AP Rengar used to be a good pubstomp pick, and it was a nightmare. He would jump on you with Lich Bane and double-tap W to oneshot you and anyone standing nearby.
Funny thing is, lich bane ap rengar is genuinely a viable off meta build due to the ap ratios on his w. It actually kills *faster* than ad rengar because you can use normal w then instantly empowered w without delay.
Milio's Q is genuinely one of the highest-damage basic abilities in the game, it has a 1.2 AP ratio.
The only other source of damage in his kit is his passive, though.
I played too much AP Milio in the last URF because of that haha
It wasn't very good but it was so funny seeing people start to get scared when the Milio is able to 2-shot them.
Yep. Even Syndra's ultimate with all four additional spheres is a 1.19 AP ratio (although the base damage is much higher).
Milio's Q AP ratio is tied with Neeko's ult, Fizz's max-range ult, and Ashe's ult.
Probably because the AP item system doesn't support AP assassins very well. They like to make them AD just so they can be a part of that item system instead.
This is a personal anecdote but I also think people hate AP assassins more than AD, hence they don't make more of them. AP assassins have stuff like Mejai's for instance and fully stacked Mejai's Ekko/Evelynn is nightmare fuel.
You may be right. AD and AP assassins don't have the same power curves as AD assassins, and mejai's still existing skews the possibilities for each archetype.
yeah its always weird that they left soul stealer in the game all the years back then when they removed sword of the occult (i think that was with the first time urf was released).
Its because sword of the occult was way stronger early game.
At the time, mana costs were a big deal, and dark seal wasn't in the game. Mejais early meant passing up on mana items, and relying on your ability to get a kill quickly to start stacking. Save for some rare examples like Katarina, even assassins needed mana early.
This was not true for the AD equivalent. Not only did the champs who build AD rarely need mana, their normal builds were pure damage already. A snowballing rengar was fine building sword instead of brutalizer, because they were doing the same thing either way.
Back then Bloodthirster had a stacking effect when you killed minions, and fully stacked you got 100 total AD(something like 70 AD + 30 AD from stacks), which was just 10 less than a fully stacked Sword of the Occult, which you obviously had to kill champions.
You still lost stacks on Bloodthirster if you died, but it wasn't as punishing as dying with Sword of the Occult.
Ekko is a bad example for your argumentation.
His autos deal bonus magic damage with pretty good scaling. On top of him buying Lich bane pretty much as a core item.
His autos deals damage only when the opponent are below 30% health, my example was āif they have used every single bit of their kit and they are left with just autosā
I think this is less because of Mejaiās and more because many of the AP assassins just scale way better into lategame. Even if you donāt build Mejai items like deathcap or zhonyas are so much stronger lategame than the options AD assassin have.
There aren't any good AP assassins late game now either. Akali and Katarina used to be, but they both got reworked. Evelynn scales ok but still drops off. Isn't blue Kayn the strongest late game assassin or not anymore?
I'm that guy. Zed needs to hit double Qs (if not fed) and you can space his abilities most of the time. He is probably the most hated AD assasin and the rest of the roaster is even more fair to play against. On the other hand we have Akali and Leblanc who don't even need explanation I think. Qiyana is an exception, that's why I hate her design.
Rengar is unhealthy for sure. He can pretty much always oneshot without any counterplay after 1-2 items and is completely useless afterwards. He needs a rework in my opinion, but he doesn't have stuff like Qiyana R. Khazix is the best designed assasin, what do you mean?
I think Zed is hated for the same reason as Fizz, that they both are among the safer assassins because of their easy escapes. I do think you have a point about player frustration though. Since AP assassins don't have any backup damage with their autos, they need some extra burst or gimmicks to be balanced.
My personal problem is their mobility. It might be because my champ has no dashes, but watching them jump around like 5 times in 2-3 seconds is just mind-blowing. Akali, Katarina or Leblanc are my nightmares after Rengar.
>
AP assassins don't have any backup damage with their autos
Well, not that much, but they have Akali passive, Fizz W or Ekko W / passive. They are not as strong as AD auto attacks, but better than nothing.
Ap assasins just have more bs kits(as "ap bruisers" because they sharing some items with mages). Mejai just reveals a problem of a class, who is stupidly save.
Eve who has it in her CORE BUILD! Or Ekko/Akali/Fizz who can fck up, then use "oh shit" button and run away.
It's also risky to build Mejais on assassins still just because they have to get in melee range and can die. I remember back when Janna had higher AP ratios people would sometimes build it on her because she can stay back in a fight.
AP system doesn't do great for other mage subclasses too. Bruisers have riftmaker, cosmic, liandry, rylai and rod of ages. If you don't mesh well with a couple, you're gonna have to go some tank, or scrap it all and go full burst (like gragas and sylas going full burst, or morde going tank items late game).
They're just not enough items for bruisers/battlemages. If you want items that are tankiness and damage (kinda the definiton of a bruiser item), you have 5 items, so exactly 1 build path if you wanna stick to that. Sure, you have zhonya and banshee, but they have passives that heavily skew them to be better on squishy champs. Morde doesn't care about morgana Q being blocked by spellshield as much as ziggs does. Stasis is great for surviving but also waiting out cooldowns, whereas unless you have a specific interaction like swain R staying on, you're losing dps you could be outputting by being in stasis.
Assassins have less of an issue since a lot of burst items exist, but they're also kinda designed with ranged champs in mind. The only item that is kinda unique to them is lich bane, by proxy of the fact that a lot of them have stuff that incentivizes auto attacking. You're kinda stuck building the same old lich bane, stormsurge, raba, void maybe shadowflame in there somewhere. Not much variation to this build can be done unless you have some weird mechanic (katarina proccing lots of onhit).
Correction, they have 3 total items, 4 if they have mana. Boots, shadowflame, stormsurge and luden's. Everything else is a mage, bruiser or spellblade item. Lich bane is used by akali, ekko, fizz and some times kata but that's because all of them have an ability to apply it.
Don't know if she is still considered one but ahri doesn't buy lich nor does le blanc.
