[Assassin/General] Poison in a Killer's Sketchbook

Thanks ahead of time for taking the time to look here.

I am here today to iron out my playing style for Assassin, as well as have a source of quick tips and hopefully more advanced tips for budding Assassins. In no way am I saying this is how you play Assassin; this is my style of playing her.

I encourage both Steam and XBL players to contribute; the more information at everyone's fingertips, the better.

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A. Endorsements of Choice

Endorsements are rather finnicky things. Realizing this, I stopped and looked around for a guide of some sort, of any sort, on just this topic. Allow me to inform you that it took two weeks and a miracle to find this information; I shall take this thread off-track and mention that the flow of information on MNC's mechanics is ABYSMAL. You either have to spend months on end playing it yourself or ask other players, pretty much. Please, rectify this situation.

I thank, from the [near-]bottom of my heart, the users tlbww [for creating this] and StriderHoang [for introducing this to me]. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1157 This contribution has made me a little less insane..

Back on-topic, looking at this information, I've come to the conclusion that, for my playing style, the best endorsements are :

Gold - Rate of Fire
Silver - Armour
Bronze - Clip Size

So why the admittedly-strange setup? Normal Assassins with a clue of what meta is run Armour RoF Skill/Health Regen.

My reasoning is thus :
1. RoF above all. The job of the Assassin is to push lanes and clean lanes, not PK obsessively. You can shred bots and turrets for a good reason, and your Smoke Bomb stuns said objects for a reason.

2. Then Armour. You don't want to die from a 1kmph wind gust. This also applies to Anti-'sins and Snipers, with Snipers choking lanes being the ONLY reason you PK.

3. Clip Size. The Shuriken Launcher is such an unappreciated weapon. It's ridiculously accurate with a decent base RoF, compounded with Gold RoF. This weapon is your baby for raping deployed tanks/gunners and turrets, as well as MONEYBALLS.

BUT, should you choose to ignore the recommended build, here's each endorsement and what they do for Assassins, giving you room to tailor your Assassin to your playing style.

Rate of Fire - Spray and Pray
Rate of Fire, generally shortened to RoF, affects how often you shoot your launcher/slice with your melee. Obviously all-around helpful and worth the Gold/Silver slot.

Speed - Run like a Mofo.
Applying the concept of Shortfall/Overkill, in which you balance the shortcomings of your class and its strengths, Speed seems to be flat-out useless. However, I've been hearing whisperings that G.Speed significantly reduces the movement animation after grappling. In layman's terms, G.Speed is supposed to lower the downtime after letting go after grappling, so should the Assassination fail [Because I dearly hope to any holy being that you aren't Facestabbing.], you should regain control before the enemy can do anything, and therefore get out of their face.

Skill Recovery - So I herd u liek skillz.
Skill Recovery is a rather helpful thing for Assassins. It lowers the cooldown for skills. In my experience, this is only helpful for early-game stomping. Consider having an extra Assassin Custom, but be ready to fund two characters.

Clip Size - What was that? Sorry, was too busy playing pincushion with your face.
Clip Size is obvious; it increases your clip size. While some say 'Omg, Assassins use melee, Clip Size = useless', it actually isn't. My playing style takes advantage of the stupid accuracy and firing-rate of the Shuriken Launcher.

Reload Speed - Oop, der's another clip in.
This is pretty much THE only Endorsement I can say is ABSOLUTELY USELESS on Assassin. It reduces your reload speed, but Assassins already have the fastest-reloading gun in the game.

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B. Assassins are for assassinating, not killing bots and pushing lanes!!!!11!!1?/
Ever wonder why this mindset has you dying to wind? Because that's NOT YOUR JOB ON MNC. You want to kill someone? Go Gunner or Sniper. Your job, as far as I'm concerned, is pushing lanes and unblocking chokepoints. As much as you people are set in your OMG, UNREAL ENGINE, LET'S PLAY THIS LIKE UNREAL TOURNAMENT, DON'T, for the love of any being you hold holy. Time after time after time, I've been stuck on a team with people who were more concerned with PKing than lane-pushing and wonder why the hell we lost. Let's start with a few simple precepts :

1. THERE'S NO D. TURRETS! Why? Because you've been so busy PKing that Tank that you haven't noticed that the other side's been pushed to hell and the opposing team's reached in and scooped out all the defense.

