BoltAktion's Assassin compendium

A few things I'd like to add:

Do NOT lunge an Assassin head on if they see you. I can't even count the number of Assassins who try to lunge me head on. 9/10 times I move out of the way and backstab you. The 1/10 times I get hit, I run and you probably won't be able to kill me. Very rarely do I get killed by an Assassin who does that.

This takes a little bit of practice. Any halfway competent Assassin knows to jump if a grapple does not kill a Gunner. Do NOT jump right away. I've seen more and more Gunners wait to slam; they're catching on to our tactics. Try to watch the Gunner to see what he does. I've effectively been able to time my jumps with their slams, and as such, get surprise slammed much less.

If you see a juiced Support running at your base with a hurt gun, remember this: he can't hurt you with it if you're cloaked. People call me crazy for charging juiced Supports, but it works. I cloak while he tries to hurt gun me, grapple him, and effectively waste a few seconds of his juice. And if the grapple happens to be a backstab, the combined force of the grapple and other pros/turrets could very well kill him, even while juiced. Note: If he has a shotgun, you WILL die. In that case, you may want to avoid him, unless stopping him is crucial to your victory.

That's all I can think of for now. And Bolt, do you really think Gold Armor/Silver RoF is better than the other way around? I used to use that, but I switched it up for the sheer speed at which I kill bots. I guess my major determinant for using silver is that it's good enough to survive a Charge 3 at full health. Is there really a significant difference?

Very good guide with excellent tips and strategies. But I want to gather some idea of how the community feels about the upcoming "fix" in the patch removing the ability to cloak mid-grapple. I know it won't be that big of a change in terms of PvP, since any half-aware player would know what you're doing. But it seems to me that this will completely cripple the ability to remove an entrenched Support from his firebase or from within his own base if he's just overhealing turrets. Thoughts or opinions?

I'm excited for the fix, i never cloak mid grapple anyways, it might just be me, but if a turret sees me, even if i cloak it'll keep firing at me.

I played for the longest time before i could mentally tell myself to cloak while grappleing, so, though i'm sad to see it go, i don't think i'll mind too much.

As for removing an entrenched support, and (Bolt, Rev) feel free to correct me on this if you want, i don't bother with him till i take his turrent out with shirukens, which usually doesn't take too long if he's not healing it, and if he is i fire a couple at him till he moves far enough away that he can't heal his own turrent.

I'll usually go for the turrent if he's healing it, but then he knows where i am, the key to fighting pros as a sin is the element of surprise

Sounds nice, but in 99% of the cases the support (or at least me as a support) has its firebase located in such a matter that he has a "safe" place to stand and can still heal the firebase.

Ill drop the firebase first with shuri or smokebomb-backstab him during his hack if the opportunity presents, or time my attack exactly when the fb targets some bots/a team member.
If i can't pull any of that off ill just leave him be. A sniper or support is much better dealing with him then assassin.

If he is in his base, just wait till you gather juice, kill him and all his turrents.

Silver armor can work, but I don't like surviving with just a SLIVER of health.
one tick of flak, one sword slash, one or two stray bullets after a grapple and you bite the dust. Plus fall damage from smoke bomb escape (until the patch)

I think you get more bang for your buck so to speak, going from silver hp to gold then rof from silver to gold.
I find that the health mixed with the bronze health recovery fits my playstyle best.
Silver rof is more then enough to drop bots and turrets quick imo.

Yeah silver RoF is best, i have 3 custom sin's, all with gold armor silver rof, i prefer skill recovery as my bronze, but that's me, i'll be the first to admit bolt is a better sin than me, but i'm happy being #2

I noticed that you said killing pros is at the bottom of your priority list..... I'm pretty sure it should be at the top. Don't get me wrong killing bots and turrets is important, but I think that tanks and gunners are more specialized for those. In my opinion assassins should be only killing pros, unless there is a jackbot. You need to go after those snipers and supports and take them out of key locations on the map. That's what I believe to be a true assassin.

Even BK201 doesn't play like that, yeah you need to take out key threats, but the tank/assassin are the bot pushers, and an assassin can take out a whole base in a flash.

Assassins and tanks are the most efficient bot killers in the game. Gunners pale in comparison and are pretty **** at it because it takes too much time.

As an assassin i try to be all over the place.

When i see a pro i do not always engage, it depends on whether i believe i can take him out and how usefull it is.
Example on Grenade III
Mr Opposite Tank is moving towards our base on the top level. I ignore him for two reasons:
1. He is a tank, hard to take out.
2. He is not taking out the bots and i can move towards their base on the ground floor while taking out their bots. The Tank may harass our base, but at this point i leave it up to anyone back there to handle that. I prioritize pushing the lane, getting our bots to their base, if i am left unopposed or i can take out the opposition i might face, i can take out the rocket turret and the ball is down. Obviously this is the optimal situation.

So even if it was any other class than the tank, i would likely ignore that pro. Even if i can easily take him out, it results in him spawning in their base and i would rather have him elsewhere on the map.

As an assassin i also take it upon me to take down Jackbots XL and activate the Annihilator ASAP.

When i die i look at the map to see which lane needs the pushing the most, and i pick that lane (which is the opposite from which i pick as a Support).

Yes, an assassin in the traditional sense means you should be killing pro's. But if you let go of the name, you are a botkiller.

It seems like you've been reading mine and bolt's guides, well done . By description you are playing it right, that tank might kill a turrent or two, but so what? he's gonna get murked by your defense and he'll be dealing with a bunch of bots in his base.

To me, the assassin is all about making the right choices and min/maxing. And by min/maxing, I mean play to her strengths and really avoid situations where you do not have the advantage.

Bot clearing and juice rushing or smoke bombing turrets is really a huge advantage. You'd be silly to not push lanes and do some turret killing when possible...because the assassin is so efficient at doing this, you have PLENTY of time to kill pros.

And when it comes to killing pros, it's all about minimizing your risk. Pick off loners, supports trailing behind a gunner/tank giving them a constant overheal, roving snipers who aren't camping inside a triangle of ice traps. You are not a powerhouse that can take on a group of pros (unless juiced), so you have to be picky, sometimes conservative and pass up on opportunities that you would otherwise take on as another class. That was the biggest mental shift I had to make from gunner to assassin...not diving into more trouble than I could handle and learning that discretion is the better part of valor. For f's sake...run if you have to! Better alive than giving another pro more money to spend on stuff.

I played against Jack Trips yesterday and the biggest thing he did as an assassin that was annoying was making himself a constant pest. There were shurikens flying everywhere, he kept harassing from all positions and angles and you never quite knew where he was going to show up next. You can be quite unsettling as an assassin without going strictly for pro kills or K/D ratio.

I'm pretty good at killing Jack.

Oh, I didn't say killing him is hard...he's just a pest.

About the k/d thing, when me/hudson/sx/bolt, or any group of us forum goers are playing, i'll usually get negative k/d, but be leading the team (unless bolt goes assassin)

When i play with randoms though, i just clean house XD

I tend to suck when I play with Hudson et al., but in pubs, I do pretty well.

I agree. I tend to do decently with the people from here. I own when I am not with them and I'm not against cheaters. But 9 out 10 times I'm better than Illini here.

What the WHAT?!?!?!