Assassins: Their place in League of Legends
I'm hoping I might be able to offer some useful suggestions about balance when it is focused around Assassins in League of Legends. Please read my definition of Assassin below and then feel free to jump down to the TL;DR below if you don't want to read my train of thought. Otherwise, let me begin by attempting to define what an Assassin is intended to be.
Assassin: A champion whose mechanics and kit revolves around being able to quickly dispatch an enemy champion.
I know there are a lot of other aspects to an Assassin and many things which factor into their identity, however, this truly is the root of who they are. If I want to play as an Assassin, take for instance Fizz, then my gratification comes from being able to kill an enemy really fast. I enjoy capitalizing on their mistakes and punishing them for it. My gameplay revolves around deception (troll-pole), high burst damage, strategic targeting, and my desire to take as little damage as possible so I can sustain my own damage dispensation. To me, these are qualities that reverberate with all Assassins. They each have their own unique ways of accomplishing any or all of those gameplay goals, but they all share the need to fulfill my postulated definition of an Assassin: to dispatch an enemy quickly.
A champion then only needs two traits in order to fulfill a role as an Assassin:
- The ability to get to an enemy
- The ability to dispense high amounts of damage within seconds (or maybe even less than one second!) A champion who can fulfill those two traits is then able to fulfill the role of an Assassin (without respect to how well they can fulfill it). Other traits may help them to fulfill their definition better, but these are the only two necessary traits. If you can't get to an enemy, you can't kill them and if you can get to them but have no damage, you can't kill them then, either.
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Currently, there are many different champions who exercise varying degrees of skill with the two aforementioned traits of an Assassin. Typically, Riot favors a balance between the two traits. A particular champion might be highly mobile (trait #1), but then their damage will be lower compared to other less mobile Assassins, which makes sense. Take for example Kassadin 
. When he was reworked, Riot tried to balance the two traits of an Assassin. They opted to keep his high mobility, so they nerfed his damage. Weaker abilities means he will be in fights longer (especially pre-level 6) so they threw in a nifty shield to help out, thus completing the currently practiced general attempt at balancing an Assassin.
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So now I've defined an Assassin, shown what they need to perform their role, and shown how they are typically balanced out. The issue is this: It's not fun to play an Assassin that takes too long to kill an enemy quickly. Indeed, that is against the postulated definition of an Assassin. So now there is a struggle between "fun-to-play-as" and "fun-to-play-against". An Assassin that is highly mobile and has high damage is definitely fun to play as, but it's frustrating to be a player on the other team that has no chance of stopping you. So the real question revolving around the issue is, how do we make Assassins fulfill their role and yet still be fun to play against?
I'll start by saying let all Assassins retain their high damage. In fact, buff every Assassin that has had their damage put in check. I say let them be able to insta-nuke-kill an enemy. The issue is not that they can kill whoever they want, it's that they can kill whoever they want and get away with it. There are some champions that might be able to stop their destructive chain, but counter-play should not revolve around picking the right champions, it should revolve around making the right decisions. So the solution to making Assassins fun to play against is then giving players the ability to make right decisions when playing against an Assassin.
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Now here's where I'm at, just to reorganize what I've said. Problem 1: Assassins aren't fun because they can't fulfill their identity postulated in my definition. Solution: Buff their damage.
Problem 2: Assassins aren't fun to play against when you don't have a chance to outplay them. Solution: Create more opportunities to make good decisions against Assassins.
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Now the question becomes, how do we let players make meaningful decisions against Assassins without touching the Assassins? For some, the answer comes from a particular champion's kit (Kayle is particularly good at protecting her allies with her ult). For everyone else though, the answer should not come in the form of nerfing a particular Assassin. Instead, my suggestion is to create better itemization.
I think one great idea would be to create a brand new item(s) with an Active that grants % damage reduction in exchange for some kind of personal sacrifice (eg. health, or mana, or movement slow; this creates decision making opportunities for the Assassin, like should they switch targets). This would allow a player to make decisions revolving around when to use the Active, who to use it on, and when in the game they should purchase an item with this Active. This would make a great addition to items like Face of the Mountain or Locket of the Iron Solari. The difference though is that where an Assassin who is snowballing can plough through a shield, they must always confront % damage reduction. To make such an item with such an Active fun for the Assassin to play against, the Assassin must make their own decisions, like who to target. They can be aided as well by having this hypothetical item perhaps have a high cost as well, thus making it only viable to pick up in the mid or late game. To make this item fun for any other enemy (like a DPS champion) to play against, the Active can have a very short duration.
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TL;DR All-in-all, I think Assassins should not be penalized for trying to fulfill their definition I have proposed. It is counter-definitive to nerf their damage to allow counter-play. Instead, opening up decision making opportunities for the enemy team should revolve around itemization and/or champion selection (but not champion selection alone). A great example of new itemization that would fit this goal would look like:
- % damage reduction
- personal sacrifice (like mana, health, or movement speed)
- short Active duration (to target burst damage, not damage-per-second)
- high cost
I invite you readers to offer your own suggestions about counter-play itemization that would allow Assassins to retain high damage damage and thus better fulfill their definition. What other kinds of items could we see that would open up Assassin counter-play? How would those items be fun for the Assassin and the enemy team? What would prevent that item from being a must-buy for every champion? Can you think of other ways in which we can find a meaningful solution to Problem #2 without changing the solution to Problem #1?
