Thoughts: Assassin Rework.

So i got to thinking about all the assassins that i'v played (i'v played all of em except Zed.) and i kind of realized something. There are 3 completely healthy assassins in League of Legends and if we look at their kits we can see why.

Their names are Vi, Ekko and Diana

For all of these champions they share several traits, with ekko you have your really nice reliable damage the thing with his damage is that it's really easy to predict, if your playing against him you know that the third hit of his passive hurts a lot and you know to avoid it. Because of his kit being mostly skill shots (His E is not), this also makes it crucial for the ekko player to hit his passive procs, it isn't exactly a face-roll, he also has a tiny bit of CC with his W and Q but it's not enough to lock someone down and it's also avoidable and predictable. The same can be said for Vi, she has a 3 hit passive that's satisfying to the player and predictable by the opponent, she has a small amount of CC and while she doesn't have the skill shots that ekko has, she has less damage to make up for it. With Diana, she often isn't built like a fighter but i found that it does still work, there is counter play for the opponent and it's so much fun to play her that way. She even shares the 3 hit passive, tiny CC and only 1 non-skill shot ability, her CC is a lot less than Ekko and Vi though so she gets more damage to compensate.

What i'm getting at is that the assassins that are fair to play against have a lot of counter play so building super bursty often requires a lot of skill. So instead Riot gave them the ability to be played like a fighter/diver as well, making them not useless and also making it fair to the opponent. They all have just a tiny bit of CC (usually more if less damage and less if more damage) and they all share a satisfying play style with their 3 hit passives and interesting mechanics. These champions all have those things in common and are often not considered unhealthy (with the exception of Tank Ekko happening sometimes).

Then we have the less healthy assassins and find they also have something that bunches them together. Fizz, Zed and Yasuo

With all them they do insane, hard to gauge damage (yasuo with his crits and fizz with his damage overtime.) and often have a lot of ways to avoid damage while also dishing out a lot of it(Zed ult/Teleport's, Fizz E/Dashes, Yasuo Windwall/Dashes.). They are extremely mobile and really hard to play against due to their kits giving a lot of mobility and a lot of ways to outplay you that just seem completely unfair, more like you got cheated by the champion than out skilled by the player. With these assassins they often don't fall off in the late game like most assassins do and will be infinitely more painful to play against the longer the game goes on. This is why these assassins are unhealthy, they lack the same amount of counter play that the fair assassins have, they aren't balanced when we take their anti-damage ability's and mobility into account as well.

Finally we have the burst assassins, these assassins are almost completely useless if they don't get fed, they don't have a lot of ways to outplay the opponent and have kits that are revolved completely around finding someone and killing them instantly. If they can't do this they can't do anything and are pretty much a hindrance to there team for the rest of the game. Katarina,Rengar and Leblance fall into the category, to be fair leblance has a lot of outplay potential but that doesn't really matter if she get's shut down early. She won't be able to kill the carry and she certainly won't be able to survive, her kit doesn't let her build Bruiser like Ekko,Vi and Diana can and this makes playing champions like these really unsatisfying. If you do get fed the enemy team complains and for good reason because they just die without anything available to them.

The thought i had was that if all assassins had kits more like Fighter/Diver kits, not only does it open up a new play style for them but it also makes them healthier to play against. Whether it be with On-Hit passives, Skill-shots or less damage it works and it still let's them be bursty, you'd just have to be a better player to pull it off. That's not necessarily a bad thing right?