When the assassin reworks come out, can you do something about playing against them?

Bârd·May 3, 2016·65 votes·3,281 views

Because they are incredibly binary.

Two things can happen with an assassin.

They are either dead weight or make the enemy want to kill themselves.

89 Comments

Irelia BotMay 3, 201629 votes

You mean like having allies who can peel and interrupt them? There is a reason why Janna has a fairly high win rate in case you didn't understand that.

What are you trying to suggest? Make an assassin not win when even or ahead in a 1v1 with the squishy ADC? Well then what are they suppose to be call besides an assassin? What reason would they to be played by someone who wants to win?

Most have some degree of counter play it is just the ones like rengar that need to be completely reworked due to a complete lack of counter play.

L0ve Is BlueMay 3, 201619 votes

What are you trying to suggest?

Make assassins what they really are. High risk= high reward. I don't mid getting destroyed by a Talon Katarina Diana Khazix because those have to actualy use their mobility spell to get to me and eliminate me. They have no way out if they do so, and if they fail they will be punished by either me, my team or my tower.

But when a Zed ults me, E+Q+AA and then blinks back, He doesn't give a shit if he kills me or not. He will get out safely anyway. Same thing for Leblanc who leggit has a spell that is all about being able to go back to her initial location and Fizz who can troll-poll to safety every 4 second.

Fenikkusu1May 3, 201610 votes

What are towers? I never see them past the six minute mark.

AMYS GRAVEMay 3, 201612 votes

they are the pink wards that shoot wet toilet paper at the enemies.

billxxMay 3, 20162 votes

Isn't rengar super feast or famine? If you beat him early he's useless

Irelia BotMay 3, 201610 votes

But he gets a few kills and he becomes basically unstoppable in blowing up a squishy before a Janna right next to the squishy can press R or the like.

Rengar is one of the few that exhibits true problems in how he functions and a lack of being able to potentially do anything about him. This is why he exhibits such extreme levels of feast or famine since his usefulness is largely dependent on being able to blow up the target with no real counter play.

billxxMay 3, 20163 votes

Fair enough, however I hope they don't change him that much.

Irelia BotMay 3, 20166 votes

Thing about rengar is that unless they change him a ton he will still be having this fundmental issue. He will likely need a rework along the lines of what Karma got before he will not always be about an abbuse case.

And he has always been about an abuse case be it DFG AP stacking when he first was added, triple Q or jumping on someone using hydra and killing the target in less time then the average persons reaction time.

macromiteMay 3, 20162 votes

issue with that. the peeler needs to play near perfectly to deal with an average assassin.

TotalJerkMay 3, 20161 votes

IMO they need to be feast or famine, but there needs to be harder caps on both ends of the spectrum. If a single champion can just autowin the game if they win lane, then we might as well be playing 15 minute games instead of 35.

Akali is SO HOTMay 3, 201613 votes

That would require giving them some form of utility and I think we all know what happens when we have a "Utility Assassin"

Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko Ekko

AstôlfoMay 3, 20164 votes

Ekko's not even like an assassin. The label is just inaccurate altogether and people leep trying to use it to base complaints around.

MLDzXnRRRMay 3, 20169 votes

And ADCs are not binary, right. Just don't go near them and you won't be hurt.

AlüeMay 3, 20168 votes

Wouldn't mind losing out to an assassin so hard I guess if some of their forms of high damage were hard to pull off mechanically. Such as yasuo, everyone can agree an amazing yasuo player is overbearing in lane, but arguably it's not something just given to players. I'd like to see more skill shots added to their kits for room for error.

deadlychuckMay 3, 201626 votes

The problem i see with a champion like yasuo is that he falls into the category of "he can only outplay himself", were his CDs are so short and his utility so strong, that the way he loses a fight is making a stupid play when his raw power can't save him. Doing something like dashing around wildly and ending up under tower by mistake.