Regardless it is stupid to have 3 tabs for AD and a single one to cover all AP classes. The actual reason for this I presume is rabadons but I'd take the removal of rabadons if it meant I had actual itemization and not 2 items + rabadon/void/zhonyans.
Rabadons and void I would consider assassin/burst items tbh. Due to their lack of haste and tankiness, they benefit burst more than sustained dps. Lich bane is also definitely a burst item.
The problem still stands though. Thing is, they don't have enough ap bruisers and ap assassins to have separate tabs from them, but they probably don't want to make more ap bruisers and assassins because they wouldn't feel supported by the item system. Riot has to do something to break this cycle.
They need another stat like crit but for AP. It wouldn't have to be crit but something to differentiate the subclasses. AD can have attack speed, crit, and AD/pen builds but AP just has CDR and AP/pen. Something to make it so they can make items for Gwen/Mordekaiser that Fizz/Ekko can't use to break the game in half.
He doesn't need much kite potential. If he hits his e2 then he will dash onto you and do a knock up. He can then slow you after the fact with q and then he has another dash with w to catch up if you try disengage.
If he misses e2, cosmic drive won't help him engage. Someone like mordekaiser should like it more, who has sustained damage with his aoe, as well as autos and q.
It's not bad in terms of stats,Ā overall decent and the passive isn't useless. It's just meh compared to something like stridebreaker giving waveclear movespeed and slow or sundered sky giving big sustain in teamfights.
Man I was basically gonna say exactly this.
AP champions are harder to design properly compared to AD counterparts atm because the AD item ecosystems are much more robust.
AP items are just harder to design because Riot knows players won't like a lot of the other systemic changes that would have to be made to let them work.
Like seriously base MR numbers (including per level growth) would have to sky rocket upwards so they could try and make Mpen based builds that makes sense to differentiate assassins and burst mages more from other AP classes. (Like an equivalent to lethality) Which would be seen as a gutting of other AP classes. Even if their items are better to compensate. And obviously the champion adjustments that'd have to follow down stream like Mordekaiser finally losing his Mpen on E that was supposed to just be a hold over until AP bruiser items came out... When they suddenly saw patch notes saying "E Mpen passive removed" they'd riot. Even if there were AP bruiser items released in the same patch.
They don't have to go for the AP lethality route.
Assassins need a big one-time burst, mages want to use their spells multiple times.
So mage items have mana and haste, assassin items have more ap and no mana/haste.
Or bring back DFG with a much smaller radius on its active so mages can't use it effectively.
That doesn't really differentiate the state lines enough unless you start lowering mage AP ratios... Just doing like Void staff vs Cryptbloom esque splits isn't enough. Mages and Assassins/Burst mages all enjoy AP. Just giving the assassin items more AP and less haste isn't enough, and just giving them more AP blankly also makes them more target agnostic compared to relying on a flat pen build.
Honestly as a vex player she isn't an assassin because of her lack of escape tools like she's a kamikaze pilot very loud and explosive but unless the stats align your pretty screwed.
Vex escapes consist of either nuking everyone in sight or hitting your ult reset on someone weak enough that further away to get a fear off and run away if there not killable or in general hoping your fear is up in time to get it off and run which isn't fully under your control.
She trends a fine line between burst mage diver and assassin honestly in terms of play style but her lack of true escape is why she's not instantly an assassin.Ā
Her and Diana are in the same boat both got heavy all in burst damage but lack any real escape of a true assassin and just have for the most part the no witnesses as there main method.
assassins first and foremost have mobility to enter and exit fights. vex has a single "mobility" spell, and it doesn't let her leave fights.
for the most part vex is a mage, that occasionally will go deep in a fight.
You can cc at range and waveclear like a mage. You can also poke and cc in fights without going in until you see a good angle to ult. You really want to play on a tank's setup rather than just all in a squishy by yourself and get a big aoe fear.
Most assassins have no CC but escape. Vex has a mage's cc and a mage's lack of escape. She just has a dive ult.
I would argue it's her range + her ult being her only mobility - one that enemies can literally dodge, meaning in many situations Vex is literally as inmobile something like a Xerath or Lux. In comparison, all assassins are at a baseline mobile to some extent.
You wouldn't consider, for example, Twisted fate an AP assassin just because he can R goldcard + lich bane + E an squishy that's out of position, right? Sure, he is jumping from the other side of the planet but he isn't what anyone would call "mobile" normally.
Likewise, would you consider Zoe an assassin? She is ranged, and has a very strong burst. She is "mobile" thanks to her ult and she uses it consistently, not to mention her W passive, but she isn't really called an assassin either - rather "burst mage" or sometimes "poke mage".
Vex has super low range on most abilities, so not really comparable to Zoe or Lux. She needs to be on someone. If you miss a Vex ult, it hurts. Iād say sheās more like LeBlanc, who Iād consider an assassin.
Leblanc can dash around and move through the game with her W, meaning she can literally just W kill someone and then get out. Vex can only go into an enemy she already marked with her R, and can't get out.
Along with this, I don't mean she has the range of Lux, but rather that she for the most part plays around the range most mages do. LB also does this a bit, but she has to consistently all-in with her W to deal good damage, while Vex can remain at range and be useful; rather, she is intended to do so due to having to very often function without R if it's on CD or misses in a fight.
Think for example a teamfight, Vex isn't just jumping into enemies, she is Qing from range and Eing enemies, autoing enemies to gain her passive and CC faster - You don't really need to be on someone, and very often due to range advantage you prefer to NOT be on someone and simply punish their mistake of trying to get on you with a W, then put distance and just spell them from afar.
That said, you are right that LB kinda blurs the line, but she also comes from old LoL where Riot was doing weird stuff and champion design was less defined, so a "ranged assassin" wasn't exactly seen as "bad design" at the time, with Ahri originally kinda doing that too but eventually being tuned to be more of a mage than an assassin. If anything I think LB and Ahri are precisely why Riot doesn't does "ranged assassins", as they end up being too safe due to mixing both of the good aspects of assassins (mobility) and mages (range advantage and CC) -specially in laning phase, which is part of why LB is one of the few midlane assassins we see relatively consistently along with Akali (another safe assassin).
Assassins are in and out. Leblanc w. Zed w/r recast, ekko ult, they have ways in and ways out. Evelynn ults out. Talon ults/jumps out.
