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

Holgranth·7/2/2018, 2:25:29 PM·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

Madsin257/2/2018, 2:39:54 PM46 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.

Solitair7/2/2018, 7:06:30 PM26 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.

deadlychuck7/2/2018, 10:46:53 PM21 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".

Hayaishi7/2/2018, 3:15:11 PM19 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.

Leverette7/2/2018, 6:13:59 PM14 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!

EinarUlfar7/2/2018, 3:25:14 PM11 votes

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

remakoro7/2/2018, 7:21:16 PM11 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 IP7/2/2018, 6:03:31 PM10 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.

SwiftKitten887/2/2018, 3:46:59 PM9 votes

Requiescat in Pace

ooooale7/2/2018, 7:28:23 PM8 votes

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

ModCaptainMårvelous7/2/2018, 7:14:32 PM7 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.

ƒƒpls7/2/2018, 9:34:48 PM7 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."

FCJAAAAGOOOO7/2/2018, 10:14:44 PM7 votes

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

IDEMO NA MUDA7/2/2018, 9:11:43 PM6 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.

ModJango Mage7/2/2018, 9:46:35 PM5 votes

Looking at all the downvoted comments, it kinda show what the assasin player base is like.

Nea1047/2/2018, 6:16:47 PM5 votes

{quoted}

Steam Summer Sale is on

That's what actually matters. Never thought I'd have to thank Gaben.

Nipsahoy7/2/2018, 5:51:07 PM5 votes

{quoted}

They admitted as much in the Assassin &quot;class update&quot;, 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&amp;D rogues and &quot;assassins&quot;. Which were pulled directly from Gary Gygax&#039;s cavernous rectum. Not that pop culture has needed any help romanticizing Assassins. See also Ninja&#039;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.

&quot;But X was balanced during Season Y&quot; 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.

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

Really there isn&#039;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&#039;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.

Stróc Dúnmharú7/2/2018, 8:50:04 PM5 votes

@OP

I agree with your overall point, but I'll have you back up off of Mr. Gygax before you inspire me to demand satisfaction, sir.

La Belle Sauvage7/2/2018, 5:29:09 PM4 votes

Great Post!

Darius Strada7/2/2018, 11:21:55 PM3 votes

It doesn't work in League or any other competitive game