I think the real reason why no counterplay assassins are so good atm

FalconPawwwwnch·May 20, 2015·49 votes·5,022 views

Is because if you don't instantly kill a ranged carry you'll never get to them ever, with how amazing the peel options in the game are

If it's not heal it's exhaust If it's not exhaust it's red buff If it's not red buff it's adc dash If it's not adc dash it's Bork If it's not Bork it's Youmuu's If it's not Youmuu's it's Support Peel If it's not Support Peel it's well, if you've survived this long and managed to kill the carry then you'll be nerfed. See old Olaf

Nothing else can touch AD carries unless you're playing something with huge instant burst and little to no animations like Leblanc/Katarina/Zed

Nerfing Assassins won't change anything because normal melee champions can't get without a mile of a ranged AD. If you want other divers to see play again you'll have to nerf the insane amount of peel options in the game

Heal needs its MS buff removed Bork active needs to only work on melee champs Etc

77 Comments

67chromeMay 20, 201531 votes

Nothing else can touch AD carries unless you're playing something with huge instant burst and little to no animations like Leblanc/Katarina/Zed

Katarina and Zed both have some pretty solid counter-play.

Kat's entire strat is throwing her squishy self into the middle of multiple opponents, pressing R, and hoping for the best. Pretty high-risk with plenty of reflexive and tactical ways of dealing with her.

Similar deal with Zed - his ult takes a while to set up and unleash, and you can still utalize reflexive and tactical plays to not die from it. You can dodge his shuriken and slash, you can dodge multiple shurikens and slashes, you can drag him to a sub-optimal position while he's ulting on you, you can play around his set-up. Zed being a prominent pick likely has a lot more to do with Riot feeling he's got a ton of counter-play and allowing him to be a useful pick over anything else.

No counter-play is more pre-silence removal Talon. He instantly appears behind a target from 700 range away, disables all their abilities, items, and summoners, then turns invisible - becoming effectivly untargetable to all point-click mechanics and auto-attacks. All you can do is not get within 700 range of him, then all you can do is move once he attacked.

So - pretty sure it's the exact opposite of:

I think the real reason why no counterplay assassins are so good atm

The key quality of champions like Katarina and Zed is more they do offer reasonable reflexive/tactical counter-play options, so Riot doesn't feel obligated to send them to Evelynn tier. Several assassins are set up in such a way they offer no reflexive/tactical counter-play and are only countered by wide-reaching strategies (counter-build, counter-pick, team-fight formation), so as such Riot nerffed them to a point where it's a total crap-shot if they can actually kill someone when they jump on them. Usually the "balance" of such champions is their lanning phase is awful and they have no solid means of CSing, so the counter-play with them is more preventing them from farming so they can never get to a 100%-->0% point, and unfortunatly most of those assassins either do nothing or jump on someone and hope for the best: making the unreliable and pretty useless if they get behind.

Kat and Zed get to CS well and can do things when behind for having the potential to massively get screwed over mid-combo.

Leblanc I agree with you though. She's awful at CSing and is picked almost exclusively because she can 100%-->0% someone with essentially no warning. limited counter-play is a pretty solid advantage, especially in the hands of a skilled player that can really abuse it. At least she doesn't silence her foes any longer and a double-chain requires some time to fully activate.

Sir YamazukiMay 20, 201511 votes

{quoted}

and both have some pretty solid counter-play.

Kat's entire strat is throwing her squishy self into the middle of multiple opponents, pressing R, and hoping for the best. Pretty high-risk with plenty of reflexive and tactical ways of dealing with her.

Fairly certain that only works against really bad players, I never see Kat's in my games randomly jumping in and praying they get penta kills. I always see them entering the fight after it's already started and people are already low on HP for her to get free resets, and her basic abilities all pop very quickly not allowing much of a response time. I usually win when there's a Kat on my team since I play tank junglers, they always go in and ult while they are cced between me and the support.

OyddAWqJ5rMay 21, 20152 votes

Exactly, Kat's simply wait for awhile until they see an low health enemy and then start their killing spree, popping Zhonya's the moment they take heavy aggro so their team gets some slight psuedo-tanking as well (or dying with a GA).

At least, that's how I play anyway.

Silents429May 21, 20151 votes

As rage inducing as Kat has been for me she is only a problem if you have no CC, or if I play Swain turn my ult on then laugh at her pathetic attempts at damage.

o9y9pcvBhdMay 22, 20151 votes

actually swain isn't that great against her cough cough bullshit grevious wounds cough cough

YOU BEEN WARNEDMay 22, 20152 votes

God forbid kat has a chance excuting a champion without a stun.

