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Assassins fell out of favor because of Supports and ad carries. not mages

RankOneUganda··75 votes·16,466 views

while. there are few mages that do completely shut down assassins and need changes Anivia Elise Lissandra Malzahar Vladimir and there are certainly things to do to make laning with an assassin doable. rather than "I can't contest CS well against this mage, I have to all in him if I kill him. I win, if I don't. I hope my team carries me" because thats how it has been

Assassins were viable in all of league history season 1 through season 5. they were not the best choice. they weren't as viable as mages mid lane. or as tanks in the jungle. but they were an option that was good often. not extremely niche as it is now

I have played league for a long time. and watched it as well. Assassins became (in general) trash tier around the end of season 5. what happened is that kill gold mattered less, and gold from baron/towers and global gold became more impactful. ambient gold increased. and since then support gold more than doubled. supports got items that increased their shielding and healing, nobody ever goes oom anymore. ADCs got runes that give damage, the best damage scaling class. so they started to be strong around mid game instead of late game. and some of them like caitlyn are just straight up godlike in the early game.

supports and ad carries . but 80% of the blame is on supports. is why ad carries are shit. if the assassin cannot kill your ad carry, they are useless, thats it. what is he/she going to do if they get exahusted, locket + ability shield. even without half the summs its very hard to kill an ad carry. hell both flash heal are down. who is going to go through a locket shield. and exahust and lifesteal. its just not doable

instant health regeneration and shielding are ridiculous. shield stacking is bs. there are far too many champions that have/give shields. supports don't even build AP anymore. they go straight tank/utility items because Riot made their shield base value be enough with how much free shield bonuses you get from items. and their upped up the base value.

Tanks aren't strong (outside one or two.) nobody is really stopping assassins from being strong except for the most part supports and ad carries. yes I get few mages make it quite near impossible to even lane and those I listed above.

I know Elise isn't a mage but Elise is like the "pick if enemy has assassin" jungler because she has two ways of shutting down any attempt with cc and invulnerability.

People in high elo would rather pick a mage that is shit against assassins than an assassin, because they don't really function outside of chaos. nerfing mages won't do shit.

mages are the only class of champions not named ad carry that can even be reliable in team fights damage wise nowdays.

81 Comments

Squishie32 votes

you guys say bs like this then i start a game and rengar/khazix can oneshot me before i can even flash away

SEKAI14 votes

{quoted}

you guys say bs like this then i start a game and rengar/khazix can oneshot me before i can even flash away

Rengar is dogshit for the rest of the match if he doesn't get an insane lead in the first few minutes of the game.

Kha has been shoulders above all the other assassins for quite a while. So it's not like we should just take him as all the other assassins.

Squishie6 votes

by insane lead you mean a single first blood ?

SEKAI9 votes

{quoted}

by insane lead you mean a single first blood ?

Rengar needs a bit more more than that. Probably at least 2 to 3 kills in early game.

But when he does roll, he's very hard to stop, given he kills somebody every time he appears. But I guess that's how an assassin plays like, just that his stealth can be pretty annoying all around.

But Kha is even more troubling, he's basically a less-restricted Rengar.

Snowman Arc1 votes

Well, Khazix is currently maybe the only assassin that can actually assassinate people and is toxic to play against. Honestly, if all assassins get to Kha's level, so that they become powerful, then that would be toxic to play against. I'd rather play against an ADC, rather than an assassin.

koshkyra5 votes

{quoted}

you guys say bs like this then i start a game and rengar/khazix can oneshot me before i can even flash away

This

Lady Hammerlock6 votes

{quoted}

you guys say bs like this then i start a game and rengar/khazix can oneshot me before i can even flash away

That's good for Rengar, finally we have a champion that can deal with squishes properly with the bs forced delay the assassin rework tried to cast upon the role

and well.. Kha'zix... is the exception, not the rule. He's actually really strong, and arguably one of the best assassins in the game

2Charmnot2Charm2 votes

you guys say bs like this then i start a game and rengar/khazix

So 2 assassins being "broken" means the rest of the class is doing good?

Also do you realize he was mainly talking about assassins that goes to the mid lane? Because i thought it was clear that the only viable assassins is those that go into the jungle for pro games.

SennaFirstPick2 votes

those situations,where rengar oneshots you, are as rare as me getting laid

Squishie2 votes

You must be a pornstar then..

