Kha’Zix is being targeted with some heavy-handed ability balancing in League of Legends, according to the latest PBE update.
His ultimate ability, Void Assault, might be redesigned to replace its evolution mechanic with a brand new one. But Riot isn’t 100 percent certain on the direction it wants to go just yet. The version of the ability on the PBE right now completely cuts out the mechanic of triggering stealth upon entering bushes when Void Assault is evolved. Instead, evolving the ability halves its cooldown and doubles the stealth duration from 1.5 seconds to three seconds.
This may not be the final draft, though, according to Riot staffer Rick Maher on Twitter. Apparently, Riot is still trying to decide between a few different versions of the ability, and there’s a possibility that the balance team may choose to wait another patch to monitor Kha’Zix before trying anything else.
Kha’Zix’s ultimate ability is a bit of a problem among both pro players and solo queue amateurs. Having the ability to stealth between bushes allows to Kha’Zix to uniquely dodge vision that would otherwise hinder him like almost any other jungler in the game. In solo queue, the frustration there is obvious, because wards are few and far between to begin with. But in pro play, things are a little different.
When the Tracker’s Knife was removed, junglers lost a lot of their vision power, and were reduced to either trinkets or relying on supports for vision control. Of course, there are always red wards, but those have not been changed. That being said, the removal of so much vision made jungling significantly riskier, forcing pros to rely on tracking enemy junglers on a hunch rather than several wards scattered throughout jungle entrances.
Kha’Zix has survived as one of the only early game assassins in the jungle through one of the tankiest jungle metas in years, and a lot of that power stems from his ultimate allowing him to bypass what little vision remains on the map. Now that Graves is strong again and tanks are all around a little weaker, other assassins may rise up, but Kha’Zix will likely stay right where he is.
That being said, a change is desperately wanted for his ultimate—but the version on the PBE might not be the one that ends up going live.
