Make ALL assassins AP

deadlychuck·Oct 31, 2018·1 votes·1,626 views

If you object, why? I'd like to know.

Edit: And deal primarily magic damage.

25 Comments

Lovelle IINov 1, 20186 votes

Wouldn't it make more sense for you to explain your reasoning first? I have an idea as to why you would suggest this, but I can't be apodictically certain that we're on the same page.

deadlychuckNov 1, 20181 votes

No not really.

Any reasoning that I give will just bias and limit the conversation to those points. I'd rather see what excuses people will make to avoid changing burst damage focused champions to AP.

Lovelle IINov 1, 20182 votes

{quoted}

No not really.

Any reasoning that I give will just bias and limit the conversation to those points. I'd rather see what excuses people will make to avoid changing burst damage focused champions to AP.

All assassins or all burst oriented champions in general? I personally don't see how giving champs like Kha'zix, Zed, or even Wukong all AP scaling would make them any less annoying. In fact, they would probably be worse to deal with since it's much easier to simultaneously build damage and defense with AP builds. Some of them would also probably get AP scaling sustain and/or regularly include item 3146 in their builds. They would also gain access to item 3157 without sacrificing damage for it. Would be real fun burning everything to catch them as a bruiser, just for them activate Zhonya's while flashing their mastery emote.

deadlychuckNov 1, 20181 votes

Yeah, but it would also mean investing in item 3146 . Isn't an efficient investment for pure AP scaling champions.

That said, mechanically they will not be any less annoying, because this wouldn't be changing any of their annoying mechanics. It would however allow riot to actually balance the burst damage (something that's most core to the design of assassins as a class) against their consistent damage, without inadvertently causing changes to all the consistent damage AD champions as well. So no longer would Kha, Zed, and Wu all be doing their 2000+ burst damage to a target, then able to finish them off with upwards of 400-500 sustained DPS, as well it would also narrow the window for CS either because they're more resource dependent to farm or because they just deal less last hit damage, reducing their overall gold income.

And it would require them to complete a full item before they had access to any significant amount of health regeneration, as opposed to spending 900 gold for about as much potential health recovery as garen's passive.

The reason for this change, is actually really simple at it's core. AD isn't the burst stat in the game and can't be balanced around being both. Normalizing the purpose of the stats is a massive issue with the balance. Which is why the current arms race between AD DPS, AD bursters, and Armor users exists and accelerates the game's power creep (which then gets offset by more powerful and annoying mechanics in newer designs).

If one of your two damage scaling primary stats is acting as both the game's most efficient burst and consistent damage stat, then there's something wrong with the fundamental design. Now there's another solution to this which involves changing all AP and AD assassins to a new primary stat that isn't used by the AD DPS or mitigated by Armor, but that would involve completely revamping the game, where as changing all AD assassins to AP would simply be reverting the game to the functional design that it use to, at least attempt to, maintain.

Lovelle IINov 2, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, but it would also mean investing in . Isn't an efficient investment for pure AP scaling champions.

That said, mechanically they will not be any less annoying, because this wouldn't be changing any of their annoying mechanics. It would however allow riot to actually balance the burst damage (something that's most core to the design of assassins as a class) against their consistent damage, without inadvertently causing changes to all the consistent damage AD champions as well. So no longer would Kha, Zed, and Wu all be doing their 2000+ burst damage to a target, then able to finish them off with upwards of 400-500 sustained DPS, as well it would also narrow the window for CS either because they're more resource dependent to farm or because they just deal less last hit damage, reducing their overall gold income.

And it would require them to complete a full item before they had access to any significant amount of health regeneration, as opposed to spending 900 gold for about as much potential health recovery as garen's passive.

The reason for this change, is actually really simple at it's core. AD isn't the burst stat in the game and can't be balanced around being both. Normalizing the purpose of the stats is a massive issue with the balance. Which is why the current arms race between AD DPS, AD bursters, and Armor users exists and accelerates the game's power creep (which then gets offset by more powerful and annoying mechanics in newer designs).

If one of your two damage scaling primary stats is acting as both the game's most efficient burst and consistent damage stat, then there's something wrong with the fundamental design. Now there's another solution to this which involves changing all AP and AD assassins to a new primary stat that isn't used by the AD DPS or mitigated by Armor, but that would involve completely revamping the game, where as changing all AD assassins to AP would simply be reverting the game to the functional design that it use to, at least attempt to, maintain.

