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Doesn't it makes sense for assassins to have escape?

NinjaToad99··1 votes·669 views

Thematically, what is an assassin?

Well, I'm not going into real life history (Was never my strong suit) but in most games (And what I assume real life assassins are, as many games are based on real life) assassins have one job: Get in, kill the target, and get out. Generally speaking, assassins can kill others along the way, but that's messy, unprofessional, and often times dangerous. After all, the more corpses there are, the more chance there is of getting caught, and getting killed/captured.

That translates to LoL too. Sure, Zed could dive in 1v5 yolo style, but he'd probably die (He might not if he's 48/0/18 with 387 CS, but really when does that actually happen?). No, he is strong by R>W>Q>W>E>R'ing (Or whatever, I don't play Zed and don't know his combos), thus killing the target, and getting away.

I'm not going to say if this is healthy for the game, but how about you tell me? Say what you think, get a discussion going, and remember, stay in school, don't do drugs etc, etc, etc.

(WHOOPS MISSPELLED SENSE IN THE TITLE OH NO OH GEEZ I FIXED DON'T WORRY LTHXBAI)

5 Comments

Joe Dredd1 votes

thematically maybe balance wise no

biomaster1 votes

its no an issue of weather they should have an escape rather if you can possibly stop them during the said killing, kha is pretty healthy in that his jump just resets on kill, so they have a chance to hurt him before he gets his kills and they can hurt him during his leap, zeds is more frustrating because he can ult spam and be back before your even DIE, and thats an issue, he can ult in q and e then press r to go back to original position in less then 5 secs, leaving you with very little counter play.

deadlychuck1 votes

Most the assassins in the game are not required to plan out what they are going to do and wait for the right time to act on those plans. They can initiate, assassinate, and escape on a whim.

Katarina Fizz Khazix Leblanc LeeSin Zed exc.

It's a very complex issues due to years of development and game design, but part of the problem is flash being such constant power house among summoner spells, and mobility creep in general. If you are an assassin you have to be given enough mobility to actually keep up with your target, though some of that bleeds over to escape utility when you are given to much.

One option to removing such a break in the balance of the meta game is to increase the amounts of long duration CC, though that doesn't feel good for the champions who are getting destroyed because they also now have to deal with the new increased levels of CC. The way to fix that issue would be to add more options for tenacity, that have little impact on your damage, that way assassins are less effective for building it, but also must pick their targets and timing more wisely to not get hit with large amounts of CC when attempting to do so.

Currently assassins feel more like a blood thirsty, killing spree, fantasy, because you can get away with killing just about anyone without getting caught or punished for it. A real "assassin" would be along the lines of Evelynn where you are fairly easy to kill once spotted, but you are intended to wait on the outside of a fight until the enemy is distracted or dispersed, then find your target and kill them (probably a carry). This is something i think riot's design team forgot a while ago, this is evident in Evelynn's ult. It blurs the line between bruiser and assassin which is not a healthy spot for the game. You don't want champions who can both be in the front lines of a fight and assassinate a target.

I believe it was Phreak who said that the archetype of tank/assassin isn't something that fits in the game. The irony is that statement is that there very few if any real "tanks" in the game. Most of the tanks are simply bruisers who are called tanks, because of a slightly higher ratio of CC to damage.

So if a bruiser is effectively a tank and a tank/assassin shouldn't exist in the game, but the line between bruisers and assassins is getting blurred, then the game is moving in the exact direction which even Phreak thinks there shouldn't be any of.

search "assassin fighter" in the champion list when replying to this post, there are currently 19 champions (according to riot) which fit that archetype. Of them the overwhelming majority are considered over powered and/or impossible to balance with their current design.

Sozan51 votes

Thematically it generally does make sense for assassin to have an escape.

However, gameplay-wise it might not. There is something like risk-reward system, where higher risk = better reward. Giving champions a free escape to an already deadly kit is of course reducing the risk without touching the reward, and as such it's a bad design decision (yes, low risk, high reward champs are in fact a design failures).

7ha7guy7771 votes

which is why i don't really understand how Malzahar 's secondary classification is Assassin. he has no mobility skills. the closest thing to a reset he has is the E spreading when the unit it's on dies. there is no get in, kill the target, and get out.

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