Why does assassins have %health damages?

ID x iKuma·5/26/2016, 3:06:47 PM·64 votes·2,811 views

Didnt you guys realize why Ekko and Fizz are the only legit assassins who go full tank top lane/Jungle? sure their mobility is one reason but the %health damage is big part of why they just go bruiser or full tank and still do so much damage and they duel so well because of it.

I know about the korean Akali full tank thingy but honestly it didnt last long and its just not as effective, its so easy to shut her down too. Why dont we see full tank Zed or Talon or even Diana? because they lack %health damage that Ekko and Fizz have( I do know about Zed's passive, its just so unreliable for him to go full tank)

Just remove these %health damages and replace them with better AP scaling and put in end to the assassin going full tank BS, no ones having fun playing against these abominations

48 Comments

Penns5/26/2016, 3:27:39 PM11 votes

Pretty sure its because of their base dmg, not their %damage.. I mean, Zed has %hp dmg too lol.

The Yetii Rider5/26/2016, 5:43:17 PM11 votes

It's not % health damage. It's % MISSING health damage. In other words, it's damage that scales off the damage you already dealt to the target.

If a Fizz hits me 3 times for 200 damage and I'm a 4000 health tank I'm not going to take an extra 120 damage (3% of 4000), I'll take an extra 6 damage (3% of 200).

This damage is reduced by armor and MR, because that affects how much health they will have missing, and then reduced by it again (in the above example, that 6 damage would be reduced lower by armor and MR).

Granted, these abilities generally trigger off a certain health threshold, like 30% health or below, which makes them feel more impactful. But getting a tank down that low is a team effort.

To deal this damage you need to have decent damage otherwise. Tank items offer too much damage between Sunfire, Grasp and IBG. Riot just needs to let tanks tank and not give them damage on their items.

CerealBoxOfDoom5/27/2016, 3:11:54 AM8 votes

actually fizz and ekko aren't legit assassins

they are fighter assassins that people simply take for granted and think of as assassins because they rely on damage evasion undoing/evasion rather than just sitting there taking it to the face.

Fives555555/26/2016, 3:16:32 PM5 votes

This post even makes sense. +1 for the suggestion from me.

Kitten of Evil5/26/2016, 3:55:01 PM4 votes

Ekko and Fizz are the only legit assassins who go full tank top lane/Jungle?

Decent base damages and utility. Even if he doesn't build a ton of damage, Ekko is very sticky, has an AOE stun, and can also reset a fight if he takes too much damage. Fizz has decent base damage and his R amplifies most of his damage by 20%.

Why dont we see full tank Zed or Talon or even Diana?

Because a Zed or Talon without damage is completely useless and offers his team nothing. Diana often builds a bit bruisery, but that's more for survival. These champions don't have high base damages, they scale with AD/AP, and they also have virtually no utility.

Astôlfo5/27/2016, 2:16:51 PM3 votes

% missing health on assassins is fine. % current/maximum health on assassins is not fine.

FurretHasAGlock5/26/2016, 3:21:38 PM3 votes

This is a very logical post. Gotta love tank varus Varus

Hige5/27/2016, 5:54:17 AM2 votes

%hp damage occurs when you want a champion to deal damage no matter what, an assassin for example, his only job is to kill the target he chooses and then be useless for a while (best case, of course), by giving him/her %hp dmg you make sure that no matter who they're hitting, it hurts, a lot.

Now you gotta look at the constrains these skills has, in ekko's case he's %hp AFTER 30%, also it's MISSING hp, this translates to enemies like this: DO NOT fight Ekko when bellow 30%, you won't win no matter what. And it translates to Ekko like this: go after the one with less than 30%, you'll kill him for sure.

Sadly, Ekko has such a kit that allows him to bring someone down to 30% very easily, making his best case scenario really overpowered, if E did no damage at all, Ekko would probably be balanced, considering the fact that he has 3 slows and 1 potential stun/shield, he doesn't need to be overloaded with magic damage everywhere.

Fizz is even worse, while his %hp dmg is cooldown constrained, with 40% cdr it's 6 seconds... and the skill remains active during 6 seconds... meaning that with enough cdr Fizz efectively can mantain his W on forever, that said, %missing hp damage becomes seriously good after 50% hp, so in reality you shouldn't activate it before that BUT on fizz' case it has a base damage attached to it... plus it is enhanced by his ult and once again, his kit allows him to bring you down to 50% hp without much effort, just hit your ult and you're on your way.

tank versions of these champs are subjected not only to their %hp dmg, since as you noted yourself, the likes of Zed and Vayne has this type of damage, it's just that Zed and Vayne are balanced around scaling, while Fizz and Ekko just have huge bases and even damage/utility where they shouldn't and current items allows them to abuse these strong points.

Papa Slothy5/27/2016, 1:36:07 AM2 votes

well the reason why those other champs aren't built tank imo is that they are more item reliant than base damage reliant

LaserDeathBlade5/27/2016, 6:38:46 AM2 votes

% health damage allows champs to not be worthless against tanks, but at the same time not make them absolutely explode squishies

AS I LAY FEEDING5/27/2016, 6:15:58 PM1 votes

Go tank Vayne kappa

TotalJerk5/27/2016, 7:19:30 PM1 votes

Ekko and Fizz do percent MISSING health damage. Those abilities are intended to be used as executes to finish off wounded targets, something assassins are supposed to be able to do well. If you attempt to burst down a healthy tank vs a healthy carry, it will typically do more damage against a squishy target because the squishy target will have more missing health by the time you apply it.

