Season 1 Veteran here; Riot has NEVER suceeded with the Assassin class.

Holgranth·Jul 2, 2018·135 votes·25,085 views

They admitted as much in the Assassin "class update", which was a magnificent failure overall.

Some History Back in the good old days when Christianity and Islam were having a friendly competition to be the most peaceful religion of peace, the order of assassins were pre-bomb suicide bombers. Their modus operandi was as follows:

Step 1. Stab your target in a public place with a concealed weapon. Step 2. Die because you are a drugged up fanatic with a dagger and no armor surrounded by angry people.

Assassins in gaming tend to be inspired by D&D rogues and "assassins". Which were pulled directly from Gary Gygax's cavernous rectum. Not that pop culture has needed any help romanticizing Assassins. See also Ninja's and Pirates.

Crippling Overspecialization Assassins in league usually suffer from overspecialization. Most other classes can bring something to the table besides raw killing power against one type of target. Melee Assassins can kill soft targets and generally suck at all other aspects of League except possibly Clearing Waves and Jungling.

In the end you have a character that rarely hits a sweet spot. If strong delete high value targets with impunity. If weak be worthless. This has been the state of pure Assassins since Season 0.

"But X was balanced during Season Y" Individual Assassins have occasionally had moments of reasonable balance but the class as a whole and the concept as a whole have been in a fail state for 8 years.

"But I LIKE Assassins" Yeah I mained Nocturne and Talon until Nautilus came out. Being bullshit is fun. Surviving a suicide mission through pure "skill" is awesome. Steam Summer Sale is on, you can probably pick up Assassins creed games for cheap.

Really there isn't much more to say. We can bitch about details. We can talk about Win Rates. We can talk about frustration and player fantasy. We can talk about how the game has never been truly balanced. We can talk about snowball. We can invoke Hitler. At the end of the day Assassins are the one class that have always been the outlier. Because the fantasy Assassin concept doesn't work well at all in League.

162 Comments

Madsin25Jul 2, 201846 votes

Let's go over history shall we.

They buffed ADCS in patch 7.9 while at the same time nerfing arm pen. ( armor pen changed into lethality )

ADCS shined in the ardent censer meta while assassins could not do their job properly. Assassins complained.

Forward in time to preseason.

They get rid of the ardent meta while at the same time introducing new damage runes for assassins to have fun with while at the same time buffing lethality.

Not to mention every single assassin can make good use of sudden impact which basically makes all the armor the squishys were "compensated" with null and void.

In short riot can not do their fucking job.

SolitairJul 2, 201826 votes

I've been saying this shit for years: ASSASSINS DO NOT FUNCTION WELL IN MULTIPLAYER GAMES WITH MULTIPLE CLASSES.

They just dont. There's a class dynamic that kind of works between rangers, mages, tanks, fighters, and "healers"--and assassins are a wrench in that dynamic. I have never ever, not once, seen this class balanced and executed in a good way in any multiplayer game. What I HAVE seen time and time again is that assassins just ruin games by sacrificing the fun of everyone else. Their basic premise is not a viable model for a game with class dynamics. How can you possibly balance a class that is defined by killing others quickly and disappearing without being noticed? It is not possible. The assassin fantasy is great for single player games, but it does not work in games based around team play. I've seen them make every other damage dealing class unviable, I've seen them take over PvP and PvE, I've seen them make people stop doing open world PvP altogether en masse, I've seen them ruin countless league games for everyone who isn't them. I've seen them consistently attract the most toxic players. I have NEVER seen them balanced.

Grimo1reJul 2, 20189 votes

This is one of the best analysis's over seen on the class I've been a long time orianna main and I'm honestly thinking of quitting (again) because riot has almost entirely removed cohesive team play with diversity of champions making the game dull I wouldn't even say assassin's are the biggest offender of this juggernauts are honestly the most boring class to watch play and support for and make the game a living hell for any class without mobility if you are not in a call hugging your tank line (mostly non existent now days) and sometimes it doesn't even matter the game has grown so so dull often I'm just pressing e and w on my Darius or garen and watching them run down enemies while I sit back in watch or being removed by the 5 enemy assassin's or bruisers who can 100 to 0 me with no counterplay jump on me and remove me from the game. Meanwhile if I play zed I'm gaurenteed to go off and snowball kill the adc (oh wait they don't exist anymore) or squishy with no effort even though my zed mechanics are absolute garbage it's so easy to snowball off of duskblade provides a insane powerspike at such a cheap price while tear got nerfed scaling got nerfed in favor of early fighting and snowballing for quicker game paces to keep audiences? Entertained with flashy fights of one team crushing another entirely in a boring melee deathball I guess I mean sure I guess if thats what the the audiences want sure riot go ahead I just miss the days when non bust mages and adcs felt relevant please fix this godamn meta

ahferroin7Jul 2, 20185 votes

It really depends though on how they're implemented.

