Assassins should have awful wave clearing or wave clearing at a huge cost

Kingsgrave·Feb 9, 2015·23 votes·2,046 views

because of their high amount of mobility and damage inherent in their class

Except for because Riot likes him

18 Comments

Drunk RummateFeb 9, 20155 votes

is it sad that i knew "champion:238" was zed without even opening the thread?

MrBuffingtonFeb 10, 20151 votes

lol he's been on boards enough recently; I don't remember the number too well but everytime I see one of these threads with some champion icon, I make a bet (to myself since I have no friends) that it's Zed or Lee Sin or something; most of the time I'm right, lol

67chromeFeb 9, 20152 votes

that strikes me as the worst place to hit assassins.

Compare them to marksman, mages, and fighters - the other 3 damage rolls in LoL. Marksman and Mages pretty much always have an OK lanning phase what with range just being a massive advantage early on. Fighters are usually set up with tons of free stats because they need both defense and offense (rather than just offense), and are often the 1v1 class - which allows for a decent lanning phase despite being melee.

If assassins are meant to be a gold-dependent class, there's not much reason to make them considerably worse at aquiring gold than other gold dependent classes.

Look at Diana, re-worked Katarina, Kha'Zix - a lot of the recent assassins Riot has released (or reworked) can actually do things in lane besides AFKing until level 6.

Also - the alternatives for no-clear assassins are a lot more obnoxious, mostly with what wave clear/farming potential actually translates to - the capacity to wear opponents down to low health without a full live or die commitment. Or push and roam, safely CS when behind, manipulate minion waves to give you a protective barrier, warp the arena, or fast-push towers, clear minions to avoid getting dove.

Removing wave-clear on assassins forces them into a single lane strategy - jump on top of your lane opponent and kill them. If you can't do that, the assassin brings nothing and is completely useless. You get assassins like Akali and LeBlanc with this strategy - both of which are QQed about considerably more than Zed, and both of which often linger in the worst 15 win-rates for months at a time.

At least with wave-clear on assassins it takes a lot of the pain out of playing as and against an assassin. Zed gave up a lot of burst compared to the likes of LeBlanc so his lane phase could be a nice tug-of-war against a range of other champions.

GigglingAngelFeb 9, 20152 votes

{quoted}

At least with wave-clear on assassins it takes a lot of the pain out of playing as and against an assassin. Zed gave up a lot of burst compared to the likes of LeBlanc so his lane phase could be a nice tug-of-war against a range of other champions.

A tug of war that he never gets tired from, sure. And since when did Zed lose his burst?

KingsgraveFeb 9, 20158 votes

{quoted}

that strikes me as the worst place to hit assassins.

Compare them to marksman, mages, and fighters - the other 3 damage rolls in LoL. Marksman and Mages pretty much always have an OK lanning phase what with range just being a massive advantage early on. Fighters are usually set up with tons of free stats because they need both defense and offense (rather than just offense), and are often the 1v1 class - which allows for a decent lanning phase despite being melee.

If assassins are meant to be a gold-dependent class, there's not much reason to make them considerably worse at aquiring gold than other gold dependent classes.

Look at Diana, re-worked Katarina, Kha'Zix - a lot of the recent assassins Riot has released (or reworked) can actually do things in lane besides AFKing until level 6.

Also - the alternatives for no-clear assassins are a lot more obnoxious, mostly with what wave clear/farming potential actually translates to - the capacity to wear opponents down to low health without a full live or die commitment. Or push and roam, safely CS when behind, manipulate minion waves to give you a protective barrier, warp the arena, or fast-push towers, clear minions to avoid getting dove.

Removing wave-clear on assassins forces them into a single lane strategy - jump on top of your lane opponent and kill them. If you can't do that, the assassin brings nothing and is completely useless. You get assassins like Akali and LeBlanc with this strategy - both of which are QQed about considerably more than Zed, and both of which often linger in the worst 15 win-rates for months at a time.

