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An interesting thought: Tanky Assassins are inevitable

TehNACHO··181 votes·7,705 views
  • Consider the primary role of an Assassin: nuke a defenseless (in terms of stats/items anyway) carry through unrelenting Burst Damage and shift team fights in your team's favor by eliminating the enemy team's likely damage source.
  • Next, notice just how easily a Carry explodes to Burst Damage. Leave a Talon next to a Twitch and just try to clock in how quickly Twitch's health plummets.
  • Okay, how do we balance that? Make Talon's base damage garbage and become item reliant through decent scalings and you have the binary "Feast or Famine" problem that Riot and the Community usually looks down on. Usually, anyway. I see all you guys in the back that complain about winning lane but losing game.
  • Well we better avoid that. Make Talon's base damage solid-ish so he'd still be reasonably not useless while behind. Great, now he's hard to put down and a hell of a monster when ahead. Better peel back that scaling a bit.

"Look guys, we just made a pretty balanced Assassin champion that can kill Carries through his solid base damage so he isn't Feast or Famine. In order to make sure he isn't totally obnoxious, we peeled back his scaling a bit. Now we expect him to build squishy burst damage and-oh god why is he building Tank."

Honestly I really don't know why people haven't noticed this before. Most Assassins are balanced to help avoid Feast or Famine, aka the skewed Base to Ratio ratio that is common. It's not actually that hard to kill a carry through raw firepower without even needing to stack that many damage items (see Juggernauts and Juggernaut-like Bruisers that Carry mains love to complain about). Why wouldn't you just start building Bruiser based items that usually synergize well with base stats or often more reliable Tank items once you've reached a given damage quota? You'd still be perfectly capable of doing the job you most likely picked your champion to do while at the same time be obnoxiously hard to kill relative to how easily you just nuked the enemy carry. Unless there's a drastic change in how we view Assassins, Tanky Assassins are not some radical abuse of recent changes, they are the inevitable outcome of how we attempt to balance the game.

168 Comments

Gotted116 votes

Nailed it OP. You don't want tanky assassins? They have to be feast or famine. No way around it. And honestly, that's how it should be. You shouldn't be blind picking assassins every game without punity. Should be a niche set up.

LankPants35 votes

You shouldn't be blind picking assassins every game without punity. Should be a niche set up.

Bbbut my #LC$HYPERMOBILITYBIGPLAY$ Zed

Nameless Voice61 votes

Agreed. I remember when assassins were awful at farming (old LeBlanc being a prime example) and needed to use their strong kill power to farm champions if they wanted to stay relevant.

They could generally be beaten by playing safe, not dying, pushing them to their tower so they couldn't roam, and out-farming them.

Now assassins have too many tools to stay relevant even when behind. They are too good at farming (especially the AD ones), and they have too good base damage to allow them to still murder squishies even when behind.

Risky champions are among the most fun to play both as and against. You feel rewarded for doing well at great risk to yourself, and the enemy feels rewarded for capitalising on that risk, or at least feels it's fair to be beaten by someone who put themselves at risk to do so, where the fight could have gone both ways.

Assassins have just become too safe in general. They have too much protection from becoming irrelevant if consistently outplayed, and generally have damage patterns that entail little risk to themselves if they need to delete someone.

Sire Hippington15 votes

i also remember how everyone complained how toxic and opressive LB and her absurd killing power at lvl 6 are...

Over Innsmouth36 votes

You mean level 3, don't you?

Steel Blossom14 votes

or 2, tbh....

TotalJerk2 votes

Yeah but you have to think about the other side of that coin. A big part of why "feast or famine" is so unfun is that it often means that the champions that full under that create a paradigm where the game is decided in the first 15 minutes, and then either they or their opponent spends the next 15-20 minutes being helpless. Like why the fuck even make games average 35 minutes if that's gonna be the case? This is a big part of why Riot pushed for shorter games, this season; It's not fun being shit on for half a game and people would like the opportunity to play League of Legends. Just let the winning team end quicker instead of slowly starving the losers to death. Unfortunately the way they went about making this happen wasn't very well thought out, though.

