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What is a healthy example of an assassin?

Eyesack··28 votes·4,016 views

This is a serious question. Everyone's definitions vary of what a healthy assassin should be. With the assassin class update apparently happening in november, I'm curious what Riot's definition of a healthy assassin is.

Personally I think it's an assassin that can pull off his job but offers plenty of opportunity for counterplay.

I could bring up Zed as an argument because you can counterplay his assassination by building qss or zhonyas, but I feel like being able to just build an item to completely nullify his ult isn't very good counterplay. Plus he is very safe in his assassination attempt, something goes wrong he just blinks out. That isn't exactly high risk gameplay.

Another assassin we have is Rengar, and people don't like him because when he is fed you see him and suddenly your adc is dead. He doesn't however, have a great escape UNLESS he still has his ult after the kill. Atleast that is some sort of a tradeoff, but getting instantly deleted isn't exactly super healthy gameplay.

So i guess the lines are really blurred when it comes to what is a healthy assassin. I'm curious what Riot/anyone has to say about what a healthy assassin would be like.

196 Comments

Verxint31 votes

A healthy assassin -has to acquire damage items to remain relevant and continue assassinating -has to outplay or out think you to get a kill on even terms -has the tools to outplay you and the damage to kill you -has opportunities for its target to fight back that are effective -has difficulty recovering from failed assassinations -has little effect on a fight if abilities are used improperly

High risk, high reward, skill based.

Zorasama12 votes

Shaco is probably the closet

Woook3r6 votes

ap ekko is the healthiest. he doesnt one shot you without the ulti, which is hard as fuck to land. He can deal dmg and get out. Then go back in. Since he isnt oneshotting, you have counterplay opportunities other than exhaust him. U just need to do it while his cooldowns are not availible and dont get poked so low he can one shot you.

Keevalroy9 votes

There's nothing healthy about Ekko.

Zorasama6 votes

Squishy AP Ekko isn't that bad to deal with, they just need to get rid of his tank build somehow.

Woook3r2 votes

Id rather have low risk, medium reward, skill based.

IcyPepper1 votes

When you're a glass cannon that's supposed to get in, assassinate a carry before they react, and get out before you die to the entire enemy team, that's kind of the definition of high risk. And in teamfights, killing a carry before the fight even starts is a really nice reward.

What you described is not an assassin, that's more of a frontline fighter/tank.

Woook3r1 votes

Yes. SImilar to a frontline tank. Notice how ekko is currently being built as a tank....hmmm. Not a coincidence.

The difference bettween an assassin and a bruiser is that the assassin can engage with mobility, and then disengage with mobility. THe bruiser gets stuck in the fight and should have some tankyness to survive that.

The bruiser would synergize with support like disengage champs. The assassin would synergise with poke champs.

IcyPepper4 votes

Notice how ekko is currently being built as a tank....hmmm. Not a coincidence.

And being nerfed as a result. That's a balance nightmare and should be a warning, not an example.

Woook3r1 votes

ive looked at the changes. its a buff man. not a nerf. just his tank build will get nerfed a bit.

IcyPepper2 votes

just his tank build will get nerfed a bit.

That's the point.

Ekko isn't the problem.

Tank Ekko is the problem. Not all nerfs/buffs are intended to gut a champion.

Verxint29 votes

That's not an assassin. That's a bruiser or tank. That's for reliable champs that aren't supposed to have as many high moments. Assassins are the definition of high moments

Woook3r1 votes

The difference is that the bruiser is tankier and the assassin is more elusive bc more mobility than what it takes to simply engage. Pantheon is a bruiser and is similar to an assassin. Yes. However, pantheon has a tanky passive and would have trouble getting out of the fight. Ekko's passive enables him to exit a fight, but does not make him tanky.

They have strenghts at different portions of the game. Bruisers should be stronger in lane bc they dont take as much dmg. Assassins would be stronger in skirmishes and wold have better roaming.

Their lvl of dmg should be equal tho. One has suvivability thru tankyness. The other thru elusiveness. One is a bit easier bc tankyness requires 0 mechanics. THe other is harder bc have to properly execute mobility/disengage.

LankPants8 votes

Ekko's passive enables him to exit a fight, but does not make him tanky.

Ekko is a terribly designed champion. His escapes are far too strong and he's way too durable for an assassin. His kit also has no trade-offs. He's a high damage, high mobility, durable, high CC champion.

If you want to look at the three best designed assassins in League you should be looking at Shaco, Akali and Talon. These are three horribly designed champions, but they're still overall far better than the rest of their class. They're squishy, lack durability and don't get to escape fights for free. Once they commit they're all in, that's what an assassin should be like.

