Assassin FEEDBACK -- ZERO Discussion!

Since we obviously can't have a flame-free discussion over any hotly debated classes, I'm suggesting that everyone posts their issues with the Assassin here. Do not discuss other players' posts, and do not post more than once in this topic. This is purely a list of feedback so that developers may quickly skim through it to see any possible trends for future reference.

If you have zero issues you can post that as well!

The format should be issues, then suggestions.

My issues are:
-Lunge grapple's effectiveness. Lunge is on short enough of a cooldown to still be a viable escape mechanism after using it to engage and grapple a target.
-Assassin dying in one hit to level 2 charge from Assault.
-The overall effectiveness of facestabbing in a non-isolated environment. Assassins are able to grapple players from the front, then leave them crippled for another player to come and mop up.
-Effectiveness of juice on Assassin -- a class platform with very little endurance to balance out it's high damage potential becomes overbearing once juiced due to the extreme jump in raw damage potential while her fragile endurance is covered by juice effects.

My suggestions are:
-Increase the endurance of the Assassin so that it can survive a level 2 charge from an Assault without armor. The Assassin should still be very low on health, but not one shotted.
-To balance out the endurance increase, lower the overall damage output of Assassins. Face grapples shouldn't do nearly as much damage, as they require very little effort on the part of the Assassin player to achieve and leave their target extremely vulnerable, especially with level 3 passive. Overall damage should be slightly decreased; bot killing, tower killing, etc, should be slower but still effective.

Again, please -- follow the posted format (or something similar) and keep all comments on others' posts to yourself; post once, and leave the thread.

Hopefully this will be a useful topic in terms of feedback from all forumgoers without all of the inflammatory discussions that usually accompany 'sin topics.

I think she's hot, and I want more cleavage and ***. Future update maybe? :twisted:

Cooldown duration on lunges. Remedied by increasing cooldown. An issue of contention because while there's lunge-grapples and lunge used offensively (read:as intended), it's more efficient to just repeatedly lunge to escape than any other method, which is unintuitive to say the least. The players who've caught on reenact the Texas Air Massacre when anywhere close to dying.

Effectiveness of critical shurikens on the moneyball. Whether by adding damage falloff, gravity or enforced range as they are, shurikens are one of the best juice weapons to demolish the moneyball bar perhaps the Assault's grenades. Made more potent with the ease of getting to juice dispensers faster than the next guy and the ridiculous spam of lvl 3 cloak-firing.

Obscene exploitation of frame "cancelling". Resolved by enforcing completion of animations.

Impotence of cloaking. When utilized with sprint, it's next to useless which is no wonder lunge-dashing is prevalent. The loud sound combined with the <100% transparency means its effectiveness is questionable when not using it to pass bots or turrets. Lowering the distance where you are noticeable or the volume of the ambient cloak sounds would see it become a genuine tool in which you can legitimately execute a back-grapple.

Nice to see the ADF already atrophying a genuine thread.

I like her as is.

Her juice gain rate is high, her damage is good, her range is bad, and her health is bad. High reward in some areas, high risk in others.

Trading some of her damage for some more armor and range wouldn't be as fun.

That is like trading the tank some armor for speed. Trading the tank his lvl3 charge's guranteed-to-kill ability for stronger railgun, ect.

Speaking of, did I mention it is actually rather easy for someone who bothers to learn to kill an assassin. Even a juiced assassin. Easy.

To rightfully take away the assassin's abilities, she wouldn't be nearly as good as other classes (like the tank wiping an assault with silver armor out in 1 hit, charge-deathblossom), so you would have to weaken those too, until we have "core" mode in CoD where no gun does a lot of damage and everyone can simply run away from a death they don't want. Enough damage to gurantee a kill is fine for every class to have. Keeps players on their toes, keeps the game challenging while strong and tactical.

Generally, the assassin isn't even the strongest class in my opinion, especially not one to look at. That is my one post, i'll make sure others post here so we don't have a one-sided story to nerf her. Everyone else can carry on.

Issue: Assassin is the source of every complaint ever.

Suggestion: Ban all posters that complain in the future about a class that's been balanced since the early days of the Beta.

This is the biggest issue with the assassin. We do not have enough of those two things. We need more, for the sake of balance.

Please believe me when I say that I'm not an assassin ranter, not by any means. My default class is the assassin back from the days of opening week on the 360. And for the duration of my time playing the 360 version, my opinion was that assassins were underpowered. This was due to the fact that against a competent team an assassin was lucky to break even on the K/D ratio as grappling a pro was suicide. Not to mention bunny hopping was / is basically the standard (fun fact: if you bunny hop, you will be reincarnated as a rabbit; that rabbit will be eaten and it will be delicious).

After playing the PC version, it dawned on me that the assassin was (mostly) fine as is. Yes, a few small balance tweaks may be needed, but nothing too drastic. The reason for this sudden conversion? Server choice. On the 360 it's a random room join only with the host usually having a terrible internet connection. This led to the game being unresponsive, which meant the dash attack was unreliable as an escape route and grappling was challenging. Dash + grapple was nigh impossible. But on the computer all this was possible, and there was much rejoicing.

Alas, all good things must end. I've now seen the darker side of assassin dash, which I must bring up as the one feature of the assassin that need editing. On the PC, the assassin, tank, and assault all can steer their charges. It's annoying for the tank and assault, but manageable. After all, there is a skill cool down on it. Assassins bring it to an entirely new level of obnoxiousness. The magical assassin jumps and, using her glaring visage, wills the wind to steer her mid-air. It's as good a guess as any as to how the heck the assassin steers without moving.

Besides it being completely ridiculous, it allows the assassin to dive around corners every second (literally). I'm no stranger to hit and run tactics, it's how I do well as an assassin. And yes, I do use dash to escape sometimes. But steering around corners (sometimes twice) means that for most pros the assassin can escape a normally deadly ambush far too easily. This means that most assassins at certain points of certain levels are just plain invincible. This can be seen most commonly in a team's base. The assassin can dive around the outer wall with ease, forcing other pros to give chase. But by the time those pros round the corner, the assassin has already dashed around the next corner. So killing that assassin was literally impossible.

I'm not saying that you should remove the assassin dash ability. I'm merely saying that you should remove the ability to steer mid-dash. The dash was fine as a straight shot; it moved the assassin quickly, but did not allow the assassin to evade enemies from all angles like sprint. Ultimately allowing the assassin to steer is rewarding the assassin for getting into hot situations by giving them a foolproof escape. Assassins should have to judge when to strike due to their fragile nature, not just mindlessly play hokey-poky around walls.

PS: If you're feeling really generous, remove the ability from tanks and assaults as well. Or at the very least add that benefit to people who use a controller with the PC version.