Assassin lunge discussion

"Oh no!" you say! "Not another Assassin thread!" you moan! "Too bad!" I declare!

This thread is for people to discuss their thoughts about the Assassin's lunge ability, more specifically the lunge paired with an immediate grapple afterwards.

The reason I belive that it warrents discussion is becuase of just how much better it is on PC compared to Xbox. As far as I have been led to believe, the lunge is almost worthless as a form of attack on Xbox due to lag making it go all wonky. However, on PC it's extremely easy to use and very versatile, and chaining a lunge-grapple combaination is extremely simple and exceedingly effective.

I hope to discuss if it is intended that assassins are rewarded for running around face lunge-grappling classes to death in a very obvious manner rather than being sneaky.

Another thought about this, is that you are free to approach your intended target in cloak and lunge from it, giving your target almost zero time to register the cloak's hum before they're under attack.

Post away!

I have not seen enough good Assassins to make a judgment, but lunge is definitively something to keep an eye on regarding to balance. And it is possible to lunge from the front and get a backgrapple in one motion. Outch...

Yeah, I'm getting pretty good at doing that. The only thing I could possibly suggest to solve it if it is decided that it is an issue: "Upon lunging a cooldown is put on grapple"

I'd expect it to be anything between 1-2 seconds cooldown.

Yea, I've been hit by back grapples from the front. And lunging is even worse, but I haven't seen many people use it. However, when I run sin, I tend to always close the gap with lunge and grapple.

Btw, what's the range at which you can hear the sin hum?

I did a little bit of testing, but that was a while ago, I think if you stand on the annihilator on ammo mule, you can JUST start to hear an assassin just outside the doorway. Although that is VERY quiet and you're very unlikely to hear it over the other sounds. Considering this, lunge closes that gap so very quickly, pretty much nullifying the hum.

The cooldown on it is too short and the damage is too high. When I play assassin I tend to just tap R to get around...
Not to mention someone who completely misses the lunge can just spin their mouse and hit right click to achieve a back grapple. On the 360 this is impossible but with free look speed on the PC it's just plain annoying to see an assassin comin right for you then all of a sudden performing a back grapple as if they had the skill to sneak up behind you...

Yes, yes and yes. This will solve the problem.
Perhaps even increasing the lunge damage to compensate?

I haven't had a problem hearing the assassins cloak before a lunge. You can hear them take off on their lunge too with a big thump of their feet and a whoosh to the eventual blade slash. Just start jumping like a fiend. I've done it hundreds of times and so many people have been pissed off because of it.

Maybe the programmers designed assassins that way on the xbox and it just ended with the conclusion that the controls and lag limited it and couldn't be used to it's full potential in the first place. Even with this lunge grapple. Against a compitent player and mediocre team, the assassin probably isn't going to get away from that being that the lunge does not cool down during a grapple giving no chance of escape. I generally save my lunge for after the grapple in case I front grapple and need to get away/get that last hit in for the kill.

The distance where you can hear hum is about the same as the max lunge distance. So if you time it right, they won't know what hit em

I've been heard from really far away. Insanely far away. I see good pros get paranoid and do circles firing machine guns and grenades a lunge and a half away at least. Even if there is a lot of firing going on and you can't hear the cloak from less than a lunge away, than the assassin should uncloak and get the kill regardless of the lunge. The lunge gives away the position of the assassin and even has a chance of them flying off an edge trying to pull it off. It's gotten me killed more often than it's gotten me grapples.

Shouldn't lunge towards the edge then

To be honest I rarely use cloak when I play assassin, and favour upgrading dash and passive to max first, whoring speed pickups to keep that insane speed and lungegrappling everyone I see. If I ever get attacked simply smokebomb jump or lunge away. With gold armour they're never gonna kill you before you can get away. Then just try again, sooner or later you'll succeed.

I agree that lunge can be a bit ridiculous on skilled assassins sometimes. Not only does it get them around the map so fast (a really good assassin is just nearly impossible to catch to prevent him from juicing up). But combined with a backgrapple from nearly every angle and lag that lets them grapple me even when I just jumped, it can get rather silly in the right hands.

That spider only has 7 legs! I am filing an official complaint against Vleessjuu and thereby recommending his opinion striken from the record for said offense. Just kidding.

It does make them fast. Really fast, but I guess I should have been clear. I only maybe fall off a cliff once every 10,000 lunges. What gets me killed is the lunge grapple and than not being able to lunge to get away. I can close the distance just as easily by dashing and than lunge away once the team notices I'm there to give me a head start. But I'm brown bread if I go in lunging. The only time I ever do it is if I know I'm one on one and I know I'm stuck in a front grapple and I need that extra damage ticked off.

You must be oblivious to the glorious story behind the spider then.

http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html

I'm well aware of the story, actually. I was intentionally making a joke similar to his observation of said spider and correcting the mistake thinking that was the issue. Or at least joking like it was the issue to buy more time.

IMO without the lunge the 'sin is underpowered. Sure it's 'OP WAH WAH' that they can lunge at you out of nowhere and then kill you with a back grapple, but the way I see it, EVERY class is OP in this game. Hell, the sniper takes even less skill for his instant kills, you don't even have to move, just click on heads from across the map.

Oh god, here we go...
Keep this thread about assassin lunge discusion. Not a flame war about nerfing snipers, theres already threads for that.

In regard to you comment about sin being UP without lunge... who said they wanted lunge to be removed? We are discussing how to rework lunge to make lunge grapple a little less OP.

I wouldn't mind a shorter range lunge. Even half of the distance would still give her a great advantage for getting out of there and closing distances. Half would also give other pros an easier time hearing the cloak. Not that I think they need it. Really, I hear it from way farther than the lunge and I have been heard from farther.

The front-backgrapple really needs to be fixed, but lunge damage is already enough to finish most classes with a front grapple anyway. I never played assassin, but I really do see the difference when playing something else than tank, if there's an assassin who found the lunge button in the other team it makes a world of a difference, it's quite rare for now but with time more start to figure it, thanks god thoses who found about the front-backgrapple are really very rare for now.

Maybe a shared cooldown with grapple would help so at least it's not instant, and also a longer cooldown on lunge so it's not spammable like it is now, not like it would hinder much her mobility with smoke bomb jump & dash already.

The lunge grapple combo isn't as good as it's made out to be, good players will hear the starting 'shing' sound at the beginning of it just as well as a cloak and promptly do a 180 and grapple you right as you hit them with it.

Trying it from the front is amazingly ridiculous, the window of opportunity you give them to grapple you first is insane. Even though no one with half a brain should be facehugging enemies under most circumstances, it's still worth noting.

Plus there've been a lot of cases where an assault will be facing
-->
and I'd be facing
^
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but he charges..that way, and still grapples me and instagibs me. Really fun when you have laggish players who twitch into directions instead of turning smoothly.