[Assassins] - Becoming the MVP - A Guide w/ Videos

YO BROS! There have been tons of guides out there for the various classes but I haven't seen a whole lot of videos. Rather than just TELLING you how to play, I wanted people to SEE the teachings in action.

I currently have one uploaded at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acTs4vxGVis
I end this video with just under $5000 on the scoreboard and the games MVP
I'll probably be uploading more, but I tend to only render one video a night.

First off, biggest tip for everyone interested in playing the Assassin:
SWITCH YOUR CONTROL LAYOUT TO TACTICAL
Has made playing the Assassin (and every other class) feel so much "better."

Like many others, endorsement-wise I run with:
Gold - Armor
Silver - Skill Recovery
Bronze - RoF

Armor:
Allows you to survive grapples from the front. This is AMAZING VS other assassins and classes without upgraded grapples (snipers for example). More importantly it helps with going in for a quick kill and SURVIVING in order to make your signature assassin escape.

Skill Recovery
Assassins rely heavily on their skills. Supposedly (I haven't seen updated tests yet) it also helps lower the cooldown of your grapple ability. From what I've been told, it doesn't help your dash ability, but it recharges quickly as either way. Most importantly its there to keep your smoke bomb cooldown low.. don't EVER underestimate this amazing skill.

RoF
Considering that Assassins don't really require things such as clip size, speed (gogo sprint/dash attacks), etc. There isn't a whole lot of practical options. Rate of fire easily trumps the remaining endorsements. Not only does this support your amazing juiced up stomping, but helps farm up the juice/money in the first place!

Skill Order
Extremely controversial. More often than not I tend to go:

1. Blue/Yellow at the start of the game
2. One level Red ASAP
3. Max Blue
4. Max Passive (Gray)
5. Max Red
6. Max Yellow

Reasoning and Skill usage:

For the start of the game (and if I don't feel the need to build turrets for whatever reason) I feel Dash and Stealth are the go-to abilities. Level 2 Stealth is all you need for the entirety of the game anyways, and I rely heavily on Dash to travel across the map as well as escaping/initiating with a combination of the lunge attacks. Playing the assassin is all about using your amazing map control to your advantage.

Smoke Bomb is always the first upgrade I take after the game. Level 2 is good enough for the majority of the game. Your smoke bomb has TONS of uses.. for example:
1. Lets you sneak in from unexpected places in order to catch snipers for example off guard.
2. Reach otherwise inacessible places which allows you to regen health and abilities safely and often unnoticed.
3. Stuns Turrets/Bots to help you farm up some bot kills, or stun/kill those annoying firebases before (or after) grappling a support.
4. Blind enemy players

Your passive, while it is a nice upgrade at level 3, isn't needed for quite some time. Lunging through bots or grappling players from behind is enough. Later in the game, when it is all about popping your juice and tearing the enemy team and their turrets to shreds the sword starts to shine a little more.

As far as stealth goes, level 2 is all you really need for the whole game. Be smart about your stealth usage and don't run around with it on 100% of the time. Its simply not needed. When its recharging take some time to go kill some bots to fill your juice bar or gold to purchase an anni/juice/skills/turrets/etc. Its only practical if you plan on being next to useless and camping outside the enemy's spawn.

General Tactics:

Lunge - Learn it, use it, love it. (BTW, its the reload button w/ your melee weapon out) I'm not quite sure if the video that I uploaded was the best example of using it as a form of travel, but I do know that I use it to tear through waves of bots. Also you'll notice that it does an amazing job of finishing off people that live through your initial grapple. If your dash is on cooldown and you dont care about not being stealth at the moment, you can use it quickly travel the map too!

JUICE - There is more to playing the assassin then just grappling enemy players. Especially in the beginning of the game when you need some farmin' up some gold for skills/turrets, focus on killing enemy bots by lunging them and TAKE THEIR JUICE. Robots don't drink juice anyways. Upon filling up your bar entirely, run into the enemy base and proceed to wreck havok on their turrets and any nearby players. Bonus for killing a support with his firebase set up there too.

Adapt to your enemies - Some examples: If an enemy sniper (AKA ASSASSIN FODDER) is constantly setting up traps in the same place, get creative. Smoke bomb jump right onto his face. Traps may root you, but they don't prevent a grapple. If an enemy tank is rockin' tons of extra armor and a grapple + lunge combo can't kill him, then pick a different target. Don't grapple an assault from the front if you know the 1 assault on their team has enough armor to survive your attack. Don't go for the gunner that rooted down with an empty juice bar. ETC...

Pop the annihilator WHENEVER POSSIBLE - If you really want to contribute to your team then pop the anni. Sometimes you might think that its worth it to save it for the upcoming jackbots, but leaving it green means that the enemy team could also grab it if they so choose. If anything, when its at an easily accessible location, at very least try to prevent the enemy team from using it whenever they so choose.