Nameless Voice20 votes

Yes, but the problem with assassins not being feast or famine is that instead of feeling helpless if they get ahead, you now feel helpless for the entire game, because there's very little you can do once they get enough levels, up until the late game when you begin to be able to beat them with superior teamplay.

Theorchero5 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nameless Voice,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=4oEKjxZi,comment-id=00020001,timestamp=2016-04-13T10:26:51.451+0000)

Agreed. I remember when assassins were awful at farming (old LeBlanc being a prime example) and needed to use their strong kill power to farm champions if they wanted to stay relevant.

They could generally be beaten by playing safe, not dying, pushing them to their tower so they couldn't roam, and out-farming them.

Now assassins have too many tools to stay relevant even when behind. They are too good at farming (especially the AD ones), and they have too good base damage to allow them to still murder squishies even when behind.

Risky champions are among the most fun to play both as and against. You feel rewarded for doing well at great risk to yourself, and the enemy feels rewarded for capitalising on that risk, or at least feels it's fair to be beaten by someone who put themselves at risk to do so, where the fight could have gone both ways.

Assassins have just become too safe in general. They have too much protection from becoming irrelevant if consistently outplayed, and generally have damage patterns that entail little risk to themselves if they need to delete someone.

YES!

When I Zed ults me, I want to feel like I'm in a crazy duel where either one of us has to outplay the other in order to get the kill or even survive. Same thing with any assassin. Honestly shit like tank Ekko feels like I have to massively outplay him to even survive, and even if I do I pretty much can't kill him no matter what I do.

RocketRelm9 votes

Actually, there is one way around it.

You start making the ADCs as a class build bruiser ish. Outputting more moderate dps in late game, but with enough burst protection late game such that to actually pop them an assassin would need to build glass.

The binary is "Tanky Assassin" or "Feast or Famine" provided that ADCs remain Glass Cannon.

Ralanr14 votes

But then we have durable ADC champions that are going to kill anyone who fails to kill them. How do you deal with ranged bruisers?

It would make regular bruisers pointless, tanks not really needed since the carry can take a few hits, really I think only mages would be ok.

RocketRelm5 votes

They would need to be moderate dps, giving up mobility for reach and consistency of output, rather than being expected to disintegrate everything within 2 seconds of contact if given the chance. That would require a much more fundamental overhaul of the meta and the game, however, and Tank Assassins are 'kind' of a class of Divers, and would probably be easier to accommodate with in the current game.

PineappleReject12 votes

I believe the champion you're describing is called URGOT!!!! Urgot

Auz the Ripper5 votes

I think you mean... URGOD!

Abyssphere2 votes

{quoted}

Actually, there is one way around it.

You start making the ADCs as a class build bruiser ish. Outputting more moderate dps in late game, but with enough burst protection late game such that to actually pop them an assassin would need to build glass.

The binary is "Tanky Assassin" or "Feast or Famine" provided that ADCs remain Glass Cannon.

Bruiser ADCs would be toxic unless the class was significantly reworked to have a weakness outside of being burst.

Baby Ghoul35 votes

I never understood why it was bad for assassins to be feast or famine.

It seems like it's a necessary trade we have to make for assassins to be a healthy part of this game.

You can argue that assassins aren't meant to be a part of the game in 2016, but gameplay becomes increasingly toxic when we try to deny a champion's nature. Too many roles are stepping way outside of their bounds because we're trying to make them perfect. I think it's why season 6 is such a problem. We're not only seeing issues with one class of champions. Tanks are dealing too much damage, fighters are absorbing too much damage, marksman are too versatile, and assassins are too safe. I don't know why Riot's balance team isn't picking up on this train of thought.

Giving every class, except for supports of course, too much of everything is making this game painful to play and watch. We all end up losers.

The downside to picking an assassin should be a loss in reliability. You either get ahead early, or fall behind for the rest of the game. That's the price you have to pay.

Trying to make assassins a reliable choice only creates problems for everyone.

Ralanr12 votes

It's usually because the feast is usually too unstoppable and the famine is too detrimental to their team.

