Eat_box wrote:I wish Ganelon were here. He could explain it better than anyone could.
I haven't been needed. I
have been watching.
Before I even get into the differences between AP and AD assassins, it's rather important to establish just what an assassin in this game is. The most immediately recognizable quality is that they are capable of choosing their targets, reaching them regardless of the obstacles in their way, and dealing large amounts of damage very quickly, often enough to kill or seriously injure anyone without defensive items before cooldown timers become an issue. These qualities typically manifest in Riot's design as a lack of important skillshots (people can get in your way otherwise), a gap closer (simply the easiest method to get to your target unhindered), and one or more high damage single-target burst abilities to help you do your job before anyone manages to stun you. A less common but extremely important type of skill for assassins is the escape skill, and this is usually what separates the good from the bad. Shaco isn't a great late-game assassin because his only escape skill is also his gap closer - he can only get in or get out, which just isn't safe in the midst of a proper teamfight. Akali and Talon are better because they both have dashes and the power to go invisible to drop attention from themselves on separate abilities. You see less Akali and Talon players dying before they accomplish anything in teamfights because even though they stack damage items relentlessly, their abilities cover the holes left in their survivability.
Now then, the primary difference between an AP and AD assassin is that AP assassins can only deal damage from their abilities while AD assassins also get auto-attack scaling. This means that guys like Rengar are
expected to auto-attack in order to compete with their AP counterparts, and as a result most of their abilities won't be as powerful, except the "heavy-hitter" which is almost always an auto-attack replacement. Usually, the increased need for you to stay on your target in order to do this is compensated for with slows and/or movement speed buffs (see Nocturne for this. Not so much burst damage but good luck getting rid of him), and by necessity, better tanking capabilities since your opponents have so much more time to react. The tanking becomes less important the more assassin-like the champion is, simply because your greater damage output (in whatever form it takes) will put you in danger for far less time. Talon and Shaco make good examples here because their burst damage is comparable to casters, but guys like Nocturne and Rengar need spell shields and self-armor/MR buffs respectively to keep them around long enough to finish the job.
Eat_box is absolutely right when he says that you're going to die constantly if you try a full-assassin build on Rengar. His weakness lies in the fact that his passive is a situational gap closer that your enemy has too much control over, and his ultimate is his escape skill... when you aren't forced to use it like a gap closer because a fight started on the enemy team's terms. He has the qualities of an assassin but the design is incomplete, leaving him to the same kind of problems Shaco has where he can gank and he can get into a fight, but he's dead meat if things ever go poorly, and you can't play an assassin by just waiting for teamfights to start playing in your team's favor before you show up, or your team might as well be fighting 4v5.
So, my suggestion? Do what the Shaco players do. Jungle, gank like hell, and hope that the early momentum you bring to your team saves them. If it doesn't, get a Guardian Angel or Banshee's Veil and wait for the attention of the enemy team to be focused on something that isn't you. It's easy to force people to give up on waiting for you to strike when there's four other champions still in the fight and demanding their attention, but it's also very important that you do so. Just remember that you're always going to be walking a thin line between "waiting for an opportunity" and "leaving your team to die without even trying to help".
Ignorance is not the same as innocence.
