as someone who doesnt play an assassin midlane (rare footage)

Arcane Blue Boi·Dec 10, 2017·9 votes·474 views

what can i do to counter assassins as a mage in general?

Edit: thank you all, didnt exepct this threat to gain this much atention

9 Comments

Dope SoloDec 10, 20175 votes

In general, don't die. Pick off minions as farm best you can. Stay out of range and poke. Pray your bot or top lane has game.

Crede777Dec 10, 20173 votes

Depends on the assassin and the mage match up.

But generally you want to do a few things:

You want a clear idea of what you're going to do with your summoner spells and how they will help your gameplan. You will obviously always want flash but which spell should you take second? Exhaust and Barrier tend to be the easiest ones to use against assassins. The Exhaust shuts down their burst and is great against Kat and Zed. Talon, LB, and Fizz you will need to anticipate the burst if you're going to exhaust since they tend to lead with their ults or the bust happens so quickly. Barrier is good because it is not affected by ignite unlike heal. You can also pop it a bit early and still get full benefit. Heal is a bit tougher but has more utility (speed boost, heal others). TP is good if your plan is to simply outpush and try to force the assassin under tower or to counter a roam.
Itemize properly. A 2nd item hourglass can be a godsend, especially against Zed or Talon. If you're against an AP assassin, consider a BV.
Know your own powerspikes and theirs. Talon hits a level 2 powerspike with his dash, his W, ignite, and electrocute. When fizz hits 6, he has kill potential on almost any mage if he hits his Chum the Waters.
Use your range and waveclear to your advantage. Early on, you need to decide if you are going to hard push or not. Pushing can be effective because it gives you level priority, causes them to lose minions to tower, and gives you lane priority so you can roam if your jungle invades or gets invaded. However, being pushed means you are further from your tower and could be ganked by jungle or jumped by the assassin. Maintain vision to the best of your abilities. Alternately, you can prioritize poking the assassin. This can be tough since you need to use your mana intelligently and need to land skillshots on a mobile champ. But if you are successful, this can create many advantages for you.
A smart assassin who is getting beat in lane (or who can't kill their lane opponent) will roam. Make sure you maintain vision as well as you can and ping any time the assassin is missing. Once the assassin goes missing, you have a choice between hard pushing tower or following. If you have TP, you could do both. But pinging is the most important thing. If bot lane has notification that a level 6 zed is missing 15 seconds before he shows up bot, they have nobody to blame but themselves if they get caught out. Best thing is for the assassin to waste his or her time in river losing out on XP mid but not getting any kills bot. If you choose to follow, obviously watch out that the assassin could be waiting for you.

Edit - As others have said, playing passive can be playing smart. You want to take advantages when they come, but in the current meta it's better to give the assassin a small advantage rather than risk giving them a big one.

Laughing FishDec 10, 20173 votes

During the laning phase, as most mages you will need to play ultra passive. Mages are far stronger in teamfights unless an assassin is extremely fed. Just hang back, try to pick off as many minions as you can. Poke if you can do so safely. But you will need to accept that there is a good chance they will get a cs lead and win lane. Your primary focus should be on not dying, and place some wards in the bushes so you can see when they are roaming and warn your allies.

While there are some exceptions to this, generally speaking if you don't die and feed the assassin, you will come out on top in the end once laning phase is over and teamfights begin.

Gives No LuxDec 10, 20174 votes

This is exactly why I don't think they belong in the mid lane, at least with the power they currently have.

No one class should absolutely dictate how another's entire game should have to be played basically regardless of skill. Mages are pretty much limited to mid lane with a few niche exceptions, Assassins dictate that you must play under your tower or you basically don't get to play at all. It's not just lack of counter play it's a completely one sided affair.

Even if you get a good push and roam there is a good chance that they will just run straight back up mid and given their AD power they will take your tower before you can even get back to respond.

Kats PajamasDec 10, 20172 votes

This game works like Rock Paper Scissors for the most part.

ADC>Tank>Mage>Assassin>ADC

You're supposed to be dying to tanks, not Assassins. During team-phase, they will be looking to you to CC or blow up the Assassin.

Most Assassins:

Hate being zoned from cs
Hate cautious mages over aggressive ones, and slow games
Hate inability to roam
Hate being shoved in, it's hardest to kill you, collect all that cs, and roam successfully in 1 sweep if shoved in. If shoved in, the most they can get is you and your jg normally.

You will shine more in teamfights, wait for that moment, a mage brings more to a team than an Assassin, an Assassin brings a level of insurance based off lane phase. A mage brings the actual tools to win the fight.

JofeyyDec 10, 20171 votes

I hope my perspective as an assassin/mage mid main will help.

This meta seems to be focused on assassins mid so generally, when I play as a mage I take barrier or exhaust into blind pick. You cant go wrong with those summoner spells. DONT TAKE IGNITE. I think its a noobtrap for mages. You don't need to 1v1 the other midlaner to be useful. Mages are really good at farming so just stick to that and carry the lategame teamfights. Assassins will take ignite and if you have ignite too you probably won't beat them in a duel unless they screw up.

Exceptions I would say are syndra and ahri who benefit from ignite in lane. (Although exhaust is just as good if not better).

Warding goes a long way. If a GOOD assassin player cant kill you, they will push in the wave and roam. A pink ward in river will warn everyone as to where they are going so they won't doublekill botlane and everyone flames you (even if you did everything right).

If you play the lane phase and no one dies, you still come out on top since you are more relevant as a mage than an assassin late-game.

Zhonias is your best friend and stopwatch makes it even easier for you.

Try roaming. To quote the great Yassuo (lul) "JUST ROAM". If you find yourself pushing the wave a lot, buy wards for your river and roam when you have an open opportunity. Snowballing botlane is a really good way to win.

Hope this helps :)

Lunar LunacyDec 10, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Warding goes a long way. If a GOOD assassin player cant kill you, they will push in the wave and roam. A pink ward in river will warn everyone as to where they are going so they won't doublekill botlane and everyone flames you (even if you did everything right).

I recently had a game like this, I was morg against one of the best Zeds I've ever seen (the guy had over 740 zed games season 7). He kept me shove under tower constantly, and I could never hit him with a binding, my goal was just not to feed. He roamed, using duskblade to clear every ward in his path, I couldn't follow, bot ignored calls and didnt back off even though they watched him clearing wards on the way down, and guess what, that Zed ended up 18/1.

Now unfortunately this stuff can happen, sometimes bot lane tunnels, gets ganked, blames you for not following, and your enemy mid laner gets fed.

But at least I held the mid tower and kept up my cs and level and remained relevant myself. If bot had safely heeded warnings, that Zed could have been in serious trouble later, because roaming is a huge time investment and thus a huge experience investment. He just happened to get a good return on his investment. Maybe I personally didn't spam ping BE CAREFUL enough, or maybe it was just inevitable.

So yeah, trying not to die is the best thing you can do and even if you can't keep up with their map rotations at least try to make sure your team is alert if you can't follow right away. Not really too much else you can do if you are unable to 1v1 the assassin in lane.

Kitten of EvilDec 10, 20171 votes

Respect their damage, play passive, and poke them down when you can do so safely. Most assassins are super weak levels 1-3 or so, so you can probably poke them down with autos when they come in to CS.

Also, grab Exhaust. It works great against assassins.