This is the same principle behind Lee Sin's second Q, it does more damage the more damage the target takes beforehand, so if you initiate with it you're doing less damage than if you're finishing off the target with it. It's a fair counter argument that Fizz simply passively applies it repeatedly, anyway, but if Ekko had no incentive to worry about when he procs the passive it would make him easier to play and give him more consistent damage.

SiG DxD5/27/2016, 9:04:43 PM1 votes

well Talon passive is very shit, unbearable ,doesnt matter what scenario

Slamurai Jack5/27/2016, 10:01:19 PM1 votes

You wanna know the other reason Fizz and Ekko are the assassins they build tank? All their abilities do magic damage. Magic damage is naturally superior to physical damage assuming the amounts of damage are similar. Champions naturally have more armor and armor is easier to itemize. Armor also has the best 1v1 item in Sunfire Cape while there is no real equivalent against magic damage.

I7A6X2v25/27/2016, 10:26:05 PM1 votes

**They will not remove %HP dmg from Fizz Ekko just because you can't beat them... your whining is useless. **

ImmortalBloodCY5/28/2016, 2:53:46 PM1 votes

I got no problem with tank ekko since i delete him with Mordekaiser.

I do have problems with fizz tho.

Quepha5/26/2016, 7:05:58 PM1 votes

In order to their job, an assassin needs to be able to kill a target. They absolutely need enough damage on their kit to accomplish this.

If all that damage is in flat damage then they are much better at killing squishy targets than tanks and also much better when they are ahead and keeping their enemies at a level and gold deficit so their hp pools are smaller.

%hp damage rounds them out a little. They are still capable of killing targets that aren't super glass cannon builds, they can still kill some targets when their team isn't super far ahead, but they also aren't necessarily of 1v5'ing the enemy when they do snowball.

Captain Aishi5/27/2016, 1:00:30 AM1 votes

and people have also strangely stopped playing tank kha'zix since the patch that removed his %hp damage on Q

EcchiOtakuTM5/27/2016, 2:32:42 AM1 votes

Meh ekko's real issue is he has 2 hard ccs as an assassin when assassins shouldn't have a reliable or multiple hard CCs. (Having 2+ low cd or reliable 40%+ slows counts as hard-cc since that's close to perma-slow).

Ekko either needs 2 of his slows removed or fully reworked W since even if you may say it's hard to land it's a heavy zoning tool/survivability/2second stun/ a long with having a heavy slow prior.

I have no ideas for a reworked w but either of those choices would fix him(not both at once).

As for fizz honestly I havn't really thought about how much hidden power he was getting from his W. I sadly have no suggestions though although personally I feel fizz is fine outside of needing a 1 second CD increase on E which may seem like a joke but I'm dead serious.

Dealth5/27/2016, 5:25:30 AM1 votes

In reality it's because the tank items grant universal stats which work well on most melee champions

JedenVojak5/27/2016, 6:11:24 AM1 votes

Because otherwise they would need to have MASSIVE DAMAGE either in bases or in scalings.

Unless you want to see fizzes and ekko's with 500% ap ratios running around.

A little Peepo5/27/2016, 6:13:10 AM1 votes

Ok there are so many things wrong with this post.

Tank ekko is a thing because of his insane amount of CC and self utility. Ekko could have his damage destroyed and people would still tank ekko regardless, the bonus dmg is just a plus. An assassin should not have that much CC nor self utility and riot clearly stated that before yet ekko came out lol
Tank fizz is a thing because of the mobility, initiates, survivability and the fact his ult amps his damage for whatever reason (fizz was always an Ap champion until riot buffed his ult with the dmg amp thing meaning fizz would go ad or tank and still benefit from that free dfg passive)

I doubt that %damage is the issue but rather the utility, cc, initiation and survivability these champions have.

Zed can't play tank because he has no strong CC nor strong utility just straight up damage Rengar: he works as a tank because of his self utility and decent cc with a great initiation Kha: same thing, decent self utility with initiation Lee: he has everything and honestly % missing health over current is much stronger Akali: has high base damages and can just jump on people during fights and stick to you like glue Leblanc: only damage, no strong CC nor utility

I know I'm missing more but it's the same, all the assassins that can play as tank all have the same issue, utility and CC, assassins should have non of that and should only have damage, period.

MLDzXnRRR5/27/2016, 6:43:57 AM1 votes

Diana tank is just Jax without stun and no AS steroid... No reason to play her tanky atm.

Zed can play bruiser, but he has to right click to kill anyone without stacked armor pen and AD. And his base AS is low for DPS carry. He will be more useful in teamfights lategame with bruiser builds (everyone knows that Zed now is super bad lategame, if the enemy team has more than 1 exhaust, you can go afk in the fountain later). Talon has also bad base AS and AS per lvl and he is not bad in teamfights lategame with glass cannon build unlike Zed.

Look Irelia - her kit screams "Assasin", but she has godly base dmg, great AS and can just build tank instead of DPS or burst dmg.

Spoofghoul5/27/2016, 1:53:48 PM1 votes

in ekko's case building armor/mr makes his shield just a s durable as building ap and the same goes for his ult heal

so he gains nothing there in terms of survivability by building ap but building tankd oes make him hard to kill

The %dmg on both fizz and ekko is completely out of place its hidden power and should be removed and instead just be a flat amount

cooldowns on their defensive abilities should be higher so they will ahve to be more thoughfull about their plays other then hurr durr durr oh they want to hit me let me go invulnerable hurr durr

Mandang05/27/2016, 2:39:21 PM1 votes

It's because Riot doesn't enjoy encouraging type/class advantages in league, yet they swear up and down they're cracking down on generalists...