State of Assassins
I see a lot of people complaining about the death of ADCs (even though Twitch currently has one of the highest winrates in the game) yet not much spotlight seems to be hitting Assassins (Should I be surprised, considering the amount of general-hate they get?)
Talon and Zed are basically MIA - I can't recall the last time I saw one in my games. Which is astonishing since everyone used to want to play Zed so that they could feel a 'Faker what was that' moment whenever they got a kill. Both were fans of armor penetrations which has been continously gutted over the past two seasons, and this rework seems to have been the final straw. Fizz's obnoxious ulti hit-box doesn't seem to be enough to keep him afloat. Rengar is...interesting. He was pick or ban for a while but subsequently got nerfed. More than a few Rengar mains seem to be displeased with the rework regardless of whether it was OP or not, and his success seems to largely be tied to Bruiser builds - not full damage ones. Personally I don't find Rengar fun anymore - but currently I'm in a state where I've waxed off of league and don't find it paticularly interesting in general (This seems to happen to me everytime a tank meta comes around tbh) I want to avoid commenting on LB as I've never really played, or really looked into her gameplay. Personally I always felt like she was more like a burst mage with a dash rather than an assassin, which I'll admit is interesting but it doesn't really appeal to me. Katarina seems to be the best off from the rework. Difficult to play but extremely rewarding, definitely looks like an assassin, is built like an assassin (except for a few popularised tank builds I guess) and plays like an assassin too. I'd say the rework did great on Kat Nidalee was gutted. Shaco's success has never really been tied to assassins in general. Kha Zix is basically unchanged. He's worse-for-wear in terms of itemisation but still functions fine as a jungler. For the past three seasons Diana has only had minor QoL changes, so she's basically the same too. Yasuo is a fighter with assassin qualities - but not a true assassin so meh. Ekko, since his realase, has experienced more success as a tank than as a true assassin. Says a lot. It's not a surprise either considering that his kit seems to be a compilation of skillsets from various classes. I've never really felt like he was an assassin - he's more like a mage/fighter imo.
It should also be noted that, exlcuding Ekko, Riot hasn't released an assassin since Zed - which was in 2012. We're now in 2017. 4 years and two months and the only thing we've gotten is the identity confused Ekko. Wew, and other classes constantly complain that they get the short end of the stick?
A large complaint about Assassins has always been that they get fed, start killing people and that dying isn't fun! But really, that's the case for any class - in that once fed they become extremely good at what they do. Tanks get fed and walk through entire teams, laughing. ADCs get fed and start taking turrets left right and center. Mages get fed and start poking out entire teams. Bruisers get fed and walk through entire teams while putting them on death timer. All of these things equate to losing, and losing generally isn't enjoyable, or as enjoyable as winning. (Sometimes it can be, though.)
Armor penetration is currently trash. Lethality fucking sucks. Flat Armor penetration is meant to be an early - mid game stat that helps you snowball. Lethality is the opposite. It's trash early, evens out in the latter parts of mid-game and, depending on how much of it you run, slightly hits ahead of the old armor penetration by lategame. If you run Lethality everything - meaning a page of lethality runes, lethality masteries, and build every lethality item, I think it means that you get something like an extra 10-15 armor penetration at level 18, while evening out with the old armor penetration items at level 12ish (Bear in mind that this is OPPONENTS level, which further emphasises how anti-snowballing and counter-intruitive Lethality actually is). This is ass. 10-15 extra penetration at level 18 doesn't mean squat when every mage or adc is going to have something in the regions of 100-180 armor. Not to mention that it's going to have virtually no purpose during the early-mid game. You'd be far better off building pure AD. Youmou's used to be the god of Assassin items, but now it's a shell of its former self, just like AD assassins in general. It's still good, but not as good.
The removal of last whisper also hurt bad, the new ones do virtually nothing for assassins, Cleaver, while okay, is clearly more targetted at Bruisers as its penetration ramps up over time, rather than having the instant application that a burst champion that values their cds highly wants.