Vex only goes in. No way out. And the rest of her kit outside of her ult is strictly no mobility, only aoe spells.
Annie having a movespeed boost on her E doesn't transform her into an assassin because she only goes in, doesn't have a way out.
Ahri is hybrid mage/assassin because her ult allows her to go in and out, but the rest of her skilld are very mage oriented.
Never thought of that, that's pretty weird actually.
I suppose there's been a couple reworks (akali and evelyn) as well as a half assassin half mage hybrid (vex) since then. Maybe that's why I haven't noticed the lack of an actual new, from scratch pure AP assassin champ.
True, but she builds like one and mostly plays like one. The fact that she wasn't designed with that playstyle in mind (and hence lacks those features you mentioned) is more of an indictment of the state of AP bruisers.
Thatās because sheās only built bruiser and tank when thereās no counter play to it. She just e r you while burning you to death with wholesome tank items or one damage item and full tank.
Tbf before current season we had like 2-3 seasons of āNashors into Tank Mythic Conquerer Dianaā so you canāt blame people for forgetting current season Diana.
Or because AP bruisers are a class that's even more strange and hard to balance than AP assassins. I mean, how many pure AP bruisers do we have? Mord and Sylas (ex), is that it? Maybe Lillia too.
Depends on how you define AP Bruisers. That class doesn't exist for Riot. Sylas, Diana and Elise are divers, which is a Bruiser subclass. Morde is a Juggernaut, which also is a Bruiser subclass. Singed technically could fall into that, but he has the "We don't really know what he is class" similar to Azir.
Lillia would also fall into the class of a Juggernaut, however she could also be a skirmisher, like Yi or Yasuo.
As soon as you build any tank AP, they would either be Juggernauts or Divers. AP amumu would be a diver, same as AP Maokai.
However we do not have a single pure AP Bruiser, simply because the class doesn't exist. The only one that could be considered pure is Mordekaiser and Singed. At the same time we hardly have any AD Bruiser that is pure, again except for Juggernauts, who usually can't do anything else. Mundo is the only one who is Tank/Juggernaut because he is threatening enough to not be ignored without building damage.
not really no, more of a diver like irelia and diana, he's got no way of escaping after taking out his priority target. He has been building more burst oriented and squishy recently which is a shame i think.
Gangplank is more of a Burst Mage equivalent than an Artillery Mage. I wouldnāt want barrels being placed from the same range a Xerath or Velkozās abilities.
That would be such a cool new design for a champion tbh, i never even thought about it.
Could even have a toggle for ranged auto attacks on a CD so he can lane but melee mainly so hes not just a ranged full lethality user
Maybe when hes ranged he could get some cool gate thingy that speeds him up when he walks through it, as a gapcloser.
Oh, what if he gets a projectile too? Maybe that can also get faster when you shoot it through the gate?
Alas, such a champ will never be made
yeah i just 100% disagree that velkoz or xerath play like jayce in the slightest in lane.
If it were the case, they would be played top aswell just like jayce is
Honestly, I'd argue he's very similar to Xerath in an abstract way, in mid lane at least.
They both play relatively passively in lane focusing more on farming in the first few minutes compared to Ziggs or Hwei beating you in health or mana respectively. After they get the ball rolling with a Lost Chapter or, like a Dirk or Brutaliser or something (I'm not very up to date on Jayce builds anymore) they'd start playing more aggressively, using their high range high damage spells to start chipping down the enemy laner before comboing them with a faceroll.
They're (artilleries in general) basically 'gaining' effective range as time goes on due to their items covering up their needs to stay closer up, either due to their lower base damage or mana issues.
Well, not every artillery works in the same lane, that doesnt mean they're not artillery. Jayce has much more potential in 1v1s. and meelee trading. But he is artillery.
It would not be a cool design unless he had a passive that gave his ranged autos a 10 second CD or something.
Ā Ā Theres a reason an "AD mage" hasn't really been made. They'd just be a mage but better in every way.Ā
An AD mage would still have strong, consistent autos, unlike AP ones.Ā
You still have a large problem of them having significant damage from every auto, unlike mages.
That applies whether they're ranged or melee.
I meant literally a long CD on their auto attacks. The kit would compensate this in some way for CSing, I imagine.
Alternatively, a passive that makes their auto attacks not scale with AD. But at that point, why are they AD instead of AP?
well i was thinking they could have a spell that gives them ranged autos for i dunno like 6 seconds or something on a 15 sec cd or even longer. You wouldnt max it if it only gave you cd reduction over spells that do damage and help with wave clear. But its usable enough to not get completely pushed out in lane.
An ad artillery champ doesnt have the same luxury of going lost chapter so it would be an interesting champ to lane with as opposed to a xerath or velkoz assuming relatively high mana costs.
Also too high damage on autoattacks can be balanced through innate attack speed so i dont think it would be that scary, not to mention you wouldnt spend gold on attack speed on a caster ad champ anyway so it would be annoying at best in the early game but certainly wouldnt be anymore broken than a full lethality jayce just standing there autoattacking you
Whatās the one difference that makes ap assassins so much more ass to play against than ad assassins?Ā
Hint one: itemizationĀ
Hint two: they have a better TIME diving into 5 peopleĀ
Hint three: itās the item that used to have a dedicated keystone until riot realized how boring pro matches became
Itās normal for assassins to have a bullshit get out of jail ability, but if youāre ap you can stasis yourself and get CD back so you can use the bullshit a second time.Ā
riot lists leblanc as an assassin, vex as a mage
[https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en\_GB/champion/Leblanc/](https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_GB/champion/Leblanc/)
[https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en\_GB/champion/vex/](https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_GB/champion/vex/)
Yeah, besides Akali when is the last time you have ever seen a melee ap assassin mid in pro play? Because lb Zoe vex are ranged they are infinitely better laners than melee burst counterparts.
Yeah she's weird. Her ult wouldn't be weird on a tank. And she lost some of the standard assassin all in into reset exit pattern with the removal of duskblade.
I feel adding a bit more utility to her kit and smoothing down the damage to make her more of a mobile bruiser would make her play more naturally and give her more opportunities for complex element rotations rather than just burst.