Let me say this now, if you treat this game like Unreal Tournament, you're giving the other team free cash by blindly rushing into hostile territory and not covering your team's ***.

2. We're landlocked in our base?! OMGWAIII. Perhaps because you've been too busy PKing and ignoring the bots, and you let a mob form up outside our base to the point that now we have Pros and a sea of bots on our doorsteps. [P.S. This is where the Assassin comes in, Moses'ing the sea of bots and nailing the classes keeping the chokehold on the base.]

All this to say, quit focusing on PKing and instead focus on teamwork and pushing lanes, and in the end controlling the map. IF you listen to this little sentence, of the rest of the damned book I'm writing, please, walk away with this. You'll find that the other team will be in this situation should you do so.

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C. My playing style

So now that I've pretty much sniped on every single thing I've seen Assassins do wrong other than the obligatory hay-guise-let's-go-facestab-Tanks, let's go over my style of playing.

1. Commandment 1 - Thou Shalt Not PK [Unless the Chance Beeith Golden]

Rather obvious. You see that Assault running around, green HP? You go the other way. Let's flip it; that Assault again, but in Red? Go for it, CAREFULLY. Assassins have a stupidly-great affinity for being mobile. By all means necessary, pick the unfair fights. Pick the ****-moves. If you try to fight fair, your *** is going to get stomped. Period. Seeing as these easy choices don't come along every now and then, don't PK unless you see these opportunities.

2. Commandment 2 - Thou Shalt Love Thy Ranged Death [The Shuriken Launcher, dipsh*t.]

I know I love this dinky little thing. Without Cloak 3, you can kill a deployed Gunner, running G.Armour IIRC, in a clip and a half. It usually goes down WAY too quickly for the Gunner to do anything. You throw in Cloak 3, it's a done deal in a clip. This is one of the aforementioned Golden Opportunities. JUST MAKE SURE YOU'VE GOT THE DROP ON HIM.

For non-PK, you can assist a push even IF there's Pros in the vicinity; you've got range. Which is what most Assassins forget in their PK Bloodrage and go rushing to their death and to the profit of the opposing team. This coincides directly with Commandment 1, THOU SHALT NOT PK UNLESS THE CHANCE BEEITH GOLDEN.

Got that pesky non-3.3 Rockit in the enemy base? Well shet, you can't reach that without Juicing. Whip out the Shuriken and whittle away at it, especially if it's close to the mouth of the base. That's a distracted Support supporting the Turret and not others. Assuming there IS a Support. [. . .] Should there not be, free turret kill + cash for you.

3. Commandment 3 - Thou Shalt Not Grapple the Bots of Jack. [Jackbots, yeesh.]

I have literally headdesked every single time I see an Assassin grapple a Jackbot. Yes, that stops it's advance. Yes, it does half the HP. Yes, you shred bots anyway. Yes, the Jackbot is a bot. Yes, you can jump over the Jackbot wave attack and STILL attack midair. Not to mention, if you're passing up all that Juice, you should probably give up Assassin and play Support.

4. Commandment 4 - Thou Shalt Not Die in Order to Preserve Thy Juices For Better Uses

If you're about to die, RUN LIKE A MOFO. Don't even check to see if they're pursuing, RUN LIKE A MOFO. Your Juice, as an Assassin, is absolutely invaluable. Wreck an entire base in one Juicing run. Camp the spawn and dance on the enemy players' disintegrating bodies as you cut more swathes. Just be sure to run like a mofo when it's about to run out, never wait until the juice runs out to run.

5. Commandment 5 - Thou Shalt Jump in the Likeness of a Mofo When Juiced

Self-explanatory. Jump like a mofo when Juiced. You cannot be grappled while in midair. This stops Assaults from stopping your base-wrecking activities and pitching you off the edge for good measure. This stops Supports from stopping you for five precious seconds. This stops Tanks from stunning you. This stops-.. yenno what, JUST JUMP LIKE A MOFO WHEN YOU'RE JUICED.

6. Commandment 6 - Thou Shalt Not Be Predictable

I myself being prey to this a few times, please for the love of all holy beings, be unpredictable. If you're following the same path twice, that's two too many repeats. Assassins are ridiculously mobile; don't fall into a comfort zone, because there will most likely be an Assault waiting to make that an uncomfortable zone, and with most Assassin players' bloodthirst, they'll keep going to try and kill that one player while dying about five or six times to said player. Not a good scenario.

