What Do Assassins Want Outside of Kills? / MMR Resets

[@HopeArk]

Triangle of balance, and at the center is the avatar, ksante. The warden skirmisher

[@TheLastCity417]

Meet Poppy, the Warden Assassin Skirmisher

[@Yee-Haw_Bird]

Ornn, the tank, bruiser enchanter assassin warlock skirmisher paladin deathknight mage

[@TheLastCity417]

@@Yee-Haw_Bird Also juggernaut, catcher and Senior Officer for Korps of Krieg

[@HopeArk]

when I say warden skirmsiher btw, riot classifys him as that. If you want to see something crazy, go on the wiki and look at ksante, then look at what the written strengths and weaknesses are of his class types

[@TheLastCity417]

@@HopeArk Yeah but Poppy being classified as a Warden is also a complete meme

[@KawaiiKatarina]

The problem with the triangle of balance is that sustained damage squishies can just build 1 defensive item and completely prevent burst damage. Not to mention that burst damage (assassins) are extremely dependent on being ahead and snowballing, some games they fall behind or lose lane and become completely worthless, and if they do snowball they have to do it properly otherwise they will fall behind, and even if they do snowball properly, the late game makes it difficult to burst characters who itemize properly and position well. As for sustained damage carries, skill levels aside, kiting and doing consistent damage as an ADC is a lot more challenging than flash-stunning someone as a tank and then bursting them with 2 abilities. Tanks should do damage, but I don't know if they should have the power to delete ADCs who are on their level while ADCs have to kite across the whole map before finally taking someone down. Watched a video today of a full build Lucian with armor pen items perfectly kiting, dashing and auto-ing the tank Ornn that was chasing him. It took him a solid minute of constant attacking to take him down, but you know if Ornn hit that W-Auto-Q, that Lucian would be on life support. I won't even talk about K'sante, that's a whole other class of character.

[@justascomplicated8182]

Most of those points have valid counterarguments. Defensive items on carries severely limit damage output relative to optimal building. And even doing this just makes you (a carry) lose even harder to control as your uptime is less efficient. Assassins have the most tools in the game to snowball and benefit from the information void that is solo queue. One person fking up can end the game before 7 minutes lol (in low elo). We're probably never going to see assassins in pro that aren't kha and lb, but honestly that's fine imo. And then I completely agree with you that tank balance is out of whack atm.

[@Cyclopkiller]

My initial thought was to give assassin mpre mobility, but they already kinda have that. They should be notorious for killing and roaming. The best assassin's also give kills to the other lanes to get them ahead, but that feels kinda wrong since YOU want to be the one killing. Ots kind of counter intuitive.

[@ignacioperez5479]

SO, pyke?

[@shutupMaji]

I think what sets assassins apart from others is their ability to disengage after dropping all of their damage (Talon E / Zed W / Qiyana W / Pyke W etc) they could probably do something on the lines of making the run aspect of "hit and run" feel more satisfying if they don't want to add more damage

[@Yvädastra]

I think abilities that incentivize isolation are pretty underutilized in assassin kits. These could be effects that encourage enemies to spread out or impair them from effectively aiding the target that you, the assassin, are diving. One of my whims for a mini Kha'Zix rework would be for W to create a poision cloud around the primary target for a few seconds so allies would be deterred from grouping, thus allowing Kha'Zix to better isolate.

[@ignacioperez5479]

So, your idea is to eliminate the only way assasins are supposed to be countered?

[@Yvädastra]

I'm not calling for assassins to be immune to crowd control, damage, or render their targets completely helpless. I'm simply proposing alternatives to raw damage and high mobility. You can disagree in good faith.

[@ignacioperez5479]

​@@Yvädastrathe whole idea of assasins is they kill You if You are alone, if You are with your team, they can protect You. Giving them ways to force the enemy to move apart is taking away the only real counterplay

[@Yvädastra]

I believe this is true in a vacuum. In practice, assassins have plenty of tools to dive into grouped teams and get out alive. Kha'Zix E reset and R. Talon E and R. Akali W, E, and R. Kayn, Q, E, and R. The list goes on. This design pattern is successful due to raw damage and high mobility/evasion. This is also what makes assassins notoriously frustrating. My proposals would trade some of that damage and mobility on some assassins for some more agency in teamfights, which I believe would actually make assassins more fair in all tiers of play. Lower ranks would have a little more time to react or catch the assassin. Higher ranks could use these spacing influences to help their teams initiate more strategic teamfights.

