This guide will no longer be updated by me, thanks to Nighthawk who was nice enough to offer to take care of the visual aspect of the guide in my stead has long has I provided the information he needed. The new version of the guide will replace this one once Nighthawk has finished.

Why Kassadin? Because hes got mad swag. And burst damage toped with meta breaking mobility. Kassadin can just give enemy team's carrys one way tickets to the void and nobody except maybe Kayle can do **** about it. If your still not convinced then stop reading and go back to playing Zed since he counters me so much apparently. On this note lets start the actual guide.

I get a lot of complains from my teamates at the start of every game has to why I dont have armor when facing my so said ad hard counters ( Talon, Zed, Pantheon ) or mr against ap hard counters ( Fizz and..... well fizz). I will just say this. Early game. Is. Not. Where Kassadin. Shines. All armor or Mr will allow you to do is to reduce the damage you take in trades by a litle bit. You will lose the trades anyways. At that stage you should just be hugging your buddy the tower and farm has much has u can with your Null Sphere and trade when your Force Pulse is up. However this is off-subject and will be talked about in another chapter. Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power and Greater Seal of Scaling Ability Power will never let you down, and they will catch up to flat ap runes by lvl 6 wich is where you need them anyways. And at lvl 18 that makes 45 ap you would otherwise not have had. (+30% so roughly 14 ap from Rabadon's Deathcap and Archmage so its actualy more like 60 ap you get from them). 60 ap can make the difference between instantly killing the adc and runing away when the damage source has been eliminated, and geting it down to 5% hp and... geting stuned with a damage source in your face. If you still want to go for your 13% multiplier on your hp when facing ap/ad opponent depending on wich set of runes u chose go ahead I personaly rather decrease my damage taken by 70% by taking out the carry.

I believe masteries are quite self explanatory... however I go for

I believe I covered prety much all there was to say about the order I build my items in so I'll just explain why I get them, has well has why I do not get tear.

Tear of the Goddess Uses up an inventory slot. And seraph's survivability usage has a cooldown on it. RoA doesnt have that and grants you a permanent 600 hp. And if you dont spam your R like a dumbass you normaly will have no problems sustaining your mana between vial and W despite not having the 400 mana that seraph would give you.

Starting items : Allows you to sustain your hp and mana so you can last hit minions with Null Sphere until you reach lvl 4 at wich point last hiting with auto attacks will give you your mana back thanks to Nether Blade. : Allows you to sustain against agressive players until you reach the goal of 1.2k gold to go back for a catalyst the protector. No sight Ward : Your name is Kassadin, not pantheon. Your mission is to tower hug until lvl 6, time around wich you should have gathered about enough money to go back and buy catalyst the protector. Even so against junglers that have very strong ganks early on you might want to switch 2 pots for a ward and hug the side you warded. Rammus, Jarvan IV and Udyr come to mind here. Early game items : Catalyst the protector : Allows you to trade without fearing to get one shoted, grants you the mana you need to keep last hiting minions with Null Sphere, and replaces Tear of the Goddess manawise on top of giving you HP, what more do you want. Oh yea it builds into Rod of Ages. You even get a bonus!. : Magic pen nuff said. Enchantment: Homeguard : Your name is Kassadin, mine is Ka55adin, trust me for now will be explained in a later chapter. : Gives you the AP you need to be able to 1 hit minion waves with a Force Pulse and a Riftwalk on melee minions, grants you amazing survivability compared to any other options u have at this point.

Mid game items: : If you realy wanted to get a Zhonya's Hourglass here go ahead and do it but please stop reading this guide and dont go saying your using my build or I will be mad at you, thank you. Deathcap gives you the AP to instantly kill every adc, most apc and about 1/2 the supports with just your Riftwalk+ Force Pulse+ Null Sphere (yes in this order, will be explained later) and grants you amazing farming capabilty, making it easier to farm your next item, Void Staff. : Magic pen nuff said. All jokes aside void staff gives a great ammount of AP has well has 35% magic penetration, toped off by your already existing 23 magic pen, it just makes them ppl go crazy and want to ff when they are simply deleted from the game data right in front of theyr eyes by your Force Pulse and Null Sphere. Late game items : : Adc usualy build banshees' veil against kassadin, wich will nullify your Riftwalk or your Force Pulse's damage wich means you have to find the 600-700 dmg somewhere else. Your Nether Blade + Lich Bane auto attack is that 600-700 damage. : Armor, MR, and revive. Some ppl are gonna ***** about how Zhonya's Hourglass allows you to survive im going to tell you, when u get this its ususaly 40+ minutes in, and the next team fight is likely the last. And in that team fight if you use zhonyas people will just save theyr spells for you, with GA 2 things can happen : People will blow everything they have on you because they hate your face and dnt realise you had GA until they saw that they dnt get the kill, and then you just finish off whoever is left when you come back to life. They will realise you have GA and decide to go for someone else instead wich will give you time to kill both carrys. In both case you will have cleaned up the enemy team's damage output.

+ + :
Use on isolated target when you have vision to instantly kill them (for squishys)
note : must have 5 charges or more to use
Why use it : deals your full combo damage and will give you a charge on your E
Cons : Gives a small window of time where the target can react be4 geting silenced (for example fizz could use that time to E away)
When NOT to use it : if the person has an immunity of sort (tryn/kayle), when you dont have vision around your target.