7. Commandment 7 - Thou Shalt Not Stack Assassins

Seriously, for Christ's sake, when there's THREE ASSASSINS on the team, that's two too much in most cases. In PUG games, if there's more than one Assassin on a team, you should be mentally cringing and resigning to a loss or rerolling your class, because in most cases, these Assassins are so hotheaded that they won't listen to requests to change class and end up sucking so much *** that they're a money-fountain for the opposing team.

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POST-RELEASE :

Holy dear ***-ramming monkey c*nts on rye. The idiot count just -skyrocketed-. Not just Assassins, sadly enough! This guide will now morph into Poison in a Killer's Sketchbook and Assorted Tips.

One game, and I feel the need to push this one concept into the brains of players.

PUSH THE GODDAMNED BOTS. STOP UT'ING.

This is NOT Unreal Tournament. The ONLY likenesses to UT this game has would be that it contains GUNS. There are TWO, count them, TWO LINES of bots steadily streaming from your base. Your job is to get those bots to your opponents' base to bring down their, if you will, Objective's shields, and to destroy that objective yourself. Not mindlessly TDMing against the opposing team. The ONLY time you should be attacking the other team is to expedite your objective, MOVING THOSE BOTS. Is that Assault destroying your bots, oblivious to your presence? KILL HIS ***. Is he PKing assorted players around you and ignoring the bots? MOVE ALONG.

Picking up more strategies as I play.. against and with some utterly-trash teams... updates ahoy?

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Commandment 8 - Thou Shalt Not Cloak Excessively

Cloaking in most online games is perhaps the greatest tool for an Assassin of said game.
Not here. Here's the skinny on your Cloak :

1.) Cloaking has a very distinctive noise. It sounds like dead Assassins. That slight on-and-off higher-pitched sound, and I suspect the lower hum? Yeah, everyone nearby can hear that. So what do we do in that case? You Cloak to get deep into the opposing base, in a not-oftenly-walked area. You uncloak. You play Ninja Minus Cloak to go stabby-stabby.

2.) Movement renders your Cloaking pretty d*mn near useless. I'm sure some of you have seen already, Cloaked Hotshot Assassins glow orange and Cloaked Icemen Assassins glow blue. The effective sight-range lowers the higher Cloak is, and the further away you are. So what do we do about this? You ONLY use Cloak to cross the map, not sneak up on someone [refer to 1] or attempt a walk-by [it won't work.]

Commandment 8 - Thou Shalt Not Attempt Facestabs. It Ends horribly.

It ends horribly.

Commandment 9 - Thou Shalt Attempt to Grapple/Melee From Behind.

An interesting Assassin mechanic is that ALL damage is magnified if dealt from behind. Army of Blackjacks? Walk up from behind and Moses them. If you try to Moses from the front, it most of the time won't work and you'll get pulverized by about fifty steel fists with spikes. Nasty stuff there.

Commandment 10 - Thou Shalt Keepith the Ball of Money Down

You can move ridiculously fast. You've got a Shuriken Launcher [Surprise!!]. Use it. One hit on the MB is a guaranteed 30s downtime on it. You only really need to land one shuriken, but feel free to land more.

Commandment 11 - Thou Shalt Ignoreth the Kill To Death Ratio

This is my style. When you are playing Assassin the way I play it, you don't give a flying ***-ramming monkey c*nt about K/D. Well, obviously you care about D, but not K all that much. Kills are just money. Assists are just money. Focus on getting an objective done [Keeping the MB down, killing a chokeholder, destroying a base, getting bots to the MB, etc.], not on killing others. It's money vs. a win/lose, which would you prefer?

Commandment 12 - Thou Shalt Make Thy Many Lives Useful

For those scratching their heads, you're an Assassin. You're going to die. A lot. Try to accomplish something meaningful [No, trying to avenge your death isn't meaningful]; push a lane like an almost-finished Push-Pop, go ahead and suicide to get rid of that gay Sniper holding down a lane, that Support locking down an entire lane, go ahead and shuriken that turret to death, go ahead and drop a shuriken or two into that downed Moneyball. It may seem useless at first, but this is a game of attrition [where you have to wear out the other team, slowly dismantle defenses], not one-move roflshot [Overtime would be the exception, but that doesn't count.]