In general, 'assassin' usually means one of four play styles in video games:

Highly conditional burst damage, usually with high secondary utility, who tends to be very easy to kill.
A scavenger who picks off weakened targets after a fight or while they are disengaging.
A suicide bomber who is entirely centered around eliminating either the enemy DPS or healer.
A god who looks cross-eyed at people and makes them disappear, then can do so again after a short amount of time.

The first case is the classic D&D and RPG rogue or assassin. It actually works very well if implemented properly, even in a team game. Kha'zix is a decent example from League, but he's not limited enough by his conditional damage that I would consider him a good implementation of this play style. Renger and Shaco are also theoretically examples, but their damage is functionally not conditional right now.

The second case is the typical MMO design. It also works reasonably well, provided the rest of the game is balanced around it and the execution potential is gated sanely. Pyke and Pantheon are examples from League, but they have way more utility than a good implementation of this approach should, and have almost nothing gating their execution potential. This is also, coincidentally, how many champs who are not tagged as assassins play if you go for an assassin build on them.

The third case is an infrequent design seen in some MMO's with short death timers, and is the primary design in MOBA's. It can work, provided there is sufficient means to protect against it that sacrifices something else. This appears to be the intended play style for most 'assassin' champs in League, except things are usually such that you either can't defend against it, or you lose nothing for defending against it.

The fourth case is what things are like in League right now. Realistically, it should only ever exist in single-player games or PvE games. This is functionally how some shooter games implement snipers. and it can kind of work there, provided the maps are designed to account for it. With a significantly longer recharge time and less mobility, this is the classic mage play style.

SolitairJul 2, 20181 votes

{quoted}

It really depends though on how they're implemented.

In general, 'assassin' usually means one of four play styles in video games:

Highly conditional burst damage, usually with high secondary utility, who tends to be very easy to kill.

A scavenger who picks off weakened targets after a fight or while they are disengaging.

A suicide bomber who is entirely centered around eliminating either the enemy DPS or healer.

A god who looks cross-eyed at people and makes them disappear, then can do so again after a short amount of time.

The first case is the classic D&D and RPG rogue or assassin. It actually works very well if implemented properly, even in a team game. Kha'zix is a decent example from League, but he's not limited enough by his conditional damage that I would consider him a good implementation of this play style. Renger and Shaco are also theoretically examples, but their damage is functionally not conditional right now.

The second case is the typical MMO design. It also works reasonably well, provided the rest of the game is balanced around it and the execution potential is gated sanely. Pyke and Pantheon are examples from League, but they have way more utility than a good implementation of this approach should, and have almost nothing gating their execution potential. This is also, coincidentally, how many champs who are not tagged as assassins play if you go for an assassin build on them.

The third case is an infrequent design seen in some MMO's with short death timers, and is the primary design in MOBA's. It can work, provided there is sufficient means to protect against it that sacrifices something else. This appears to be the intended play style for most 'assassin' champs in League, except things are usually such that you either can't defend against it, or you lose nothing for defending against it.

The fourth case is what things are like in League right now. Realistically, it should only ever exist in single-player games or PvE games. This is functionally how some shooter games implement snipers. and it can kind of work there, provided the maps are designed to account for it. With a significantly longer recharge time and less mobility, this is the classic mage play style.

You say that, but your examples only work against you. I believe that no example can help you because there is not a good example of assassin balance in multiplayer games compared to other classes.

Kha has always been a balance nightmare. So has Rengar. So has Shaco. Kha has a history of being extremely snowbally and nearly impossible to play against when even a little ahead. He has never been balanced. He has always either been way too strong and bursty, or too nerfed to be viable. he was your decent example, but he's actually a terrible example. Still, he's arguably better than the other two, because that's just how bad the assassin situation tends to be. Rengar was probably the most iconic offender for having no real counterplay to a 100-0 one-shot pattern that required quite a bit of practice to master. Even though he was "gated" by skill requirements, it was not enough to justify the completely frustrating experience he brought to other players. In order to balance him, riot basically removed his identity and turned him into a "diver" instead. This is extremely telling of why assassins are impossible to balance. The only way to balance them is to remove or tone down what defines them as assassins in the first place. That's because the things that define them as assassins are what makes them problematic. In other words: The assassin class is the problem. You cant fix their problems without destroying their entire class identity.

We could also go way into Shaco's long history of balancing issues, but I think you can probably infer the issues from the entirety of the rest of the assassin class's history.

The typical MMO Design is probably the worst assassin design out there. These have the greatest and most shameless escape advantages. They can either come back and try again with impunity, or they are completely useless. Team-based games do not need scavenging classes that can only serve to scavenge. Those assassins still need enough damage and cc to be independent agents. Either way, they throw a wrench into the whole system--whether they were to be balanced as strong enough to be independent(too strong) or weak scavengers(useless). Your league examples, again, were not good examples of balanced assassin designs. I also do not have any good exampled of balanced assassin design for this. I only have really, really bad ones.