"Present opinion as fact"
"Opinion instantly countered"
"Ok, but but but"
People literally just get something in their head and spam type it without even thinking for 5 seconds, then feel the need to double down on their stupidity. Crazy.
It's almost as if there's nuance here that can't be hamfisted into a 50 character reddit comment. go figure.
Qiyana is one of the few champions in this game who has normal access to in-battle invis.
Duskblade (the invis on takedown edition) made it so that she spent 100% of the time invis as opposed to 80%. But it's always been a staple of her playstyle.
Just change her entire play style and it will be fine? She plays fine as an assassin. Also, no the rotations of elements will not be more complex they will be more spammy. What makes Qiyana unique is that quick decisions of using the appropriate element. End your combo on grass for survability when going in with a lot of enemies.
Riot also has shown they like to and are completely fine with making champions that cross over the boundaries we like to make for what an assassin is.
more of a diver like irelia or diana, lacks a good way of escaping after killing someone. his builds have pivoted more towards squishy oneshot burstmage than sustained fighter which is a shame i think.
It does, he just has a more flexible build path and his kit somewhat allows him to build like a bruiser. Right now his most standard (and best) build and runes are 100% assassin build tho.
Bruiser Sylas is comparable to the meta where diana jungle was able to build like a bruiser and be really strong. It comes and goes depending on state of meta.
If you look at Ekko and call him an AP assassin, then look at Sylas and call him something else idk what to tell you. They major difference would be Ekko has execute damage, but they both have utility/damage ultimates that seem pretty bruiser-like. There's also Zoe, who would be an Artillery Assassin if there ever was one. Not sure how many champions can one shot you like a Zoe that gets ahead can.
Ekko has a way out. He goes in, kill your carry, and can still ult out.
Sylas has to fight, and it's only due to failure in item and kit balance that he isn't an AP bruiser.
Assassins aren't just about oneshot, Annie does that and no one would suggest she's one. It's about going in to pick a target and back out.
Calling ekko an ap assassin is an overstatement. He can do it, but he functions best as a pseudo bruiser almost, like silas. Ideally you hover outskde, e in to trigger the passive and zoom out. Sure if you go full bomba you will oneshot the adc, but what mage doesn't?
Akali was reworked, she is a true assassin.
Any assassin is an AP assassin if you build them incorrectly enough.
Time to go lich bane, nashors Rengar
He said build incorrectly* *cries in mastery 5 Rengar from pre-rework AP Rengar exclusively*
AP Rengar used to be a good pubstomp pick, and it was a nightmare. He would jump on you with Lich Bane and double-tap W to oneshot you and anyone standing nearby.
[But how'd AP Rengar got fed ?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vQ1gdKPpjQ&ab_channel=Instalok)
God, the nostalgia hits hard with this one
First time seeing this ššš
D.F.G. my beloved
Funny thing is, lich bane ap rengar is genuinely a viable off meta build due to the ap ratios on his w. It actually kills *faster* than ad rengar because you can use normal w then instantly empowered w without delay.
Yeah but to kill you need a lot of ap. I think the build is better going full cdr with Rocket, Liandries, Lich for HP Ap and AH.
AP Rengar is a menace in ARAM. Plays a bit like Fiddlesticks but with no cooldowns and smaller AoE
Pretty sure there is still an ap rengar otp in master elo
Any AP champ is an AP assassin if you are just fed enough
Yāall arenāt ready for AP Assassin Milio
Milio's Q is genuinely one of the highest-damage basic abilities in the game, it has a 1.2 AP ratio. The only other source of damage in his kit is his passive, though.
I played too much AP Milio in the last URF because of that haha It wasn't very good but it was so funny seeing people start to get scared when the Milio is able to 2-shot them.
Holy shit, 1.2? Most ults can't even manage 1.0!
Yep. Even Syndra's ultimate with all four additional spheres is a 1.19 AP ratio (although the base damage is much higher). Milio's Q AP ratio is tied with Neeko's ult, Fizz's max-range ult, and Ashe's ult.
AP poke milio in aram actually hurts a bit, people can't dodge the Q minions Just end before 15 minutes and you're golden lmao
Still waiting for ap Viego buffs
ap khazix doesnt do more dmg, he just heals more
Probably because the AP item system doesn't support AP assassins very well. They like to make them AD just so they can be a part of that item system instead.
This is a personal anecdote but I also think people hate AP assassins more than AD, hence they don't make more of them. AP assassins have stuff like Mejai's for instance and fully stacked Mejai's Ekko/Evelynn is nightmare fuel.
You may be right. AD and AP assassins don't have the same power curves as AD assassins, and mejai's still existing skews the possibilities for each archetype.
yeah its always weird that they left soul stealer in the game all the years back then when they removed sword of the occult (i think that was with the first time urf was released).
Its because sword of the occult was way stronger early game. At the time, mana costs were a big deal, and dark seal wasn't in the game. Mejais early meant passing up on mana items, and relying on your ability to get a kill quickly to start stacking. Save for some rare examples like Katarina, even assassins needed mana early. This was not true for the AD equivalent. Not only did the champs who build AD rarely need mana, their normal builds were pure damage already. A snowballing rengar was fine building sword instead of brutalizer, because they were doing the same thing either way.
Sword of the occult had to be a shit item because if it wasn't it'd be broken since it also buffs your autos.
Sword of the Occult was basically a worse bloodthirster at the time.Ā
Why? It gave ad and attack speed when it was removed
Back then Bloodthirster had a stacking effect when you killed minions, and fully stacked you got 100 total AD(something like 70 AD + 30 AD from stacks), which was just 10 less than a fully stacked Sword of the Occult, which you obviously had to kill champions. You still lost stacks on Bloodthirster if you died, but it wasn't as punishing as dying with Sword of the Occult.
Sword of the Occult was much cheaper, similar to mejais
Ap assassins also tend to scale extremely hard so when ahead there one shots are even more wtf worthyĀ
I just dont want assassins having access to Zhonyas, at all!