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Commandment 13 - Thou Shalt Play in the Likeness of a Vulture

Yes, this Commandment gets its own section. As the title says, you should play the Assassin like a Vulture, not a Tyrannosaurus Rex. To quote myself on some thread whose name I've already forgotten, "Assassins assassinate, yes. But did John Wilkes Booth murder Lincoln then turn around and fire freely into the theatre?"

One thing you NEED to learn, when playing the Assassin, is when and when not to approach a target. Yes, I'm actually speaking about PKing now. You need to be willing to take the long way around to remain unseen. You need to learn self-control and situational awareness.

One small thing before I start on the PK section. Most, if not all players are hard-wired to become more situationally-aware when they hear the hum of an Assassin Cloak. You will ALWAYS approach a target from behind, you will NEVER approach a target while Cloaked. Being heard is worse than being seen.

TANKS :
You see these suckers. If you don't see the jet-picture in varying hues of red, you don't touch them, period. Not orange, red. IF you chance on a Red-Health Tank, you waltz up from behind and stab and pray to God he doesn't have Gold Armour. If he does, your survival rate just plummeted.

ASSAULTS :
Assaults are nasty to kill unless you have the drop from behind. Once again, NEVER APPROACH FROM THE FRONT. IF you have Sword, [iirc] you can get him in a backstab, one clean hit. If he notices you, though, start Smoke Bombing. Apparently this animation grants Assassins the likeness of a wall [no knock-back] without the survivability; to me, it's better to not be ringed-out and have a chance to escape than be possibly ringed-out. The reason I advise this is because almost nine-tenths of all Assaults I've [admittedly] failed against, they all started with a Charge, and if that didn't work/put you into a wall, they grapple. If THAT doesn't kill you [Jesus, what are you, a fort?], they almost-always aim for a ring-out.

SUPPORTS :
Dear God, this one's iffy.

PROS:
1. Most likely no Gold Armour, backstab can kill 9/10 times
2. Usually busy hacking turrets and whatnot.

CONS:
1. That damned Shotgun.
2. That damned Firebase.
3. That damned Turret.
4. That damned [insert class being supported here].
4a. >Implying they're situationally aware that they just lost their support

In other words, be the Kamikaze Vulture with this class; they're powerful by themselves, and are usually supporting classes/Turrets that shred Assassins.

SNIPERS :
Kinda iffy, there's a few things you REALLY need to keep in mind :

1. Quite a few Snipers have Tunnel Vision, AKA always stare down their sights.
1a. >Implying non-quickscoper, usually aren't too aware of what's behind them.
1b. Counter-theorum to 1a, trap behind them
1c. Addendum to counter-theorum to 1a, are glued to a wall.
1d. Further addendum, Sniper is constantly moving.

2. Do NOT take obvious paths to the Sniper. Do NOT use the jump-pads, they can hear that and most likely have a trap at the landing zone.

3. DO NOT CLOAK OR BE CLOAKED ANYWHERE NEAR THE SNIPER. This puts them on the defensive; they just heard their nemesis uncloaking/cloaking or still cloaked.

4. There's always Flak, but I've never really seen a Sniper use Flak defensively; only for DoM [Denial of Movement] and Offense.

5. Do NOT, under any circumstances, let a Sniper grapple you. Ring-out.

GUNNERS :
Gunners are the obvious targets of Assassins, but a lot of Assassins are obvious these days. A few things to keep in mind, pursuing a Gunner :

1. You grapple the Gunner; the first immediate thing a Gunner does is Slam. Jump and backpedal immediately after grappling a Gunner, this will put you over their Slam AoE.

2. Gunner is grappled, Gunner is now facing you. Unless you feel like taking a face-bath of steel, you either need to be smoke-jumping or lunging behind cover. The range you're at is guaranteed death against an accurate Gunner. Don't get yourself backed into a corner [God knows I've done this many times myself.]

3. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO GRAPPLE DEPLOYED GUNNERS. DO NOT BE ANYWHERE NEAR DEPLOYED GUNNERS. Why? One clip from the Shuriken Launcher, in most cases, is enough to kill a deployed Gunner that's unaware of your presence. Don't needlessly endanger yourself.

4. Gunners have a severely-limited vertical aiming range. If you're decently above them [on top of a wall they're glued to, i.e.], they can't get you until they back up.

ASSASSINS :
You're damned-near suicidal if you're actively hunting other Assassins. BUT, should you bump into a stupidly-aggressive Assassin, there are a few things you can do to enhance your survivability, if not kill the idiot.

