The Real Problem
I posted something like this back in Season 4... then again in 6. It's become even more true as the years go on. It's never been a popular statement, but it is true anyway.
Want to know the real problem? It's simple, and a designer outlined it many years ago:
"We will not be releasing another champion, like the new Akali, for quite awhile. High mobility and damage drive tank Metas. We will always try to keep high damage combined with high risk." -Morello
There is a rather popular post on these boards right now concerning how safe most of the bursty assassin champions have become.
- Will negate at LEAST two abilities per fight. If he throws his windwall properly he can cancel the ults of most of the enemy team because it's indestructible. His passive will simply tank something, no matter the damage.
- Great rework. Now she doesn't even fear towers (as if she ever did), but if you DO manage to gank her she will be two screens away suddenly.
- "Crap, I dove and it was a bad idea... there were four of them. Welp, reset every 60s or less."
- A bruiser who twoshots. Might as well be an assassin.
- Currently seen as weaker, this is only because of Duskblade nerfs. He can still delete a squishy or two, in the middle of your team, and vanish over a wall again.
- Used to be obnoxious. Is now basically a bruiser assassin who vanishes as soon as he's in trouble.
- Like WuKong, was a bruiser, but may as well be an assassin now. Pray he doesn't get a couple kills top or he will 1v5 you because of his passives.
- Used to be you just chased this hooker while she tried to warp away. Now she spits out clones, while still warping away.
- Buggy as hell, and will likely be nerfed. Her ult is basically a nunu Ult, that shields her and takes no time to charge. While she's throwing indirect damage thats painful early, she has 3 built in mechanics to shake you off.
The list goes on. The solution to CH was to amp damage to drive the tanks out of champion select. Like all things they took it over the top, and we had assassins everywhere. Once again, in predicted fashion, they threw ADC damage through the roof to try to negate the assassins.
That was bad, and thousands complained... so they renerfed ADCs. While doing so, they KEPT releasing high mobility, high damage, assassins. Call them what you want, but any champion that comes out of the jungle and instantly deletes a champion is an assassin.
All the while, through all of the busted Metas, they continue to release flashy, stream ready champions. Burst assassins.