The Way Of The Assassin [A Different? Take On The Assassin]

Change Log

2/2/2011: Added information regarding downtime.
Added information regarding the importance of juice, and it's uses.
Modified the before you read section.
Changed description of skills from "Level X" to their appropriate color.
Added section regarding individual killing strategies.
Updated fonts to make the sections more clear.

Hello Everyone!


Welcome to my guide to being an assassin. First of i'd like to establish a few things regarding this post. Number 1: I by no means claim to be the best assassin. Number 2: Others may have different play styles than myself, and should be taken into consideration. Number 3: If you wish to dispute something, please make an intelligent response rather than something along the lines of, "z0mGZ FAILZ LULZ!!!11oneone"

Also, it is very VERY important you know that if you attempt to use this play style without a custom assassin, it will not produce as good results, and you will die more often.

So, now that that's out of the way, onto the guide!
*note numbers in parenthesis refer to the skill number in the skill shop*

Skill Description

Your skill order should be 4>2>1>3.

Q (2)
This is your cloaking skill. It is important to note that the faster you move (a.k.a dashing) the further away you can be seen. It is also noteworthy to mention that coming out of stealth shooting your shuriken launcher will result in a few critical shots.

(More to come when I think of it)

Shift (1)
This is your dash skill. It's pretty self explanatory, and vital to survival for the assassin. Again, note that using dash while cloaked will make you visible earlier, but more on this later in the strategy section.

E (3)
This skill is THE most important skill to the assassin hands down. It provides a temporary blind to people in a small radius (increasable using the associated skill-up), and also greatly increases jump speed for about 1 short second. (If you don't jump right after using this skill, you won't benefit from it)

4
While this doesn't have an actual usable ability associated with it, this skill has 2 great passive bonuses. As you level it up, this skill eventually prevents damage from falls (this is key if you want to stay hidden after a jump cloak), and also at rank 3 grants us the sword rather than the dagger. (more damage ^_^)

R
While this skill cannot be leveled up, it is also a VERY important part in multiple combo situations. This skill (providing the sword/dagger is out) makes the assassin lunge forward and swipe if she hits a target, or at the end of her lunge. More on this in the strategy section.

[Regarding Skill Leveling/Turrets]
As said before, always follow the 4>2>1>3 path, with slight variations here and there. What I mean by this is that you getting a point in your dash to make it level 2, is sometimes not as important as you putting up the sole rocket tower to be found in your base. This guide is not meant for those who have never played the game at all, and I take liberty in the fact that I assume you know how the game is played in general. Turrets are necessary, and sometimes I build 2 before I level my dash or smoke bomb, it just depends on what your team is doing defense wise.
** NOTE ** If your team is not building turrets, leveling your skills comes secondary to building them. Winning the game is the goal here, and yes killing the enemy is great, but if their bots are wailing on your money ball, you're pointless.
-------------------------------------------------

Customization
In my opinion (which is what a guide is all about right?) there are only 1 maybe 2 ways to go with this if you are to use this guides play-style. The first one is as follows:

Gold: Recharge
The faster your cloak is up..the better. The faster your smoke bomb is up..the better. The faster your...well you get it, recharge is great on any character, but especially for how I play the assassin.

Silver: Armor
A common thing to run into while stealthily sneaking around is another assassin keen to own your face. No worries, put your back to the wall and dare them to make the first move, you'll survive their frontal attack because of this armor, and then can proceed to give him the what for. :twisted: This also helps you get out of those tight situations when you've just been hit by a tank's fire beam and are goin' down fast. That little bit of armor just made the different between life or death.

Bronze: Speed
This is where the variation comes in. I take level 1 speed rather than others simply because I play an assassin as just that, and assassin. Get the job done, get out. Nothing much to say other than it helps a bit for those speedy getaways.

Bronze: Crit/Rate of Fire/Regeneration
These are the other options that I would consider switching. I think they explain themselves, so i'll leave it at that.

