far from it in fact. I must warn you that this build takes a lot of patience and practice as it can net a lot of kills and produce great amounts of damage at the cost of being very vulnerable and hard to manage at late game. You'll understand if you read the whole guide.
I have no guarantee that this is the best way to use Kassadin in a DPS build nor do I say that this is the best way for


Pick




Just remember that you are required to have good last hitting skill, GREAT map awareness, and decent teammates. This

Greater Mark of Desolation Greater Mark of Desolation - Okay. Obviously armor penetration runes are taken to amplify your already great armor piercing skill
Nether Blade. This build is all about maxing out
Kassadin's potential to bypass armor and deal huge amounts of damage despite not relying on crits.
Greater Seal of Evasion - These are taken to increase
Kassadin's survivability against physical AD attacks. It's his main weakness as
Kassadin has low armor and relies on his
Riftwalk ability to avoid enemy attacks. No worries on AP burst damage since
Void Stone absorbs 15% of incoming magic damage which can also be improved by wearing
Banshee's Veil.
Greater Glyph of Celerity - Why
Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction you ask and not
Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction? This is due to the fact that a DPS hybrid
Kassadin build does not fully rely on his AP skills alone. During early or mid game it's enough to have moderate cooldown reduction with your already fast cooldown skills as you'll be auto-attacking as well. At late game, where everything turns hell for
Kassadin (but in a good way). This is when you'll be needing extra fast cooldowns as you'll be utilizing
Kassadin's skills a lot at a faster pace for both dishing out damage and also escaping.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction actually gives more CDR than
Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction at late game and this is actually when his fast
Riftwalking and
Force Pulse spamming capabilities are a must.
Greater Quintessence of Desolation Greater Quintessence of Desolation - The same reason for using Greater Mark of Desolation runes. To improve
Kassadin's already great armor penetration capability.


















Greater Quintessence of Desolation Greater Quintessence of Desolation - The same reason for using Greater Mark of Desolation runes. To improve





























































1.
Null Sphere
2.
Force Pulse
3.
Force Pulse
4.
Nether Blade
5.
Force Pulse
6.
Riftwalk
7.
Force Pulse
8.
Nether Blade
9.
Force Pulse
10.
Nether Blade
11.
Riftwalk
12.
Nether Blade
13.
Nether Blade
14.
Null Sphere
15.
Null Sphere
16.
Riftwalk
17.
Null Sphere
18.
Null Sphere
Null Sphere is taken first as it will be your primary last hitting skill at early game. If you're having an easy time laning with just your auto-attack then by all means use
Null Sphere to harass the opposing laning champion.
Force Pulse is taken next with the intention of maxing it out first as this will be your most abused skill aside from
Riftwalk. You'll be using it to clear out enemy minion waves, for easy jungling, and as your main AP burst damage source when ganking.
Force Pulse has great AOE and great base and scaling magic damage AND it has a low cooldown. During ganks gaining charges won't be a problem as your enemies and teammates will be using their skills and you'll be utilizing
Nether Blade a lot as well.
Nether Blade is taken immediately at level four as
Kassadin will need this both for regaining mana and a possible early game kill. If you have a decent support and your opposing lane champion is a little bit too aggressive then
Nether Blade can actually guarantee you a kill. It can help charge up your
Force Pulse and at this stage, coupled with your armor penetration runes, an activated
Nether Blade will cut through any champion's armor and hurt them as if
Kassadin's auto-attacks were dealing true damage. After you take
Riftwalk at level six
Nether Blade is maxed out second after
Force Pulse as this
Kassadin build will be dealing equal amounts of AD and AP damage by utilizing
Riftwalk and both
Force Pulse and auto-attack.
Null Sphere will just be your silencing skill and only at one second for now.
Riftwalk is taken at level six and at all possible levels, namely levels eleven and sixteen. This is because
Riftwalk will be used to have that extra burst AP damage along with
Force Pulse. This can also charge up your
Force Pulse and strengthen your next auto-attack because of either
Trinity Force/
Sheen or
Lich Bane.
Kassadin will be
Riftwalking on his opponent's face a lot as well as blasting him with
Force Pulse while whacking him with
Kassadin's purple glowstick.
Just a tip. Remember that
Riftwalk's damage increases with each successive use so coupled with
Clarity you can actually deal almost the same amount of damage with it as DPS
Kassadin's AP counterpart. Add that to your armor penetrating physical attacks and your frequent
Force Pulse blasting DPS hybrid
Kassadin can take down the most hardiest of tanks whether they stack up on either armor or magic defense or even both. This is actually the advantage of this build as a pure DPS
Kassadin is weak against high armor champion builds (
Rammus,
Malphite) and a pure AP burst
Kassadin is weak against those champions who stack up on magic defense (
Galio,
Mordekaiser). The only important thing is that you have fast enough reflexes to maximize skill usage and auto-attacking at the same time. This is what's harder for this build as compared to the other two
Kassadin builds as you'll only need to either focus on right-clicking the correct target or spamming your skills.
Finally
Null Sphere is maxed out at the last stages being leveled up again only at fourteen and to reach level five at champion level eighteen,
Riftwalk being taken again at level sixteen. The reason for this is that
Null Sphere has a nine second cooldown so you won't be able to spam it as much as
Force Pulse and
Riftwalk. Also
Force Pulse has 0.8 ratio for AP and is an AOE skill while
Null Sphere only has a 0.7 ratio, higher mana cost after lever one, and can only target a single unit. The silence is not very good (2.6sec at max) as you'll mostly be participating in ganks rather than individual hunting so better focus on dealing as much damage to as many units as possible rather than trying to silence your targets. Even on solo hunting it's better to
Riftwalk in on your unsuspecting victim followed by a
Force Pulse and a
Sheen/
Lich Bane/
Trinity Force+
Nether Blade augmented attack would yield higher damage and cost less mana than if you started with
Null Sphere at a high level followed by a max level
Force Pulse then a low level
Nether Blade augmented attack.
Null Sphere in a DPS
Kassadin should be the last priority since this build already has concerns with mana and would yield better damage since armor reduces AD damage by percentage. If your enemy's armor is bypassed by
Nether Blade and Greater Mark of Desolation runes (remember that your target champions are usually stacking low in armor) then it's actually possible to do 100% damage of an auto-attack (216AD+255AP additional damage from Lich Bane's passive=471+5% from Havoc mastery=495). An auto-attack of 500 or more is only achievable if you have
Nether Blade maxed and this occurs every two seconds along with your
Force Pulse blasts which is at five seconds cooldown with no CDR and
Riftwalk which has four seconds at max without CDR.
Null Sphere has a nine second cooldown and just 280+ max of 313 damage for this build.

