My Experience

I just started playing Kayn after the recent quality of life update on his passive and small buffs in general. This dude is an absolute beast right now and his farm and ganking potential is no joke. I got an easy m6 in 2-3 weeks and am sitting at a 62% win rate over 63 games. Enjoy the guide.

Choosing Your Form

-Basically when you are choosing what form to go to grant you the greatest competitive edge you need to consider two major things
-First: Does the enemy team have any characters that are or will be tanky by late game? Will they get in the way of picks?
-Second: How much burst does my enemy team have? Are they playing a hard carry like kha'zix or vayne who can burst you into the ground?
-In either of these two situations, being the vast majority of games you will need to be going red form. It's healing off of abilities and W's CC can round out your team comp nicely when in need of a tank or some CC for team fights.
-When the enemy team plays squishies that you know you can easily pick off and you know you won't get burst down with heavy damage, blue kayn is the form you want to be going. It's high mobility, in-and out potential, high damage, and big ult range make it easy to jump into a fight, grab a kill, and get out.
-When you're behind in the game and you just can't seem to catch a break, go red form. Red form will give you the potential to come back and even if you unlocked blue form first just wait it out. Blue form is for pushing leads, red is for securing wins and making comebacks.

Playing Different Stages of the Game

-In your early game, contrary to popular belief, you DO NOT need to just farm. Although farming is extremely important in the early game, you really want to try to get your form as quickly as you can. I know it sounds counter-intuitive to be fighting early game with your weak base form, but you need to be using transition ganks across the mid lane as well as good ganks on your top. You want to be playing around the top side of the map early on, as you may get burst down by the enemy bot lane if you try to gank there. Just get off chip damage, even if you don't burn an enemy flash or get a kill, so that you can get your form and start making an impact on the map. Don't contest scuttle crabs early. Of course you need to farm, it's still very important, but do focus on getting your passive stacks early on.

-Once you have your form, which you should be getting from the 7-13 minute mark, you need to focus on impacting the map. You can farm super efficiently and contest scuttle crabs well once you have your form, giving you time to gank frequently. FOCUS YOUR WINNING LANES. If you can burn an enemy flash in your winning lane, you can come back and gank soon to get a free kill. Grab kills and push objectives in your winning lanes to boost your team. It's okay to let them carry you, but help as much as possible. Grab rift heralds if you're far enough ahead and use it to get plating or multiple turrets. Remember that once your mid has its first turret you have a lot more freedom and your mid can impact the map easily. Do not try to gank your loosing lanes to help them out. Push your leads!

-If your team is loosing all of its lanes sometimes there's nothing you can do. In this type of situation, protect objectives, play safe, take red form, and farm to give yourself a lead.

-In the late game you are kinda a team fighting beast with red form. Get big CC to grab kills and act as your team's tank. If you are blue, you can burst enemies down easily and pick off solo kills to give your team the advantage

-Remember to always play around objectives and boost your winning lanes!

Kayn Abilities

The Darkin Scythe

Kayn wields an ancient, sentient weapon that battles with him for control. Dealing damage against champions causes them to drops orbs that are automatically collected upon leaving combat, filling a bar above Kayn's portrait.

Once the bar is full, he can choose to either be overwhelmed by Rhaast or expel him to become the Shadow Assassin, based on whether he has damaged more melee or ranged champions, respectively. Once primed, the other option becomes available after 4 minutes. Kayn can continue collecting orbs for his other form to reduce the wait time.

The transformation can only be performed by interacting with Kayn's portrait while on the summoning platform, permanently changing his abilities.



Reaping Slash

Cost: 50 mana

Range: 350

Cooldown: 7 / 6.5 / 6 / 5.5 / 5

Kayn dashes forward, dealing 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 (+ 0.65 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to all enemies he passes through before flourishing his scythe, dealing the same damage again to surrounding enemies.

Both instances of Reaping Slash deal 55 bonus damage against monsters.

Red Form: This ability deals bonus percent-health damage against all enemies except minions.



Blade's Reach

Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 mana

Range: 700

Cooldown: 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9

After a short delay in which he can't perform any other actions, Kayn performs an upwards sweep with his scythe, dealing 90 / 135 / 180 / 225 / 270 (+ 1.3 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to all enemies in a line and slowing them by 60%, decaying over 1.5 seconds.

Red Form: Blade’s Reach briefly knocks up struck enemies.

Blue Form: Leaves behind a living shadow that casts Blade’s Reach in Kayn's stead. The living shadow's Blade has increased range.



Shadow Step

Cost: 90 mana

Range: 400

Cooldown: 21 / 19 / 17 / 15 / 13

Kayn gains 40% bonus movement speed, is ghosted and can ignore terrain collision for 1.5 seconds. Immobilizing effects will interrupt Shadow Step.

Kayn heals himself by 100 / 115 / 130 / 145 / 160 (+ 0.4 per bonus attack damage) upon moving through terrain for the first time and, if he's not in combat with enemy champions, Shadow Step's duration is increased to 7 / 7.5 / 8 / 8.5 / 9 seconds.

Entering combat with a champion after the effect is enhanced reduces the remaining duration to 1.5 seconds.

Blue Form: Gain additional movement speed and immunity to slows when activating Shadow Step.



Umbral Trespass

Cost: 100 mana

Range: 550

Cooldown: 120 / 100 / 80

Passive: Kayn's basic attacks and abilities mark enemy champions for a few seconds.

Active: Kayn can activate Umbral Trespass to infest a marked enemy champion for up to 2.5 seconds, revealing them and becoming untargetable for the duration. Reactivating Umbral Trespass ends the effect early.

Upon reactivation or at the end of the duration, Kayn wrenches free from their body in the cursor's direction, dealing 150 / 250 / 350 (+ 1.75 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to the target.

Red Form: Umbral Trespass deals extra damage as a percentage of the victim's maximum health, healing the Darkin in the process.

Blue Form: Umbral Trespass can be cast from further away and resets the bonus magic damage from The Darkin Scythe after Kayn's exits his victim.

Blue Kayn Passive

The Darkin Scythe

Kayn's basic attacks and abilities deal 12% - 44% (based on level) of post-mitigation damage as bonus magic damage, lasting for 3 seconds upon entering in combat with an enemy champion, refreshing after 8 seconds out of combat with them or by using Umbral Trespass.

Red Kayn Passive

The Darkin Scythe

Rhaast heals for 34% - 43% (based on level) of the post-mitigation damage that he deals with spells against enemy champions.