All increasing the burst windows of assassins does is turn them into inferior fighters.

JedenVojak·10/25/2016, 8:30:14 AM·50 votes·3,120 views

Riot has previously stated that they're trying to turn the definition of assassins into something other than instant; that seems to be clear with the new champion reworks.

The problem is that Assassins serve no other purpose that killing enemy units - by making their burst unreliable and slow, they become strictly inferior options to fighters who can also kill in a somewhat extended window while also having additional tankiness, CC, and utility.

I don't see what this update accomplishes other than to weaken assassins overall.

123 Comments

five oh tree 10/25/2016, 9:35:14 AM25 votes

I think the rework is more of making their burst windows larger... not necessarily the time it takes to inflict damage, if that makes sense? Like the setup being clearer and more telegraphed, but the damage coming just as fast? So that people feel less shitty when a fed talon ganks bot or something.

Liofa10/25/2016, 10:00:37 AM11 votes

what riot says has nothing to do with what riot does

KhaZix Bot10/25/2016, 8:50:47 AM5 votes

It's true. The Kha'Zix changes, while admittedly interesting, are just going to bring him back to being a utility based gang spammer with no interesting interactions.

The problem that Riot has with Kha'Zix is that, for some reason, they think that isolation works well with their "do 50% of their HP, ult and then do it again" idea for Kha'Zix.

I'm sorry, but that's never going to be okay. Assassins one shot. That's what they do. Kha'Zix relies on isolation. If he uses that to do half their HP and then ults to wait out his admittedly short CDs with the intent of finishing them off, do you know what they're doing?

Leaving isolation.

Now there's little to no kill potential. If the objective of this "assassin update" is to make Kha'Zix a fighter, someone should just say it so we can stop beating around the bush. That evolved W spam gank jungle garbage was less healthy than evolved W passive proc mid lane Season 3 nonsense. It wasn't interesting and it wasn't Kha'Zix. That's why it got changed.

Now what? With his assassination potential gone and an absurd amount of spammable CC, he's going to be the same thing he was during S4 (?).

If they think that Kha'Zix's burst is too high, fine. Nerf it a little and make up for it with the passive changes. Good, we're done. No need to buff W to make it the obvious go to flavour of the month choice.

Maybe I'm being naive, but it seems to me like this whole assassin update came about (like the Maw nerfs) because of Zed. Zed is always at the core of all assassin events (as with Duskblade). Nine times out of ten, when someone is complaining about "AD assassin mids", it's Zed.

Not saying Talon, Rengar, Shaco, and LeBlanc didn't need reworks, but come on... it was Zed guys, let's just accept that. It's always Zed.

CerealBoxOfDoom10/25/2016, 5:46:41 PM5 votes

instant burst is not necessary actually.

Its more a matter of when the death becomes practically unavoidable.

full glass Nocturne ults, you have like 3 seconds to make a play full glass Ahri ults, you've got a few moments before she can finish you but whatever you do don't let that charm land! or do because she's hawt full glass Zed ults and you don't even know.. you're already dead! in a few seconds, go ahead and make your plays full glass Leblanc attacks and you're instantly deleted, no fun for you Akali ults onto you and you get a little time but its not realistic to survive or even really do anything to her unless you've got a champ for that Talon when he's strong he's just going to instaburst you before you even realize he's there.

ModKnightsKemplar10/25/2016, 6:08:02 PM5 votes

Assassins still have much higher mobility than fighters; that's going to be the difference. Fighters do have tankiness, CC, and utility, but they don't have shunpo to jump directly onto your carry and blow them up. And they don't have tools to get back out once they do that, either.

Now, you could argue that diving fighters, specifically, will overlap a lot with assassins now. You are right, and they will. And I don't think that's a terrible thing. Riot has been talking about working on diving fighters, too, and that's a question that Riot will need to answer internally. But a little overlap there never hurt anyone, in my opinion. Assassins can still be different due to a larger burst in a smaller window. As long as that remains true, it doesn't really matter if the burst is instant. It's still different from fighters, even if slight.

Sassmast3r10/25/2016, 9:05:18 PM4 votes

The difference, however, is the damage and the intervals in which it is outputted. Lets say we have a Darius and we have a LeBlanc.

Despite the increase in the window of opportunity to escape assassin's and their damage, I would argue that, doing 1200 damage as Darius with his abilities would also require some help from his passive and his AAs. LeBlanc, however, could apply this damage in a faster period of time, or perhaps even in bursts (rather than consistently)... and she also has more mobility. This is not just because she's AP though, as we see the same thing with Zed (amplified by his ultimate).

I would argue that fighters lack the instantaneous damage aspect and the same magnitude of mobility that one sees in an assassin. In exchange, however, fighters can actually remain in the middle of a fight for a longer period of time without dying instantly, since they are tankier, whereas an assassin builds primarily damage and scales better with said builds to inflict more damage in exchange for less health.

Now, if we wanna talk about something that is an issue, lets talk about how there seems to be very little distinguishing a mage from an assassin, aside from their mobility. Mages do the same damage, can cast spells just as frequently (if not more frequently than assassins) and have poking capabilities (unlike an assassin). A mage does from faraway something an assassin does up close; kill. Maybe the difference is supposed to be that with an assassin it's exponentially easier to target someone and be guaranteed to kill them while simultaneously surviving, or maybe that's what makes an assassin what they are - High risk, guaranteed reward. I'm frankly not sure; I find it very hard to distinguish between the two.

Limrick10/25/2016, 5:18:45 PM4 votes

Reliable one-shots shouldn't exist is the point. Assassins should have to work for it. Mages have to land all their skills to annihilate someone, unless your name is Syndra. Now assassins can still blow someone up, but they have to work a little harder for it, which is hardly a bad thing.

Spaceman5pff10/26/2016, 1:05:08 PM2 votes

So true, Reworked Talon is actually the exact same thing as Olaf but just worse.

IlexAlderwood10/25/2016, 9:38:13 PM2 votes

New Fizz is a good example of what Riot is trying to do with the new assassins. His overall damage is about the same as old Fizz, potentially even higher under the right circumstances and after the buffs, but he has to wait 2 seconds minimum to kill anybody who isn't already half dead, period.

And he WILL kill the person he's trying to kill under the right circumstances, unless they're like...Galio or something.

Not factoring his ult, which I'll talk about later, This creates a situation where Fizz will Q in on someone and inflict his DoT, and the opponent has 2 seconds to process how to deal with the situation before they get gibbed by his new W. Depending on who they are, they could decide to try and run, kill the Fizz, or move towards teammates for protection. If you're alone, killing him is a bad idea since he'll just E on top of you and then pop W, but this does ensure that when you're with a team, it's much easier to focus him down if he goes for an unsafe dive, which is fine. He can't use his E to ensure safety while waiting for the dots to tick when he's being properly peeled.

IF Fizz has his ult, his 'high moment', then he can ignore all of that and engage on you from range. A max range shark applies his dot from safety and allows him to fall back to his old play pattern of "walk up and QW you for full burst", but just once (every 30 seconds with cdr) It also nerks everyone you're standing next to as well and applies his dot to them, allowing for him to get off a double kill.

He's still a mobile, high damage threat that forces your team to react a certain way, and he still has all the tool he needs to assassinate his target.

FantasySniper10/26/2016, 2:13:26 AM1 votes

Or they become like Zed and Fizz, where their burst is so reliable that it doesn't even matter that there's a delay.