When Qtpie for example kills a 30 MR Sona as Fizz without ult when he has 13 kills at minute 20, twitch chat spams "nice counterplay" and "balanced". Or when he oneshots a level 7 adc as 130 AP Fizz you already know the "adc LUL"s are coming.
So.. what do people want the assassin to do? Hit max range ult from fog of war, wait 2 seconds, use his entire kit and... still let the 40 MR carry live and walk away?
Dethflash70 votesRight, when assassins do their job people get salty. If you are by yourself you are just asking to be some assassins prey lol
Velzard of Koz10 votesLuckily the map is very small and don't have various objectives to be secured, protected or warded spread around, so being alone is nearly impossible to be achieved.
It would also be nice to not have class that is like Just CC it and it's gone as trade-off of Look I pressed this button aaaaand you're gone in one second while I blink back to safety, enjoy the instant 4v5. With assasins leaning towards being either underperforming or overperforming Divers, it's no surprise you can just throw a little bit of CC for stickiness and defense for survival on them and look Rengar ceased to build like an Assasin and somewhat reminds a Diver. Surprising, indeed.
Started to play some Akali, since she's the kind of champ to play when you don't feel like using brain. Thanks to W most of the times even when enemy Warden is directly next to ADC there's very little they could do. It tends to end up in the best case for them in trading ADC's life for 75% of Assasin's life (while with Akali it's laughable as she can restore decent amount of HP right away). Same with Zed except with Zed when I fuck up I can just blink back to safety - much "risk" involved.
Joxcab12 votesNot sure why you're surprised. It's not hard to beat players who are shit at the game and don't know how to stop an assassin. Assassins are pubstompers.
Edge of Daybreak38 votesThey want them to not function under any circumstance.
Take any assassin. If they build damage and hit everything perfectly they need to be nerfed. So riot nerfs them to the point where they can't do that so what happens people go bruiser or just stop playing that specific assassin and swap to one that still works. Wait they are dropping damage items to go bruiser because those items actually let them live and deal some damage. Well make that unplayable and make their damage build good again after a couple of patches. Few days later repeat the process. The anti assassin argument summarizes to we hate it when assassins build items, play their champion correctly and kill us but syndra missing every spell and pressing R is fair because you got in 700 range of her.
Aptest36 votesI do. I expect Assassins to be situational niche champions and definitely not the mid lane meta pick.
But here's my 3 reasons why:
Assassins are about removing the other guy from play. When they are good, you have at least one guy who is semi-reliably not getting to play the interesting parts of the game. And you have a second guy stuck on defending him.
Assassins are elusive. They are hard to gank and hard to pin down due to their overbearing mobility. This pushes gameplay early on away from mid lane (i can't gank this) and into the side lanes. Because of dragon, into bottom lane. This does two things:
Assassins are generally NON PLAYMAKERS. put simply: we need more options for tanks and front line champions in the mid lane. Otherwise this restricts the ability of top lane and jungle to have damage-oriented picks.
Incarceration9 votesMeta pick of the mid lane? How high are you?
You can easily peel off the assassins with multiple point and click abilities whether it is cc or shielding, and they have massive amounts of counterplay, but it's just not as obvious because it's usually different from most other cases.
Most assassins now have one combo thanks to Riot Games, and that gives you an edge because of the predictability of their actions and how telegraphed it is now. All I will really give you is their superior mobility, but if you bait it out, it is very easy to punish them if you play it right.
Aptest10 votesYou can easily peel off the assassins with multiple point and click abilities whether it is cc or shielding
yes and this pushes both ADC and support players into a play style that is less fun for both of them. I would rather play a support that is part of the aggressive section of the team than a point-defense specialist. The fact that I can play a point defense specialist as a support doesn't mean I prefer this style of play.
"assassins are fine because you can play a less fun style and counter them", is what you are saying.
This is not the reason why bot lane is ganked the most
There is no single reason why bot lane is ganked the most. There is a multitude of reasons each contributing some portion. The argument that mid lane pick has no influence on how much each lane gets ganked is equally erroneous.
Whether you have mage mid, an adc mid or an assassin mid the junger has little reason to go top in most games. The mid lane pick doesnt influence that at all.
