I've always loved to play Kassadin, but I always seem to fail with him. If someone could give me some tips and pointers for how to do well in games. By the way, I'm not a noob or anything, I just need help with him.

Some general guidelines.

Make sure you're farming as much as possible early game. This means last hitting with a regular attack for those creeps you can reach, null sphere for those creeps too close to the enemy and not safe. The only thing worse than a Kassadin w/o early game kills is one that hasn't managed to farm enough for his core items.

wait, there is something worse. Dying. Make sure you're playing defensive if need be. I've learned that the games I do well in I've been patient and I haven't taken risks that were not in my favor.

Don't bother harassing those enemies in your lane that have regen or too much hp. There is no point in draining your mana on chipping away at Alistair, for example.

I don't care if you're level 6 and you have riftwalk: your gank attempts are not guaranteed. You have to pick targets well and coordinate with your teammates. Trying to gank Ashe in mid for example works well if your buddy has a stun, AND Ashe has over-extended and is somewhat low on hp. Kassadin has great burst potential, but when he first hits level 6 it's not crazy. You just have to use his ability to surprise to get kills, in the same way that a stealth champ would.

Also, be conservative with your mana, aka riftwalking. You can use it to traverse terrain in a manner that would speed your arrival, but generally don't. You'll end up at your destination with several stacks of riftwalks meaning your next one will be expensive, and you'll have only enough to nullsphere and force pulse once or twice, and then you're oom.

On the topic of riftwalking... be careful how you use it. R -> E -> Q or R -> Q -> E may be the generic combo, but do it only when you're sure no one else is around. That cd may be short but at times you'll do the combo only to get stunned/slowed by an unexpected enemy and stare in horror at the rift that seems to be taking forever.

I asked the same question a month ago and a number of people helped, and after watching a couple of videos that Kijik posted I've become a better Kass. Just by being more judicious with my spells, and who I'm targeting, I've been able to survive and get out of situations via riftwalk. Being aggressive is good, but being aggressive in the wrong way is a great way to feed. Just think of all the ******ed Yi's you've seen. lol.

another point: walk / run to the enemy and force pulse, with the aoe area highlighting on to target enemies, instead of rifting in and using it.

null sphere has a longer range than shown. Huh? No really. Rift + Q doubles null sphere's range and those unfamiliar with kassadin don't know it. Use it to harass but don't do it all the time, or else the enemy will know your range is large. Better to save it for that one kill at some point in the game.

slow down enemies chasing your ally with force pulse, but again, don't riftwalk and force pulse. Doing that will shift their attention from your ally to you, and with your rift on cd, you are dead meat.

oh and check out kijik's videos. http://www.livestream.com/kijik

what is your build like? runes? What are some of the situations or games you've played where things didn't go well?

What a really helpful post!! Personally Ive been having some problems with early game. Right now I go catalyst first, boots, mejais and then usually another catalyst. What are your thoughts on builds?

There's a lot of builds to try out, and I can't say which are most effective b/c that's really up to each person, and the individual match itself. However, I can say that I just finished a game getting mejai's early and it was definitely worth it. I think with enough careful play he can keep some stacks early and do much more dmg than if he had gotten RoA immediately. The survivability is nice but w/o the early ap boost of mejai I feel like I play more of a support role than killer.

People have different ways of making kassadin more survivable, whether that's getting merc treads, RoA, the exhaust spell, Rylai's later on, or frozen heart. Having just tried frozen heart I can say it's real nice, and that cd reduction is noticeable.

some of the other funkier items include deathfire grasp and haunting guise, and I have yet to really put them to the test. I'll have to try them all though.

Haunting Guise is pretty good. It's cheap, and provides CD reduction and magic penetration. The health and mana regen are just gravy.
I usually get it after Rod of Ages and Boots of Mobility. After that, my item build really depends on the other team. Frozen Heart is a great item if they're DPS heavy- mana for you for riftwalking and less damage for them. With Frozen Heart (25%), Haunting Guise (10%), and masteries (9%), you should be at the CD reduc cap too.
If either team is magic heavy, I tend to go for an Abyssal Scepter. I know Void Staff may seem more useful, because it gives you mana, AP, and magic penetration. However, only magic resist reduction (like Abyssal and Fiddle's passive) can make an opponent have negative magic resist and Abyssal's aura helps out your team mates. Between Haunting Guise (20), runes (9-ish), and the magic pen mastery (15%), you should be all set for magic penetration. If you're getting pummeled by enemy casters, additional magic resist is more useful than 250 mana because Kassadin's natural resists are pretty ****.

So my item build looks like this:
1) Sapphire Crystal and 2 Health Pots or 1 Mana/1 Health
2) Catalyst
3) Boots of Speed
4) Rod of Ages (the earlier you get it, the better)
5) Boots of Mobility (great for kiting, running away, chasing, and farming)
6) Haunting Guise
7) Abyssal Scepter/Frozen Heart
8) Rylai's/Zhonya's
9) MOAR mana/AP/survivability, but the game should be over by now

I'm not a huge fan of Mejai's because I can't count on it. Yeah, it's cheap AP, but if your team is doing badly, you won't have many stacks. In mid-ELO, your teammates' skill can be a bit of a ****shoot. Additionally, all Mejai's does is AP. Most of the items that I get on Kassadin serve multiple purposes- RoA gives Kassadin everything he needs, Haunting Guise has CD reduc and magic pen, Frozen Heart and Abyssal make you both tougher and more lethal, etc.
However, I'm going to try it later today and see how it goes, because I see a lot of caster champs getting it.

Someone earlier asked about runes and no one has really addressed those, so I'll give it a stab. I have a generic rune page for casters, but it works decently on Kassadin.
Reds-> Magic Penetration
Yellows-> HP/level
Blues-> MP regen/level (they're cheaper and help mid- and end-game when Kass really needs it)*
Purples-> HP

As dovvtempo said, there are a lot of different builds that can work on Kassadin. It all depends on your playstyle. Hope this helps!

i like a super aggressive build:

rush soulstealer, get either sorcerers shoes or boots of mobility, and then build a lich's bane -> zhonya's ring lol. If you actually end up building all of that get like archangel's or nashor's tooth or something lol.

dont need a humongous mana pool if your opponents get obliterated in 4 seconds.

and dont be afraid of buying arcane elixirs

For summoner spells, I prefer either ignite/exhaust, or ignite/clarity.

Ah so there's the build. I remember seeing something similar, if not identical and didn't remember how the build order went. But I'll try it out.

As for runes, mine are the same as yours Hogun, except I've been using quints in ability power (4.5) and the blue in the flat ability power (.9 ap). This is due to the rushing of the build I'm using atm, but I want to see how ap/level in blue works out. The mp regen in blue looks interesting too.

ahh, so much to try out!

check this very in-depth guide to builds by liquidroyl (wasn't it umbrage? I dunno) very good work btw.

http://leaguecraft.com/strategies/gu...Own%20Kassadin

Take a look at Sniperness guide Stacking AP like it's your birthday guide. Helps a lot of Kass players out.

Thanks for all the help guys. As for my build, I usually start out like this:

Sapphire Crystal + 2 Health Potions
Boots 1 or Ruby Crystal (or both)
Catalyst the Protector
Boots 5 or Blasting Wand (whichever the situation deems right)
Rod of Ages
Have fun afterwards, if I have enough, I usually will go Frozen Heart or Lich Bane.

As for my runes, I have all tier 1 runes in Cooldown Reduction at about 9.5% I think.

I only have available right now either a 21/4/0 or 4/0/21 build. I'm level 25 as you can tell.