Assassin Matchup

[Viblo]

So I main a Kung Fu Master and I've been playing PVP with it for a short while. I'm normally around 1700, but what I've always noticed is the crazy disadvantage we have against Assassins. I was just now at 1710, but I was up against three sins in a row and ended up at 1660 and it has always been like this.

I've watched some video and read guides on them, but nothing has helped. It's such a huge pain in the ass.

 

What should I do?

[PatchKid]

Assassins are traditionally the hardest counter to a KFM.  There are some tips you can use to help mitigate them, but given equal skill, an Assassin still has a pretty significant edge over a KFM.

 

1. You will want the Rising Dragon (Z) HM unlock to pull targets into a stun.  This will pull assassins out of stealth, stun them, and often force them to use their TAB escape.

 

2. Make sure you're trained for Ice Guard as this can be used when blinded and also as another great way to bring Assassins out of stealth.  The freeze portion of Ice Guard will break stealth and root them.

 

3. Tech chase with Flurry (C) as it will follow them into stealth and remove stealth on the 4th hit.

 

4. Try to SS their shiruken.  When they throw a shiruken at you from stealth, it plants a knife in your back that allows them to teleport to your back and immediately stun you.  If you can time an SS and evade this (very hard, but doable), it will greatly improve your ability to avoid being stun locked from stealth.  This also forces them to get close to initiate a stun lock, which gives you more opportunities to pull them from stealth.

 

5. Having HM counter skills are also very useful - specifically right 4 - fully unlocked in the tree.  This gives you 1s of immunity to status effects following a successful counter.  While Assassins are very difficult to counter, success in doing so will greatly help with their follow-up dazes.

 

6. Assassin counters are very clear and obvious to see.  They have a wavy hand motion when they're countering.  Never immediately attack an assassin on the ground or after they F escape from a knock-down unless you know that their counter is on CD.  Most of the time (at least against the opponents I've faced) they will use counter while on the ground or immediately after an F escape, which makes it harder to tech chase.  You can tech chase with Flurry regardless of Counter because it will still daze them on the 4th hit.  You can also use Tremor (V) while they're on the ground, as it cannot be countered, if you wish to stun them.

 

In the end, a skilled assassin can almost always poison and drain a KFM to death over an extended period.  Blue buff assassins tend to be easier targets for KFMs vs those using their Lotus escape thingy, and the fight usually ends sooner (one way or the other) because they're basically trying to PvE you - which can work to your advantage.  That second escape really makes it hard to lock them down!

[Viblo]

2 hours ago, PatchKid said:

Assassins are traditionally the hardest counter to a KFM.  There are some tips you can use to help mitigate them, but given equal skill, an Assassin still has a pretty significant edge over a KFM.

 

1. You will want the Rising Dragon (Z) HM unlock to pull targets into a stun.  This will pull assassins out of stealth, stun them, and often force them to use their TAB escape.

 

2. Make sure you're trained for Ice Guard as this can be used when blinded and also as another great way to bring Assassins out of stealth.  The freeze portion of Ice Guard will break stealth and root them.

 

3. Tech chase with Flurry (C) as it will follow them into stealth and remove stealth on the 4th hit.

 

4. Try to SS their shiruken.  When they throw a shiruken at you from stealth, it plants a knife in your back that allows them to teleport to your back and immediately stun you.  If you can time an SS and evade this (very hard, but doable), it will greatly improve your ability to avoid being stun locked from stealth.  This also forces them to get close to initiate a stun lock, which gives you more opportunities to pull them from stealth.

 

5. Having HM counter skills are also very useful - specifically right 4 - fully unlocked in the tree.  This gives you 1s of immunity to status effects following a successful counter.  While Assassins are very difficult to counter, success in doing so will greatly help with their follow-up dazes.

 

6. Assassin counters are very clear and obvious to see.  They have a wavy hand motion when they're countering.  Never immediately attack an assassin on the ground or after they F escape from a knock-down unless you know that their counter is on CD.  Most of the time (at least against the opponents I've faced) they will use counter while on the ground or immediately after an F escape, which makes it harder to tech chase.  You can tech chase with Flurry regardless of Counter because it will still daze them on the 4th hit.  You can also use Tremor (V) while they're on the ground, as it cannot be countered, if you wish to stun them.

