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I think assassins would be healthier if Riot just went back to the philosophy they had 1-2 years ago

Get Ogre Here·8/28/2019, 5:53:25 PM·9 votes·2,870 views

When Riot did the assassin rework alll that time ago, they had a pretty well-founded philosophy that I think is a good one.

##Assasins should have delayed burst

I think that a good example of this is what they did with (that they for some reason reverted). She hits an enemy with an ability, she has to wait like a second before she can efficiently burst them.

Also , she has to throw out her Q then E onto it before she can burst someone.

As an assassin player, I think this is a good design because if you need 1-2 seconds of lil preparations to burst someone, then the squishy will be able to use their defensive spells like shields, mobility, heals, CC, etc. For example, say you're playing Syndra and Katarina throws her dagger at you. While it's in the air you can think "Oh, now I can Q > E when she blinks and attempt to either kill her or get out!".

Some assassins just don't have this anymore like who I mentioned, or .

kinda has this but I think they should increase her shroud duration and decrease her passive damage, just to make it a lil more delayed.

Adding the delay on his rake and making a lot of his damage a bleed was a good way to go.

##But now for the items

I think we all can agree that is a pretty unhealthy item. I love using it, but it's not good for the game, so I think we should adopt the 'delayed burst' rule on this item as well. In my opinion, Duskblade's damage should come 1 or 1.5 seconds after using your first auto attack. This would do what I said earlier, allow mages and whatnot to use their defensive spells accordingly, giving them time to react.

I think that assassin itemization should be looked at overall. I'm pretty sure I saw Riot say that they're going to look into making AD and AP assassin itemization improvements, and I hope that is something they're working on.

That's just my 2 cents tho idk maybe I'm dumb

23 Comments

1wolfpack8/28/2019, 5:59:33 PM11 votes

Im pretty sure I know Rengar is coming to kill me when he ults.

Pxerkza8/28/2019, 6:00:17 PM7 votes

assassins shouldn't have delayed burst you know why? because if they do have delayed burst there is 0 incentive to play assassins

as everything that is built full damage would have faster burst than assassins

ap malphite unloads in less than a second why play anything else that is meant to kill people if a tank that is built with damage can outperform your ass

MasterDClone8/28/2019, 7:04:09 PM6 votes

there is a reason almost every assassin from that rework got their shit reverted, because delayed burst has no place on an assassin. The only successful ones were katarina, not for delayed burst but because she now required a lot more skill to play and good kata players could really flex their skills. Fizz IMO was the best one because he required some amount of skill to play with timing the W procs which for me was one of the funnest mechanics. Rengar was a good idea to make his damage be aoe, but because they added dusblade an item he couldn't utilize it put him in a bad spot.

Modl Ryden l8/28/2019, 8:23:50 PM4 votes

The delays still exist.

Katarina Shunpo Channel - Shunpo is no longer instant and can only be used on enemy units and daggers. The daggers also notify the player where she's likely to land.

Kayn cannot use ultimate UNLESS he does damage and his Q and W has delays. His circle has to wait for his dash to finish and his W shows a template of where it will strike.

Zed goes untargettable for a second during his ulti as well as the mark not doing any damage until 3 seconds after it has been applied.

Akali needs to lane E to recast, Her overall cooldown on ulti is longer than it used to be when it held charges and refilled on death. As well as an inherent delay between the first and second cast.

Talon cannot take any action besides Flash and Ulti when using his Assassin's Path, whereas his old E was an instant blink to a target.

Fizz has an inherent delay before his shark is summoned on his ulti.

Rengar and LB has their delays removed because the design a skillshot Q and a 2.5 second delay mark AFTER using a spell made no sense in terms of player controls.

Kassadin's ult spam was halted with exponential mana costs per cast.

Heck, Pyke, a newly created assassin since the assasin's update, whose E is delayed after casting and Q requiring a cast to hook has had his design with the delay idea in mind.

Evelynn's charm had a delay and marker letthing the affected player know where she'll strike from.

Even some stealth champs got their stealth delayed, Twitch, Evelynn, and Rengar.

Teh Song8/28/2019, 6:03:11 PM4 votes

I would say that an assassin who's burst is delayed isn't an assassin.

Delayed burst is fine and dandy, but there also needs to be champions with non-delayed burst. Delayed is for mages, non-delayed is for assassins.

