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How many item's were made for ADC/Tanks/Mages? How many do we have for Assassins? Hmmm Riot?

Dreadlocks·Jun 9, 2017·31 votes·2,208 views

So lets take a gander shall we? ADCs: And although maybe not for this class, we def have a fair share who dip into

Tanks:

Mages/AP:

Supports:

I won't go into Juggernauts because a lot of their items are fit into Tank items given how their kit functions.. But realistically they don't have many either outside of:

Assassins: MAYBE ? and then they start to dip into other classes..

I think you get my point.. I'm not asking for "more lethality" on the 3 items we have, im asking for more options. Give assassins more tools. You didn't need to rework Assassins to begin with, if you thought they were binary maybe you should've looked at their item options first. Every other class has various item choices in their class to do their job (granted support items are fairly weak and i won't argue that, the point is they have more options)

Stop favoring your ADC fantasies and do whats right for the game. Make lethality melee only and at make at leasttttttttttt 3 more freaking lethality items to chose from. If you're worried about how champions like etc are going to be after that change, then maybe you need to make more items like that cater towards them. An entire class was reworked into a pile of shit for the ADCs who wanted to split push alone past 20 mins. Blows my mind.

This isn't rocket science, and I don't have to be a game designer to figure out that lack of item choices is a HUGE reason why assassins were/are where they're at.

89 Comments

PennsJun 9, 201719 votes

At least you have items for your class, ap assassins tho.. xd

DreadlocksJun 9, 201716 votes

They at least synergize fairly well with the AP items they have available. But i do agree.. item 3100 item 3146 item 3157 item 3152 isnt much, and why is there only 1 magic pen item (not counting void) item 3136

Akali is SO HOTJun 11, 20171 votes

item 3100 item 3152 are the only items. item 3285 Was intended for AP Assassins, but is really only used on Katarina and maybe Ekko from time to time.

NymzoJun 10, 201711 votes

item 3056 as a support item? Come on.

That item should be placed in a special category named ''garbage''.

Don't worry, it won't be lonely, it also has item 3252 and item 3512 to keep it company.

DreadlocksJun 10, 20171 votes

Yeah i know it feelsbadman lol honestly though this wasn't suppose to be about who has the better items.. it was more of the options. But i feel yuh =\

DJMason88Jun 10, 20172 votes

Except there's no reason to choose that option. Its like if you had to choose a gift from these options and some were lots of money, your favorite game etc etc. and a few options are like a dead cat, a rotten apple and a rusty screwdriver. Why even have them as an option if no one but a few crazy people would choose them?

YOUGOTKILLEDBROJun 9, 20178 votes

Even though I am a tank main, I seriously don't understand why there are 3 debatably 4 assassin items. Assassins can not build for situations when they have this many items for assassins. We had an update for this class, why can we not make an assassin build? I was on a breal whilst the update happened, but there is still 3 items. Why is this? Why can't we get more? I completely agree with this post.

RalanrJun 11, 20171 votes

Probably to prevent fighters from building assassin items.

Velzard of KozJun 10, 20178 votes

Gunblade being listed as Mage item while primarily used by Assasins. LOL. 'key I didn't really expect any logic in this anyway.

Also Lichbane definetely not Mage item. Just because something has AP on it it's not Mage item. Same goes for Nashor's Tooth that is heavily niché and Mejai's, that yet again, is preffered by Assasins.

In case you mean to list Cleaver, Maw and Triforce as part of Marksman itemization, even despite that disclaimer, it just makes entire list dumb. Also you jump from entire class itemization to subclass itemization. Mages will have naturally a lot of items because they cover multiple playstyles - Bursters, Battlers, "Assasins". Juggernauts will have naturally les items because they are literally a subclass.

So comparing Marksmen, Mages, Tanks or Supports, who are all classes with Assasins, who are intended as subclass, is ridiculous.

AimléssJun 10, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Velzard of Koz,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BjcsmTZg,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2017-06-10T02:37:13.875+0000)

Also Lichbane definetely not Mage item. Just because something has AP on it it's not Mage item. Same goes for Nashor's Tooth that is heavily niché and Mejai's, that yet again, is preffered by Assasins.

You're right about Lich Bane but Nashor's tooth is definitely not an assassin item, and Mejai is also definitely not. Think about it, a squishy close ranged assassin is far more likely to die when on a fed team than a Lux chilling behind 2 fed tanks. Couple that with the fact that mejais literally only gives AP, and no reward for being up close item 3100 , gapclosing item 3152 , or no extra burst and I don't see how its an assassin item at all.

Anu3isIIJun 11, 20171 votes

Mejai gives a lot of AP for its cost if stacked and gives Movement Speed when reaching a threshold. High Efficiency makes any item good, especially if it gives only the Stats you want (for Assassins, Damage).