For 3. That's what Rengar was supposed to be. It's a toxic, anti-fun design. The assassin has to die to do his job, and so does any squishy he clicks on before he dies. There is no point in this design. If the design is successfully implemented, not even the assassin enjoys it. It is plainly bad design.

PynndragonJul 4, 20182 votes

Yo, did you read his comment? In the end, you're agreeing with him while you tell him he's wrong, so I'm completely confused where you're getting at.

If I'm getting this straight, your second paragraph follows what he was saying about failed design implementation on Kha'Zix, where his neat concept doesn't carry through and he becomes a balanced problem akin to numbers 3 or 4. You both said the same things about Shaco and Rengar, although I'd personally say Rengar is even worse in design that he shouldn't count and should be replaced with someone else.

So, in the end, this guy was not stating examples of balanced assassins, so please make sure you know what you're responding to. I mean, hell, when you mention 3, you both mention it being a poor design.

Now, you have an argument here. Focus on this. You have an argument on whether the MMO design is flawed. You say it is, he says it can work. I agree with him on this one. It totally works, and usually isn't a crap design (if it is, it's the champions most of the time that's a balance issue, not the class). He stated Pantheon, which I agree with. His one issue is his laning phase but that is a champion issue, not a class issue. He mentions Pyke, and I 100% agree with that one. This class is a class that focuses on scoring "picks," something that definitely should exist in League, and has never been a huge balance problem. Issue comes into play that, of course, being the developers they are, Riot makes a mistake, and doesn't give them a proper identity and overloads a champion in this way. Good examples of this are Elise and Camille, where they've got the same underlying mentality of Pyke and Pantheon but they have more options and can cover a wider variety of things. But any class has this issue, as you can see in divers such as Gnar, or tanks such as Ornn. Even marksmen such as Vayne maybe, I don't know, just throwing names into the air at this point.

My personal opinion on that argument aside, respond to the bits you actually disagree with, rather than just argue because someone commented to you and for some reason think it's an aggressive/argumentative response. He had amazing reasoning, his whole argument was that "hey, assassins can be implemented correctly, but Riot's not good at that." Next time, focus on that, stick with your original bit on "assassins can't work in League." Focus this, my guy.

Also, none of this is supposed to sound rude, please have a good day, I don't want to really cause harm here.

IainG10Jul 2, 20185 votes

People seem to forget that there are other class games than MOBAs, and assassins are toxic as fuck in all of them. Having played PvP in WoW and Guild Wars 2, I can safely say that assassins are horrible there as well. Now WoW has its' own other problems as well as Rogues (like Blood DKs, looking at you Ghostcrawler) but GW2 it's pretty much limited to Necros (read Vladimir or Rhaast) or Thieves. Now there are varieties of Thief, and which ones you see is determined by which ArenaNet have currently failed to balance. Currently in are dual pistol ( Twitch with Ult), staff Daredevil ( Fizz ) and Rifle Deadeye (now Jhin , weaving spells and autos at long range; but it used to be Zoe , one careful setup then BOOM). Past iterations were sword/dagger (dual or mixed), which played like Talon or Zed . The one thing they all have in common is/was they are/were molten liquid AIDS to fight against; the only allowed any fun is the person playing the Thief...

YourAreMyQueenJul 3, 20186 votes

It's funny that two of those games started going down hill because of this when Ghostcrawler came on board. I wonder who the problem could be?

deadlychuckJul 2, 201821 votes

The really tricky part (as a fellow S1 vet), is that assassins were never really intended to exist in the game. They more became a class through demand and entertainment market pressures.

A history lesson.

Seriously, look at the "assassins" that use to exist before season ~3 (idr exactly when riot started to recognize them in an official way), they were all things like "fighters" or "mages". They didn't really exist as they do now. Then people started playing extremely high risk, high reward styles by stacking pure offensive items and then using their skill, or just editing together montages, to completely negate the fact that they were dancing past instant death the whole time.

Riot said "hey people seem to be entertained by this, we should create this kind of play style for the normal player" and so the ~~mobile AD mage~~ Asssassin was born. Now don't get me wrong, the first few iterations of this (from my memory) were OP due mostly to mechanical undervaluing by riot, but their damage wasn't particularly spectacular, because riot tried to maintain the damage division (**abilities **scale with **ability **power and auto **attacks **scale with **attack **damage. simple i know). But what they found was that a champion like Fizz was completely worthless if you couldn't use his innate mechanical advantage as a crutch. Yet this was painfully obvious and people fucking HATED these first attempts, because they were blatantly unfair, but also impossible to balance because mechanics are expensive to change for balancing, and the only realistic method of nerfing them through damage, set to low enough to be balanced, then you just end up back at a fighter rather than the assassin fantasy.