 

In the end, a skilled assassin can almost always poison and drain a KFM to death over an extended period.  Blue buff assassins tend to be easier targets for KFMs vs those using their Lotus escape thingy, and the fight usually ends sooner (one way or the other) because they're basically trying to PvE you - which can work to your advantage.  That second escape really makes it hard to lock them down!

Thanks a lot for the helpful advice! 

For the HM Z and HM Counter, I'm someone who stopped playing PVE and only focuses on PVP. My income is very limited because of it. Are there any ways to get the HM skills without a big income or without PVE?

[N3ro]

Sick idea to not tech chase sins, because hm decoy is too strong, but don´t you think you should learn how to tech chase instead of giving sins a 3rd tab escape for free? I also don´t see how c daze would be any save at all. We just decoy and then stun you unless you cancel your c with ss you can´t do anything about that either once you mistimed it.

 

And for ss´ing x dagger, sure if you get an ss on x dagger it´s nice and all, but i don´t think you should worry too much about that specifically, but more about stalling out time in general when the sin is stealthed, or snipe him out of stealth with your 4 daze, or 3 kd, z pull or ice.

 

What i mean with stalling time for instance when the sin uses ss you´d block your back. If shadowslip happens you feel pro as f*ck. If it does not you ss AWAY from the sin and block again after the iframe ended. Then the sins shadowslip also is gone and most sins also ss away from you most of the time before shadowslip, because then you don´t have to turn your screen anywhere, so they are probably far away from you. A lot of the time this makes it really awkward as we won´t really have any way to get to you all that fast except we run 1 dash, witch unlike x dagger you can actually visually react to sort of with 4/3/whatever. Here you can also expect a lot of sins to boltstrike you instead cause that is sort of an approach, but pretty terrible and you should learn how to counter boltstrikes in general as every boltstrike could be a free engage for you.  

 

Against x dagger you should also block first then ss and then block again after the iframe is gone, so you have like that bigger window where the sin can´t really do all too much. Or you go in offensively with ss into z pull is also good sometimes. Really just depends on how the match is going.

 

Then at some point you get into the mindgame territory where you basically delay your blocks sometimes expecting the sin to expect you to do that block > ss > block or something, but instead you wait 1 second and then do it, congrats you just got an extra second. Sounds silly, but it´s good cause you sort of put the sin on a clock and they usually want to do something in those 6 seconds. And then they do some stupid yolo stuff, witch you can counter much easier.

 

Your x is also insane for annoyance/stalling/comboing/everything. The 10 seconds dot removes our stealth.

 

Good kfms also usually use tigerstrike a lot in combos. I´m not entierly sure if they use the 4m one or the 5m one (much less damage, but 1 chi instead of 3 and defence penetration), but they sure always use one of the two (id guess the 5m one, but who knows lul), because it makes you able to do something, while outranging our tab escape. Also abuse your redicolously long q´s and aircombos a lot cause it´s save damage that you can always do.

[PatchKid]

Sick idea to not tech chase sins, because hm decoy is too strong, but don´t you think you should learn how to tech chase instead of giving sins a 3rd tab escape for free? I also don´t see how c daze would be any save at all. We just decoy and then stun you unless you cancel your c with ss you can´t do anything about that either once you mistimed it.

 

With Assassins, I've found that 75% of the time after an F roll to escape KD, they immediately follow with counter.  If you attack into their counter with any KFM tech chase - other than flurry - it gives them free stealth and puts you back into the rotation.  Comet Strike is the key example where this happens all the time.  If you wait for them to counter and then attempt to daze / chase, they usually activate their immediate daze ability that follows a counter (not sure what that is, but it's a sort of quick dash + daze).

 

Chasing with C (Flurry) results in the assassin gaining stealth, then being knocked out of stealth, dazed with their F escape on CD.  Now they have to use one of their major escapes or eat a major damage rotation.  IMO - it's the best method of tech chasing an assassin after F roll for KFM.

 

And for ss´ing x dagger, sure if you get an ss on x dagger it´s nice and all, but i don´t think you should worry too much about that specifically, but more about stalling out time in general when the sin is stealthed, or snipe him out of stealth with your 4 daze, or 3 kd, z pull or ice.