MasterSomething1 votes

Just wanna say about the durability thing, is that Ekko tank bias? I main AP Ekko mid, and if you aren't smart with your positioning you will get deleted faster than

LankPants2 votes

Ekko has a pretty large shield and a huge arse heal. At a base level he's quite tanky. In terms of steroids he's more durable than Sejuani and Amumu, they're just champs who always build tanky while he can build damage.

Woook3r1 votes

steroids? what steroids? how is he more durable than sejuani? thats insane exaggeration. sejuani has reliable cc. stop salt. u can wreck ekko with a cheep ass last whisper item and a vamp scepter. u gotta be kidding.

LankPants3 votes

He has a shield and a heal, at 0 items he's far tankier than both.

Sej has a 25 armour buff and Amumu takes 10 reduced damage from AAs. These are terrible durability steroids.

u can wreck ekko with a cheep ass last whisper item and a vamp scepter. u gotta be kidding.

No, you can't. Ekko is broken right now. Arguing otherwise is dumb. The dude has a 58% winrate in top lane. There's a point where winrate is an indisputable factor in balance and Ekko is about 2-3% over that point.

Woook3r1 votes

U dont know how to calculate effective hp.

LankPants3 votes

And you don't know how to play the game Mr. Bronze 4.

Ekko is a permanent pick/ban at every rating above gold and even at the higher portions of gold. He's a 100% P/B in competitive play and he has a 58% winrate when he's played in the correct lane. If you continue to deny these facts I have nothing else to talk to you about.

MasterSomething4 votes

Fair point, but I am glad they are putting nerfs out to tank Ekko while simultaneously buffing AP Ekko. His shield is large, but it's so telegraphed and easy to walk away from that if you fight him with his shield up and lose, you deserve it.

LankPants4 votes

His shield often saves him in scenarios where any other assassin would die. It's not really about trading per say, it's more about the resistance his shield gives him to being picked off or focused properly in a team fight.

MasterSomething1 votes

I can see that. There are few times the cleverly placed W has saved my life from an ignite or Malz E. There is little punishment for throwing your shield into a fight at any time, as doing it too late will mean your death. Maybe increase the mana cost or cooldown further to balance this?

LankPants3 votes

Ekko just needs to have things cut from his kit. Plain and simple he does far too much. You can nerf him as much as you want, even gut him into the ground, it still won't make his kit any better.

I honestly think Ekko probably needs a rework. People are scared to say this about more recent champs but there are some that are atrociously designed. Ekko is one of them. He legit has 5 abilities that do about 3 things each. Can a champion like this ever actually be balanced? I have serious doubts.

MasterSomething1 votes

The same argument can be made for people like Nidalee, Lee Sin, Leona, etc. Do they need reworks? No. Can their kits be gutted but still work? Well, maybe Nidalee, but Leona and Lee still have the utility to keep up with everyone else.

Well, that's your opinion, but as someone who mains him mid he is (in my opinion, of course) fine and does not need to take a rework slot. Also, his passive, W E are the only things that do more than one thing, with the passive being the only one that does 3. Curious though, who else do you think needs a rework?

LankPants4 votes

Link to the Lee Sin rework?

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2014/03/red-post-collection-lee-sin-retune-team.html

Sona is currently fine with her poke kit, and is not need of a rework right now.

Sona's only fine at low levels. Her kit's garbage against anyone who has a basic understanding of the game. A support without peel can never be viable.

Assassins are poorly designed from a victim standpoint- but from a gameplay standpoint, they fit their role perfectly.

And they need to be fixed from that standpoint because right now they are the only class that's detrimental to the fun of the game.

Thresh is a skill pick. You suck with Thresh, you screw over your laning.

He's still overloaded. That's more the basis of my argument than anything else. He's also a champ who shapes the meta around himself. When he's strong he makes mage supports very, very weak.

Elise is a spider, and is squishy like a spider. That's her weakness.

That's why the best Elise build is RE>tank? The best Gragas build is literally the exact same build right now. Also I'm arguing her from the overloaded standpoint, which she is.

Andddd thread limit.

WoonStruck3 votes

Everything here is true.

Sona is not good at the moment. Even Raka has an on-demand AoE silence you can set up to make someone coming at you useless and likely get rooted. Sona has really shitty auras to hope the enemy isn't able to hard-engage, but outside of that, she only has ult. That's why people build her for poke. Its literally the only other way she can scale. Everything else sucks hella bad.

Assassins are poorly designed in terms of player interactions and gameplay interactions. If assassins are strong, they offer little to no counter-play for those squisher or less mobile than them. If they are weak, they're essentially useless. That, and absolutely nobody likes seeing an assassin unless they're over-tuned (Zed). Its always "Oh god my team better not feed him" or "Oh god I'm gunna have to baby this guy all of early game because he probably doesn't actually know how to play well, he probably just tries to snowball off of early kills".

