Boards›Gameplay

Please correct me if I'm wrong: there is a direct conflict between assassins and counterplay

Prometheus856·11/8/2014, 8:04:43 AM·7 votes·2,064 views

Stemming from this.

I'm not one to tell a designer how to design. But in this case, it seems like there is some purposeful miscommunication between what an assassin is and why riot wants counterplay.

Why riot wants counterplay: so that no one feels like they can't do anything when playing against an opponent, since that's no fun.

What an assassin is: a champ that, at it's core, takes advantage of the fact that it has no counterplay to run in, kill something important as their contribution to the fight, and run out.

Why were LB, Talon and Kassadin's silences a problem? Supposedly they removed counterplay, but in reality, they were just too good as assassins, because they were exactly what an assassin is supposed to be. You run in, dish out a bunch of damage on one target, and run out without letting them react.

Now we face the same problems every other patch with Rengar, Khazix, and this month on the chopping block, Zed, Akali and Katarina. Riot's nerfed the first three into a woeful state of non-viability at least once, if not multiple times, because they identified that not being able to do anything against them was a problem. And now they're back and causing problems again, because once again, they're doing what they're supposed to.

So someone correct me if I'm wrong, but assassins and counterplay are an A or B. They can't coexist and trying to force both is counterproductive.

24 Comments

Cleril11/8/2014, 9:56:51 AM6 votes

Game developer here. You're wrong.

There is a decent argument to get rid of point and click silences from my perspective because it promotes brainless power. MOBAs are about tactical power. Assassins are supposed to kill champions easily but they need to have risk/reward. Point and click silences have no risk/reward outside of "I guess it goes on cooldown?"

The main issue with MOBA gamers in general is that most have the mindset of "I have to kill everyone" when there's only 2-3 roles in a team (in really any MOBA) that focus on that tops.

If you're an assassin you focus on killing a prime target and ignore the rest.

If you're a mage you focus on lock down and burst damage prime targets.

If you're a fighter you focus on the mid-tier targets and disruptions.

If you're a tank you focus on providing openings for others while protecting your own.

If you're a support you focus on lock downs and keeping your team alive.

Obviously that's a general idea because most characters in MOBAs don't fit into one "role" that specifically.

All I'm saying is that players complain about X because they have the wrong idea on what they're supposed to do.

It's why people come up with idiocy like "kill steal" or complain about you not going into a 1v5 situation. Not everyone is made for killing things. Not every ability does damage.

Most people at the end of the day spam abilities like no tomorrow and just want to kill champions. This is the wrong mindset to have.

AetherKingdom11/8/2014, 8:55:01 AM5 votes

The thing people don't understand is assassins are countered by coordination. Assassin has invisible? Drop a pink and fight near it. Assassin jumped on a carry? Supports have cc for a reason. Assassin jumped on a carry and support cc isn't enough? Exhaust for good measure.

The only assassin that doesn't have counterplay is Fizz as he e's to your carry, kills it, zhonyas, and e's out.

ProfDrDeath11/8/2014, 10:41:14 AM4 votes

What an assassin is: a champ that, at it's core, takes advantage of the fact that it has no counterplay to run in, kill something important as their contribution to the fight, and run out.

No.

At its core, an assassin is a champion who can possibly take out a high priority target if the opportunity arises.

The problem with assassins comes when this opportunistic nature is neglected/not pronounced enough. Aka, as you put it, the assassin can just run in, kill the priority target in less than a second and then get out again as if nothing happened. That's not healthy assassin design for a game like League.

Generally speaking, a good assassin needs to do work to create favorable situations for himself, and then capitalize on that. A good example would be Kha'Zix, who has a few fallback patterns (W poke, providing CC for picks with the passive), but essentially needs to seperate his target from the rest to fully assassinate.

Also, assassins as a class specialise on destroying single targets, while AoE mages are trying to damage as many targets as possible. That's why Katarina is more of an assassin/mage hybrid than a full-on assassin - compared to other assassins, her single-target damage of one rotation is rather low, but beware of her suddenly getting more than 1 rotation per fight...

Dunderflump11/8/2014, 9:03:33 AM3 votes

Counters to assassins:

Warding. Resistances. Proper spacing. CC. Tanks. Exhaust/Cleanse. Riot systematically gutting every assassin.

muh counterplay

Sire Hippington11/8/2014, 2:21:26 PM2 votes

For the sake off gamehealth ur Definition of assasins is not true for lol. An assasins job is to take outhigh preority targets. A very classikal take on assasins would suggest that they burst down the target 100-0 as soon as they find an oportunity with little the target can do about it. Old Talon was a great example, and still is with his huge upfront burst once he gets ahead. However, 100-0 burst patterns are very problematice for such a game, which is why Assasins generally should not work that way. They either needs to grant their targets a chance to deny the killing combo( Zed for example has a clearly telegraphed damagewindow and relise on a skillshot as main damage...or he would rely on it if it weren'T for the some what broken itemization on him. BotrK+Yomuuns lead to massive AA dps and so much mobillity that it'S impossible to kite him for those 3 seks. This removes all actuall counterplay from his all-in pattern.