So instead they started to let AD creep into the role of the ability power. Suddenly you could have extremely squishy champions which could be both highly mobile and have excessively high burst damage. The 3 champions that really kicked off this trend were Rengar Diana Khazix , because news flash Diana was sold as an assassin first and fighter second on her release, but she was kind of that bridge of "assassins are just mobile burst".

There was one small problem that riot over looked with these new blurring of the lines and attempts to appeal to this "I'm OP and unstoppable all out offensive machine of carnage" called the "assassin fantasy"... OTHER CHAMPIONS USE THESE STATS.

The result was basically that all of the old fighters started to get OP, so they overcompensated the tanks, which lead to a tank meta. Then they said "well that's not really fair so let's buff ADCs". Now the ADCs were doing too much damage to everyone (including assassins) which really kinda fucking hurt the whole "unstoppable death machine" vibe they were going for (oh yeah and slow bruisers now juggernauts were complaining). Then they said, you know that's a little bit too much again so we should probably try to bring assassins back into the fray, but then tanks found that their defensive stats were meaningless when the assassins also had auto attacks (what are now call skirmishers) which were now designed to completely obliterate tanks on account of the ADC buffs. Then after a few rounds of that they said "fuck, we forgot about the slow fighter types", then we saw the juggernaut update. Then it became FoTY, which classes were getting "~~reworks~~ global buffs", and everyone just kinda expected them to start dominating the meta again, then by the time we got around to tanks rito was like "well shit these are actually a really bad idea, but we're kinda committed now (sry supports)".

Simply put, the existence of assassins has been the cancer that spread across this game and created the arms race of damage centered gameplay. All of this could've been alleviated if they'd just introduced a 3rd primary stat (they're throwing true damage around a lot now, that could've been a decent way to balance assassins, low scaling high CD burst damage + mobility). But now they've bitten off more they can chew and been hemorrhaging players. (I literally called this exact cause like 4 years ago if they didn't hit the breaks).

All the while mages are sitting here like [zombie-brand-facepalm]: "Tanks don't die. Assassins still kill us instantly. Marksmen clear faster and deal more reliable damage." [cass-cry] : "Can we please get some decent itemization?" [leblanc-funny]: "Ha, i'm an assassin now mother fuckers!... wait what?" [sg-ahri-1]: "Who the fuck thought this >> Malzahar << was a good idea?! Do any of the devs even play the mages?"

Probably missed somethings, this was all from memory, but the shifts in meta were kinda position based for some time during this while the arms race was just allowed to continue. What I call the "era of lee sin".

HayaishiJul 2, 201819 votes

New runes give so much free stats and damage that it's impossible for this game to be balanced within the next 2 seasons atleast.

I think the new runes were a unnecesary change.

LeveretteJul 2, 201814 votes

Remember back in Season 0/1 when Assasins were just Katarina, Shaco, Evelynn and maybe Nocturne? Those were good times. Eve was trash (coining the term "Eve Tier" for a long time) but other than that they were all great!

Katarina's job was to go in and liquidate >40%HP targets once a team fight was wrapping up, and if she could catch other semi-low people in her AoE moves intended for that original target, she could get resets and keep whittling everyone down as she danced around the battlefield. It was very strong, but it came at the price of forcing your team to perform acceptably under 4v5 circumstances as you waited to get an opportunity. Unless you had presence in other ways, you could easily be useless if your team needed that extra fighting power from the get-go. It was risk and reward in equal parts. Give and take.

Shaco was the best. He'd come in all spooky-like and start jabbin' you in the back. You wouldn't die from it but boy was it unsettling. Now you've gotta try to run away because it's 2v1 against laner and clown man, but what's this? You're slowed and it keeps renewing itself every time Shaco autoattacks as though he had a Frozen Mallet? Curse you, Two-Shiv Poison! You make it difficult to reach my turret before these two guys pummel me to death! It still takes a grueling 8 seconds one way or the other, but either I'm gonna reach my turret and flip you two off with 3hp or you're gonna get me and start spiraling the early game out of control. Shaco was always an Assassin you could deal with under normal circumstances because he required lots of time to get the job done, but at the same time he was still a tremendous early game monster and a great Shaco could end games in 20 minutes (big deal back then) if you didn't play cautiously. The trade off? Dude couldn't team fight for jack! He was an early game monster because he was a late game creampuff. Give and take. Risk and reward. No oneshots, it was manageable... but still terrifying in the right hands. A perfect example of what Assassins should strive to be.

Evelynn was... a mistake. Back then at least. But hey 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

If you count Nocturne though, he was just some dude who would come in globally (used to be global, it was awesome) and start autoattacking you. He didn't nuke you, it was more of a whittling kinda thing really. But considering that was always being added atop whoever else you were fighting from literally anywhere on the map back then, it's understandably still threatening. Plus he does fear you so he's got that going for him too.