I'd also argue that Riven LeeSin also fall into this description

Valor BotMay 3, 20169 votes

{quoted} the way he loses a fight is making a stupid play when his raw power can't save him. Doing something like dashing around wildly and ending up under tower by mistake.

Ultimately, this means that the only way a very skilled Yasuo player can lose is by playing poorly or making a mistake. If this were truly the case, then in my view, it'd be poor game design; ideally, no single Champion should have the power to succeed against every other Champion in the game, Yasuo included -- he should have counters that will just naturally win against him even if he plays his cards right.

AstôlfoMay 3, 20167 votes

um um no.

Counters should give as advantages/disadvantages. They should not automatically decide the match. Skills are what decides said match.

"he should have counters that will just naturally win against him even if he plays his cards right." What are you smoking? There is nothing "natural" about that.

notmebuthimMay 3, 20163 votes

There are hard counters to Yasuo. Ive noticed Ekko Irelia Malzahar Pantheon MasterYi Talon Zed Vladimir are pretty hard to lane against.

raomarNov 9, 20161 votes

I know this is an old post but Orianna sucks to play against as yasuo

MunchCrunchLunchMay 3, 20167 votes

high-risk high reward is what i want to see. am looking ad Zed Leblanc and partially Fizz increase the E cooldown and thats fair enough.

deadlychuckMay 3, 20167 votes

Ekko with his ult falls into that list as well.

I think the better solution is to just not give them escapes attached to their kit. Give them tons of stick and engaging power to stick to their targets, but it should be up to their own tactical skills and map awareness to not die afterwards.

MunchCrunchLunchMay 3, 20164 votes

the thing with ekko. hes not an assassin. hes not. he doesn't work like one. hes a melee diver. hes not tanky to be a bruiser unless you build him to be so. he can't all in someone unless hes fed he doesn't have enough damage and his ult is 4 second shadow delayed if he used it to kill he has no more hard escapes. they need to make him more of an assassin and less of a bruiser but hes fun because against certain comps u can spam abilities and go ham at people in close combat.

deadlychuckMay 3, 20169 votes

and you know i completely agree they gave him the kit of a fighter/mage, and then called him an assassin. So they had to add so many different features to his kit to make it possible for him to assassinate targets.

This is where his overloaded nature comes from, a fucking identity crisis.

Like seriously, where does riot draw the line?

Diana is a fighter/mage Ekko is a assassin/fighter

but compare their fucking designs!

LeetriMay 3, 20164 votes

Ekko was called an assassin because squishier-dive-champion wasn't a class, but now with the new subclasses they introduced the Skirmisher which in my opinion fits Ekko pretty well.

manbearswineMay 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Ekko was called an assassin because squishier-dive-champion wasn't a class, but now with the new subclasses they introduced the Skirmisher which in my opinion fits Ekko pretty well.

No, no, no.

Ekko was called an assassin because according to riot/the boards, assassin=bullshit pass. Because as long as the champion is an assassin his kit can be completely retarded and all over the place and it's all fine and sensible, when someone who's not an assassin does it, time to nerf it to the ground.

Syndra's stun is too reliable and she is a bully early? Nerf her stun, Nerf her early, kick her out of competitive and solo q for god knows how long, hell I even remember a rioter calling her "bullshit".

Le blanc is completely retarded down to her very core(I mean I can get into specifics, but I'm guessing you're familiar with them)? better keep shoving this cancer down our throats so she could make LC$BIGPLAYS, it's all fine, assassins assassinate, and whatnot.

I mean sure, syndra's kit might have it's flaws, but she can't hold a candle to the abomination that is le blanc, and yet le blanc is constantly shoved into the meta, whereas syndra was called bullshit and kicked out of it.

So yeah, ekko is an assassin, otherwise it wouldn't make sense for him to have all that damage,cc,mobility, and survivability.

