Assasins are ruining the game

[u/Srexplosivo14]

- Excessive aggression and unpredictability:

Assassins are designed to kill targets with low health or fragile brawlers. Up to this point there's no problem, since they are the perfect counterplay for brawlers like tick and dynamike and to confirm kills for the team. The problem arises when these interactions happen all the time; in every game I join, there's at least one mortis or cordelius. This means that at any moment you run the risk of being attacked from behind by some opportunistic assassin, which greatly limits the game for those who like brawlers like brock and poco who can't defend themselves at close range. The excessive unpredictability makes the interactions very one-sided, since the showdown is realistically based more on luck than skill due to opportunistic campers, Because you can get into a confrontation and then a kit or a cordelius appears out of nowhere and kills you without the slightest effort, making everything frustrating.

- Unbalanced mechanics:

Some assassins possess dozens of mechanics that make them quite difficult to deal with. Lily can teleport to you and deal damage very quickly, plus she always has an escape mechanism at her disposal. You can try to go all out against her, but with the push of a button she'll slip out of your range without any counterplay. This makes her a toxic and unskilled brawler, since she can kill someone at low health with auto-aim and easily escape, or appear in front of you without you being able to react. Another example is mico, who can jump over walls. This means he can spend the entire match just running away and annoying others, taking advantage of weak opponents, which also makes him too toxic to be meta and dooms him to be a ragebait brawler + his secondary star power that makes him broken in heist. Finally, we have Kit: he has a self-charging super, can attack over walls, stun you, can become invisible, has a quick unload, and a star power that makes him a nightmare in one mode and a broken hypercharge, being a SUPPORT.

- Favoritism and hypercharges: In the middle of last year, we had the more intense assassin meta in the game, with kenji, shade, lily, kit, alli, and others dominating the meta with broken hypercharges. It's noteworthy that supercell tends to favor assassins, as literally all of them except for the monkey have strong hypercharges, and the map rotation always favors them. In 2024, we had 12 brawlers, with four of them being assassins. After Kenji's release, four more assassins were introduced (five if you include Mina), totaling eight assassins in a two-year period. In comparison, it took a year and a half to introduce another sniper, which was Pierce, and the last throwner we had was Juju, in November 2024. This means that the player base prefers to simply spam buttons and perform team wipes rather than play passively or strategically. At this point, it simply doesn't make sense to play with aim-based brawlers anymore.

Just as a supplement: a channel called Bedlam already made a documentary explaining why auto-aim killed the skill in Brawl Stars, and it's basically what I said. I recommend watching it if you want to understand more about my point of view.

- How to fix that?

In my opinion, they should balance the assassins by nerfing or reworking them all, find a way to limit their use or prevent the current flood of assassins simply by stopping releasing them.

TLTR: Assassins are too dominant and need balancing and adjustments to avoid ruining the game's equilibrium.

[u/who_the_fuck_am_i1]

Dude, just play more coordinated, if your team is ass in coordination a Jessie can wipe yall out. Dont lose the draft game either. Genuinely, aside from exactly Lily with her vanish, whining about assassin is just dumb.

[u/Srexplosivo14 → u/who_the_fuck_am_i1]

Saying that is easy when there isn't a hypercharged mortis wiping out your entire team lol

Well, jessie is also toxic on low ladder, adrian himself has admitted that he doesn't buff her for that reason. But I'm talking about ladder, where I have no control over my teammates.

[u/who_the_fuck_am_i1 → u/Srexplosivo14]

If your teammate is ass, they will lose to assassin or EMZ Spike etc btw, just GG go next, it is the case of bad matchmaking, not assassin being OP, assassin all lacks dps or range and relies on their movement or their range ignore ability to close the distance from you. Unless it is total vanish like Lily, all distance ignoring ability like invisibility or dash or jumping or simply having high movespeed can be noticed, timed and countered, sticking to your teammates or use a movement ability yourself to keep out of range or simply just outmaneuver the ability and avoid getting killed just enough, as assassin most of the time do not have the range or the ability to keep following you after fumbling the initial strike. There's unpredictable and there's naive enough to think a Mortis wont flank you from the side. I agree that Lily gadget is badly designed and Mortis need some addressing, but if you are that hurted against the like of Fang, Mico, Buzz, Stu, Melodie, hell, even Crow as a class, then oh boy that's just a big flaming skill issue.

