Hello and thank you for looking at my Kassadin guide :). Kassadin is one of my favorite champion and by far my best. I have had great success with Kassadin in ranked games and hopefully after you have read my guide you will have a better understanding of this character and dominate rank too. Now, onto the guide!

My rune page is specifically designed for Kassadin. I have magic penetration marks because it will make all of your spells hit harder. I have mp/5 seals and quintessences so that you can harass with your q every chance you get it. This is very important for lane dominance and is absolutely necessary for farming which i will get into later. I have chosen CDR glyphs so that you can harass more in lane, as well as use your combo more often in team fights which is important.
I have tested other runes as well, such as instead of mp5 seals and quintessences i used flat AP runes. With these runes yes your harass with do more damage however, if you continually harass you will be out of mana very quickly. It is important to keep your mana at at least half for when you reach level 6 so that you can quickly finish the job with your ultimate and a full combo.

I have chosen 9/0/21 for my masteries because for one, the 9 in offensive give you the 15% more magic penetration which is great as this makes you hit harder. I also put 21 points into utility for the CDR which is great on Kassadin and also for the mana regen and the movement speed which is very helpful for harass. Also something worth mentioning is the buff duration in utility, always ask your jungler for blue buff. More the not he will give you the buff which gives you a huge advantage in lane because now you can spam all of your skills aswell as use your ultimate somewhat liberally and not run out of mana! This is great late game aswell as you wont have problems with your mana running out with continued ultimate uses. The extra 30% on neutral buffs is absolutely necessary on Kassadin.

Start with a sapphire crystal and 2 health potions and head over to your lane, which hopefully is mid. You should ALWAYS go mid if possible. Anyway, do not go back until you can afford a catalyst at least, if you can stay long enough to afford both a catalyst and tier 1 boots that's even better. However if for some reason you have to leave lane before that by your tier 1 boots, pot up and head back to lane. On your next trip back finish your sorcerer's shoes and if possible buy a blasting wand as well. By this time laning phase is probably over so just go back to shop at your discretion.
I have decided to go rod of ages and then arch angels staff instead of rod of ages and then Rabadon's death cap because from my experience arch angels staff is a much better buy on Kassadin. with rod of ages and arch angels staff you AP will be around 200+ as well you will get a huge boost to your mana pool so that you can cast your ult more which becomes VERY expensive to cast with a lot of stacks.
After your Rabadon's death cap i grab a void staff so that even if they start stacking magic resist to counter you, you will still be able to burst the carry down! Next I get a banshee's veil or another arch angels staff depending on if i am having problems with their CC. If you are having a lot of trouble with the cc you can get banshee's veil right after hat or even before your Rabadon's death cap.

Null Sphere(Q)

--This is an amazing skill. It is a single target nuke that has good base damage and scales well. As well as being able to nuke with this spell you silence your target also, which prevents mages from doing anything to stop you from killing them. The utility on this spell is amazing, use this to stop ultimate's and save yourself when your ganked (before lvl6) to stop them from using spells on you. Use this skill as much as possible in laning phase to harass and if harassing is impossible then use it to farm minions, however try to hold onto it to harass.

Netherblade(W)

-- This is somewhat of a useless skill, Max this last. However when you do eventually get this use it to charge your force pulse every time it is up. This does increase your Auto attack damage, so on the odd chance that you are able to auto attack a champion, use this spell beforehand. However you really should never be this close to the fight.

Force Pulse(E)

--This is another nuke spell, however it is also an AOE(area of effect) spell so it hits everyone in range. As well as doing good damage it also slows down everyone effected by it. This combined with your Q effectively shuts down their carry for a good 2-3 seconds as well as doing huge burst to them. Max this second.

Riftwalk(R)

--This is your bread and butter. At level 6 you will use this to finish off your opponent that you have been harassing in lane. However, this spell is very costly so avoid using it in lane. In lane, only use it to finish off a champion and escape, or if you have blue buff, use it to get close enough to harass too. This being said do not keep jumping on your opponent either when you have blue buff, your ult does not do that much damage early game, use it to jump close enough to get a Q off. only riftwalk onto a champion if you are absolutely sure that you will kill them without the possibility of retaliation.
You can use this spell more liberally once you have your arch angels staff as you will not run out of mana as fast. When you are running away or chasing someone, use walls to your advantage, your ultimate can jump over any wall on the map so use this to your advantage.


max your spells in this order of importance: R>Q>E>W

Ignite

- ALWAYS bring ignite on Kassadin use this to finish off your opponent after you have burst them down. I can't count how many times ignite has helped insure my kill. This spell is vital to any Kassadin player.

Ghost

- I prefer to use ghost because this helps me quickly get all over the map to escape, chase, gank, or anything needed.

Other options

flash

- This is another good choice, however seeing as you already have a built in flash every 3 seconds, it is not really necessary, but take this if you really want flash.

cleanse

-This is a great choice on Kassadin, A strong choice to replace ghost. If you are worried about cc you can pick this summoner up.

teleport

- This is another choice that i can see, this helps you to be all over the place, you can gank bot and jump right up to top or get back to lane faster. However, late game i feel this summoner is not worth it.


These are the only good options. Do not bring any other summoner spells!

Farming is incredibly important, however farming with Kassadin is no easy task as your auto attacks are melee. This is where harassing comes into play, harass whenever possible to try and keep lane dominance, but make sure that you do not take harassment. If you are winning your lane you can simply walk up and last hit minions with your auto attack. If you are losing your lane, then you are going to have to be more cautious and only last hit the minions that are closest to your with auto attacks, also if possible throw a few Q's at minions way in the front to get those last hits.

During team fights make sure that you are out of sight, hide somewhere off to the side in a bush. This will give you the element of surprise to avoid being attacked. ONLY go in after a fight has been initiated. You have two choices, you can either walk up from behind and combo the carry, R out, rinse and repeat until their carry is dead. OR you can R in, combo, and run like hell out of the fight, rinse and repeat. However no matter how you get in the fight, get out as fast as possible once you have used your combo and wait for your cool downs to attack again. Trust me, the moment they see you they will all try to kill you, but they will give up once you leave giving you the opportunity to jump back in and finish the job. Focus the carries!! you are an assassin this is your job, leave the tanks and tough champions until the end.

Thank you for reading my guide! This is my first guide ever and I appreciate you spending the time to read this. I hope my guide has helped you become a better Kassadin player. I will build on to this guide more later on as well as add pictures so you can better understand the guide and videos of me playing Kassadin later on to help you more. Please vote and add a comment at the end to tell me what i did wrong or did well. Much appreciated!