Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking! (REVISED!)

In light of all the "Assassin doomsday" threads, here's a guide on how to play well with the patch.

Table of Contents
1. Getting Started
2. Attacking Basics
3. Attacking Combos
4. Limitations and Knowing Them
5. Strategies on How to Engage Different Classes and Bots
6. General Tips
7. A vague guide to what you should be doing in early, mid, and late game (intentional as people will play how they want).

1. Getting Started
You'll want either silver or gold armor, RoF silver or gold, and your choice for the last as it doesn't matter. I run gold armor, silver RoF, and bronze speed. Though experimentation never hurts.

Start a round with passive skill Lv2 and your choice of cloak Lv2, a turret, gremlins, or save the money for the sword. It's entirely up to you how to upgrade and when.

2. Attacking Basics

Slash: an attack at melee range, does low damage with the dagger, medium with the sword. Do this with RT.

Lunging: it's a slash on steroids that sends you flying forward, off edges if you aren't careful. It does medium damage with the dagger and high damage with the sword. Most people seem to forget the mobility aspect of this, but you can use the lunge to get out when things get hairy! Also flying off edges can be useful! That's right, useful when used to get to a lower tier that's out of reach normally *cough*GrenadeIII*cough*. Do this with Reload button.

Grappling: just that, a grapple attack that will leave you open to your enemies, but does immense damage. From the back it is death nearly certain. Only use this if you're certain to kill and live to tell about it! With exception to when your skill level is greater than your opponents anyway. Performed with Alt fire button with either weapon (preferably sword as it deals more damage).

Shurikens: very slow projectile, but ricochets and does moderate damage per hit. Never underestimate the power of your shurikens. Invaluable in pestering an enemy or deterring him from chasing you. GREAT for stationary, slow moving or severely weakened targets! With the hit detection fix these are much more useful at hitting slightly more mobile targets, but they are still difficult as you must lead them.

All attacks will do much more damage from the rear than the front. With exception of shurikens anyway, I'm not entirely sure about those.

3. Attack Combos
Simple strikes are good and all, but they simply won't do the trick against most experienced players.

Lunge/grapple (LG, I'm lazy): the one-two punch! Not as leathal with the dagger as it used to be, but still pretty damned useful!

Slash & Dash: Alternate lunging at your opponent while slashing, makes you harder to hit while you're flying around. ONLY TO BE USED AGAINST WEAKENED OPPONENTS! (or really bad ones)

4. Limitations and knowing them!
Sure I just listed a bunch of ninja killing moves of death, but you're basically a piece of paper in the breeze. That gunner will swiss cheese you faster than you can think "OH NO!"

Cloaking:
Just because it makes you hard to see doesn't mean your completely invisible. In fact, if you're behind someone THEY WILL KNOW YOU'RE THERE BECAUSE THEY CAN HEAR YOU! Don't even bother cloaking if you're behind them. In fact don't bother cloaking until you know someone will see you otherwise. At Lv3, it will cause your entire clip of shurikens to become critical shurikens for that one clip!

NEVER charge straight into the enemy, attack from the shadows. They can still see you if you're less than about 15 feet away cloaked.

GET OUT if the enemy sees and attacks you! That's the reason for your smoke bombs and sprinting. Don't forget that lunge can be used to get away too!

NEVER attack more than one pro at a time unless they are weakened, have poor awareness, or you're juiced.

5. Strategies on How to Engage Different Classes and Bots

vs bots:
Slash & dash, shurikens, anything really works wonders for Blackjacks, Slims, and Gremlins.
Slash or shuriken the scramblers and gapshots.
Wait for the bouncer to try to grapple you, dodge it, then give him a taste of his own medicine!
Jackbots can either be grappled followed by a series of slashing (Don't forget to jump!), vise versa, or just slashed to build up the juice! But don't be an *** about trying to build juice while the jackbot is wrecking havoc in your base!

vs pros:
The BEST strategy to killing any pro is to stealthily assassinate them, but that isn't always the case as they may turn around at random or get alerted by their team.

