Why the assassin rework is a failure and the new tank meta

WrÆth··3 votes·1,432 views

Hiya. So with the next assassin rework coming around the corner, I'd thought I'd take the liberty to post my personal opinion on all of it. So from what I've gathered, the assassin rework is designed to two things:

  1. Lengthen the burst sundown of assassins
  2. Make assassins unique to one another. The most significant problem I see here is the first one. Lengthening an assassins burst window. So why is this such a problem? Firstly, believe it or not, an assassins job is to one shot. How exactly they one shot carries is basically determines the greatest assassins from the worst. Which assassin can one shot someone 9/10 times and escape while alive? This makes champions such as fizz Leblanc and zed problematic. Their ability to one shot while remaining completely safe. So, since an assassins core job is to one shot, the only way to balance this is to add counter play their one shots, or make them less safe while doing so. The worst way to balance assassins is to "lengthen their burst window". Let's see what's happened in the past when riots attempted to do this. Probably the best example of this is ekko. The classic assassin built tank. The reason he works so well as a tank is precisely because of his "burst window". His 3 hit passive, to be exact. It's much easier to proc this passive when built tank. In conclusion, the main problem is, if your going to lengthen an assassins burst window, why not just build them tank? The whole idea of Ann assassin is burst damage, and the whole idea of tanks is sustained damage. When the lines start to blur is when problems arise. So why not just build the reworked assassins tank? Tank rengar has already been shown to be a possibly sleeper pick, and tank akali is expected to be up and coming.

5 Comments

rtbf349024823 votes

Hmmm... there's something that people don't quite understand yet.

When Riot folks mention 'delayed burst', they don't actually mean it should take 'longer' for an assassin to kill his victim. They actually mean 'the burst arrives a bit later, but still hits like a truck'.

Let's look at Leblanc for a simple example:

Her new passive Sigil of Malice makes it so you casting two abilities in quick succession makes you deal less damage. On the other hand, if you wait for the mark to fully channel and then hit with a second ability, you get a lot of damage off from that ability.

In reality, what Leblanc did was - as she used to do before - one-shot her target. Only the burst came 1.5 seconds later (and it's stronger than before, if done right).

Now - during that wait time, it's about Leblanc staying close enough but not too close, which is where the c.o.u.n.t.e.r.p.l.a.y thingy comes in. Leblanc is not forced to stay on the enemy's face during that wait time. What her enemy needs to realize is 'She's going to kill me. I must react'.

As opposed to - if it were previous Leblanc - 'I'm dead. Whatever'.

This is different from tank Ekko, who goes in your face and keep smacking, and manages to stay on top of his target thanks to the slow effect on his passive - which has been removed to avoid just that. Even then, he will eventually kill his target, but it's going to take a while. How long that while takes, it is of Riot's responsibility to balance. For the goal they're trying to achieve, that while should be VERY LONG.

The way assassin Ekko is meant to be played is to use Parallel Convergence as a way of creating window of opportunity to get in (notice the delay time before the arrival of the slowing/stunning zone), but staying as little time as possible (there's a pun here?) in the middle of the fight.

Whether the reworks were all a success, it's arguable. And I agree Ekko, Rengar, and Fizz (etc.) are hard to get in the 'right' path. But it is necessary that people understand truly what Riot is trying to accomplish, before bashing them. Afterwards, bash them all you want ;)

TL;DR

There's a difference between 'delayed' and 'sustained'. 'Delayed' is what Riot is going for.

Ralanr1 votes

I've noticed this with Talon. I can't get my full combo out stupid fast, but when I get to do my full combo, the damage is pretty damn high.

The only weakness is that if it isn't enough to kill the target, I need to back off. Which feels like an assassin weakness in general.

It seems most assassins reward good set up of their combos now.

WrÆth1 votes

So it seems riot is rewarding assassins for a more delayed burst (compensation). For example, fizz is getting 300% damage boost after 2 seconds of w bleed. So if riot is rewarding a more delayed burst, i think assassins will only be viable as tanks anymore, since they already get cucked pretty hard by cc.

Limmie2 votes

This pretty much.

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