Looking for Feedback - Assassin Tweak

this thread says "Assassin Tweak" but all I see is "Not a Necro Rework"

necro rework when?

 

Weird buff but okay.

 

Might actually make assassin useful for more than just waiting behind a wall for someone for 3 minutes

 

Where was this idea suggested? Also still waiting on classes such as pyro, elf, necro, chemist, dwarf which overall should take priority over this rework. Didn't see assassin in any form of bad state as it was an all round ok class that didn't need reworking imo.
About the rework, I wouldnt see this coming in helpful that much at all. Assassin only has a pair of gold boots so the two extra hearts wont help that much. I could see this coming in handy whenever the assassin wont get 2 tapped by a ninja, however that's it really.

 

Correct me if my math sucks but...
Assassin with a single stack of 2 hearts takes an extra hit to kill from unbuffed heavy, unbuffed soldier and pyro, and buffed chemist, soldier, and pyro. I haven’t bothered with figuring out medic since it doesn’t matter as much.
Even if any of this information is wrong with regards to a single stack, the moment you have 4 extra hearts, all of this is definitely the case.

I’d also like to bring up that increasing the hits it takes for ninja to kill assassin by 1 also increases that by 50%. You now have that much extra leeway to kill the ninja. Also consider that this makes the number of hits to kill assassin as ninja the same as the other way around.
The result is that ninja is a little discouraged from attacking assassin because although ninja would still have an advantage, the risk of dying and giving the assassin even more health is always present.

 

This idea wasn't publicly suggested, it's something that crossed my mind during a meeting last week.

The general idea is to make assassin less of a glass cannon and to reward multikills.

 

I’d argue you’re just encouraged to play more actively in general. This allows assassin to get somewhere while potentially having a high amount of health to assassinate a key target. I’m not sure about the timing, seeing as you have a grand total of two seconds of increased health after getting assassinate back, but it certainly does encourage proactivity (and by extension, getting multikills).

 

What I was trying to say was, assassin is an ok class the way it is. It is not weak or overally strong. Usually after the assassinate is used it gets killed by another person from an offense anyway (by the instakill). Also the assassin typically wants to die anyway to respawn to get its assassinate back. My main point was there is many other classes that need reworking to make viable for fun gameplay or even viable for ppms/officials from the list i stated above - pyro, elf, necro, chemist, dwarf. I don't think an assassin rework, buff, nerf is really wanted by the community at the moment, whereas other classes that are seen as over powered are wanted fixed (chemist ), and classes that are weak or unavaidable to play want buffed/reworked.

However, I wouldnt say the assassin rework is a bad idea overall, I think its ok, I just think its the wrong time to be looking at assassin whenever the class is totally fine the way it is.

 

The extra health really doesn’t matter when your a class that will get 1 shot regardless upon using your primary ability. Its not a bad change, but I can’t really see it being terribly useful for assassin’s job.

If there was ever a class that you could properly term as “glass cannon”, a class that has the ability to 1 shot in trade for being 1 shot perfectly fits that bill.

If your 1v1’ing a ninja, odds are your going to lose more health than you gain if you win that fight, 2 extra temporary hp ain’t gonna do much when a ninja sword usually takes off 3.5-4hp per hit.

 

I one trick this class. Ninja sword with no buffs and no crit deals just about exactly 5 hearts against a blocking assassin, just so you know :^)

But either way, the point I was making was that assassin has the potential to minimize the disadvantage, even without extra health. The two extra hearts contribute significantly to the ability for assassin to do so.

To address that particular concern directly, an assassin's goal in a ninja 1v1 situation isn't to have extra health afterwards. Assassin dies in one hit after using assassinate as it is, so assassin having extra health only practically allows it to do better against someone focusing it.
The goal if a ninja focuses you is to survive. If you do, it means the ninja is dead and can no longer harass your pyro, mage, archer, etc. It also means that you don't have to run back from spawn to try to recover from a heavily disadvantageous position.
The extra health allows for that survival.