I remember some of the conversations on the old Dominion forums, they also had similar opinions about AD assassins and how they shouldn't get strong auto-attacks on top of their burst. I think a large part of the issue is tied to lethality and/or penetration, because I don't remember assassins being that big of a deal until the penetration formula was changed at the start of season 3. However, without penetration/lethality they simply struggle to work as champions, so changing most (if not all) of them to AP would probably be better for them in the long run. AP itemization tends to be more flexible anyway.

deadlychuckNov 2, 20181 votes

It's funny to me that I get so many downvotes, but so far most people who actually responded end up agreeing that it's not unreasonable, if not positive, change to make...

To your point about season 3 changes, I don't remember the armor pen changes... but prior to season 3, there really weren't "assassins", even champions like LB, Eve, Fizz, Akali, and Kass were more considered burst mages and fighters. With Zed being an AD mage/fighter similar to Jayce.

Around the time rengar and Kha were released, they started supporting "assassins" as a class, even calling Diana an assassin on release if I recall. Even though now, she's considered closer to a fighter with a burst combo.

Lovelle IINov 2, 20181 votes

{quoted}

It's funny to me that I get so many downvotes, but so far most people who actually responded end up agreeing that it's not unreasonable, if not positive, change to make...

To your point about season 3 changes, I don't remember the armor pen changes... but prior to season 3, there really weren't "assassins", even champions like LB, Eve, Fizz, Akali, and Kass were more considered burst mages and fighters. With Zed being an AD mage/fighter similar to Jayce.

Around the time rengar and Kha were released, they started supporting "assassins" as a class, even calling Diana an assassin on release if I recall. Even though now, she's considered closer to a fighter with a burst combo.

They changed the way the penetration formula worked when season 3 started, mainly to help assassins kill tankier targets and/or ADCs with a defensive item, because back then ADCs used to include at least one pure defensive item their build. It wasn't uncommon to see an ADC with a Banshee's Veil (which used to give HP, MR, and the spell shield), Randuin's, or Guardian's Angel (which used to just give around 50 armor and MR).

Literally no one could mitigate damage back around S3 unless they had %damage reduction in their kit. You probably remember it as the infamous Black Cleaver meta (or the Cleaver/Blackfire Torch meta for TT/Dominion), but that's where all the problems started that we have now concerning too much damage in the game. Riot managed to fix that mistake in season 5, but they overdid it a bit with the defensive tree. If they had just toned down resistances/HP/% damage reduction (from masteries) rather than removing it all the game would be in a much better state and champions besides tanks/supports could actually make use of pure defensive itemization.

I might have gotten off track a bit, but the point I was trying to make is that the power of assassins both rises and falls with penetration (and now lethality). Switching all of AD assassins to AP would actually end up making them stronger, since they wouldn't be forced to rush penetration/lethality in order to deal damage. They could get both resistances and damage at the same time, and the community seems to hate it when assassins try to balance damage and defense in their builds.

deadlychuckNov 3, 20181 votes

And by making them AP, it makes it so that they would be able to balance the AD assassins around being capable of killing their intended squishier targets, without over reaching into killing tankier targets, because they'd lose the additional aspects of AD that have to exist to allow ADCs to kill tankier targets.

AP doesn't have any innate scaling, so it's much easier to balance how much DPS a champion can do. Where as AD has an inherently rate of DPS that is acquired by simply purchasing the stat, before you even factor in unique passives/actives. If a class is defined as a "burst damage killer", then they shouldn't be influencing and utilizing the stat which is designed to kill the targets that "burst damage" can't kill.

The AP stat just makes more sense, since it's designed around having damage combos. And just as I said to the guy below,

Switching all of AD assassins to AP would actually end up making them stronger, since they wouldn't be forced to rush penetration/lethality in order to deal damage.

No, they'd be "forced" to rush AP, and you can control how powerful that AP is by reducing their scaling. And you can control how important it is for them to build AP by reducing/increasing their base damages.

Lovelle IINov 3, 20181 votes

{quoted}

And by making them AP, it makes it so that they would be able to balance the AD assassins around being capable of killing their intended squishier targets, without over reaching into killing tankier targets, because they'd lose the additional aspects of AD that have to exist to allow ADCs to kill tankier targets.

AP doesn't have any innate scaling, so it's much easier to balance how much DPS a champion can do. Where as AD has an inherently rate of DPS that is acquired by simply purchasing the stat, before you even factor in unique passives/actives. If a class is defined as a "burst damage killer", then they shouldn't be influencing and utilizing the stat which is designed to kill the targets that "burst damage" can't kill.

The AP stat just makes more sense, since it's designed around having damage combos. And just as I said to the guy below,

No, they'd be "forced" to rush AP, and you can control how powerful that AP is by reducing their scaling. And you can control how important it is for them to build AP by reducing/increasing their base damages.

I hear what you're saying, but it's not like the game's AP assasins are exactly shining examples of champion balance. I would say how a champion's kit works is far more important than just their scaling, windows for counterplay and all that jazz.

deadlychuckNov 3, 20181 votes

Sure, but that's more because of how much riot under values mechanical power in their kit budgets.

