[Assault]I don't hit my targets & am unsure about endorsemts

hi guys!

this is my first post, but i have already read a lot of the threads in the pc and 360 strat forum - and apologies in advance for any mazy sentences, as english is not my mother tongue

the problem i have with my prefered class, the assault, is that i don't seem to hit or hurt the targets i'm shooting at

currently i'm using two builds (gold, silver, bronze):
armor, accuracy, rof
accuracy, rof, skill

gold accuracy seems to help a bit, but i read a lot about the importance of gold armor - or will silver armor still do the trick?

but the main problem is: even if i use "aim down sights" i have the feeling that the AR is extremely impresice - and even if i hit targets, the damage seems very low to me, often i have to retreat or get defeated when it comes down to a mid range combat and me using the AR versus sniper/sins/tanks and gunners in particular
most kills i score are either with the grenade launcher or with the grenade and grapple kills with charge 3 - but this playstyle is rather suboptimal for me, as i prefer using the AR, but not being able to score kills makes me kinda depressed to use it :/

sometimes i have the feeling that rof causes me to have to reload to early in close quarter fights, but on the other hand, sometimes i have the feeling, that a higher rate of fire would have helped me to prevail in this or that situation

does it make sense to have armor only in silver and having accuracy as gold?
or is the difference too low as it would make any significan difference? and are there any ways to increase the damage output?
and should i use rof or not?
and is it okay to use it only as bronze endorsement?

and what about the reticule? sometimes i have the feeling, that due to the 3rd person perspective, that i should not aim with the center of the circle, but to aim for the lower half of the circle to hit stuff - is this only my feeling or is there a bug or an issue with the reticule?

sorry for the long text and many thanks in advance for your advices
cheers

RoF, Armor, Skill Pill.

If you don't hit as much just get nearer to your enemy. Don't aim down the sights it makes you a sitting duck. If you feel like you can't close the gap quickly enough just bombjump.

Keep your weapon on your enemy and you will kill them.

One thing to keep in mind is that the damage from the AR falls off suddenly past a certain distance. If you're trying to shoot far-away targets, it might seem like you're missing just because the shots aren't doing much damage. My preferred build is the same as what Grimbar posted, except with clip size instead of skill recharge on bronze.

The center of the reticle is fine unless you're at very close range

thanks guys

i tried the rof/armor/clip build yesterday and i've got the feeling that it worked quite well - i still do not score as much kills as i do as a tank e.g. but it helped a lot, thanks

how exactly does bombjumping work?
i've tried it a lot in the past few days, but i can barely jup onto the upper deck beneath the moneyball, and i've heard it should be possible to jump over half a map if you know how...but i don't get the trick, i just get myself almost killed every time i try it xD

cheers=)

You need to be near the outer edge of the half-sphere and detonate it at the highest portion of your jump, fly as long as possible without moving your mouse, charge and then fly (you can forego the charge for most distances)

Easy jump from spawn to spawn on most open maps.

My assault builds are

Armour/rof/acc - good all round class
Rof/acc/clip - This class makes the AR a killing machine, just use charge to escape losing battles fast as you are weak.

I do believe that the AR alternate pushes the falloff distance of your shots a bit back, so at some ranges it might be worth it to ADS your targets if they're otherwise beyond falloff range. But I'm not entirely sure of how ADS exactly works.

As far as I read this correctly it only reduces player speed (to 25%, which translates to 150 ups on ground) and tightens the spread (65% of original spread). Info I have is rather limited though

You should always ads unless they are are infront of you.

what does ADS stand for?

Aim Down Sights. The alternate fire of the Assault Rifle (AR for short).

aim down sights

edit: ninja

Ok assault took me a LONG time to figure out ( I tried many things which I will list) than I played a match against a VERY good assault (he was able to totaly control entire sections of the map) and kill relentlessly. His name was Gathom I believe can't remember now for some reason. He taught me the ways of the assault, and not the way a teacher teaches a student. NO he taught me much the same way a bully teaches a fat kid to be tough. With broad stroaks of pain.


Key Skills:

Gold: RoF (Rate of Fire)
Silver: Armor:
Bronze: Skill Recharge

RoF: This is great for upclose fights (something the assault excells at getting him self into thanks to jetpack/bombjump/charge. But what this really does, is makes grenade launcher USEFUL as heck. Allows you to get into positions quickly, and take down any light turrets or lvl 2 and below rocket turrets very quickly, usually in 2 clips. It also gives the assault the one thing he lacks by design. The ability to take out clusters of bots quickly. Assault Rifle does nothing to Bots, greande launcher without atleast silver RoF is just too slow, but GOLD makes you a machine.

Armor: Silver is ALL you need, you could actually go bronze but since Skill Recharge Bronze is practically the same as Silver, you might as well take the upgrade in Armor over the Skill Pill. You will NEVER survive a Back Grapple, so no reason to take GOLD IMO.. Silver lets you survive front grapples from all class's, and thats what you need.. because if you survive, you can jetpack charge flee, or take them down. You have many options.

Skill Recharge: The bronze Skill Recharge is probably one of the better bronze options in the game, it is something like 20% reduction, I think silver is 33%, so Bronze is the best for your money IMO. And takes 2 seconds off your nade.



