The Assassin: Living Life in the Shadows (GUIDE)

This is my first attempt at a guide, i have read some awesome Assassin guides on the forum and after playing for a while i figured id make one myself. I hope you enjoy reading it if you are a long time player, and i hope you learn some things if you are a new player. Any feedback will be well welcomed and please enjoy my tips on, Living Life in the Shadows


The Assassin: Living Life in the Shadows

Table of Contents
1-Assassin in a Nutshell
2-Known Issues with the Assassin
3-Ways of the Ninja
4-The Skills
5-The Heat of Battle
6-The Robot Push
7-Death
8-Creating your Assassin
9-Out of the Spawn
10-Conclusion

1- Assassin in a Nutshell.

A youth in apparel that glittered
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
Stephen Crane (18711900), U.S. poet. The Black Riders. . .

"We work in the dark, to serve the light. We are Assassins."
Niccol di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469 1527), Assassins Creed series

As crazy as it sounds to understand the Assassin to its fullest, you have to understand the role you are going to be playing. Assassins are known as a glass cannon, a high powered damage dealer that can break as easy as glass when attacked. You rely on mainly close range weaponry. A shuriken launcher can be considered a long range weapon, but due to slow moving shurikens your accuracy is affected, unless you can predict player movement.
The Assassin is considered the main robot pushing class by most of the MNC community. This is very true to the extent of being able to dish out mass damage to robots quickly, however every class is capable at some kind of mechanical control. Every class is deadly to a robot line and turrets in their own ways.
Youre probably asking yourself why isnt the assassin considered a pro killing class when they have the ability of a 1 shot kill? Its simple, every other class besides the tank can not dish out the damage against robots that you can, and you can gain juice faster than any class off farming robots and turrets.

2- Known Issues With the Assassin
The class is awesome but they have a couple misfortunate features that should be known about.
Smoke Bomb Jump *fail*- The Smoke Bomb can be used for a super jump. The assassin will leap high above the guard walls that surround the arena floor and give the assassin a chance to land on walls or upper decks. If you are host or even under a bad connection, there is a chance the jump will not work. This can cause death in many situations.

Lunge *fail*- The assassin can move at massive speeds but has the ability to lunge forward. There is a known bug that can cause the lunge to be cut by 20,40,50,70, even 100%. Its random and different every time, but just know you might not even move.

Stutter Step- The assassin model gets stuck in the dash motion, the game will think you are running instead of walking. It will cause a stuck in the ground feeling. Your assassin will be then unable to abuse dash benefits. You can sometimes fix this by upgrading the dash ability but doesnt rid the fact it may happen again. Death removes this but also may not rid the fact it may happen again.

3- Ways of the Ninja
In my honest opinion the best way to play an assassin is to ninja around the map. The idea of The hardest enemy to kill, is an enemy you can not see, is the best route to go while playing. Now this doesnt mean to get cloak to rank 3 as fast as possible and use cloak the whole game. What Im saying is use the moves you have to offer Line of Sight issues to your opponent.

Line of sight, sometimes written line-of-sight or abbreviated to LoS, is a term used in wargames and some role-playing games (RPGs). It refers to visibility (that is, who can see what) on the playing field. Many abilities can only be used against an enemy within line of sight.
In example
A tank behind a tall hill would not be able to see an enemy tank on the other side of the hill. Therefore, the first tank does not have a "line of sight" to the enemy tank. Conversely, a squad of soldiers atop the hill may be able to see both tanks, though the tanks may not be able to see them (since the tank's upward line of sight is limited).

This happens in the arena. Hiding behind walls or on top of walls is just as beneficial as your cloak. Another way to stay hidden is by utilizing speed. You can run, lunge, and super jump, and these are 3 skills that offer a top notch ability of stab and go. It is good to get comfortable with being able to hug a corner and use your camera to peak with any class.

4- The Skills

Cloak- Limited invisibility, you resemble the predator movies while in cloak, you just bend light and become a visible blur. Cloak humming can be heard by enemies.
2-Decreased Cloak drain, increased invisibility and cloaking is quicker.
3-Cloak Recovery while standing still, total invisibility, cloaking is quicker and shoot critical shurikens when you exit the cloak by firing.

