Assassin Rework: I get it Riot, i know why it's so hard.

Zerenza··1 votes·1,144 views

Okay so i was looking at a spotlight of the katarina project skin (omg i love it, thank you this is by far her best skin, wonderful job riot) but then i realized why assassins are not only so hard to make but hard to rework.

Katarina and a lot of assassins lack that really satisfying feel that you get from, for example, hitting someone's vitals on fiora, procing the third hit on ekko or booping people with a star on aurelion sol(his "Boop, Boop, Boop" really helps btw).Assassins just aren't satisfting, their skills are really boring and uneventful. With katarina since i started by talking about her, her W is really unsatisfying, the range isn't expressed well with her animation and not only that but her Q's passive just seems slapped on and like it doesn't do much. Her passive basically does nothing and not only that if you don't kill your target you feel so unrewarded and most of the time you die anyway.

(The new project skin makes all of these ability's really flashy and a bit more satisfying, especially her ULT since i can see each individual blade and that is just sooooo cool)

The problem with assassins, making them and reworking them, is that they aren't satisfying to the player's, they all seem to have the same binary kits and they just all together lack a lot of individuality. This is also why it's so hard to make a good assassin, its like you have to live up to the expectation of what everyone wants in an assassin. Dashes, blinks, burst and that would basically turn them into any of the other assassins in the line up.

I get it now riot, i understand, its tough. What would you even do to make katarina be more interactive in the first place without changing her completely.

16 Comments

TyroneWatermelon2 votes

Satisfaction or not,the problem with assassins is that they either 100-0 someone without counterplay,or they do some damage and become useless. Riot wants to make them "healthier" by giving their enemies a time oppurtunity or a visual that they can react to instead of being killed by point and click insta burst inb4 Zed,Akali,Diana,Leblanc,Talon,Rengar,Fizz,and Kha'zix

Slack King1 votes

{quoted}

Satisfaction or not,the problem with assassins is that they either 100-0 someone without counterplay,or they do some damage and become useless. Riot wants to make them "healthier" by giving their enemies a time oppurtunity or a visual that they can react to instead of being killed by point and click insta burst inb4 Zed,Akali,Diana,Leblanc,Talon,Rengar,Fizz,and Kha'zix

Or have massive repositioning and delete potentialZed Leblanc

xevi2 votes

The problem I have with assassins are the bullshit safe assassins. The ones like zed, leblanc, fizz, and ekko who can get out of the fray regardless of a successful assassination. Talon, Diana, Akali, Shaco, Rengar, and Khazix all risk dying if they go for a kill and fail. Even for Talon, Shaco, Rengar, Akali, and Diana, they are left to either A. juke the rest of the enemy if they eliminate their target or B. left to die being the squishy high risk, high reward champions they are. For the most part "safe assassins" is complete unhealthy as it takes away from the high risk high reward champ design and functionality they serve. Unlike other assassins, when safe assassins make mistakes, they usually get away with their lives.

Sexy Jack Rabbit2 votes

I agree with you, however Diana is a Diver, not an Assassin. It's a pretty big distinction.

Zerenza1 votes

I agree with fizz, leblance and zed because their mobility is absolutely ridiculous (especially leblance) but Ekko was stated to be more like a Diver than an assassin by rioter's in the Assassin Rework update they did about a month ago. Diver's can only assassinate squishy's and have the tools necessary to get out, but only if they do it right, it's actually really bad for an ekko to use his ult to get out. That's a huge waste, for diana a good diana play can get out pretty easily and i actually don't build her full burst because that's dumb to do because late game you'll just get popped(i do the same build for ekko almost for the same reason, full burst on both of them is kind of dumb).

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

I agree, assassins shouldn't survive more than tanks regardless of how. If they make a mistake, they should be severely punishable for it, it's the 'risk/reward' equation.

Zerenza1 votes

No i understand that but what i was getting at was i understand why it's so difficult to make new assassins and rework them. What could they possibly change about say Kat or Talon or Akali. To make them more fun to play and have a less binary playstyle but also make them fair to the enemy player? It's hard once you think realistically, like just ignore all the healthy gameplay aspects for bit and really think about how assassins play, it's non-interactive and it's binary (either get fed or be useless is what binary means in this context) and that's not satisfying gameplay which is one of the core aspects of champion design. At riot they call it "Viscerality" and a lot of the assassin champions just don't have any Viscerality that really sets them apart and makes them a good champion in league of legends.

Eman13262 votes

I feel like riot needs to forget about assassins and give me my qss back so i can do something about a 15-0 zed that ulted me and all i can do is throw my head set against my computer screen.

DaStruggIeEzreaI1 votes

A common misconception. Your QSS only defensive item ADC is not gonna live through a fed Zed. He doesn't need the pop to kill you, it's just a gap closer so he doesn't need to flash on you. If he's that far ahead, you're dead regardless.

Sexy Jack Rabbit1 votes

I don't understand it. As someone who hates Zed with a fiery passion he's really not that bad anymore since the nerfs too his kit. He's ranging between a 47 - 49% win rate. If you hate him that much just don't feed him.

Zerenza2 votes

His ban rate is still 70% even in high elo, a good zed player has no problem getting that fed, infact the top challenger player im north america right now and is also a zed main and the best zed in NA. His kit is kind of unfair to the enemy player, albeit he's hard to play but once you learn him there really isn't much the enemy team can do. Which is why he's banned so often in high ELO.

Sexy Jack Rabbit1 votes

Except that there is no one top challenger player in the world? The Top 10 players constantly rotate between who has the best ELO and scores as it is spanned across the EUW, KR and NA Servers. Not too mention out of NME flaresz x, who is he and F5 Veritas none of them main or play Zed at all. Out of the top 10 there is only one Zed main and he is from the EUW and goes by the Summoner name EUW,and even more so he has been playing Lee Sin more then Zed this season. Too say "This isn't much the enemy team can do" is just bronzie talk. He's not an infinitely broken champion. He's really not that bad, bronzies just have no idea how too counter him and as a result they suffer, he has a high ban rate due too his high mobility allowing for roam potential and his ult acts as a delete button against ADCs, similar to Leblanc. In reality all he can do is kill 1 target, run away and do it again later. He can push lanes or take towers very well and his objective potential is so-so at best.

Zerenza1 votes

My bad didn't mean world i fixed it lol

The current top challenger (who has been there for over a month with almost double the wins of anyone else in challenger) is Arcsecond, he isn't a zed main but while looking for the best zed in NA, his name is the one at the top.

Now while Arcsecond is a diana main at the moment it's pretty damned obvious the guy's good with Zed, being the top challenger player in north america by a pretty large margin while also being the highest ranked zed player is no small feat.

Some of the zed player's here have almost an 80% winrate with him and that's just ridiculous that basically means the enemy has a 20% of chance of winning that game against that player while their using zed, and the ones that don't have a winrate of 80 have a winrate of 60 or higher with him which still puts the enemy at a huge disadvantage.

Being good with a champ is one thing but having a 80% winrate because your good with them is kind of dumb and proves that his kit has way to many tools to outplay the opponent with but obviously not enough counter play options.

cinomenapplebae1 votes

Soraka Katarina Leblanc are really unsatisfying for me tbh

Zerenza1 votes

lol soraka

SwiftKitten881 votes

I'm curious as to why the chose to release a new skin forKatarina at this time... i mean it look freaking amazing, but if they are reworking assassisn they might needs to redo some of the new visual they have just done because her skills might change.

More from Gameplay

More by Zerenza