It's not that assassins are bad

Catastrop·Dec 24, 2016·35 votes·1,928 views

It's more that Riot thought buffing support itemization in the same patch would be a good idea. I'm 420% sure that had it not been for that, the assassin update would have been a proper rework instead of a nerf.

66 Comments

PennsDec 25, 201616 votes

Yeah they gave assassins more counterplay and, in the same patch, buffed their 2 best counter classes hard because.. ? lol

CatastropDec 25, 20161 votes

Honestly, I would have expected such changes to come either when supports got their update or after the assassin one. At least they'd have been able to properly balance them to suit current assassin burst.

MelledoneusDec 25, 20162 votes

Not to mention they buffed the tanks that needed it the least. Tanks that can reliably CC were fine, the ones with unreliable CC needed it much more and essentially got the short end of the stick.

Only Play DariusDec 25, 20163 votes

I wouldn't say that. Nautilus for example cannot autoattack an enemy champion without losing his shield for the next 40 seconds, you can play around this and force him to defend himself then dive his team a little later.

5000000000000000Dec 25, 20161 votes

Can Nautilus really AA enemy champion in anything other than a teamfight?

MelledoneusDec 25, 20165 votes

Technically.

dominusxDec 25, 20161 votes

29% attack speed lvl 1 and he can.. client bugged and got into a game with Yasuo runes. xD

MLDzXnRRRDec 25, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Yeah they gave assassins more counterplay and, in the same patch, buffed their 2 best counter classes hard because.. ? lol

Because noone wants to play support even now when the supports are OP.

ZephyrDrakeDec 25, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Because noone wants to play support even now when the supports are OP.

because they are not OP, you can literally build locket and redemption on any character and have the same results. Supports themselves have not changed in the slightest. Why would anyone that hasn't played supports or does not like playing them would care about playing them when it's the items that are broken and not the champions themselves?

dominusxDec 25, 20161 votes

i get locket on darius. pretty much unkillable and you support your team with that 500hp shield

MLDzXnRRRDec 25, 20161 votes

{quoted}

because they are not OP, you can literally build locket and redemption on any character and have the same results. Supports themselves have not changed in the slightest. Why would anyone that hasn't played supports or does not like playing them would care about playing them when it's the items that are broken and not the champions themselves?

Karma and Soraka are farm from being balanced.

ZephyrDrakeDec 25, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Karma and Soraka are farm from being balanced.

yes they are, sorry to burst your bubble but they are pretty balanced and are far from being the best supports

HazyCloud7Dec 25, 201614 votes

item 3107

This item is totally balanced, nothing to see here guys. It's not like it can potentially heal 2450 without factoring in healing/shielding power passives or windspeaker's blessing, on top of being extremely gold efficient, providing 10% hp true damage, and usability while dead. Yep, totally balanced item.

FairyfleurDec 25, 20163 votes

I'm not saying it's not an unbalanced item but "potentially" doesn't mean all the time

HazyCloud7Dec 25, 20161 votes

Who's saying potentially means all the time? I'm not. All of the info is on the league wiki.

Mecha MaIphiteDec 25, 201616 votes

When it was announced, I thought maybe it would have a medium-sized radius, so that people who chained CC would be rewarded for it.

Nope, it's the size of a Pantheon ult.

TequilaZombieDec 25, 20166 votes

I was thinking something along the lines of Tibbers Radius. Then I noticed that it could cover half a lane.

MXXXXXLDec 26, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I was thinking something along the lines of Tibbers Radius. Then I noticed that it could cover ***AN ENTIRE *** lane.

Ftfy.

MissingKayoDec 25, 20163 votes

5500 cast range, can be used while dead, short cooldown, stupid strong heal, true damage, stupidly big AoE range.

[slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

MatezoideDec 25, 20161 votes

Gotta make LC$ flashier, man.

Kaisa is HotDec 25, 20165 votes

{quoted}

It's more that Riot thought buffing support itemization in the same patch would be a good idea. I'm 420% sure that had it not been for that, the assassin update would have been a proper rework instead of a nerf.

Let's not forget summoner 3 , the most OP counter to any assassin in the game.

bad arcade kittyDec 25, 20165 votes

these "bad assassins" are the top ban rates for a reason

5000000000000000Dec 25, 20165 votes

Perceived power is why ban rates are high, not actual power. It's not difficult to peel assassins rn with all the items.