Baby Ghoul10 votes

But that's what needs to happen.

You're taking a risk when you play an assassin. High risk, high reward.

You may disagree with assassins in the game, but it's what is necessary to balance that class of champions. We can't continue down this path when we know the outcome. You can't make assassins more safe without making them extremely oppressive.

If an assassin is snowballing, your teammates should group up when pushing, ward, and monitor where that champion was last seen. An assassin should thrive on disorganized teams.

Even when feast or famine champions were a lot more common, the snowballs weren't nearly as bad as they are now. I still felt like I had control against a 5/0/2 old Fiora. I could build against champions like that and adjust my playing. You can't really do that against a fed assassin who has a lot of sustain and escapes. The state of towers right now makes it even worse.

Ekko is a specific problem. I don't know why they gave an assassin utility that would make a support envious. However the rest of the tanky assassins are usually abusing tank items because they can get away with it. Ekko is such an extreme case because he has it all, super mobility, high utility, and now he's even more difficult to kill when you actually catch him.

Assassins should be squishy damage dealers with a lot of mobility to get in and out of situations. When we try to make them more reliable, we end up creating a big problem. I personally don't believe that there should be assassins in every game. I think they should be more of a niche pick.

Samflash38 votes

I honestly feel that Ekko (similar to Diana) should be balanced as a figher instead of as an assassin.

Sagaxwiki2 votes

Agreed, his kit seems to want to get in close and get into an extended fight (multiple spell rotations) rather than being a pure assassin that just has damage and tries to blow someone up then bounce.

Great Ozymandius8 votes

The big problem with feast-or-famine assassins is what it means for the other players.

When Leblanc was a big feast-or-famine champion I banned her every time.

If she was on my team and she got behind, the game was a 5v4 and we would lose even if I did quite well in top lane. If she got ahead, we won.

If she was on the enemy team and she got behind, we won. If she was on the enemy team and got ahead, there was very little I could do to stop her team from winning.

Basically, this meant I had very little control over how the game turned out as a top-laner. It wasn't that Leblanc was overpowered per se. It was that she took all of the agency out of all of the other lanes, and basically made the entire game a 1v1.

If I want to climb elo, if I think I am a better top laner than is typical for my elo, then I want the outcome of the game to depend upon me. I don't want the outcome of the game to be determined by a midlane coin flip.

Feast-or-famine champs take agency out of the other lanes. I can understand why people who play feast-or-famine champs would like that -- it means they get all the agency. The game is in their hands. But now you understand why nobody wants to play on the same team as or against a feast-or-famine champ (unless you are the one laning against the feast-or-famine champ. Because in this case, winning lane turns the game into a 5v4 in your team's favor).

The Whamboozler3 votes

Well currently they've taken agency out of the game for anyone who isn't playing with a 4 man premade, so you can argue that they're still having this problem. In every game there's always one or two guys who just plain matter less than everyone else due to the way the game is. Riot is never going to entirely remove that.

Great Ozymandius3 votes

Yeah, it's a problem. It's difficult to solve. But Riot should definitely do what it can to make every role and every champion at least situationally impactful to the extent they can do so without sacrificing other goals. Not an easy task, but an important one. Agency should be distributed as equally among 5 as is practicable.

The Whamboozler4 votes

Oh, I agree that it's a bad thing. I'm just a pessimist. I don't think they'll EVER get things set up where every champion and every player matters. In fact, lately... their fumbling attempts to introduce teamplay and... whatever the hell the juggernaut and ADC reworks were supposed to add to the game just made things worse.

I haven't seen a positive change to the game in about a year now. Maybe more. It's like watching the game sinking into the mud and Riot is just handing it more rocks saying "use them to climb out!" but the weight is just making it sink faster.

SIayton26 votes

Maybe... just maybe.... Assassins as a class are poorly designed. It's a game, no one wants to get instabursted with 0 counterplay. It's not fun or engaging for either party. The rewarding fights are the ones where both players had a chance to make decisions. I think Riot needs to rethink assassins from the ground up and find a way for them to function without being 100-0 with no counterplay.