1. Jump and slash. You aren't after killing the Assassin, you're after making it retreat.
2. Try a grapple, but that's really risky.
3. Lunging works sorta, but if you miss, they can lunge at you with little resistance thanks to the slight command delay after lunging.
4. Smoke bombing onto a bridge above and hitting the Ejector. However, this Assassin may do the same after being hit by your bomb.

Mostly, you're not trying to kill the Assassin, you're trying to get it to back off. You'll be distracted trying to hit the moving Assassin and not notice the Gunner lumbering around the corner.



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Pretty decent update.

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Now, this is where you come in :

1. Contribute knowledge.
a. Keep it clean. 'OMG U SUK AT SIN, 1V1 AND ILL BEET UR AZZ' does not contribute knowledge. That just proves you're a little five-year-old with nothing better to do. Besides, did you even read this book of sh*t that took a few days or so to write down??

2. Point out flaws in stratagem.
a. Because I know I'm not perfect; that's exactly why I've started this thread. I'm simultaneously trying to help budding Assassins and helping myself. I know I've been hawking both 360 and PC sections for tidbits, and I know I've wished more than about fifty times that all the information was kept in one area..

Once again, thanks for reading, and thanks for contributing if you do so. Perhaps PUG Assassins and Teams won't be so trash if people read this and walked away with a few tidbits.

Re: [Assassin] Poison in a Killer's Sketchbook

replace("like a mofo", "like a boss")

Re: [Assassin] Poison in a Killer's Sketchbook

I'll direct Einarath to this thread, since he seems to have a very similar playstyle to yours, besides your increased Shuriken use.

Either way, great read. I'm starting to play Sin more and more and this'll definitely help me out.

Also, I love Jackal Queenston, j/s.

Re: [Assassin] Poison in a Killer's Sketchbook

I'll keep Mofo kthx.

Also, this community never ceases to amaze me with what they know. I've been caught twice now about my name...

May update thread today, depends on what's going on in the respawnless game.

Double-Post, updated with an added rage-ish bit and changed to [Assassin/General], seeing as I'm starting to add tips that could benefit.. well, any class.

This OP will continue in a stream-of-consciousness style. In other words, if my mind skips to a different section in the middle of a section [usually to press a point..], don't be surprised.

When [if] this OP is finalized, I'll take the time to organize it into a readable and aesthetic guide-ish-thing.

Nobody is going to play a PvP game with the sole purpose of constantly destroying bots again and again, you have to realize that. This person might as well go play Blitz.
Not to mention that completely concentrating on the bots / turrets / moneyball is by far not the most effective way to play the assassin.
EDIT: Also, judging by what you wrote I suppose your experience is limited to playing on public servers. Class strategies vary between pubs and organized scrimmages.

Not saying the post is wrong, I just find the message is conveyed in the wrong way, since it's not really smart to waste the assassin's PK potential completely.

I take a bot-pushing assassin over an assassin who only hunts kills any day, the balance however is the best way. Taking opportunity is what makes people shine when they play Assassin, going tryhard on someone just because he killed you is inane.

Push the lane, then check for opportunities. Not the other way around and never ignore the lane.

That's the point.
Destroying bots isn't hard, killing players however seems to be a problem for many. An assassin who can effectively push a lane has to be able to take out any player that stands in the lane's way, otherwise his whole efforts are going to be nullified by the first Tank or Gunner he encounters.

^ That's the idea though.. I guess I focused a little hard on shying away from PKing.

I'm not saying OMG DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH ANYBODY, but I AM saying don't take unnecessary risks [aka rush an entire squad to PK] purely for the sake of PKing. Which a lot of Assassins tend to do. Refer to Commandment 1, Thou Shalt Not PK [Unless the Chance Beeith Golden]; the idea isn't to get people to STOP PKing, but to make them less bloodthirsty. Surely even you would agree that an Assassin pushing a lane like a ninja is better than being a bloodthirsty PK-mongerer dying every thirty seconds to enemy Pros. That's just a money-fountain for their team so they can set up faster and inevitably crush your team, because free income + useless enemy = 6v5 with a faster setup for the majority. Which usually ends badly unless the team of '5' were skilled, but as you've mentioned, in a pub, that's near-impossible to come by.

Yes, this entire guide as of this point is focused on pub games. Why? Most of these 'organized scrimmages' are entirely out of the reach of general players, and if they ARE in reach, they're usually filled by knowledgeable players long before a common joe can get in. Not to mention that before you can take that sort of step [logically], you kinda need to know what the hell you're doing in pubs.