Back in those days, damage and mobility were not nearly what they are today. That means you took longer to get away, but it took longer for you to die too. In other words, it was less condemning to make a single tiny misstep, and one mistake wasn't gonna cost you the game. Assassins were still threatening because they were great and coming in and making your life harder. Back in those days, they were specifically designed to fight dirty. Shaco and Nocturne would gang up on people 2v1 and just slowly assist at taking them down, Katarina made your team's retreat turn into a trip to the meat grinder, and Evelynn... theoretically would also do what Shaco and Nocturne did.

Assassins were GREAT back then. They were scary but you enjoyed having to deal with their shenanigans. Nowadays they just faceroll you in 4 seconds when you have 300 armor, solo style. Power fantasy be damned, give me my slow and steady Assassinations back!

GrReaper96Jul 2, 20187 votes

You obviously never tried 6 item 3068 eve

LeveretteJul 2, 20181 votes

Hahaha, yes! I remember hearing about that but wasn't quite early enough to catch it before it stopped stacking. I know it was crazy, and Shaco could have 12 if he used his ult! Though Eve doing it while invisible and essentially untouchable was of course pretty crazy. Yeah, I remember hearing that at one point Eve had been super strong (too strong) and got nerfed into the ground for it.

PB4UAMEJul 2, 20182 votes

Her E (base kit Eve, remember, nothing to do with current Eve) stunned, and you could do so from stealth.

If they didn't level 1 purchase a pink or straight up OE Eve could gank them before their first back from stealth with a stun to blow flash, then repeat gank over and over 'till they got vision, then you sweap out their pink, or kill them to cancel Oracle's, then go right back to repeat ganking them.

The origins of 'no counterplay' being applied to assassins, and was also a later argument (I'm talkin years later) used in support for the removal of Talon, LeBlanc, and Kassadin's point and click silences. Having hard CC that they could guarantee with no effort at all on their part on top of the ridiculous mobility and damage they had turned out to be kind of OP from the perspective of their ~~victims~~ I mean uh. . . opponents.

LeveretteJul 3, 20183 votes

Oh man I remember when those three had silences. Talon was the Mage Slayer, with Kassadin not far behind at all. I also remember when Mages (LeBlanc and Kassadin, among the ones you listed) were the people who would nuke you and not Assassins. I miss when Mages were the scary burst damage dudes but were balanced by being supremely vulnerable... now Assassins took that job from them and didn't remember to bring their vulnerabilities with them. They do as much burst if not more now, yet also have tricky stuff like invisibility, wall jumping, etcetera.

Also I knew Eve once had a stun but I didn't realize it didn't break stealth. What an oversight!

WyrmbladeJul 2, 20185 votes

Quality post my dude. I've been playing HotS recently and the assassins feel a lot more fair because they have more sustained damage patterns than league but make up for it by having strong single target CC. The two assassins that are just a ton of damage and mobility are the most obnoxious characters in the game. It's made me realize that Riot was actually right when they gave Leblanc and Kassadin silences, they just needed to be less bursty with more counterplay in other areas.

MOLTinaTORJul 3, 20181 votes

So they were more like fighters back then? Isn't an Assassin supposed to take your life fast and easy instead of playing tic tac toe on your back with a kitchen knife? They're not supposed to "make your life harder", they're supposed to end it as fast as possible lol. Nice post btw! Gave me a smile :D

LeveretteJul 3, 20182 votes

The idea that someone should be able to come up to you out of nowhere and suddenly end your life is fairly toxic and unpleasant though, don't you agree? Way too stressful to know you could just randomly fall over dead at any second and have no say in the matter. Trust me, back in those days Assassins were scary. When nobody did huge damage (except Mages, but they had every other weakness under the sun), it was a lot easier to be scared of things besides just getting 100-0 instantly. These guys were the kings of suddenly making you go "Oh crap..." and if you ask me that should be exactly what an Assassin is.

I would definitely not call them fighters back then because they were guaranteed to lose a full-on 1v1, and that's good because a ninja should not defeat a samurai in a duel to the death. That's today's problem. The samurai trained specifically to be the ultimate fighter and the ninja trained to employ dirty tricks when the enemy is at their most vulnerable. Why on earth should the ninja always defeat the samurai in single combat? That'd be silly =/

It's not like they were just weak though. They were simply specialized in unfair battles and turning a disadvantage into a crazy disadvantage. Which, of course, is exactly what real life Assassins do. Capitalize optimally on getting someone when they're least able to defend themselves. Plus you got to decide how you wanted to disadvantage your victims by picking from different specific Assassins who all had different shticks. Nowadays every Assassin is the same character: "I kill you instantly before you realize I'm here."

EinarUlfarJul 2, 201811 votes

If you could alter Assassins to remain a class, yet function healthily, what would you do/propose?

HolgranthJul 2, 201858 votes

Assassins would need to be build around being a follow up to allied damage. Executing low health targets. Or as Alpha damage for their team mates to follow up on. Instead of being a 100-0 then escape class.