Sleepcoma2 votes

adc mains will never stop complaining and I laugh every time I see it

Squishie3 votes

That's weird, everytime i open boards its people complaining about adcs :O

Sleepcoma1 votes

because they're in desperate need of changes. a class that is supposed to be a late game monster is hitting spikes on one to two items, while being insanely tanky with shielding and healing supports. as an assassin its pretty toxic to fight imo

Squishie1 votes

You know very well that there is no such a thing as "late game" this season

Sleepcoma1 votes

late game is 20-25 minutes into the game, when you compare it to better times though it would still be considered mid game

Squishie1 votes

not all adcs are strong in midgame :)

Sleepcoma1 votes

I mean if they weren't than why is the meta focused around them

Smartness Immune1 votes

{quoted}

you guys say bs like this then i start a game and rengar/khazix can oneshot me before i can even flash away

You have to flash before you will think he will jump :^) for kha'zix. For rengar, just pray he won't be near you for the whole game.

Khristophoros27 votes

If assassins literally are only worth playing for the purpose of 1 shotting the ADC that's a problem with the assassin design philosophy. No other class is that narrowly focused on one thing.

SEKAI43 votes

{quoted}

If assassins literally are only worth playing for the purpose of 1 shotting the ADC that's a problem with the assassin design philosophy. No other class is that narrowly focused on one thing.

No, it's the design failure on ADC, and by extension Supp (or rather the shield bot supports).

The reality is that assassins are capable of executing pretty much any lower HP targets, assuming sufficient fed-ness and that the target is not shielded behind a peel-parade or something like that. The reason why assassins got shoved into this corner of always going after ADCs is because the latter are just way too insanely important in the game's current state to be put on secondary priority by the assassins; and so they chase around ADC all the time, because they have little to no choice.

It's not the fault of assassins are somehow designed to only go after ADCs because they're not, but rather it's about ADCs being the center and VIP of almost everything so assassins have no choice but to go after them for as much as humanly possible that results in this observation that assassins seem to only exist to go after ADCs.

Khristophoros6 votes

Well I was responding to the OP's claim that assassins are only there to 1 shot the ADC.

I agree that the ADC is too important. It's such a tired issue. Everyone knows it's fucked up. Riot hasn't done anything meaningful about it, ever.

We're all really tired of 4 man party in bot lane for all of early game, and supports following around their ADC literally 100% of the game.

It makes me even hate to play ADC because everyone's always coming to my lane and my personal success in the game depends entirely on which team circlejerks their ADC the most.

Who even enjoys this shit? Honestly.

Zerenza6 votes

Same, as an assassin player it's started to get really annoying to have "Protect the ADC" comps in every single game. In LCS assassins can't even be played because the comps nowadays are 3 tanks 1 enchanter and 1 ADC. In solo games you can hope to god that you have at least 2 targets that you can kill consistently but sometimes people are smart and do what LCS player's do with maybe 1 tanky mage like Swain or Vladimir instead of a tank mid, then you still have the chance to get fed and torment bot lane.

It's really annoying to have to deal with as an assassin player because the class is already ripe with Mechanically hard champions, but having to jump through so many hoops and avoid so much stuff just to kill 1 person and probably die is extremely annoying, i think people forget how much an Assassin has to plan ahead and execute perfectly just to get a clean kill on somebody and that's even more prevalent now when Sups can heal/shield for nearly double a person health bar.

rtbf2216514122 votes

{quoted}

No, it's the design failure on ADC, and by extension Supp (or rather the shield bot supports).

Couldn't it be both?

Zed genius10 votes

Not ad carries, literally just supports. I can kill a caitlyn with tabis on zed, i can also kill a hexdrinker twitch on leblanc. Supports are broken and the amount of peel they do, marksmen alone are relatively fair and balanced (squishiest champs that deal the highest amount of damage)

Asterfix1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Zed genius,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yAwbo8Ek,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2018-04-23T12:27:56.884+0000)

Not ad carries, literally just supports. I can kill a caitlyn with tabis on zed, i can also kill a hexdrinker twitch on leblanc. Supports are broken and the amount of peel they do, marksmen alone are relatively fair and balanced (squishiest champs that deal the highest amount of damage)

Lol tell that to the supports I get stuck with.

Daddy Tie Me Up10 votes

Tanks and supports, not ADCs, ADC is still gona die to assasin. Remove tanks, remove all different jannas, remove exhaust.