This is a 'stepping-stone' guide, if you will; general ideas for the new players to get educated [if they even bother looking at Forums... if they even know they exist.] and get a quick grasp on what's going on before they step into organized scrimmages, however one may get into such a thing.

Tell me how I may change the tone of the guide to not seem so anti-PK, because Assassins + PKs = beautiful, I'll give you that. But Assassin + Mindless + Blindly rushing opposing team = wrecked match. Most of the point of this entire thread, the reason it's been switched to [Assassin/General], is to get people [Assassins primarily] to stop facewalling the opposing team, giving them cash and one player they don't have to worry about too much because they're starkly predictable and easily defended against.

Okay then, I suppose I just got the wrong message from the guide c:

Since you are open to the XBox players here are two of the better Assassin guides, Imo:
Rev's Spunky Assassin! - http://www.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5602
BoltAktion's Assassin compendium - http://www.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3260

Here's an awesome endorsement guide:
SXD's Endorsement guide - viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4806

Also try giving this a read, since it has more accurate numbers then tlbww's thread:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5653

Other then that great guide!

Well, I'll have to be more aware of my surroundings as a sin, that's pretty much a given. However, I do need alot of practice with the shuriken as it doesn't seem to be a hitscan.

Other than that, I need to find a class that kills pros like so, so that they are unable to retaliate. I guess it's called a gunner. But snipers will hate me QQ

Got some playtime in last night.. will update this guide according to the experience.

The part of me that's still sore from the last back stab wishes less assassins read guides, but then the part of me that has their face recovering from /facepalm-ing an obscene amount due to the fail assassins on my team wants them to read up on their class. :geek:

But anyway, great guide, was a fun read.

Updated with tips about Cloak and the facepalm-inducing Facestab epidemic.

EDIT::
Added some rather lowbrow dirt about Endorsements on Assassins, as well as semi-sketchy descriptions of what they do for the Assassin.

Gold armor/RoF/Health Regen is my favorite build because the standard armor coupled with health regen means you can go in and out of dangerous situations more frequently.

I bring this up as context because I've been playing around with a gold RoF/armor build using crits as bronze, which is definitely an endorsement few assassins praise.

But I've been playing around with it as a super aggressive, high risk/high reward assassin. The only other time you can count on bronze crits besides cloak 3 shurikens is when you juice, which is, you know, often.

I just wanted to mention it as it's largely experimental. As most assassins know, you pretty much destroy anything while you're juiced anyways so it's hard to tell if bronze crits is really doing anything appreciable or not.

Asides from that, I like how your guide is outlined and it's pretty much how I play as well (hit bots, only go for kills opportunistically).

Just one more build. It's just for fun. Not practical at all. Maybe see use as a build to keep the MB down one angle and switch to another angle. Gold speed/armor/RoF. Nothing will catch you but you'll feel a bit underpowered compared to standard assassin builds.

Kudos to the guide.

Two more Commandments for your viewing pleasure.

After reading this guide, I decided to play around with gold RoF, silver armour. I must say that I liked it. Your survivability doesn't decrease as much as I thought compared to gold armour, silver RoF. And the reload speed on bronze is very nice as well for the shurikens. I've been playing around with bronze crits or bronze reload to see what works better, but I think I'll stick with reload.

Still, I tend to be a bit of a reckless player and I might revert to gold armour because of that. Still, I like the idea of putting armour in silver for some boost in offense.

My mindset is, I'm an Assassin. I'm going to roll over and die. A lot. So I might as well stop the stupid deaths [grapple, shottie to the face] instead of trying to buff my defense.

Adding a new section in light of this.

Are you sure this is so useless? My reasoning for taking reload speed over clip size is for the forced crits out of lvl 3 cloak. The crits last for approximately one clip (slightly shorter, it seems), so if you can choose between firing more ammo out of a clip (where the extra ammo won't crit) or reloading faster and starting a new stream of crits, the latter seems more beneficial to me.

And I understand that the reload speed on the shurikens is already very high, but since the clip is empty so quickly, you'll still notice the difference with increased reload speed. And the fast natural reload also diminishes the effectiveness of increased clip size (after all: what good does a large clip if the reload is negligable anyway?). In the end, it all evens out, I think. Though I haven't done the exact math, I'll admit.