Pitgirl's Nemesis: Rev's Assassin Guide

Intro:
Alright, now i'm not the BEST assassin, but i've been told i've got a pretty damn good grip on the lovely lady, And seeing as there is far too much about this class to fit in one forum guide, i thought i'd throw my spin on her into the mix.

A: Endorsements
There are two setups i run, the first off is Armor/RoF/Skill Recovery

I use this most of the time, the gold armor allows me to survive most grapples (barring sniper's grapple 3) IF it doesn't ring me out, The Silver RoF allows me to swing my dagger/sword fast, which allows the Assassin to take out Turrets with ease. The skill recovery is mainly so i can use dash/smoke bomb more often.

Next is RoF/Armor/Speed, Pretty self explanitory, i use this when i need to take things down a little faster.

B: Startup
My suggestion, is one sin per team, 2 is alright if the sin's know what they're doing.

Now for the spawn, i usually upgrade dash and passive right off, people say spawn gremlins right off, don't, gremlins are useless untill the game gets heated, if i get hit by them early game, they MIGHT waste 5 seconds of my time.

Start off by going to the right or left lane, doing the "lunge jump" (lunging off a platform to a lower level) to get some more distance, then "lunge run" (cloak, run, lunge, cloak run) if there's no interference, untill you reach the enemy base, scope it out, see supports turtling? leave. See an empty base minus two rockits? Good! Stroll up cloaked to one like you own the place and give it a little kiss with that smoke bomb, smoke bomb blinds turrets/bots/players, and stuns turrets and bots, a VERY usefull effect. Now that it's dazed by your beauty, slash the crap outta that thing, when itsets it's sights on you, run around it, you'll get hurt, but don't cry, you'll survive, once the turret's gone, cloak and get the fudge outta there.

C:Skill Upgrades/Mid Game Tactics
Alright, first off is skill upgrades, many people play with many different patterns, but i'll show you the most used plan:
1.Passive + dash (spawn)
2.Cloak2
3.Passive 3
4. Cloak 3 (if you want full crit shuriken clips)


This, however, is mine, incase you want to try it:
1.Passive+Dash (spawn)
2.Smoke2
3.Passive3
4.Smoke3

Upgrades to dash give you more distance, dash 3 is a near unlimited run, but if you can effectiveley use lunge to get around, you don't need to run A LOT

Upgrades to Passive increase the damage you deal, passive 2 increases the launcher's clip, and at 3 gives you a Katana and eliminates all fall damage. The katana is lethal, a front grapple will now kill with a backstab on any non-tank, even if they have gold armor.

Upgrades to cloak give you more duration, make the cloak activate faster, and at lvl3 if you stand still, not only will you remain invisible, you will RECOVER your cloak. Another BIG benefit of cloak3, which i stated earlier, is if you fire a clip of the S. Launcher out of cloak, you will have ALL CRITS for that clip, so when long ranging a turret/moneyball, Cloak, fire a clip, cloak during reload, fire, repeat.

Upgrades to smoke bomb just increase how far the blind radius will reach, how long the victims will be blind with love, and how fast the bomb recovers.

Next is your main mid game tactics, your main focus is to push those bots! do so by lunging into them, and dthen doing a phrase i will henceforth call "dancing" which is just moving around slashing those bots, pick up any money and juice, and keep moving.

JackBot Strategy:
DO NOT GRAB IT, you can get a lot of juice from him by "butterflying" it's like dancing, but you bunnyhop while doing so.

You want to scan the hazards, and use them to your advantage, on every base your smoke bomb jump gives you a big advantage, if you're fighting on an ejector pad, jump up to the button and hit it. The ANHI is your best friend, and since you make money like crazy, you should know when it's coming up and be ready to use it, again, smoke bomb jump is amazing for this.

When you see a pro, assuming they're alone do the following:

Support (no turret): lunge into his face and grab him, he will die if he isn't overhealed, or just one backstab will do the trick.

Support (turret): Stay away, harrass him for a bit by shooting his base, if he lets it die, either kill him or leave, depending on what you want. If he comes for you, leave, and fast, the heal/hurt will mess you up girl! It's range will follow you far unless you lunge away, and it'll follow you all the way to the peak of your smoke bomb jump. If the support happens to be SX, just run.

Assault: a lunge-facegrab will kill him, but try not to, as his dash can be very bad. Either sneak behind and backstab or preferably stay away.

Gunner: Gunners/tanks take surprisingly a lot of damage from shurikens, we will exploit this, lunge facegrab will not kill him, but if you hit him with some shurikens before the lunge grab you will, but try to lunge backstab if you can, if not stay away. If your grab does not kill him, use shurikens, run, but either way read his slam and dodge it.