Dash- The only in game run, causes a dust trail to kick up while moving, unless jumping. You can use Dash in any direction for speedy movements.
2-Longer Dash Duration
3-Longer Dash Duration

Smoke Bomb- Blinds/Stuns enemy pros, bots, turrets. Allows a super jump after use but has a short span of a second or two.
2-Larger Blind radius and recovery
3-Larger Blind radius and recovery

Passive- Dagger start w/ Shuriken alt.
2-Decreased Fall Damage, Increased Shuriken clip size.
3-No Fall Damage, Sword replaces the Dagger(sword has slightly more melee range)

Assassins have a lunge to replace reload on dagger and sword. Lunge can only go forward.

The Shuriken Launcher melee is stronger than the daggers, however you cannot lunge with a shuriken launcher.

It is recommended that you do not face grapple anyone, but if you do, lunge+grapple is the best bet to get the kill.

If you cannot catch up to someone with dash, lunge will be a giant help.

5- The Heat of Battle

Now Im not one to tell you how to approach every Pro in the arena, in my honest opinion its going to take your time to learn how you enjoy approaching others. You dont have to start turning off your cloak to assassinate from the back, but getting use to it isnt a bad thing. Even though 80% of players say they can hear the humming and it makes assassins bad, this is faulty because Ive assassinated many players while being lazy and keeping my cloak on, so even though they CAN hear you, are they paying attention for it?

TANKS- This is the only Pro you really have to fear, they are the anti-you. They wont die to a single grapple from the back, you will have to lunge grapple with the sword to do major damage. They have a death blossom that spins in a large area of effect and will potentially kill you. Charge is also a killer attack. What you have to do if you are going against a tank is ask yourself is he hurt? or Is my teammates nearby to attack while Im in grapple? or Can I get a lunge grapple him and win?(and this last one still might not work so your going to have to trust your own skills to save your life, shurikens, extra lunges, or even running away for another day.)

Tanks+Gunners backpacks can set you on fire so dont try and hug there back while they are bunny hopping.

Gunners are weak to the assassin back grapple and you can get under their skin by doing it often.

Sniper traps can become big inconveniences, and what you can do to help your survival rate while frozen is click your right joystick (the CoD knife stick) and it will cause the Assassin to flip around in place. It will lower her head to mid body level every flip, saving a headshot coming your way, and possibly dodging incoming bullets. You can still die, but this will give you a fighting chance.

6- The Robot Push

Ok so time to talk about the main objective of the Assassin. You are a machine against the machines. You can slice dice and deactivate all robots on the field fast, and can take out a lane real quick if you arent interrupted. Id recommend even pushing all the way to the bots door itself. Cloaking and hugging the spawning grid, waiting for the 3 bots to walk right by you and dice em up. This will allow your bots to get a huge advantage on the field. You will gain juice fairly quickly of the hits you do against the bots and the juice boxes they drop as well. Shurikens to turrets at a distance will also assist in juice gains and turret damage in between the spawn time for the enemy bots.

From here you can attack the turrets when you are juiced, or if near juice; running up to one cloaked and smoke bomb stunning can kill a turret, but it will die only after the stun wears off so be prepared for minimal damage in some situations with the dagger or sword. Even if you get juice before reaching the turrets, I would still recommend that you cloak walk up to a turret and bomb it. This will cause you no damage and start off your turret spree just right. You should from here be able to take out 2+ turrets. Ive taken out a base on a single juice with the Katana, but the Dagger is weaker but does plenty of damage and can at least take out the 2 main defense turrets.

7- Death

Yes I am dedicating an area to your death and respawn. A lot of people attempt to play assassins, and you will notice a lot of the time they have something around the lines of 6kills 23deaths. Does that mean they are bad? No of course not, I have had games where I got 0 kills and 10+ deaths, but carried the team to victory. I was concerned about my objective of bot destruction. However if you are entirely going for kills and have 6k 23d you might need to read this article, take a step back from rushing, or just change classes, because at this moment in time it isnt fitting your playing style. If you want to go Pro killing, Assault is a good choice to start out with and learn game mechanics.

