AD Assassin Win Rate is Below 50% Across the Board

With the preview for patch 12.11 coming out, and assassins seemingly getting some buffs which look like they are reverting the durability changes, the player base is, understandably, up in arms. Is it really needed though?

Is this the product of assassin players just being too used to their champions' overpowered nature, or are Riot Games right in their thinking that the cases needs some help to get them back into the game.

Are Assassins Weak in Patch 12.10?

Ever since the durability changes came out, two champion classes suffered the most from the said changes. Those are, of course, the mage and assassin classes. Fortunately for the mages, and unfortunately for the assassins, the magic resist stat is far less useful than the armor stat, making the assassins draw the short end of the stick.

Of the whole class of champions the only ones to have a win rate over 50% are the AP or the unorthodox ones anyway:

• Talon - Win Rate:48.96%
• Pyke - Win Rate: 50.41%
• Rengar - 49.07%
• Shaco - Win Rate: 47.29%
• Kha"Zix - Win Rate: 47.38%
• Zed - Win Rate: 49.4%
• Qiyana - Win Rate: 49.05%

As it stands, it seems that the changes Riot Games intend on implementing are needed. After all, though the meta of assassin supremacy is an annoying one, nerfing them into the ground isn't healthy for game balance either.

What Buffs are Assassins Getting in patch 12.11?

NO assassin themselves is outright getting a buff in patch 12.11. Instead, Riot Games are focusing on the root of the problem, namely the fact that the durability update has worked far too well in removing the advantages AD assassins have over other classes in the game.

What makes AD assassins so powerful is their quick early game scaling, with cheap but powerful items leading to a snowball gameplay. In exchange, they fall off heavily into the late game. However, the buff to base stats that was given out with the durability update negated the advantage that assassins get through their quick gold generation and core item acquirement, effectively defanging them.

What Riot Games are doing now is buffing the core AD assassin items, specifically, the lethality stat found therein. This way they are not reverting the durability buff, but in actuality making assassins scale far healthier, with their early game scaling still being slower than before, but their late-game scaling not falling off as hard, something that was a problem on achieving before.

All in all, this should prove to be a beneficial change in the game, if executed correctly.