Gankable mid lane picks results in roaming from top to mid and roaming from bot to mid, in order to gank. High escapes on mid pick results in a much more limited roaming situation. Roamind top->mid and bot->mid is very desirable especially the top->mid roam possibility, because these add a lot to the enjoyment of the game from bot and top players...
bot lane benefits because being able to gank mid serves as a respite from the "gangbanged at bot" pattern of play. It allows bot to be agressive and proactive, which is fun, rather than playing a wait for jungler wait for the big 4-man gank style.
top lane benefits more heavily because roaming mid is a big way into the game as a whole. If top lane receives no ganks and has no objectives and donates no ganks than top lane is an island and only has limited play style. Being able to gank the mid lane opens up the gamaplay options for top lane in a big way.
If we have tanks and front line champions mid
I think you've already seen the connecting thread in my post: each and every one of my suggestions harms mid lane in some way.
The reality is most people do not want to play tanks. So this burden should be shared. Right now top is tank is an obvious solution and so is sup is tank. jgl is tank is somewhat of a problem due to clear speed. Having viable tanks mid alleviates some pressure off the other lanes.
Joxcab10 votesYou realize the first point is irrelevant because literally every champion forces some sort of shift in playstyle?
Aptest6 voteswell, to some extent yes,
but my access to the play styles that are more enjoyable should be reasonable.
Joxcab7 votesNo playstyle shift is enjoyable because of any champion.
Lulu or Janna for instance. Have fun not being able to pretty much ever all-in at all.
Ranged versus melee, have fun getting bullied for just trying to CS by both them and minions, while they don't eat aggro.
Against tanks? Enjoy getting CC locked down and not being able to do anything ever.
You do damage? Just kidding, they have Locket and Redemption.
Earlygame champions? Have fun living through hell in early.
Lategame champions? Have fun trying to win as fast as possible before the time bomb goes off.
And on and on the list goes.
zero3563 votesMy biggest gripe with assassins isn't the mobility. It's the near always up, low cost, no penalty mobility.
As an idea for Zed, as an example, I would make it so he can't jump to his ult shadow unless he has killed/will kill with the pop the person he ulted. If he wants to fight me, fine. BUT MAKE HIM FIGHT ME.
Anidan10 votesThe problem is that generally, assassins that can go in but can't come back out don't tend to work too well in League because of how this game works at its core. In HotS, the assassins with the scariest damage tend to be able to go in pretty hard but can't leave worth anything (Butcher and Kerrigan, for example). In DotA2, the scariest assassins can go in but can have trouble leaving (Nyx, Templar Assassin, etc). In League, an assassin typically has to be able to leave.
The less mobile assassins in League that have to go in and kill or die trying? They're typically FotM at best, rarely a commonplace pick. They've also become less common as the game has changed.
zero3564 votesI'm fine with getting back out I'm not fine with getting out being as easy as it is, especially one v one (mostly in lane)
NiceTryVi1 votesExactly. there is no bullshit like Leb jumping in on you, dropping spells, and then blinking right back out. That is so infuriating to play against. Like, you wanna fight, ok, but actually fight!
zero3561 votesAnother problem is how powerful counter picks are for stuff like this LB v. Ahri LB jumps and at you and you can wreck her shit (assuming you don't lag like I do half the time when stuff actually starts happening)
LB versus most mages HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA Wait, you actually wanted to lane?
Counters are fine; counters with that much power is bullshit
NiceTryVi1 votesI'm sorry, are you complaining that a mobility and anti-dive mage beats an assassin, or that the assassin dominates lane? Not trying to be rude, i legit cant tell
zero3562 votesYes and no
I have a problem with counterpicks in general, not just among mages and assassins They provide way too much power right now in my opinion
There is something to be said for having multiple strategies, but if I like slow immobile mages (not me personally, but the idea stands), there should be at least a couple that can deal with mobile assassins. Maybe they lose lane. Maybe they die once or twice. BUT there should enough something that they can still have an impact.
As a best summary, I think the game should be balanced around blind pick. Anything into anything else and either side as a half-decent shot of winning.