I feel sympathetic because most champions are getting delayed skillshot stuns now, giving her some power. But ridiculous instant CCs aren't getting removed from overtuned tank supports that you see every other game Blitzcrank Leona Thresh

So long these bastards are crowned botlane, you just gotta count on them to save a CC for kat in teamfights and she should not be a problem. Katarina should never have been a problem from the start imo.

Loken StoneheartMay 21, 201516 votes

And it has nothing to do with the fact that they instantly kill the ADC/APC and then escape? Or fail, and then escape? Or get ganked, and then escape? Or towerdive, not even get hit by the turret, and then escape? Not at all? Really?

Mandang0May 21, 201511 votes

...in a time when Jinx is super popular, and the list consists of dash, Bork, Youmuus? Seriously?

And, oh yes, the timeless complaint of losing to support peel. Sorry that you can't win 1v2s and sorry that supports get to have SOME impact on the game...

EDIT: Not that I'm defending no-counterplay assassins, but I'd think the reason they're so strong is right there in the name: no counterplay.

YOU BEEN WARNEDMay 21, 20152 votes

Jinx DPS = dead fighter/mage/tank/whatever. What she doesn't have in utility she has in dmg.

Thinking exercise for you: why isn't KogMaw played? He destroys tanks better than Jinx does he not?

Loken StoneheartMay 21, 201511 votes

[{quoted}](name=YOU BEEN WARNED,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3TfZZLsU,comment-id=00050000,timestamp=2015-05-21T02:51:16.688+0000)

Jinx DPS = dead fighter/mage/tank/whatever. What she doesn't have in utility she has in dmg.

Thinking exercise for you: why isn't played? He destroys tanks better than does he not?

Because his escape mechanic is godawful, probably.

YOU BEEN WARNEDMay 21, 20152 votes

So what about Jinx's escape mechanic ? Why is she the one with ridiculous pick rate and winrate ?

Loken StoneheartMay 21, 201510 votes

[{quoted}](name=YOU BEEN WARNED,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3TfZZLsU,comment-id=0005000000000000,timestamp=2015-05-21T04:10:34.140+0000)

So what about Jinx's escape mechanic ? Why is she the one with ridiculous pick rate and winrate ?

Her E is soooooo much more reliable than Kog's really crappy AoE slow.

Also, uptime on range is whenever you want, rather than a window.

Sinister SnailMay 21, 20154 votes

And he may as well not have a passive.

Mandang0May 21, 20156 votes

First, how the hell did this become about damage? The OPs whining about how hard it is to get to the ADC, when the most popular ADC is among the easiest to get on and doesn't use many of the mechanics listed.

Second, is this a trick question? It's because the champ is bad w/o a team around it (talking AD Kog... AP Kog is still fine).

YOU BEEN WARNEDMay 21, 20151 votes

As many people noted before, death is the best CC. All hail long range AoE crits!

Second, why does kog need a team around him? Sure, competitive LoL implies this but the question is: why?

Mandang0May 21, 20152 votes

Death is the best CC. It's super easy to kill an ADC that doesn't use the escapes the OP listed (jinx included).

Come to think of it, your whole fixation on damage would suggest Kog should be better than Jinx, and yet the opposite is true. Why?

YOU BEEN WARNEDMay 21, 20152 votes

Jinx is overtuned, you don't need a genius to answer that question. Check the damage she deals on average per game VS damage kog deals on average per game to compare.

TEEMOcalypseMay 21, 20152 votes

its because nobody knows how to rock him. a good kog with BORK is the bane of everything's existence

TerchioMay 21, 20153 votes

Jinx has a single-target disengage which targets enemies who chase better than those who don't, and has a multi-target root to hold anyone who decides to overcommit. She may not have any instant disengage, but that's what Flash is for. If your support has any CC, she also chains CC better than anyone else, netting her almost certain feed. Jinx has plenty of security, is only lacking in the most extreme of teamfight scenarios, and even has range and crit utility that rivals old Tristana, probably beats it in most scenarios.

Mandang0May 21, 20151 votes

I hope you're not referring to her slow. Ashe has that, Kog has that, all of the least escapable ADCs have that.

