Preseason 2021 is hell for AP Assassins such as Diana, Akali, or Katarina.
With Riot Games’ movement of remaking the whole shop and tons of new items being released, Preseason 2021 promised to become one of the biggest changes throughout League of Legends’ history. However, AP Assassins seem to become obsolete when they haven’t received any new Legendary items, not to mention Hextech Gunblade is now also removed from the game.
This problem is causing a frustrating wave from the community, when they don’t have anything to choose from, their friends – AD Assassins have tons of options to utilize. Most of brand new items that are made for Assassin in Preseason 2021 provide Lethality and AD. Meanwhile, our AP champions have to use items that are originally designed for Bruiser and traditional Mage. 1 user u/Eternal2 posted a conversation on Reddit and has received more than 3,5k upvote from the community shared his thoughts about this problem.
This is how he feels about the Preseason 2021:
“With the new items coming out soon I thought I’d bring up something that has urked me the most about this preseason’s item rework. The massive gap between AP and AD assassin itemization. Not only did AP assassins not get a single new legendary, they even lost an item (Hextech Gunblade). They also only gained 2 Mythics with Protobelt being basically the exact same item. The difference in flexibility in the itemization between the two types of assassins is so egregious that I don’t even need to talk about Mythics (AD Assassins probably have the best Mythics in the game) or haste builds to get my point across.”
It’s true that when we take a look at all the new Legendary items that the AD Assassin champions have been receiving, it’s obvious that Riot somehow biases this class heavily. They receive tons of strong, adapt-to-the-situation items.
For example: If you completely dominate your lane, then getting an Umbral Glaive will help you roam more effectively to help others. In case you are losing early lane trade then it’s completely normal to buy Serpent’s Fang which will counter any enemies that have shielding ability when trading or even Eclipse in some case is even better. Not to mention Edge of Night helps to block out a single spell.
The only appropriate item for our beloved AP Assassins is the Lich Bane and that’s everything we have. Aside from the core Lich Bane, players will have to rotate and browse through the store to buy Bruiser or Mage items which don’t really maximize the Assassins capability.
With only 1 item to choose from, maybe AP Assassins have to say goodbye Preseason 2021 for a while until Riot gives out better options for them.