[@eebbaa5560]

@@ignacioperez5479 why do you think grouping is strong in the first place? do you think that just standing next to someone makes the assassin deal less damage or something? an assassin can still kill you if you’re grouped up. the counterplay to assassins isn’t the actual grouping, but the ability to quickly peel for someone by using cc or defensive abilities like exhaust, polymorph, shields, etc. before the assassin can get a kill and get out. being able to split someone from their team doesn’t remove this counterplay, it just makes it harder to use consistently.

[@TheWhitelightbringer]

Why do we have to justify someone outside of an ADC carrying a game? Briar, Belveth and Master Yi are just ADCs in melee form. Why is it not fair for an assassin to 1v1 the master yi, but it is fair for a adc's and adc like champs to 1v5 your entire team if left unchecked? Your supposed to have early game champs that hard counter the late scalers. And all of these early game champs got nerfed because it felt unfair. And back when everyone could be one shot, you still had good ADC's carrying the game, and those guys were skilled, but also understood they would die any second if they mispositioned. Now you've designed ADCs, for some reason, that are incentivized to dive into the middle of the enemy team and ult, ya know, because they can mostly survive long enough for that. But they deserve that, because they scale, right? So I would say assassins deserve to one shot, because that's their job. To one shot a SINGLE target. To be honest, I play poppy, and it felt really nice being able to build lethality to carry early to mid game, while sacrificing my late. I used to be able to build straight lethality while behind, and still be useful. Now you just have lethality Cait every other game. Because its more fair to be 2 shot from a distance, am I right? And keep in mind, I don't mind dying, but when someone builds no defensive items, they should also die pretty easily. You've buffed every champ to have built in assassin protection without buying a single item for it. I miss assassins working. Right now, unless your ahead on levels, your kind of worthless. And if your ahead on levels, you might as well have just played another champ, because they can actually carry. Apologies, I just want to play the game and enjoy it.

[@Sparlex1]

Beautifully said

[@senohara]

riot's entire view of the game has been dictated by AD carries and they have no plan of changing that, the meta has revolved around botlane for the past decade

[@snakeinabox7220]

Yah. Started playing ekko again. Ishue is, brother isn't a assasin anymore. Just a skermisherer who can dump there Dmg faster then avg. Unless you have a 25 stack mej, you can't one shot the enchanters support. You can only start one shoting if your ahead. The enemy builds no defense. And have a 4-5 items. Or at minimum are ahead and have 3 items. Only option I see is elise/ eve. They can one shot Adcs. Brusiers and so on. A feed Evelynn can one shot tanks.

[@rickyrivera3623]

To be fair I only play lethality cait some games because I picked cait and my team decided they didn’t really want to pick any cc or really try to peel me so I need get as much dmg in like 2 secs as possible before I just die anyways

[@unhaix707]

As a syndra main i really struggle to enjoy the game in its current form because now more then ever im fighting a champion who i ls a total counter because all the champs that destroy syndra are super popular.

[@senohara]

tldr assassins are not allowed to exist because ad carries get mad

[@Sabo_538]

You didn't even watch the video, right? He literally said assassins are important to exist to counter DPS champs xD

[@xananax21]

Okay so I don't want PLAYERS to be able to reset their MMR I want MMR to reset once every 5 years with an opt out option.

[@jdwild0696]

I think had ranged reduction on lethality so adc can't abuse assassin items allowing assassins to have good items without being overshadowed by miss fortune jhin lethality metas

[@Mefi_sto]

Who kills adc? Everyone? wtf XD

[@ignacioperez5479]

The rigth question is who doesnt. And i can only think of yuumi

[@einjharrelraca]

​@@ignacioperez5479fun fact. Yuumi stat checks smolder levels 1 and 2.