Spoiler: The thought process behind this, if you're actually interested in detailed analysis

An unblocked ninja attack with no crit and no buff deals 5 hearts. If you kill the ninja after taking that first hit out of invis, you gain 4.5 (due to healing and absorption), and lose a net half heart, which really isn't that bad of a deal considering you don't have to respawn, and you've neutralized an offensive threat.
If you block like you know that a ninja is focusing you (which they probably will be if you're doing well), you take 2.5 instead, and end up gaining a net of 2 hearts.
What prevents the ninja from blocking? Nothing. But most assassin mains should know by now that when a ninja attacks you, they aim to finish the kill quickly (which is usually the right idea to be fair), so the ninja will hardly ever block.
With that addressed, consider now that you will always block the first attack, because you will always be blocking against an invisible ninja. Now, the ninja takes 2-3 more hits to kill you. The total is now 3-4, which is more than what you need to deal to them, which is always 3.
Note that you only get to take 4 total hits if you block every single hit, which seems unlikely, to be fair.
That is, until you have some extra hearts. Now, if you take 2.5 hearts of damage initially, you go down to 9.5 total. If you take an extra 5 hearts from a normal swing, you go down to 4.5. Now you can take an extra hit if you block, which is a huge deal.
In other words, you can get away with not blocking an attack in order to maintain that position.
Having the leeway to not have to block against an invisible ninja even a single time is incredible.
Considering that before this change, assassin used to have no leeway with blocking to get into the same kind of position, the ability to take that extra hit without blocking is monumental, not to mention that it would take 5 total hits with an extra 2 hearts.

Small edit here: I know that the ninja is capable of critting the assassin, but it also makes ninja a way easier target to hit, while not providing a ton of extra damage. Ninja runs a risk by jumping in the air, and especially with extra hearts, assassin can even turn that into an advantage if reaction time is quick enough.

Another (unrelated) point I wanted to make was that assassin is less frequently seen in official matches or PPMs than quite a few other classes because of how easy it is to focus. Not only does this change allow assassin to be better in that situation, but it also plays off of one of assassin's current niches: with defensive medic.
Defensive medic and assassin work well together simply because you don't need to wait 20 seconds for another assassinate; you wait 15 at most, though you'll probably get it more often seeing as it'll take the enemy offense a bit of time to get to your flag.
Now, assassin has the potential to take extra hits, meaning a friendly defensive medic is able to realize you're being damaged and is able to save you sooner. This further increases the gap between this iteration of assassin and the previous.


Obligatory disclaimer that I don't try to start flame wars. I'm just very in-depth when it comes to analysis. If anything, I'm just getting enthused about CTF, and the emotional charge in my responses is due to my irrational love of block game.

 

So far i really like the change. As an assassin main im not completely useless againts ninjas anymore, but it does not make the class too overpowered either

 

In later mc versions, the player blocking animation is broken and there's no way to tell if the player is blocking or not.
Quickly swapping to an item and right clicking it after using the sword does not work (same issue with chemist's potions). This is a problem because competent assassin mains rely heavily on timing, and not being able to use "assassinate" after baiting out block for that tiny time frame makes it frustrating to play with.
Well, not like assassin was any useful in competitive unless it's guarding the flag for the first 30 meters. It's completely useless in recovery when the flag carrier can not let go of block at all and let their team do the killing.
In other words assassin is a dead class, which is a shame since it's the class in my opinion that has the most mind games and most variants of counterplays.
Entirely off topic btw.

 

fixed it for you

 

Of course assassin is useful in competitive, assassin get can easy trades that can completely stop an offence. Let me explain. Imagine a typical 5 defence, 3 offence scenario. If an assassin manages to kill an offence and then die to another offence player straight after by roaming. That leaves 2 offenders against your 4 defenders which should win nearly everytime. Keep in mind if the assassin does this by roaming, the assassin should be able to get back to the flagroom before the offence steals making it a 5v2, which no way an offence should win.

As for you second point that its completely useless on recovery I disagree completly. I see multiple times in PPMs that assassin is that class that gets the recovery, when the flag carrier is too far for any other form of defence to stop. It can also be used to counter stalemates by a class forcing the carrier to unblock (elf, pyro, archer) and then the assassin get the recov.

You then say assassin is a dead class, however its not. Every match I play on casual i see 2+ assassins, during PPMs I also see an assassin run nearly every match.
Assassin is all-round a balanced class.