NineTailedMystic5 votesYou had me until the end. If Tanks and Bruisers become prevalent in the Mid lane, where do the squishy Mages and Assassins go because they can't deal with those picks? Currently, Mages and Assassin go Mid because it's the shortest lane so it has the fastest EXP gain, so they gain levels for the base damage on abilities the quickest. In addition it also enables the best roams. They can't go Top because it also contain a high density of very durable champions they can't deal with. They can't go Bot because of how incredibly reliant in levels they are, and the Jungle has never been friendly to Mages or Assassins.
Voluug134 votesMages went midlane because they also are often inmobile, so the shorter lane means shorter distance to the lane tower, which is another problem of assassins, their mobility overlaps with a shorter lane making them even more ungankeable.
Plus, mages vs bruisers/tanks in midlane is much less aggravating that mages vs assassins because of the shorter lane and bruiser/tanks lack the mobility and sheer burst that assassins have.
Plus, there are a hella lot of mages that can deal really easily with tank/bruisers, either by shredding them or by pushing them like crazy.
Mira Arya Enthe6 votesThe boards think all lanes need to be tank and juggernaut lanes.
macromite1 votespeople like to be able to pick champions that don't pop when you sneeze on them.
Mira Arya Enthe3 votesOHHH! That is why Assassins, ADC, Mages and Skirmishers are the most popular champions to one-trick by statistics and skin sales.
macromite2 votesyet the boards all think that all lanes need to be juggernaut and tank lanes.
^Contradiction^
Mira Arya Enthe2 votesThe boards are a majority of exceptions. We have 5-6 Morde mains despite him being generally underplayed. We have dozens of support mains, the least played role. The biggest crowd on the boards are tank and Juggernaut mains.
macromite2 votesyet when i use people, which can refer to any group of humans greater than 1, I am reffering to the entirety of the league playerbase.
you can't have both and also be reasonable.
Mira Arya Enthe2 votesExcept you can, and do. By statistics for example Riven has a 10% play rate. On top of that 25% of her players have over 100 games on her. This means Riven is picked in 2.5% of games by experienced Riven players.
On the other hand Shyvana has a 1.2% playrate and only 10% of her players have 100+ games on her.
So without even regard to popular streamers we can say for a fact there are a lot fewer Shyvana mains like myself than Riven mains. Yet there is a wealth of Shyvana mains on the boards.
Exceptions or minorities have more reason to complain than standards or majorities. Thus there are only a few Ahri mains on the board but several Karthus mains. Despite Ahri being more popular.
macromite2 votesNo, the generic term ALWAYS applies to the previously mentioned term when applicable.
You not understanding this is pathetic. and it destroys all the credibility I thought you had, atleast in my eyes.
Mira Arya Enthe2 votesMy grasp of language is admittedly poor. I did not have the opportunity to go to public school due to life conditions. I don't need 'credibility' however with some single stranger on the internet.
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/nbIlqoJL-counterplay
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/NnGapO1H-league-of-legends-then-vs-now
I already have plenty of credibility with plenty of others. Including with Meddler. So insult me all you want because I have a hard time understanding sentence structures(especially over the internet where everything is text). It doesn't change my overall point.
The boards don't represent the community, they represent those with cause to complain. A shit ton of people enjoy playing squishy champions, and there are already 3 roles where tanky champions play. Forcing them into mid for no reason would have the same problematic repercussions as forcing Mordekaiser into bottom lane. There is no reason to. Mid is viable for the broad variety of mages, assassins, a few skirmishers and a couple ADCs no level of forced variety is needed. The boards want to force that because they are full of exceptions, a bunch of people who are on the fringe of what is normal. Mains of champions only mildly popular or quite unpopular(such as my main). So the point that 'people like to be able to pick champions that don't pop when you sneeze on them.' has little relevancy. Just because a small portion of the community wants to force their class into every role in the game, doesn't mean it is good for game health or would appease the broader global audience of players.
So regardless of how much 'credibility' I lost with somebody that has posted negatively on my threads anyway for months. It still is a bad idea.
Troll for Trump27 votesWhy do assassins have to be niche meta picks,
but not any other class?
You're making the entirety of an assassin's identity seemingly bad.
You can do the same thing to any other class.
