Any way to counter grapples?

buy juice, let them front grapple you, juice and melee them, taunt, repeat.......they will stop...

Welcome to being Tank. ^_^

As a long-time TF2 spy and newbie to MNC, I have to agree with this. A half-decent Assassin is easily the most unstoppable thing in the game for me so far; and as for the people saying "Don't let them get you in the back", I'm finding the rate of false backstabs to be pretty high (as in, I've been facing people but taken the from-the-back damage).
That said, I've mostly been playing Support and Assault; Gunners/Tanks can generally push the Assassin away - but then they can just run away whilst still being alive...

I don't reckon it's bad enough as to be broken, but to my mind the Assassin is the one stand-out element in the game to me that's very strong.

Bolded part is relevant. Sorry to break it to you, but TF2 experience really doesn't matter much in this game.

I realise that; I was saying it in reference to someone else's comparison to the TF2 Spy earlier. It's a very different style, it does just seem that Assassins can get away with much more audacious attacks whilst surviving than any other class can. And as I also said, this is just my experience so far whilst playing over the last day or two.

Play more, it'll change.

Just stop comparing the spy and the assassin. Indeed, the assasin can take some more risks because of her mobility. However, a spy can do much more damage to an oblivious team. A spy can kill 5 players in a few seconds if they are goons. An assasin can't. So just regard them as different classes and keep in mind that the only thing they have in common is that they can't really fight head to head.

I think that's the problem, though - the Assassin basically can fight head-to-head against many classes (a good Tank/Gunner shouldn't have a problem). Her mobility means the Assassin can just flit about all over the place running down your ammo whilst occasionally getting hits in with the sword/dagger - assuming she didn't already grapple you, in which case you can survive maybe another hit or two depending on class.

Assaults deal with Sins no problem. Charge rapes her and often ringouts. Bombs limit her movements. AR is just absolute rape at short distance. On top of that, the assault is very mobile himself.

Supports shouldn't be alone to begin with and even if they are, they can still shotgun your face of and grapple you to freeze your movements. Also: fighting a support next to his firebase = bad idea. This is a fairly even fight, but supports have no business soloing an assassin.

Snipers have the toughest time fighting sins heads up, but even they can hold their own with one of the best grapples in the game and mines that limit your movements. And the smg isn't half bad either. This is typically a battle of who is the best player and also depends very much on the endorsements.

Typically a decent-good player will always win a head to head fight against an assassin. Like others have said, awareness is, in fact, the Assassin's downfall. If I know an Assassin is there, there's an 80% chance they're going to die. It's the same with any decent player.

A lot of what you said is true; much of it is probably because you've played longer and have a better handle on a lot of stuff. I suspect it will all be a bit better now I have the cash to do a custom class and use gold armor (although that in itself seems a bit daft, that there is basically only one sensible choice for the gold endorsement ).

I realise Assassins are (hate to say it, you know ) like the TF2 Spy in that very good players will cut through entire teams using it; it just seems so far that her strengths outweigh her weaknesses much more than they do in the case of the Spy. I'll now continue to play the game and be proved wrong.

Gold is only really necessary on assassins, every other class copes just fine with silver leaving you with the valuable gold slot free for stuff. Check the XBOX section for some guides, they are mostly better (also not 100% applicable) at the moment; except for the sniper guides because they don't apply to the PC version.

Thanks for the tips. Still, I believe that grapple in its current state is way too powerful and makes the game seem 'unfair'. I really wish there was some way where the person that's getting grappled have some sort of performing a 'counter' in which the player will take less damage. Perhaps a random key (combination) press or the sort.

Thanks everyone for their input.

Actually I play as a Assassin quite often and am surprised at how easy it is to grapple people. The fact that when you miss a grapple doesn't break your stealth kind of makes the game unbalanced and promotes 'running behind your target and spam the grapple key' also.

Hopefully in the coming weeks these issues will be looked at and re-evaluated.

Cheers,

-Kai

Play for another month and revisit this topic. I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, I genuinely mean it. Experience will change your mind.

An assassin with silver armor copes just fine, leaving gold for RoF. I'm personally trying out gold now too, but I still see most good assassins I encounter using silver.