Tank: AVOID AT ALL COSTS, they have 5 MILLION win buttons against your 1, lunge backstab, which you will RARELY pull off

Sniper: try to scan for traps before approaching, if his traps get you and he hears it, you should be dead. If his area's laced with traps, avoid him, or harrass with shurikens then run. If not, lunge facegrab will kill him, any backstab will kill him, whatch out for his grapple though, it's OP.

Assassin: most assassin players are complete trash, so it's an easy fight. Scan first for swords, if you see one, and you have a knife, don't bother with her, she has the edge, unless you know she's a bad player, then rip her apart, lunges do nicely, half damage. If you and your opponents lunges connect, you'll both be launched back, try to avoid this.

D: Dancing Queen: How To Effectively Use Juice
The amazing ability of our leading lady is she builds juice faster then jose canseco. She gets an amazing ammount for being vulnerable and dancing with bots, that and she picks up juice boxes like mad. When you get juice, you are very, VERY deadly. The best strategy is to run into their base, juice, and destroy everything they hold dear, your blade is feared, be mindful of charges, air strike markers, headcrabs, and slams. Another great use is to take down tough pros, removing a jackbot quickly, and surviving certain death.

E: The Ball's Down, What Should I Do?
Easy peasy, most people say that you should slash the ball, your blade does a good ammount of damage to it, more than the launcher. But don't use it, use you're gun, it's got infinite range, on certain maps you hcan hit it from very far if you can aim well, you're much more safe, AND with cloak 3 you can do some serious damage.

F: Sidenotes
At the momment i only have one, your melee attack is useful. You get more juice from it, and it's fun, and gives you bragging rights.

G: Map Strats
Coming soon!

Good guide. I've been using the same armor/RoF/skill recovery setup for a long time now, and a similar skill upgrade progression. I think what you've described here is the #1 way an assassin should be built and played.

I'm curious exactly when you switch to the RoF/armor/speed setup.

I think your advice for the different classes is playing it on the safe side, which is probably best for assassin newcomers. I'd like to add that, in my opinion, taking on supports head-on and tanks in general can be done if the situation is dire enough. But, it takes awareness, practice, and luck.

Good jackbot advice. I've been too quick to grab the jackbot in the past. If there are enemy pros around, you usually wind up dead and the jackbot continues rampaging. At the least, save the grab until you know it will finish the bot. Finesse is required, as with all assassin play.

You said it in your guide already, but I want to echo it: HIT THE ANNIHILATOR. If an assassin's primary job is to kill bots, put 2 and 2 together; the annihilator kills all enemy bots in the arena, and nobody can get to it quicker than you. It instantly puts the other team on the defensive, and it can be the decisive point in a match. Even if you already have your opponents pushed back, hit it anyway and deny them the opportunity. I basically always keep an extra $250 on hand with which to activate it.

I was wondering if were ever going to make a guide.

Rev's Assassin is my personal favorite assassin, because in addition to doing all of the things that good assassins already do, he expands upon it by chaining weird combos (like lunge + facegrab + weapon swap while grappling + S-launcher point blank) He also likes to throw random melee hits against unsuspecting targets, and will probably kill me while juiced with such tomfoolery one day.

I'm running RoF/Armor/Skill lately just because when I'm playing assassin its only because I still want to push and they have too many counters to my tank on their team (IE: Good Assaults).

With Gold RoF, you can decloak next to a rockit, score 2 melee hits, THEN smoke bomb before the turret shoots you, letting you max your damage dealt and minimize your damage taken.

The one thing I would add to the guide that I think ALL assassins should understand is the following:

When the enemy money ball drops, it should NEVER go back up. This is your number one priority. Don't worry about damaging it as much as keeping it down. Let your tank/snipers worry about melting the thing. All you have to do is stay on their side of the map with cloak, decloak to shoot as much of a clip as you can safely get off, recloak, switch positions, and repeat. Be creative. Shoot from the ground on one side of their base, then smoke bomb up and shoot a clip from up there, then jump down to the other side and go from there.

Be EVERYWHERE when this is happening. Force their team to play defense constantly, and run from place to play failing to kill you. When your team arrives to help you, then you can focus on DPSing the money ball, but until then, you are the best equipped class in the game to KEEP the money ball from going back up.

And Amen on the gremlin spawns bro.

You might also point out a glitch where if you hold the trigger down while firing the shuriken launcher, you can lose half the clip without firing a single shuriken.

Edit: forgot to include "right after reloading" Sorry!

Aw, come on, tanks can be killed by assassins. Just soften them up a bit, or wait until they are fighting another teammate. My buddy will sometimes run the tank as I run an assassin, and when my buddy starts fighting another tank, I'll sneak in behind him after my buddy has softened him up a bit (WITHOUT cloak. The enemy tank is already distracted, so cloak just lets him know that you're coming.) Great guide though. It gave me some lethal new ideas.