*Update*
After some discussion in the forum, I have been testing out Bronze RoF (Rate Of Fire), and noticed no significant speed difference in escaping. I am not sure if RoF affects activation time of grapple at this time, but it has helped with the slight quickness in slash time to get some pretty clutch kills.
Way Of The Assassin (How I play The Assassin)

*An important thing to note before reading this, is to know that everyone is killable without dieing yourself. Also, it is significantly easier early game to get kills than late game. Yet, there is a slight increase mid game. (After your first 400g)*

To start of the game as assassin, press B for your shop and immediately get 2 and 4. This gives you the lasting time on the things that matter most to you early game. Cloaking, and reducing your fall damage.

*Update*
After more discussion from the forums I would like to post this quote, as it appropriately addresses something not to do.

*(Map specific areas to target at the beginning of each game to come)*

[Early Skilling/Play]
This may be debated by some other assassins, but until I have level 3 in my 4th skill. (No fall damage, sword) I will attempt to avoid using the knife. Worst cast scenario, you front stab someone. The only way you're surviving is by firing that beast of a weapon (shuriken launcher) off asap, and proceeding to get away. All in all, assassin play is all about thinking like a predator. You see someone ahead of you, quickly think of whether or not you can nab a kill and get away, if you feel you cannot get a kill successfully, you can always harass an enemy. Hide in your bots if need be, and drop them a couple ticks with your shuriken, it's your friend after all.

*Note* There has been some discussion on the forum regarding reasons to not think like a predator, and more like a scavenger. I would agree that if your team is getting pushed into your base, the scavenger (more defensive) method is viable, however, note that when following this guide, it is your priority to keep them paranoid that you may be there at any time. In my firm opinion, an aggressive assassin is one that controls the flow of the fights between you and others, players making you play defensively is what you want to avoid. (See section regarding turrets/skilling)


[Regarding Stealth]
Also a very key part of playing the assassin class is knowing when to stealth and when to not stealth, this is what separates the boys from the men in the assassin world. (pardon the phrase ladies :roll: ) If you think you should always be in stealth, this is probably the reason you're having trouble with the assassin and looking to a guide. Stealth like other skills, is a resource, one that will make or break your escape at times. There's nothing worse than smoke bombing out of somewhere, landing, and realizing you don't have stealth, so that nice spot on the ledge there isn't so nice after all when everyone sees you.

[Regarding Smoke bomb]
Ah, smoke bomb. How I love you so.. This is a VERY important resource to any good assassin. Something i'd like to draw your attention to is the fact that it doesn't always have to be saved to use as a, "ZOMG RUN AWAY" maneuver. I personally use this offensively as well, and here's a couple ways how.

1) Using it as soon as possible to get on top of things. The most useful ones would be jumping onto the enemy bridge, or generally getting somewhere it's going to cost the other team 50g to get up. This is for a couple reasons, number 1, playing an aggressive assassin relies on gold to get level 3 of cloak and sword asap. So saving that gold benefits you, and also costs someone on the other team. Not to mention putting you in a good position for a early backstab. :twisted: Another important place to consider using this skill for, is actually surprising. After a bit of practice, you can control your jump enough to land on the walls that surround your enemies money-ball. This is VERY important, and leads to some good strategies, such as sniping the money-ball, while the team takes a bit to find you, setting up a gank on someone (god it makes them mad when they walk out only to be stuck by your sword ), or just as a method to hide somewhere to regenerate health.

2) This is also quite a good skill to stop bot waves with, which doesn't seem like much at first. However, if you look at things more closely you can see that this is a viable purpose in certain conditions. If your bots are pushed to your first turret, stunning a bot wave with this and finishing them off, and maybe the next wave as well allows your bots to push out of base, thereby ending some threat to your money-ball.

*Misc Info*

Note that you can spam jump and use the smoke bomb for an extra nib of height, not sure on the significance, but I end up doing this anyway on instinct now.)