[@JohnWolf926]

@@ignacioperez5479you can only think of yuumi 😂? Blitz, thresh, maokai, Janna, lulu, soraka, nami, bard, naut, zilean, alistar etc

[@rez0n11]

@@ignacioperez5479 me when full ap yuumi turret go brr

[@jonathanabgrall6075]

Only way to make assassins less binary imo is to update older mages and adcs to have more ways to respond to them. That way their killing power becomes a lot more justifiable when they do outplay their opponent. Example : I play Rengar a lot and it doesn't feel unfair to me when i delete a Lilia, i'm designed to counter her cause she has tools to make a lot of other characters miserable (i play some of them i know both side of the coin) and she has both CC and mobility to get away from me assuming she uses it intelligently (move away from bushes). On the other hand if i jump on Brand, Karthus, Mf or Ashe there's genuinely nothing they can really do in a 1v1 if their flash is down.

[@therine8214]

"Not a lot of characters could kill ADC" ... when anyone could 1-2 shot ADC even tanks and supports

[@iiWarlord]

you aren't supposed to be hit by supports and tanks, get good

[@vichoe4589]

if a adc gets oneshot by a non-mage supp or tank then it is entirwly their fault

[@vichoe4589]

​@@iiWarlordthe comment section in this channel is always a self report

[@therine8214]

Just try it guys, give it 10 games and you'll probably understand

[@Nebukanezzer]

Delusional.

[@marcuionut6319]

Well, Supports wanna protec. Tanks wanna resist and cc. Fighters wanna do dmg and resist. Mages want to do dmg and control. Adc want to do as much dmg as possible. But assasins? An assasin can do 99% of someone hp and leave, and still feel bad because it didnt kill. Also secondary assasin wishes could be stealth, picking good engage moment, outplays. But all this suporting killing. Ap shaco being annoying doesnt fulfill assasin players, but stiill play for tactic stealth and stuff. So idk

[@victorhansen1028]

Kaisas back area is what they want

[@emilemil1]

Resets. Instead of oneshotting one guy they can have lower damage but excel at finishing off champions.

[@zepredalux2159]

so like pyke,kha

[@snakeinabox7220]

Look at ekko. Shorter cooldowns then other assasins.. But also can't one shot unless you have a mejies. Is very good at finishing off targets at half hp due to W missing hp Dmg.

[@VerticalSuperiority]

Ex katarina main here. Everyone's cooldowns is so low that a reset champ doesn't even feel like a reset champ. Bring back mana/Cooldown issues so that assassin's can play around them.

[@SirBackPack]

Me watching Ornn kill ADCs in one rotation, yes tanks are countered by ADCs. The game isn’t frustrating when I’m oneshot by assassins. The game is frustrating when tanks one rotation kills me. We are supposed to counter tanks right? Give LDR giant slayer passive again. Give us old cutdown. Let us counter tanks. I don’t want to run for my life when Zac leaps from off screen and then 6 seconds later can do it again. Getting one rotation by tahm kench or sion. Ksante wrecking the whole back line. If the game is a triangle then let it be a triangle instead of a funnel that’s to kill sustain damage only. It takes 30 seconds or more to kill a tank these days but if you miss click as an adc, you die to the class you supposedly counter

[@einjharrelraca]

the game isnt frustrating when i get instant killed by assassins. its frustrating when i get instant killed by assassins WHO MISSED EVERYTHING THEY COULD POSSIBLY MISS.

[@SirBackPack]

@ yea getting out autoed because they missed everything even though we’re the auto attacking role is frustrating

[@Yee-Haw_Bird]

That only happens if you position poorly and blow your mobility before he hits his Q. Literally any mobility skill will save you from his triple brittle combo.

[@SirBackPack]

@ what mobility spell does jinx have?

[@Yee-Haw_Bird]

@@SirBackPack Her traps can stop him from using either his knockup or the recast of his ult. And yes even with the prep time the root will last long enough to stop the R recast.

[@commenthandler]

ad assn been so useless for so long now. adcs burst so hard and have more mobility than plenty of them XD

[@commenthandler]

fed assns dont feel that bad to play vs high dps w high mobility and sustain / other defensive options is a beyond broken

[@commenthandler]

umbral is a well designed assn item but cant rlly be balanced due to pyke, serpants could be good but isnt also certain utilities breaks the tankiness triangle

[@TherianGrapeIsntAnimalAbuse]

"We don't target nerf specific people " proceeds to continue to try and ruin baus. You guys should be careful fr, discrimination laws are pretty OP. can't fix bugs in your game, constantly trying to make lol a money grab gacha, you are very close to the gambling law too. Just takes one person to ruin a company

[@pencildead6449]

vision denial

[@xenbow]

bring back drakthar deluxe ;)

[@parsarafieimanesh5233]

True

[@einjharrelraca]

I mean. Assassins are already rewarded with the lowest counterplay kills possible in this game. That alone should take theit enitre powerbudget, seeing as their default state negates the existance of squishy champions. Also who kills adcs? Everyone? The only class who is struggling in the slightest to kill an adc is SOME enchanters, not even all of them.