QuadraBananasOct 31, 20185 votes

ap gives more burst stats than ad, so if zed is ap, his aa will deal less dmg, but rito will want him at same strenght lvl so his Q E and R will deal way more dmg zed need to aa at least once in his combo, imagine if he didnt need to talon W would be burst instead of poke and why all ap instead of all ad?

would also kill off all jg assassins instead of asking people to disprove your claim, you should tell everyone WHY all assassins must be ap

deadlychuckNov 1, 20181 votes

How much more AP do you think current AP assassins tend to get than AD assassins get AD?

QuadraBananasNov 1, 20181 votes

{quoted}

How much more AP do you think current AP assassins tend to get than AD assassins get AD?

lets use zed and fizz build as example (without boots)

zed: youmuu+duskblade+black cleaver+guardian angel+maw of malmortius 55 ad + 55 ad +40 ad,400 hp+45 ad,40 armor+50 ad, 50 mr

zed gets for 14,850 gold 245 ad 400 hp 40 armor 50 mr

fizz: protobelt+lich bane+ zhonyas+banshee's veil+rabadon deathcap 60ap,300hp+70ap+75 ap+45armor+75 ap,60mr+120 ap,40% bonus ap

fizz gets for 15,200 gold 400 ap+40% (160) 300 hp 45 armor 60 mr

both got a build that gives some hp armor and mr, but fizz got 2 times more ap than zed got ad for almost the exact same price if zed get kille, he will revive in the middle of the team, and has a 5 min cd if fizz zho in the middle of the team, it has a 90 sec cd

i think ap is stronger than ad for assassins

deadlychuckNov 1, 20181 votes

Perfect! Thank you for doing that math. Granted this doesn't account for the inconsistent bonus AD that zed gets from his ult kills, so talon or kha probably would work better for this.

Now. Take all of zed's skills, convert them to AP scaling... and roughly half their scaling.

Or more specifically reduce it by, 245/560 = 0.4375... so let's just round it, 50%!

But now the things like the zhonya's invuln can act as the compensation strength increase rather than

so if zed is ap, his aa will deal less dmg, but rito will want him at same strenght lvl so his Q E and R will deal way more dmg

QuadraBananasNov 1, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Perfect! Thank you for doing that math. Granted this doesn't account for the inconsistent bonus AD that zed gets from his ult kills, so talon or kha probably would work better for this.

Now. Take all of zed's skills, convert them to AP scaling... and roughly half their scaling.

Or more specifically reduce it by, 245/560 = 0.4375... so let's just round it, 50%!

But now the things like the zhonya's invuln can act as the compensation strength increase rather than

would work out for balance but riot is actually just basing their decision on ap/ad on what the champ looks like hahaha kat is exeption since she was already ap before they decided to choose ad and ap like that but yeah, we could also just change zed's passive if needed

deadlychuckNov 1, 20181 votes

Which makes you wonder why skins don't change their damage type sometimes.

Kennen : Lightning shuriken = magic damage (granted he is to some degree in the same boat as Kat)

Zed : Lightning shuriken = physical damage

sneakydougNov 1, 20182 votes

Reduced game diversity.

/thread

sneakydougNov 1, 20181 votes

There’s already some decent ap assassins in the game, btw

GeauxxNov 1, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I'll add a few more for ya pal Ahri Akali Zoe Syndra huehue

deadlychuckNov 1, 20181 votes

Ok, Idc about the existing AP assassins in the game.

I want to know why people believe that AD should even be used for ability scaling on assassins. Granted, that's just kind of how we define a champion as AD/AP, what their abilities scale with. With a few exceptions being made to champions which can function off of exclusively AD stat scaling.

SmallCheeseCakeNov 1, 20181 votes

AP Itemization is too busted.

StrawberrycocoaNov 1, 20181 votes

I agree with this idea on the grounds that I don't like Assassins having the ability to farm with autos.

I feel like Assassins were more fair to play against when their power to farm and push objectives was limited and they had to get kills or fall off the map. The older AP assasins are all like this. If you don't feed them they struggle to stay relevant. But AD assassins can waveclear with autos and save their abilities for kills, which gives them comeback options that make the "don't feed" counterplay meaningless. The ADs can just buy Tiamats and shove everything in without spending any resources.

deadlychuckNov 1, 20181 votes

Which is pretty much all you'd end up taking away from AD assassins by converting them to AP.

It also makes them more resource dependent with respect to their mana/energy and CDs.

Well, and they'd be subject to the mechanics which have been designed to mitigate burst magic damage. Though I didn't specify in the post that it'd also convert them to magic damage... probably worth doing.