[Regarding Dash/Sprint]
This is another skill where it's important to know when to use it, and when to save it for when you need it. As with the others, dash is a resource, and must be treated as such. Using your R dash is good enough for most travel, and dash should only be used in circumstances that put you closer to a kill, or further away from harm's way. Running around with it on just to travel is most of the time not so worth it. (unless the enemy is pushed to their base and you're just trying to get there asap) Since this skill will be lower ranked for a bit, just keep in mind that you need to conserve it. An assassin without her skills is..well.. S.O.L.

[Regarding R "Attack Dash"]
This skill is quite useful in a couple ways. Number 1, as mention above it can be used to traverse distances quite rapidly when you are uncloaked. Number 2, you can dash onto jump pads and have the attack go off as you're landing. Number 3, combos. The most common combo is R into the enemy and follow up with a stab because they can't do anything about it if you do it quickly enough. Another important thing to note is the viability of this skills as a offensive dodge. What do I mean by that?

Scenario: You're running after an assault, and just as you go to back stab him, he turns slightly sideways, next thing you know, you're initiating the front stab animation. There are 2 things that will probably happen. Number 1, he charges you, you'll survive if you hit a wall, otherwise you're off the map. (Armor 2 can't save you from that ) Number 2, he misses and you finish him off. A way to ensure number 2 happens (most of the time of course) is to spam R right as you're coming out of the stab animation. This causes you to A:End up slicing him before he charges, getting the kill. OR B:Moving past him as he charges behind you. (this is an ok turn out as well) If you get away like this, it's sometimes best to leave the kill in favor of surviving, but most of the time if you are confident in your ability you will succeed in getting the kill. This is an offensive dodge.

(Reserved for more Class Specific Strategies)

[Class Specific Strategies]
Ah, the greatest part of an assassin, learning how to take down any character. Without further adieu, let's begin.

TANK
Ah, the lovable tank. Big, egg-shaped, and strikes fear into assassin's hearts. (right? ) When it comes down to it, this guy is all about defense, so it's important to know his skills. There are two scenarios that typically occur when I go after a tank.

1) I see a tank running (more like walking to us assassins!) across the map, the first thing I think about is whether or not he has Gold or Silver defense. If you know he has gold defense (impossible to know at the begging of the match, and will probably take a death to find out) then it's best to either not go for the kill at all, or pummel him a bit with your launcher. If you're feeling crazy and decide to go for the kill, you'll need about a clip to hit him before you can take him from behind. If after firing your clip of shruikens, if anyone else is in the vicinity besides another assassin (here come the comments regarding how this is a bad idea) then don't even think about going. You WILL die, even if you kill the tank, the BEST case scenario is you escaping with a sliver of life. This is because the assault will instantly try to charge you (you better be spamming that smoke bomb like no tomorrow), the sniper will kick you miles away (survivable if they didn't shoot you during your grapple, which many players fail to do), the gunner will yell home run and knock you into oblivion (again survivable if they didn't shoot you before, providing you don't land off the map) the support will introduce you to Betsy, his nice, fun loving.. SHOT GUN OF ZOMG IM DEAD. (No but seriously, shot gun + sin, bad.) The reason why I would go in if it is only another assassin there is because, like most players I have seen, the assassin not be shooting you, they will be expecting to get a back grapple on you. During the animation for back stab, I am constantly spamming space and E, worst cast scenario, you jump and she still manages to grab you for a face stab. You survive from your defense, and can normally manage to get away. (Up for debate I bet)

2) He's been hit once or twice, and decides to retreat. Time to get it into predatory gear and do your thing Unless this tank has used his passive to full health himself, he won't recover most times if you are close enough, and even with gold armor, you can definitely get an R slash off, and successfully dodge his charge should he do one. (Note you will still take damage similar to the smoke bomb dodge)

*Overview* If the tank has defense at Gold or Silver, it is most of the time not worth it, and should be avoided for sure late game. Early game, it's possible to kill the tank through the means mentioned above. Possible, but not always probable.