Dont be afraid to die, as long as it involves doing what needs to get done, you are a piece of glass in the arena. Everything threatens your existence, assault bomb, sniper trap, gunner grapple, support shotgun, tank charge/death blossom, ejectors, ..etc. You have to be aware of your surroundings, if you are in danger try and smoke bomb jump to safety.

8- Creating your Assassin

Customizing your own Assassin is the top priority to having a successful round; the default just wont do justice to the potential.
Armor is the top recommended endorsement for an Assassin. The extra defense will stop another Assassin from being able to front grapple you, assault bombs wont kill you in 1 shot, and it will save your *** more times than you will be able to count. The gold or silver armor is best when it comes to selecting armor.
Rate of Fire is the second most recommended endorsement for gold or silver slots, because it will increase the speed of your swing causing you to lie down heavier hits overall.
The bronze endorsement can be argued by Assassin play style, Health Recovery or Skill Regeneration is the next chosen endorsements. A shuriken Assassin will set up different endorsements, but until you learn the class; focus on these basics.

Whats my recommendation? Armor/Rate of Fire/Skill Regen.

Why? I choose this set up because the increased skill speed allows me to use dash and smoke bomb more frequent than I would without it. A rank 3 cloak regenerates while standing still, however I find dash more important than cloak.

What would Health Recovery do instead?
It would allow you to regain health in a quicker amount of time. Youre essentially able to back out from a battle and return to the battle fully healed in a short time span. You arent in battle very long due to your high damage intake, but returning quicker can be beneficial.

Can I try and mix it up to my own liking?
Of course! Thats the beauty of the game; the endorsements are really meant to fit playing styles. Like I said my set up is for a heavy bot pushing assassin. If you dont do health or skill for bronze and end up doing something like crit shot, and you want to focus on shurikens; thats fine. However your team might be mad youre not working out the robots and turrets.

9- Out of the Spawn
So you are just starting into the arena in your spawn and youre unsure what to upgrade. There is one skill you do not have to upgrade right away, and that is smoke bomb. Almost all the time you should be fine with smoke bomb level 1, but if you have enough money later in the match upgrading wont be considered a bad thing.

So what do I choose?
Listed above I explained each of the skills and abilities of the assassin. There are a few approaches you can take to the start. There are the 2 type of Passive starts to choose from. Passive and Dash, Passive and Cloak, and these two actually will change the way you start off.

Passive and Cloak-You are given a longer duration of invisibility, you can also cloak faster. The passive upgrade will allow you to have less fall damage. Your dash is not as strong as level 2 so you might want to focus on more lunges for immediate escape followed by a dash or bomb jumping. You get an extra time to stalk a Pro if needed and you will have plenty of time to cloak and run. Depending on your bronze skill is how often dash will be 100% for a good run though.

Passive and Dash(my recommendation)-You are faster than Passive and Cloak in the area of movement. Your cloak wont last too long however you are given enough time to make it across the arena with little issues due to the speed you have. Things like lunging out of the base, and even in small areas; saves the Dash you have as well. You will be able to take more fall damage and your shuriken launcher has more shuriken ammo. This will make it quicker for you to meet bots in the lane, also have more damage to distance attack turrets. Money will gain quickly so if you want level 2 Cloak you will be able to afford it soon enough.

For either of these Passive starts you are going to want to focus on saving $400 for a Passive 3 upgrade, especially the passive dash start. No fall damage and stronger melee is a great route to walk. However there are other combinations you can do.

Dash/Cloak Hybrid-You will have no benefit to fall damage; you will not have any extra shurikens. You can still damage bots with your dagger and make decent work of them. You will have good speed and longer cloak however and that can still make a deadly assassin. You are going to want to grapple Pros with the shuriken launcher to make up for the damage you are inflicting, since you will be swordless for longer. Upgrading cloak to 3 right away is the best route for this set up. You will be able to shoot critical shurikens as soon as you uncloak, and while standing still you will regen the cloak itself. I would leave Dash at level 2 and follow by working on Passive immediately, if not Cloak 3, Passive 2 is a good alternate.

Smoke Bomb Hybrid-I call this the smoke bomb hybrid because any of the three skills will make up a lot for not choosing a better start. Smoke bomb and cloak/dash/passive will give you three styles of play with this. The only upgrade the smoke bomb will ever have is a higher blinding radius. Id say use Passive at least to give you a stronger fighting edge; however I dont recommend this route at all.

