I Don't Think the Assassin Meta is the Problem

Divine Thighs·11/2/2018, 5:04:10 PM·3 votes·2,105 views

Don't get me wrong, I'm sick of seeing assassins run around insta-killing people, but I don't think the meta is causing the game to be unfun.

There were assassin metas in the past (part of S3 and S4) and these metas were nowhere near as crazy as this one.

I personally think that the game is unfun due to the gradual changes made to the core game. The changes to runes, masteries, global and passive gold, items, the jungle (rift scuttler), etc. have really changed the flow of the game. In my opinion these changes have made the game worse.

7 Comments

Fízz v211/2/2018, 5:40:24 PM5 votes

What assassin meta even? last time i checked bruisers like Aatrox Irelia Urgot were dominating both top and mid lel

PhearBunny11/2/2018, 5:10:59 PM4 votes

See I don't mind watching assassins insta kill people. That is their purpose, and that purpose can be predicted and countered. What I don't like seeing is bruisers and juggernauts being Bruisers and Juggernauts AND assassins. Jax, Irelia and Camille are bruisers that assassinate targets equally, if not better, than every assassin in the roster. I have a big problem with that. Mind you they go with a brusier build and still 1shot people. Shouldn't be a thing.

The Ecdysiast11/2/2018, 5:08:21 PM1 votes

I feel like I did a decent job of explaining exactly those changes over time that have caused the damage creep, resulting in assassins being as powerful as they are and damage overall feeling higher.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/YfTuBUYF-tertiary-causes-of-the-damage-creep

LilxPaprika11/2/2018, 5:09:06 PM1 votes

how would you feel about something like this: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/OcqEj4Ep-feature-idea-merchants-value-to-offer-better-tradeoffs-custom-tailoring

i think this touches on some of the things you dislike in terms of direction game has gone and aims to fix it.

also this: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/1EXFQk69-crit-items-and-builds might help ADCs get item 3139 more often to handle assassins better.

Śhunpo11/2/2018, 7:32:12 PM1 votes

Assassins are garbage right now outside of Zed, Talon and LB...and even then they're sub-optimal picks besides LB.

At this point a lot of assassins don't even feel like assassins anymore since bruisers have just stolen their jobs entirely.

The problem with the game right now is that bruisers and mages are just outputting far too much burst damage, even in comparison to assassins. There's no reason to pick a mid lane assassin unless it's Akali since Irelia and Aatrox just do their jobs better. There's no reason to pick an assassin in the jungle since Graves and company do their job better.

Everyone in the game outputs far too much damage and assassins are just left in the dust like "Hey, I can deal that much damage too....", but then you realise that mages are safer and bruisers/divers are both tankier and more effective at bursting down targets.

Riot needs to lower the general damage in the game ASAP both for overall gameplay health and so that there IS actually a reason to pick an assassin over a bruiser or mage.

ZT Xperimentor11/6/2018, 10:47:04 PM1 votes

In other-words the game design philosophy, yeah I agree there. Boosted gold gains, buffed damage and nerfed defense, loads of invisible power, excessive CCs and mobility too. Even if assassins aren't meta, it feels like they are because most champions can delete eachother within a couple seconds, which sadly has been and still is the case from all the snowballing. With the presented changed slated for preseason, I'm not holding up my hopes unless they do something more interesting.