How to actually make a tank/assassin hybrid without breaking the game

A tank is a champion who attempts to draw focus from the enemy team by creating a threat to them in some way. The tank class has already been hybridified with all other classes to some extent although not all are as obvious as support tanks and mage tanks. While a carry tank might seem very counter intuitive at first they actually are some of the most common kinds of tank in the game, any champion that you would typically refer to as a bruiser is actually a hybrid of a carry and a tank as they use the carry trait of sustained damage to draw focus to themselves. This is more true in the cases of bruisers like Shyvana and Mundo than lighter fighters who just use the extra bulk to survive light focus.

So this still leaves the question, how would you create an assassin/tank hybrid who didn't destroy the game? The roles seem so counter intuitive together, but there already exists a tank who has assassin like traits. Volibear has an execute on his W that can deal quite substantial damage to his targets, so why isn't Volibear broken if a Riot employ stated that

I don't feel tank/assassin's an appropriate combination for the game.

It's simple really, Volibear has a delay before he can utilise his burst, in this way he can also create focus on himself with the threat of finishing a low HP carry.

You can expand this idea of utilising the threat of burst to generate threat into it's own concept, a champion designed in this way needs a few traits to work.

• Low sustained damage. If they deal similar sustained damage to bruisers they will break the game.
• Little to no CC. You should always feel like there is a way to escape before the big burst comes out, even if it's not easy.
• Moderate-High sticking power. This champ needs to generate a threat through staying in a fight, if there's no way to stay in a fight what's the point?
• Highly telegraphed damage. You know they're building up the burst, you know who they're going to burst, you can stop them with some resource investment.

In saying this I've put together an idea for a kit, this doesn't have to be a Shen rework, it's kind of designed to feel a bit like him outside of the ult so you can view it that way if you want to, I've use some ability names from him out of lack of creativity. I also don't think it would be at all balanced, I have no way to test it, it could be terrible or release Xin levels. I'm doing this more to show that it can be done in a way that doesn't warp the game rather than out of an attempt to make a heavily balanced champ.

Passive-Shadow Stance Your basic abilities and auto attacks mark opponents with shadow, you gain 10/15/20% (level 1/6/11) movement speed towards marked opponents

Just adds a little bit of stickiness to the champ, not all champs need super 3 effect passives.

Q-Explosive Blades Throw an delayed explosive blade at an opponent, dealing very low impact damage with moderate explosion damage, the blades can be stacked onto an opponent up to 5 times but doings so delays the explosion further. hitting another blade at five stacks will cause all to explode, dealing damage for 5 blades and applying the 'marked for death' debuff.

Impact Damage>0+10 per rank, magic damage Explosion Damage>15+15 per rank+0.2 Ability ratio per stack, magic damage Cooldown>1.3 seconds Range>400 units Detonation delay>2.5 seconds Marked for death duration>3 seconds Targeted ability

A fairly unique ability with the closed comparisons being Kalista and Varus. This is the main non-ult source of damage, the 'marked for death' debuff is a damage amp on your ultimate, but because of the way the ability is structured even with 40% CDR (which I imagine would be core) you need to hit the opponent with the blades for around four and a half seconds before you get the full effect, since you need to hit six blades.

W-Feint Grants a small shield, if the shield remains unbroken for its duration you gain a percentage damage amplification

Amount>20+30 per level+0.4 Ability ratio Duration 2>seconds Percentage amplification>20% Cooldown>7/6/5/4/3 seconds after shield ends

Overall this ability is very easy to break, most supports could probably do so quite easily, but it's very spamable and punishes the enemy for dropping focus on you completely.

E-Shadow Dash Dash to an enemy champion dealing damage and applying a damage amplifier for a very short duration

Damage>40+20 per rank+0.4 ability ratio, magic damage Range>750, does not stop upon hitting an enemy, can be aimed shorter than max range Cooldown>10/9/8/7/6 seconds Damage amp>0+3% per rank, only applies to your damage Amp duration>1 second Ground targeted dash

A relatively short duration duration damage amp, acts a lot like Cutthroat, but has a shorter amp duration/CD. Allows you to engage a fight then use the ability again right before you burst your target, or to catch your target again if you're disengaged although when used in this way you might not be able to use the amp.

R-Shadow Strike Hits from the shadows, dealing damage and detonating any Explosive Blades stacks on the target, if the target is marked for death this ability deals bonus true damage based off of your current HP

Damage>125+175 per level+0.6 ability ratio, magic damage Bonus damage VS marked for death> 100+50 per level+10% of your current HP, true damage Range>300 Cooldown>130/100/70 seconds

The huge finisher ability that makes this set work as an assassin, can devastate a target if they have been targeted too long and offers a reason to focus you, if the enemy hits you your damage is reduced. This ability is one of the most powerful executes in the game when the opponent has marked for death on them but it's a bit weaker otherwise. By procing the blades on your opponent it offers a lesser burst if you're on top of an opponent and about to die.

Overall this set might look a bit like a Darius skill set, but it has a few noticeable differences that separate it. It lacks any DPS, which is a consideration of the kit. A tanky champion with high DPS and burst will always be problematic to balance. It also has no CC at all while Darius has his hook and a slow on his W. In exchange for lower DPS and no CC it's more mobile and has overall slightly more delayed burst, which can be a deceptively good way to finish someone off.