SUPPORT
What's that? The support can't hear you over camping in his fire base.
90% of the time you find a support he'll be camping, steadily moving up his fire base closer to your actual base to push creeps. This is a tricky situation, but definitely can work in your favor most of the time since we have Silver defense. There are again two situations you will find yourself in when facing a support.

1) He is camping with his fire base. Things to consider here: Is he in a corner with his back to the wall? Is he running around while healing his fire base? Does he have either a gold or silver defense?

Answers: With his back to the corner, it's most important to take out his fire base from range using your shruriken launcher. He cannot heal his base faster than you can take it down. This will make most supports back up, or even go to another side to find a teammate. This is what you want, and you know what to do now. (R charge to the grapple stab to finish him.)

If he happens to be running around frantically healing his fire base, you either follow the steps above, or skip right to the stab. You will 90% of the time take out the support, and make it away from the fire base without dieing. This again is a risky thing to do.

Providing the support has stacked defense in either silver or gold, it's important to shoot him from a distance before going after him, or just don't go after him at all. This is the case with most people who decide to stack defense.

Assault
Pew Pew Pew, that's all you'll see from him. Again, there is two situations to the assault that you need to be aware of.

1) Most assaults will instantly jump into their air and hover/shoot thinking to reveal you, this is why a run-by is the best thing you can do. When you sprint by him, if he fails to fly into the air, initiate the R+Grapple, and get away. If he does jump then it is important to back off some, he will be spraying bullets, and worst case scenario hit you and reveal you. If this happens, even though it sounds crazy, turn off you cloak, (if it is below level 3) you will be wasting it since he will see you anyways. Get behind a wall and re-apply the cloak and try to catch him off guard.

2) Situation two is that the assault will see your dash dust, and begin shooting you immediately, again follow the steps above.

*The other classes will be updated shortly, but will be put up A.S.A.P*


Thank you sincerely for reading this, and I hope you took something of importance from this guide. If you have criticisms, questions, or just want to say thanks, the reply button is right there

I dunno about putting skill on gold, tbh. (BTW, please just call the endorsement slots gold/silver/bronze rather than lvl 1/2/3. It's confusing) Gold skill seems more like a thing for classes that can actually do damage with their skills, like the assault and the tank. I never run skill regen higher than bronze on my assassin and never run out of cloak with that. I don't think you should rely that much on your cloak anyway. For the smoke bomb: okay, maybe. But I don't think that this is a skill that warrants a gold slot for skill regen. Gold RoF or armour helps you a good deal more, IMO.

Speed is another endorsement I don't recommend on the assassin. You'll destroy tons of bots and you should get those speed drops pretty quickly.

Respectfully,

You should not rely on attacking for your kills, it should be over and you should be out of there, no real exceptions. This goes for any class, give them a few shots of your shurikens, and back stab away

I will take this into consideration, and try out RoF, although I don't feel it fits my play style.

Is it natural for a sniper to think Assassins should take a look at these guides once in a while? They're not hard to find and most of them are full of great tips and hints. I never play assassin but I see some assassins now and then and they rarely do any of these things... Well actually I played together with a sin today who was pushing and protecting the right lane while I was setting up turrets in the area, great person great person... :3

EDIT:
I know I said sniper but I've started playing support and tank too... Once in a while.

I was never talking about getting kills. I was talking about clearing bots and turrets. RoF obviously helps you more in that department than gold skill recovery. Killing pros is something you do opportunistically as an assassin. I still don't really see how gold skill recovery is very useful, unless you plan to grapple a whole lot.

That is the point though, I DO intend to grapple..a lot. Clearing lanes is something that's done when you are on cooldown after you have escaped, otherwise you're not being an assassin. I will stand firm in the point that assassins should do as their name says, and assassinate. When it comes down to it, you help your team more, because no other class can safely just go hunt pros besides possibly (depending on how you think) a sniper.

