Riot, Assassins do not need buffs anymore for laning

There are far too many assassin players lately praising Riot for reverting and buffing assassin champions. While I totally agree that, both the old Rengar and LB were better, let’s not get carried away here

If anything, Riot has learned that Assassin champions should not really have huge delays, like the reworked on LB did. More importantly, you shouldn’t freely giving free wave clear. The old LB(current one) despite having very nice waveclear had to choice between using it on push or to punish a champion

Anyways!

My point of this topic is to let Riot know that Assassins are currently pretty strong in mid lane. A lot of them will continue to dominate the laning phase once the AP mages comes in in 8.9. Assassins never had a hard time laning versus. Currently, majority of actual mages like VelKoz, Ziggs..etc need to be 10 feet’s from any of these assassin past lvl 6; with the removal of easy mana access, it will be hard to stay back while trying to wave clear.

I want to say that, yes, Assassins need help in Assassinating past multiple shields. You can give them 10-40 more damage on their abilities, it won’t help when their target (IE a Cait gets a shield that’s twice her HP). All this did was give assassins more damage in a 1v1 scenario, where they don’t need it .

Zed, Talon, Lb don’t need more damage to 1v1 any of their targets (AP champions or ADC). Assassins are finding it hard to reach their targets when team fighting kicks in. As a zed, you reaching a ADC can be achieved but a Janna just needs to shield/exhaust to completely stop the initiations. By buffing the damage of assassins, all it is does is create a problem in lane for anyone going up against assassins in 1v1. I repeat, Assassins do not need help in 1v1.

The biggest problem is it takes much more work for assassins to get past a simple shield from Enchanters like Lulu/Janna than it does for those enchanters to counter it.

There are two ways to really fix it:

1. Perhaps give assassins a tools that makes it slightly easier to penetrate through shield. Perhaps lethality should do extra damage to targets with a shield (or multiple shields) but lower their overal damage when shield aren’t active.
2. Enchanters and shield related items need to be toned down. It’s so nice riot only gave this solution to Irelia.

I’m basically making this topic because Riot just wants to remove AP mages Wave clear from LCS. Yes, it’s a problem. However, you have completely gutted AP mages like Vel, Zigs..etc ability to duel. You removed a huge portion of their damage, gave them lower cooldown and expect the problem to go away. In reality, all you did was create the very same problem you are now trying to get rid off. Who would have thought that by giving a AP champions low CD, mana cost, and lower their damage, that all they would do is waveclear and wait for them fight where their utility for an ADC is superb

Mark my words Riot, both the pick rate and winrate of many AP mages will continue to drop. No, I’m not talking about the few rare champions like Lb and Ryze. I’m talking about the Vel Koz, Ziggs,

TLDR: Assassin damage is already fine in 1v1 situations. They just need a slight buff/mechanic that helps them against targets that get shield from outside their kit.