Also, you don't always have your team as fed as you. So think more about it, is a close ranged Assassin with a lot of Mobility(because most AP Assassins are extremely mobile) going to die more often than an immobile high range Mage? The answer most of the times is uncertain.

Nashor's is weird, only Kayle really uses it consistently. Some Diana players use it, but that is kinda it. As Kayle uses most of the times the On-Hit build, we can't really say Nashor's is built by a Mage either.

AimléssJun 11, 20171 votes

Do you play the same game I play? It is extremely difficult to kill a fed Lux when their entire team is fed, much harder than shutting down a squishy assassin that may take 3 people with em, but can't survive if focused by the whole team. Usually only like one guy is gonna get on the Lux, and if they aren't fed they not gonna kill her before her team melts them.

And if you believe the answer is uncertain then you also agree that it can't be classified as an AP assassin item, since at the very least, according to you, it works evenly for all of them. You said Nashors is built on only one assassin as well, so you agree with me there. So can I ask why you even responded to my post? Cause I can't think of any other reason than to nit-pick at what I said. :\ #TypicalLOLBoards...

Anu3isIIJun 11, 20171 votes

It is also extremely difficult to kill a fed LeBlanc that jumps around randomly and kills people with Q-Ult Gunblade and then runs away.

The Lux example annoys me because you assume her team always gets fed when it isn't true at all. She may be the only one snowballing and her other teammates may be behind. What is Lux gonna do when her Team is behind? Stay back and pray her Enemy Team does a mistake? Hope that no one will colapse on her? A fed Mejai Assassin wouldn't care at all about their own team, they don't need help in doing their job.

By saying that Mejai is "definitely not" an Assassin item, I understood that you consider it so bad on Assassins that they shouldn't buy. That is the part I disagree with you. It is an AP snowball item, every champion that has a big lead can use that item and abuse the amount of stats they get from it.

Overall, I just don't understand why we classify AP items, when most of them are bought on multiple, totally different champions. Lich Bane is bought on Fizz, but is also is bought on Twisted Fate, AP Ezreal and the rare AP Kayle. Luden's ? Every champion likes it.

chipndip1Jun 10, 20178 votes

SUPPORT IS A ROLE, NOT A CLASS

DreadlocksJun 10, 20173 votes

Yeah lets nit-pick instead of focusing on the topic lol.

BârdJun 10, 20173 votes

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

chipndip1Jun 10, 20177 votes

With that logic your argument holds no weight. There's items designed for enchanters, a class designed primarily for supporting, and catchers, the other class designed for supporting. You shouldn't just lump all the support items together because different supports are meant to play differently and desire different types of builds.

I'm not nitpicking. You're generalizing.

Troll for TrumpJun 10, 20172 votes

Riot often balances it as a class mroe, with "support items." They don't usually specifywith "wardens" or "enchanters" and just use the broader term of "support"

DrCyanideJun 10, 20172 votes

https://thelifeofgamers.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/10414473_562674823853397_6415531132514086576_n.jpg

It's both.

Sp33d Zer0Jun 9, 20175 votes

Except 5 of the items you posted as adc are still good on ad assassins (merc, bt, dd,maw, bc) and 7 of the mage items are great ap assassin items (morello, liandry,lich bane, ludens, rabadans, gun blade, void staff). I would hardly say any of those items were "designed" for that role as opposed to that damage type.

DreadlocksJun 9, 20174 votes

I'm not here to argue whether an item is viable for a class or not. Hell i didn't put Frozen heart in the support group did i? The point isn't X item is also good on X type of champions. The point is there are 3 lethality items that cater towards assassins.. and look at the variety of options that are given to other classes that synergize way better with what they do. Hell ADC's have 4 freaking zeal options alone, which is more than the 3 lethality items assassins get to chose from.

JavelinJoeJun 10, 20174 votes

Whether an item is an assassin item or not is irrelevant in league. Items (save for the melee/ranged only and jungle items) can be bought by anyone. If I wanted to go full AD Janna I could. If I wanted to go Attack speed Maokai , I could.

I would actually rework your items a bit. ADC should just be all crit items. Armor pen items are more generally based for any AD champion to use vs armor/health/healing. Same with life steal items which is also very common for assassins and bruisers/skirmishers to build. BORK is also not necessarily an ADC based item. It just has a really strong power spike currently which is why it is bought so much by ADCs who usually have later power spikes.

You also only listed AD items for assassins. There are AP assassins too. But if you want to only focus on the AD assassins. Then you should take champion pool into consideration. Zed Talon Rengar Nocturne Khazix MasterYi and Shaco are all that RIOT recognizes as AD based assassins. That is only 7 champions, and Shaco is questionable since sometimes he goes AP.

There are 15 predominantly ADC marksmen (not counting Urgot since no one really plays him), and 20 potential crit based marksmen in all (minus Teemo and Urgot because they usually do not build any kind of crit).