Another more healthy pattern is a hit and run playstyle, giving assasins the options to go in and burst for some damage, and then disengage but lurke around for another burst. Kah would be a good example, unless he's fed and ur alone(isolated), he won't 100-0 u, but he can use his ult to escape focus and stay around for the next Q to finish the deal. His damage is siginficantly lower if ur not isolated, his W can be dodged/bodyblocked and the W has a slowish animation(compared to a tlon E or Zed shadow) which gives u time to react, so there is plenty counterplay against him.

However, there are still many assasins that don't fit here. Fizz would have a kit perfectly suited for a hit and run assasin, but his numbers are so high that he gets a 100-0 pattern with only a small lead.

Akali is also a good hit and run assasin, but since her entire kit is point and click, there is not much counterplay, especially as it's nearly impossible to get away even if u survive her first one or two bursts.

An assasin should hurst if they find an window of oportuinity, an assasin should be dangerouse for cleanup, and it should be deadly 1v1 for any squishy, but 100-0 should not be part of theri kit unless they still provide counterplay(Zed with ad/arpen items instead of melee-carry built) However, if an assasin does not kill 100-0, it needs tools to survive/get away and then reengage, or it would be rather useless.

CoolKnightST11/8/2014, 9:27:15 AM2 votes

Well riot find Zed a healthy assassin (litterly said in the patch rundown)

Sammystorm11/8/2014, 10:24:55 AM2 votes

Well the bitching about removing talon's silence is silly. the game should not revolve around not getting close enough for a champion to click on you. That is what talon did to the game.

Featherztorm11/8/2014, 8:25:55 AM2 votes

In essence, give tanks +1000 health per level and supports infinite mana, because that's what they need to successfully do what they're supposed to.

Teridax6811/8/2014, 11:07:58 AM2 votes

That's not what assassins are, though, at least not anymore: assassins are meant to be mobile, bursty and slippery champions who can reach the enemy team's back line and take out its squishies. Assassins are meant to be opportunistic (you're in trouble if you blew all your cooldowns and the enemy Leblanc 's within Q range) and scary when they're trying to kill you, but that does not in itself preclude counterplay. Khazix , despite his nerfs, is a popular assassin, and yet has a lot of counterplay to his kit (you can mitigate a ton of his damage by just standing next to a minion). Zed is also a popular pick, and his ultimate carries a ton of counterplay (incapacitate or avoid him within that 3-second window, during which he needs to stick to you, and you'll ruin a lot of his damage potential).

It's possible to have counterplay-rich assassins, but giving those assassins silences (or point-and-click silences, at least) tends to void counterplay, which is why they've been removed. Talon still isn't entirely healthy, and likely needs more changes, but on the other hand Leblanc and Kassadin are a lot less oppressive, and have had their playstyles enriched by the removal of their silences. Perhaps they need more changes too, but even now they're capable assassins who can be played against.

Being able to dodge, avoid or mitigate damage as an assassin is also not necessarily unhealthy, provided you're still vulnerable while assassinating your target. There's a big difference between reacting to your target's reactions, and denying them the opportunity to react in the first place. It also makes for less binary play: "old generation" assassins like Talon and Katarina can be unsuccessful even when executing their full combo, simply because they're behind, but can just as well instagib their opponent without giving them adequate time to react, whereas "new generation" assassins like Zed and Khazix can still kill targets when behind, and can still be dealt with when far ahead.

Ale non è male11/8/2014, 10:59:25 AM1 votes

With the silence the targets couldn't even try to flash out away from the assassins to save their asses if they were able to recognize that the assassin was coming for them. Also silence interruputs the channel of abilities that you could have started when you saw the assassin to deal back damage(or have other effects) So, silence can obvioulsy stay in the game, but point and click silence(especially ones that weren't short compared to the amount of time that an assassin needed to delete you, in 1 sec he could have yet deployed a good chunk of his combo on you) basically means you were over once they were able to click on it while having their full combo up. Talon's problem is just that his kit was much more dependent from the silence than the ones of Kassa and LeBlanc that also have huge mobility in it, but overall the decision of taking out point and click silence from pure assassins was correct