-Assassins: They do what you can do, a good helping of LG or slash & dash clears them up, but it clears you up too! If you both lunge each other it will negate damage and cause you to ricochet off each other; lunge proves even more useful as a block!

-Snipers: BE WARNED: he CAN and WILL grapple you mid-lunge and is most likely camping on freeze traps. You can kill him with a frontal dagger LG if he's not sporting armor. Best to just pester him with shurikens or ignore him altogether most of the time.

-Assaults: frontal LGs with the dagger are severely inadvisable now, however the sword will do it just fine. If grappling fails, be prepared for a charge! Immediately jump to the side to at least avoid the grapple of death at his Lv3 and try to finish him off with shurikens or a lunge. (or just get the hell out!)

-Supports: frontal LG will do high damage, but not kill him most of the time even with the sword. If he starts using his drain gun, be quick about either killing him, cloaking, or getting out! NOTE: if he's by his firebase, for the love of everything good KILL THE FIREBASE FIRST WITH SHURIKENS! Or just ignore him altogether. If he's foolish enough to chase you, break him with shurikens!

-Gunners: LG will kill from the back only, even with the sword. If a failed attempt happens immediately jump back and shuriken while getting away! Or if you feel brave you can lunge back and start a little tap dance of death while jumping on his head! Gunners are easy fodder most of the time as long as you don't just charge them uncloaked like an idiot. Shurikens from long distance do wonders against them.

-Tanks: Best to just completely avoid tanks, but if you have to divert a tank from a bot lane who knows you're there, then kite* him while spamming shurikens. Again though it's best to just not mess with the big source of fire and death at all unless he's weakened.

*For those that don't know: kiting is keeping a comfortable distance between yourself and the baddie. Imaging you have them on a string like a kite.

Never should you charge anyone headfirst, always go the back route. It's better to live and let live and have them want to kill you even more than to just die and have done nothing.

Also pestering other players with shurikens to the point where they hide, die, or try to kill you is the biggest favor you can do for your team. Remember though, try not to die while doing this.

6. General Tips
"Finally, he gets to the point!"

Use deception: make your enemy think you're going to hide behind that corner, then suddenly - SHANK - he's stabbed in the back and dead because you actually smoke jumped, cloaked and went around him! Or you can just lead those dummies who just think "kill, kill, kill!" into your team's firebase or turrets (you still get money for assists)

Just summoned gremlins? They're like mini-mes! You should follow them and help out! Great for building up blade and shuriken kills! Or just spam them en masse and watch the flow of money, kills, and assists roll in! If there aren't any pros to hit on the bottom, they will attack the turrets. If there aren't any turrets then, they go for the moneyball!
-NOTE: since they are like mini-mes their huge gaping weakness is the tank, tanks will wipe out your merry squad of death in a single spin, keep that in mind during a game and save your money if this happens.

I personally NEVER upgrade anything up to level 3 other than the sword for obvious reasons and cloak for auto-crit shurikens. you're money is better spent on annihilators, gremlins, juice, and turrets. Besides sprinting is easily replaced with lunging as a mode of rapid transport and smoke recharges as fast as it needs to at level 2.

Smoke bombs will STUN turrets and bots, see that firebase wreking havoc on your teammates? Smoke it and they will help kill it! (in theory...) See that jackbot hulk smashing your moneyball and you just used your grapple? Smoke it and you at least momentarily stopped it while your jackbot killer move is that much closer to done.

See that jackbot? See your teammates pitifully trying to take it out to no avail? KILL IT! Don't just waltz by it and think "Herp derp! Mah team can killz it while mah 1337 skillz killz teh other guyz!" In fact you're death incarnate to all bots, kill the bots!

