Assassin help please!

I can not figure out the assassin. Every time i go for an assassination, especially on tanks, it doesnt kill them at all.

my build is speed, armor, skill recovery.

my upgrade order is
dash/cloak
dash
cloak
smoke bomb
smoke bomb

HELP ME!

Armor/RoF/Skill (you can use health rec. if you want those 0.5 seconds...)

Upgrades: Passive, Passive
After that you can be fancy and upgrade Cloak to 3 or leave everything as it is.

why passive? is the clipsize really worth it?

The sword is.
Though if you play against retarded pub players you can leave everything at 1.

you get a sword from buying passive?!

I am starting to think you're a troll. Stop it.

He plays console. :|

And console players happen to find the standard for assassins custom builds to be Armor/Rate/H-Regen. They say health regen because (bring this information back to your PC community) if you smokebomb jump, your health regens so fast that it is done while you in the air, ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE PASSIVE 3 BECAUSE FALLING DAMAGE IS REMOVED.

But their standard also dictates getting passive to 3. The sword does much more than $550 worth of extra damage over the dagger. Trust me. Worth every dime. (plus no fall damage so smokebomb jumps regen health quicker)

Then cloak up once, so it lasts longer and doesn't show obvious color from a mile away (cloak1 shows so much obvious color, cloak2 is at least transparent from a distance, even if it is distorted and still easy to see).

Then IMO smokebomb up once, especially if you didn't use skill regen for bronze (I admit, I use it, I just happen to know console players use h-regen more). Smokebombs give you easy turret kills, just cloak up to one, smokebomb to disable it, and slash it down.

Also, stay away from tanks. Almost nothing you do can kill one at full health. Backstabs sometimes work, but you never know what armor endorsement he has.

Stay away from all enemies that you can't get the drop on. Really, slash bots, slash turrets with juice, slash turrets after smokebombing it, and if you are ever seen by an enemy then just flee and smokebomb away.

You could have read my guide for most of that, and more. It is in my signature. Anyway, to quickly recap:
~armor/rate/h-regen or armor/rate/skill-regen
~passive 2, passive 3, cloak 2, smokebomb 2
~save money for the annihilator before buying skills, unless the field is clear of bots, and even then just buy the annihilator just to have it. Also, save money for ejectors to use often.
~Avoid enemies, especially tanks, and work on bots. Escape any fight you can. Bots are easy to kill lots of, and give juice and money for everything.
~If you have to kill someone, make sure they never know you are attacking (lunge-grapple, lunge at them and them mash on the grapple as you hit them)
~cloak up to turrets, smokebomb it, and cut it down. Or, get juice and destroy it. ORRR, cloak up to it, smokebomb it, JUICE, and then destroy everything as well.

Having read all this, you should be a great assassin. Why am I typing this? Of course he is a troll VLane. I am pretty sure anyway. I feel really bad if he is serious.

I'll borrow this picture to conclude this lesson. Notice how the support say's Assault, and the assassin says Robot Deconstruction Master. That name fits the assassin better, deconstructing robotics... with her sword.

YES! MY SIG! LOLZ AT THE SUPPORT. That is a pun on how people DO play the support. Complete opposite of the assassin, which is what the assassin SHOULD be doing. The support should be anything BUT an assault.

Alright. Regardless of what anybody believes, here are a couple tips for anyone trying to make an adjustment to playing the assassin. Some of the following are opinions, and you are very much entitled to form your own from your own play and experiences.

I use Armor/RoF/Health Regen. Health Regen is a preference, because you're already one of the squishiest classes in the game, and your job is to be in the front lines pushing at least one bot lane (in privates it is easy to push both with some practice and experience, in publics not so much). Because of this, you need your health to be at it's peak as often as you can. Armor does the obvious, in increasing your damage intake ability by a fair margin, and RoF also affects your dagger/sword swings as much as it helps with firing shurikens.

Upgrading Passive once increases your damage, and upgrading twice will indeed give you a sword. The sword will increase your melee attack damage, range, and grapple damage. Passive also increases the number of shurikens you have at your disposal.

Smoke Bomb is an essential ability, but having it at level 3 is not a priority. If you are mainly using smoke bomb for escaping, you may need to practice being less detected. That, or you may just not be doing your job, which is pushing lanes. Getting into skirmishes 1v1 on the map should not be your goal. And you should noly be going for player kills when they are occupying your lane, or are in position to disrupt what you are doing at that time. Such as a sniper on the opposite side of the map shooting at bots you are trying to push.