Adapt to your team makeup - If your team consists of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 assassins, you're doing it wrong. Pick up a support, or whatever your team needs unless of course you enjoy losing every single game. If someone else picks assassin on your team, be the bigger man and switch it up if your team needs the extra help. Then we can all laugh at him as he goes 0 and 18. Two assassins can be alright if you've got what it takes to wear the backpack to carry your team to victory, but any more than that and more then likely 2 outta 3 of them are just feeding the enemy team kills.

Utilize your Shuriken Launcher - Believe it or not, it does have its uses. For starters, it tears through towers (not so much rockits though) and allows you to farm from a safer distance in certain circumstances. Works well early on vs Firebases, or later if the support leaves its side (or you happen to murder its owner).

GOLD and YOU - Later in the game, if you happen to be swimming in gold, there are a few options. For starters, buy some turrets or spawn some gremlins. Also, if the game is close and going into overtime, be sure to save up some gold so you can juice and tear up the enemies money ball!


Community Contributions:

Re: Assassin - A Guide + Video(es) COMBO!

How do you do that lunge thingy in the video?

Re: Assassin - A Guide + Video(es) COMBO!

I think I read somewhere that Level 3 Passive (grey) means that 'reload' button does a charge. Might even be Level 2, take a look at the upgrade screen details for a bit longer next time and see which one adds the charge on reload button.

Re: Assassin - A Guide + Video(es) COMBO!

You can lunge at any level passive. As stated, you press the reload button (what ever it might be) in order to do that. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, plus I use tactical layout instead of the default sorry!

Re: Assassin - A Guide + Video(es) COMBO!

A few tips:

You can cloak during a grapple, use that to save yourself from bots/turrets/firebases.

The sword helps when you need to take down bots quickly, but I guess that's a preference thing.

Shuriken the firebases if you get killed trying to melee them.

Re: Assassin - A Guide + Video(es) COMBO!

Thanks vike, quoted in original post!

Re: Assassins - Guide & Videos

Something I noticed in that vid that could be a fatal error: back grappling full health gunners, use the lunge first followed up by the back grapple for a guaranteed kill.

Actually lunge first followed by grapple is a great way to catch and kill most of the other classes, even from the front! (not tanks or gunners though, especially tanks)

Shurikens are amazing at deterrence while retreating with smoke bomb on cool down.

And I have a question about the ability cooldown sponsor. Does it make the lunge recharge faster too? I notice you lunge in really quick succession.

Re: Assassins - Guide & Videos

I'm not sure about the lunge recharge, but that might very well be the case.

As far as backgrappling gunners, its a gamble. If they aren't using armor you will be able to one shot them. I can't recall what takes place exactly in this video (I may end up grappling people that I KNOW have armor but I do it as a spur of the moment in the video, can't say for sure though haha) but its all about experimenting (even if it kills you) to see what the other team is rockin'. If it turns out you 1 shot their lone gunner, you know they don't have armor on and can continue to do that. Its all about attempting to recall who you can and cannot kill.

I liked your video as I posted in the video comments, but I'll have to disagree with you about button layout. I think tactical is the better layout for any class other than the assassin. The lunge is a vital part of the assassin class and to have to hit X to do it is a killer. On the default loadout you can hit right bumper to do it, which feels much more fluid to me. Not only that, but one of the key assassin button combos is smoke bomb, jump, stealth, which on the default loadout is a simple B, A, Y.

You make a good point. It would be nice to have more customization for controls for sure.

Really though, its all about preference. For me, X isn't very out of the way. Personally, I'd rather have that 1 button be out of the way either way instead of having to press B and Y for skills. Again, just me though!

How do you smoke bomb jump?

Another thing to include is the nature of the ability you're using. Having abilities mapped to bumpers allows you to aim right up until the moment you use the ability without the split second it takes to move your fingers from the stick to the button. On the assassin the abilities you move to buttons are stealth and smoke bomb, neither of which requires aiming. The lunge does require aiming. I'm tempted to leave my button layout on tactical when I play assassin if for no other reason than to not have to switch my layout back and forth when I play different classes

To answer the poster above me, you smoke bomb jump by hitting your smoke bomb and immediately jumping afterward. If you wait to jump for even a second you won't get the extra jump height, you have to jump immediately after the smoke bomb.

Not sure if it's the same with other classes but with the ones I play if you drop juice its a full health regen, so if you're low health it's a health pack as well as a temporary equipment boost.



Nice thread though, there was this one game I saw last night where this assassin had like a 24 kill streak, it was crazy, almost had 25 ... but ... something happened, there was an incredible tank in that game too it was nuts.

That was good game play, I guess I gotta play a little more offensively and do more bot farming too.

But I got a question about the lunge ability for the Assassin.

If you lunge at someone in the back, does it do more damage than lunging in the front? Or is it all the same damage done no matter what side you attack?

Been messin' around with juice as my bronze. Tryin' to do some testin' over the weekend and see if I notice anything significant..

And anyways, I'm not positive about the lunge doing more damage from behind. If possible I'll try to take a look at this over the weekend also, as well as the supposed damage loss from upgrading to the sword.