Juggernauts should never be meta because they're entire goal is to be tanky while still killing people
Tanks should never be meta because they're suppoesd to be unkillable, making it unfun for carries
ADCs should never be meta because they have too much range that makes it impossible to play as melees.
Mira Arya Enthe7 votes^
macromite5 votesSeveral classes need to be niche. Some classes ARE niche.
Battlemages and artillery mages both come to mind. heck man assassins not being niche is part of why these classes are niche, it becomes VERY hard to play a champion that is not strong in the early game midlane when you need to beat your opponent before midgame or else you are indisputably behind.
Troll for Trump1 votesAssassins niche are to kill high priority targets reliably and quickly. Not anyone else, usually no AoE shenanigans.
Assassins used to be more focused on lane presence, but Riot keeps trying to impose "roaming" onto assassins, as evident in things such as Talon's E, LB's R+R, or lethality's out-of-combat movement speed.
Roaming shouldn't be tailored onto a class. Roaming is an action, not a job, and should be done by everyone. If you make one specialized class for roaming, it creates "roam creep;" essentially mobility creep, but just for roaming.
What makes roaming mages better than other mages? What makes them worth picking despite sacrificing dmg of some sort? It's because of their roaming capabilities. With all the new tools Riot adds to help these champs roam, many older champs will be left behind.
NineTailedMystic5 votesAssassins used to be more focused on lane presence, but Riot keeps trying to impose "roaming" onto assassins, as evident in things such as Talon's E, LB's R+R, or lethality's out-of-combat movement speed.
Because nobody liked having the enemy pick an Assassin and then having to play under tower the entirety of the lane because if you gave up one kill the Assassin would snowball incredibly hard and carry the game.
Troll for Trump2 votesThat happens to everyone though; it's how snowbally the game is.
You die once to a mage, they get Morello's/Chapter, and just use their AoEs and range to constantly shove you win. Because they're ranged every time you try to cs, you get screwed.
You die once to a juggernaut or diver, and they will dive you and kill you.
Die once to a tank, and they take 0 dmg from you when you return
etc.
NineTailedMystic2 votesCurrently, yes. I'm talking about when Assassins specifically were strong and in less snowbally metas. Remember when Zed was actually broken?
Troll for Trump1 votesYes, but that was in the past. Riot reduced the snowball and feast/famine of assassins
NineTailedMystic3 votesYou said "Assassins used to be more focused on lane presence." to which I tried to say "and people didn't like having the pressure of dealing with those Assassins because a kill almost meant game."
Now everyone snowballs equally hard.
Troll for Trump1 votesNo, everyone was just as snowbally before, sometimes with certain champs or classes out of line.
Whenever there was a class update, an entire class would do the same, being better than everyone else. Or a champ would be meta.
Aka meta shifts.
Assassins weren't that snowbally, except for maybe a few that were OP at certain points. Not any more than other champs, when they were meta
NineTailedMystic2 votesAssassins were the definition of feast or famine. If an Assassin didn't get a kill early game, they probably weren't doing much unless they had a pretty good player behind them. But if they did get an early kill, the game ended up becoming centralized around them. The Tanks and Supports struggled to keep their carries alive, the carries couldn't do anything without at least two people near them and vision abound.
I'm talking like S5 pre Cinderhulk and when Assassins were strong for a bit early S6.
Elikain2 votesBut "Battlemage" and "Artillery mage" is a subclass of mages. So classes in their entirety aren't niche. Let's for example, take Ziggs. he's an Artillery mage. Why only make him viable in situations where you need to siege enemy towers faster than usual and make him weak in any other scenario where a mage is required? He's still a mage and he still should be viable but his viability should not solely depend on his ability to be able to demolish towers or not.
That's virtually the same problem assassins faced before their update. They were only good for killing people fast and there were only minor distinctions between their playstyles. And if they could no longer reliably can kill people, they simply weren't being picked because there were better champion options.
DrCyanide3 votesAssassins are also a subclass. They're a subclass of Slayers, which is also shared with Skirmishers. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/dev-blog-classes-subclasses
Elikain1 votesAnd the difference between Battle mages, Artillery mages and Burst mages is that they are all mid laners, with some oddballs here and there (Ziggs bot, for example). Assassins (even if they're a subclass) are also mid laners. Some (Fizz) can go top but the majority stays mid for the shorter lanes and 1v1 potential. If you make Assassins niche, where are they going to go?
