u/FeelThePain939

Hey everyone,

Riot Endstep recently made another Q&A (a few hours ago), where he happened to address K'Sante's AD scalings and whether there could be a realistic chance if they could be brought back in the future (breakdown in the video starts at 44:10)

Now, these are all for those who don't want to watch the video.

To begin with, he noted that release K'Sante had actual AD ratios on his abilities, and All Out gave him raw AD based on his resistances. Now, he scales purely off defensive stats, and All Out acts as a direct damage multiplier (lower Q CD, bonus true damage on W).

Endstep then stated that the most dangerous thing for K'Sante’s game health is a full tank champion being able to 100-to-0 or heavily burst a squishy target in a single CC combo. The current kit forces his damage to be sustained DPS rather than burst, which is intentional. He isn't fundamentally against adding AD ratios back as an experiment. However, if they did it, he would look exclusively at the Passive and the Q. Because these are sustained, target-agnostic DPS tools, they wouldn't accidentally buff his burst potential against squishies. While adding AD ratios is great for fun off-builds or giving K'Sante more surface area to interact with item systems and alternative modes (like Arena/Mayhem augments), Endstep feels the overall value of doing this is incredibly small compared to the structural risk to his balance.

Last but not least, a major concern is what happens if AD ratios make items like Sundered Sky, Overlord's Bloodmail, or Death's Dance viable on him. K'Sante’s core identity relies on a strict trade-off. You build full defense, and you only get to trade those defenses for offense by pressing R. Buying raw damage items completely ruins that gameplay loop.

Would y'all want to see AD ratios return strictly on the Passive or Q if it meant a slight nerf to our baseline damage, just to open up item choices like Sundered Sky or Bloodmail? Or do y'all think keeping him locked out of the AD item system is healthier for the long-term state of the champion?

I’ll admit it. When this game dropped and the internet was flooded with pure hate, I blindly assumed the entire thing was a dumpster fire. But looking back, it feels like the majority of those people only saw or played the campaign, jumped on the backlash, and completely ignored everything else.

I finally gave it a fair shot, and tbh, I’ve been enjoying the absolute shit out of Multiplayer and Zombies. The campaign is a different story, yes, but the round-based Zombies feels like a big return to form, and MP is way more solid than people give it credit for.

But what truly saved the entire experience for me is the Black Ops Classic mode. Stripping away the omnimovement, wall jumping and sliding, and just letting us play old-school boots-on-the-ground CoD is a huge W. It brings back that classic BO2 feel, and BO2 is one of my favourite CoDs. And I don't necessarily hate the MP with the omnimovement and allat, it's just not the preferable type of movement for me. I think it was done pretty nicely overall.

Also, I feel like the soundtracks are a massive improvement, especially compared to MWII and MWIII. For me, music plays a massive role in building a game's atmosphere, and I think Treyarch nailed it this year. Sitting in the MP lobby listening to its soundtrack (Embrace the Madness, not the Adrenaline remix) gives me chills. I'm just glad they're not as bad as MWII and MWIII's soundtracks, which I personally found disappointing and generic.