My thoughts on the Assassin Update

Before I start, I'll have to give fair warning, this will be long, because there is a lot of stuff to cover. As a secondary warning, this is all also be subjective, so take it with a grain of salt.

So, I'm going to start off by saying: I'm always excited to see moderately large-scale changes and bigger stuff like this come out, because of all the unique things Riot can do for champions. Not to mention, it always opens up a lot of discussion, some healthy, some unhealthy. And I'm going to try to open a healthy discussion on this by taking a look at the balance points of the four Major updates - though I won't cover the Minor updates.

And to start these four off, I'm going to use my favorite; Talon, the Blade's Shadow. With his kit changes, none of his abilities were left untouched, and in one way or another, they got changes. Mercy has been changed to Blade's End, which is a really interesting way to gate Talon's burst; it's now less that he has to just poke enemies down until they're low enough that he can jump in and finish them off with an auto-attack reset, but more that he has to efficiently land his abilities and combo them with basic attacks.

His Noxian Diplomacy has also been given some interesting changes, leaning towards decision-making; at medium-range, it's a gap-closing leap that deals moderate damage and adds a stack of Blade's End. At close-range, it's a guaranteed critical hit that grants a passive stack. This provokes at least a fair amount of thought into how Talon is to engage; "do I run up/come in from odd angles to secure critical damage, or do I use it to press an advantage?" which gives a little bit predictability to Talon's attacks, but also helps conceal his intent.

Rake, being one of the two abilities to get minimal changes, has the same function, but now has better pacing and a narrower area of effect. Alongside the slow on landing a return-shot, Rake remains a useful tool. Cutthroat has been replaced as well, by Assassin's Path, a new, critical tool in Talon's kit for its versatility. He can jump over terrain to do a multitude of things: Scout ahead, chase enemies, flee enemies, perform flashy plays, confuse enemies, gain ground when chasing or being chased - it's a very, very impressive tool to use, when used right.

And, lastly, his Shadow Assault has probably the very least changes, in only that it has a larger number of blades thrown out now. But, with it being that simple, I can now move on to the next assassin;

Katarina du Couteau, the Sinister Blade. Katarina is probably the most untouched of the four, given that her Voracity, Death Blossom, and Bouncing Blades are all (roughly) the same. Her Shunpo has new functionality, allowing her to teleport to specific angles of her target, as well as a new synergy with her new W and the addition to her Q; Daggers.

Katarina's Bouncing Blades, alongside bouncing to one less target, now drops a dagger a few units directly behind the first target hit. Her new W, Preparation, allows her to break into a short sprint after throwing a dagger into the air, which lands where she cast it. If she picks up these daggers, she performs a damage cleave in the area around her, as well as take a majority of Shunpo's cooldown off.

Before I continue on with the other two major reworked Assassins, I want to highlight something; Katarina and Talon have both been made safer, but now have notable weaknesses that makes fighting them interesting, and, in my opinion, fair.

Katarina's damage primarily relies on one of two things; grabbing her daggers at opportune times, or getting close enough to channel Death Blossom. While one could say that her Preparation and negligible Shunpo cooldown make her overly safe, there's still something to note; positioning is Katarina's biggest strength and weakness. If you can disrupt her well enough, play aggressively enough, and/or properly use hit-and-run tactics and CC, you can reliably fight her.

As for Talon, his strengths are his unpredictability, and his hard damage threat. Him getting in close enough to start his combo is a big threat, but it can be worked around; for one, his engage tools are his Assassin's Path which has a relatively long cooldown per individual piece of terrain, and his Noxian Diplomacy, which denies him hard damage in exchange for serving as a gap-closer. While it is a bad idea to let him get close, it allows you to, at the very least, deny him his passive for a brief moment (disregarding his Shadow Assault, should he have it), by dodging the second part of his Rake. It now has a brief moment before returning, so you should be able to work around it.