As for supports: Sorry you can't win a 1v2. Heaven forbid committing an entire extra player to keeping someone alive actually works.

Back to the actual thread: no-counterplay assassins are actually a problem because they don't have counterplay, and if they ever get nerfed, it'll be for that reason, not because Riot's catering to ADCs or whatever other nonsense people spew to defend no-counterplay champs.

TEEMOcalypseMay 21, 20151 votes

ur right! In the end it's straight up about not having counterplay. Give every champ REASONABLE counterplay, instantly fair and balanced!

AnidanMay 22, 20151 votes

Except, what's considered 'reasonable' for one champion isn't reasonable for another. So how do we define reasonable counterplay? They're currently trying case by case basis and that isn't working, so what's the next idea?

metaworldpeace10May 21, 20157 votes

To play devils advocate here.. Assassins are supposed to be "bad" teamfighters. Most assassins look for small skirmishes in the jungle, then a continued march on the remaining enemy players. So, all of these points made about peel options for ADCs are fine. Without these options, assassins will stomp over everyone.

Champion SkinMay 21, 20152 votes

Well Assassins are usually pretty insane in small fights or 1v1 of course Zed is the most extreme example as his ult is just insane in a 1v1 if you have no way to counter it (except against tanks though the tanks usually don't have the mobility or the damage to be able to kill the Assassin in a 1v1)

MrBuffingtonMay 20, 20154 votes

None of the peel options you listed are particularly new; I'm surprised you didn't mention the existence of a tank line. I don't know if your theory holds too much water, though; Sure an assassin will destroy an ADC, but assassins don't do crap against tanks (unless ungodly fed). Moreover, peel is meant to disrupt diving champions like an assassin; the instant burst isn't much of a factor if the assassin can't get in range or is permanently locked up or is unable to find openings to attack because of all the tanks. This is basically how EDG handled Faker's LeBlanc, which is the assassin of all assassins.

BakedLotionMay 21, 20152 votes

{quoted}

None of the peel options you listed are particularly new; I'm surprised you didn't mention the existence of a tank line. I don't know if your theory holds too much water, though; Sure an assassin will destroy an ADC, but assassins don't do crap against tanks (unless ungodly fed). Moreover, peel is meant to disrupt diving champions like an assassin; the instant burst isn't much of a factor if the assassin can't get in range or is permanently locked up or is unable to find openings to attack because of all the tanks. This is basically how EDG handled Faker's LeBlanc, which is the assassin of all assassins.

Zed shreds all if not most of a tank's armor because of his itemization, and theoretically, if he focuses the tank, the death mark pop will do massive dmg

MrBuffingtonMay 21, 20151 votes

Amumu shreds tanks due to his passive as well. The difference I'm making here is that Zed doesn't pop a tank, and for the most part, the tank will lock Zed up and Zed will just die. Honestly, having an assassin focus the tank is pretty much a best case scenario for the tank's team; the tank will survive (unless incredibly behind), and Zed will be without cooldowns and basically useless. Sure, in a 1v1, Zed will probably win (eventually. The most common scenario I see, though, is that both end up just walking away since neither can kill the other); Zed is one of the strongest 1v1 champions in the game, that's one of the reasons he's relegated to splitpushing later in the game, since he's really difficult to duel. I'm talking about teamfights, though, and with tanks, it's significantly more difficult for assassins to function.

jDVL20eCYsMay 22, 20151 votes

Diana is the only mid laner that beat zed 1 vs 1 equal fed if she buy zhonya and nashor, also fizz. Other that can win is irelia, jax, nasus, trynd, fiora, urgot

DrukyulMay 20, 20154 votes

Not just the peel, but the lifesteal. If the ADC is alone with 1 minion wave or jungle camp, they're instantly back up to full HP (actually even more, thanks to BT)

TreyenMay 21, 20154 votes

no counterplay assassins are good because they have no counterplay.....duh

SinlaireMay 21, 20153 votes

play below gold and half of that doesnt matter. just wait for them to fall into a shitty position half the time and they're yours. as a supp and jungle main its so true it hurts. adc dies all damn day due to who knows what and its "wtf where were you guys?"

"uh.... not running through the enemy jungle alone?" or "oh. right. not diving 1v3. my bad on that one. 2v3 would have certainly worked."

NullDragonMay 21, 20153 votes

So... it's the lack of counterplay?

Yeah that sounds about right. Assassins with a lack of counterplay are OP right now because of a lack of counterplay.