AstôlfoMay 3, 20164 votes

and another senseless assassin QQer who doesn't even attempt to logically discuss problems [zombie-brand-facepalm] Go cry somewhere else.

manbearswineMay 3, 20163 votes

{quoted}

and another senseless assassin QQer who doesn't even attempt to logically discuss problems Go cry somewhere else.

Yeah I'm not going to write a wall of text describing problems everyone is aware of just so that some bronze assassin circlejerker would tell me "nope, git gud, once you're trash like me you'd know how to play vs assassins", I'm kinda bored with that one.

Seriously, if you need an explanation as to what is wrong with le blanc then something is very wrong with you.

AbyssphereMay 4, 20161 votes

{quoted}

with his ult falls into that list as well.

I think the better solution is to just not give them escapes attached to their kit. Give them tons of stick and engaging power to stick to their targets, but it should be up to their own tactical skills and map awareness to not die afterwards.

Assassins without escapes either need no counterplay to their combo to be strong ( Akali Rengar Talon ) or they build like a bruiser/tank. Probably the healthiest assassin without an escape is Diana and people still complain about how bulky her shield makes her and how insanely fast her QRR is, not to mention the fact that she has crowd control means she breaks the "No CC for assassins!" golden rule some people will swear bye. Why on Earth would anyone ever play a squishy melee champion with no utility and no safety if they weren't obscenely good at killing people?

People need to get some sense of perspective when talking about what assassins should and shouldn't be able to do because posts like this always just end up as "Assassins need to be comfortably the worst class in the game". People talk about how assassins should be just damage with no defensive mobility, no in-kit bulk/sustain, no utility and no poke and think that a class with those limitations could ever be worthwhile when you could just pick a mage/bruiser and keep reasonable kill pressure while having other uses/some chance of not feeding horribly.

deadlychuckMay 4, 20161 votes

the irony of using diana as an example is that she is classified as a fighter/mage, not assassin.

Firstly, assassins can have CC, i never said they couldn't, but half of ekko's kit seems to just be tacked onto the champion for no reason other than to increase his coverage as a champion, without much thought for balance. Where instead they could've added power or emphasis to other parts of his kit, instead they increased it through means of utility, leaving almost no meaningful holes in his kit for counter play.

Back to your reply though... It's not trying to make assassins the "worst class in the game". It's about which part of the assassin's kit should be left up the the player, and which should be controlled by champion mechanics. I feel that the damage and assassination of the assassins should be controlled by the champion's kit. It should be easier to full combo on an assassin than say a mage. However, they shouldn't be given the escape from the fight, within the champion's mechanics. Assassins should have reliable damage, where as mages have unreliable damage (skillshots), but range to assist in positioning/escape.

So take zed for example. If zed engages onto you, as it stands right now and how it would remain, is that if you're a mage or marksmen you're likely going to die, however if you move into a position, say under the tower or near an ally, then the zed should also be very likely to die after having killed you. Say you were to just remove the return portion of his ult. Does zed loose any of his assassination potential? No. All he does is lose his "get out of jail free card", when it comes to escaping. So it's on the player's back to either plan an escape accordingly when engaging a target in a fight, or be sure to kill the target who is more valuable than themselves in a team fight. If zed saves his W, he could use it to escape the fight, but that would mean he's making a MEANINGFUL TRADE OFF, of escape potential for damage potential.

Haha actually just look at the comment / below, from Tanathalis. He talks about the same thing, overly efficient disengage built into the kits.

NyáMay 3, 20167 votes

I think one of the main problems is that alot of assasins have overly efficient disengage Zed, Ekko, Yasuo ( less so than others but its there ) Leblanc ( Not as bad ) and these honestly are the main ones im referring to. Ekko can dash to his opponent and if it goes bad he can easily ult back out, same for zed. I really think that gives them a very easy life as an assasin, they can just about engage a fight by them selves and back off instead of picking off carries in the backline after the fight starts.