Skills worth mentioning:

Accuracy
Reload
Clipsize

Accuracy: IT sounds great, and in GOLD its amazing, but its just NOT worth it in Silver or Bronze, so if you take this in GOLD, you need to remember 2 things.. 1 fight from mid range, and 2, you're grenade launcher is gonna loose ALOT OF POWER.. so you loose the ability to hunt turrets, but gain a LITTLE killing power at medium range.. if its your playstyle go ahead, but its NOT the END ALL SKILL for assaults IMO

Reload: This is a great BRONZE replacement.. you can loose Skill Recharge for this, if you arent the kinda player that CONSTANTLY wathces his Skill Recharge Timers, to spam Nade/Charge. loosing 2 seconds on nade, will gain you double fast reload times (just guessing from what it feels like) and can really put the nail in someones coffin, especially other assaults. This skill alone can make THE difference in an assault on assault fight, or when hover backpeddling on an asssassin whos swinging wild.

Clipsize: Again not enough benefit in any position but Gold, and not worht giving up the RoF's buff to nade launcher IMO



Upgrade Order:

1) when you start grab Charge 2, and bomb 2
2) now work on getting bomb 3
3) next upgrade Assault default to 3
4) next put fly time 2 and 3
5) lastly get charge 3

The reason is, charge 2 does about the same dmg (its like 100 less) than charge 3, and has no lock in animation.. you can still one shot snipers/assassins who arent running gold armor with it, and it has about the same mobility. Just remember to put a few AR rounds into them before the charge, and even a gold Armor Sin/Snipe will go down to a charge 2. Charge 3 becomes imoprtant IMO late game, beacuse it is a great way to deal with pushing assaults (who are below 3/4 health) and to ring out tanks/gunners. But most importantly to take out BOUNCER bots in one hit, and those things (if spammed can wreck havic on your back line)



Playstyle: The way I learned was this.

1) BOMB IS YOUR WEAPON.. Learn to use it, and use it often: Aim for Rings outs, Flat Out Kills etc. Don't use it defensively, use it OFFENSIVLY and it becomes a beast.

2) Charge is amazing, it one shots most Snipers / Assassins and makes for HUGE mobility gains. Use this skill for Mobility, either to approach or retreat, and if you fire AR than charge it can kill anything thats not a gunner/tank. Once you hit 3, aim for ring outs, use your mobility mid fight to position your self with the enemy between you and a cliff, and its game over.. I use BOMB to force a tank to move where I want, Don't even aim to hit him with it, I put it to his left, making him move right, by the time he realizes what hes done hes flying off a cliff.

3) Learn to Bomb Jump and fight from the high ground, this gives HUGE advantages, as you can retreat so easily by charge and dropping to the ground behind cover.

4) Dont be afraid to RUN away, it is the one thing were amazing at. We are good at a lot of things, but retreating is our specialty right along side charging into a nest.

5) avoid trying to kill Supports behind hacked Fire Bases, its not likely to happen... even with GOLD RoF spaming their FireBase will take too long to take it down if they are healing it. And tyring to kill the Support with AR is imposible if the FireBase is lvl 3 (healing him), and nade spaming him requires hes dumb enough to stand in it. This is the one class we cant "assault" easily.. however if ANYONE else is distracting him, you can eat his fire basealive in a clip or so with RoF buff. Than hes easy meat.. Just remember DO NOT CHARGE unless you KNOW you can hit him, hes the class you wanna fight at medium range (juts out side of shotgun fall off), charge to finish is good, but dangerous, cause if you miss its all over. Bombs eat him alive, as he has no way to Hover or escape..

I really hope this helps a bit.. remember BOMB/CHARGE over Assault Rifle 80% of the time for kills, and u will see what I mean.

Clarification: Bronze skill 25%, Silver 35%, Gold 50%

His points are valid though

Yeah sorry about that, I was just going off what it felt like..

But yeah, man when Gathom was owning, me at first I was like.. WTF this guys murdering me, but than by the end of the 4th match I was able to HOLD HIM OFF, not kill him often but hold him off.

this is what made me realize how amazing assault can be.. assasins are totaly neutered by assault hover, and RoF Assault Rifle from the air. And 25% faster Bombs can really punish players if you use them OFFENSIVELY That was my big mistake, I was trying to "trap" with them instead of assault.. once I got into the swing of it, I really started to respect the class.. It can control corridors like no other, and give it the high ground and its just really hard to force back for long.. It can usually hold off 2 or 3 players from pushing forward played properly.. and can run if pushed too hard.

And god forbid you find a good position with a lvl 3 firebase for self healing to fall back too, or a support over healing you.. you become beastly.. lvl 3 fight is SO under rated.. once you have it assassins become a joke, if you have good headphones/speakers... once you hear the buzz.. just hover and they are forced to run away.

1 note: NEVER hover the full bar, hover half, come down jump a few times and hover again, if you think they are ontop of you.. other wise they will simply wait you out..

Our only real threat is a good tank or a good sniper... tanks you wanna try and ring out, and snipers, you just gotta figure out a good line of approach.. once you are on them a well placed bomb will kill them, and if it doesnt hover in and kill em (hover dodges ice trap)

a note on this part, a well placed bomb btwn the support and his fire base will launch the support away from the fire base allowing you to kill the Fire base if the support isnt a valid option to kill from there.

Yes, this is correct. You definitely want to use ADS in midrange fights and while hovering.

very helpful thanks!

It always seems like I get torn apart whenever another assault fights me, but I do crap for all damage when firing as an assault myself. I don't think I've figured out the rifle yet, but I typically roll this:

Gold Skill Regen
Silver ROF
Bronze Accuracy/Armor/Clipsize

Instead of pinning folks down with the assault rifle I have a charge and bomb always ready to go.

The falloffrange gets adjusted by 512 units, short example:

While you are zoomed in you move at 150 units per second, an enemy assault moves at 600 units per second. To compensate for that lack he only needs to move away for 1.137 seconds in which you get to push out 11 bullets using default endorsements. Not enough to kill him, but the difference in distance is enough for him to get out.

Aiming down sight is too situational to advertise it to be used at any midrange fight.