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The state of assassins (Purely opinion)

Nightingales Sky·5/20/2017, 6:44:18 PM·9 votes·694 views

Disclaimer: This isn't a rant or review just an honest question and statement.

I feel as though the assassin pool has been gutted, stepped on, kicked out, run over, then finally set on fire. I honestly do understand the fine line that the assassin class suffers from. If you give them a good to great kit they are almost unstoppable in lane as well as damn near impossible to gank. Before, if an assassin was getting out of hand you basically gave up on the lane and would concentrate on trying to take other lanes in hopes that said assassin wouldn't follow. So, yes, I do understand that if riot gave the old power spikes back to them it would be terrible. However, I feel as though there isn't a place for them in the game at all. Unless, you can build a off tank set for them (Fizz) and have some sort of health % damage almost all the assassins are useless. Zed and Talon are among the few survivors to keep a somewhat steady ban and pick rate. Which I feel is due to the fact that they are AD instead of AP. And let us be honest it's not there were THAT many assassins to be begin with that you felt so overwhelmed by the selection pool you couldn't decide who to ban.

There are 15 total assassins in the pool out of those 15, 7 of those are jungle champs (primarily). So all in all there is a pool of 8 champs to select from in which all (I believe) have been gutted at some point to where they aren't able to come back. (Minus Fizz only due to his kit though not his scaling or skill format) I guess what this is all coming down to is; will we ever see a healthy balance of assassins to come back into the game? While, I don't mind the heavy mage and tank meta we have going on, I wouldn't mind going balls to the wall assassin mode again.

I would love to hear peoples ideas on this if it is possible or not. I would like to read your explanations on the matter and any way to be able to bring them back without busting the game or making it like S2 again.

21 Comments

Joxcab5/20/2017, 6:54:44 PM7 votes

Honestly, almost every single rework in the assassin rework was unnecessary and/or created more problems than it fixed.

Rengar's was just an abomination that took half a dozen or more tweaks and is still a mess. Some parts are still arguably too strong and others are just a joke.

Kha'Zix's was unnecessary and created more balance problems with the Q.

LeBlanc's was unnecessary, broke E, caused her damage to be gutted, STILL didn't nerf E which was the entire and only problem, gave her waveclear, then nerfed it again. Now she's just a pile of trash not worth playing except in MSI, where she was played for the waveclear at high build + the E snare tether length still being cancerous.

Shaco's was just utter trash and not needed.

Ekko's changed almost nothing.

Akali's caused a mess trying to fix all the issues it caused from her being absolute steaming garbage.

Fizz's was honestly unnecessary, and just led to more issues with Tank Fizz from the high W bases (which are now nerfed at the expense of AP Fizz also becoming a lot weaker until getting at least 375 AP which is an absurdly high amount).

Zed's changed next to nothing.

Katarina's rework made her complete cancer for a while until she was tuned into place, but she's alright now in my opinion. Not that great, but at least not useless trash.

Talon's made him arguably more fun, but also far easier to shut down to the point of almost being braindead. Q blink was removed which removes the chance of skill by using said blink to dodge skills because a linear dash (like it is now) prevents that. He's also reliant on his passive for almost all of his damage, which means just about any semi-competent team can just CC him before he can auto after the third ability to stop said passive burst.

The addition of forced delays into their kit just made them awkward and removed the entire point of assassination which was to delete people in under a second.

Sure, that wasn't fun for the target, but the only way that happened in the first place was if the target was a fucking idiot that was out of position or the enemy team didn't know how to stop an assassin, in neither case which should the assassin be punished for THEIR mistakes.

For an assassin to have to go against a competent team pre-rework, it ALREADY took a lot longer than 1 second between preparation, flanking, avoiding wards through pathing and jumping over walls or such, and then avoiding and dancing around CC and skillshots and dealing with the old cancerous Exhaust, as well as Locket and Redemption.

The additional delays were unnecessary and literally only pandered to the people who cried because they couldn't deal with assassins because they were ignorant and/or refused to learn.

Shablagoo5/20/2017, 8:29:06 PM5 votes

Kha'zix is the most balance assassin i think, and he functions properly, he is able to assassinate isolated targets, pick off the weak champions, and its good because his trade of is that he is bad at teamfights, if ppl are clumped up his damage is reduced drastically. Not to mention its possible to counter him cuz he is so squishy, its funny cuz its so easy to balance assassins, just do this, give them bad teamfight and good isolation dmg, they arent teamfights they kill selected targets and dip and dive. Adc complain when they are range able to impact the game even if they are bad, and the balance in completely centered around them yet once an assassin is op, no counterplay man nerf plz rito. Like cmon assassins offer the least out of all the classes unless palyed right.

lolipopevelynn5/20/2017, 7:03:00 PM4 votes

honestly the assassins right now are just melee caster mages. shaco was the only REAL assassin amongst the changes, but now they nerfed him so much he only functions best as a bruisier. still better than the state of Evelynn identity crisis tho.

imo an assassin should kill ONE key target quick or pick off and execute low hp targets and be able to get away while waiting on long CDs for the next target. this bull shit they did with having to wait x amount of time to get full dmg off from 1 ability like they did with LB, talon, and kat is garbage and is more suitable for a mage.

Ralanr5/20/2017, 6:47:38 PM3 votes

Honestly, it's my understanding that assassins work better as heavy glass Cannon champions. But in today's meta, with the lack of one shotting, going glass cannon gets you killed before you can finish the job because of how high damage is today.

I don't want one shot assassins returning, so I honestly think they should reduce the overall damage of their primary targets (ADCs) but give some compensation. Like...critting towers? Dumb idea I know.

Nightingales Sky5/20/2017, 7:09:49 PM2 votes

I do feel that the fighter class is way over hyped at this point though. They have the hybrid ability to be a pseudo-tank with massive damage or go all out as a glass cannon but have enough CC in their kit to still be able to survive an all in engagement.

deadlychuck5/20/2017, 6:56:36 PM1 votes

The whole assassin fantasy that riot wants to incorporate is just a pipe dream, because it doesn't make for compelling gameplay. Either you've got champions who instantly kill you and/or die instantly. Or you've got glorified fighters, which are unstably balanced around them not actually being fighters.

This is why i feel the whole class should be reinvented into "executioners". Where instead of killing high priority targets, they kill weakened targets. They are the champions which combine high mobility, with things like % damage increase based on missing health, or +% of targets missing health, CD reduction/reset when killing a target, and natural grievous wounds.

Such a design, would promote stealth and timing, over 100-0 thresholds.

The Yetii Rider5/21/2017, 5:27:29 AM1 votes

Rengar and Kha'Zix are just fine. Ekko is still fairly decent in the right hands.

Nightingales Sky6/2/2017, 10:25:08 PM1 votes

Bump