Mid Assassin

[bloodwulf]

I am start to encounter points with either team builds or enemy team picks that I need to be able to play an assassin type mid. I currently play almost exclusively caster based mids (Orianna/Ziggs/Lux/Brand/Annie etc) and I feel its leading me to be a weak link at times with our team comps. I play duo queue with my wife who mains support (mostly Leona or Sona), but the rest is whatever the RNG gods give us.

I own basically every champ, just need to focus on one. In my ELO (low silver) Yasuo and Ekko are banned almost 100% of the time, so they would not be strong picks. Reason I want to add an assassin is if I am going against a bunch of mobile squishies, my normal casters sometimes struggle to catch them. Who is someone that is a good to learn champion that would be viable to climb up silver? Looking for things like ease of CS and team viability. I have always been intimidated by the assassin because they seem to have a steeper learning curve then casters, but if I am going to get better I need to add a few to my pool.

What are your recommendations? And do you have any quick tips for those recommendations?

[flyingspacesheep]

I think you can look at Zed / Fizz / Talon and Ahri (though she's a mage). Players usually don't know how to deal with them too, so you can take advantage of it.

Zed is almost always banned on my server though, he has great burst and can put in quite abit of pressure. He also has his passive to last hit more effectively.

Fizz is because his E is annoying, you can use Q as a gap-closer on creeps and W can also be used for last hitting. Only problem is pre-6 where other mages might be able to bully you, but as long as you keep your cool, I've come back from being a 0/3 Fizz to something like 14/6 later on.

I don't use Talon much but he seems to have a pretty good burst too, it seemed that way until I realized that it was actually lesser than Zed/Fizz. But he's really mobile and does really good on roams.

Lastly, Ahri was my main for awhile. Used her to get through Plat to Dia. She has a pretty strong waveclear (especially with Luden's) and all you need to do is stick a max range Q into your opponent and that'll be some serious dmg. She's also pretty mobile with the R, so you can use it to chase or run and has a disable with E.

[bloodwulf]

I own Zed, and actually played him a long time ago, but for some reason he intimidates me greatly. I really should give him another shot. I think part of my issue is I do not know how to best use his R. It never seems effective for me compared to watching streamers and such, and yet I can't figure out what I am missing.

I actually somewhat fallback on Ahri when I need mobility, though sometimes I seem to think she falls off too hard. I had a game the other night were I was quite a bit ahead of the enemy Akali for the first 15 minutes, then she just became a wrecking ball that went unstoppable, and I could not figure out where I lost her at.

Talon is interesting and I should probably give him a shot. Really have no investigated him much at all.

[Deleted]

Honestly, Talon Fizz and LeBlanc are my 3 mid-lane assassins. They're all really effective in different ways and there's no real way you can go wrong if you have those three.

Ahri, Zed, Ekko, Yasuo are all worth learning too if you really want an expansive pool, but in my experience these 4 are regular bans so they aren't 100% available. But when they are available and you get them, the game is basically yours if you're good at them.

Kassadin is also always good. He's VERY good into most midlane matchups and once you hit 6 and have a couple of items, no matter how far behind you are, you're effective and viable.

[flyingspacesheep]

I own Zed, I do not know how to best use his R. It never seems effective for me compared to watching streamers and such, and yet I can't figure out what I am missing.

I actually somewhat fallback on Ahri when I need mobility, though sometimes I seem to think she falls off too hard.

I had a game the other night were I was quite a bit ahead of the enemy Akali for the first 15 minutes, then she just became a wrecking ball that went unstoppable, and I could not figure out where I lost her at.

Popular streamers are usually really good players and watching montages will always look good (cos the bad parts are deleted). There are a bunch of ways to use R and you always have to keep in mind if your opponent has a disable to stop you right after you appear.

To be effective on Zed, you'll need to get used to all the switching so you can track your own position because he's so mobile, the least you can do is not to get lost. The 3 combos are basically just

W > R > W, this is when you expect a duel where he will come at you
or W > W > R, this is when you just want to finish off a guy without disables
or R > W > W, this is when you want to dodge something with R or if you have no HP, W is on CD and that guy is coming at you or if you want a gap closer after R (like if Ezreal uses his E to run, you have W to chase)
The last basic thing to do, is to run away from your original R position, so if they chase you, you can R back, if they don't chase you, you can just run the other way.

The problem with most people, is that they smash their buttons without thinking about what they want to do. I'll leave 2 videos of mine here, you can use the above info and try to decipher which part I used what. this is with a penta-kill, the tri-force is unnecessary, I was just trying out stuff and this is where i was a lvl 14 Zed and killed a lvl 18 Kassadin

Except for Fizz and Akali (or even Akali), assassins tend to fall off late game where your opponents have the necessary items to counter you and/or are tanky enough to stop you from assasinating someone (they would've also by now, know your constraints).

The thing about Ahri, like I said before, is the E and max range Q. By the time you get Luden's, you should be able to half anyone's HP with just E and Q, you can either scare them off lane with that so you can deny EXP/Gold, or if they stays and gets out of position, you can just R in on them and your Q does true dmg when it comes back, so you can time your R to let it hit multiple targets. I have a better video but I deleted it cos I changed my IGN HAH, but here's another one and you'll see how effective E and Q actually is.