Leaving too long of a delay before an assassin's burst kinda defeats the purpose. They're supposed to assassinate people, after all.

Zed genius8/28/2019, 6:49:29 PM4 votes

Almost every assassin in the game has clear counterplay, except maybe some cases like akali rn or even kha'zix. Giving them a delay on their burst just makes it basically impossible to make them work. Every champion in the game deals as much damage as they deal if not more, so there's no incentive to play them unless you simply just enjoy the champions. Why play rengar when rammus can literally one shot people during his taunt (not even an exaggeration)? Why play talon when you can deal double the damage as xerath while staying back and making it impossible to die? Assassins should get looked at. The aSsAsSiN uPdAtE from a few years ago didn't do jack shit to them, it was basically just a nerf.

musixxal8/28/2019, 7:07:27 PM3 votes

they have delayed burst, the community just has no clue how mechanics come together so they fail at the counterplay.

Schenix8/28/2019, 8:33:59 PM3 votes

Delayed burst gave rise to tanks and supports being immutably more powerful than any assassin pick that didn't become a bruiser. ADC's are high consistent damage, and crit burst on squishies. There's no point to an assassin who doesn't have ridiculous mobility or safety nets, if it is delayed.

They cannot get through the Bloodthirster shield and health bar then without having it stolen back, even with GW, and they pose even less threat due to the abundance of shielding and healing available. If delayed burst was commonly allowed on assassins, they need to be so powerful that they auto win lane, or otherwise be shoved out by other classes in terms of usefulness.

There's the rogue idea of giving every assassin the Shaco backstab, and reducing their overall damage a bit, allowing them to use their mobility and truly burst if they're playing well, rather than unloading their items and extra damage benefits. It also gives room for assassin items to be unified to a system of vision control and damage from it, like Duskblade.

On a personal note, I like Duskblade. I think an item that lets you scout and take out vision, giving you damage on the next instance because of it, is very linked to the assassin style. At the moment though, it doesn't feel as impactful to do it nor detrimental to forego it, which it should. It's like how Dirk has a passive, which feels good to use, but Dirk does not feel bad to use without it. The lethality could be halved as well, until you take out a ward. There's dimensions where the Assassin class can be expanded, rather than being one that just unloads numbers on someone and expects an output or bust.

WalkingInACircle8/28/2019, 6:00:58 PM2 votes

They don't want them healthy, they want them in pro play. In order to be effective in pro play, they have to be able to get kills against people who are properly defending themselves. This means replacing kill pressure with making their early game so overpowered that it's basically welfare kills.

Diävolo8/28/2019, 7:57:46 PM2 votes

The problem on assassins didn't start from assassins. The problem came when adcs got buffs. These buffs made them too much OP. Making riot buff assassins. Which made tanks useless. + Making adcs weak. Riot buffed adcs and now we have adc problem. Assassins deal tons of damage too. cancer game

Yautja wannabe8/28/2019, 8:55:53 PM1 votes

Well they tried that, but it didn't work. They went back to making them burstier for a reason.

PermaJinxed8/28/2019, 8:42:58 PM1 votes

Leblanc got reverted because their fix to her double distortion combo was to remove 80% of distortion's damage. This put her from 100% pick/ban EVERYWHERE to a healthy % of play and winrate in the highest echelons of play... And a horrid winrate below plat..... She fell into the 30s for winrate iirc.

The entire trick to delayed burst at that point was a fast double distortion to set up the passive then back out and fire off a sigil to detonate it all.(all this ended by any point and click cc or right click burst)

She was a aoe assassin that in practice died before getting any damage off...

That's why they went back to the single target burst and Riot have just balanced her off distortion since.

Velasan8/28/2019, 8:55:28 PM1 votes

The trick is that assassins by nature are not really team fighting champions, they are meant to run in and quick burst a priority target and run out.

That essentially means they aren't playing the same game as the rest of the 9 people who are with them. Every other role is focused around grouping up and team fighting. Some are better than others at team fighting, but regardless it usually boils down to group on a lane or at baron/dragon and team fight to win the game.

An assassin wants nothing more than people to be solo on side lanes or where they can easily jump on their target out in the open.

Attempting to accommodate that secondary play style is one of the reasons the game is so lop sided right now with Lethality, turret plating, and lack of defenses.