Maybe if Zed can only R back AFTER he gets a kill with his ulti it might work a bit better, maybe put a short delay on ekko's Ult ( not a channel ) Like after hitting R 1.5 seconds later he goes back so if he dosnt time it right he'll either die or wont get the kill he's going for.

Yasuo's dash has less of the same problems because if he uses a minion wave to get to you, he'll have a harder time getting back out with the dash delay.

Leblanc i think is alright, her snare is a pretty big part of her kit and she cant instantly dash away or she wont get the snare, and the dash range is fairly short.

I think an example of some assasins that are in better spots are Talon, Kat, and akali, ( i dont mean based on how there performing in the meta, but more about how there kits perform )

Talon has to to his target which puts him out there and he dosnt really have an escape, his ult stealths him but stealth has a few ways to counter it, and its not a instant blink back to safety.

Katarina has to get a kill or assist before shes able to blink again so if she goes in and dosnt get the kill / assist, she's usually left in a very bad spot with her abilities left on cooldown.

Akali dosnt really get early game dominance at all because of how ult reliant she is which is her clear major weakness, and even after she gets it she cant go super crazy, she has to auto attack in her combo unless shes in a clear advantage which slows down her 100 to 0 Potential by quite a bit unless she picks the right targets, her ultimate is a dash and not a blink so the opponent does have a bit of reaction time to maybe zhonyas or barrier, or flash under tower to put akali in a bad spot, and if there are no enemy minions nearby when akali needs to get out, she cant use her ult.

tl;dr I think risk / reward needs to be seriously redone with alot of the popular assassins at the moment.

These are just my opinions, I could be wrong.

HeadHonchkrowMay 3, 20166 votes

I agree with you 100% except for the part where you call LeBlonk "Not as bad"

SpongebobIsLifeMay 3, 20162 votes

Yeah, but here's the thing man, zed, and ekko have that massive amount of disengage because their assassinations are the hardest and longest to complete. So if riot decided to target the areas you were talking about with those champions, they'd have to have considerable buffs on their damage output. I think you'd slowly be pushing them towards talon and rengar levels of burst where there is very little opportunity of retaliation from the enemy.

tl;dr Ekko and Zed are fine. I have no words for lb though, that trick is stupid broken.

Oh and Yasuo isnt considered an assassin by riot though, he is in the same category as fiora, yi, and tryndamere.

HazyCloud7May 3, 20162 votes

You have the right idea. But LeBlanc is my 2nd highest mastery champion and I can tell you for certain she is not really ok. In general she's balanced, just not in lane. Poor waveclear, not much utility to the team aside from the chain, very dependent on creating a lead to contribute to the team, and even if you get fed its often difficult to carry because she excels at bursting one target, whereas other midlaners contribute more in a teamfight.

The issue w/ her is that her point and click QW + thunderlords proc at level 2 will do like 40%-50% health against a champ with low base health and no MR runes. And the only way to really avoid it is to just...not come close to her. This makes it very easy to get early kills and zone out the other laner. She's so oppressive in lane. What the solution to that is? Not sure tbh.

Zed being unable to jump back to ult until he gets a kill would gut him. Maybe being unable until deathmark would secure the kill.

deadlychuckMay 4, 20161 votes

i think the LB thing comes from a change years back, where they increase the length which her tether breaks to something like double the missile range. Revert that, and she's in a much healthier spot.

On the point of zed though, i don't see anything wrong with making him wait to return, or removing the return all together. The reason for this is that it's the assassin's job to escape a fight, they shouldn't be given a button which completes the task for them. If a zed dies for the enemy fed MF, then it's still a successful assassination. It's even more justified with the removal of QSS cleanse of zed ult. Although more importantly, it creates an actual meaningful decision. where right now none exists. You either use your W for damage and increase kill potential, or you save it for escape and risk failing to assassinate the target.

deadlychuckMay 3, 20166 votes

Honestly idk if there is a solution to that problem. That's in a way the fundamental role of an assassin, kill the enemy before they can react or die trying.

