Assassins

The thigh guy·Nov 27, 2018·3 votes·1,373 views

Okay what is the downside to assassins now? They all have sustain now so their lanes are easy as shit

They all get wave clear because they gotta keep up with them mages

They get tank stats because “how are we suppose to assassin if we get assassind first :(“

They have stupid mobility because “but I can’t grt out after I kill someone :(“

Seriously? Where is the weakness to them? Positioning? Too bad vision got gutted so now that doesn’t work. (Not to mention duskblade)

Can’t play tanks into them because armor is a worthless stat.

The only way to reliably beat them is to play assassins yourself.

The counterplay to something should not be “can’t beat em, join em.”

11 Comments

ArylideNov 27, 20182 votes

You're not focusing on the right thing. Assassins are by design supposed to kill a target. Very few are designed with multiple kills in mind, and they lose their escape because of that. Katarina and talon show this. What you should be focusing on is: Assassins kill priority targets, mages kill everybody. Sure a Zed can overkill the adc, but ori can get a good ulti off on mal or by herself and aoe kill the mid, jg, and adc. Lets not even talk about how mages outrange most champs in the game, or that their itemization makes them inherently tankier than all but tanks and bruisers. You shouldn't win a one on one with assassins, but you should win the teamfight against them unless they know how to take out the right target or get ahead early. As for the waveclear argument, have you seen the new minion changes? if you don't have a mage or an adc holding down the fort, super minions are going to absolutely tear your base apart.

The thigh guyNov 27, 20181 votes

Are you really trying to argue that talon and zed don’t have wave clear? As for they can only delete one person. No that’s not true and you know it. Their cooldowns are so low they pop in, kill someone, wait 2 seconds pop back in and kill another.

Team fighting doesn’t work because they get free tank stats and their damage is repeatable now.

Hard cc doesn’t work because qss and free artificial tank stats on assassin items.

And you know the difference between most mages who can aoe down a team and an assassin who can aoe down a team? Mages aren’t hyper mobile. If they make a mistake, they die. If a talon makes 83 mistakes and burns all his summoners, he still gets out because of his insane mobility.

You CANT punish them.

Just MonikhaNov 30, 20181 votes

Example of inherance tankiness : The Viktor toplane Gauntlet first item, the rush roa tabis (not counting archangel shield + Shield or exhaust sum spell) And with Zhonya Exhaust combo they can easily win the 1v1 even if it s midgame

deadlychuckNov 27, 20181 votes

Assassins have never had any true counters. Yeah they're kinda dampened by hard CC from tanks, but most of that's attached to skillshots so that they're not overbearing on other champions, but assassin's mobility also significantly reduces the chances of getting hit by those.

Really just looking at the assassin fantasy that riot has described, there isn't a downside... by design. They're supposed to be flashy play makers that have a near infinite skill ceiling by trading all defense for dual purpose binary mechanics. What I mean by "binary mechanics" are mechanics which don't just reduce the damage, but completely prevent receiving enemy mechanics/damage, so things like stealth, mobility, or fiora's parry (yes technically not an assassin, but I never said binary mechanics were exclusive). People talk about damage being a result of everyone building pure damage... well it's caused by these fuckers literally having their defense subsidized with such binary mechanical power.

You can't build defense because offense scales better, but thanks to assassins having no pressure to purchase defense (when they can just mitigate via evasion), they just build pure damage, which means you're wasting your time building defense as a squishier target, because any defense you purchase is just going to slow your scaling down and have very little impact on your ability to survive against any assassin that did exactly what an assassin is intended to do, buy PURE damage.

Just MonikhaNov 30, 20181 votes

AD assassins have one counter and it s called everything in this game except vision because actual vision is bad af

deadlychuckDec 1, 20181 votes

By the same token, AD assassin have no counters, if they aren't substantially disadvantage against "everything in this game"... Which they aren't as a result of the AD focused balance of the game, which means when marksmen or juggernauts get an offensive itemization buff the AD assassins are quick to pounce on it too.

Just MonikhaDec 4, 20181 votes

Riot atm only wants to buff AP again and again to the point they re just gods (which is already the case), especially that s why the best botlane atm is Zyra + a mage, mid is AP vs AP match up in like 95% of the cases and otherwhise it s AP vs AD, you have Gragas, Nidalee, Evelynn and Elise as top playrate and with an above 50% winrate for 3 of them and partially why Viktor is the highest playrate in toplane with also 51% winrate

deadlychuckDec 5, 20181 votes

Viktor is the highest playrate toplane, because he fell into a particualr niche. He's decently tanky with an on-hit effect and a unique damage item. This is a result of kelpto, tank itemization, and his particular design... not AP.

