thoughts about AP and AD Assassin items

I've noticed recently that AP Assassin itemization is really lacking, especially in comparison to the revised AD Assassin itemization on the PBE. AP Assassins suffer from not having real dedicated itemization, basically having to resort to using mage items suboptimally. While some champions like Leblanc and Katarina have done fine in this environment, others like Ekko, Fizz, and Akali haven't, and I believe the fact that they end up using subpar items is a big contributor to these champions' rather feast-or-famine nature.

Lets evaluate the current slate of AP Assassin items, shall we? While there are certainly other items AP Assassins can and do buy, these are the items that really contribute to AP Assassin patterns. Most of these provide an extra source of burst damage. Zhonyas gives AP Assassins a slight safety net while all their spells are on cooldown, and Abyssal provides a damage amplification when near your targets.

However, of these items, only two ( ) really cater to AP Assassins more than mages, and really its more about inconvenience for the Mage than it is about empowering the assassin playstyle. These two items just can't be used by traditional mages effectively because they don't often weave autoattacks into their combos and they don't often have minor AD scalings the way many AP Assassins do.

All the other items are roughly as useful on your average mage as they are for assassins, because they are just kind of generally useful items. Zhonyas is a useful defensive tool for any caster. Abyssal's aura range isn't small enough for it to be noticeably more effective for lower range characters like assassins. Ludens can be proc'd from a distance and is often better on spam mages than it is on people who would generally use it only once in a fight - assassins. And Protobelt wasn't even meant to be an assassin item, and is being nerfed because of how many assassins and burst mages were using it as a shotgun.

Another contributor to these item's usefulness on mages over assassins is the inclusion of CDR as a core stat - theoretically AP Assassins shouldn't be reliant on it, given that they'd ideally want to kill their targets in one rotation. So why is CDR on most items that are aimed toward AP Assassins? Its like putting attack speed on AD assassin items - it goes against the point. (though I do realize that for Akali in particular the incredibly spammy nature of her spells and need to use multiple spell uses in a rotation make CDR an actually pretty great stat on her)

When you take all this into consideration, its quite disappointing, especially when the options for AD Assassins are so much better. The core AD Assassin items ( and [Edge of Night]) all provide out of combat movement speed, which is useful for the roaming patterns of assassins but less useful for ADCs and Bruisers, as well as Lethality (flat pen) which, while useful for all AD champions, is more useful on Assassins because they have the most capability to reach squishy champions who are the most vulnerable to flat pen. And all of their new passives and actives reinforce roaming and burst as core strengths of AD Assassins. These items cater to assassins in ways that no AP item does.

After seeing these great new items, I can't help but feel the lack of similar itemization updates for AP assassins is a huge missed opportunity. I feel like part of the reason you end up seeing characters like Ekko, Fizz, and Akali going tank builds is because the itemization for them as AP Assassins is lackluster. I'd love to see real AP Assassin items, ones that ditch high-burst actives and CDR as a core stat and instead include things like out-of-combat movement speed, flat magic penetration, and unique passives that encourage and support roaming playstyles. Hopefully one day we'll actually see it.