How to effectively solve the metagame issue of tanky assassins

AbyssalSerpent·6/12/2016, 7:32:30 PM·2 votes·523 views

I get it. Going out into mid lane and watching as a Zed who is two kills behind you darts out of the brush and bursts you down extremely fast. I know, it's awful. But that is what an assassin is designed to do, and I believe they're fun to play as and against because it makes the lane match-up much more "high-stakes"

This is why I made this post. Assassins are my favorite champions to play, and they're dying. Why? The meta favors champions that are bulky due to all the bonuses from tanky items and CC. Look at how many times they tried to nerf tank Ekko . Is he completely gone? I don't know.

But I thought of a way to completely kill Tank Ekko and metabreaking with stuff like Midlane Illaoi. These champions were not designed to be played like they are being. I propose a change to the way the shop works with champions

The concept is simple. When a tank like Nautilus looks at the shop, he'll see all the tanky items he loves so dearly, but the items for damage have a set of nerfs, or are not there for specifically tanks. That means going full damage midlane Leona will not be nearly as good as going full damage midlane Ahri . When Fizz looks at the shop, he'll see item 3089 , item 3100 , the items he loves, but the tanky items are nerfed or not purchase-able.

This is very similar to how a champion who doesn't pick summoner 11 can't buy items that a jungler can, so that they cannot go out and jungle while the jungler is away, or counterjungle in place of the jungler, or even get chilling smite for some marksman kiting potential. Design space

Doing this also allows for the extremes to be more extreme. You can add in items that are assassin specific. Tank specific. Things that make the role more flavorful without having to worry about how the item will work on assassins.

Please comment revisions or additional ideas. I am only a bronze player, so I hope some higher ELO players will voice in on this.

2 Comments

BHG Beekah6/12/2016, 8:05:00 PM2 votes

I think that even though tanky assassins (Ekko) are annoying and a problem that has (had?) to be dealt with, limiting item effectiveness to certain roles would seriously damage build variety, and thus a large part of the game. I don't think the problem is urgent enough for such a drastic change.

Individually nerfing champion builds that have negative impact on the game seems like the best solution imo.