I think the only way to properly balance them would be to somehow make it so that if they engage poorly, even if they succeed in killing a target, they die. The reason for this is pretty simple. It puts assassin timing and engagement the equivalent of marksmen positioning. Assassins are given to much defensive utility, between their mobility or damage mitigation. If they planned an escape route, then fine, but their kit shouldn't be giving them answer to them getting the hell out of an enemy team.

Edge of DaybreakMay 3, 20163 votes

That may be a hard thing to ask riot considering the fact that the two assassins that are the least binary with the most counterplay to their burst rotation are arguably the two most complained about champions right now.

Jeddy017May 3, 20163 votes

Well, when you have an entire class centered around killing people, there's not much you can do for them.

S3ntinelMay 3, 20165 votes

So wait ADC's aren't centered around killing people?

deadlychuckMay 3, 20162 votes

riot seems to want them to be specifically the tank and tower killers of the team. Although at this point, they've strong armed the previous tank killers out of the role, which was mages.

macromiteMay 3, 20162 votes

mages aren't tank killers. mages are squish killers.

deadlychuckMay 4, 20161 votes

Believe it or not they were. They were given the % damage, a means to more easily kill tanks indirectly. Tanks were initially not intended to be targeted, which is why mages were their counter. The AOE combine with % damage meant they would kill them while also damaging other targets. They weren't as good at singling out targets, because skillshots, where marksmen could auto-attack and assassins assassinate.

macromiteMay 4, 20161 votes

some of them were ok, like brand or karthus, but a majority of them sucked at it, like ziggs, xerath, or annie. even the ones that were ok are way better at killing squish than tanks. the tank killing classes are bruiser and adc.

S3ntinelMay 3, 20162 votes

Yeah they are definitely tank killers and tower killers, but they are very very snowball-y right now, leaving them able to take down squishies late game.

AMYS GRAVEMay 3, 20162 votes

Assassins kill people, adcs kill structures. It takes adcs too long to kill people (with a few outlier exceptions) and they need a lot of team help to do it.

ZarvanisMay 3, 20163 votes

I pray to whatever is holy or sacred in this world that they do something about Fizz's Fizz Playful/Trickster. I don't care what they do to the other assassins, just do something about that BS of an E.

warpenguin555May 3, 20163 votes

they almost have to. nobody likes to play against this games assassins. But i bet the assassin update will just be massive buffs instead

HazyCloud7May 3, 20162 votes

Just to be clear, people will not enjoy playing against assassins regardless of what they do in the assassin update. Playing against something designed to burst squishy champions will never be enjoyable for people that frequently play squishy champions.

Riot's goal should be to increase counterplay against the problematic ones and ensure playing an assassin successfully requires a certain skill level relative to your opponent, without making them clunky.

Jungle Lux GodMay 3, 20161 votes

I'm reasonably certain that if any assassin is apart of the assassin update, this is 90% of what the assassin update will bring.

Assassins have historically had really low counterplay to their burst patterns, and I feel like most assassins would get their burst patterns changed to either have a bigger delay (like Zed) or be able to dodge more of their burst (like Ekko).

KETSU0May 3, 20164 votes

i hope not, it'll destroy the the fast and killing part about them and make them clunky just look at Akali Rengar

ErockandrollMay 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

i hope not, it'll destroy the the fast and killing part about them and make them clunky just look at

This is why I don't support the Feast or Famine model. You either snow ball out of control, or be completely useless. And the only way out of that problem is to give such Assassins a decent Auxiliary. (Notice how the best Assassins have wave clear)

And even if you get the High risk, high reward style in a balanced state. It would be unworkable at the competitive level. Simply because it would be too risky to put your chips on a single champ at a single part of the game. Unless you draft a team around your assassin. But if that happens, Assassins would be dictating the meta, and considered oppressive again.