Cloud PotatoMay 21, 20152 votes

Yes there is a ridiculous amount of things that prevent ADCs from becoming a smear on the ground. That's because they die so easily without any of them. It's a conscious design choice that I too dislike but we're stuck with it. But removing counterplay is not the answer, as that's how we got the 'Bruiser problem' as well as mobility creep: trying to fix the symptoms of a problem rather than tackling the problem itself, the problem here being that ADC survivability is allowed to be binary whereas every other type of champion gets to buy items with defenses on them without becoming useless.

Champion SkinMay 21, 20152 votes

It would also be nice if there were more options for DPS against towers/objectives/Tanks Like as it is now you need an ADC there is no way around it

Well the only champion which even comes close is Cassiopeia though she is a bit lacking when it comes to taking towers and taking objectives can be a bit more risky as it will likely use a lot of Cassiopeias mana

MalzaharAnyLaneMay 22, 20152 votes

Heal never should have gotten a movespeed buff to be honest since it obviates Ghost, but Heal doesn't see play without the movespeed buff so it's a catch-22, it's either too good at baiting all-ins and requires ignite to seal a kill, or it doesn't get used.

That being said, I have no particular opinion about peel one way or the other, I either play zone control APC's that don't peel without massive tells in advance or Fiora who has only as much trouble as Zed making plays and deep dives on ADC's and generally can't be kited, the ADC's themselves or non-traditional supports.

I think the biggest problem isn't the peel per se, it's Flash and the fact that Riot's slowly designed themselves into a corner for years allowing too many get out of jail free cards for poor positioning. Flash was fine as a playmaking tool but never properly got it's escape utility stripped. If you started by preventing it from flashing over walls and dropping the range again, it would help, but it really just needs to go away completely.

disregardableMay 20, 20151 votes

Which is why Riot is and has been heavily nerfing DPS ADCs. Ratio ADCs had to be nerfed in the Assassin meta, now DPS ADCs need to be nerfed in the tank meta. Eventually there just won't be ADCs anymore.

DisasterSolaMay 20, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=The AFK Farmer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3TfZZLsU,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-05-20T20:24:50.579+0000)

Which is why Riot is and has been heavily nerfing DPS ADCs. Ratio ADCs had to be nerfed in the Assassin meta, now DPS ADCs need to be nerfed in the tank meta. Eventually there just won't be ADCs anymore.

DPS ADCs dont exist... Do you not realize that crit, with 200 AD, makes every single champion in the game hit harder, faster, and longer than a burst mage?

And with the ASP cap being raised.... Its beyond easy to get 2.5asp and 300AD with 50% crit.

rampaging poetMay 20, 20153 votes

Not new Ashe! She can't crit normally, so she is the only true DPS carry in the game.

But yeah, critical strike damage is so good that on-hit and high-AD builds just can't compete. Almost as bursty as a burst mage with no control over who gets burst and who gets DPS'd because critical hits are just so exciting.

YOU BEEN WARNEDMay 22, 20151 votes

Plz don't remove my crit I'm srs.

item 3070 Gangplank Tryndamere Yasuo

Take it off ranged champions :[

rampaging poetMay 22, 20152 votes

I would never remove crit entirely. I wouldn't mind seeing more flattened crit damage kind of like what Ashe has now, or semi-flattened where half the damage is sustained and half the damage is random burst because it would reduce ADC burst while increasing sustained damage.

I'd rather have some kind of non-crit on-hit effect added that scales multiplicatively like crit does than remove crit. The main reason crit can't be flat-out removed is that it's an important part of offence outscaling defence late-game. Since none of the on-hit items scale into the late game as well as crit chance does, they're only useful for auto-attacking fighters.

That, and I love GP and Tryn as well. :)

aaronconlinMay 22, 20151 votes

{quoted}

DPS ADCs dont exist... Do you not realize that crit, with 200 AD, makes every single champion in the game hit harder, faster, and longer than a burst mage?

And with the ASP cap being raised.... Its beyond easy to get 2.5asp and 300AD with 50% crit.

It's being raised?

DisasterSolaMay 22, 20151 votes

{quoted}

It's being raised?

It used to be 2.0 as the hard cap.

YOU BEEN WARNEDMay 22, 20151 votes

... It was 2.5 ever since I joined season 2.

You're probably feeling they do more damage/attackspeed because of patch 4.10. Look it up, it should have never happened; so many horrifying things happened those patches I wish they would be erased from my memory.

