I'm gathering opinions and such from all of the "KZ first impressions thread" and testing them here and there to see what works.

So far i've determined that the tanky Tri force build is inadequate (played a couple games with it as well as played against several KZ's running the build.). His bases are too low, doesn't benefit much from the AP from sheen and doesn't benefit at all from the attack speed.

NO Infinity edge, not good as his Q does not crit. Q is your main source of damage. If you wanted to go more auto attacker AD KZ then yes but this is not that build.

NO Black Cleaver, Last whisper gives AD, more armor pen against opponents with >100 armor (which is almost always all of them).

So What does my end build look like? (in theory)

Ionian (as an ad caster/assassin you need CDR. these can be replaced with mercs against heavy CC/AP teams.)
Bruta/g.blade. (Bruta gives the stats you need, upgrade to g.blade much later)
phage/mallet OR entropy. (Mallet if you're being focused a lot and need the hp, entropy if your game is even or you're fed)
hexdrinker/maw (necessary)
Last Whisper (as with any ad caster, arpen and AD)
Glacial/FH OR FoN (usually you'll get glacial for the CDR as well as the armor. FoN if the enemy team is primarily AP.)

Level Order. R>Q>W>E
Evolution Order E>Q>W/R

Q is your primary nuke and is for this reason maxxed first. No exceptions.
W is a good ranged poke and helps with interrupting caps. The mana cost gets kinda hefty so you're not going to spam this until you're actively assassinating someone in melee range (for the heal)
E is your escape, don't use it to engage unless it's evo'd and you're GOING to get a kill by using your E-W-Q combo.
R is good for chasing, escaping, dueling. Just be aware that on capture points that are neutral or enemy owned, they will see you. Same goes for the storm shrine. I can't tell you how often i'm seeing people stealth into the turrets thinking they're being sneaky and they aren't.

Evoing order.

E is evo'd first just because it's necessary. Longer range leap as well as a reset on kill/assist makes you an extremely slippery assassin.

Q is next always for the bonus damage and bonus range. The range is noticeably larger and can make the difference between a kill and an enemy getting away in some cases. NOTE: People think the bonus damage is based on total or bonus HP and it's not. it's based off of missing HP. Making it an execute like Lee's second Q activation. For this reason it means (once it'd evo'd) your combo should be W>Q always to maximize the amount of damage it's doing.

W I evo this at 16 if the enemy team is very kitey or very good at dodging. The slow is invaluable when ganking and the extra missiles can help stop entire groups from capping a point on a relatively low cooldown at max rank with CDR.

R I evo this when the enemy team has a lot of damage i may find myself wanting to avoid (karthus/fiddle/darius/jayce/etc/etc).

Always adapt to your enemy team and build/level accordingly. There is no one set way to play a champ and if you run the same build in the same order every game, you're going to lose more often than win.


I'm taking advice/criticism for my build and tweaking/altering before publishing a guide on solomid and DD.

Evolve W before Q. The poke from fog is godlike.

The math on black cleaver is about an order of magnitude more complex than you make it out to be (surprising fact: ADCs with non-physical onhits like Kog, Corki, and Vayne are pretty much always more benefitted by more AS over arpen), but because of how spell focused Kha'Zix is, I agree with your conclusion in this case.

Re Evolution: I think Riot did a fantastic job with this, since there are compelling reasons to evolve each skill and which get evolved and what order are incredibly different based on the player. Personally, I evolve W and E situationally, favoring W first because of how powerful the ranged slow is.

You say Q is his primary source of damage... well, TriForce adds an estimated 165 + 48 = 213 to every Q at level 18. The next most powerful non-armor-pen item to increase Q damage is Sanguine Blade, which adds 96 damage to the opening Q, and during a long fight where you achieve max stacks, to a penultimate, crushing, monstrous maximum of... 152. So if your focus is on Q for your damage... why you'd skip TriForce in favor of... anything else, really... is a bit of a mystery to me. The attack speed and AP may not be ideal on it, but they're not completely wasted either, and even if they didn't exist it would still be a decent item, if not cost efficient... with them, it adds more total damage than any other item by *far*, barring armor pen under the proper conditions, for a reasonable cost effectiveness considering all the utility bells and whistles. You also get supra-boot movement speed as a part of the package, which is fantastically valuable, and appears no where in your build.

Cost effectiveness can be argued, but seeing as you suggest as a possible alternative Entropy, which while costing nearly as much adds literally less half the damage output as TriForce, no supra-boot movement speed, no boosted mana pool, the same slow proc and the same health boost with only the addition of the active... well... it just comes across as TriForce hate, rather than practicality.

Triforce doesn't add damage to Kha'zix Q, Q is not an on-next hit autoattack ability. You have to Q then auto repeatedly, which is not guaranteed. Please do your research.

@Goronok

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u should rename ur thread title

Why?

This is pretty much the build I've been doing while doing well, have you tried at tankier atmallet build?

I kinda-sorta got one working, it's probably like tank fizz - works if your team can't keep the angry bruisers off you, but not really playing to the champ's strengths. Still made me giggle tho.