You kill bots wicked fast and get juice from them insanely fast, even more juice is gained with the dagger since it IS weaker. Help your team win and yourself get more money by pushing your bots!

Juice! This is your strength and your greatest asset to the team! Most assassin just run in blindly and slash at players and ignore everything else, use that cloak of yours! Scout the base for traps and get to work on those defenses! Minimize damage to yourself while maximizing it to their base by starting on the front-left or right most turret, smoke bombing it out of cloak, THEN juice and slash away! Lunge from turret to turret to make it all the more quick!

Know to escape at the right time and when to attack and you should be good to go! Unfortunately this must be learned more than told.

7. Things you should be doing
Early Game
Focus on bots more than players. I can't emphasis this enough. They give you money, juice, and help you win all at the same time. Kill enemies that try to impede you, or aid in killing enemies that your teammates are fighting. Upgrade when you can and destroy the other team's infrastructure with juice and/or shurikens.

Mid Game
At this point you should have your trusty sword, but they will have their best toys as well. You must exercise much more caution in dealing with pros, but you are nearly immortal when you get juice! You should be both pushing bots and taking out threats to your team at the same time.

Overtime
*shivers* this is a little hairy for my liking but basically get juice from either buying it, or wildly start slashing at the jackbots, being careful about the ground pound of doom, and then go crazy on the money ball with shurikens. In reality this applies to all classes (minus the shurikens)

whew! I think I covered just about everything (aside from lame glitching which is non-existent now as far as I know).

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

^^^^^^ THIS:

Is what people should be doing about the Assassin in light of them getting 'nerfed'.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now, if you could find a way to delete all those verbally nasty old threads, I'd man-hug you.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

I disagree on building turrets at the start of the match, lately I've started spawning 2 packs of gremlins instead of upgrading to Dash 2, I still upgrade Passive 2 because I love the increased shuriken launcher mag. It's really effective because it helps you a lot when you try to push into the enemy base, wich is what usually do at the start of a match.

I'm not saying that upgrading turrets is bad, but if you want to gain a quick advantage by pushing the enemies into their base then spawning gremlins isn't a bad idea.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

Something I found that works really well on most arenas is that when the Upper Level is just sparsely guarded, or not at all, it usually means the enemy is pushing lanes towards you with at least 3 guys.

This should technically be a LULZ post in the Off Topic, but one of the best times to use cloak is totally when you go for the Annihilator, or to hide near those Ejector Pads.

Today, I got a SIX MAN Ringout. Granted, I don't know how good these guys were, or why they all charged the same lane - but I sat up there. I fired a few shurikens from one way. Moved a bit. Fired again. They came right into the middle of the last part of the stretch as they killed the two Gunners that had chewn them down to almost nothing.

And BAM - what 50 bucks will buy you, huh? The patience of the Assassin's player will pay off. And for me, it did. So, so well. That's really the only thing I have to add, is that hiding at the right time never hurts.

And always, always Spawn Gremmies if you have the spare coin. Always. Making other support players wear a massive sad face is delicious.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

It's your choice, but in a public match I like to have a bot stopper for the lane I'm not pushing.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

At the start, I usually upgrade Dash 2 and spawn two gremlins, unless no one on my team has built a single turret.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

Which happens pretty much every round I play. :lol:

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

Well that may be true...

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

gremlins suck so bad, i spawned 500$ worth and didnt get even a single assist.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

I think what you do at the start of the match should totally depend on your opponent.

Example: -If the team your playing against has 2 or more tanks, don't spawn gremlins.
-If your opponents have 2 or more support don't blow your load on turrets ( let your supports build turrets they can actually keep alive against airstrikes)
-Don't build turrets if your team has 2 or more supports, they will just get hacked.

What you do with your first $300 is insanely important, the key is pretty much how fast you can get your skills up to an acceptable level then blow every other penny on juice.