As well, 9/10 of the most picked champions are not AP, and i could exclude viktor from that list for the previously explained reason, but I'll be generous.

Outside of that you get LB at 15, then Grag, Nid, Elise, Kass, and Liss being the first rep as an actual mage style instead of more an assassin one... then lux at 28, zoe at 33... I've made my point. (I skipped akali, because her ban rate makes it pretty obvious that's nothing to do with her primary stat...)

AP isn't broken, most champions people are playing are AD. However, because of this, and the fact that AP tends to result in scaling magic damage. It's advantageous for a team to have someone who scales well with AP, but that doesn't mean that it's advantageous for a champion to be AP.

Every AP champion would see a massive buff, if they were to remove all AP from the game and replace all scaling with AD. However, if they were to do the converse of that and convert all magic damage into physical damage. You'd probably never see a competitively picked AP champion again. Yeah you might see some who are extremely safe or overloaded, but again those weren't really being picked for being AP in the first place. Take away their magic damage, and you've pretty much taken away the only reason to have an AP scaling champion on your team.

Just MonikhaNov 30, 20181 votes

"They al have sustain" Shaco ? Zed ? Talon ? Kayn ? Leblanc ? Katarina ? Fizz ? Diana (if considered as an assassin) ?

"They all have wave clear" : Rengar ? Shaco ?

"They get tank stats because “but I can’t grt out after I kill someone :(“" : Maybe because they re melee champions for most of them and melee champions deserve more tank stats because they arn t ranged champions ?

"They have stupid mobility" : How would you assassinate if you can t moove ? Seriously xD

Vision : You re right about this point Riot is stupid with all those vision nerfs, bring back old vision system with pinkward revealing stealth and for God sake DELETE DUSKBLADE I, as an AD assassin main, i m SERIOUSLY bored to rely only on 1 fkn item and if i do not rush it i become instant useless whole game because i have no fkn AD scaling (except when it comes to Kha'Zix but it s the only one), it s really horrible, Shaco for example go straight Trini after Draktarr only cuz it s an on hit item with cdr on, imagine an assassin that normaly scales with AD spending 3733 gold for 25 AD, isn t it ridiculous ?

"Armor is a worthless stat" : It have a lot of example countering this argument, for example a Varus with only Ninja tabis that tanked Nocturne full burst by taking only midlife and the list goes on, i really think you never ever tryed to build at least one armor item to counter AD assassin (or maybe once but i was when you were already behind + was your 4th item). But one think i can agree is that mr is a useless stat because of Void Staff Rabadon combo

"The only way to reliably beat them is to play assassins yourself" : I don t think it was pro players opinion this world, even Kha'Zix wasn t picked these Worlds and Nocturne wasn t played as an assassin but as a "bruiser".

The thigh guyDec 1, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Just Monikha,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=0RYAoanG,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-11-30T11:27:20.768+0000)

"They al have sustain" Shaco ? Zed ? Talon ? Kayn ? Leblanc ? Katarina ? Fizz ? Diana (if considered as an assassin) ?

"They all have wave clear" : Rengar ? Shaco ?

"They get tank stats because “but I can’t grt out after I kill someone :(“" : Maybe because they re melee champions for most of them and melee champions deserve more tank stats because they arn t ranged champions ?

"They have stupid mobility" : How would you assassinate if you can t moove ? Seriously xD

Vision : You re right about this point Riot is stupid with all those vision nerfs, bring back old vision system with pinkward revealing stealth and for God sake DELETE DUSKBLADE I, as an AD assassin main, i m SERIOUSLY bored to rely only on 1 fkn item and if i do not rush it i become instant useless whole game because i have no fkn AD scaling (except when it comes to Kha'Zix but it s the only one), it s really horrible, Shaco for example go straight Trini after Draktarr only cuz it s an on hit item with cdr on, imagine an assassin that normaly scales with AD spending 3733 gold for 25 AD, isn t it ridiculous ?