Fiora can't really go mid as a Skirmisher. Some subclasses are simply lane-locked because of unfavorable matchups.
DrCyanide4 votesShaco, Kha'zix, Rengar, and Evelynn are primarily Junglers. Fizz has gone Jungle, Top, and Mid. Akali and Zed have gone Top and Mid. Talon has gone Jungle and Mid.
The only Assassins I've seen locked in Mid are Katarina and LeBlanc.
While Fiora might lock herself in Top for more favorable matchups, not every Skirmisher does. Yasuo and Ekko are Skirmisher that go Mid, Master Yi primarily Jungle, and Tryndamere and Jax have spent time in the Jungle as well.
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/3A5uuBw7-champion-subclass-list
Zerenza5 votesTanks don't do very well against assassins in the early game, most assassins have good base tank stats to allow them to survive the oppressiveness of mid lane when everything outranges them, they also have absurd damage and scaling that the tank can't compete with because he needs items to do so. The best picks for mid lane against assassins was actually utility supports. Zilean, Karma are the only two i can really think of that fit that, but they can not only heal/sheild themselves, have good tools to escape the assassin and the gank but also pump out ludicrous damage and usually have an oppressive as hell CC ability. I once had a karma sit there and spam her empowered W on me when i was katarina, it did too much damage, it healed her and it stopped my movement.
Also assassins aren't situational picks, their a counterpick, if you have champions that scale well into late game on the enemy team, such as an AP Carry such as Azir, Cassiopeia or Karthus or an AD Carry like Jinx, Vayne or Tristana, you need to have something that can punish those champions and do it hard. Before assassins were introduced, nothing could really compete with something that scaled so hard into late game, that champion would run rampant because all you have to do is stall the game out until that champion becomes so strong their unbeatable and yes it does happen. With an assassin that can punish their weak early game and still kill them late game, it makes the game much less win or lose when fighting comps or champions that are meant for late game. In LCS we've seen assassins decide games because the enemy team was a late game comp and the assassins can run away early-mid game with that and end it quickly before things go out of control.
Aptest1 votesBefore assassins were introduced, nothing could really compete with something that scaled so hard into late game
that is not correct. Assassins used to fall off hard after the mid game, and in fact 'hard-scaling' APs were their strongest counter picks. assassins used to be absolutely mid game picks that fell off like a brick.
ofcourse over the courst of the history, "we need to kill the X in the late game, buff me!" happened.
Actually 5 item ADC would 1v1 fizz and kill him with the fizz hitting everything including dfg.
Zerenza4 votesSomething has to punish the things that scale hard, if nothing does those champions will have an easy early game get to late game more efficiently with little to no opposition. The balance would be all wrong if we didn't have assassins to punish champions that don't have good early games.
And yes, as an assassin main i know very well that a 5 item ADC will most likely kill me late game, but before that? Some ADC's get power spikes at 1-2-3 items, not necessarily at 5, what's going to punish them? Nothing? Cause that's what your asking for. Every game would be decided on who's ADC got the most fed, that's not good game balance. Something has to stop AD Carries and AP Carries, that's assassins, that's why they were made. And sorry if it's a little unhealthy that an assassin has to land every single spell in less than a second, while taking unavoidable 2k damage auto attacks but that's how you help keep a game balanced.
chipndip13 votesThey aren't the mid lane meta...
Velzard of Koz2 votesAt least Syndra can miss her spells as they are all telegraphed, delayed and aimed except for ult which even then requires set-up. And no, three spheres won't instakill you evn in case she's fed as fuck. But I suppose it's okay for Assasin to press few buttons with little to no chance at failing and deleting your entire HP bar but Mages hitting their delayed and telegraphed skillshots doing something? Nerf!
Joxcab8 votesIf you think assassins are easy, then you're either bad at the game or you are against shit players who don't know how to properly stop one.
Catastrop4 votesExcept they are????? Unless you're a terrible assassin player, most of them are generally pretty easy to play. Like seriously, as a Kat player, it boggles my mind how she's apparently "more skill reliant" now, when it's pretty much the same old, same old button mashing for me.