Erockandroll15 votes

{quoted}

Maybe... just maybe.... Assassins as a class are poorly designed. It's a game, no one wants to get instabursted with 0 counterplay. It's not fun or engaging for either party. The rewarding fights are the ones where both players had a chance to make decisions. I think Riot needs to rethink assassins from the ground up and find a way for them to function without being 100-0 with no counterplay.

Generally what I found. The best Assassins are the ones who arn't completely reliant on champion kills. Though that mold tends to follow those who arn't entirely assassins. Champions like Ahri, Le blanc, Zed, even ekko (though he is currently building Bruiser) all have wave clear mechanics, which allow them to catch up if they fall behind. That mechanic acts as a buffer that allow them to be goodish, without turning them into a (OP or worthless) knife's edge.

Also, The real counter to Assassins is advanced warning. Assassins are suppose to be rewarded for getting around the team, (usually undetected) so that they can take out a valuable target. So the counter to that would be positioning, and warding your flanks.

63536895_DEL9 votes

I think Shaco not just as an assassin, but as a champion in general is really healthy right now. Complete feast or famine with reasonable counteritem 2043 item 3364play.

He can make your life hell is he's left unchecked, but he's pretty useless when behind other than being a superb split pusher.

Shaco is the gold standard for what an assassin should be :D

Abyssphere3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Red Death LoL,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=4oEKjxZi,comment-id=00080002,timestamp=2016-04-13T15:38:55.532+0000)

I think Shaco not just as an assassin, but as a champion in general is really healthy right now. Complete feast or famine with reasonable counteritem 2043 item 3364play.

He can make your life hell is he's left unchecked, but he's pretty useless when behind other than being a superb split pusher.

Shaco is the gold standard for what an assassin should be :D

Most people would conider "complete feast or famine" and "countered only be stealth reveals" to be pretty iffy in terms of game health.

63536895_DEL7 votes

Stealth works in different ways on different champions. Some is reasonably balance and some is just frustrating. I would say Shaco MonkeyKing Twitch are balanced as far as stealth goes, but stealth like Rengar is unbalanced because even with a (!) giving you a warning its still difficult to play against.

I would say stealth is only iffy because champions like Rengar can instakill you in under a second right after they come into reveal range, or Evelynn because its always on.

Great Ozymandius3 votes

In Shaco's case it works out. He has poor base damages, so building tanky comes with a big damage tradeoff and he cannot assasinate targets. For him to assassinate, he needs to burn his escape spell, which makes him risky. Oftentimes a successful shaco assassination will result in trading shaco for the adc, which is fair. It's not like leblanc or fizz where they can assasinate the target and reliably get out, trading 1 for 0. If Shaco built glass cannon, he can get cc'd and deleted before deleting his target - if the target is properly protected or shaco chooses his timing or location incorrectly. If he builds tanky, he won't delete his target and this give the enemy team enough time to deal with him.

He doesn't provide much utility to his team when behind and is terrible at seiging, but he can contribute to split-pushing when behind, which partially offsets his feast/famine nature without depending on ridiculous base damages as is problematic right now with other assassins.

And even a shaco who is ahead will not successfully assassinate if the other team uses good positioning, cc management, or true vision. So there is good counterplay when he is ahead. And Shaco has backup plans if he is behind.

The Whamboozler11 votes

Yeah... Shaco as an assassin is pretty healthy and balanced because he has what a LOT of assassins lack. Weaknesses. Down sides. Flaws. He's not a massive pile of utility and safety that ALSO has insane burst. He lacks % damage. He uses mana. He has ONE mobility spell and can either use it to get in, or out. Not both. He's vulnerable even when he's doing his thing. He can be prevented from doing his thing. He has to play smart. And most of all, he is lackluster overall if he is prevented from being an assassin! He can't do much more than pick off isolated targets or splitpush.

Assassins are fine as a role, but the NEED to have a lot of down sides and vulnerabilities to make up for their ability to auto-kill a carry. They need that trade off. And they shouldn't be in every game. Assassins now however are tanky, multi-use monsters who have a ton of utility and uses in every game. They're essentially just bruisers with a ton of mobility and utility spells. And as long as bruiser itemization is so strong... they'll stay that way.

