What? No that is not what was going on ._.
Even before the assasssin update marksmen were in a shitty spot, nearly all of them except Jhin, mf and....i think it was caitlyn? Had poor winrates below 49%, however enough of them did sit between 49 to 50% and thus things were still considered alright though.
But they were literally dying from everything, they had no damage migration or peel since mage supports were the popular ones too. Juggernauts instakilled them, mages instakilled them, mage supports, assasssins, divers and whatnot.
Everything killed them extremely fast and it was well documented to boot, both in normal games and the pro games at the time.
Supports like Lulu and janna were at the time a lot weaker and thus rarely played, some mains did do it but it was still rare, and tanks were hardly ever played at the time nor were tank supports who were considered to be a shitty pick due to mage supports running them out of lane.
What good is a tank to help you in a extended fight if the enemy mage ends it 2 seconds later? That was the mentality at the time.
And when the actual assasssin rework kicked in, at that point all the assassins skyrocketed and all the assassins except Jhin and Varus took a nosedive in winrates, i myself playing at the time tried to play ashe and even while sitting in the middle of my team i still died to the diving rengar going 4,3,1 over my ,5,1,3 in less than 1,5 seconds.
No one managed to react before he was ontop of and killed me.
And that kinda thing was common, normal marksmen were utterly useless at the time, instead a different style lead by Jhin and Varus found popularity.
They stacked lethaltiy and used abilties and thusly played like some AD xerath's, they stayed further out of range than even Lux or Xerath himself.
For a class supposed to be auto attack damage carries that was a truly ridiculous situation, and it got so bad that they were the only marksmen that you didn't get reported for picking. MF was somewhat alright if you were good at her but people will still extremely negative going into it.
Even pro´s could not play marksmen other than Jhin and Varus, it was impossible to do anything meaningful against a decent assassin unless having a team comp dedicated to your protection as a marksman. I watch plenty of streamers so i have a fairly good idea to say the least.
Some smart soul came up with Ziggs botlane, a mage that could actually survive, farm and take towers. The perfect replacement to the too slow and useless auto attackers.
A single shield and a single tank was nowhere near enough,thus tanks and supports were largely considered useless, as were most mages, a number of divers, skirmishers and juggernauts.
In the entire game only around 20 were consistently played at the time.....20 out of 100+.
It's no wonder every single person aside from the assassins hated that meta, and why Riot chose to buff supports so hard and why tanks got so much power in their rework, it was exactly intended to suppress the assassins and keep the ordinary marksmen from just falling over if poked.
Even now many assassins sit at either high playrate or high winrate, Talon,zed, kha6 and kata to name a few that are doing well.
Talon in particular is powerful.
Even now with so many tanks and enhancers going around those guys are still successful.....take a moment to consider just how big the implications of that are.
It means, that despite the nerfs, despite the buffs to nearly every single one of their counters, the new itemization of their targets and focus on protecting the targets those assassins are still finding success in the hands of enough people to maintain a solid presence.
Now take a step back and consider how strong they must have been back just after the reworks when all their counters were weak and itemization against them was lacking.
And finally, you do not read Riot's patch notes at all do you? Otherwise you would know why GA was changed.
It was because tanks were building it, and it was so successful that all the pro tanks did it each and every time-
And the easiest way to fix it? Remove magic resist, give it a build path that leaves them squishier and add in AD, that ensures that only AD champs will build it.
Primarily the melee ones that stack AD and want just a little more time and marksmen that know they are going to die a lot.
That's what the item is now, something you get because you know you´ll die.
Not that it's used much with enhancers sitting on the marksmen trying to ensure they don't get blown up to immense success.
The fact that you seem to claim marksmen guility of all the "bad things" while whitewashing assassins and even blaming marksmen for the GA changes that were caused by tanks i find quite peculiar, for i find it sounding awfully biased in some ways.
I don't know if you were a enthusiast of the first lethality meta or just assassins in general and now struggle due to all you counters being buffed but with statements being contrary to reality and the "whitewashing" of assassins while blaming marksmen for various things i am sorry to say but it's impossible to not get the impression of a massive bias from you.
can kill 
in under 5 seconds as long as a support has given her the ardent buff.
with 2 items can beat a 
1v1 as long as he has the censer buff+ a barrier and nothing more.
is immortal and can fly.
and all i did in the end was kill myself on his thornmail 
or 
but last time they touched ap items were nerfs for 
and 
.
When they had to sacrfice dmg to get another chance. Now they get more dmg.
When AP champions had burst late game. Now a Trist can crit another carry for 1,500. 2-3 hits to kill a carry..
