Boards›Gameplay

Assassins give up CC and tankiness for mobility and burst

Belisarius09·2/18/2015, 5:51:44 PM·18 votes·3,097 views

(FOREWORD: This isn't a rage piece, or complaining about nerfs to X champion or Y champion. This is simply highlighting how utterly and completely perplexed I am with Riot. Why can't Riot communicate it's vision to the players. Why is Riot contradicting itself. I am so confused.)

"High mobility and burst damage are pretty important for assassins so they can accomplish what they are supposed to, but that means assassins have to give up something elsewhere, such as CC and of course tankiness." -Ghostcrawler

Took Away Kassadin's silence, ok makes sense, fits the model. Took away his cc, cool, everything is going according to plan.

Took away resistances on Akali's shroud. Makes sense, not supposed to have tankiness on assassins. Ok still going according to plan.

Wait, what the.... reduced the range on Akali Ult and Kassadin Ult.... but thats reducing their mobility.... I thought they were supposed to have mobility as assassins. I thought thats what we traded away their CC and Tankiness for!?!?!?!?!?

#RiotContradictsitselfagain

Who's on the balance team? What are they being paid for? Can Riot communicate with us, what their intentions are, and then stick to what they tell us? Ghostcrawler's comment was in relation the the 5.2 patch. Literally less than a month ago, and Riot has already pulled a 180 degree turn.

What is going on? Is there no clear vision? Are there two warring factions fighting a civil war based on assassins on the balance team? Why can't we get a clear message of where this game is headed? Why can't Riot follow it's own guidelines in balance? Why are champions identities being trashed, and not even conforming to what Riot laid out as a description of what certain classes should be?

45 Comments

Abyssphere2/18/2015, 6:33:48 PM21 votes

Assassins being built around damage and mobility doesn't mean there can't be such a thing as having too much of those things. Tanks periodically have their tankiness reduced, supports have their CC reduced, mages have their burst/wave-clear reduced. No class of champion is immune to taking nerfs to their primary strengths.

I do agree that Akali and Kassadin probably had better ways to be nerfed (Akali could lose tankiness via spell vamp nerfs on her passive, for example) but it's not contradictory to think an assassin can be too good at being an assassin.

Joe Dredd2/18/2015, 5:55:34 PM14 votes

Unless you're riven. Then you get everything.

Mandang02/18/2015, 6:01:22 PM7 votes

Imo, the reason assassins don't balance well in this game is because Riot won't let them just be good at killing their target. No, Riot needs to let them also potentially kill a 2nd, or in some cases Riot even encourages it (resets, ughhhh). If Riot ever wants to have a healthy trade off between burst and sustained damage, they need to make sure the burst doesn't end up looking like sustained, which happens when your assassin champ can drop aggro & get their spell reel off again.

I know limiting burst champions to killing one target per fight sounds boring, but consider the trade of an assassin bursting a sustained damage mage, then getting killed immediately after - who won that trade? I would argue that the assassin did, as his team got to use his damage, while the sustained damage mage didn't get to use his damage at all. Even though the trade looks like a 1-for-1, it leaves the teamfight looking like a 5v4. This is why assassins don't need easy escapes and resets, and why Riot giving it to them is invalidating sustained damage, for the most part - because even if they die for their kill, they come out ahead.

Knight SoIaire 2/18/2015, 5:58:59 PM6 votes

Assassins give up CC and tankiness for mobility and burst

meanwhile some bruisers have better mobility similar burst and tankyness to survive and hard cc to back em up, and short cooldowns

while other bruisers dont even get cc and mobility, not even range

riot doesnt contradict themselves, they just dont ballance the game

Old Man Teeto2/18/2015, 7:19:38 PM4 votes

Death is the strongest CC... barring a few cases.

Mobility is the best durability... except against Dragon and Baron.

Zushakon2/18/2015, 10:28:18 PM3 votes

{quoted}

Wait, what the.... reduced the range on Akali Ult and Kassadin Ult.... but thats reducing their mobility.... I thought they were supposed to have mobility as assassins. I thought thats what we traded away their CC and Tankiness for!?!?!?!?!?

You are confusing less mobility with no mobility. Kassadin and Akali, even with the reduced range on their ultimates, still have much more mobility than Malzahar, Lux, Vel'Koz, Annie, etc.

Belisarius092/18/2015, 6:22:33 PM3 votes

What direction are we moving in? What principles are we balancing around? Are assassins supposed to be mobile and bursty? Then why are we reducing mobility on mass and akali, and at the same time, why does an assassin like zed have better wave clear than some traditional immobile mages?

Belisarius092/18/2015, 6:30:00 PM3 votes

Has my thread been hijacked and turned into an Irelia vs Rengar debate? wtf

Juggernaut Jesus2/19/2015, 4:53:22 AM2 votes

I'm starting to think the "balance team" Reds that post aren't actually on the balance team, they're just public relations spewing whatever.

Treize092/18/2015, 6:11:09 PM2 votes

That is quite the contradiction.

Hopefully Riot will shed some light on this and explain whats going on with their balance team. They've been bouncing off walls this season.

Risurin2/19/2015, 1:19:47 AM1 votes

Maybe its because they can get in get the kill and get out too easly ?

TriumphantReaper2/19/2015, 2:24:24 AM1 votes

They still reallllllly need to take away Katarinas dmg reduction.....

Drunk Rummate2/18/2015, 6:45:23 PM1 votes

so are you saying that kassadin and akali are no longer mobile? because i would argue with that to the end of days.

just because they nerfed it slightly doesnt mean they're no longer mobile or that riot has somehow changed their approach to design. the mobility getting toned down a tiny bit makes the other numbers easier to balance.