The game was far better off and far more fun when you had to BUILD damage to DO damage. Now with the increasing number of hybrid damage/defense items there is NEVER a reason to build much else. Why would you build an item with 30-40 more AD but that you die instantly with because you're fragile? That weaker damage champ will make up the loss by just hitting you a second time. The items released are turning everyone into the same exact bundle of stats with the top picks being champions who have naturally utility or mobility heavy kits or who synergy well with said pile of stats. Oh sure, it's Ekko vs Fizz in top lane but when they're both building the exact same items (Iceborn/Sunfire, of course), the only real difference is in who's kit is stronger in utility or in-built power. It's all the same pile of numbers. They're both doing the exact same thing. It's just a question of who's kit lets them do it BETTER.

And it's boring.

ProfDrDeath22 votes

Good points.

More arguments to add:

  • Mastery and item changes resulted in going tanky and still getting damage boosts (Grasp, Frozen Fist).
  • Tanky-centered items are usually way cheaper, with smoother build paths than damage items (all Armor/MR/HP items build out of Cloth/Null-Magic/Ruby Crystal, respectively.
doombotMECHA7 votes

note: this counts double for ap assassins b/c AP itemization is shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

Takazaki19 votes

I honestly am left speechless, well thought out and typed out.

LaserDeathBlade14 votes

The problem with 'feast or famine' is that it puts too much of the outcome of the game into the hands of one player

Riot's been pushing for more team oriented play, so older generations of Assassins don't make sense anymore

LankPants32 votes

Riot's been pushing for more team oriented play, so older generations of Assassins don't make sense anymore

And this Ekko item 3025 item 3068 item 3065 item 3009 item 3001 item 3026 does?

The guy's right, assassins either need to be feast-or-famine or just straight up weak because when they're not they're just too problematic.

TonyTonyMordecai2 votes

the spirit visage makes some sense if the Ekko wants some defense, cdr, and some more healing on his ult...

but I honestly don't see the point of doing the other items. I honestly like having the AP on my abilities so that I can blow up people, especially on the return damage from my Q.

Aspynn8 votes

Have you not seen tank ekko in one of your games yet? It's stupidly popular and STUPIDLY powerful. Sunifre+IBG on assassins or anyone that wants to be tanky creates monsters.

Sire Hippington10 votes

The main reason why Tanky assasins are the inevitable outcome: leave twitch alone with talon when his gapcloser is on cd and watch how fast talons healthbar disapears if built as assasin. As a squishy melee, you have always a do or die scenario, or you have alot tools to avoid agro like fizz or zed. I think turning assasins into fighters isn't a good approach, it goes against their fantasy. Also, it demands stickingpower and some dps, two reason why Talon hardly ever is played as bruiser. Feast or famin isn't a great idea aswell. I think what Assasins need are tools that allow them to stay in a fight without relying on raw tankstats, short duration shields/damages reduces, stealth(though that requires that stealth detection is removed, else it's WAAAAAY to easy to counter), huge mobillity, 'dodge' like fizz E. In return, they should loose 100-0 patterns and gain some lowish cds, so they need to use their tools to navigate around fights and avoid focus while bringing down their target with 2-3 rotations.

Also, ADC need to loos some uofront damage, get cced for 1.5sec in their range - your dead unless you built tank. They need some rampup mechanics that give high dps if they can focus a target for a couple of sec rather than the pew pew doublecrit for 70% of your health in less than a sec come to lategame, else a squishy melee will always have to much risk of dieing from a single cc.

Also, the main reason why tank-XY is so popular is gamepace. Tankitems have a early powerspike and fall of later on once penetration items are complete. With the game beeing so focused on early-mid right now, one naturally would want as much power as possible early on, and tank/bruiser items are the way to go for this. Tank items are in average ~500g cheaper than ad or ap items, and with sunfire and iceborn, the lack of 'farming-power' that tanky builts usually would have doesn't exist...

Samflash32 votes

Okay this is an awesome post.