LauchmelderDec 25, 20167 votes

It's less about power and more about people not wanting to deal with this shyte.

ShadòwDec 25, 20161 votes

and the bot winrates

Sire HippingtonDec 25, 20164 votes

While the suport item changes certainly made things even worse for assasins, they would have issues even without out that. Increasing their burst window and counterplay but not doing the same for other glasscannons(mages/adc) is a pretty bad move already. This forces assasins to be either broken in some way(LB, Kat), or they just drop like a stone as the game progresses. If your burst is delayed by ~1.5sec, but most of your primary targets can counter burst you in less than that, you have a problem.

PokladnicaZlaDec 25, 20164 votes

The rework did what it was intendet do ,partially atleast.

The real problem that needs to be adressed or looked into is lifesteal and crit.

DunkinNoobsDec 25, 20162 votes

You can't give assassins this much delay in a world where Janna exists.

VerdadeDec 25, 20161 votes

Go play one game as Janna and then come back

TeCoolMageDec 26, 20161 votes

I played Janna once

Fed early but still made the game 3v4.5 by being worth half a champ by giving the ADC a shield and using tornado+ult+slow to negate 2 melee champions.

VerdadeDec 26, 20161 votes

slow? Where? By tornado you mean 0.5s knockup?

TeCoolMageDec 26, 20162 votes

slow as in that point and click slow that can't be dodged

and by tornado I meant a free interrupt to any dash, channel or combo that doesn't give CC immunity or untargetability.

VerdadeDec 26, 20161 votes

point and click crapslow. 40% at max rank with 12cd and 3s duration...

I mean, Vel'koz has multitarget 70% slow for 2.6s with 7s CD and 2.5 times longer range and 33% less mana cost Draven a fkin adc has longer, wider, longer and faster aoe knockup which is considerably cheaper. God forbid supports were relevant.

TeCoolMageDec 26, 20162 votes

Considering the fact Rylai's got nerfed, an exhaust every 12 seconds isn't crap. And she gets free movement speed because she doesn't have to poke with it to be relevant, instead she gives her ADC free stats and damage mitigation.

And Draven's knockup has a much longer cooldown. Unless you buy essence reaver which delays your IE, BT, QSS and other item powerspikes.

Even then, cooldowns don't matter when you negate an entire engage, that's the entire teamfight won already from one rotation of spells..

but whatever, second highest winrate and playrate support with a two team wide dash interrupts, one with no cast time at 850 range (most dashes aim to get to 125 range of an ADC) along with 2 items' worth of free stats is fine.

God forbid supports aren't terribly OP from level 1.

VerdadeDec 26, 20161 votes

Win rate on support LOL. Everyone knows win rate on supports doesn't mean anything...

TeCoolMageDec 27, 20162 votes

It means a lot. When traditional supports have a 53% winrate while anything like Brand, Vel'Koz, or even champions like Nunu who isn't a traditional support but does have a supporty playstyle suffers from a 48 and below winrate on a role where a Soraka/Janna is expected, it just shows how overpowered they are.

VerdadeDec 27, 20161 votes

I don't know where are you getting your data from, but at Plat+ are supp mages preformimg VERY well. Brand, VK and Zyra are floating around 52% wrate for a long long timetime while pure supports such as Alistar, Bard and Thresh suffer from <49% winrate

TeCoolMageDec 27, 20162 votes

Champion.gg winrates Plat+

Lux, Annie: 48% Nunu, Taliyah: 40%

Bard, Thresh: 49%

Zyra, Vel'Koz, Brand: 52%

Nami: 51%

Soraka, Sona, Janna, Taric: 53%

Lolking mage winrates diamond+

Sona: 54% Nami: 51% Janna: 55% Taric: 52% Zyra: 53% Soraka 50% Bard, Thresh, Braum: 49%

Can't find support winrates for midlane mages

League of Graphs plat+

Vel'Koz, Brand: 49% Lux, Annie: 47%

Bard: 48% Karma, Braum, Thresh: 49%

Zyra: 51%

Janna: 53% Sona, Soraka: 52% Morgana, Nami: 50% Taric: 51%

Lolalytics

Vel'Koz: 41% Annie, Lux: 47%

Karma, Lulu: 49% Thresh, Braum: 49% Bard: 48%

Brand: 51%

Soraka, Sona: 52% Nami: 51% Janna: 53% Taric: 50%

Things to consider:

Thresh and Bard are actually extremely mechanically demanding but have high appeal for others to pick up, Nunu and Taliyah are trash tier in general but Ivern is an average jungler that sucks as support.

