Ever Played an Assassin?

[Agent_137]

that's the ticket! Instead of wanting to play a master assassin, just convince yourself you really want to play a bumbling assassin. Then you can retire once you get good.

[manonfire]

To play an assassin, you must be comfortable with slow play. If you aren't, go play something else.

There's always a market for smirking warrior/thug Bynners.

[Is Friday]

Not to brag but this one time I played an assassin, and killed like, 3 half-giants, and then like... 2 magickers. Backstab is so cool. Definitely the best skill in the game, hands down. Probably better than Tek Magick.

[Kiri]

Oddly enough, of the four assassins I've played, none of them -ever- actually trained backstab. Not once. Though my first one had absolutely -killer- thrown skill. I never actually played her as an assassin, because I was very new to the game, and I didn't begin training her with that bent until much, much later. Then she drank cleaning fluid by accident. Alas.


The last one I played actually had insane sneakiness skills, but due to circumstances beyond her control, met her death in a rather horrible, but fascinatingly gruesome way before she ever actually got to KILL anyone.

[Good Gortok]

assassins are cursed by having core skills that are hard to justify practicing with any regularity

then they die on their first or second job

[jstorrie]

The assassin class is cursed by players who assume that set of starting skills instantly makes them an assassin by profession.

[Malken]

I think they should change the Assassin name to something like.. Urban Fighters or something like that..

then change "Backstab" to something like.. "Dirty Fighting"

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

The one assassin I played for more than five hours had rockin' stats and kicked serious ass in the sparring circle. He'd take a slight beating at first, but then out of nowhere, I'd get a solid or better hit to somebody's head or neck. It was cool; it was like he was trying to backstab his opponents in mid-combat, always looking for that moment of weakness.
Of course, he was a conscript during the Copper War, so he was probably fighting mostly pickpockets and merchants. But I still felt like a mega-badass.

[Sephiroto]

Assassin is to melee as sorcerer is to magick.

[Desertman]

yeah, that is a problem--how would you get the word out, as an assassin? and how many assassinations are actually called for?

The best Assassin I ever played was Guild Ranger.

That aside...here are my pointers for being a "good" assassin.

Be professional. Dont run about like a lunatic whacking people in the streets, even the Rinth, to get your "backstab" up. The key issue to remember when playing an Assassin, is your typical Assassin is only a part time killer. He usually has a normal life he leads, its a good cover, for example he might be a well-liked craftsman or an aide to someone important (the be cliche), or if not, maybe he is never seen at all. (which can get boring, but to each his own). I would suggest going with the first set of examples, remember that you lead a normal life, and you sometimes happen to kill to suplement your income. Thats the difference between being a thug/murderer/crazy, to being a professional assassin. You do it for the coins, any enjoyment you get out of it is secondary, thats the mark of a professional. Anyone who wants a reputable assassin, will want a professional assassin.

Next, you want a good reputation. First of all, see my above comments about being professional. You ask, "How do I get my reputation out if I cant talk about it.". Well, you can talk about it, just be smart with who you talk to about it. If you are from the north, (which is perfect for playing an actual professional assassin), you should get licensed with the templarate there. Your name will then go onto a "list" of professionals in the city, and not only will the templarate use you potentially, but your name will also be available to anyone who comes looking to hire a killer for a job in the north. Remember, the people who hire you to kill in the north, have to get a license for the kill from the templars. The templars will occasionally put in a good word for you, and maybe get you work, in theory.

Merchant family members, extremely well-to-do indy merchants, and even the southern templarate (corrupt as ever, of course they want a good hired killer themselves) are all good folks to drop a hint to about your availability for "work".

In the end, dont act the fool, dont be a mass murderer jerkoff, and just live a normal life, until it gets time to NOT live a normal life.

Real professionals dont kill to kill, real professionals kill for profit. Keep this in mind and it will keep you from getting over excited and blowing your cover, and it will keep you from making stupid mistakes that get your character whacked by NPC guards and the like early on.

[Bogre]

Okay. I'd first decide what kind of assassin you'd like to be, i.e. how you think you'll like to kill people. You want to be able to destroy someone in combat, quickly and efficiently? Go warrior/ranger. Rangers make awesome outdoorsy assassins too. They aren't just for outdoors, either. Nasty bow skills can be put to use. And that gives you an easy cover. Want to break in then deal with them at your leisure? Pick burglar. Subclasses can also give you some really good viable options to improve your ease of kill. Oh, right, guild_assassin. I'd say burglars are the rangers of the city, but assassins can become very deadly. They -do-, after all, have skills tailored to it. It's not all backstab. I could even think of ways to make guild_merchants and pickpockets into very decent assassins.

Alright, figure out some way to train. Byn, noble house guards, hunting, sparring with a partner in crime, who knows. Obviously, you'll want to be decent in combat. Not necessary, of course, but always good to be able to spend some time in a ruckus. You can train up guild/subclass skills as well, but for some classes it'll be slow.

Don't tell people you're training to be an assassin unless you have a desire to be indebted to that person. Giving up information about yourself (and this goes for all chars) should be IC and will have risk to it, obviously. But there are times when you can be like, hey omg I'm not really a good guard, I can probably do better taking care of -x- on the side. Then the employer can be like lol well sergeant amos is really uber at assassin lol you can do stuff with him.

You don't have to go at it alone. In fact, I'd suggest finding a mentor, then in time finding partners, then apprentices, etc. They can all help you accomplish your goals successfully.