[@josephfodera8372]

2 things u got wrong with this. 1. Assassins might have low counterplay skills but the items they are provided isnt enough to make that a true reality unless ur very specific assassins Akali etc. 2. Your standing on what the adc is is objectively wrong. Adc is meant to be a weak early game to a monster late game, taking out some minor exceptions draven etc. Most adc's have a pattern, weak early, useful mid, strong late. Most champs are designed to kill you early game as their scalings are meant to be stronger early game and weaker late. Your job as an adc is mainly to outscale them and carry the game. also 99 percent of supports cant 1v1 you early game unless they go some weird pick like camile, they can burst you down to half but then their cd's will be down for ages which makes them easy targets.

[@eebbaa5560]

“lowest counterplay kills possible” when most of them can’t even deal damage properly and are completely invalidated by an exhaust, barrier, shield, cc, etc. and instantly killed afterwards. assassins have some of the easiest counterplay options available, unless they’re stealth’s and can kill you before you get a chance to react, which only applies to a few champions in the late game. adcs can outrange other champions, bruisers can survive long enough to deal their damage while sustaining themselves, and tanks just don’t die in general while running you down, but assassins somehow have the least counterplay.

[@einjharrelraca]

@@eebbaa5560 if you're struggling to deal damage on any class in league 2024, its a genuine skill issue.

[@einjharrelraca]

@@josephfodera8372 1. Assassin items are fine. So fine that we keep gutting adcs for "poaching" them. 2. This isnt 2012 anymore. Late game doesnt happen.

[@OakenTome]

@@einjharrelracaIt does in low elo, where most of the player base is.

[@iiolpok2653]

give people on midlane less mana, then assassins can stop playing doran's shield second wind and not be insta out of the game, in turn making them go more damage and giving them more agency, while balancing out what frustrates them on midlane, which more often than not is mages perma bullying without ever caring for mana. that's my awful take of the day

[@ignacioperez5479]

How can You make assasins strong without them making the whole Game a nigthmare for everyone else?

[@dlcyKing]

That will result in exactly the opposite, assassins will just be completely immune in lane with dorans shield and second wind in that scenario and never need to take anything else. Exactly the opposite needs to happen, nerf their passive health regen so they can get harassed out of lane and they are forced into rushing power spikes and seek kills. Assassins before used to start short sword/amp tome so they get their serrated dirk/hextect revolver sooner and use the opportunity to snag kills and snowball, that is what needs to come back.

[@josephfodera8372]

@@dlcyKing tbh a better thing will be to nerf dorans shield second wind and the mana. August said that champs with mana never really have mana issues these days and the mana stat is just there unless ur specific champs. So it would be best to decrease mana, and also nerf dorans shield second wind to a point to where assassins wont be able to run it.

[@eebbaa5560]

@@dlcyKing oh so just make them more unplayable than they already are without giving them anything to compensate. that sounds right

[@dlcyKing]

@@eebbaa5560 5 of the 10 most played champs in challenger are assassins, assassins also have presence in proplay, the two environments where they should have the hardest time to even exist, they are vibing just fine. They are broken af, stop being fortnite addled and git gud.

[@NotTheYuddas]

Assassins arent allowed to one-shot... but tanks are?

[@PyroGC]

which tanks can one shot?

[@NotTheYuddas]

@@PyroGC K'Sante, but don't tell Riot that, they might just randomly buff him or something

[@JohnWolf926]

@@NotTheYuddaswhich ability is the one that one shots?

[@PyroGC]

@ as a tank apologist, he hits you twice not once

[@Mezer_PoE]

​@PyroGC mundo with titanic hydra, it's technically auto e titanic but with AA resets it's practically a 1 shot

[@the_keychain]

Saying that any adc that isn't vayne counters tanks in this meta is comical, August.