 

SSing dagger is incredibly valuable against an assassin because closing the distance to stun from stealth becomes somewhat harder and much more telegraphed.  Sniping an assassin out of stealth for a KFM is a 50/50.  If you manage to hit them with their extra movement speed modifier, they have a 50% chance to evade the attack (which you know obviously).  However, you have zero chance of being able to "snipe" them from stealth if they can just insta-teleport + stun to your back.  That's why it's so valuable for a KFM.  You can't easily snipe a smart assassin moving faster than you while in stealth if they can just time the teleport and stun lock.

 

Against x dagger you should also block first then ss and then block again after the iframe is gone, so you have like that bigger window where the sin can´t really do all too much. Or you go in offensively with ss into z pull is also good sometimes. Really just depends on how the match is going.

 

This would be great advice except for one flaw.  Counter (block) of the dagger still results in having the dagger in your back.  IMO, that's a bug or bad design, but nonetheless it is how this works.  The assassin does have to wait 1s until your invuln wears off, but if you SS the dagger they don't get to use that teleport skill because the ability has been completely avoided.

 

The 10 seconds dot removes our stealth.

 

It's not a DoT.  After 10 seconds it's causes a knock-down, and yes it will remove stealth.  The tricky part is actually landing X.  That's still great advice though - if you can get X (Searing Palm) on an assassin you should.  After 10 seconds it will proc and knock them down and out of stealth.  I would also add that using TAB Flying Slam T4/S3 is incredibly effective against assassins as they will definitely keep their distance when not in stealth and use their counter making Flying Slam T4/S3 the best method of closing the gap.  It will knock them up, and completely bypasses counter.  I recommend using Meteor Slam and trying to time an Armbar (really hard to time against good players) to lock them out of defense skills including counter for 10 seconds.  Gives you a good 10 second window of opportunity if you can pull off the Armbar.

 

 

[PatchKid]

2 hours ago, Viblo said:

For the HM Z and HM Counter, I'm someone who stopped playing PVE and only focuses on PVP. My income is very limited because of it. Are there any ways to get the HM skills without a big income or without PVE?

You can grind zen beans and buy PVP specific currency to purchase these HM skills from the Zen Bean trader.  It will take months of grinding to accomplish, but is doable.  You can also look for opportunities to get gold via PVP (i.e. soulstone grinding) and buy the books required off the Auction House.

 

KFM is also very reliant on having access to more skill points.  You will want to get level 50 and HM5+ to have sufficient points to spread around for PvP.  It's definitely better to finish up the PvE story line to accomplish that goal.

[N3ro]

28 minutes ago, PatchKid said:

With Assassins, I've found that 75% of the time after an F roll to escape KD, they immediately follow with counter.  If you attack into their counter with any KFM tech chase - other than flurry - it gives them free stealth and puts you back into the rotation.  Comet Strike is the key example where this happens all the time.  If you wait for them to counter and then attempt to daze / chase, they usually activate their immediate daze ability that follows a counter (not sure what that is, but it's a sort of quick dash + daze).

Chasing with C (Flurry) results in the assassin gaining stealth, then being knocked out of stealth, dazed with their F escape on CD.  Now they have to use one of their major escapes or eat a major damage rotation.  IMO - it's the best method of tech chasing an assassin after F roll for KFM.

SSing dagger is incredibly valuable against an assassin because closing the distance to stun from stealth becomes somewhat harder and much more telegraphed.  Sniping an assassin out of stealth for a KFM is a 50/50.  If you manage to hit them with their extra movement speed modifier, they have a 50% chance to evade the attack (which you know obviously).  However, you have zero chance of being able to "snipe" them from stealth if they can just insta-teleport + stun to your back.  That's why it's so valuable for a KFM.  You can't easily snipe a smart assassin moving faster than you while in stealth if they can just time the teleport and stun lock.

This would be great advice except for one flaw.  Counter (block) of the dagger still results in having the dagger in your back.  IMO, that's a bug or bad design, but nonetheless it is how this works.  The assassin does have to wait 1s until your invuln wears off, but if you SS the dagger they don't get to use that teleport skill because the ability has been completely avoided.