Yes, bots are important and should be watched, but I feel like the ejectors do a great job of this already, not to mention also nabbing more kills from using it as well. Adding to that, an assassin can use bother sides ejectors, so using their benefits you, and hinders them.

edit: Thank you for bringing this point out however, it seems I failed to express it clearly enough in the guide. Adding it now.

Can't really see the point in taking Skill Recovery as gold endorsement. It doesn't even affect grapple. Both Cloak and Dash can be recharged while moving around the map using lunge, smoke bomb has low enough cooldown with skill recovery on silver or bronze.
Also, concerning the speed endorsement, it's just completely pointless, you can collect boots and get gold speed pretty fast. Putting RoF there would make more sense in this setup,.

My scores significantly increased taking gold for Skill Recovery, it makes all the difference in my opinion. I die less overall because my survivability is greatly increased from the armor, as well as always having smoke bomb and my other skills available. I will try RoF in the bronze slot however, as I didn't really put much thought into it, as the guide notes.

Basically, it's important to note that my play style described in this guide is dedicated to player kills, and myself not dieing in the meantime. I am not saying I would not try the others mentioned for gold in a couple of matches, I am simply noting that for a player kill based scenario, even if it doesn't affect grapple, I still benefit greatly from it.

It's certainly a different perception of what an Assassin should do.

While I don't agree with making it your main priority, "Assassin" does imply to Assassinate, so I see where you're coming from when you have that point of view.

Be careful, though, when writing a guide with an unconventional perspective, because people will read it and if it doesn't work out like they want they'll flip the script and blame it on you.

It should also be noted that Smokebomb can prevent you from being knocked back due to a charge of any sort. So if you facegrapple by accident, and you mash Smokebomb, the assailant will just ram into your statue-esque rigidness and you get to get away. Bear in mind, though, that you'll still take some damage from the attack, so it's not a get out of jail free card.

Thank you for mentioning this, I find myself doing this by habit as escaping once seen is my main priority if a kill cannot be accomplished. It is a valid point, and I will put it in the guide as such, citing you.

As for the "non-conventional" view, I am OK with criticism, and whatever may come of this, as this is the way that works for me and gets results. I am definitely open to the criticism, and look forward to it actually, as it can help me, and others look at things in a different way, and have the greatest number of perspectives on this class.

Well, she certainly is a versatile class. Since she's so flexible, some people see fit that they can focus on one job.

Some Assassins focus solely on Objective, and some focus on Pro Killing. Though if you don't to get a slap on the wrist and a fingerwag, I'd call it "Map Control". Haha~ Some make both their mission.

There's certainly nothing wrong with exploring different perspectives as long as A) it works for you and doesn't hinder your teammates and B) You don't go around saying yours is the right way to play.

As far as I can tell, you're in the clear, haha.

Hehe, thanks for the support.

I'll be adding more to this guide as I play some more games, mostly it's just getting everything that you're doing/thinking down on paper rather than just doing it ya know?

For instance, the use of gremlins hasn't been touched on in my guide yet, but every match if I've just escaped, or if my cloak is ran out temporarily i'm spawning bots or upgrading a turret.

I guess my perspective is not to avoid the laning part of the game, just to do it in a more passive way. (I.E. spawning bots/using ejectors, annihilator, ect)

Hahaha, I couldn't do that. I have to finish something I start when I start it. I stayed up for a day and a half writing mine. xD

But yeah, like I said, I understand where you're coming from. I like seeing different points of view as long as they aren't presented in an immature fashion. I'd like to see where this guide goes.

I'm hoping to have it done at least by Friday. If i'm lucky snow will keep me home (Yaaay biggest snowfall in U.S. history!)

I definitely plan on including the individual killing strategies as I feel it's important to not just say, "Go kill someone. ??? Profit". I also think that people believe some classes are meant to not be killed by assassins, which is something I intend to refute.

More to come, and thanks for having interest.

