Table of Contents
Key Takeaways for Assassin Itemization:
- Assassins are side-laners and characters that focus on blowing up backline targets
- Assassin items have lethality, AD, and ability haste
- The most important part of itemization is choosing the passives/actives
- Later on, Assassins want to shift from lethality into armor penetration
- Assassins can range all the way into Bruisers for more sustained damage when you can’t kill squishy targets.
Assassins are characters that have tools in their kit that allow them to delete isolated targets and escape. They are mainly meant to kill backline characters — meaning that they deal with targets with low resistances and health. Typically they use a mix of spells and auto attacks to do their damage. Therefore stats like lethality and AD are perfect for assassins. Typically they want to build full burst to be able to one-shot their squishy target and then get away.
There are very few AP assassins and they usually build like a mix between Battlemage and full burst Mage, with the movement options and mythics from Battlemages and the burst items from Mages. In short, an AP assassin is a melee burst Mage.
There are some outliers like Katarina that can build a bit of everything.
The Z League app can also do a bit of everything, whether its finding someone to play with, compete in tournaments, or connect with likeminded gamers.
AD Assassin itemization
AD Assassins have their own subset of items that have flat damage, ability haste, and lethality and usually a passive/active to gap close or get out. I.E. items perfectly made for them.
Assassins also tend to sidelane, meaning you may also have to itemize a bit for your opponent even after the laning phase. Just how much you will sidelane and how the game will play out should influence your build. Most Assassins want to make sure they win their sidelane matchup to be useful, and have the first move and prio, as they are often not-so-great team fighters. It may also be important versus some burst characters to build some defensive items to survive their counter burst.
But even taking this into account, the build paths on Assassins are still rather simple. As all assassin items essentially have the same stats, it makes this less important and mainly the passives/actives that the characters need to get to a target or to get out.
Going Through the Specific Options
Gap closers like Prowlers and Ghostblade allow easier access. Edge of Night also operates in such a way as you can negate crucial CC spells to stop you, allowing you to save your utility spells.
Duskblade allows you to either get out again or reset after a kill. But you need to actually be able to kill a target to utilize it. Strong for characters that lack a natural way to survive for a reset or to get out.
Eclipse increases survivability after your trade/assassination. This is strong for characters more akin to bruisers in their playstyle or who will build into it later. It is mainly a good option for characters that don’t need the actives/passives of Duskblade and Prowlers like Zed.
Seryldas is a core item for most assassins and you should have it at 3 or 4 items to be able to kill targets now due their higher armor. The slow also helps with catching up to targets and locking them down.
Serpent’s Fang is a direct response to teams with many shield spells/passives or items. As shields are part of the effective health, Serpent’s Fang may easily increase your overall damage on such targets.
Assassins will almost always build lucidity boots due to a lack of other damage options.
Assassins can also go into crit, especially The Collector as it has lethality. But the more you auto, the stronger crit items become as unlike many ADCs, Assassin spells don’t scale with crit.
Ravenous Hydra is also a strong item for assassins as they tend to use a mix of spells and autos to kill a target — and with how assassins work — they can make sure to not die and not lose stacks. Muramana is good for spell-based assassins with mana. Both these items give a bit more sustained damage as opposed to pure damage + lethality items.
Building into Bruiser
Assassins can also pretty seamlessly build into Bruiser items as they scale with AD and they give them some extra survivability. For example, Black Cleaver is really strong due to its armor shred and movement speed. This could be a replacement for Ghostblade if you can get in with Prowlers or Spells. It is especially strong on characters that can quickly stack it up. You can also delay the need for Syreldas by building it, overall a very strong item for assassins. Assassins can build on a scale from Assassin to Bruiser — shifting their damage profile from burst to more sustained damage.
Assassins need to look out for what can catch them out while trying to get to the backline and how much armor their targets have. The more armor they have, the less lethality’s effectiveness becomes, and may instead want to shift to items like Black Cleaver and Syreldas or shift targets. The more tanky the opponents are, the more you are likely going to build like a Bruiser. Because even if they have one squishy target, you aren’t that useful if that’s the only target you can do damage to and you will have a difficult time side laning against a bruiser as full lethality.
Overall it is important to note if you can itemize to one-shot carries – if you cannot you may want to look into building more sustained damage. Sustained damage is also more useful in sidelane against Bruisers.