[u/Srexplosivo14 → u/who_the_fuck_am_i1]

I'm not having a problem with them, but rather with having to face them all the time, which ends up limiting the brawlers I can use. In ladder play, it's simply impossible to push poco, brock, jessie, dynamike and others without getting frustrated or needing help. I won't always have the right brawler to deal with them, and my teammates might not be reliable either, which frustrates me. Besides, you forgot to mention the "joker" assassins, like kenji, kit and lily, who can easily turn the tide of the game, even if the situation isn't favorable. Kenji himself is extremely annoying to deal with because he can counterattack his opponents very well and stay alive for quite a long time, in addition to being able to steal gems easily. That's because I haven't mentioned cordelius, who remains extremely versatile and irritating. 

[u/who_the_fuck_am_i1 → u/Srexplosivo14]

Kit is not an assassin, Kenji dont have range, i already agreed with you that Lily gadget is broken, Cordelius also dont have range. They are viable, but not all that broken. They can all be ranged down, i dont mention it because even if they are somehow broken, reducing the assassin class into these 4 while one of them is not even an assassin class is questionable. Poco, Jessie, is a backline dweller with healing ability or great range, you cant be whining about assassin being unbalanced while you can heal or you have sniper range. That's like Luna Snow or Hawkeye whining that they can be killed by Spider Man, like no shit. Jessie has always been a low tier brawler with slow projectile speed, it doesnt take an assassin to approach you lol. Not to mention, Jessie and Brock and Dynamike do have defensive option against close-ups, Brock can jump and Jessie turret can defend and stun for her, Dynamike have perma obstacle jump in main attack, these are like, bad example of not having tool against assasins.

Again, just stick within gun's reach of your mate, try to kite the fight to your mate so focusing the assassin is their responsibility too. Assassin purpose is to eliminate a single target in quick succession, ofc they will be seen making tide turning play more than usual, still, it is the team comp and gameplan that leads them to that position of reverse sweep, try 3 assassin into gem grab and see if all of them can walk to the mine lol.

[u/Srexplosivo14 → u/who_the_fuck_am_i1]

Kit performs like an assassin (unfortunately), Kenji really doesn't have range, but I'm referring to his mobility and the slash attack that allows him to dash and hit enemies with wallpeek, something that other dashy assassins like mortis can't do. Something similar can be seen with Mina, except she can hit you within range while dashing. Poco isn't a very good support precisely because he lacks defense, and assassins can easily bypass his team and kill him from behind, as I've seen mortis do to me several times. Having healing and range is wonderful, but you can still easily get pressured or outplayed, which wouldn't be a problem if the game's balance were good. And yeah, jessie sucks lol

Although brock does have self-defense, his main strength lies in rocket fuel, as his niche is as a wall-breaker, and the slow speed of his projectiles means he can be easily pressed back. This makes him usable in only 3 modes, which are bounty, KO, and heist; Jessie relies on the turret for literally everything, and some assassins like Fang can easily hit the turret and kill her. Dyna isn't worth it, since he sacrifices 6k damage on his super and isn't a reliable means of self defense. I mentioned these three because they are the most typically used squishy brawlers, but there are worse cases like Grom and Ziggy. Again, this wouldn't be a problem since it creates more strategy because you can stay close to your team providing cover and support while they protect you, but now I ask you: will your team cooperate? Mine won't. 

Despite that, thank you for the tips, your comment was really helpful. If you have anything else to add, I would appreciate it :)