AkesgerothMay 21, 20151 votes

It was a joke before assassins were made viable that carries started strong and ended invincible.

Either way, marksmen aren't the issue, it's armor and magic penetration. Marksmen don't need to be able to delete tanks with 5 seconds of auto-attacking while healing back all the damage they take through lifesteal. Nerf penetrations and suddenly assassins are very weak against tanks and fighters while remaining just as effective against mages, supports, marksmen and other assassins.

"But", you say, "what do I do if the enemy is stacking armor and MR?"

Well, you deal with it. "But everything needs a counter!" you say. Okay, where's my counter to penetration stats? No, not everything needs a counter. That kind of thinking just ends up in an arms race. Remove penetration stats then adjust damage accordingly. Doing this is the key to balancing the assassin/tank/marksman trifecta.

TMITMay 21, 20152 votes

If you remove armor/magic pen, what kills tanks? Nothing kills tanks. And thus 5x tanks will win, because even though their damage is piss-poor they'll still be doing more than is dealt to them.

Tanks are already something an ADC should only be attacking if they can't get close enough to hit literally anything else on the enemy team without being assassinated/focused.

BluePolarizerMay 22, 20151 votes

No, you counterpick.

The best counterpicks to Nasus aren't in top lane, but in bot lane: Kalista Vayne KogMaw

Also GL trying to win against Jax MasterYi Irelia Darius Tryndamere Hecarim as tanks; they facetank all your initial burst, then you are left with tanks mediocre sustained damage, vs. their insanely high sustained damage.

Then you have the sustained damage mages who eat tanks for breakfast. Anivia Cassiopeia Azir

IcyPepperMay 21, 20153 votes

Marksmen don't need to be able to delete tanks with 5 seconds of auto-attacking while healing back all the damage they take through lifesteal.

Yet adc mains complain about how they can't break even with item 3075 with lifesteal.

Somehow they fail to realize that's the point.

AkesgerothMay 21, 20151 votes

It is. Thornmail is nothing but armor and the passive, making it a very specialized item. Getting it will cripple your other stats; you should only build it if the entire enemy team does physical damage or if you're an armor scaler like Malphite or Rammus. If Thornmail winds up being OP once armor pen is removed, then they can nerf that.

Same for that guy complaining that tanks would kill marksmen without armor pen: No, they wouldn't. And if they did, the answer would be to nerf THEIR damage.

The devs need to start removing counters to counters. Counters to counters, if they exist, should be extremely situational, not part of a standard build for an entire class of champions.

HullabelugaMay 21, 20151 votes

Actually, marksmen are supposed to delete tanks. That is literally their job. You don't want your squishy marksman moving in to range of the enemy front line abilities to attack the enemy back line, you want them to stand at the edges and whittle down their entire team. The reason they do so much sustained dps is so that something can kill tanks, otherwise nothing would be able to except for marksman-like mages with sustained dps like kayle and cassiopia.

Assuming a team lineup with an assassin mid, top bruiser, jungle tank, support with peel, and almost any marksman you want your bruiser to try and dive to the back while your tank and support hold off the enemies front line tanks/bruisers without mobility to move around them, and move back to cover the fragile adc behind them if they do have someone who is capable of getting past the front line. The entire time this goes on your adc has one job, attack the closest enemy champion with priorities for immediate threat to their own champions life.

This being said, the amount of damage some adc's do to late game tanks is disgusting....but those adc's are classified as hyper carries for a reason and if you are versus one of them you should have not let the game drag on to that point in the first place.

AkesgerothMay 21, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Actually, marksmen are supposed to delete tanks. That is literally their job.

Okay, I'm going to say it: I don't know who started this, but this is bullshit. The job of marksmen is to kill EVERYTHING once you hit late game. Not tanks specifically. In fact, the one purpose of tanks is to have a big guy in front who can initiate without dying instantly, meaning that if marksmen can delete tanks then tanks are fucking useless. The only thing which should be able to kill to a marksman one-on-one late game is an assassin (which is the entire point of that role BTW) or an opposing marksman. But in a team fight, it is essential for the tank to be able to, you know, tank. What happens if the tank can't do that? Well, then the marksman deletes the tank and so can kill everything else with ease. What happens if the marksman can do that? Well, that means assassins need to be powerful enough to kill that bullshit. Are you seeing where I'm going with this or do you not yet understand where all our trouble stems from?