10- Conclusion
After all these tips, you should be able to run around as an Assassin for longer than before and have a decent survivability rate. Like I said before you are going to have to learn to counter classes by yourself. Knowing when to jump, smoke jump, lunge, and dash away are all moves from experience. Dont give up on the Assassin class, but please dont weigh down a team, if the class isnt for you your not the only person out there it isnt for.

Spawn with a good strategic build and have the final upgrades in mind.

Push bots, controls the lanes and keep enemy turrets destroyed for big money and good team advancement.

When fighting pros; be weary of all their attacks, use shield walls and line of sight to evade bullets and Pros.

Face grapples are bad, especially on tanks.

Lunge+Grapple is a high powered combo, and can help you catch and grapple onto a pro out of reach.

Remember the Assassin bugs and be aware of them, if your smoke bomb jump is never working, its most likely due to being connection host or you are in a really lag filled game. And the stutterstep is very apparent when it is happening.

If you ever have any questions feel free to write to me in PM I would be more than happy to give my opinion. I hope from this you all have learned at least one thing new about the Assassin. Now go off and make the big bucks in the arena, and learn to live life in the shadows.

Nice guide, this is pretty much the way I play assassin. I use the same assassin build as well. One thing I find to be useful vs. all classes is when you go for a back grapple, lunge into it. You do 1.5x normal damage from the back, plus you are going to grapple them. When you lunge, you will also come out of cloak which means that they won't hear you. This should lead to the ability to 2-hit kill most pros with a lvl 2 passive dagger. When upgraded to passive three. It will take out all over-healed pros except a tank. Vs. Tank it should take out 90% of their health if they are not overhealed. If they are overhealed, I will shruken them down a bit to 75%, then lunge-grapple their backside.

A good escape route in lazer razer is to smoke-bomb jump over the guard walls in the enemy base. You can easily get out of their base if you get stuck in there with no good way to make an exit and low health.

shutterstep can be canceled. just activate the skill using X (or lb on tactical).

Not always sometimes the stutterstep makes your X button unable to be used

Only two problems I can see with your guide:

A. Why did you put those quotes in?

B. Dying is NOT ok. If your score is 5-20, YOU ARE NOT PLAYING CORRECTLY. Unless the other team is spawn camping you and the rest of your team is worthless, going under a 0.5 K/D ratio is bad. Controlling both bot lanes is hard enough without the ten second delay you have to get back to the battlefield, and you are increasing both their kill count and their streak. If you are dying a lot, consider a different class, because spending half the game respawning isn't helping anyone.

There are moments in a game where taking a death to accomplish something is exactly the right thing to do. A lot of people seem to forget that those moments do not happen every second of the game.

Its exactly my point. I played a game where the lag was so bad i couldnt kill. So i worked out the robots and my team was able to protect our bots enough to take out the ball n win

You didn't mention that Smokebomb upgrades reduce the regen...

Other than that, it looks good, despite an overwhelming number of Assassins that still think you need Fire Rate. Seriously, try Oby's build (Armor/Skill/Health Regen) or my interpretation of it (Armor/Skill/Speed). You aren't such a stabby turret murderer, but you kick bots' ***, you always have your Cloak, Smoke and Dash ready to make your escape if a stab goes wrong, or just to kill stuff. I can often rape turrets by having two smokes at them. Especially if I have a lvl 3 smoke and passive.

I dont "think" i need fire rate i know i need it, at a personal level. I actually changed to it from Armor/Skill Regen/Health Rejuv.
The speed increase not only allows me to take out turrets faster, but i can normally chop through an entire base. 5 turrets is easy in 1 juice, levels 2s included maybe 1 level 3 in the mix. I dont rely on my cloak in the least, it stays level 1 in 80% of my games played, i find it useful but its better used defensively since i will be dicing bots the whole game, unless im on the run or on the attack its unneeded. This goes the same for smoke bomb, i keep it level 1 because how often its used. If i need to stun a turret fine, if i need to escape some damage fine, its always ready to go and is speedy recovered with my bronze skill regen.

Nicely written guide, very useful tips .