To do this the entire damage Meta would need to be gutted. Champions would actually have to have well defined roles and not everyone could be a 100-0 killing machine.

All Assassins would need to be reworked to have more utility and interactions with team mates.

The line between "Diver" and "Assassin" would probably get pretty darn blurry.

AvisPraedaJul 2, 201820 votes

That was what they used to do, move around the edges of a fight waiting for a squishy to lose just enough health so they could finish them in one go. It was a big risk for the assassin to have someone else on the enemy team come after you before you were in position, because you would have to burn parts of your combo to get them off of you and still get to the adc.

Yeah, the assassin got fed, they could start going rambo on everyone, but they were never guaranteed to instakill anyone in one combo if they were on even or even slightly ahead ground simply because "That's what an assassin is supposed to do". They had to work to get to that one-combo.

Now, since assassins can kill all but the tankiest champs and are expected to 100-0 right out of the gate, everyone has to avoid them, making it extremely hard to interrupt an assassin without losing something to them.

UkobarrywewaJul 2, 201817 votes

So in other words, Pyke

LordGeovanniJul 2, 20185 votes

Assassins would need to be build around being a follow up to allied damage Thank you have have been saying this for several years. I dont think that assassins need more utility but rather assassins as a class should have bad base damage and Missing hp damage taking it away from any adc or mage who has it. and should have long cooldowns after they use their spells with not alot of ways to excape fights not saying one or 2 assassins cant keep an excape but that should not be a class staple. Mages in that same respect should have lower burst damage so that they do chunks off full hp champions where they would have out right killed before and have really long cooldowns to capitalize on so that they have to rely on auto attack to supplement damage or function As a cannon with only one shot. The combination of a mage doing initial damage and assassins following up should come close to out right killing people depending on how much defesnes they have

remakoroJul 2, 201811 votes

They could have been inspired by D&D rogues but most of them dont follow the same concept and thats why they feast or famine. Or Feats or feast.

Rogues bring a lot of utility to the party and were first of all composed of all that utility shit that everyone else could do. Stealth, traps, scouting, trap disarming, use of magical bulshittery thx to abundant skillpoints. And only then you have them doing dmg. Most league assassins is two bits no-brainers that can do dmg or do dmg. Or well. Be so fucking mobile that no one can dream of catching them. Those that follow original pattern actually feel much more assassin-like and not just simple burst machines.

Those closer to D&D counterparts that can utilize traps for example and actually have something beside damage are much better. Like Teemo or Shaco

It Hertz When IPJul 2, 201810 votes

Assassins as a concept can't work well in League, because the entire concept is toxic in and of itself. Assassins exist to do one thing: dive into the enemy team where normally all rules of warfare and battle say you are safe, kill you in a short enough period of time that short of divine intervention you can't do anything about it, then get back out. It's only fun for the assassin player when this is possible, it's never fun for the target, and the target's allies hate that they often can't do shit to stop you short of spraying wards everywhere and holding onto all the CC they have. No one has fun except the assassin player.

Theoretically assassins exist as a way to stop fed carries from getting out of hand. The problem is that there appears to be no way to create that power without it also working as well, if not better, on anyone who isn't a tank or built tanky. And the tools to counter assassins (hard CC, shields, etc.) ALSO work as well, if not better, on most other classes.

It gets better when you look at assassin items and abilities. You have to deal a lot of damage in a short time, so how do you do that? Make high-damage items and the corresponding carry class (ADCs for AD, Mages for AP) will frequently abuse them. What about putting the damage directly into the assassin's kit? Well, now that the assassin doesn't have to build damage items to HAVE damage, they can build tank items, becoming high-mobility bruisers with few to no tradeoffs.

ISawYeesusJul 2, 20181 votes

since when was getting killed by any champ considered fun?

PB4UAMEJul 2, 20184 votes

Having a battle that you feel you can win, and slowly losing out to an obviously more talented player, who you can see is winning not by some asinine bullshit that you can't do anything about, but who simply uses their tools better than you, and achieves success through their own talent and knowledge-- that can be a wonderful experience. A chance to learn, a chance to see that there are still new heights for you to strive for, better ways to play, more options to consider, etc and enjoyable competition where you can appreciate the efforts you made against them, even despite your ultimate lack of success. Rather than feeling like your efforts were negated, and that there was literally nothing you could do against it, because the game doesn't let you have any options, and they can kill you no matter what you build, or what you do-- you feel like you did your best, and have now an idea of another way to try that fight in light of how they beat you last time.