4 items for 6-7 champions. 8 items for 15-20 champions. So I can justify the item number difference a bit.

DreadlocksJun 10, 20171 votes

so 3 items vs 20? i still dont think thats fair.. and noc/yi arn't assassins.. I get your point about items can be bought by anyone but if riot can manage to make crit unappealing to assassins, then why can't they do the same for lethality? So if they can't come up with a solution.. they should just make it melee only.. its really not that big of a deal.

JavelinJoeJun 10, 20173 votes

Well riot does since they are under the category. Your personal bias is irrelevant in this case.

DreadlocksJun 10, 20171 votes

I think riot is the one being "personally bias"

JavelinJoeJun 10, 20171 votes

It is their game, so they can be

DreadlocksJun 10, 20171 votes

Yeah and im voicing against it. Just like they want us to do? Since we are the playerbase..

JavelinJoeJun 10, 20171 votes

Just like they want us to do?

Is this a rhetorical question or an actual question? Either way they do want us to have opinions and have provided platforms to voice them, but in no way are they at all required to agree with or change things because of them.

Since we are the playerbase..

We are the player base. But they are the game developers, owners, writers, etc... In other words, RIOT Games makes the all of the end decisions for League of Legends, not the player base.

DreadlocksJun 11, 20171 votes

RIOT Games makes the all of the end decisions for League of Legends

No shit?

JavelinJoeJun 11, 20171 votes

Sarcasm response:

Legitimate question response: Yep, RIOT Games make the decisions for League of legends. They decide what is what and often take community responses and suggestions into consideration. However, in the end it is their final say.

DreadlocksJun 11, 20171 votes

Wow I had no idea bro. Thanks for enlightening me!!!

JavelinJoeJun 11, 20171 votes

np man

DJMason88Jun 10, 20174 votes

You don't even consider AP assassins such as Ekko, Katarina or Akali? And some items you did pick are almost never used or very niche. Since assassins are a subclass of slayer they are going to use items that slayers use as a whole. They also have quite a few tools when you think about it, a defensive shield on maw, a spell shield, a revive, built in armor pen on their items and burst in their kit.

SleepcomaJun 10, 20173 votes

love the name btw rip Rengar

DreadlocksJun 10, 20172 votes

thanks fam. Rip Rengar =\

Baron of BreadJun 10, 20173 votes

Looking at the wiki says the highest Lethality you can get is 85. Now, I don't know how often this is acquired (almost never I assume since most people won't want an extra serrated dirk lying around), but the number makes a good case for talking about some things.

Jinx (our arbitrarily chosen ADC) has 82 armor at level 18 without items/runes/masteries. With our 85 Lethality what is her armor against us? The math is simple and works out to -3 armor, but there is an issue. Lethality reduces the armor value used in the damage mitigation equation, but can't reduce that number below 0. So we are wasting 3 Lethality, which isn't exactly a big deal. But if we had more Lethality options we would quickly be wasting the Lethality on squishies and would start to be targeting tanks with it.

Zac (our arbitrarily chosen tank) has 84 armor at level 18 without stuff, and probably ~225 armor with stuff in the late game. If the assassin has a Last Whisper upgrade (which they might, Mortal Reminder is good at preventing those annoying heals/lifesteal from saving an ADC), then they are ignoring ~40 armor before Lethality. That leaves 185 armor, which goes down to 100 with the Lethality (glad that worked out to an easy number). Zac was taking about 30% damage before all that, but is now taking 50% damage. While this doesn't look that bad, you multiplied how much damage you are dealing to him by 166%. Even a little more Lethality and you are doing a lot of damage compared to the "no lethality" expectations and each little bit you add to get the effective armor below 100 is more effective. Ignoring more than half of a tanks armor feels really bad for the tank, and we didn't even add any armor shred.

TL; DR and conclusion: Would I think it is reasonable to add more Lethality items? One would be fine I think, especially when they do the new Rune system which would probably reduce the Lethality available outside of items. The only objection I have to them now is that making large amounts of Lethality (>85) available would feel bad for a lot of people. The assassins would be wasting money if they are doing their job (killing squishies), would be making tanks feel bad (ignore all of their armor purchases) and would negate what their counter should be (can't build enough armor to protect against the large amounts of Lethality).

DuskDaUmbreonJun 10, 20172 votes

That'd be every possible rune as Lethality (scaling, if it exists), the mastery for it, and, yes, all 4 items that give lethality.

I hope I don't need to say that that leaves very few to no defensive options (one item after boots). Or AD options, for that matter.