I haven't reached my Akali rotation yet, so that's out, but she has insane vamp. They took out the Q proc on skills as she did too much dmg, too fast previously. She's still able to do a lot of dmg, but that comes with Q and basic attacks (and passive, 4 seconds refresh I think). I'm currently on Katarina but someone banned her so I tried Akali instead (that was ytd). Your weakness will be pre-6 where it's hard to land an auto. You get much better late game especially if your opponents doesn't have skills that can hit invis targets (cos Q, R, AA, W-Q will refresh and passive will refresh), but if there's a Katarina, she can just press R while you're hiding.

Talon is good because he makes people bleed (passive) and his Q does really high dmg if he's in close range. I haven't used him, so I don't know his limitations, all I know is that I just have to evade his shurikens and I can almost always outrade him on something like an Orianna. A talon that's behind will be really really hard to come back but if he gets fed, he can just press R, run into the opponent's ADC, kill and use E to jump over walls to get out.

As for what Aliez is saying, I won't expand on it cos the post will be too long. I won't recommend Yasuo if you're looking to snowball early, Kassadin is sorta like a mage counter but I also won't recommend it if you're looking to snowball early.

[bloodwulf]

Thanks a lot guys. And thanks for the videos flyingspacesheep. I am only silver 5 and my wife is bronze 2. I am trying to expand my pool so I can help her climb out of bronze hell. I think I will play some normal games this weekend with some of these champs to get a feel for them in real play. Practice mode only goes so far.

I used to play Kassadin back in like season 2 or 3, so maybe I need to look at him again. I will definitely find time to practice Talon and Zed because having a stronger AD mid would useful when your top picks AP and your jungle picks AP. I really want to pick up a snowball based champion to help win games as I typically do really well early game but always seem to fall of late game. My biggest bane is I often spend too much time roaming for ganks (only to not get any) and then fall behind in CS. My last hit game leaves something to be desired so that doesn't help either.

[flyingspacesheep]

Anyways since you're kinda like an ori main...... I just made a video on ori this week HAH

[Atraxxa]

I am start to encounter points with either team builds or enemy team picks that I need to be able to play an assassin type mid. I currently play almost exclusively caster based mids (Orianna/Ziggs/Lux/Brand/Annie etc) and I feel its leading me to be a weak link at times with our team comps. I play duo queue with my wife who mains support (mostly Leona or Sona), but the rest is whatever the RNG gods give us.

I own basically every champ, just need to focus on one. In my ELO (low silver) Yasuo and Ekko are banned almost 100% of the time, so they would not be strong picks. Reason I want to add an assassin is if I am going against a bunch of mobile squishies, my normal casters sometimes struggle to catch them. Who is someone that is a good to learn champion that would be viable to climb up silver? Looking for things like ease of CS and team viability. I have always been intimidated by the assassin because they seem to have a steeper learning curve then casters, but if I am going to get better I need to add a few to my pool.

What are your recommendations? And do you have any quick tips for those recommendations?

I think you might want to also re-evaluate your own personal play here before expanding your roster. Annie / Lux although mages yes, behave very much like assassins in the right hands. That pair carried me to gold last season. Lux is especially strong right now and annie fits into any comp so I am a bit confused by some of your reasoning. A lot of ppl also forget that some of these mages ex. Lux have incredible utility and wave clear which is something you give up when you go mid talon or zed, you cannot set up sieges as effectively. I truly do not think it's your roster holding you back, mastering some of the champions you play currently would most likely be more beneficial. Another thing is also how is you're duo performing? Do you always play together? What's your win rate with the duo and w/o? Those are things to look at as well. Hope that helps!

[Toxigen]

You have the wrong approach.

Play 1 champion and master it. Spam the same champion every single game.

Trying to pick up assassins where you're clearly drawn to playing a more farm-centric, control / aoe style mid laner is cancer.

If Ziggs is your absolute favorite champion, lovely. Play him literally every game.

[Zayv]

I main Zed and feel like I'm getting decent with him. The only downside is he has some pretty brutal counters and can't team fight well, especially late game where as mentioned, people have items to counter or nullify his Ult.

Fizz, Trynd, Ekko, and Talon for instance always screw me up. A good Swain or Viktor is also difficult and Yasuo/Ahri are stressful skill-based matchups. I also know a marked difference in my effectiveness If I cant successfully gank enemy adc's, especially if I'm falling behind in midlane.

If you're not snowballed, Zed feels really weak vs tankier champs, and even squishies you'll want to poke first. Nothing beats a crisp Zed outplay for satisfaction, but seems like there's a lot more viable mid champs you could choose. But he definitely fulfills your search for easy CS. I recommend at least looking for Zed combo videos on Youtube, so you don't do the same ult combo over and over.

[Deleted]

You have the wrong approach.

Play 1 champion and master it. Spam the same champion every single game.

Trying to pick up assassins where you're clearly drawn to playing a more farm-centric, control / aoe style mid laner is cancer.

If Ziggs is your absolute favorite champion, lovely. Play him literally every game.

I get the reasoning behind this. Become so godly with a champion so it's easy climbing but playing the same champion over and over again bores the shit out of me.

At Silver you can literally play any champion and carry. Find one or multiple champions you enjoy and 'git gud'. It's that simple.

[Deleted]

Oriana rock in everygame

[Abbey]

Talon is my favorite killer. You can play Talon now. Push your troops quickly and use your E skills to move continuously with the jungle to put pressure on. You should carefully read the two important skills, Q and R before you start playing Talon.

Best regards
Art - I love Rengar