I forgot to list blitz but he has an okay winrate for a low skill champ. Braum looks like an easy champ but has a bad winrate.

Lux and Annie are considered low mechanical skill champions yet suffer the most. Vel'Koz is also a bit easy but his winrate wasn't as terrible as I thought, he's with Thresh and Bard except according to lolalytics which claims he's taliyah tier.

Karma and Lulu are bad in winrates but I don't know why.

Brand is all over the place but I'd say 50-51% winrate based on the different numbers so about as powerful as Zyra.

Zyra, Taric and Nami are strong picks being between average and the god tier champs. Zyra's a bit hard imo but I don't know enough to comment.

Soraka, Janna and Sona are god tier but it can be attributed to their low mechanical demand (except for sona who's squishy and needs to be in the front line to be useful at the same time)

I don't think damage supports are 'weak' as in, they need buffs, but Nami's probably the only case of an Enchanter being strong yet not broken because she's versatile with good numbers and no underlying design problems while Soraka and Janna suffer from being too specific (walking fountain and disengage bot) and Sona has had a history of difficult balance due to auras specifically.

CatastropDec 26, 20162 votes

Her W is a thing mate.

VerdadeDec 26, 20161 votes

Her W is crap. You couldn't kite anything with W unless you go full AP... I mean, 40% slow with 12s CD?

CatastropDec 26, 20163 votes

You've never played a melee champion, have you?

CatastropDec 26, 20162 votes

Eh, just Janna doing Janna things. I doubt she'll ever stop being a pain in my ass regardless of any changes to assassins.

bad arcade kittyDec 25, 20162 votes

i just wonder why, if supports' items are so op, people don't play supports and troll when they are auto-filled as a support, meantime assassins are top bans which, when they are not banned, are often picked

what magic is it, do people hate winning, or maybe supports are not really that influential and as soon as they get even a bit of visible influence, entitled assassin mains try to rob them of that - baww, they play support brand and can kill my talon or w/e, nerf it, baww, they play soraka and can heal my damage, i can't kill anybody at will, etc

TeCoolMageDec 25, 20162 votes

fun =/= powerful

Soraka has a 53% winrate right now but she's not pick or ban, along with champions like Amumu and Sion.

VerdadeDec 25, 20163 votes

Support win rate =/= non-support win rate

Support win rate only indicates how good is said support when compared to other supports, not rest of the champion pool

TeCoolMageDec 26, 20161 votes

You're right.

1-2 tank front lines can be replaced by 2-3 bruisers/juggernauts Junglers can be tanks, bruisers, and many other classes. Including AP utility. Top lane can has multiple fighters, assassins and other classes. Even morgana, Karma, Lulu, Thresh, Nautilus and Braum can go top.

while ADC and Support remain absolutely required because their balance is godawful and literally discourages diversity. Some supports are better than other supports, but all of them are better than everything else other than things which are clearly broken, and some ADCs.

Take Orianna, LeBlanc, Nami top lane or even jungle and you can have a decent win rate

Take Xerath, Ziggs, Katarina support and you'll always lose

VerdadeDec 25, 20162 votes

Assassin expect go to alone vs ADC and support, kill adc and get out OR kill both of them. That's just not how it works, they should never be able to do that

CatastropDec 26, 20163 votes

I'm not saying Supports are OP, I'm saying that buffing assassin's biggest counters in the same patch their burst was being nerfed was very short sighted. It makes as much sense as teachers who suspend students for skipping class, like what even are you accomplishing other than exacerbating the problem?

ZT XperimentorDec 25, 20162 votes

-It's that marksmen are better. Look at all the buffs they got in their update; not to mention some still abuse items from other classes.

CatastropDec 26, 20161 votes

I wanted to refrain from mentioning this, the last thing I wanted was for this thread to become a shitshow between assassin mains and marksmen mains, at least support mains would be insightful with their replies.