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Assassins are not are terrible

Marshbouy·May 1, 2016·3 votes·443 views

Assassins at their core are not inherently toxic. They are most certainly annoying but they are not toxic. They are snowball/lead reliant and usually needs items or you to mess up for you to kill you. In order for them to be properly designed they needs to have a couple things

need to be ahead or at least even
immobile/dangerous to engage (E.G. rengar is immobile after he jumps into a teamfight)
have a somewhat bad early game
need outplay ability
have to build glass cannon (or close to) (i might have missed a few points)

The issue occurs when they start breaking these rules. For example Zed has ridiculous poke and wave clear early game. Zed also is very mobile and can escape very easily. Leblanc is also incredibly mobile. When assassins start breaking these rules they get very broken very fast. On top of this completely rapes some assassins (and for good reason, it is supposed to after all). I didn't think the passive was worth the 1000 gold until i started playing rengar. If you are playing a champion that doesn't break those rules zhonyas will annihilate you. When used properly it will definitely save your life unless your team ignores the assassin trying to kill you, or you are so out of position that you will die anyway.

Assassins are not inherently over powered and just because you got instant deleted by a 10/1 Rengar does not mean zhonya's needs another 20 ap to be viable. If an assassin breaks one of those rules and god forbid more than one ( ) that is when they start becoming over powered.

16 Comments

Akali is SO HOTMay 1, 20164 votes

Prepare for mage mains to downvote you from the Fog of War

MarshbouyMay 1, 20162 votes

My anus is ready

Surfer AsheMay 1, 20161 votes

However, Zed breaks even more rules with being the least reliable assassin due to how much counterbuils and play there is to his ult (QSS, Zhonyas, he always appears behind you) that you can exploit easily. A lot of traditional assassins like Akali, Kat, or Talon don't give you that luxury

LB is a bit odd, but she's had this kit since 2011 and hasn't been a problem until recent seasons, which speaks to me that her numbers are overtuned. Even giving R - Mimic a mana cost again could help more than you think.

MarshbouyMay 1, 20161 votes

That's why zed is so weird. He's in a state where for a lot of gold he's useless but still very op

Michael SykesMay 1, 20161 votes

Leblanc has extremely high mana costs, especially during the laning phase. When her ult would cost mana, she would have big problems. Additionally, her kit is well designed.

Critmaster GarenMay 1, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Michael Sykes,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IAohay37,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2016-05-01T19:10:36.028+0000) Additionally, her kit is well designed.

no. for several reasons im too lazy to explain. it should be enough to look at her patch history and how she was always either shit tier or op to the point of insanity. not being able to balance a champion with simple number changes and get him into a good spot, thats a sign of a broken kit.

and her mana costs being high is not an argument for a well designed kit.

Michael SykesMay 1, 20161 votes

interesting that you say that. At the moment she is well balanced. She has clear counterpicks, countermechanics and strengths. Beginners have a low winrate, mains have a solid winrate. And riot playtest shares that opinion.

Critmaster GarenMay 1, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Michael Sykes,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IAohay37,comment-id=0001000100000000,timestamp=2016-05-01T19:56:35.361+0000)

interesting that you say that. At the moment she is well balanced. She has clear counterpicks, countermechanics and strengths. Beginners have a low winrate, mains have a solid winrate. And riot playtest shares that opinion.

even by her winrate alone you cant judge that shes balanced. leblanc is usually extremely binary and her winrate just evens out between the games she stomps way too hard and the ones shes entirely useless.

there are healthy assassin designs. but one of the most important attributes an assassin should have is commitment to their assassination attempts. think like katarinas shunpo. she can use the ability to jump on a target and assassinate him. but if for any reason she fails to do so, shunpo doesnt reset and her way out is blocked, leaving her in a vulnerable spot.

leblanc violates this in every possible way. she has to take 0 risk on an assassination attempt. she jumps in with her w, and attempts to burst a target from range with point and click burst. if for any reason she fails to actually kill her opponent, she can instantly reactivate her w to jump back out.

this also makes her lane pattern utter trash where you have very little to no chance to ever trade back at her.

leblanc is THE worst designed assassin possible.

i really want to hear your arguments why you thing shes supposed to be the best assassin design. the fact that someone actually thinks this makes me laugh.