+ +
Use on isolated target that could potentialy be dangerous for you such has those that have strong CC (fiddlesticks, rammus, ...) or when you do not have 5 charges to use R+E+Q
Note : must have 4 charges or more to use
Why use it : neutralize potential threath your target could cause to you.
Cons : leaves you with 0 charges on your E
When NOT to use it : if the person has an immunity of sort (tryn/kayle), when you dont have vision around your target.

+ +
Use when you dont have vision around your target or when your target has an ability wich requires you to be able to back out quickly (zed and fizz come to mind).
Note : must have 5 charges or more to use
Why use it : allows you to save your R to escape if needed or to finish off your target otherwise, grants you a charge for your next E
Cons : you need to walk to your target removing the surprise effect you normaly have using your ultimate to close in on your target
When not to use it : ... well this is prety much the safest combo you have in store so unless your being stupid its hard to get killed when using it.

+ +
Same has previous combo except you need 6 charges and the pros are that it refunds 2 charges instead of 1.

All the combos can be used with W and lich bane when you are in melee range of the target, however you need to determine wether geting a poke in is or isnt worth it. W should be used AFTER Force Pulse in all of them to give you the best chances of having a Force Pulse readyed up again when you need it.

Once lich bane is completed, it is possible to save your Null Sphere for a threathening foe while still killing your target with only Riftwalk+ Force Pulse+(lich bane and Nether Blade) auto attack to allow your Riftwalk to get off cooldown and escape.

This should cover the combos kassadin's spell have to offer.

Now just has with my runes, lots of people are confused when they learn I max out my Force Pulse first. Let me explain. Null Sphere and Force Pulse have the same base damage and AP ratio, however force pulse is AOE, slows, has an unchanging mana cost and has less cooldown than Null Sphere, making it a better farming tool and a better ganking tool than Null Sphere. Note Kassadin is a roaming champion and has such he ganks a lot, a slow with very low cd and high damage that is aoe to top it off is extremely strong for those ganks, while Null Sphere is... well single target and doesnt help catching a fleeing prey except in a few cases. Also note maxing Force Pulse allows you to 1 shot ranged minions around lvl 7 depending on your items. For all those reasons, I max my Force Pulse first, then of course null sphere wich is your single target nuke and finishing with Nether Blade wich is only realy useful to last hit miniona and in fights versus mages who increase your attack speed by a lot trough your passive. Grabing a lvl of Nether Blade at lvl 4 also allows you to use it to build up charges seeing has its mana cost is quite low.

Against agressive opponents

In early laning phase Kassadin doesnt have much power, hes squishy and he has no real strong and reliable damage source, so against agressive enemy laners you ahould focus on trying to make the cs gap has small has possible by last hiting minions with Null Sphere while avoiding trades has much has possible. Your laning phase truly begins once you have reached lvl 6, you have your catalyst the protector and blue buff when possible. At that point your opponent is usualy able to sustain is mana decently seeing has he got blue buff if he has mana or hes just spamming spell anyways because he doesnt have mana. Thats when the party begins, whenever you have 4-6 charges you can go on the offensive using the combos mentioned in the previous chapter according to the situations and you can easily out damage just about every mid champions in the game at this point especialy skillshot reliant champions. Also an important thing to remember is to tell your jungler to use up all is spells when he is doing the wraith camp, to help you charge your Force Pulse wich helps you farm and trade with your opponent more effectively. A few champions are able to outtrade u even at this point tough, pantheon and cho gath come to mind, you should simply farm with Force Pulse and run away with Riftwalk to avoid taking damage. Your laning phase ends once you have farmed up your Sorcerer's Shoes with Enchantment: Homeguard. At that point, you enter the roaming phase wich will be explained in the next chapter.

Against passive opponents

When Kassadin is facing champions that have weak early game just has he does, you should farm to your heart's content using basic attacks and trade using Null Sphere whenever they come for a poke. Do not try to force trades, what you want is the money for catalyst the protector at that point and trades wont help you reach that goal, simply answer is trades with Null Sphere and Force Pulse when its up to dissuade them from poking you. Same has against agressive laners, your lane phase meets its end with Sorcerer's Shoes and Enchantment: Homeguard, at wich point you enter the roaming phase.

Once you have homeguards, you can easily gank, recall go back to your lane to push it, and repeat. After recalling once or twice you normaly should have the money to buy Rod of Ages. After that you should just keep on repeating the process until you have the money to buy Rabadon's Deathcap. Once you have aquired deathcap you should shove middle lane and help your team push out theyr lanes has well to bring an end to the laning phase.

Blue team:

On blue team, bot lane is easier to gank, you should pink brush by river on the enemy side to make sure it isnt warded so you can move freely from your lane to the enemy blue and then down to the brush next to the enemy's first tier tower to wait for an easy gank opportunity. (I will eventually add a picture of where to ward)

Purple team

Same process has when you are on blue team with the only difference top lane is the easiest lane to gank in this case.

First I would like to thank Albo1125 for is constructive comment.

Second I would like to tell the others that think its so easy to make a guide but never actualy made one, I published my guide be4 making it final because this is my first guide ever, I wanted to get feedback from the readers on what I would need to add or change to make it better. Not because I wanted a bunch of idiots that never played Kassadin in theyr lives to come *****ing at how I did it wrong and even argue with my skill sequence choice. Heres what I think : I have 200 games played has kassadin in ranked with a 70% win rate. You DONT. so dont argue with my skill sequence and dont leave a comment if you do not have anything constructive to say.

Third I wish to say any constructive comment on how I could make this guide better are welcomed, has of now I intend to add a chapter on how to deal with Kassadin's counters shortly.