Riot introduced K’Sante in League Patch 12.21 as a new addition for players to learn new mechanics and a new champion in the game.
K’Sante is expected to be an excellent addition to the top lane as a bruiser. His kit focuses on being a bruiser while providing damage in order to compete with the top lane carriers.
His powers concentrate mostly on long fights since he has a lot of CC. All of these skills combine to make K’Sante an ultimate tank bruiser capable of holding his own in the top lane and outplaying his opponents. But is that really the case?
K’Sante is the worst new champion in League
After being released on the live servers, Riot received multiple complaints about K’Sante kit and playstyle. Even before his initial debut, Riot even had to substantially buff the champion following players’ feedback on Reddit.
The feedback was mostly “underwhelming” and “worthless”, making Riot buffing in no time. The following are the changes on PBE:
Dauntless Instinct (P)
- Passive % max HP: 1/1.25/1.5 at levels 1/6/11 -> 1/1.33/1.66/2 at levels 1/6/11/16
Ntofo Strikes (Q)
- Q Damage tank scaling: 50% AD -> 40% AD + 30% AR/MR + 5 base
All Out (R)
- All Out AD conversion: AR/MR to AD 22.5% -> 32.5%
However, even after the buffs, K’Sante still doesn’t feel strong at all. According to League statistics OP.GG, the Pride of Nazumah currently has the lowest win rate in the game with only 41.5%, even though his pick rate is relatively high: 8.02%.
So why is K’Sante so bad? The main problem probably lies around his kit. The champion is not as tanky as other tank champions in the game while also dealing less, or even 0 damage. And, while his kit revolves around CC-abilities, those are never strong/ reliable CCs like Ornn’s knock up or Zac’s stun.
Players have already begun to criticize him on Reddit as a rather bad champion upon release.
“His base form deals absolutely 0 damage, the Q range is kinda bad and the hitbox is so paper thin.” “All of his animations feel extremely clunky and slow and they don’t mesh together at all, it makes all of his actions extremely predictable.”
“He has no Range on spells his gap closers (W / E) dont close “gap”. He has no Damage and he is Not Tanky.”
Hopefully, Riot will look into account and will make some adjustments to the champion as at this state of the game, K’Sante is entirely unplayable.