Michael SykesMay 2, 20161 votes

You can judge every champion by the winrate. And you have to distinguish between the competetive and ranked winrate. In competitive she is good, because she plays with a coordinated team against another coordinated team and she can be in her role perfectly. In ranked she can be stomped and she can stomp. She has clear counterpicks like every other champion. And every champion can be weak when he is behind. Of course a champion that is snowbally (like every assassin) can become ahead.

actually Katarina is a candidate for an update because she has that unsafety. I read every rioter's comment, so I have the best information. Otherwise a good Kata would never go in when she won't get a kill and die. in the end your argument is not valid.

Assassins can only work in a game like this when they can survive their own try to assassinate their target. They are not considered to be a class that suicides to get a kill.

if you think that you can't trade a lb in lane, you have really no idea what you are talking about. Of course it is not easy to trade with her for a Viktor or a Cassio (Cassio might be stronger against lb after the update) because they are countered by lb. But lb will lose the most trades against a Diana or a good Fizz.

So I was not able to find a good argument in your text. But because I am so friendly, I give you one: In my opinion her q+r poke without proccing the ult q with the chain is very strong (but not that "op"). In the past (when she had a silence) the damage on the procs was not 50/50. It was more like 30/70. They could change it like that to seperate the good lb's from the bad lb's.

Surfer AsheMay 2, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Michael Sykes,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IAohay37,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2016-05-01T19:10:36.028+0000)

Leblanc has extremely high mana costs, especially during the laning phase. When her ult would cost mana, she would have big problems. Additionally, her kit is well designed.

That's kinda the point.

Michael SykesMay 2, 20161 votes

yeah, so she is okay O.o

AlwaysByMySideMay 1, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Assassins at their core are not inherently toxic. They are most certainly annoying but they are not toxic. They are snowball/lead reliant and usually needs items or you to mess up for you to kill you. In order for them to be properly designed they needs to have a couple things

need to be ahead or at least even

immobile/dangerous to engage (E.G. rengar is immobile after he jumps into a teamfight)

have a somewhat bad early game

need outplay ability

have to build glass cannon (or close to) (i might have missed a few points)

The issue occurs when they start breaking these rules. For example Zed has ridiculous poke and wave clear early game. Zed also is very mobile and can escape very easily. Leblanc is also incredibly mobile. When assassins start breaking these rules they get very broken very fast. On top of this completely rapes some assassins (and for good reason, it is supposed to after all). I didn't think the passive was worth the 1000 gold until i started playing rengar. If you are playing a champion that doesn't break those rules zhonyas will annihilate you. When used properly it will definitely save your life unless your team ignores the assassin trying to kill you, or you are so out of position that you will die anyway.

Assassins are not inherently over powered and just because you got instant deleted by a 10/1 Rengar does not mean zhonya's needs another 20 ap to be viable. If an assassin breaks one of those rules and god forbid more than one ( ) that is when they start becoming over powered.

"Assassins are only healthy when they need to snowball but aren't given the tools to allow them to snowball" lol.

MarshbouyMay 1, 20161 votes

Explain?

AlwaysByMySideMay 1, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Explain?

You say that to be healthy, they should be weak early. I disagree with this point of view in of itself for other reasons (if every assassin has the same general power curve, the only ones that will be picked will be whoever has the best numbers in each lane they go. We need early game assassins like Zed as well as late game assassins like Kassadin), butt then you say that to be healthy they need to be ahead, or at the least even.

So you believe that an assassin should be forced to be even or ahead in gold to be relevant, but also that they should be weak early, making them lack the tools to get to that state themselves?

The reason Kassadin has such a shit laning phase is because he scales like a monster, and the reason Zed has such a good one is that he falls off as the game goes on.

You would make it so that all assassins had a bad laning phase while also scaling poorly, no?

MarshbouyMay 1, 20161 votes

I totally get what you are saying but zed's early game is annoying at best and downright oppressive at worst (or at least was). "weak early" should be changed to "not overly strong and oppressive early"

ModRito WuksAug 28, 20171 votes

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