It's not a DoT.  After 10 seconds it's causes a knock-down, and yes it will remove stealth.  The tricky part is actually landing X.  That's still great advice though - if you can get X (Searing Palm) on an assassin you should.  After 10 seconds it will proc and knock them down and out of stealth.  I would also add that using TAB Flying Slam T4/S3 is incredibly effective against assassins as they will definitely keep their distance when not in stealth and use their counter making Flying Slam T4/S3 the best method of closing the gap.  It will knock them up, and completely bypasses counter.  I recommend using Meteor Slam and trying to time an Armbar (really hard to time against good players) to lock them out of defense skills including counter for 10 seconds.  Gives you a good 10 second window of opportunity if you can pull off the Armbar.

You can tech chase before we can use decoy just fine, witch basically any skill, you just have to time it properly.

 

The x dagger getting stuck into you is just how it works, we still can´t use it. When you use your ice you should also counter x dagger btw, because if we throw it into you you get iced and the debuff does NOT apply this time, but we actually can use the daze afterwards, unlike when you block it, then we cannot.

 

Evade chance is no 50/50 chance. Evade is more like 20-30% max idk exactly. What it does it raises our natural evade by 50%, but the natural evade is not zero, if it where +50% would do nothing, witch is how it should be, but it´s not. So we get an increased evade modifier, witch your accuracy does no longer mitigate, but i do not know the exact formular. Either way everything that pierces defence can´t be evaded (like z pull). And i don´t see how your 3 and 4´s would be so precious that you can´t use them to possibly snipe the sin out of stealth and win the game with it. Sure you can no longer 4 daze our boltstrike, but you can also c our boltstrike, or ss dodge it and then use your rmb (if you use the long range one).

 

The x also removes stealth the entire 10 seconds. Not only the kd. I think the kd itself might not even remove stealth tbh, much like timebomb daze/kd does not remove stealth, but pretty much every single second it ticks it removes our stealth. Believe it, or try it.

 

And sniping "smart" sins is entirely possible. I also do that on my assassin against assassins with shadow slash, lightning stride and lighting rod. Does not matter how smart the sin might be it´s completely possible. Zapish does it all the time. That´s how i actually loose to him a lot of the time. At least part of it. Watch ryukis stream or something he also constantly says something along the lines of "He is a sniping god" etc. You just have to practice it a WHOLE LOT!

[N3ro]

 

There you actually see a lot of that stuff i talked about. That sin is really good and by no means i beat him all the time. 1 game is just a small sample size. And the only reason i uploaded that in the first place is cause he complained about evades after the game where i had zero evades and he had 1, so i showed him. He wanted to push for diamond and so he was mad, basically. Don´t blame him...

 

So anyways somewhere in the first round he uses ss and then i sst too at some point and use my trap. So he didn´t shadowslip (witch you just apply to your kfm like i said, but with different skills). Then you see exactly what i was talking about, the timer is ticking so he boltstrikes me, witch i basically expected and just held down x a second before, he could have punished me with lighting rod behind him there, but he didn´t.

 

And the second round i snipe him 2 times. Some others i missed and there is a tech chase miss and 1 bug when trying to chase flower. His tab swap got resisted by my decoy immunity at some point (because it still procs even though x dagger does not give you stealth).

 

So it´s still a somewhat cool match even though he failed a lot and i did too.

 

Point is you can´t outsmart most of those snipes. You hit them or you miss them. You don´t have the movement to do so and even if you had you don´t have the brain capacity to dodge everything that might eventually come at you with .5 seconds cast time. A lot of it is pure prediction at some point, or do you think i actually reacted to his tab escape after my x dagger with my q? That´s one of the best sins on ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ eu and he would have gotten hit by that lightning rod in the second round too probably (although that was a really obvious lighting rod...), but i just outright missed it, because it was wayyyy to late. And same for the 3 kd in the first round. And same for the 4 tech chase on his tab the first round and same for the landmine tech chase in the first round. All of those things are just me failing my timings, not him outplaying me tbh. You have to do it anyways, or you´ll never learn how to do it properly.

 

The combo at the end was just awkward, knockup getting ready when i want to tab stealth...

[nakama]

13 hours ago, Viblo said:

Thanks a lot for the helpful advice! 

For the HM Z and HM Counter, I'm someone who stopped playing PVE and only focuses on PVP. My income is very limited because of it. Are there any ways to get the HM skills without a big income or without PVE?