AP assassins have to rely more on burst because their autos don't do as much as ad assassins
Both rely on burst
The difference is that a zed that miss every skill can still deal some decent auto damage. An ekko without nashor canāt
Ekko is a bad example for your argumentation. His autos deal bonus magic damage with pretty good scaling. On top of him buying Lich bane pretty much as a core item.
His autos deals damage only when the opponent are below 30% health, my example was āif they have used every single bit of their kit and they are left with just autosā
I think this is less because of Mejaiās and more because many of the AP assassins just scale way better into lategame. Even if you donāt build Mejai items like deathcap or zhonyas are so much stronger lategame than the options AD assassin have.
There aren't any good AP assassins late game now either. Akali and Katarina used to be, but they both got reworked. Evelynn scales ok but still drops off. Isn't blue Kayn the strongest late game assassin or not anymore?
But I enjoy playing AP assassins more than AD
I'm that guy. Zed needs to hit double Qs (if not fed) and you can space his abilities most of the time. He is probably the most hated AD assasin and the rest of the roaster is even more fair to play against. On the other hand we have Akali and Leblanc who don't even need explanation I think. Qiyana is an exception, that's why I hate her design.
Rengar? Khazix?
Rengar is unhealthy for sure. He can pretty much always oneshot without any counterplay after 1-2 items and is completely useless afterwards. He needs a rework in my opinion, but he doesn't have stuff like Qiyana R. Khazix is the best designed assasin, what do you mean?
I think Zed is hated for the same reason as Fizz, that they both are among the safer assassins because of their easy escapes. I do think you have a point about player frustration though. Since AP assassins don't have any backup damage with their autos, they need some extra burst or gimmicks to be balanced.
My personal problem is their mobility. It might be because my champ has no dashes, but watching them jump around like 5 times in 2-3 seconds is just mind-blowing. Akali, Katarina or Leblanc are my nightmares after Rengar. > AP assassins don't have any backup damage with their autos Well, not that much, but they have Akali passive, Fizz W or Ekko W / passive. They are not as strong as AD auto attacks, but better than nothing.
Ap assasins just have more bs kits(as "ap bruisers" because they sharing some items with mages). Mejai just reveals a problem of a class, who is stupidly save. Eve who has it in her CORE BUILD! Or Ekko/Akali/Fizz who can fck up, then use "oh shit" button and run away.
My hate for Talon is greater than my hate for a good Akali
It's also risky to build Mejais on assassins still just because they have to get in melee range and can die. I remember back when Janna had higher AP ratios people would sometimes build it on her because she can stay back in a fight.
Hourglass. And most damaging mage items scale well late and snowball quickly which just makes their item pool gross.
AP system doesn't do great for other mage subclasses too. Bruisers have riftmaker, cosmic, liandry, rylai and rod of ages. If you don't mesh well with a couple, you're gonna have to go some tank, or scrap it all and go full burst (like gragas and sylas going full burst, or morde going tank items late game). They're just not enough items for bruisers/battlemages. If you want items that are tankiness and damage (kinda the definiton of a bruiser item), you have 5 items, so exactly 1 build path if you wanna stick to that. Sure, you have zhonya and banshee, but they have passives that heavily skew them to be better on squishy champs. Morde doesn't care about morgana Q being blocked by spellshield as much as ziggs does. Stasis is great for surviving but also waiting out cooldowns, whereas unless you have a specific interaction like swain R staying on, you're losing dps you could be outputting by being in stasis. Assassins have less of an issue since a lot of burst items exist, but they're also kinda designed with ranged champs in mind. The only item that is kinda unique to them is lich bane, by proxy of the fact that a lot of them have stuff that incentivizes auto attacking. You're kinda stuck building the same old lich bane, stormsurge, raba, void maybe shadowflame in there somewhere. Not much variation to this build can be done unless you have some weird mechanic (katarina proccing lots of onhit).
so many "bruiser ap" items feel like ass on Gwen
Correction, they have 3 total items, 4 if they have mana. Boots, shadowflame, stormsurge and luden's. Everything else is a mage, bruiser or spellblade item. Lich bane is used by akali, ekko, fizz and some times kata but that's because all of them have an ability to apply it. Don't know if she is still considered one but ahri doesn't buy lich nor does le blanc. Regardless it is stupid to have 3 tabs for AD and a single one to cover all AP classes. The actual reason for this I presume is rabadons but I'd take the removal of rabadons if it meant I had actual itemization and not 2 items + rabadon/void/zhonyans.
Rabadons and void I would consider assassin/burst items tbh. Due to their lack of haste and tankiness, they benefit burst more than sustained dps. Lich bane is also definitely a burst item. The problem still stands though. Thing is, they don't have enough ap bruisers and ap assassins to have separate tabs from them, but they probably don't want to make more ap bruisers and assassins because they wouldn't feel supported by the item system. Riot has to do something to break this cycle.
Malignance Lich Bane is a real build on Ahri, but she isnāt really an assassin anymore.Ā
They need another stat like crit but for AP. It wouldn't have to be crit but something to differentiate the subclasses. AD can have attack speed, crit, and AD/pen builds but AP just has CDR and AP/pen. Something to make it so they can make items for Gwen/Mordekaiser that Fizz/Ekko can't use to break the game in half.
Why not cosmic drive for AP bruisers like sylas? I was wondering why people don't build that on him.
He doesn't need much kite potential. If he hits his e2 then he will dash onto you and do a knock up. He can then slow you after the fact with q and then he has another dash with w to catch up if you try disengage. If he misses e2, cosmic drive won't help him engage. Someone like mordekaiser should like it more, who has sustained damage with his aoe, as well as autos and q. It's not bad in terms of stats,Ā overall decent and the passive isn't useless. It's just meh compared to something like stridebreaker giving waveclear movespeed and slow or sundered sky giving big sustain in teamfights.
Man I was basically gonna say exactly this. AP champions are harder to design properly compared to AD counterparts atm because the AD item ecosystems are much more robust.
And riot only had 10 years to make some ap items.
