The assassins have lost some of their power and this has led to its players complaining. In this article, we’ll look at some data and try to figure out if it’s really as unplayable as it looks. Spoiler: ni.
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The Durability Update brought with it such drastic changes that players still have to get used to. We see it from the winrates of the champions and the soloQs playing with that feeling that everyone seems more resilient.
Now, we are in 12.11, so the 12.10 cycle can be considered concluded and we can take a look at those collected data trying to understand if they are really a “dead class” or not. Small note before starting: all the information has been collected for elos ranging from Platinum upwards, not as a matter of “discrimination” but because in the elos below the one mentioned the meta is highly volatile, the builds are a copy paste of those taken from the sites, without (therefore) the concept of “adaptability” based on the matchup / enemy team and often the matches are not balanced in terms of the skills of the players, so including those data would be deleterious.
Let’s start from the base: what are the killers? What’s the concept behind them? This can often be seen from their kit and their playstyle, that is, they enter a fight that has begun, possibly from the rear or from the side in order to avoid the enemy frontline, in order to be able to do the combo on priority targets (carries or some types of support) , kill them and walk away.
Until 12.9, however, this concept was ignorable for the monstrous amount of damage they had, and there was very little the target could do to retaliate, especially if it was “fragile” (low health and low resistance). The tanks were useless, they were easily destroyed, the support tanks were off target (being basically less resistant than the toplane / jungle tanks) and the ADCs were needed just during the siege phases to attack the towers from afar. A single category of champion had killed three.
So it was clear that there was something to fix. Then comes the durability update and people start complaining. The things they complained about, though, are there, either very strong (like the enchanters) or strong enough, like the assassins ad. Those who complained that LeBlanc would be unplayable were, however, right. With this it is not argued that they are not suffering, but only that we need to change the playstyle. You can no longer afford to dive into enemy formation and hope to kill the carry before dying.
The “assassin” class, in League of Legends, being an element that is part of a very large ecosystem, must be analyzed taking into account various factors, other champions, other classes, objects to build and those that build opponents to counter them, etc … Without staying there to deepen, we can show how there are factors that do not allow the killers (and not only!) to perform well. The first is the Enchanters class, which are dominating for winrate and pickrate, being the main counter of all those champions that rely on burst damage.
The second factor, incisive for the lane phases, is the itemization. With the “Durability Update” defensive items have a higher value. A Zhonya Hourglass, for example, is much stronger than before, especially against killers and lethality. A malmortius (finally nerfed in 12.11) sent the ap assassins (who are the ones who suffered the most last patch, excluding Fizz) to the bar, while the Death’s Dance on the fighters, was another big problem for the assassins ad, being another object that was disgustingly strong especially when in combo with lifesteal objects, luckily even this nerfed.
In conclusion, it is true that assassins are a class that has lost power due to the 12.10 update, but only because they are returning to take on the identity of opportunists they had to have from the beginning, which requires cunning and patience. As a demonstration of what has been said, only in the first hours of patch 12.11 the assassins, thanks to the nerf of those objects are re-gaining winrate: coincidences? Probably not.
Obviously there are characters who are suffering, especially AP assassins, but those will have to be fixed soon: balancing them is more complicated since they share most of the items with the wizards, while for the AD assassins there is a catalog dedicated to them. Probably some help will arrive in the next patch for the Noxian deceiver given the conditions in which she is, 47.35% of winrate in 12.10 dropped to 47.08% at dawn of 12.11, for the value that the latter may have given in such a way. short period.