Assassins don't need skillshot gapclosers, part 2 (more detail)

Assassins Don’t need Skillshot Gapclosers, Part 2

The issue many people are worried about: People want to make assassins better in higher elo and higher skill brackets as assassins have a reputation of being a “noob stomper”. People try to make them more high skill by suggesting adding skillshot gapclosers, but I think that would make them even worse in higher skill brackets where team coordination will shut them down almost immediately and adding the skillshot would probably make it even worse for the assassin. I believe that adding skillshot gapclosers is not the way to make assassins better in higher skill brackets.

So, yesterday, I made a post about assassins and skillshot gapclosers, and I got a lot of replies about a lot of different kinds of skillshots that could be possible gapclosers for assassins, but I still feel there is a lot of problems with those that would make them good gapclosers for ranged champions, certain melee tanks/bruisers, etc, but not for most assassins. This post will be more detailed and list all the kinds of possible skillshots they suggested and possible cons with why I feel they don’t fit most assassins (there are some assassins that are perfectly balanced around having those skillshots and are fine with them, but I feel most assassins don’t work well with them).

Types of Gapcloser Skillshots:

Lee Sin Q type. Example: Lee Sin Q (duh, lol) Possible issues: -hard to access carry during teamfights when blocked by minions and enemy tanks -can hit minions, which make it harder for the assassin to get to a champion -even if it can’t hit minions, tanks can still body-block -This is why Lee Sin isn’t very viable as an assassin in competitive play and is built almost always bruiser

Area-Targeted. Example: Aatrox Q Possible issues: -Too much AOE damage for certain assassins (?) -Very little sticking power to stick to a target -free escape, too OP?

A dash that passes through targets Example: Renekton’s E Possible issues: -Deals too much damage to other stuff along the way -passes through target instead of sticking to target -free escape, too OP?

A dash that stops at first champion hit Example: Vi’s Q Possible issues: -Tanks can body block -Doesn’t transition very well into an AA. Whenever I use Vi’s Q, it seems like dash, then abrupt weird stop at champion, then AA or E. Targeted dashes like Xin’s E doesn’t provide that problem, it seamlessly transitions into either an AA or a Q. -Hard to control which champion you’re going to end up targeting (related to my first point)

A skillshot projectile before a targeted dash Example: Diana’s Q -> R I like this about Diana a lot. I also think this would be good for many champions and I wouldn’t mind if some more champions had this. However, I don’t think every single assassin needs this. (I also don’t think every assassin needs to have some sort of skillshot.) But this is a good idea. This is why I like to play Diana. Out of all the possible skillshot possibilities for an assassin, this one seems like the best since it allows the assassin to still be able to dash even if you miss, but you lose a high portion of the burst, so it punishes you for missing but doesn't make you completely useless.

Stops at last champion hit Example: Leona’s E Possible issues: -Hard to control exactly which champion you want to target, especially if the target is in the middle of the crowd.

Overall, the issues with most skillshot gapclosers: -Main issue: poor sticking power to the target, while this is okay for bruisers and can actually be good for the balance of some bruisers to prevent them from becoming OP, for assassins its different. Poor sticking power = bad, maybe even useless, assassin. -Hard to control which champ you are going to end up targeting, which also makes an assassin unviable as assassins are meant to choose targets -While some bruisers (ex. Aatrox, Renekton), can usually afford to miss their main target due to sheer tankiness, other abilities which are usually AOE, etc, and can still contribute somewhat, albeit less, to a teamfight, so hitting the skillshot would help them a bit and missing would hurt them a bit, but not make them completely useless. If an assassin misses, they’re practically useless for the cooldown of the gapcloser, by then the teamfight could be over. This dependence on hitting a skillshot makes a champion really binary. -Some of these skillshots give the assassin a free escape which makes them too OP if they were originally meant to be an all in high-risk assassin.

Post your comments below, but remember this is a serious post. While replying to some of my GD posts with “lol bronzie” might be less annoying/even a bit funny, I do hope for more serious and well thought out replies here as I do have experience playing assassins and care about the state of assassins. Between this account and my smurf, I think that I have definitely played over 1000 games as assassins, and as an assassin main for quite a while I do hope I get a better reply than just “lol bronzie”. This is almost 1000 words, and I spent my time writing this, please at least be respectful enough to either give a constructive opinion or just not post. Also, if you are one of those people who just hate assassins and are biased against them like the “just delete assassins” people, please look at this objectively. Don’t think of yourself as the adc getting killed by an assassin but think of yourself as someone who plays both adc/mage and assassins and cares about balance for both the assassin and the carries they target. Note that us assassin mains don’t want assassins to be OP either, because then they get banned and we won’t be able to play them anymore. We want them to be well-balanced.