ValiantKiller9 votes

Rather dealing with fed Anivia Swain Veigar on dealing with Ashe /Xayah /Tristana/ Kaisa + Janna combo -.-

Sleepcoma1 votes

lol good luck killing a fed trist/xayah/kaisa especially with janna. having 500-600+ shields on them combined with lifesteal makes them really tanky. anivia and veigar have clear weaknesses, like being immobile and squishy, but dealing a lot of damage. on the other hand swain is pretty tanky, but deals less damage

ValiantKiller3 votes

[{quoted}](name=ADC Stalker,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yAwbo8Ek,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2018-04-23T19:49:30.677+0000)

lol good luck killing a fed trist/xayah/kaisa especially with janna. having 500-600+ shields on them combined with lifesteal makes them really tanky. anivia and veigar have clear weaknesses, like being immobile and squishy, but dealing a lot of damage. on the other hand swain is pretty tanky, but deals less damage

I know that, that why i said i would rather deal with that over that. Cause you can play around anvi, sawin and veigar skill shots while the adc just RMB and spam stuff while the support spam shield over them.

Sleepcoma1 votes

my bad! I misread your comment.

ValiantKiller2 votes

[{quoted}](name=ADC Stalker,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yAwbo8Ek,comment-id=0000000000000000,timestamp=2018-04-23T20:02:58.768+0000)

my bad! I misread your comment.

Put back the vote then >_> It's fine xD

Josh Sand6 votes

As a support main, I have to agree. I believe this comes from the design philosophy around the support class for most of this game's history. Enchanters have been designed to primarily serve as shield and heal bots.

If anything has shown us in the last 5 or so years, is that Riot can design champions that introduce new utility and mechanics to the game within the confines of a particular role's expectation.

Look in the mid lane. There are at least 6 different champions that are high-impact roamers, each with different application scenarios and counters -

Talon AurelionSol TwistedFate Ryze Galio Taliyah

Or look at the mobility spamming champions. All of them play very differently and have different mastery paths to gain expertise in -

Riven Fiora Yasuo Irelia

Then you look at enchanter supports. Their mechanics are all the same, and they all have the same end result. Point and click a shield, or point and click a heal, or point and click more HP -

Soraka Lulu Janna Nami Sona

The best designed support with heals is Taric - because you actually have to time all of his abilities to pull off effectively, and he cant just spam heals mindlessly unless he can stay in extended melee trades with a mana item in his inventory.

The Support role needs a rework and they need tools to protect their team besides just throwing extra hit points on them. Riot has designed plenty of creative ways to disrupt an opponent's plan, and those abilities really should be going to supports instead of just giving them shield and heal spells.

SpecterVonBaren5 votes

You get Nami out of that list. Of all the enchanters she's been the most balanced and least problematic, and not just of supports but of champions in general too.

Jofeyy4 votes

Wait why do mages that shut down assassins need changes? Everyone should have some kind of counter.

Sleepcoma3 votes

assassins are supposed to counter mages... assassins are already countered by tanks, bruisers for the most part, and supports

LordGeovanni1 votes

Site supports because of sheilds that dont do anything without a burst persecond adc or mage.

Sleepcoma1 votes

for instance, if i'm rengar, and i jump on janna, and she has ult theres a very low change of me killing her. shes gonna knock me back and slow me, and unless I use my flash on her, theres no way i'm catching up

LordGeovanni1 votes

Jump from a bush She ults you ult you can catch up. its just that people dont want to do things like. Save ult until after cc to reengage. Save youmuus built item 3814 anymore. You can also Engage with youmuus get ulted away e Reengage with ult. You can also do the reverse. Assassin players like adcs and mages cry anytime something disrupts their play pattern but Bruisers Tanks and supports have to live to be reactionary to these classes.

Terozu4 votes

Elise is an ap assassin...

xelaker3 votes

{quoted}

there are far too many champions that have/give shields.

Blitzcrank Camille Diana Ekko Galio Ivern Janna JarvanIV Kaisa Karma Kassadin LeeSin Lulu Lux Malphite Mordekaiser Morgana Nautilus Orianna Rakan Ornn Riven Ryze Rumble Shen Sion Sona TahmKench Thresh Udyr Urgot Vi Viktor 33 out of 134. If you wanna count item 3190item 3072 item 3053 item 3040 item 3156 134 out of 134. And there's plenty of champs that double up on stuff with items like Malzahar with item 3102 . Shields are fine, Assassins can still roll in deep and get stuff accomplished, they just can't kamikaze dive like the days of old.

oh assassin mains, your downvotes only feed my correctness.