Thresh is over-loaded in an unconventional way. He offers utilities that no other champ does, and they are useful to the point of being un-calculable.

Elise is another poorly designed champion. Gragas' kit screams tanky AP. Elise's does not. She does it because she's overloaded with utility and ways to apply damage (with very high bases), on top of having pick potential.

Jungle Lux God1 votes

Akali and Talon are not well designed assassins. They leave absolutely no room for counterplay and no telegraph on when they go in, whereas Ekko has lots of telegraph on when he goes in. They are so poorly designed that they make Ekko and Zed look like good design by comparison. And there's no argument against that.

LankPants7 votes

I disagree, I think they have more counterplay abet less outplay potential. If an Akali or a Talon jumps into a fight they leave themselves open to focus. It's very easy to turn around an kill one of them when they get into your team. This is because they commit to fights, which other assassins don't.

They also don't burst you 100-0 most of time. They have to be incredibly fed to do this. Akali will generally chunk you out and rely on her shroud while Talon will do the same with his ult. Comparitivly an Ekko will CC you an kill you in the stun duration, if he plays right there isn't a correct reaction because anyone who could react is stunned. Zed drops his entire combo on you in half a second then peaces out. Either it kills you or chunks you, either way it's far harder to react to than Akali or Talon.

I'll be the first to admit that Akali, Talon and Shaco are terribly designed champs, I just think the rest of the assassin class is designed even worse than they are.

Ulquiorra99521 votes

Shaco

Yes, he is annoying as all hell. But as an assassin, he is probably one of the best designed ones.

-He has to make active plays against his opponent in order to get to the late game, while someone like Zed with an access to easy-mode farming and high scaling either wins lane or goes even. -He's not safe. If he messes up, he dies or uses his Q to escape, thus losing on his main damage source. -Again, his escape is also his gap closer and main damaging spell. Unlike Zed or LB, Shaco has to carefully pick his fights because he has no undo button. -He survives solely through mind games and outplaying opponents - unlike the aforementioned champions who simply have overwhelming mobility.

Woook3r2 votes

I disagree. AP ekko does play mind games. Its just tank ekko that is gross.

Athenes Lulu4 votes

AP Ekko has mind games?

You sure it's not just "better mash as many buttons as quickly as possible before they kill you"?

The difference between AP Ekko and tank Ekko is that one will 100-0 you yet dies instantly, yet the other can't 100-0 you that fast but is much harder to kill...

OurLestrade14 votes

Funny thing is, in my experience probably only Kha'zix since he actually need to isolate and use resets.

YCitizenSnipsY7 votes

Yeah no. Resets aren't healthy for an assassin. They are supposed to be great at taking out single priority targets with burst, this allows them to keep chaining that and taking out multiple members on a team. Also his isolation thing is very over rated. He is by no means reliant on it, if he was he wouldn't have resets which are always meant to be used in team fights.

WarlockLaw11 votes

Personally I believe there can be 2 different forms of healthy assassins.

  1. The highly mobile assassin.

    • Relatively safe due to lots of mobility
    • Abilities have counter play to them such has dodging, delays, or blocking
    • Due to the above, unreliable burst pattern yet still a safe pick. They won't necessarily kill their target, but they won't die easily if they fail.

  2. The highly reliable assassin.

    • Low counterplay but telegraphed burst.
    • Mostly single target damage
    • Only reliable escape is their ultimate (if they have any escape it all)
    • Once they burst their target, they have no easy way out meaning they usually 1 for 1 in fights.

Regardless of which one an assassin is they also should be squishy and required to by damage items to continue killing their targets. Ekko and Zed are the closest to being healthy by the first category, but Ekko gets away with too much tank in his build, and Zed is a tad too reliable. Talon, Nocturne and Rengar are the best examples of the second category, but I feel Rengar doesn't telegraph enough, Nocturne is more of a bruiser and Talon can fairly easily kill multiple champions.

YCitizenSnipsY2 votes

Your first one actually describes Le Blanc really well.

LankPants7 votes

Abilities have counter play to them such has dodging, delays, or blocking

Q, R, W doesn't really encourage dodging.

The Deckowner10 votes

definition of a true healthy assasin: high risk high reward squishy high burst low sustain mobile

the first rule removes zed, fizz, lb, and many other current assasin from the healthy list.

ChaddyFantome8 votes

Things an Assassin shouldn't have.

-Sustain.}} -Defensive stats and damage reduction. -Resets designed around killing everyone on the team. -Hard AoE crowd control or immediate2 hard crowd control. -True damage and the ability to dual bruisers and tanks.