Although I am not trying to go into too much detail, something to suggest when dealing with tanks, since you asked, would be;

If you are getting the drop on the tank, and he does not see you coming, try and get 2-3 slashes of your sword on him before grappling. This should push your damage over his health limit after the grapple is completed. If he is occupying your lane, attempt to get into "mid-range" where is is more difficult for him to map out railgun hits based on your strafing and faster movement speed. While in midrange, beware of tank charge + deathblossom, and try to plant as many shuriken in him as possible. At this point, when he does charge in for you, be prepared to pounce and grapple. Yes you may fail at doing this for a little while, as you need practice learning tendencies as well as developing reeflexes.

Pro-Tip: You have probably already seen it, but learn to dash-grapple. When pursuing a fleeing enemy, moving from bot wave to bot wave, escaping, or trying to 1v1 any enemy, in order to get a good grapple, many times you need to pounce quickly when they are not in the air. The easiest way is to close the distance to your target as quickly as possible when they are not ready to jump.

Just a few tips. Can definitely discuss more online, when I can jump in a game and see how you are playing the assassin. Could offer some tips.

I guess im sorry for missing out on something that isnt entirely obvious. I always assumed that passive 3 just gives you even less fall damage and even more clipsize, so i never bought either of them.

I found this very helpful. I always assumed the assassin was the counter to the tank, because in most other games, the stealthy class is usually the counter to the big strong guy, but i guess not in this game.

The tips on the shuriken launcher are also nice. I have actually hardly used it because it felt useless, but i guess that the fact that the bullets are hard to land is countered by the tanks large hitbox.

I will try out what i learned and get back to you guys. thanks for the help.

You would be amazed at how much damage the shuriken(s?) can put on a tank, even if he has Gold armor and level 3 passive.

She is the counter to big guys... just the gunner, not the tank.

Gunners lack a health passive to let them survive a backstab, especially from a sword. Gunners lack a charge, and only have a slam (which you should keep an eye out for but if you jump around it won't always hit). Gunners usually focus in one place while they are shooting, and their loud gun masks sound, so they never get distracted as you approach.

Gunners, while they are busy shooting a teammate or turret, without a support nearby them... are a perfect assassination target, God bless them.

ALSO, shurikens shred stationary and large targets. Their damage and damage-per-range is incredibly high. Against a sniper, shurikens are aguably amazing. Against a mid-range heavy, shurikens are arguably amazing, especially if they deploy (do not walk up to deployed enemies, just use shurikens). Against turrets, shurikens are amazing (if you have to do it from a range, like if a support is with the turret).

Agreed shurikens on a tank can do some damage, if you're bent on killing a tank I'd start (and likely finish) with them. After upgrading passive to 3, I'd upgrade cloak to 3; if you activate cloak 3 then start shooting, every shuriken until you stop shooting is boosted to 'critical shot.' They're glowing, they're scary and they can eat up most pros.

If you miss killing a tank with a face grapple (why did you face grapple a tank, yo?) immediately start spamming the smoke bomb so that you can interrupt their counter-charge, then get outta there.

^was someone saying you can counter a tank charge with a lunge-grapple? is that true?

I don't believe I read or wrote anything about countering a tank charge w/ a lunge grapple. I recall writing that after a tank charge + death blossom, that lunge grapple is the most efficient way to close on any opponent, as just running up to them usually yields "SPAM A! GODDAMMIT SPAM A FASTER! I CANNOT LET HER GRAB ME!!!".

Regardless, it is a known fact that grapples will, when timed correctly, counter any lunge in the game. I can grapple a Level 3 Assault Charge very well with a sniper about 30% of the time with good timing and good host. Most grappling of charges (regardless of the class charging) depends on the lag/host quality, as timing is ruined if there is any buggyness (if it's not a word, it is now).

No problem pound. Made you a sig, gonna pm it to you. Really bored at work. Nothing better to do. If you have any other ideas, let me know. Just looks wierd without having SOMETHING to rep yourself with. Did the same for a guy named fightinmongoose.

I never upgrade the cloak skill.
It's not necessary all the time.
Besides, the more you use cloak, the more you'll be detectable.

Here's my upgrade order.
Passive 2
Dash 2
Passive 3
Dash 3
Juice x 15

Gold Armor and Silver Rate of Fire are must put endorsements.
There's alot of good ones on Bronze slot.
I prefer Skill Recovery for you but I personally use Clip Size. Some people use Speed(useless), Juice(useless) or Health Recovery.
Oh yeah I forgot.
If you wanna play Assassin on beast mode, PULL HOST.

Bronze juice is always useful too.

Don't forget Gold reload speed....

@lmp, that's funny I never upgrade dash, cloak 3 shurikens instead. But... I never buy juice during matches until its almost ot.

When I play Assassin, I get tons of cash by pushing bots, destroying turrets and assassinating players from behind with no cloak. Cloak makes noise and you can be very detectable so I'm always UNCLOAKED 99% of the time. Why need cloak level 3 for criticals when you can just back grapple them?