There is a duelist bundle in f10 if u dont mind spending some money at the game witch will give you your HM skills chek it out.

[Shuchin]

Also be aware that the new Korean skill system (which must come here soonish :P ) disposes of skill point requirements. You still need the HM skill unlocks, though, so it's worth it to farm beans for that.

 

About the Tiger Strike, I cannot imagine using anything else against sins than the 1 focus stage 3 HM version, because it's  penetrating defense, is AoE and low focus cost. It will knock a sin out of stealth 100% success rate, and it can be spammed on the sin ground counter too. Since its range is the same as Q/E, knocking a sin out and then iframing is a good way to gain the advantage without committing any precious CC for unstealthing. The only other de-stealther I do not mind using readily is ice guard, again because gives you the advantage without losing CC chain potential.

[KnockOut31]

On 2/10/2017 at 0:35 PM, Viblo said:

So I main a Kung Fu Master and I've been playing PVP with it for a short while. I'm normally around 1700, but what I've always noticed is the crazy disadvantage we have against Assassins. I was just now at 1710, but I was up against three sins in a row and ended up at 1660 and it has always been like this.

I've watched some video and read guides on them, but nothing has helped. It's such a huge pain in the ass.

 

What should I do?

You dont do anything, you are just a practice puppet. I main a KFM too and cant pass 1600 with all those assasins around.SInce i have a lvl 48 assasin and i pretty much know all of their skillsi tried pvp, 10 games won in a row and boom, instant gold, didnt even tried.

Im not that good anyways to be a platinum player, but every time i face an assasin is like "just end it quicly" 

 

On 2/13/2017 at 0:00 PM, PatchKid said:

Assassins are traditionally the hardest counter to a KFM.  There are some tips you can use to help mitigate them, but given equal skill, an Assassin still has a pretty significant edge over a KFM.

 

1. You will want the Rising Dragon (Z) HM unlock to pull targets into a stun.  This will pull assassins out of stealth, stun them, and often force them to use their TAB escape.

 

2. Make sure you're trained for Ice Guard as this can be used when blinded and also as another great way to bring Assassins out of stealth.  The freeze portion of Ice Guard will break stealth and root them.

 

3. Tech chase with Flurry (C) as it will follow them into stealth and remove stealth on the 4th hit.

 

4. Try to SS their shiruken.  When they throw a shiruken at you from stealth, it plants a knife in your back that allows them to teleport to your back and immediately stun you.  If you can time an SS and evade this (very hard, but doable), it will greatly improve your ability to avoid being stun locked from stealth.  This also forces them to get close to initiate a stun lock, which gives you more opportunities to pull them from stealth.

 

5. Having HM counter skills are also very useful - specifically right 4 - fully unlocked in the tree.  This gives you 1s of immunity to status effects following a successful counter.  While Assassins are very difficult to counter, success in doing so will greatly help with their follow-up dazes.

 

6. Assassin counters are very clear and obvious to see.  They have a wavy hand motion when they're countering.  Never immediately attack an assassin on the ground or after they F escape from a knock-down unless you know that their counter is on CD.  Most of the time (at least against the opponents I've faced) they will use counter while on the ground or immediately after an F escape, which makes it harder to tech chase.  You can tech chase with Flurry regardless of Counter because it will still daze them on the 4th hit.  You can also use Tremor (V) while they're on the ground, as it cannot be countered, if you wish to stun them.

 

In the end, a skilled assassin can almost always poison and drain a KFM to death over an extended period.  Blue buff assassins tend to be easier targets for KFMs vs those using their Lotus escape thingy, and the fight usually ends sooner (one way or the other) because they're basically trying to PvE you - which can work to your advantage.  That second escape really makes it hard to lock them down!

Those tips are actually helpful, but most of the good sins have lotus of rescue everytime, and if you got them they use it, plus the smoke screen that gives you another 10 seconds to deal damage. 

[hwalien]

yeah it about time we all cry about how OP sins are.

I hope its summ or WL next cus we can't never bash them enough.

[Munifex]

Many doesn't realize turning your back against an assassin is in fact an advantage, not a disadvantage because they can stealth when they hit from behind because most of assassin attacks blinks him from behind, which is blockable if you turn your back against an assasin.