one thing I noticed about the Assassin class

In competent hands, Assassin performs amazingly well in pub games as the other team often performs as separate units, making it easy to pick off troublemakers and kill the bots. More often than not, only one or two pros defend the base in a juice rush, making it extremely easy for an Assassin to kill off even LV3 turrets. As few players in pubs are actually good, an Assassin can almost always make a clean getaway.

Now, against a competent team, or even a couple friends working together, the use for the Assassin drops dramatically. Players are likely to travel in groups, making it difficult for the Assassin to pick off any one player and expect to make it out alive. Very competent teams even escort bots (god forbid) in pairs, going after said bots is virtually suicide. Throw in a couple Support with their hacked firebases, and the Assassin is pretty well barred from going after Pros altogether. Even juiced, a Gunner or two will rip apart an Assassin, let alone having the team focus on that lone Sin.

So, I don't know if there is a particular strategy for taking on good teams apart from being bait, however, it seems that the standard "Kill bots, kill stragglers, Ravage base" does not work at all.

Has anyone had success taking on good teams with the Assassin?

Don't blindly run in. Good assassins don't recklessly dive in unless they have the juice backup.

Use your lunge and kill bots and escape. Even escorted bots will die with how insane lunge is.

Then once you get juice just wreck stuff.

Seems like all the Assassin can do against experienced teams is rely on juice, if that's what you're saying. I hate to rely on Juice as my primary offense, so I will not do that.

If only I had a better mouse, I'd give Sniper a shot, but as it is, my mouse is the size of my pinky finger, and I can't aim for sh**.

But yeah, I'll likely stop using Assassin if I am required to use juice every time I want to take on large targets. I'll probably move on to Assault as I absolutely hate playing as either Gunner or Tank. They are nothing more in my eyes that large bullet sponges, though playing as Assault can be dull at times.

Your choice. Assassin is still quite good at killing. Attempting to do so without a juice backup is just stupid though. You can do it, but you probably shouldn't.

Exploit how ridiculously easy it is to gain juice and slaughter people while under juice. And also make use of your cash to juice then buy juice and do it again.

That's assassin.

The thing is I want to do the killing without juice.

Juice chaining is something ANY class can do and it certainly is not and should not be a required strategy for an assassin or any class, for that matter.

One thing i DO notice is that as an assassin if you have a friend playing, shadow them. It works quite well if they're a mainstay class like the gunner. I'll shadow my gunner pal and he'll start a fight with people escorting bots. I'll flank them and pick off one of the people in said fight while they're preoccupied with him and then book it. In a group scenario your job is to incite panic and break thier group. Hell, you don't even need to attack right up in some cases. Lunge in, smoke bomb to blind people, jump, cloak, back up, swing in when your friend takes someone down or somebody ducks for cover. When in a group it's about mind games more than it is about dragging the slowest guy into the shadows.

Juice chaining is an effective strategy. It doesn't matter one bit if you think it is cheap or something not to exploit, you do it because it works and to effectively press your advantage.

Not using something available to you is a bad decision.

EDIT: Play a raw killer class if you want to do it without juice. Playing assassin like a killer will pretty much result in your face getting stomped in if you try it against equivalent skilled players.

True juice chaining IS possible as any class. But no class does it nearly as well as assassin. Many classes can do it though with practice, its just by far the easiest on assassin due to her mobility making it quicker for her to build juice on bots and quicker for her to get to the juice dispenser and she has some of the most effective ability to attack turrets while juiced (gunner is more effective when not juiced but he is so slow that when juiced he can usually either play it safe and take out all the turrets on one side of the base from a distance, or try and go in and end up getting immediately double grappled.) Assassin is able to avoid grapples more easily than gunner or tank since lunge has such a short cooldown and she has naturally high speed.

If the enemy has no shave ice turret on ammo mule I can easily rush in and take out 3 level 2 rockit turrets, or their entire base of turrets if everything is level 1. As Assault I can usually only get 2 turrets and gunner 3 turrets if they are all on the same side of the base.

The gunner can wreck turrets while juiced and he can do it from out of thier attack range. The gunner performs while juiced much better than a Sin in terms of sheer power. They're also completely different classes.

Full upgraded passive mortar shots will instantly destroy most turrets. Oh yeah, and the grapple thing? HE HAS A DAMN MINIGUN. If you get grappled in that situation you left your back wide open or can't aim. Or jump. Or slam. Or just got unlucky. Juice makes a lot of people overconfident and they WILL be punished for it. I'd rather deal with a juiced Sin than a juiced Gunner. I can't imagine why you'd disagree.

Assaults are also a completely different class. Comparing thier performance while juiced to a Sin is like comparing apples to oranges. Only the orange has an assault rifle and a jetpack.

In any case, no class should be forced to rely on juice abuse.

The Sin in group play does have a much harder life than the Sin picking off loners. But i already covered that.