Evewynn5 votes

I think that assassins should have SOME sort of backup plan while behind, such as some utility (lb chains come to mind) but otherwise I do believe their damage should not be workable when behind/building tank.

A Liberal5 votes

There are still options when behind. I know personally when I play Katatina or LB, if I fall behind a lot I still start building support oriented items such as zzrot, banner, sometimes even a sightstone. Assassins shouldn't have high amounts of utility in their kits (lb chains are okay, ekkos... Well everything... Is not) if an assassin is behind, they should be forced to make use of items to help their team, and shouldnt have those tools in their kit.

Leeerzeichen4 votes

How should an assassin survive the early game without base damage? How should he get the gold to get his items? You can't create a champion who has to snowball to be useful, without giving him the tools to snowball (obviously).

Basedamage is your main damage throughout the early and mid game. Look at velkoz ult: 900 + 0.6ap, he needs 1500 ap to double the damage on his ult Look at ekko ult: 500 + 1.3ap, he needs ~350 ap to double the damage on his ult (~4-5 items)

You can't just kill their base damage, without making them completely unviable.

If you want to balance tank item on assassins you have to add defense ratios. Do you know why nobody plays ap talon? You could do the same with mr, armor and health. Talon gets a 0.5 health ratio and sion gets a 1.2 health ratio. And hp talon would just disappear, because tank items get extremely inefficient on him.

Arakk013 votes

We need feast or famine assassins. They're awful when ahead, but useless when behind- and that's their consequence for picking a selfish champion, which an Assassin is. An assassin, especially an AD assassin, very rarely contributes anything but raw damage and killing power when it comes to team play. Honestly, with the direction League has taken, the whole class needs to be reworked into 'rogues' or 'tricksters' in the vein of Zed/Leblanc- hypermobile, slippery champions- but with one important difference: Damage offloaded to utility. For one example? Zed's ult could be changed to deal no damage of its own, but rather mark a target to take drastically increased damage from ALL sources- or deal a flat chunk of true damage every attack or spell hit for a short window; same effect, but rewarding team play and focusing a target. I'll make a post, I think.

VasilisGreen4 votes

{quoted}

We need feast or famine assassins. They're awful when ahead, but useless when behind- and that's their consequence for picking a selfish champion, which an Assassin is. An assassin, especially an AD assassin, very rarely contributes anything but raw damage and killing power when it comes to team play. Honestly, with the direction League has taken, the whole class needs to be reworked into 'rogues' or 'tricksters' in the vein of Zed/Leblanc- hypermobile, slippery champions- but with one important difference: Damage offloaded to utility. For one example? Zed's ult could be changed to deal no damage of its own, but rather mark a target to take drastically increased damage from ALL sources- or deal a flat chunk of true damage every attack or spell hit for a short window; same effect, but rewarding team play and focusing a target. I'll make a post, I think.

No thanks. It's already bad that it's cleansed by Qss, don't make it even worse

Dataless3 votes

I guess we wait for the eventual Assassin class update and cheer (or cry) at the inevitable train wreck?

VasilisGreen2 votes

I have something in mind for a long time about this. And it is about making every role separate from the rest and items intending to be used by a specific role be more effective to that role and inefficiant for everyone else. How this works is simple

Take each role and depending what it's intended strengths are, boost the appropriate base stats while at the same time significantly reducing the rest. For example, what's the primary role for an Assassin? Bursting someone down quickly and either get out if they can or die with them. What stats work for that? AD or AP. So, boost their Base AD significantly if they are AD and for AP it works differently. At the same time, reduce their defences and HP pool.

A tank is supposed to have defences and soak up damage while doing some aoe and have some cc to soften up targets for their carries and disrupt the nemy team. They need defences and survivability. So, what do you do for them? Bost their defensive stats and HP pool and redutheir offencive stats, aka AD by a significant amount.

For mages, and AP assassins, their role is to either burst someone down and kill them fast or control the battlefield with a lot of CC and AOE. what do they need for that? AP and some more control oriented also need survivability. So, they get more AP and moderate base stats, higher than an assassin but lower than a tank.

