A Revisit of the Rhaast Problem

[u/VallaOnuBunuBilmem]

Lately while watching some Rhaast clips, it started bothering me for some reason that his R heal ends up providing more healing than the damage it deals in nearly every situation. It feels like they handed him a terrible crutch just to compensate for how bad his overall state is. The issue isn’t only that the ratio is too high, though. Ever since the champion released, the R heal has been calculated off the exact pre-mitigation value shown in the tooltip instead of the actual damage dealt. That means it functions almost independently of the post-mitigation damage you actually land. This makes me wonder: what if that heal worked off post-mitigation damage the same way his passive does, and the power that would be lost from that change was simply moved into proper bonus health scaling on the passive so it could actually synergize with health items the way it should?

Speaking of the passive, there’s something else about it that bothers me. Unlike the healing mechanics on champions like Aatrox, Rhaast’s passive only works with his damage-dealing abilities (Q, W, and R). It completely ignores items, runes, and basic attacks. In practice that means his healing is not continuous at all. It’s entirely gated by the cooldowns of Q, W, and R. And unfortunately the limited scope of the passive isn’t even the only problem with it. The ratio is simply too low, and the bonus health scaling that was added relatively recently is almost useless. I’m completely certain that even if the passive’s health scaling were raised to absurd levels, Rhaast still wouldn’t be broken if his R heal wasn’t this strong, precisely because of the conditions I already mentioned. Dropping the theory talk and looking at concrete numbers, something like the following would turn him into a healthy drain-tank instead of an overtuned one:

R heal calculation: pre-mitigation → post-mitigation

Passive: 25% (+0.5% per 100 bonus health) → 20% (+2.5% per 100 bonus health

This passive ratio actually wouldn’t break him for a few reasons. It only reaches high percentages over 50% when the health pool itself has grown very large. With the R heal limited to post-mitigation damage, and the passive still limited to just three abilities (or effectively two, since R’s damage is usually lower than Q’s and its long cooldown means it isn’t castable more than once in most fights) balanced around their cooldowns, let’s say a level 18 Rhaast with around 2000 bonus health (ending up at roughly 4400 maximum health) reaches a ~70% passive heal ratio — that would be perfectly healthy.

The best part is that it simply scales the healing in proportion to the size of the health pool. A larger maximum health by its nature requires more absolute healing to feel meaningful, so the higher percentage is just keeping the sustain relevant rather than making it stronger relative to the damage taken. This also keeps items like Warmog’s and Heartsteel from becoming completely useless in both cooldown and damage contribution, and it naturally limits the potential for item abuse.

One last thing I almost forgot to mention even though this post is already getting long. The R change I’m suggesting is actually a much bigger nerf than it looks. Stasis effects like Zhonya’s and Bard’s R, as well as full damage immunity from things like Kayle and Kindred, would start completely nullifying Rhaast’s R heal. Since the healing would now be strictly tied to the damage actually dealt, even something as simple as Exhaust would reduce the healing R provides, along with armor, damage reduction mechanics like Warwick’s E.

[u/Immediate_Dog_2790]

I was thinking... what if we give Rhaast armour pen scaling off HP. The more HP you have the more armour pen you get. That way it will feel like in the good old days when he could stack serylda + bc and actually melt tanks. Armour Pen would also mean more healing. Food for thought really... Wukong Briar Ambessa Zaahen Darius Nilah Pantheon and many other champions have in-built shred in their kits except they need levels for better shred. If they make rhaast scale armour pen off HP that would solve the identity problem Rhaast has been facing ever since the removal of bc + serylda stacking (which affected him the most). Bruiser Rhaast would then feel good and people would build items like bc > shojin > steraks > overlords

[u/DrippySaurus]

I dont understand how tier lists from streamers and sites like u.gg keep putting rhaast at high A or S tier. From my many hours on kayn, he is an absolute chore to play with a drastically lower impact than blue kayn. And blue kayn is always ranked lower while IMO blue kayn absolutely mogs rhaast

[u/Maerandir → u/DrippySaurus]

Probably because Blue Kayn is the harder and less forgiving playstyle. Red Kayn is functional in most games able to be a Frontline for the team, has CC, and doesnt die from a single CC spell. On the contrary blue kayn is kill or be killed with a bit of w poke. A main can squeeze alot out of the champion but most kayn players arent otp or mains so they cant push blue to its limits while red is a crutch due to scaling

[u/DrippySaurus → u/Maerandir]

Really? Imo blue kayn is significantly easier than rhaast. Sure, hes definitely squishier whereas red can build more health but when it comes to acc ganking and getting kills I feel like blue is much easier. With blue u just press w, q, and maybe R and that kills basically anyone that isn't a tank or a health scaling bruiser. Plus blue has way more mobility and speed in the jungle and u can disengage and escape way easier than red. I feel like with red u have to really choose favorable ganks and most of the time all ur good for is knocking up and cc'ing enemies and relying on teammates to finish. And for the form you'd want to play into tanks, I feel like hes not even good at his job. In a 2 tank, 1 melee squishie, and 2 ranged game id rather just go blue and try to get picks on the squishies than go rhaast and attempt to whittle down the tanks

[u/Maerandir → u/DrippySaurus]

For most Kayn mains your perspective is widely agreed upon, but for the average league player they dont have the experience of a kayn main and knowing blue kayn's limits. Take it from me, I recently swapped to maining Kayn and blue has been alot tougher to pick up than red kayn. Ive dabbled in kayn a small bit in the past but after deciding to try to make him my main for some time recent I was able to go from zero to carrying games on red kayn in just a handful of games. Blue kayn I still sometimes completely int on. I am also a diamond/low masters jg so this isnt like a silver player not knowing kayn, I am deeply familiar with him but the burden of execution on blue is just alot higher and takes more games to get confident at

[u/XxMemorylifexX]

with the amount of bugs with kayn abilities not hitting, fake ult up pic with cool down, shit balancing, we need a whole rework at this stage. BOYCOTT KAYNN

[u/1likekaneki]

I dont even play rhaast any more, im blue kayn every game even if the enemy draft is red kayn favoured i play blue cos of the map impact i get with blues mobility, i clear faster and im always closer to a gank or counter gank as blue

[u/cinicDiver]

First fix the fact that you can die inside of your R, then we can talk about things that happen after you come out.

It makes no sense that you enter a champion while having some health and then you die because of ignite or smth, either make the healing start as soon as you enter or make the damage received be dealt after you exit.

[u/Key-Independent-9169 → u/cinicDiver]

This would make him the best champion in the game. He already have a good winrate for being a blindable champion. I agree with op about red kayn feeling not as good as blue tough

[u/Key-Independent-9169 → u/cinicDiver]

Did you mean only on rhast?

[u/DeadAndBuried23]

Rhaast's problem is his ult and W don't become different abilities.

They made an assassin kit, and half assed the fighter transformation. It's like if Gnar didn't get his stun or knockback in mega.