IMO no one other than support should build turrets, unless there are no supports on your team. A couple hacked over healed laser turrets are some pretty amazing money makers and defensive allies. A regular lvl 3 laser turret is okay, but watching it get picked off by an assassins stars or supports airstrike is pretty disheartening.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

If you're new to a lobby, spending opening credits on turrets is unreliable. You don't know if your supports will upgrade them or if your enemies will gremlinate your longshots or of your team mates will push the other lane and make your turret redundant.

Assassins should only spend opening money on turrets if they know the enemy and know their team. If you see a support building a longshot and you know he'll defend it, by all means chip in to upgrade it.

If the only variable you know about is yourself, then the best thing you can do for your team is spend the money on yourself ...unless you lack self-belief. Passive and dash give you a huge payoff to your direct moneymaking ability, and even spending on cloak pushes you faster toward level 3 cloak which can make you a harrassing nightmare.

Grasshopper assassins should crush bots. Once you have level three passive and cloak, crush bases.

My 2 cents.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

They're kind of situational, if there's a tank on the enemy team then down expect a lot of kills or assists, but they are great against supports, snipers who aren't on ledge, and (maybe...?) gunners. If you spawn them at the start you should get some turret kills/assist or regular kills/assists, but I haven't tried it enough to be sure if it's worth it.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

I've played a few rounds of not upgrading any of my skills to even level two (there weren't any tanks though) and realized you don't even need upgrades to do well (when there's not tanks).

lunge covers ground just as fast as sprinting, level 1 cloak will last as long as you need if you're not wasting it, and smoke bombs are smoke bombs and shouldn't be used frequently anyway as it makes you a sitting duck. Sure the sword is better in almost every way (will be every way after the patch) as is the extra clip capacity, but that's not to say you absolutely need it.

Though others make a good point about gremlins, I did forget to put a good point about checking to see if there are tanks and how tanks will obliterate your poor gremlins.

Hacking just makes them stronger, it's still your turret if they're on your team. Only upgrading will convert the turret to another teammate.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

Vin, judging by the tip before it, he mixed up your and their, so he's not being that ridiculous.

Although the notion that with 2 enemy supports, your turret WILL get hacked, is a tad ridiculous.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

I swear I saw somewhere that once a turret is upgraded with a hack it becomes the supports kills? I could be wrong.

I'm only talking about worthwhile spending of your opening $$, IMO there's is a good chance with 2 enemy supports your turret will get hacked/bombed. This is just my argument saying that spending your first 300 on turrets instead of skills is kinda crazy unless you plan on sticking around and making sure they stay alive.

I also just did some testing myself with some gremlins and spent around $700 on them in two separate rounds and didn't get a sing kill with them, tho a s**t ton of assists. I've seen assassins really successful with them, I'm just not one of them, I like bouncers.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

Alright, fine. You can upgrade skills when you start, it's not like you have to follow my guide exactly or at all for that matter. I'm just posting what I do and what works most of the time (emphasis on most, not always).

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

haha, I'm just doing the same.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

Not building turrets because someone else might upgrade/hack it and 'steal' your kills is really bad team play. Really bad. Shamefully bad sportsmanship. Real good ideology to bring to a team game.

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

So I never play assassin. I played it when i was a noob and didnt know any better, and when i played it i did it selfishly. spend a lot of time cloaked and stationary, waiting to get a cool assassination because i thought that was all they could do.

but i read this thread and others and decided that now that i know the ins and outs of the game, i should give the assassin another shot, this time playing it in a way that will help my team.

so long story short i went 17-9-8. Its not the most amazing score ever, but i'm happy with it. i also killed 6-7 turrets, and 3 firebases.

just wanted to say thanks for the good tips. i am now a competent assassin

Re: Vinticus's assassin guide to not sucking!

Thank you for the compliment! I'm glad I could help. I have updated a little bit about what you should be doing based on how far into the round you are as well for any interested in it. I intentionally made it a bit vague as everyone has their own style of doing things.