2.

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5.

6.

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8.

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10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.































Just a tip. Remember that












Finally























Core Items:
Late Game Items:
or
or
Luxury Items:
or
or
or
or
or
or
Situational Items:
Purchase Order:
Early Game - First off you'll be buying an
Amplifying Tome along with a single
Health Potion. The
Amplifying Tome is later upgraded to
Sheen at level six and the
Health Potion is there for more staying power during the laning phase. Try to avoid dying and just amass as much gold as you can by last hitting minions. Don't even try to jungle as
Kassadin isn't meant to be a jungler at early game.
Mid Game - By level seven you should have bought at least a
Boots and have upgraded your
Amplifying Tome to
Sheen.
Kassadin is now viable to jungle but I recommend ganking with your teammates more at this stage. After possibly several successful ganks or in some cases an extended laning phase you should be able to buy
Pickaxe if not straight to
Guinsoo's Rageblade and are able to upgrade your
Boots to
Berserker's Greaves.




Late Game Items:







Luxury Items:







Situational Items:











Purchase Order:
Early Game - First off you'll be buying an






Mid Game - By level seven you should have bought at least a








I didn't take Infinity Edge nor Phantom Dancer as Kassadin just doesn't benefit well with just crit. His low cooldown skills are there for a reason and with such a good scaling skill (Force Pulse has 0.8 AP scale and Null Sphere has 0.7) it's just too much not to focus more on his AP oriented side. This is why I focused more on attack speed and why I devised the combo. It's for Kassadin's ability to use his AP to his advantage even when using mainly DPS to deal out most of your damage. Yes, you actually deal more damage with your AD (albeit amplified by item passives e.g. Sheen and Trinity Force and possibly by AP e.g. Lich Bane), I've checked my matches. I honestly haven't tried using this Kassadin build in Ranked Matches, only in Normal ones, but I never said I did. However, I do well in normal matches using said build and can even manage a penta kill given the circumstances. The Bloodthirster is not viable for Kassadin since it does not take advantage of his AP damage. And B.F. Sword is just way too expensive for Kassadin to purchase Mid Game. With Hextech Gunblade you have an extra slow active skill for chasing and you get to spell-vamp with your somewhat high damaging skills. The AP+attack speed items are there for a reason. And finally, another reason I didn't use Phantom Dancer is because I don't need extra mobility. I already have that with Berserker's Greaves, Trinity Force, Riftwalk, and maybe also Lich Bane. Also just to point out why I rush Guinsoo's Rageblade, it has all that Hybrid DPS Kassadin needs. AP, AD, attack speed, and another cool sounding name. I didn't go for AP runes because what matters most is that Kassadin's abilities are there when you need them in order to spam and to charge up his melee attacks so I went for CD reduction runes. In offensive and quintessences runes I used armor penetration so as to augment his skill even more. It stacks. ^_^ Finally in defensive runes I used flat attack speed to help Kassadin regen more mana and get more hits for every 5 secs. his armor piercing skill allows.
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