Sleepcoma2 votes

if a talon for example jumps onto a xayah with 500-600+ shields from janna theirs literally no way that you can kill them lol. you try playing the assassin and realise how shitty it feels

LordGeovanni3 votes

Asssassins shouldn't be able to kills some one that a dedicated shield support is protecting with 2 shieldsitem 3190 and shield amplification items thus give up any damage or real scaling. But supports should have to use shields on people that arent just adcs Riot would go through this by nerfing defenses of melee champions or increasing the damage of mages. But id just lower adc and mage damage (because after adcs mages become the defacto guys to fill that slot with their high damage that doesnt) and thus supports will have a reason to help shield and heal the front line while the back lane still deals out steady (for adc) or windowed (for mages) damage. Assassins should have to make sure that the support blew their shield then go in for the kill on the back line. other than that they should either be chilling with the bruisers/ tanks in the front line if they have a long range dash. Or off to the side near the enemy back line waiting for that shield to be wasted. Another thing that is my personal opinion is that assassins shouldnt get free excapes after killing something which should be its own reward. If you jump into the middle of the team then that should be a calculated risk to pick off some one of higher value on the enemy team. In a team fight however picking some one off you should then have to fight with your allies instead of a free run away for what then becomes a 4v4 again.

Teridax683 votes

I agree with this. At the end of the day, the assassin's primary job is to assassinate the enemy team's priority targets, which in League's current framework almost always means the marksman. However, when said marksman receives a ton of peel, protection, utility, etc. from their team, to the point of becoming more survivable in higher levels of play than tanks, assassins simply cannot do their job. Technically, it's also the mage's job to burst down VIPs, but what they lack in mobility relative to assassins, they generally make up for with CC and AoE, which itself naturally pushes them towards waveclear. Therefore, if the mage cannot properly burst down their targets, they can at least fall back to clearing waves, whereas if an assassin cannot assassinate, they have no place in a team. It is because of this that nerfing waveclear on mages is a terrible idea in itself, because waveclear is not only meant to be an actual strength of mages, one that is still largely inferior to the free, no-cooldown waveclear of marksmen, but also not the reason why assassins are suffering in the first place. Effectively, not only are these mana nerfs terrible in implementation (they're just nerfing mages, rather than specifically targeting their waveclear), on top of running the risk of ruining the class for the near-totality of League's playerbase just to address a problem affecting <0.01% of League's playerbase, they're likely to not even address the issue at all.

Yordle Xayah3 votes

Wait... Lissandra needs changes? You wanna nerf Lissandra of all champions?

Azadethe3 votes

You do realize 4 of the top 10 ranked champions are Assassins.......

Katarina Fizz Talon Zed all rank in the top 10 champs.

The others are Mages. AurelionSol Vladimir Cassiopeia Karthus for example.

This is a completely biased post ignoring actual facts.

Even in jungle, the two champs that are carrying well are Warwick Evelynn , both of which resemble assassins.

Automated Riven1 votes

In what elo? Just curious.

Azadethe1 votes

That's at Diamond + (and Zed and Kat have really high ban rates there too)

Jerry SeinfeId2 votes

instant health regeneration and shielding are ridiculous. shield stacking is bs. there are far too many champions that have/give shields. supports don't even build AP anymore. they go straight tank/utility items because Riot made their shield base value be enough with how much free shield bonuses you get from items. and their upped up the base value.

This is why i think support became so boring. I used to love going full ap with an ardent on janna. I'd be able to get big shields with a juicy ad steroid, but i was squishy. I had to give up my own survivability for it, now you just get shieldbot items and that's all you do.

Great Fox2 votes

I do not think Anivia needs changes.

In mine and many others opinions, she's probably one of the most balanced champions in League. She has very clear and abusable weaknesses - she is a scaling champion that relies on two scaling items as her core.

The others you listed I can agree with, especially Malzahar and Vladimir. Lissandra depends. Elise hasn't been relevant for ages.

Trias0002 votes

{quoted}

while. there are few mages that do completely shut down assassins Lissandra

Lisandra's winrate is below 50% against Katarina Zed and Ekko. And depending on the source, some other assassins as well.

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