State of Assassins in Solo Q

I primarily play assassins in mid lane or top lane and this is my thoughts on the changes from season 4 to now.

I'll give a Change rating, which has a range of -2 to +2 by integers. -2 being severely negative change (good in season 4, suicide in season 5) and 2 being a very good change (good in season 4, better in season 5). 0 will be denoted as good before and good now, or bad before and bad now. These ratings are based on a number of factors: fun, viability, addition of clunkiness, comeback potential, snowball potential, and number of counters.

Still viable and fun. In fact, probably one of the best picks in solo q as she can waveclear + assassinate throughout the whole game. Does not have many weaknesses in lane other than pre-6 without mobility. Change rating: +1

Questionable viability. She has many more counters in lane now as the rise of short range burst mages have become the norm. Before annie was a real pain in the ass, now i believe azir, ekko, and cassio are your biggest nightmare. Unfortunately, all these mages are top priority and unless you manage to farm under turret without dying you're still going to be behind due to the fact that you can still die in a 1v1 all-in at 6. Change rating: -1

Haven't played him enough, but he is considered the top assassin now in many eyes. No change rating.

One of my most played champions in this game. Again he has trouble in early game against the likes of azir and cassio, but unlike akali he still has the ability to win an all-in at 6 due to the nature of his kit (mainly being able to dodge with a nicely timed e) I still believe him to be a great assassin, and until late game 6 times he is still relevant and a great split pusher. Change rating: 0.

I put jayce in here because I believe him to be an assassin. I play a lot of jayce and to be successful at him you have to be willing to go in and assassinate someone, after all you can't just sit at the edge of teamfights and expect to output your full damage be waiting on q+e combo and slinging autos. Sure, there are times where it's unnecessary to go in and try and kill someone but jayce has the potential to be a good assassin in the right hands. While he might not be the greatest at being an assassin he still has the potential to 100-0 a midlaner or adc late game. I like him against the short range burst mages these days since he is ranged, only issue is being aggressive in lane with no escape. Other than that he's still a good pick in most situations. Change rating: 0.

Everyones favorite champion. My most played and most loved champion. He's still good in the right hands, can have decent trading against the likes of azir and cassio, and his counters are shit now (mostly talon, but he wasn't really a counter anyway). Still a good pick in every situation and though the nerf bat keeps coming his way, those who still play him can feel his power. Always weak pre-6, but people who don't respect him and get in melee range can get beat down hard. Change Rating: 0

Never played this champion thoroughly enough to have an opinion. She's pretty boring honestly, point and click assassin is not that fun. I dunno probably still the same as she was before. Change rating: 0

Not even played that often before, and still quite a niche pick. The nerfs to his mid air tiamat and w were stupid as always from riot. He wasn't even in a good spot and they it took away, not sure where they were going with that. Recent buffs to his isolation range was nice, but still can be hard to find targets out of range in teamfights. Although he is a great finisher in teamfights. Still have to build somewhat tanky, maybe 1-2 tank items, or build cleaver and a tank item. I like hex+cleaver+randuins personally. I play jungle mostly with him, as laning with the isolation is kind of ridiculous. Regardless, I don't see much change from him. Change rating: 0

People have complained the world over about this champion. After her silence nerf, nobody played her. It was only a select few that still played her. Then everyone realized she was the only decent assassin left and then everyone played her again. People don't like having to face leblanc because they have slow reaction time and cannot process that if she's 500 units away she is going to blow you up. Rather they would like her to be slow and clunky. The nerfs to her w speed make the slow able to catch her mid w and take away her burst. Never is it more easy to catch leblanc, the once feared assassin is now a sitting duck in teamfights. Her specialty was sitting on the outskirts and possibly blow up someone in the back line. Is that even possible anymore? People say she's still broken, but when she can be so easily interrupted in her w, you're relegated to using it as a means of dodging rather than damage. So, her combo has changed and there in lies the problem. She can't 100-0 with q+r+e unless you're extremely ahead. It's hard to get ahead in lane when your main form of trading consists of using w for damage. I feel the champion is clunky and not as responsive as it used to be, and some people think it's great, and others just move on. I didn't play leblanc a lot, but always picked her when I wanted a champion that had the possibility of extreme outplay and trickery, not much trickery when you know exactly what's coming each time. Change rating: -2

Similar to katarina, this guy is pretty unfun to play as his outplay potential and binary nature is so mundane. You get fed you one shot people before they can do anything. You fall behind and you're garbage. Change rating: 0

This champion was always feared by those who were able to survive laning phase and get off proper roams. He's had many ups and downs and now unfortunately he's put back in the closet. Being melee has it's downsides and talon gets pushed aside by current burst mages. Unlike the likes of zed or fizz, he has no way to dodge abilities like azir wall and cassio ult, he can however get across azir wall assuming azir decides to stand right next to it. He's still fun in the right situations and can excel against most mids but his time was short and now he's but a mere niche. Change rating: -1

I don't even know who plays this champion anymore, he's pretty much garbage from early to late. Sure, you can get fed and carry, but if it goes past a certain point all yasuo can do is splitpush and hope for the best. He used to be fun to play, and still is, but he just requires so much team coordination and blows up so easily, he's far too risky in most situations. Change rating: -1

One of my favorite champions of all time, up there with kassadin. For the longest time he would stand the test of time as far as assassins go, always viable, and always deadly in the right hands. Riot likes to make zed clunkier and clunkier, some people thought the shadow speed nerf would put him in the grave, and it's possible it did for some people. But, riot likes to make champions unfun because by doing so they will lessen the amount of people that play it, thus reducing the amount of people who cry. Zed was always risky, because if you sucked with him, you could never snowball and win before everyone got qss or extreme tanky. Now with his ult nerfs, it's easier to take out the once perfectly designed assassin. Similar to leblanc his ability to swiftly move through teamfights and calculate his target has been reduced to nothing. No longer can you expect to go in and blow someone up. First people can see when you're going to go in, unless they are braindead, and second 1 second is plenty of time to lock you down and send you to your death. People say his difficulty went up, why make a champion so few can proficiently play his even harder? Now it's necessary for you to pull some magic with your shadows to have the chance to blow someone up, when before you just had to position yourself in an advantageous situation. It was frustrating playing zed when you're used to having fluid mechanics and now reduced to having the feeling of being throttled at the neck. I'll keep playing him but I'm not going to enjoy it. Change rating: -1, only because he still has some life in him yet.

Final score: -5

Assassins are a dying breed.

Yes, my opinion is biased, just like yours.