The Juice Assassin Guide..

I haven't played assassin that often, so am probably not the best one to be writing a guide on how to play. However, using these strategies and endorsements I am able to go 20+ kills with less than 10 deaths pretty consistently in most games. Therefore I figured it is worth sharing how I play assassin incase some people are struggling, or finding it a difficult class to play.

This guide will focus on the 'juice' assassin.

For a standard killing assassin then I would recommend Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking found at http://www.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2669.

Endorsements

Their are several ways to play the juice assassin. It's an extremely flexible class in terms of endorsements, and I don't believe there is a tried universal best setup for any class. Classes need the flexibility to suit you're playing style, without that you won't be doing as well as you could be. Here are several suggested endorsement set-ups I would recommend:

My setup: 1) Defense, 2) Juice, 3) Skill-Up

The reason for this setup is it maximises lifespan within the game. There's little point of getting juice just to die before you're about to max it out. It defeats the point of the class etup.

On a more broader note this is the guidelines to the setup:

Setup: 1) Defense/Juice 2) Juice/Defense 3) Anything.

This setup allows a lot more freedom, if you want to play more defense then go for defense as the gold endorsement, if you wan't to play aggressive go for juice. The bronze endorsement choose as you're weakest point, what you believe gets you killed the most. It'll be different for every person, so choose wisely.

Skill Progression

1) Level 2 Passive
2) Level 2 Cloak
3) Level 2 Dash
4) Level 2 Smoke Bomb
5) Level 3 Passive

Past this it's not essential to level up cloak, dash or smoke bomb again but it is beneficial. If you've got the money (which you should be raking in once you hit level 3 passive) then upgrade:

6) Level 3 Dash
7) Level 3 Cloak

I don't see much benefit in the level 3 smoke bomb, if you have extra money and all you're turrets are upgraded then upgrade smoke bomb. Otherwise plant the rest of you're earned money into turrets, gremlins or juice.

Gameplay

Summary - Juice assassins should focus on getting juiced up. The quickest way to do this is by killing bots and weak turrets (don't attempt to kill level 3 lazer blazers alone). The second focus should be defense, you don't want to die to lose the progress you've made on you're juice meter. Keep upgrading you're skills and upgrade/build a turret if you're struggling to defend the money ball. I personally don't waste money on gremlins until late game. Prioritise skills and turrets first.

Early game:
Upgrade you're skills first. Upgrade you're passive skill and dash to start with. Then focus on killing as many bots as quickly as possible. Collect the juice icons that drop from the bots before anything else. Get money & speed secondary. The best time to kill pros is early game for assassins. They don't have high defense yet so you're grapple is still quite lethal. Take advantage of this to keep killing bots when a pro starts giving you hassle.

Mid-Game:
Keep upgrading and killing bots. It's really important to start keeping you're distance from other players that you can't single out and stab in the back. Especially watch out for tanks and assaults, these are probably some of you're more deadlier enemies. By this point you should be earning juice every few minutes at least. If you're not, then you are doing something wrong and it's a good idea to review the way you are playing you're assassin. Are you being too aggressive, or not aggressive enough? Are you being team killed often? Have you not earned enough money? You must evaluate your own performance to realise what's going wrong and how to fix it.

Late/End Game:
The hard part is over and you should have most of your skills maxxed out. Overtime will be apporaching and there should be just blackjacks now being released. Money will come in quickly if you focus on taking out the bots. Use smokebomb if you start getting fired at/noticed. If there's an enemy support healing a sentry use it as an oppurtunity to get a free juice (in fact do this all game) by using you're shuriken launcher. If not you can use it on enemy turrets outside their range in the enemies base. You're main aim is to focus on getting juice now over money and kills.

JUICE
So you finally collected enough juice to activate. So what does a juiced assassin do to help the team exactly? Well a juiced assassin, can take out at least one side of enemy turrets using juice by themselves. This is perfect for escorting bots, as bots will have no chance at getting to the moneyball whilst turrets stand in the way. If you can get an early juice, the game can be over really quickly by taking out the first two rocket turrets and giving pro's hassle early game. Use the RB dash to go from turret to turret to get extra damage/take out any pro's standing in the way once juiced.

If they're are no turrets just kill their pro's by using slash (not grapple) and RB dash, as well as their bots. If their moneyball is dropped attack it with everything. If you want to make money then use the shuriken launcher, if you wan't to do damage use your sword. If you get juice near overtime then go back to you're base, stay safe and then juice rush once their moneyball is dropped.

Once you're juice is about to run out, hit cloak and dash. If things get desperate smokebomb upto the overhead platform in the enemies base and cloak up there and make an escape into the middle. You don't want to die, ideally you want to make it out of the base alive.

Key Points

- This is an objective based assassin and not an intentional pro killer. Keep that in mind when playing because if you get distracted by trying to kill every pro you come across you will die often. Focus on the bots and turrets!

- Upgrading you're passive skill is a MUST! Use you're initative when upgrading the other skills, buying turrets, releasing gremlins or buying juice.

- Especially stay away from assaults and tanks where possible. They are you're deadliest enemies.

- If you want to chase kills do it early in the game before pro's have the chance to upgrade their passive skills. It will get harder to chase kills as the game goes on.

- Use firebase supports against them to get free juice using the ninja star launcher, out of range of the turret.

If there are any questions then please feel free to ask!

One final note: The class is unbelieveably underestimated because many people are trying to use the assassin to rack up kills. This is not the way the assassin was intended to be played. In all of the games I have played the assassins are always most effective when they are making lots of money and juice from bot kills and turret kills. Pro kills should be a secondary priority to dropping that moneyball!

Hooray! My first and only written guide must be at least decent to be mentioned! I would say though that having juice in your endorsements is only good for if you die a lot as it only adds starting juice. Other than that, I agree.

^This, having something like rate of fire instead would let you strike faster, thus getting juice quicker. Gold juice spawns you with 40% juice, but if you aren't dieing that often, then it rarely will benefit you.

Aha I realised this after playing Assassin ALOT today. I wasn't sure if they gave increased juice from juice icons though? I guess not.

Oh well lets let this guide die. The juice principles during game are still important as I believe they are key to a good assassin more than anything else. Hopefully people will get the message between mine and you're guides that juice is important for assassins vinticus!

I used to use the OP's strat at first and i too found rate of fire to be just as effective. It means i can kill a group of bots faster thus be back in stealth faster thus giving an enemy pro less chance to track/shoot/kill me. I have been having fun killing bots right beside enemy pros and vanishing before they can even turn to shoot me.