Baron of BreadJun 11, 20172 votes

This is correct. However there is only marks and quints for Lehtality and one mastery, so you still have access to seals and glyphs for your defensive stats. Assassins don't tend to build defensive items anyway, so while the item choice wouldn't be too out of line (I mention the spare Serrated Dirk being a bit odd in my comment) it would also not be a substantial deviation from the norm in regards to defensive stats.

Still, what I mentioned in that post is relevant especially in the case of more Lethality items being introduced. We would see those problems come up and that would be bad for the game.

RengoooJun 10, 20172 votes

Making lethality melee only would certainly fix alot of abusability cases, because they are prettymuch all ranged champs who do.

DreadlocksJun 10, 20172 votes

It's just stupid that Riot favors ADCs so hard that they turn half the assassins into other things and still only give them 3 items.

ErockandrollJun 10, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Rengar Revert,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BjcsmTZg,comment-id=00070000,timestamp=2017-06-10T02:30:01.302+0000)

It's just stupid that Riot favors ADCs so hard that they turn half the assassins into other things and still only give them 3 items.

They have to favor ADC's to a certain extent. It's the only class of champion that can fill the bot position. Literally in every comp.

And the fact that AD Assassins can dip into a ton of AD itemization, insures that they arn't reliant on tons of items specifically tailored to them. And that extra itemization gives them that much added utility.

I'm actually hard pressed to think of a "utility for Assassins" given that ghost blade is all ready a go to as a starting item. Duskblade acts a damage amp for stealth targets, and EoN a defensive utility. What could AD assassins possibly need, that isn't already covered in these items?

JavelinJoeJun 10, 20171 votes

Not even all assassins build AD. More build AP than AD lol. Also, any high AD item that is super OP on assassins will be 100% abused by skirmishers, bruisers, juggernauts, and ADCs (unless melee only). That is a major reason why an OP AD assassin item is not in the game. Assassins should have to rely on excellent skills in their champion's mechanics in order to kill a target, not raw damage. If they only needed raw damage to be a threat, then they are no different than ADCs.

ErockandrollJun 10, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Not even all assassins build AD. More build AP than AD lol. Also, any high AD item that is super OP on assassins will be 100% abused by skirmishers, bruisers, juggernauts, and ADCs (unless melee only). That is a major reason why an OP AD assassin item is not in the game. Assassins should have to rely on excellent skills in their champion's mechanics in order to kill a target, not raw damage. If they only needed raw damage to be a threat, then they are no different than ADCs.

That's why I was saying that they could only justify adding new items is if they had utility that Assassins wanted. More damage is never going to be a good way of making an Assassin item. Because every other class can build it and just as easily perform the assassins job. (Why do you think DFG is no longer a thing?)

To that end, AP itemization doesn't have anything specifically tailored to Assassin either. Though it seems that Gun blade and Proto belt have found niches within certain assassin builds. And Fizz/Ekko have their synergy with Lich bane. (Which is why they also have synergy with ICB/TF)

Blue Moon WolfJun 10, 20172 votes

To be fair, Divers have to dip into items from all sorts of classes. It's pretty safe to say there isn't a single item devoted to Divers alone. If it's not something considered a Tank or a Juggernaut item, Then it's a Skirmisher or Marksman item. Riot even says they expect Divers to build 2-4 Tank items and the rest to be some form of damage item.

JavelinJoeJun 11, 20172 votes

item 3814 is likely the closest one given how its active works. Then maybe item 3053 item 3800 or item 3102

Blue Moon WolfJun 12, 20171 votes

Those are pretty good for them, but they still aren't really "made" for them. item 3814 is made for assassins, though considering how easily Riot reclassified Rengar from an Assassin to a Diver after the Assassin update, I wouldn't say Riot didn't have Divers on the mind with the item, but it's not something that is exclusively made for Divers. item 3053 was made for Juggernauts, item 3800 is a tank item and item 3102 is pretty much the go to MR item for AP carries now. I think the issue is that if Riot made items for Divers, it would ether have to be an item so specific that it's hardly good on anyone, or it would be abused by another AD class.

JavelinJoeJun 12, 20171 votes

Oh you mean like item 3056 (also a diver item which I and likely everyone else forgets lol)

Blue Moon WolfJun 13, 20171 votes

sort of, but it's active is really too crappy to be useful in the current game. But on the other hand it's really the only kind of effect that wouldn't just get abused by other melee classes.

otherwise it's ether some kind of offensive/defensive amp that goes up the longer you're in combat for that tanky classes can use or a short early fight defensive/offensive ability that Assassins would also use.

MelledoneusJun 10, 20171 votes

Assassin items should provide less raw stats but more utility. For example, item 3814 provides a shield but its AD is ok and its MR is nothing special. I think assassins should have burst but should need utility to stick to targets and escape situations.

DreadlocksJun 10, 20171 votes

They already fit your description really.. 55 ad 60 ad 65 ad, meanwhile adc's are 80.. but yeah they need more.

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