Boards›Gameplay

Marksmen have become AA Assassins

Altaria·2/5/2018, 7:22:03 AM·83 votes·3,751 views

I don't understand Riot's logic behind the fact that an Assassin who's not behind nor ahead doesn't do the same amount of damage as any hypercarry ADC with their full kit combo that the ADC can't match in three autos. Their DPS has become BPS, which is burst per second now. There's no more kiting, barely any that I see, no more ADC's playing around positioning and peel to get their damage to work. Just a point-and-click.

The point of ADC's was to deal damage from the back and shred the enemy tanks, not destroy them. Shred. Then, move on to their carries. Except champs like Vayne can take out tanks in 3 seconds.

And if you try to build damage on Assassins to shut them down, if they have any form of disengage/peel or CC, you're immediately dead. You are going to die. Vayne will Condemn you and 3-auto you. She'll eat your tanks, she'll eat your carries all the same. Kayn doesn't suffer from these matchup issues because of his safety and mobility along with Shadow Assassin passive, but Kayn is an exception, not the rule.

Nothing matches their damage, and I don't see how that's reasonable at all. Even full tanks can barely survive a few seconds, thus the ADC needs to be locked down immediately and shut down.

But why? Why does every aspect of the game have to revolve around ADCs? Tanks for peeling and engaging, Supports for CC, Junglers to get them fed, Mid to provide backup damage, why is the ADC role the top of the food chain at all times? Can't be outdamaged, can't be traded with (unless you're Kayn and your ult is up), and if your ADC is even slightly behind, they're gonna win.

Assassins can one-shot people and walk away, yes. But they have to walk away, if they don't and aren't super fed, they'll die. Get a pick and back out. ADCs can one-shot people and then their entire team, while having 3 tons of lifesteal and shields/CC to support them. Untouchable.

They can be played around, and your team has an ADC too. But why must the game revolve around them? Assassins haven't been in the spotlight since Season 3, and I honestly just wanna go back to then sometimes. The exact opposite of them is the ADC, who at all points seemed viable enough, and so did hypercarries.

I'm not salty, I'm just asking, if Marksmen can be all of this and more, why do Assassins even exist at this point?

72 Comments

Śhunpo2/5/2018, 8:22:20 AM43 votes

It's funny, because assassins aren't even the main champions being shown in oneshot complications either. ADCs AND mages have overtaken them, with the exception of Shadow Kayn who directly goes against Riot's insta-burst ideologies.....

But yeah, you know assassins aren't an issue when they aren't even highlighted in oneshot complications and the like.

Meanwhile ADCs have been deleting people for the past 5-6 months....

Teridax682/5/2018, 11:00:56 AM29 votes

While there are a lot of systemic issues that I think are causing marksmen to have too much burst (their autoattack damage is just too high overall past a certain threshold, imo), I feel there are also targeted changes that could be done right now to help alleviate this, namely with Statikk Shiv: as an item that is often picked second or third on marksmen, and that is commonly picked on practically every marksman, to the same extent as Infinity Edge, its overwhelming dominance should already be a warning sign, but on top of that it is notorious for providing large amounts of upfront burst to a class that is among the least deserving of it. In fact, Statikk Shiv's proc damage is currently so strong in conjunction with IE, that its bonus magic damage on just one target is higher than Duskblade's on-hit damage: on an IE crit, Statikk deals between 150 and 400 bonus damage, whereas Duskblade's proc when wielded by a melee champion deals between 65 and 320 damage. That is nuts. Even on a non-crit, 60 to 160 bonus damage isn't bad when it can affect 5 enemies at once, which also means that a single Shiv proc can singlehandedly deal anywhere between 300 and 2000 damage to the collective enemy team, instantly and from range.

Because the item offers waveclear, burst, poke and AoE all in one go, and all in very generous amounts, I feel it is largely responsible for many of the problems currently affecting marksmen, and needs to change. I largely agree with the general consensus that Shiv should be picked primarily for waveclear, rather than for upfront burst, and because of this I think it might be better to have the proc affect only one champion (and only if they were the target hit by the triggering autoattack), and no longer deal bonus damage on crit, but still affect non-champions by dealing significantly more damage, and perhaps energizing much faster. While this may be more extreme, I also think Kircheis Shard and its upgrades should offer no bonus damage against champions whatsoever, but should instead be picked to aid last-hitting, with RFC and Shiv specializing in either tower pushing or waveclear, respectively. This could also allow the two items to be stacked on top of each other without adding up to excessive champion burst, since neither upgrade would affect champions anymore: RFC would still offer bonus range against champions, though if the poke it offers proves to be unhealthy on its own, it could always be changed to offer a much larger, flat range bonus against towers exclusively, so that it could be fully oriented towards sieging objectives. After that, perhaps marksmen would still deal too much champion damage, including too much upfront burst, but taking Shiv out of that equation could nonetheless help significantly, and in a manner that would likely not affect the overall win rate of marksmen.

Yourmothermyhand2/5/2018, 10:17:28 AM22 votes

Remember the ADC revamp? Remember how they upped the shit out of the ADC's base AD early? And then buffed the shit out of the items? I wonder why they have been even more problematic since then.

saltran2/5/2018, 5:51:47 PM8 votes

"There's no more kiting, barely any that I see, no more ADC's playing around positioning and peel to get their damage to work. Just a point-and-click."

I stopped reading when I reached this part because it has 0 relation with reallity. This is a dumb post and it's only circlejerk.

DuskDaUmbreon2/5/2018, 4:36:30 PM5 votes

I mean. It's not like literally every champion who isn't a dedicated enchanter isn't instabursting everyone or anything.

Oh wait...They are.

The issue has nothing to do with ADCs. Every single class except for the fucking enchanters does too much damage.

PhantomPrankster2/5/2018, 4:38:09 PM4 votes

queue the plethora of comments that ADCs are being victimized

DragonShea2/6/2018, 10:55:27 AM2 votes

Considering the title, I can see why Riot would use Vayne as their base for an ADC.

But getting to my point, ADC's have too much damage and are too damn protected making it hard for anyone to get to them unless you happen to be an artillery mage or anyone that can snipe them. Also damage is too damn high in general and there is clearly a bias towards Marksmen. The entire point of ADC's is to deal sustained damage, not kill in a few attacks. Sustained damage is something that means that if you stay too long in their line of fire, you are dead but now its damn near impossible to get to them without either being so ahead that their power means nothing, or if play look wood division players. Either way, the game is too focused on ADC's so you might as well call it league of ADC.

The Minion hunt2/5/2018, 7:23:11 AM2 votes

cuz they deal single target burst damage and have crazy mobility.