My point was this: If you are using minigun then you aren't using mortar and minigun takes longer to kill turrets by far. If you are using mortar than its not TOO unreasonable to assume that 2 people are going to bum rush you and try and either grapple you or knock you back or daze you via ground slam ect. If you are using mortar from a safe range then your targetable turrets are limited. You still can absolutely decimate those turrets faster than anyone else but many turrets wont be hit because you simply can't get into a line of sight before your juice runs out. You'll probably get half of the base destroyed. Of course if they are level 3 rockit or shave ice turrets than the gunner will be much better at killing them than anyone else.

Assassin has the mobility to deal with more level 1 or level 2 turrets than the gunner and since if you keep juicing often enough people wont have the time or money to get turrets to level 3 she is better at juice chaining. And if push comes to shove and its simply suicide to rush in and lunge - kill turret - lunge kill turret - lunge kill turert she does have shuriken launcher which while not as good as sword is still extremely effeccient at killing turrets from range.

I'm not trying to say she is "too good" at doing this my ultimate point was that she was BETTER at it in most situations than other classes. Better doesn't always mean unbalanced. The tank is BETTER at long range than the assault thanks to railgun, but the assault is certainly good enough to hold his own with the grenade launcher when it comes to long range combat with pros.

Exactly.

Be more subtle, use ejectors and hit-and-run bots with the element of suprise.

Also, don't pillage a base like a viking. Sabotage it like a ninja-samurai. Sneak in under cloak, juice directly behind a gunner or support and kill him instantly, then lunge a turret, smokebomb it, and destroy it, and continue steps 2-4 until juice runs out.

Also, don't always rely on juice for every target. Low-level turrets can be destroyed, if not pressured, with shurikens and smoke-bomb-hit-and-runs. Doing so gets pretty good juice if you just make sure to flee before the enemy tries to attack you back. Also, it keeps a team from fully extending, and having to keep an eye on base at least a little bit, which is why an assassin is needed in a game like this.

That's prettymuch how i play. I know when the other team starts dropping shaveice turrets after a couple games of my obsessive-compulsive sabotage and constant hit and runs that i'm doing my job. While i go about my business i've no qualms about lunging into a group of bots and making them dissapear. I'm gone before the debris hits the ground.

Then when i have juice i'll wreck that support and his firebase, all his mates who are cuddling around it for warmth.. then wreck a turret or anything else of immidiate value and get the hell out just before my juice runs dry. A 3-4 kill and a turret or two is my idea of a worthwhile juice. If nothing else, at least destroy all the valuable turrets.

I'll spend the $50 just to deny the enemy team an ejector if i have no immidiate use for it - i know i don't need it to destroy a bot wave and without it, they're forced to make themselves known if they want to hurt my bots. I do love ejector kills...

The biggest mistake any learning or just plain bad player makes is assuming that juice means you can just smash your face on the keyboard and win. That right is reserved for Assaults up close with Lv3 charge and aimbotters.


Knowing your limits and playing your role is the biggest part of MNC. The Assassin is one of the more interesting classes for it. Plus she's a real rush to play.

...I believe everything that needs to be said was already said. Too late, again! But at least the people in this thread seem to have a really good grasp on what the Sin's strengths are. That's uplifting.

I dislike having those "impossible situations" while playing a turret killing class.

Picture this: a level 2.3 rocket turret and a level 3 rocket turret at the moneyball and a level 3 firebase.

How the hell am I supposed to kill that?

than play another class?

Assassin builds juice in what? 4 bot groups? Seriously sounds like you want assassin to be the best:

bot killer
Turret killer
juice rusher
juice builder
pro killer

all while stealthed, lunging, super jumping and sprinting

Shes already too good at killing bots even when escorted and has the most mobility and can wreck bases when juiced. You do well with her and you use a tiny little finger mouse, what does that tell you?

I was all set to say something but then i noticed who posted this. But what the hell, i'll bite.

If you have gold juice, maybe. The reason sins can build juice so fast is thier ability to ninja juice pickups almost anywhere on the field. At least, that's what i find. Sure, i can melee a group of bots to death for more juice if i have a weekend free but it's much better for the team if i kill several groups as opposed to just one and grab any loose juice boxes as i zip around. I'll often lunge just to grab a couple in a hotspot and dissapear before the enemy can get them. I get half of my juice from taking them right out from under the enemy.

The Tank would like to have a chat with you. He looks angry.

The Gunner would like to have a chat with you. From long range. With a mortar launcher. I advise a sturdy helmet.

Most of the classes would like to have a chat with you. The Gunner especially. He's holding a minigun this time.

Okay, so that's maybe one.

...Can we all just pretend you didn't say that?

tinygod's back for a day and already causing trouble!

Whatever happened to that aimbotting accusation i saw? I never play with him (presumably he's on US servers) and i'm thankful i don't but i can't help my curiosity.

I'd like to point out that using the Melee button she can build up a whole bar off of 1 - 1 1/2 bot waves

As can any other class. The catch being that assassin has the best utility to get to the bots and get out if there is any trouble. Plus I believe she has the only melee attack that doesn't bug out and stop playing animations if you are repeatedly using it. (I know when I play assault I'll usually get 1 or 2 hits with the gunbutt and then he'll just stop doing it but keep building juice.)

Yes you can but it's only useful if you can get to the enemy bot spawner unnoticed. It's much better to use melee attacks to top off your juice if you can't find anymore boxes.