Original Post — Direct link

https://twitter.com/RiotPhroxzon/status/1534041456951689216

Changes to Lethality items (except Umbral), Rocketbelt, Lethal Tempo have been removed from 12.11.

We're going to take some time to evaluate magnitude and direction of these changes post 12.11. Some notes on why we wanted to change assassin items and some other musings. Assassins should kill you when ~even if they land their abilities. # of abilities depends on kit counterplay & how ahead they are. Assassins need to have kill threat to fill a vital role in the game (sometimes even when they're behind). On 12.10 they sometimes build fighter items When lethality items have equal/less damage than fighter, assassins building fighter breaks their fantasy & strength/weakness profiles. In elite, ~25% of mythic purchases on core assassins are fighter items and ~20% legendary. Nerfing Gore/Cleaver/Stride post 12.11 hurts fighters more. Winrates for assassins are tricky. Technically, champions are balanced between ~49-53% WR (with lots of nuance for skill bracket, frustration, pro, etc.). This is a massive range. If a champion at 49% is buffed 3%, it's a massive buff, but they're still "balanced" afterwards. Which champions do you think are allowed to sit on the high (51-53) and low (49-51) sides of balanced? Interested in your thoughts.

I think assassins (besides Qiyana, Rengar in Elite) are meant to be up there sometimes. Anyway, some food for thought. Thanks for playing with us.

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over 2 years ago - /u/phroxz0n - Direct link

We still intend to do some form of the changes, especially to address the fighter item issue. Just going to see how 12.11 lands first and re-evaluate how we're going to give the power back (which may not be burst).

over 2 years ago - /u/phroxz0n - Direct link

Originally posted by ubuprojex

If it's not burst (presumably that means it would be cooldowns/survivability) then why wouldn't you just play a bruiser? If the assassin pattern is that problematic for you guys now then just remove them from the game

We need to do a bit of crafting around what types of strengths different classes are meant to have from a holistic perspective. Some of these can overlap. For example:

  • Perhaps assassins are meant to be the fastest class in the midgame.
  • Or perhaps they're meant to have a lot of vision denial tools.
  • Maybe they're meant to be really good at backstabbing turrets periodically if they can escort the wave in without being hit.
  • Maybe they're meant to have different types of vision or map control tools
  • Maybe assassins are meant to be really stealthy ;) (I know how much reddit likes stealth), etc.
  • Maybe there are meant to be different types of objectives that assassins are specifically better at interacting with, etc.

Lots of possibilities here that make them different from bruisers

over 2 years ago - /u/phroxz0n - Direct link

Originally posted by atlas0929

can we at least know what you have for AP ASSASSINS because all of these changes seem to only cater to AD assassins, Nida, Elise and Evelynn are just building their graves right now

There's some harvester buffs that should help Nida and Elise. Eve gonna be a little weaker (though still fine) for a patch.

over 2 years ago - /u/phroxz0n - Direct link

Originally posted by ubuprojex

I appreciate the reply but I have to be honest with you man I don't think anyone plays assassins to do any of that, especially stuff like backstabbing turrets and vision denial (traditionally a support responsibility). People play assassins to pull off cool combos, be threatening/scary for the enemy team, and to play the map deftly/cunningly to get quick kills, I think if you go in these directions the class will never recover popularity wise. Just my 2 cents and not trying to sound overly critical. I don't think that burst patterns are as problematic as you guys seem to have recently concluded, and I would caution against taking what gets upvoted on this sub as representative of the playerbase as a whole

I think there are some players who will always be see champ kill champ. That's fine if they want to play the game that way. There are plenty of others who enjoy engaging in other types of gameplay.

There are lots of directions to go, but we'd test it to make sure different types of assassin players like the things we're offering.

over 2 years ago - /u/RiotAugust - Direct link

Originally posted by Rexsaur

You know whats the funny part?

Most LT adc users (non kog/twitch) have literally LESS WIN RATE THAN THE AD ASSASINS they wanted to buff lmao.

Because Xayah, Jinx and others really needed that triple nerf while being just average you know.

ADC winrates have little to do with assassin winrates. There's an ADC on both teams in nearly every game, making their winrates mostly based on their matchups vs each other.

If every ADC in the game had a 50% winrate they could still be strong or weak as a class compared to the other classes.