A bruiser is meant to disrupt the enemy team and lock down a target so that they take them out or cooperate with their carries/assassins to do so. They are tough and pack a punch but also, have to pick their fights carefully, they are not unkillable. An assassin should be able to kill them and either escape or die with them, an ADC should be able to kill them by kiting properly but, if either assassins or ADCs stay too close for too long, they will die too fast to do any significant damage. They get moderate defences and offensive stats, each tuned individualy based on their kit and lore to suit the character. Bruisers are a hybrid between a fighter and a tank anyway

Fighters are essentialy melee carries. High damage, moderate to low survivability and some defensive mechanics, Trynd's ult, Yasuo's W and passive, Fiora's W etc. This class gets high offensive stats but moderate to low defensive stats, based on their innate defensive mechanics. That's high base AD but moderate to low armor and mr.

A support is a tanky champion with a lot of utility and lockdown meant to support his carries, ALL OF HIS TEAMMATES, NOT JUST THE ADC, that's for those adc players that want their support exclusively for them... grow up guys. So, they get high defenses and HP.

And finally, our beloved and hated ADCs... These obnoxious champions that only know how to right-click and move around. They are as fragile as the assassins but with almost equaly strong attacking capabilities. I say almost equaly because Assassins are casters whiled most marksmen are AA based and don't do nearly as much damage as an Assassin with their abilities. Like assassins, they should have HIGH base AD and low armor, mr and hp.

So, now that we got that out of the way, let's talk itemization. All items shall give stats based on the BASE stats of the bearer, Critical chance being the only exception, none has individual crit chance alone and it should remain this way. They also have other passives that work independently but that's it. So, each item will provide it's stats as a % bonus of the bearer base stat. So, a bloodthirster will give X% Base AD and it's passive that works independently is it's lifesteal. Same goes for Ravenous Hydra, it has it's lifesteal as a stat, well, since there is no base stat lifesteal, this stat will become a passive for the item. For an armor item, let's say, thornmail, it gives X% Base armor. And an example for hp items, a Warmog's armor will give X% of your base hp pool and of course, as you lvl up, it will also give more hp because your base hp pool increases.

For AP items, they will either stay as they are because there is no base AP stat, or Every champion that scales with AP will be given a Base AP value of 100 base AP, and all abilities will be changed to scale with bonus AP and the scalings on the items will be made so that they are the same as now. But, it's easier to just keep them as they are, it is the same thing.

Now, this way, items meant to be used by an Assassin/ADC/Melee Carry, will not be effective for a tank. Tanky items meant to be used by Tanks/bruisers and some fighters, will be inefficient for an Assassn or an ADC. Those items will also be less effective for fighters than for tanks or bruisers. And thus, there won't be Tank assassins anymore. Each role will have distinct strengths and weaknesses and the game will be a lot more balanced.

Of course, some champions will have some tweaks in their kits to compensate for those changes.

So, what do you guys think?

Starcraft243ver2 votes

But but ... what if we played former squishies TANKY ?

Vayne sunfire is the future ! Invisible deamon hunter dealing damages in melee range !!

Yosuke Apperu2 votes

Talon's q,w,e base damages add up to 900, I don't suggest going full tank on him. As a talon main he feels like one of those assassins who actually has to build pretty damn close to glass cannon that you can get. Then again ive seen talon on the enemy team subbing a damage item and for steraks and it seemed like it didn't hurt his burst much. Honestly I don't know what to build on anyone anymore lol.

The Loveless2 votes

Meh. Tank assassins don't kill their targets as quickly as a full nuke build. I mostly see people running instead of fighting back and they also don't know how to kite. People don't buy armor pen until their 4th-5th item for some reason. IMO, any of the pen items outside of Maw would be good as a first buy for ADCs, but people wait around for pros and streamers to do something first before it's acceptable. Otherwise you get [threatened] reports for buying Ghostblade or BC first on ADC.

Talon scales off of bonus AD as well, so even just counting his base damage, he's not as oppressive as others. Tank assassins are just a new fad, but it can be dealt with. People just haven't seen a popular player show them the way yet, zzzzzzzz

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