@Riot, Could we get some insight on future assassin updates?

Arkathian··17 votes·1,017 views

After marksman updates eventually start running, are there any plans of reworking midlane assassins a la juggernauts as well? More specifically, will there be any aims of making assassins viable in competitive as well, without them becoming overly dominant? With only a few midlane assassins seeing competitive play (sometimes yasuo/zed/diana), it would be interesting to live in a meta where picks like a reworked katarina/talon/akali are also available without just crushing an entire enemy team. I am also assuming there will be several itemization changes for marksman, which will obviously affect assassins as well. Do you think assassins can exist in League in a healthy state at all? Since juggernauts have been buffed, it makes sense that marksmen are buffed in order to mitigate juggernaut strength. Likewise, to keep marksmen down from just kiting teams, assassins have to be able to be effective as well.

Edit: I think there should be special attention to fixing up assassins in a way that doesn't result in "soloqueue assassins" and "competitive-viable assassins"-- both which are strong, but see little play outside of their respective niche. For example, Talon as a "soloqueue assassin" and Zed being "competitive viable"

13 Comments

warpenguin5555 votes

what i would like to see for assassins is for riot to make them not as strong when ahead and make them a bit more useful when behind. doesnt have to be by much. How how you would do that, idk, but having assassins be a bit less cancerous when ahead and a bit more useful when behind would be great imo

Creamy Eevee3 votes

give talon his silence back, bam instantly viable again

warpenguin55515 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nurse Glaceon,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=eURQUEEU,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-09-21T11:03:34.223+0000)

give talon his silence back, bam instantly viable again

no. that was removed for a reason.

Shield Villain1 votes

Yeah, not like stuns exist on burst champions or anything. A 1 second silence, on a single target, is definitely more problematic.

Melledoneus1 votes

Give Talon some damage in lane, scale down his snowball power a bit. Bam, much better.

Or at least make him tankier for a melee. He's so squishy for a mid laner that needs to get into melee range to farm. Meanwhile, Yasuo...

Arkathian5 votes

As much as I'd love that back I'm pretty sure talon's silence was a bit bonkers. Several times before killing an enemy with a full combo I kind of realize how silly it is that the enemy in question literally has no way of getting out, if Talon still had silence. TBH I think items should work through a silence, which would give good counterplay through items much like Zed gets countered by qss/cleanse/zhonyas.

Mecha MaIphite2 votes

He doesn't need to be a top pick to be viable. He isn't even that bad right now.

Raid Boss Morde1 votes

He's still viable though...

The Loveless1 votes

Which assassins need help?

Arkathian1 votes

Maybe not necessarily "need help", since they're still good for soloqueue, but again, I feel talon and akali specifically have no chance of getting competitive play without getting tuned or reworked in some way. This is the main issue here-- some assassins are strong, but only in a noncompetitive no-communication environment like soloqueue.

The Loveless2 votes

I see. I think their current identities of "no cc but I blow shit up" is something Riot needs to get over and adjust. I don't think it's healthy for Talon to gib someone even if it costs him nearly all of his mana bar. It's not healthy for Akali to vamp/life steal back everything you put on her in a 1 on 1, even if you delay your death by ccing her - I blame the vamp more than the ult resets FWIW.

I'd like for them to have some sort of...idk how to put it. But some kind of skill where they can show off / kite / juke / dodge other enemies and work just a little longer for a kill. There's really no fighting chance since a low of the squishy champs also happen to be the slowest.

WarlockLaw1 votes

I imagine that they are going to continue for a while doing these class-wide changes assuming the marksman one gets mostly positive feedback. If it gets a lot of hard like the juggernaut one then they will likely stop

Divewing1 votes

Honestly I think the Ekko approach would be best, tone down burst so that is big, but not lethal (without a pretty noticeable lead), in exchange for more fluidity moving in and out of combat. Whether or not they succeeded in that respect with Ekko is another discussion, but I think the ideas behind it could work

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