Secret Butt Fun8 votes

Evelynn is the healthiest assassin. If she messes up, she messes up BAD.

Keevalroy7 votes

Khazix

Greenjey13 votes

Even kha'zix was considered cancer when he was played a lot back in season 4. Righ now he is rarely picked and even more rarely played well, so people tend to forgot about this, but i'm pretty sure this will change when he will be in the spotlight again.

Let's be honest an assassin, doing is job good, won't feel healthy for his victims, because that's how assassins works:

  • They kill people.
  • They snowball.
  • They kill people more easily.

And if they fail, they fall behind and are useless.

I mean really, ALL the assassins in league got a lot of bitching when they were considered good and relevant in their meta. If they don't works like that, then they are light fighter or divers (pantheon, Riven, etc...)

Baby Ghoul7 votes

It depends on what point of view you're coming from

Many people argue that assassins shouldn't be in the game, but I don't feel passionately about that one way or another.

I don't think a champion is cancerous when they kill a lot of people. We know this game isn't all about KDA. However it never feels good to die, and that's the whole reason the assassin class exists, to deal high amounts of damage. That's it.

It's easier to blame them instead of taking responsibility for a silly mistake you made, and that's almost all of the deaths that happen against assassins, or at least that's how it used to be. Now it's hard to catch these champions, and when you do they sustain damage quite well.

I believe assassins get out of hand when we try to make them a more reliable pick. I can play against a fed feast or famine champion. I know what's going to happen when they hit their 3rd kill, and really we all should know. Even so, there's a reason those types of champions thrived in low ELO.

Assassins are cheesy champions by nature. They rely on getting kills early game so they can run around the map taking out other champions who are out of position, standing near an unwarded bush, or split pushing alone. They should thrive on disorganized teams. They should never be a huge threat outside of 1v1 or 1v2 situations.

A healthy assassin should have high mobility, deal a lot of damage, and have little to no CC. Any sort of lockdown, silence, or escape is toxic when an assassin has it.

They also need to be quite squishy so that any sort of lockdown messes them up. That's the trade that needs to be made for the high mobility and damage. When you add escapes, hard CC, or any sort of reliability into an assassin's kit, they become too oppressive.

If an assassin is building defensive stats then they should be significantly punished for doing that. That's the way it used to be, but now there aren't really anymore true glass canon assassins. Fiora got a rework, and even Yasuo builds Maw of Malmortius, Guardian Angel, and Sterak's Gage now.

Currently I would say Katarina, Kassadin, and Ahri fit the bill, but I believe that's more because of how mages aren't really at the center of the meta right now. AP assassins like Fizz and LeBlanc remain commonly picked and banned because their kits are problematic when you deal a lot of raw damage.

AD Assassins are even worse at the moment. Off the top of my head, I could only think of Shaco as the least problematic, and he's not all AD.

The Yetii Rider6 votes

Nocturne is the healthiest assassin in the game. He has hard diving power, mobility, outplay potential and stickiness. He doesn't have hard burst, so he never 100-0s you, but if you let him get ahead, you're really going to have a bad time.

-Megalovania intensifies-

LankPants3 votes

Agreed, Nocturne is also the most healthy assassin because he's a bruiser assassin, and the bruiser class is just a lot healthier than the assassin class.

Athenes Lulu6 votes

Adding on to some of the points from the best comments...

Damage should be primarily single-target, because their main job is just to kill, and not massacre.

ArlanKels4 votes

There needs to be "Counterplay", whether that be positioning, awareness...something. And I don't mean ZHONYA ZHONYA HAHAHA.

If you're against a Le Blanc, for example, there is one thing that I find aggravating. Your lane is stalemating. You aren't even out from under tower. She zips in, hits you with a combo, zips out instantly. You had NOTHING you could do there. Nothing. Her Q and her R automatically locked on and smashed you. You only survive by sheer grit and the fact that she can't 100% you(Yet). YOu recall, heal up, go back to lane, she does it again. There is no counterplay there outside of a Zhonyas. You aren't positioning wrong, you aren't doing anything wrong, she just has superior maneuverability, damage, and the ability to not need to aim to hit you with 80% of her damage in the kit.

MunchCrunchLunch4 votes

rengar is the closest. not saying healthy. but closest. no escape. i know this forum is a lot of kha zix mains or fans for some reason. but kha zix can kill someone and use the rest to escape. while rengar has no such thing

Eyesack3 votes

Crazy how there's tons of discussion and disagreement in this thread, almost like it IS blurry whether or not there is a single healthy assassin in this game.

Droogzy3 votes

Personally, Shaco is to me the idea of a perfect assassin.

High risk high rewards and has the ability to completely mind fuck you, 100-0 if played properly and well. Just like an assassin ought to.

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