"Armor is a worthless stat" : It have a lot of example countering this argument, for example a Varus with only Ninja tabis that tanked Nocturne full burst by taking only midlife and the list goes on, i really think you never ever tryed to build at least one armor item to counter AD assassin (or maybe once but i was when you were already behind + was your 4th item). But one think i can agree is that mr is a useless stat because of Void Staff Rabadon combo

"The only way to reliably beat them is to play assassins yourself" : I don t think it was pro players opinion this world, even Kha'Zix wasn t picked these Worlds and Nocturne wasn t played as an assassin but as a "bruiser".

Sustained. The only one who doesn’t inheriently build some kind of healing is zed. Talon has his q. Kat fizz and lb all rush gunblade. Kayn has his e which heals him. And the other all build ravenous.

Wave clear. See Tiamat.

No. Being melee is not a disadvantage to them because they are hypermobile. Being melee is irrelevant when you have 3 gap closers, 2 dashes and a root.

Armor is worthless. A 700 armor gets shredded down to under 200 when black cleaver, lord dominiks and lethality is brought into the equation. Black cleaver is in EVERY game. So by default it’s 24% less effective.

For the 100 millionth time. Pro play and average play are two entirely different scenes. Ryze is strong af in pro play. Yet garbage tier in average play. Gnar was god tier in pro play, and absolutely trash in average play. The “he never saw pro play” argument is invalid when the average player base is involved.

Just MonikhaDec 2, 20181 votes

Sustain : Complains about asssassins having sustain while every champion in the game have sustain
Waveclear : Complains about AD champions having to build a 1k2 gold item to be as relevent as other characters in terms of waveclear, that says all about you level of stupidity bro.
Hypermobility : Complains about hypermobility while close to all those spells are spells with high cd + not maxed in first or ultimate AND complains about hypermobility while there is litteraly 141 CC caused only by champions (note that 1 spell can have different ccs or same CC applied several times)
Armor : Complains that armor is worthless while all melee champions rush Ninja Tabis, all AD champions have GA, all AP Champions have Zhonya, armor is omnipresent in the game, complains about Black Cleaver being seen everywhere while there is 7/50 = 14% of the most played champions rush Black Cleaver as a core item, 1 of those 7 (which means 2% of the most played champions) is an assassin (and is under 50% playrate) and 4 of those 7 champions (8% of the most played champions) have at least 50% winrate, no one in midlane btw. Lets compare with armor item then with Zhonya since it s one of the best counter to assassins in general but especially to AD assassins. Armor pickrate : 31/50 = 62% of the most played champions build armor, so i don t think armor is a "useless stat", 10/10 on toplane which makes armor omnipresent in the toplane, 7/10 build armor as core build in the jungler but the 3 exceptions build Ga after so it doesn t matter, 7/10 build armor as a core build on the midlane (and the 3 others rush GA after), 1/10 rushes armor as a core build on ADC but hey it s ADC so they will all have a GA and 7/10 have armor as a core build as support but the others will rushes armor items like Solari and Knight's Vowi just after (except Pyke, he will rush GA) Zhonya pickrate : 13/50 = 26% of the most played champions, litteraly 1 most played champion on 4 have a Zhonya, 0% pickrate in toplane but it s obvious since they re most tanks and bruisers, 3/10 = 30% in the jungle (litteraly 100% of the mages range jungle) and anyone of them is under 50% winrate, 7/10 = 70% pickrate on the midlane which is just ridiculous at this point and only one under 50% winrate (strange it s Leblanc which is an assassin), 0% pickrate as ADC but it s obvious since it s mostly AD champions, 2/10 = 20% pickrate as support and 1 is under 50% winrate (morgana, strange she doesn t use aftershock unlike fiddlesticks that s probably why). And after this you re able to say that "armor is worthless", nice one. Let s also compare with MR rush, 7/50 champion uses to rush mr, 2 as toplaners which are only tanks and 5 as supports because they rush Solary which also gives armor.Btw no need to explain that 7 is almost the half of 13 so yes MR is worthless.
Proplayers : They just do the same build and runes than soloQ players, your argument is already half invalid, also they mostly pick champions also broken in soloQ, sure there are some exceptions such as Ryze, Kalista and Azir who are champions too much team reliant but you mostly see the same champions in soloQ and in pro play.

Come back with better arguments not pseudo arguments you use as a masochist to get screwed just after :/

Source of those playrates : OP.GG KOR