Most AD items have been nerfed. Last Whisper was nerfed heavily. Tiamat was nerfed slightly. Its price was reduced to compensate and technically its stat to price difference is 20 ad to 700 gold, so you can still get the same effect as the old Tiamat for 1900 gold, but the cost efficiency of the item itself is down. Especially when you consider that most Assassins like to sit on Tiamat for a long while which means that Hydra - still as good as before yet more expensive, doesn't see much action. The other two 75 ad items are Deaths Dance and Bloodthirster, both of which appeal to other classes more than they do Assassins. Fact of the matter is that every item that assassins have traditionally built have either been nerfed directly via stats, nerfed indirectly through build-path tweaks, or had their prices increased. BoTRK, Hydra, Youmous, Cleaver, Last Whisper, Brutallizer, Warrior, Lucids, and runes. It's all been nerfed or removed and no compensation has been given. Tanks have their staples, ADCs, have their staples, Bruisers have their staples. Assassins currently however, either feed off of the staples of other classes or resort to using the reject items that other classes no longer want to use.
Anddd I'm sure you could create an entire seperate post about the removal of mechanics from Assassin characters, the general dumbing down of their playstyle (barring a few exceptions such as Kat), and how each season they become more and more 'bruisery'
TLDR; Assassin rework in general sucked ass. Assassins have constantly been getting nerfed and have recieved no compensation in return. Lethality sucks sweaty balls and their itemisation in general is lack-luster. QQQQQ
This guy is perfectly fine. Idc how much people keep complaining, I'm a Talon OTP and trust me he's fine. His skillcurve got significantly harder, so basically the new players think he's absolute crap while actual good Talons realise he has a lot more potential now if played to his full capacity.
Zed is pretty weak. His 'rework' was basically an all-round nerf. While lethality is getting looked at I'd like for Riot not to buff this guy just yet. After the lethality buffs (currently happening on PBE) he might still need some more buffs, but I'd rather reassess then.
This guy didn't really change all that much. To me he feels more feast or famine. New Rengar either gets insanely far ahead or he falls behind and becomes useless. Anyway, his new kit is mostly the same and I feel he'll end up in a similar state pre-rework, which is unfortunate.
Katarina is real cool now. She's way better designed, much like Talon she kept her core but got more interesting and interactive tools to play with, allowing her to be strong and balanced. Currently I think she's honestly overtuned, and I expect some slight nerfs in the near future (one is on the PBE atm).
No longer am I getting oneshot at lvl 6 in .5 seconds, that's pretty cool. New LeBlanc is very weird, I have not yet seen someone truly utilizing her deception tools to the max. Her assassination pattern remains strong, but actually has a bit more counterplay now. Once players get better I expect she'll need slightly more nerfs, but time will tell.
Kha'Zix got his fair share of changes himself. While he might have seemed overwhelming, keep in mind the jungle in general was pretty messed up this preseason, with the nerfs happening to it I think Kha might actually be sort of balanced. His 1v1 potential is sick now, but not to the point where he's completely broken imo.
Poor Fizz. I mean I didn't really like him or anything but his rework was imo the worst. He became boring and bland, with only a single combo that actually works now. He's become binary and while this particular combo/gameplay is in itself pretty strong, he lost flexibility and when his ult is on cd he feels useless. Worst update imo.
Nothing really changed lol. I mean this guy is basically the same, I still see more tank Ekkos than ap Ekkos but to tell you the truth I haven't really seen either since the update. I think he's mediocre right now, but I'm honestly not sure how Riot could make him better without getting the tank Ekko bs back.
Strangest update I've seen in a long time. Old Shaco was more AD than AP oriented, but his AP build was definitely viable. New Shaco has a horrible AD build yet his AP build managed to become utterly overpowered and had to be nearly gutted with significant nerfs. After these nerfs I feel he's decent as AP, but barely playable as AD.
Last but not least Akali. She's become slightly different...but still pretty much the same. She has more power into her autoattacks which means her killing window has become longer for sure. This made her pretty meh, but people have started to realise how good her new passive actually is (the values are quite nice) so she's basically back to the same state she was in before.