Keep that in mind; they may now be stronger and safer, but they're not unbeatable, they still have their weaknesses.

Moving on, we have Rengar, the Pridestalker. His changes almost make him lean towards being a skirmisher, although he does still excel at the traits Assassins carry - striking unpredictably, and hitting hard, seldom letting his prey escape. Rengar's changes start best with his passive, Unseen Predator, which is threefold: The first is his ability to leap from bushes onto his targets as a basic attack from brush, the second being his secondary resource, Ferocity, and the third being his Bonetooth Necklace, which allows him to claim trophies by killing champions.

Rengar's secondary resource is his Ferocity. All of his abilities are free to cast, and each (barring Thrill of the Hunt) generates one stack of Ferocity, capping up to four. If he has no stacks, he gains one if he performs an Unseen Predator basic attack. His Ferocity drains quickly if he leaves combat, and can be spent to empower his basic abilities if he has four stacks. His Bonetooth Necklace has been changed from a twenty-five stack kill counter granting mini-buffs to a five-stack bounty-hunting minigame that gives him bonus attack damage per stack, incentivizing killing everyone at least once.

His Savagery has received one of the biggest changes, from becoming an auto-attack reset with an Attack Speed steroid to a two-part skillshot with some fairly high damage. His first attack is a wide cleave, and his second attack is a stab, which becomes a lunge if out of range. This has a fairly low cooldown, which is the reason I say he leans towards being a skirmisher, alongside the changes to his Battle Roar, which are that he now heals based off of damage taken recently, and the Ferocity-Empowered Battle Roar allows him to break free from crowd-control and become CC-immune for a brief moment.

Thrill of the Hunt also received some notable changes, in that it lasts longer, and Rengar can only see and leap to the nearest enemy champion rather than any within range.

Rengar's strengths lie in his ability to hit hard and consistently, as well as become stronger when he plays efficiently with his kills, and his weaknesses lie there as well; if he can't kill efficiently or, generally, can't get the kill, he's going to have a harder time keeping up the damage threat. As usual, keeping an eye on the bushes will also go a long way in fighting Rengar.

Moving on to the fourth and last of the major Assassins, we have LeBlanc, the Deceiver.

Formerly known for being able to dive in with hard burst and unreliably play tricks at low health, LeBlanc is now capable of playing some actual mind-games. Her new passive, which was formerly her Q, is Sigil of Malice, which causes her damaging abilities to create a sigil on the target that takes a second to prime, allowing the next damaging ability to hit harder. Her new Q is Shatter Orb, which has similar functionality to Ryze's Overload, but in the form of a point-and-click spell rather than a skillshot.

LeBlanc's ultimate, Mimic, has received quite a sizable change, allowing her to prepare a clone to cast a mimicked version of her next spell, adding a degree of confusion to fights. Alternatively, she can prep the clone and then cast Mimic again to summon a Shadow of the Rose, which can be placed globally and seeks out the nearest enemy champion to feign LeBlanc's last spellcast at them.

Personally speaking, LeBlanc is now slightly daunting to play, and even moreso to play against. Her waveclear is strong, and her damage is strong, combined with her new tricks with Mimic, she has a great skill-curve and skill-ceiling, and makes playing against her somewhat difficult.

Her strengths are in being able to apply pressure - even if she doesn't actually do anything. The damage threat of her Sigil of Malice is nothing to laugh at, and her landing Ethereal Chains is a frightening prospect, but now she has global influence and can put a scare into some lanes, and a grey screen into others. Her biggest weakness is that if she uses the Shadow of the Rose, the next time you see her, you'll know it's her, and that her Mimic still has a fair cooldown to work against, meaning LeBlanc will seldom be able to chain-trick and confound you.

While they do have strengths and weaknesses, there are always some tweaks to be had to bring them in line, but nevertheless, I hope that this did well to highlight what they have. Feel free to discuss, and thank you for reading.