If Syd is giving you a chance, I'm inclined to also give it a shot too. And hey, if you say you've gotten results with gold skill regen, who am I to argue on an unconventional approach? Hell, one of my three builds uses gold speed.

Let me ask you this then: What is your approach with the assassin regarding juice?

Ah the topic of juice, I knew this would come up I think of juice as desert, it's good to have, but if you're full from the main course then it's OK to do without.

Pardon the metaphor, but in all honesty if I get juice, I get juice. This build focuses on survival, so often I find myself getting at least 1 or 2 a match without OT. I just don't get overly excited for it. Yes, we all know juice is good when you have it. Yes, it will be able to Leroy Jenkins in and get kills. (Which I do ) It's just not something I would focus on during a match.

When using it, I normally kamikaze in, net two or three kills depending on how close people are together, and get out. As again, my build wants to avoid dieing if at all possible. It just seems right to me. (Plus I like the extra gold from streaks )

Again, I'll be adding more to this as the week goes on, and hopefully answer any of the questions posed to me here. I'll make sure to add this section to the guide.

I find I'm not entirely agreeing with the bolded section. The basis is correct [the sentence before it], but the resolution isn't entirely imo. The statement places too much emphasis on focusing on killing, which isn't wrong, but IS wrong to three-quarters of the Assassin players at this moment. A few months from now, sure, it'll be plausible; now, with the flood of newbies? Not really. It would just propagate the bad tactics already plaguing most pubs.

Imo, Assassins assassinate, yes. But did John Wilkes Booth murder Lincoln then turn around and fire freely into the theatre? That's the sort of message that I'm getting from this, and it isn't exactly the best to send to the newbies who don't know any better until they wreck a match.

Otherwise, I picked up a few tips from this guide, and would dub it overall 'useful'. Good job. :3

EDIT::
Forgot to mention, I personally would replace the red with 'All in all, assassin play is all about thinking like a scavenger' for the time being.

A couple things to note Jackal, which could be my error, but it's important to know that this guide simply will not function if the play does not have a custom build available, which is what some people may be ignoring. If I tried this play style as a fresh level 0, it wouldn't go as well. (Trust me, the first couple of matches were rough) Regarding the Lincoln reference, John Wilkes Booth freely walked into the theater, saw his target, acted, and got away. This IS what I want players to think of, however, just because you get a kill, doesn't mean you should immediately cloak smoke-bomb away.

Regarding the scavenger comment, I cannot change that because that is not how this is played in my opinion. I honestly do play like a predator, if no one is near me, i'll pop a smoke bomb to see the field more, and maybe find a good target alone, by the time I get to him, smoke bomb will be back if it's needed. (This obviously excludes maps like Steel Peel where the tall walls prevent this strategy.) Yes, the assassin is opportunistic, like a hyena, but it's important to note the element of stealth like a leopard, there's always something to pounce.

I look forward to more responses, and am working on the guide today to work in things that have been discussed.

Fair enough, but I would still say that's an unintentionally-bad message to send to a lot of newbie Assassins; when they see Assassins, they see a killing class. Which isn't untrue; but sometimes [and I get this problem myself] when they kill one person, they get red-mist-syndrome and want to kill more immediately. Then they lose situational-awareness and focus on killing [insert player here] and get popped by a [insert class here]; either they lose the red mist and go 'Wtf was I thinking..? The Moneyball's down!' and go back to playing 'properly', or the red mist becomes more present and they start deviating from their task to avenge their death/s. I've found that the latter is more prevalent, to my dismay.

I suppose my point is to press that it's more important to be smart and keep an eye on your surroundings than it is to PK, and that it's more important to assist the team/clear objectives than it is to kill others.

The Assassin is highly flexible in her role in the team. This fact makes the Assassin difficult to play; you can't become too focused on doing one certain thing, and a lot of players do that.

I will take the "red mist" idea into consideration, as I have realized that this IS something that players think sometimes. (Even myself) I'll make a note of this in the guide, and possibly quote you if you don't mind.

Thanks for the response.