At least with wave-clear on assassins it takes a lot of the pain out of playing as and against an assassin. Zed gave up a lot of burst compared to the likes of LeBlanc so his lane phase could be a nice tug-of-war against a range of other champions.

Assassins are not supposed to have a whittle you down approach or playstyle. That goes against the very term that is used to describe them. Assassins kill off the enemy, they don't whittle them down until they can kill them off. If they did that they would be called Warriors or Soldiers, aka Bruisers, not Assassins.

Wave clear on Assassins should come at a cost because of their high potential to murder people. Honestly if they all had a really weak laning phase that would be ideal since Assassins are basically Ability Carries late game anyway.

Also, Win Rates only indicate how difficult it is to win with a champion. It has nothing to do with how good or bad the champion is or isn't.

LB's waveclear comes at a cost, she uses her mobility move. Fizz has to use his most defensive move to clear. Akali takes some time to clear waves.

Zed doesn't give up anything to clear waves because of his E and his Passive making it really really easy to keep waves pushed and off of his turret.

SmokingPuffinFeb 9, 20153 votes

Assassins are not supposed to have a whittle you down approach or playstyle. That goes against the very term that is used to describe them. Assassins kill off the enemy, they don't whittle them down until they can kill them off. If they did that they would be called Warriors or Soldiers, aka Bruisers, not Assassins.

Leblanc Zed Katarina Nidalee Talon all have pretty solid ability to whittle targets down before going for the kill.

These champions are still fairly hated, but less so than Fizz Akali Rengar , who don't have such good pokes and rely on their 100-0 potential.

Basically, are you sure that you want assassins to be 100-0 champs without setup work? At least during the laning phase, it seems to make the class more enjoyable for both sides.

KingsgraveFeb 9, 20153 votes

{quoted}

all have pretty solid ability to whittle targets down before going for the kill.

These champions are still fairly hated, but less so than , who don't have such good pokes and rely on their 100-0 potential.

Basically, are you sure that you want assassins to be 100-0 champs without setup work? At least during the laning phase, it seems to make the class more enjoyable for both sides.

I was mostly referring to how they play in lane. I think all Assassins should be really weak in lane and go off of a "poke then kill" approach, but without any form of waveclear unless its at a cost. All champions that can lane have some sort of poke, so them having it is fine.

Outside of lane it really bothers me that something like Nidalee just pokes you until its time for her to murder you. Same with Zed.

SmokingPuffinFeb 9, 20153 votes

I don't understand why all assassins should be weak in lane. Some of them can be, sure. But the whole class? Seems like a weird design constraint to me. Seems like someone like LeBlanc needs to be strong in lane, because she's not a great teamfighter and she certainly can't split push.

Also, if you don't have waveclear on assassins, then you don't get roaming potential. Most assassin kits are at their best when roaming for kills. For example, I think Katarina needs to be able to clear waves efficiently, because she's not a 1v1 champion and she wants to farm her kills in the other lanes.

I think Nidalee spear, even after nerfs, is still a pretty anti-fun play pattern. With Zed, I'm not so worried because the damage output is way lower. I think the main thing that feels bad about him is the Athene's nerfs -- back when mana champions had strong mana regen, nobody really complained about his pretty average wave clear, but now that mana is pretty constraining it's a real sore spot for people.

Knight DevoutFeb 9, 20151 votes

As long as it's a hard-to-land poke, required to go all in, that's a healthy thing for an assassin to have because at that point you don't have to balance assassins around their 100-0, but around their 60-0. However, given the low cd and speed of Zed's Shurikens, that is not a whittle, he can basically keep harassing until you have to back.

But with a 6 second cd and a 75 energy cost, there is little reason not to spam Razor shuriken whenever is up. Compare that to bouncing blades cooldown (10 to 8 at rank5).

Kitten of EvilFeb 9, 20154 votes

Well said. This encapsulates the entire problem with Zed's design at the moment.