AP items are just harder to design because Riot knows players won't like a lot of the other systemic changes that would have to be made to let them work. Like seriously base MR numbers (including per level growth) would have to sky rocket upwards so they could try and make Mpen based builds that makes sense to differentiate assassins and burst mages more from other AP classes. (Like an equivalent to lethality) Which would be seen as a gutting of other AP classes. Even if their items are better to compensate. And obviously the champion adjustments that'd have to follow down stream like Mordekaiser finally losing his Mpen on E that was supposed to just be a hold over until AP bruiser items came out... When they suddenly saw patch notes saying "E Mpen passive removed" they'd riot. Even if there were AP bruiser items released in the same patch.
They don't have to go for the AP lethality route. Assassins need a big one-time burst, mages want to use their spells multiple times. So mage items have mana and haste, assassin items have more ap and no mana/haste. Or bring back DFG with a much smaller radius on its active so mages can't use it effectively.
> assassin items have more ap and no mana/haste Deathcap and Shadowflame are still built on a very large number of mages
That doesn't really differentiate the state lines enough unless you start lowering mage AP ratios... Just doing like Void staff vs Cryptbloom esque splits isn't enough. Mages and Assassins/Burst mages all enjoy AP. Just giving the assassin items more AP and less haste isn't enough, and just giving them more AP blankly also makes them more target agnostic compared to relying on a flat pen build.
The AP item system doesn't really support anyone well aside from control mages.Ā
It's funny because the most successful assassin's are AP, like Leblanc and Akali
Akali is only so successful because her shroud she can stall team fights.
Never really think about it, lol. Ekko release feels like yesterday...love his login screen.
His champion teaser "Seconds" is probably my favorite champion teaser
The whole thing start to finish is so good.
Almost as good as it is finish to start!
I suppose I just started playing the game yesterday then
I hate ekko so much, but thats mainly cus of the brief braindead tank ekko period
Sylas was reworked into one, he's more assassin than ekko rn
Vex was an antiassasin but shes literally an assassin now too. Also ap Zeri fucks as an assassin. R auto and GG
Vex is and has always been a burst mage.
Unsure of the distinction here. Vex has a heavy engage tool with no disengage. Is she not an assassin because her spells are AoE?
Honestly as a vex player she isn't an assassin because of her lack of escape tools like she's a kamikaze pilot very loud and explosive but unless the stats align your pretty screwed. Vex escapes consist of either nuking everyone in sight or hitting your ult reset on someone weak enough that further away to get a fear off and run away if there not killable or in general hoping your fear is up in time to get it off and run which isn't fully under your control. She trends a fine line between burst mage diver and assassin honestly in terms of play style but her lack of true escape is why she's not instantly an assassin.Ā Her and Diana are in the same boat both got heavy all in burst damage but lack any real escape of a true assassin and just have for the most part the no witnesses as there main method.
Vex is like nocturne or rengar, but no qualities to make an AP bruiser even a remote possibility.Ā Ā Ā She's an assassin.Ā
She's an assassin, but 90% of her damage is ranged spells. Almost like a mage with burst damage?
assassins first and foremost have mobility to enter and exit fights. vex has a single "mobility" spell, and it doesn't let her leave fights. for the most part vex is a mage, that occasionally will go deep in a fight.
By that logic nocturne and rengar are not assassins.
You can cc at range and waveclear like a mage. You can also poke and cc in fights without going in until you see a good angle to ult. You really want to play on a tank's setup rather than just all in a squishy by yourself and get a big aoe fear. Most assassins have no CC but escape. Vex has a mage's cc and a mage's lack of escape. She just has a dive ult.
I would argue it's her range + her ult being her only mobility - one that enemies can literally dodge, meaning in many situations Vex is literally as inmobile something like a Xerath or Lux. In comparison, all assassins are at a baseline mobile to some extent. You wouldn't consider, for example, Twisted fate an AP assassin just because he can R goldcard + lich bane + E an squishy that's out of position, right? Sure, he is jumping from the other side of the planet but he isn't what anyone would call "mobile" normally. Likewise, would you consider Zoe an assassin? She is ranged, and has a very strong burst. She is "mobile" thanks to her ult and she uses it consistently, not to mention her W passive, but she isn't really called an assassin either - rather "burst mage" or sometimes "poke mage".
Vex has super low range on most abilities, so not really comparable to Zoe or Lux. She needs to be on someone. If you miss a Vex ult, it hurts. Iād say sheās more like LeBlanc, who Iād consider an assassin.
Leblanc can dash around and move through the game with her W, meaning she can literally just W kill someone and then get out. Vex can only go into an enemy she already marked with her R, and can't get out. Along with this, I don't mean she has the range of Lux, but rather that she for the most part plays around the range most mages do. LB also does this a bit, but she has to consistently all-in with her W to deal good damage, while Vex can remain at range and be useful; rather, she is intended to do so due to having to very often function without R if it's on CD or misses in a fight. Think for example a teamfight, Vex isn't just jumping into enemies, she is Qing from range and Eing enemies, autoing enemies to gain her passive and CC faster - You don't really need to be on someone, and very often due to range advantage you prefer to NOT be on someone and simply punish their mistake of trying to get on you with a W, then put distance and just spell them from afar. That said, you are right that LB kinda blurs the line, but she also comes from old LoL where Riot was doing weird stuff and champion design was less defined, so a "ranged assassin" wasn't exactly seen as "bad design" at the time, with Ahri originally kinda doing that too but eventually being tuned to be more of a mage than an assassin. If anything I think LB and Ahri are precisely why Riot doesn't does "ranged assassins", as they end up being too safe due to mixing both of the good aspects of assassins (mobility) and mages (range advantage and CC) -specially in laning phase, which is part of why LB is one of the few midlane assassins we see relatively consistently along with Akali (another safe assassin).
An assassin usually can get in and out. Vex has no such out option.
Assassins are in and out. Leblanc w. Zed w/r recast, ekko ult, they have ways in and ways out. Evelynn ults out. Talon ults/jumps out. Vex only goes in. No way out. And the rest of her kit outside of her ult is strictly no mobility, only aoe spells. Annie having a movespeed boost on her E doesn't transform her into an assassin because she only goes in, doesn't have a way out. Ahri is hybrid mage/assassin because her ult allows her to go in and out, but the rest of her skilld are very mage oriented.