Say an Illaoi kills you, it's entirely because you fucked up and let her be able to kill you. You have counter play and outplay potential for each and every skill she has, and at no point in time are you ever helpless against her, or unable to escape, or unable to outplay. A lot of it is simply being aware of terrain, and especially her tentacles along the walls, and side stepping slow moving, 1 second delayed slams from those tentacles. But notice, there is a delay, and it is up to you to move out of it in the 1 second you are given. Similarly, her Q, the slams from her W and her R, those are all the same slam, and can be counter-played similarly. If she Q's, she casts a slam that starts slightly in front of her, not corresponding to any previous tentacle, but rather her own body. If she lands a W, all tentacles in range will slam towards the target's position when she landed the W. If she ults it does minor PBAoE damage, but then summons 1 tentacle per spirit/champion hit, up to a max of 5. These then hit twice as fast, but are limited to a small circle, and can be avoided entirely by just leaving the circle and backing off.

I've already mentioned things you can obviously see about her slams which lead you to intuitive counterplay that all champions are capable of, but what about the rest of her kit? So, say you died to her E -> R -> W -> W you while you get swatted in her ult circle. She's just hit you and your spirit with a minimum of 2 tentacles 3 times within about 4-4.5 seconds, ~4.5 slams yourself (two tentacles hitting the same target is 1.5x damage x3 = 4.5 do note, if there was another tentacle, or two, or three near by, the damage would instead be 1.75, 2, 2.25 as the damage per tentacle when three hit is 1 + 5 + .25 x slam damage, or 1.75, with every subsequent tentacle continuing to add only 25% of the slam's base damage) with your spirit taking a similar amount, in about 4-4.5 seconds of damage or for simplicity's sake, a slam's worth of damage a second to you and your spirit.

Damage ≈ 1 slam/sec (You + Spirit) --over 4.5 seconds

Her E damage conversion at max rank is "45% (+ 8% per 100 AD)" at level 9 she has a base 101 AD, which gives us 54% damage conversion, so this then becomes:

Damage ≈ 1 slam/sec (You + .54You) --over 4.5 seconds ≈ 1.54 slams/sec (You) for 4.5 seconds = 6.93 ≈ 7 slams worth of damage dealt to you

If you notice from this simplified expression of roughly the information above, if you can avoid getting your spirit taken, an entire term disappears. You might think to yourself, "how much less damage would I have taken if I could have just avoided that bloody E?" But it isn't just 54/154th's of the damage above. . .

What you cannot see but is also important to be aware of, is the fact that there are only three slams to begin with because when she ults they will automatically slam towards any vessels or spirits, and so they would slam immediately at your spirit before her first W. So not only would a term cancel, but the formula loses 1.5 slams so instead of 4.5 slams/4.5 seconds, it now becomes:

Damage ≈ 3 slams / 4.5 seconds (You) = 2/3 slams/sec (You) --over 4.5 seconds = 9/3 = 3 slams worth of damage dealt to you

In actuality, 3.93 ≈ 4 slams worth of damage, or 56.7% of the initial damage is removed simply by not letting her pull your spirit. Dying, and then going into death recap and starting to see this (or just mathing it out afterwards as I like to do; loading the replay and working backwards from any sort of "bullshit" death to try to figure out what happened and how, and what conditioned lead up to it, then the math of what went on) gives you a wonderful "Aha! That's what I can/should/need to do, just hit/avoid X ability/zone/combo/etc and I'll get her/him/it/etc next time!"

Yes, getting killed by Illaoi might at first feel somewhat bad, but when you think about it, you had to have misplayed, and she gives you a chance to see that, and goals to improve towards, and shows you herself how you can avoid that the next time, so it feels like you're improving against her. You're fighting a longer term battle that you're actually winning, even if you just died, and that can feel amazing.

SwiftKitten88Jul 2, 20189 votes

Requiescat in Pace

ooooaleJul 2, 20188 votes

This post is great, you have an awesome sense of humor and really get the game well great job

ModCaptainMårvelousJul 2, 20187 votes

It's the nature of assassins tbh.

For Assassins to be strong, they have to reliably be able to burst a target quickly and get out. To players, this feels horrible. The counterplay to an assassin is something you did 5-10 minutes ago or 1-2 minutes ago by not being vulnerable. You'd never know it but you realize it because they don't kill you. It's never going to be a clean class because people hate dying to something they perceive as having no counter.

YourAreMyQueenJul 3, 20181 votes

So when I'm standing under tower full hp as support zilean and a 0/0/0 51 cs zed comes and kills me in one combo without his ult, please enlighten me as to what I did wrong. Because the only thing I can think of is that I didn't play a tank. Which is the definition of no counterplay.

ModCaptainMårvelousJul 3, 20185 votes

Sure!

You weren't aware of him roaming bot.
You didn't ward to see his gank coming.
You severely underestimated his DPS
You assumed a tower can protect you from burst.
You didn't invest in any defensive purchases at all.
If he's killing you in one combo without ult, you're probably a level or two behind him.

I'd be actually interested in a replay of this, otherwise I'm going to just assume it's a hyperbolic statement. Considering the specifics, I'm going to assume this is something that actually happened to you or...? I mean I checked your match history and didn't see any Zilean games.