His point is probably more along the lines of "it is possible to kill a tank, but even if he has only 1/10 of his life, charge 3 + death blossom will knock you down and kill you regardless of your armor set up." It is possible but its a HUGE mismatch in classes even if the assassin is incredibly skilled and the tank is only decent.

What you have described is a good way to kill a tank though.

I thank you for the complement, but I found some grammatical errors in that paragraph. I fixed them for you.

Oh, and complements on the guide. I use a similar build to your 1st one, except ROF and Armor are switched. Gives me that extra edge I need to kill off turrents, among other things.

Nice guide REV I gota question though what do u do in a sin front grapple contest?

I'm curious cuz i seem to be ending up in these lately, if i grapple first, sometimes i can lunge and make a quick kill, usually that ends up with me getting grappled if the other player is any decent. But it doesn't seem to matter if try to jump away because i end up being grappled anyway. Just wanted to know your thoughts, or anyone else's on the subject.
I'm curious what you do if you make the first grapple and what u do if you get grappled first.

(wow that was a long question )

Thank you hudson, i aim to please

And i knew i forgot something, tickling is a very important technique

It is possible, i can take down tanks, i made hudson switch up his endorsements lol. But this guide is assuming people don't know how to play her, you shouldn't go for tanks untill you're confident you can outsmart them.

Awesome guide rev!

Loove the name.

bump

i'm going to be removing this soon, disregard most of the material in this guide, because it is now useless

Don't you think that's a bit overdramatic? The changes/fixes/nerfs/whatever aren't that bad. Might just take some minor playstyle adjustments. Give it a week to get used to it.

Most of the info still applies. First thing I did in a game after the patch was stealth on over to the enemy side and tear down their rock-it turret, then killed some bots and an assault on the way back.

Nah, hes right and as such I will be removing my guide as well. I can't be bothered to re-write the whole thing for a class I probably won't be playing anymore.

The assassin plays completely different when your only form of attack against pros is a 15 second cooldown that can only be used from behind, and still will not kill half of the classes

These guides pretty much go against everything that would be Important when upgrading to the katana at the start of the match.

Bunk. That doesn't sound like the assassin that everyone on this board is so worried about. (I mean that in the nicest way. ) I'd need to go look at your guide again, but I don't even see that much said about the dagger lung and the grapple cloak in this guide.

Were you guys really leaning that much on the lunge? If so, that's a bit disappointing to hear. The shuriken hasn't changed, and to my knowledge, the regular melee damage of the dagger hasn't changed. The good ol' lunge & grab still works, too, it just requires picking targets a little more carefully.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather the assassin weren't nerfed, of course. But I refuse to believe it's really that bad.

You don't have to go for katana first thing. It's still early, I guess, but so far I've got as many kills and been as successful in a given match as I ever was, and I didn't need to drastically change my play to do it. If I can do it, I'd hope that Mister #5 on the Leaderboard could.

No vigil, there is no lunge grab anymore, because the lunge doesn't do any damage essentially, we didn't "lean" on the lunge, we knew that it, at any level, was a very good attack, and a very good means of travel, the dagger did too much damage with a lunge, i'll agree, but it should have been cut in half, with a buff to katana's lunge, not killed completely.

And I am VERY mad at the fact you think we cloak grab, good day sir

We could care less about the cloak grab, as rev pointed out that is almost an insult to us.

I doubt you play with a full team of very good players, and as such I understand why you cant exactly see this from our perspective.

The lunge is bread and butter for the assassin considering the dagger backstab will only kill
snipers/supports/other assassins and has a very long cooldown

It will kill assaults but only if they do not use gold armor (most good ones use gold armor, including myself)

So now...I can kill three classes...but only once every 15 seconds...and only if they are foolish enough to let me sneak up and grapple the from behind

If you have ever played against players like hudson/weaponX or zander, you would be fully aware of just how impossible this can be

I always upgraded Sword to three before touching anything else, so the update won't effect me too much. I'm well aware of how much of a blow it is to very technical assassins like rev and bolt though, especially when coupled with the no weapon swap while grappling.

The lunge MEGA nerf without a buff to sword extremely limits her already low efficiency in killing pros. Her objective play is still top notch just with a slightly meh early game.

I will agree that its pretty amazing the assassin got hit really hard (through direct and indirect nerfs) and yet the sniper was not touched at all.

Before you get your sensibilities bruised, I didn't insinuate a thing about grapple cloaking. All I said was that I didn't see it mentioned in the guide.

Oh well. Guess I'll just go back to playing with the rest of the mere mortals.

1.I only play assassin
2.I don't care how much they "nerf" her
3.The less people play her the better
4.Ill rock so hard they'll be forced to "nerf" her again
5.My guide ain't going nowhere just gonna get updated