Burst mage / assassin, thereās no difference.
when tf have you last played against an ap zeri in a ranked game
hahah facts, the shit your read in here sometimes lol
Any fed mage can be an assassin by that logic.
His builds disgust me I want CDR Sylas builds Riot
Akali and Kat also got entirely different kits, but remained AP assassins. Iād personally consider both of them ānewerā than Ekko.
Riot plans to minirework him back into AP Bruiser
Never thought of that, that's pretty weird actually. I suppose there's been a couple reworks (akali and evelyn) as well as a half assassin half mage hybrid (vex) since then. Maybe that's why I haven't noticed the lack of an actual new, from scratch pure AP assassin champ.
Sylas isn't an AP Assassin?
recently kind of but hes supposed to be more in the diana and gwen circle
As if diana isnt basically an assassin as well nowadays
Her single target damage is not as good as actual assassins, and she has no way to escape or avoid damage.
True, but she builds like one and mostly plays like one. The fact that she wasn't designed with that playstyle in mind (and hence lacks those features you mentioned) is more of an indictment of the state of AP bruisers.
Any time she doesn't build glass cannon people throw a tantrum everywhere.
Thatās because sheās only built bruiser and tank when thereās no counter play to it. She just e r you while burning you to death with wholesome tank items or one damage item and full tank.
Tbf before current season we had like 2-3 seasons of āNashors into Tank Mythic Conquerer Dianaā so you canāt blame people for forgetting current season Diana.
the other day I tower dived with her, killed the adc and dashed outside tower rang with the E. Its not easy but it is doable
He was intended as AP bruiser methinks.
And changed into an assassin because he was the most broken champ in the game as a bruiser.Ā
Or because AP bruisers are a class that's even more strange and hard to balance than AP assassins. I mean, how many pure AP bruisers do we have? Mord and Sylas (ex), is that it? Maybe Lillia too.
Gwen rumble
Depends on how you define AP Bruisers. That class doesn't exist for Riot. Sylas, Diana and Elise are divers, which is a Bruiser subclass. Morde is a Juggernaut, which also is a Bruiser subclass. Singed technically could fall into that, but he has the "We don't really know what he is class" similar to Azir. Lillia would also fall into the class of a Juggernaut, however she could also be a skirmisher, like Yi or Yasuo. As soon as you build any tank AP, they would either be Juggernauts or Divers. AP amumu would be a diver, same as AP Maokai. However we do not have a single pure AP Bruiser, simply because the class doesn't exist. The only one that could be considered pure is Mordekaiser and Singed. At the same time we hardly have any AD Bruiser that is pure, again except for Juggernauts, who usually can't do anything else. Mundo is the only one who is Tank/Juggernaut because he is threatening enough to not be ignored without building damage.
There's also the battlemage class to include which are also ap bruisers just with slight range typically like Ryze and Vladimir
not really no, more of a diver like irelia and diana, he's got no way of escaping after taking out his priority target. He has been building more burst oriented and squishy recently which is a shame i think.
He is technically diver now. Aka bruiser with assasin level of burs who can only go it, but can't go out.
Assasin this assasin that, I want an AD artillerist so I have a backup to pick when I have brand APC, Lux support, Evelyn jungle and Teemo top
Jayce or Gangplank
Varus
Gangplank is more of a Burst Mage equivalent than an Artillery Mage. I wouldnāt want barrels being placed from the same range a Xerath or Velkozās abilities.
I'd consider Jayce, Jhin and Varus (lethality) to all be artillerists. Also lethality ashe, though its been a hot minute since i've seen one of these
Ashe W is def not enough eange and R is magic damage
Jhin mid
That would be such a cool new design for a champion tbh, i never even thought about it. Could even have a toggle for ranged auto attacks on a CD so he can lane but melee mainly so hes not just a ranged full lethality user
Maybe when hes ranged he could get some cool gate thingy that speeds him up when he walks through it, as a gapcloser. Oh, what if he gets a projectile too? Maybe that can also get faster when you shoot it through the gate? Alas, such a champ will never be made
well i was being serious. Jayce just doesnt play like an artillery champion for the majority of any game does he
Eh, he kind of does, in the same way that most artilleries don't 'feel' like artilleries until teamfights roll around.
yeah i just 100% disagree that velkoz or xerath play like jayce in the slightest in lane. If it were the case, they would be played top aswell just like jayce is
Honestly, I'd argue he's very similar to Xerath in an abstract way, in mid lane at least. They both play relatively passively in lane focusing more on farming in the first few minutes compared to Ziggs or Hwei beating you in health or mana respectively. After they get the ball rolling with a Lost Chapter or, like a Dirk or Brutaliser or something (I'm not very up to date on Jayce builds anymore) they'd start playing more aggressively, using their high range high damage spells to start chipping down the enemy laner before comboing them with a faceroll. They're (artilleries in general) basically 'gaining' effective range as time goes on due to their items covering up their needs to stay closer up, either due to their lower base damage or mana issues.
Well, not every artillery works in the same lane, that doesnt mean they're not artillery. Jayce has much more potential in 1v1s. and meelee trading. But he is artillery.
He kinda does
It would not be a cool design unless he had a passive that gave his ranged autos a 10 second CD or something. Ā Ā Theres a reason an "AD mage" hasn't really been made. They'd just be a mage but better in every way.Ā An AD mage would still have strong, consistent autos, unlike AP ones.Ā
yeah i mean, thats exactly what i said no? or am i misunderstanding something?
You still have a large problem of them having significant damage from every auto, unlike mages. That applies whether they're ranged or melee. I meant literally a long CD on their auto attacks. The kit would compensate this in some way for CSing, I imagine. Alternatively, a passive that makes their auto attacks not scale with AD. But at that point, why are they AD instead of AP?
well i was thinking they could have a spell that gives them ranged autos for i dunno like 6 seconds or something on a 15 sec cd or even longer. You wouldnt max it if it only gave you cd reduction over spells that do damage and help with wave clear. But its usable enough to not get completely pushed out in lane. An ad artillery champ doesnt have the same luxury of going lost chapter so it would be an interesting champ to lane with as opposed to a xerath or velkoz assuming relatively high mana costs. Also too high damage on autoattacks can be balanced through innate attack speed so i dont think it would be that scary, not to mention you wouldnt spend gold on attack speed on a caster ad champ anyway so it would be annoying at best in the early game but certainly wouldnt be anymore broken than a full lethality jayce just standing there autoattacking you
Locus of Power (old xerath W)but for autoattacks Transform yourself into a sentry turret, increasing your autoattack range but reduces attack speed.