You talk about reputation? Meh. If you start being scary people will probably find out. Plus, I'd rather only be known to an employer who I'd trust, so i'd not have to have my name plastered everywhere. Do aliases, have other people do your work, whatever.

Oh, and here's an evil idea. If you want to be the one to get contracts...maybe you should eliminate your opposition, or get them to work for YOU. Call it a hostile takeover.

Just my two cents, without hopefully revealing too many of my plans for my future killers

[Sokotra]

Assassin = "Put-way-to-much-time-into-this-game-because-you-have-to-train-9000-different-skillz-and-won't-be-even-very-good-until-25-30-days-played-but-if-your-girlfriend-left-you-in-the-middle-of-the-night-because-you-woke-up-to-train-backstab-just-one-more-time-you're-on-the-right-track"

And then you die when a majicker walks in and immediately casts sleep on you and then proceeds to kill you dead.  Thanks for that, whoever that was so many years ago...

Thanks for reminding me, Reiloth.. I was just about to try an assassin again but you refreshed my memory on what a waste of time it is.  I suppose I'll stick to the warrior raiders.  Watch your backs.

[Malken]

Assassin = "Put-way-to-much-time-into-this-game-because-you-have-to-train-9000-different-skillz-and-won't-be-even-very-good-until-25-30-days-played-but-if-your-girlfriend-left-you-in-the-middle-of-the-night-because-you-woke-up-to-train-backstab-just-one-more-time-you're-on-the-right-track"

And then you die when a majicker walks in and immediately casts rainbow bright on you and then proceeds to kill you dead.  Thanks for that, whoever that was so many years ago...

Thanks for reminding me, Reiloth.. I was just about to try an assassin again but you refreshed my memory on what a waste of time it is.  I suppose I'll stick to the warrior raiders.  Watch your backs.

Because magickers can't cast rainbow bright on warrior raiders and proceed to kill them dead?

[manonfire]

Hey cool, IC info.

[Is Friday]

Get it while it's still hot.

[Sokotra]

Assassin = "Put-way-to-much-time-into-this-game-because-you-have-to-train-9000-different-skillz-and-won't-be-even-very-good-until-25-30-days-played-but-if-your-girlfriend-left-you-in-the-middle-of-the-night-because-you-woke-up-to-train-backstab-just-one-more-time-you're-on-the-right-track"

And then you die when a majicker walks in and immediately casts sleep on you and then proceeds to kill you dead.  Thanks for that, whoever that was so many years ago...

Thanks for reminding me, Reiloth.. I was just about to try an assassin again but you refreshed my memory on what a waste of time it is.  I suppose I'll stick to the warrior raiders.  Watch your backs.

Because magickers can't cast sleep on warrior raiders and proceed to kill them dead?

"Find out IC." 

[Synthesis]

I mean, if you really want to get down to it, assassins are about a million times better in PvP vs. most magickers than warriors are.  You know when everyone says "a well-prepared magicker can smoke anything?"  Well...the element of surprise pretty much puts a gigantic kibosh on that.  And hey, you can land backstabs that will smoke fools before they can type 'flee,' much less 'cast mon un elkros great googly moogly'.  And let's not even get into the other skills assassins get that warriors don't.

Weenie assassins get their faces melted all the time by raw combat power, sure.  But let me tell you:  if you can get your assassin up to greatness, you'll be ripping new assholes with such force that pretty much only Staff intervention will put an end to your rampage.  You still might get zorched by a magicker, but -anybody- can get zorched by a magicker:  that's just a risk you run when you play Armageddon.

[Sokotra]

The point that I think Reiloth and myself were making is that it takes quite a bit of time to be able to do anything worth a darn with an Assassin... which for me, personally, is a huge waste of time when I don't have a ton of time to invest in playing in the first place.

Oh yeah... and the majicker was invisible.

[jstorrie]

You can do a lot of things worth a darn with an unexperienced assassin. You can, for example, play a character.

[jcljules]

But how do you end up getting good at playing an assassin? You're not allowed to train backstab, right? And its also considered bad form to sneak everywhere.

[Desertman]

But how do you end up getting good at playing an assassin? You're not allowed to train backstab, right? And its also considered bad form to sneak everywhere.

Training backstab has always been "interesting" to me. I prefer to not play Guild Assassin, with my assassins, for this reason.

I heard you shouldnt train it on creatures, you shouldnt mass kill PC's, and since we are required to treat NPC's, like PC's, you can mass kill NPC's either.

So if you cant train it on animals, you cant train it on PC's, and you cant train it on NPC's, because you are supposed to treat them like PC's....who/what then do you train it on?

Oh, and you cant train it on sparring dummies, I found that out the hard way.

Actually, I am throwing this into ask the staff....I really dont know what to do in this sort of situation.

[Is Friday]

Why can't people train archery/throwing on sparring dummies? Is the code broken?

[jcljules]

But how do you end up getting good at playing an assassin? You're not allowed to train backstab, right? And its also considered bad form to sneak everywhere.

Oh, and you cant train it on sparring dummies, I found that out the hard way.

Exactly--so exactly how do you get good at backstab? Do you just...assassinate a lot of people? You'd need to be VERY lucky and VERY patient to do that.

[Desertman]

Why can't people train archery/throwing on sparring dummies? Is the code broken?

Because you will get this if you do...

Someone sends:
Please do not train archery/throw on sparring dummies. That is not what they are for.

Atleast thats what happened to me, it also happened with backstab.

[Is Friday]

Right I know that you aren't allowed to.

But I've never been told why.