ƒƒplsJul 2, 20187 votes

When I think of assassins outside of video games, I think cold, patient, careful. They take a long time to set up the perfect moment to take their target out. Assassins in league have been more or less "HEY MAN IM AN ASSASSIN IM GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU DONT YOU DARE COME NEAR ME OH SHIT HE CAME NEAR ME LET ME JUMP IN AND SMASH EVERY BUTTON AND FUCK I DIED BUT HA I KILLED SOMEONE ELSE."

FCJAAAAGOOOOJul 2, 20187 votes

Too much about damage, not enough about anything else. That's the problem with Assassins. That is literally unbalanceable.

IDEMO NA MUDAJul 2, 20186 votes

To be honest, assassin class in Dota 2 is just everything league should do about their assassin class. You have Riki, for example, who's one of the best assassins ( imo, i was quite a newbie when i played Dota 2 ) and she could execute a target really quick afterwards she would usually get killed due to a tank cc or just any cc in general making them a non-moving bullseye. Overall, assassin class is the worst one in the game currently, and just basic difference between assassins is huge. You have a Zed that everyone has been crying about how broken is, while he is literally a troll pick in high elo due to a non existent trading power that other champions ( assassins, in this case ) have. 22 seconds cooldown on the only trading power he has is huge. Then you have LB or Talon who can 100-0 you on level 3 and so on.

BakedLotionJul 2, 20184 votes

is this guy really saying zed is a troll pick in high elo lol

look at any statistics and it says otherwise

bbQsauçeJul 2, 20185 votes

[deleted]

BakedLotionJul 2, 20184 votes

Statistics don't have opinions

Players do

The same could be said about any champion. "hurr durr only mains play this champion" yet zed still pulls numbers that are higher than other assassins out of his ass

you didn't say a single thing specific to zed himself

If they're complaining 24/7 then why do they still play him? Because he's not a troll pick. All talk but no action.

bbQsauçeJul 2, 20183 votes

[deleted]

BakedLotionJul 2, 20181 votes

I don't know why you're saying the facts are there, yet all you seem to link are opinions

"He was better in ardent meta" "These 3 people (that quite frankly, I couldn't give less shits about) said he's bad" "I can assure you, he's bad!!"

The only real fact you gave was that he hasn't seen competitive play. But that doesn't say anything.

Fact of the matter is, he's pulling good numbers. So he, at the VERY LEAST, isn't a troll pick. Or else he would otherwise be pulling well below 50, and nobody would ban him.

bbQsauçeJul 2, 20186 votes

[deleted]

BakedLotionJul 3, 20181 votes

->tells others they're circle jerking

-> proceeds suck pro players' dicks

we can stop now

NipsahoyJul 2, 20185 votes

{quoted}

They admitted as much in the Assassin "class update", which was a magnificent failure overall.

Some History Back in the good old days when Christianity and Islam were having a friendly competition to be the most peaceful religion of peace, the order of assassins were pre-bomb suicide bombers. Their modus operandi was as follows:

Step 1. Stab your target in a public place with a concealed weapon. Step 2. Die because you are a drugged up fanatic with a dagger and no armor surrounded by angry people.

Assassins in gaming tend to be inspired by D&D rogues and "assassins". Which were pulled directly from Gary Gygax's cavernous rectum. Not that pop culture has needed any help romanticizing Assassins. See also Ninja's and Pirates.

Crippling Overspecialization Assassins in league usually suffer from overspecialization. Most other classes can bring something to the table besides raw killing power against one type of target. Melee Assassins can kill soft targets and generally suck at all other aspects of League except possibly Clearing Waves and Jungling.

In the end you have a character that rarely hits a sweet spot. If strong delete high value targets with impunity. If weak be worthless. This has been the state of pure Assassins since Season 0.

"But X was balanced during Season Y" Individual Assassins have occasionally had moments of reasonable balance but the class as a whole and the concept as a whole have been in a fail state for 8 years.

"But I LIKE Assassins" Yeah I mained Nocturne and Talon until Nautilus came out. Being bullshit is fun. Surviving a suicide mission through pure "skill" is awesome. Steam Summer Sale is on, you can probably pick up Assassins creed games for cheap.

Really there isn't much more to say. We can bitch about details. We can talk about Win Rates. We can talk about frustration and player fantasy. We can talk about how the game has never been truly balanced. We can talk about snowball. We can invoke Hitler. At the end of the day Assassins are the one class that have always been the outlier. Because the fantasy Assassin concept doesn't work well at all in League.

It's not really a class that's healthy imo. Being able to kill targets with no counterplay isn't healthy but if they fall behind they can't really do anything successfully except play guerilla warfare type play. Picking people off through the jungle or trying to clean up fights or coming in at the end. They don't teamfight well but they are too strong in 1on1 to be healthy most of the time.