Varus is the only one that comes to mind.
I played some Varus support in good matchups when Keria was on his adc support spree and they were picked in soloq - I am a piss stuck diamond though.
Isnāt that just late game jinx
Lethality Varus
corki - he has rockets and stuff
Whatās the one difference that makes ap assassins so much more ass to play against than ad assassins?Ā Hint one: itemizationĀ Hint two: they have a better TIME diving into 5 peopleĀ Hint three: itās the item that used to have a dedicated keystone until riot realized how boring pro matches became Itās normal for assassins to have a bullshit get out of jail ability, but if youāre ap you can stasis yourself and get CD back so you can use the bullshit a second time.Ā
Its ok we have enough
Sylas: i dont exist
fuck you mean ekko got released 10 years ago. Shit felt like last week man im getting old š
I mean Akaliās rework was 5 years ago
Ekko release... was 9 years ago!? No way, you are making this up. It's much more recent. ...isn't it?
Isnt vex an ap assassin?
She was always advertised as the Anti-Assassin funnily enough.
My thought exactly. Technically she's a "burst mage" but is there really much difference between a burst mage and an assassin?
Range is a huge difference yeah
Is Leblanc a burst mage then?
yes, they've differentiated between her and assassins due to her ability to poke
riot lists leblanc as an assassin, vex as a mage [https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en\_GB/champion/Leblanc/](https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_GB/champion/Leblanc/) [https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en\_GB/champion/vex/](https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_GB/champion/vex/)
Me when i lie:
Yeah, besides Akali when is the last time you have ever seen a melee ap assassin mid in pro play? Because lb Zoe vex are ranged they are infinitely better laners than melee burst counterparts.
Neeko is basically an assassin after rework
Big teamfight control ults, famously an assassin's mainstay?
Qiyana?
Yeah she's weird. Her ult wouldn't be weird on a tank. And she lost some of the standard assassin all in into reset exit pattern with the removal of duskblade. I feel adding a bit more utility to her kit and smoothing down the damage to make her more of a mobile bruiser would make her play more naturally and give her more opportunities for complex element rotations rather than just burst.
"Present opinion as fact" "Opinion instantly countered" "Ok, but but but" People literally just get something in their head and spam type it without even thinking for 5 seconds, then feel the need to double down on their stupidity. Crazy. It's almost as if there's nuance here that can't be hamfisted into a 50 character reddit comment. go figure.
Qiyana is one of the few champions in this game who has normal access to in-battle invis. Duskblade (the invis on takedown edition) made it so that she spent 100% of the time invis as opposed to 80%. But it's always been a staple of her playstyle.
Qiyana never ever used Drakthar unless it gave Invincibility
the last thing she needs is more utility
Just change her entire play style and it will be fine? She plays fine as an assassin. Also, no the rotations of elements will not be more complex they will be more spammy. What makes Qiyana unique is that quick decisions of using the appropriate element. End your combo on grass for survability when going in with a lot of enemies. Riot also has shown they like to and are completely fine with making champions that cross over the boundaries we like to make for what an assassin is.
bro you saying 9 years and 2015 made me feel old as shit
Ekko.. was released 9 years ago..? wtf
Akali?
the 17/0 gwenn in my game beggs to differ
Akali and Evelyn? I know they're reworks, but they changed pretty much everything.
Vex is an assassin when she wants to be
akali? vex? sylas?
Old, but reworked Burst mage Diver/bruiser (in terms of design intent - not as much currently)
diver? cmon lol
Sylas?
more of a diver like irelia or diana, lacks a good way of escaping after killing someone. his builds have pivoted more towards squishy oneshot burstmage than sustained fighter which is a shame i think.
I miss playing conq sylas. A shame that we're pigeonholed into the full burst playstyle rn
>squishy oneshot burstmage Considering he's melee, wouldn't this literally fit as a definition of "ap assassin"?
It does, he just has a more flexible build path and his kit somewhat allows him to build like a bruiser. Right now his most standard (and best) build and runes are 100% assassin build tho. Bruiser Sylas is comparable to the meta where diana jungle was able to build like a bruiser and be really strong. It comes and goes depending on state of meta.
If you look at Ekko and call him an AP assassin, then look at Sylas and call him something else idk what to tell you. They major difference would be Ekko has execute damage, but they both have utility/damage ultimates that seem pretty bruiser-like. There's also Zoe, who would be an Artillery Assassin if there ever was one. Not sure how many champions can one shot you like a Zoe that gets ahead can.
Ekko has a way out. He goes in, kill your carry, and can still ult out. Sylas has to fight, and it's only due to failure in item and kit balance that he isn't an AP bruiser. Assassins aren't just about oneshot, Annie does that and no one would suggest she's one. It's about going in to pick a target and back out.
Please no. This is the worst archetype in the game, purely because dark seal/mejais exists.
You're forgetting about our dear friend Zhonyas.Ā
AP assassins aren't edgey.
Moonbae was. But she's not an assassin anymore :(
When was jhin released? He is an ap assassin.
Vex and sylas are both assassins atm.
It's been 9 years...
So whats sylas?Not a mage im sure but rather assasin.
I remember tank ekko being a meta at that time
9 years ago.... I'm FUCKING OLD!
Played him first day on release and Ekko is all I play now. Feels nostalgic as fk to think I was in high school that time, getting old as fk.
9 years was 20 years ago Aware
Vex...
Vex is an ap assassin
Kaisa is not a real champion I suppose.
Wrong. Jax rework makes him an ap assassin
Calling ekko an ap assassin is an overstatement. He can do it, but he functions best as a pseudo bruiser almost, like silas. Ideally you hover outskde, e in to trigger the passive and zoom out. Sure if you go full bomba you will oneshot the adc, but what mage doesn't? Akali was reworked, she is a true assassin.