Gaming
Assassins have been less than sneaky in League of late, but not once the pre-season rolls around.
As Worlds draws closer to its end, it’s time for the pre-season patch and, as with all large League of Legends patches, that means a specific class gets a makeover, too. The Assassins, fairly under-utilised in competitive and under-loved in casual metas, are aching for a slew of new toys and mechanics to get sneaky with, so Riot is obliging.
Not everyone gets the full works, but LeBlanc, Rengar, Talon and Katarina are going to arrive in the gap between seasons with a fresh set of spells and the potential to make an impact in 2017. So what of the assassin update so far makes the class look so deadly?
You can’t see me
Getting the John Cena treatment, LoL’s stealthiest class of champs can expect to actually use some of that secrecy come the off season when invisibility gets a pretty dramatic rework. Invisibility itself is no longer countered by pink wards, giving heroes with a hard inviz panic button time to escape or reposition in team fights. However there is also a sort of soft invisibility now called camouflage, which can be seen by pink wards but also lasts a lot longer.
This camouflage will be more of a cross-map ward avoidance form of invisibility, making sure supports still need to waste their precious gold keeping key paths in the jungle covered in pink eyes. However the separation means some champs can double down on stealthy tactics while others diversify a bit more into choice-based gankers or roamers. Helping them do that are their specific reworks.
Huntin’ with Rengar
While a change to his Bonetooth Necklace passive means you can’t keep eating the same squishy supports for those attack damage increases, Rengar’s definitely a more adept hunter now. Each of his abilities has a better upgraded version for when you cast with full stacks of ferocity, as well as a more focused but stealthy ultimate, Thrill of the Hunt. When camouflaged for the hunt, lasting up to 30 seconds, you now only see the nearest enemy through fog of war. But this gives you a more defined target for that gank, and an easier trophy to claim for your necklace now that you can leap and crit them.
Blade-juggling with Katarina
Always one for a well-timed pentakill attempt, Katarina’s going to be a little easier to move around an ongoing battle looking for pick-offs. Before the rework, going in before enemies were low enough to die to your knife-spinning nukes meant resigning yourself to death, but now leaving a dagger in a specified position before jumping into the fight gives you a chance to jump out just as easily if you don’t get your cooldowns reset.
Lying with LeBlanc
The deceptive illusionist is a little more convincing now that her Mimic isn’t tied to the passive. Having control over when your Mimic appears, instead of just reaching a pre-ordained health level, means enemies no longer know if it’s the real you or not, making your deceptions last even just a second longer. Long enough for you to get the drop on them.
Parkour with Talon
This one’s really interesting, as moving around the map undetected gives Assassins extra value on any team, as enemies suffer the constant looming threat of an unseen roamer. Now that Talon can vault his way over walls in the jungle, wards at path crossroads aren’t as effective since he could simply have jumped into another path at any point. Vaulting also gives him a massive speed boost in traversing lanes meaning your internal timers of when to start worrying since the last time you saw him on the map mean less. And when he does arrive, his new wounding passive ensures you’ll really feel that knife in your back.
Lethal tricks
All these changes to heroes and stealth are tied together nicely by a few reworked items, too, including a whole revamp of the way flat armour penetration works. Most Assassin items didn’t really offer much other than boosting your damage into the beyond, so there was a rote itemisation which was definitively better than any other to increase your burst. But now there’s more options on the kind of damage and playstyle you’ll be carrying out from the shadows, so some diverse tools to help that along are most welcome.
Flat armour pen, now just “Lethality”, scales with enemy levels so you can’t just out-damage anything on the map with a few simple pick ups. But to compensate, items tie into the new camouflage changes to encourage subtler playstyles. For instance, the new early game Poacher’s Dirk will transform into the stronger Serrated Dirk once enough enemy jungle creeps have been stolen, aided by your new sneaking skills.
Assassins that like to drop in and out of fights can also get the new Edge of Night for a spell shield active in a pinch, while also getting a tonne of movement speed and magic resistance. And for some champs like Rengar, Duskblade of Draktharr now alerts you to enemy ward positions when you’ve been spotted, letting you call off the hunt when the enemy has seen you coming.
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