NarasimhaFeb 9, 20152 votes

Zed doesn't give up anything to clear waves because of his E and his Passive making it really really easy to keep waves pushed and off of his turret.

Just to jump in, I feel like we've been all looking at this backwards. Yes, Zed has given great waveclear for an assassin. But this is also because as an assassin, he has one of the lowest kill potentials. On the other hand, champions like Leblanc, FIzz, and Akali are all great at killing targets, but they don't clear as assuredly.

BluePolarizerFeb 9, 20152 votes

Hey since you seem to want all roles to play the same why are there multiple roles lol? Why not just have one "carry" role?

JC DarkOmenFeb 9, 20151 votes

OP's actually got a point. If you look at something like Zed vs Xerath, Zed can easily kill Xerath off, then push the lane and kill the turret from full health within twenty seconds because of his passive. There's no counterplay to that: you simply lose the lane. In contrast, Katarina doesn't have such good wave clear, and I once won a game where an enemy Kat went 44-4 (or something close to it) and still lost because her team wouldn't push with her and she couldn't do it herself. Assassins get their gold by... well, assassinating people. A kill is worth about 300 gold, which is 30 cs.

Assassins are not supposed to whittle you down, they're supposed to deal insane amounts of single target burst damage at the risk of being completely obliterated themselves. The strategy you mentioned, "jump on top of your lane opponent and kill them" is the very definition of assassin. And you're right. an assassin who can't do that is worthless. That's why Leblanc is an assassin and Malzahar isn't. They both deal a lot of damage, but Malz has much more widespread damage and takes much longer, where as Leblanc simply qrwe's one person. Giving assassins the best of both worlds might make them more satisfiying to play as, but it's annoying as hell to play against. You're also right when you said "wave clear/farming potential actually translates to the capacity to wear opponents down to low health without a full live or die commitment." Does that sound like an assassin to you? Take it out of the context of League, to the class' namesake. An assassin is supposed to go in behind enemy lines (complete commitment), kill the target, and get out, clean and efficient; high risk, high reward. If you want someone who will fight through all the guards, burst down the doors, tussle with their elite fighters, and then kill the target you're not asking for an assassin. Now take it back into the context of League. (Insert assassin's name here) has a kit that specializes in going in on one target, bursting down that one target, and getting back out. Leblanc distorts out, Zed presses r again, Akali walks back into her shroud, Katarina shunpos away. The other assassins, such as Yi, Rengar, Kha'Zix, Shaco, Vayne, Evelynn, Diana, etc take longer to take out their target and usually either don't have to commit as hard, have some sort of CC or are tankier than the rest.

The reason Leblanc doesn't do that well is because people don't understand a simple strategy: qwew your opponent as many times as it takes before they die or recall, then go gank another lane and snowball early because you fall off hard late game. People usually just sit in mid farming like a normal mage then 15 minutes later can't do anything. Akali has a low win rate because she has a lot of counter-play item 2043 and no real aside from ulting a minion or monster that's far removed from the fight. Neither case has anything to do with wave clear.

JedenVojakFeb 9, 20152 votes

Eh... I tried Zed, and yeah he can spam his shuriken for wave clear, but then he's too low on energy to actually burst people down. People seem to act like Zed is resourceless or something, but he's really not - and remember that you can build more mana (not so much regen anymore, but I digress...) but you can't get more energy.

That said, Zed's wave clear isn't super fantastic, it's just kinda decent; the problem is that mages got hit hard in the regen so they can't waveclear now - this is a mana regen problem, not a zed problem.

Malix FarwinFeb 9, 20151 votes

Fizz has high cost wave clear and pitiful damage so i guess he took those weaknesses from zed so that he would not have any

junglerboy16Feb 9, 20151 votes

Really, Assassins should be almost 100% single target, and giving them AOE just sets them up to either be the better mage, or an inferior assassin, and neither is a good place to be.