Assault class discussion (trash or good?)

[Deus Vult]

Does anyone has a competent build for Assault which makes it great?

Currently my Assault is at lvl 16, but with Tactical lvl 25 felt like it is much better at melee fights. Not to mention the OP Auspex build.

[Surottoru]

I've been enjoying it. Going to lean into gun strikes as it seems to do that well, and with heavy pistol might work well

[Apothecary Michael]

Look in the Guides Section, there are some for every class. And Assult starts out bad, but gets better over time.

[Goblets]

Build wont matter if you play assault like a bulwark.

It's more how you play assault, play to assault's strength, and you have a big impact on the match.

[StOnEdSmUrFz]

It's probably the hardest one to play high level. I got mine to 18 i think it was and stopped. You can 1v1 pretty good but with all the mobs in higher levels unless you got someone clearing trash mobs its too hard. So maybe if you play with friends and you organised better but for PUBs just don't save yourself the pain.

[Ahriman]

The core problem with the Assault is that you don't play it like Assault would in the lore, that's the job of the Vanguard for some reason as the two are reversed in the game. Vanguard is the one charging into combat and being a wrecking ball, while the Assault is all about hit & run, jumping in, taking out a valuable target, then immediately hopping out, using the jump pack for pinpoint AoE damage and quick escapes.

Basically, you don't want to use the Assault for actual melee combat outside of single targets. The jump pack is there for you to run in case you get swarmed, and to slam down to take out hordes. If you want to play what an Assault is in the lore, then you'll have to look at the Vanguard unfortunately.

[Avengernaut]

I've played assault a lot at max level on hardest difficulty and tried different ways of playing it... I can honestly say Assault is kinda trash right now. I can push over 10k melee damage but it takes a lot of work. There some buggy things going on with him like animation lock-ups, and unresponsiveness, and survival in combat and mobility is pretty poor for what the class is supposed to be about. Space Marine 1 did it a lot better. His one perk "ascension" which damages enemies on take-off with your jump-pack, triggers explosive barrels around you which instantly makes it terrible.

At the highest difficulty, you can fight tyranids fine if you know what you're doing, you don't need a "build" for it. It kinda comes down to more your own skill level rather than "builds", at least for Assault, since you can actually avoid taking alot of damage in the first place against tyranids. He is still not ideal or very good however as other classes can still do things better. I still think the "assault fantasy" isn't really there with the class still and he does need some reworking.

Against chaos you have some serious problems. There is no reliable way to survive at all unless your teammates are practically doing all the work for you. You're going to get shot from everywhere most of the time or whittled down by the minoris enemies. It's usually in areas of the mission where you fight a "massive wave" or the mission events where lots of chaos marines spawn with the minoris-level enemies. Other classes can deal with these just fine, even without meltaguns.

[ganjou241]

Originally posted by Ahriman:

The core problem with the Assault is that you don't play it like Assault would in the lore, that's the job of the Vanguard for some reason as the two are reversed in the game. Vanguard is the one charging into combat and being a wrecking ball, while the Assault is all about hit & run, jumping in, taking out a valuable target, then immediately hopping out, using the jump pack for pinpoint AoE damage and quick escapes.

Basically, you don't want to use the Assault for actual melee combat outside of single targets. The jump pack is there for you to run in case you get swarmed, and to slam down to take out hordes. If you want to play what an Assault is in the lore, then you'll have to look at the Vanguard unfortunately.

Assault Marines (squads) in lore operate in groups right? How can a lone single assault operate the same way as a squad of Assault Marines? ROE would change to hit and run..

[Targaryen22]

My assault build is built around using ground pound to recharge the boost charges I use to get the attack off (skill that recharges jump pack by 10% per kill with ground pound). You boost to the party, kill enough to refill both boost charges and finish the mob. Ez claps ez profit. If things aren't that simple (higher levels or more majors or bigger enemies in the mob) you have now just refilled your jump pack and can then use it to gtfo lol. My assault is 25. It's my favorite class by virtue of being as close to a Grey knight interceptor as I can currently get too play.
Gun strikes after heavy sweeping hammer attacks on minor enemies to refill shields and boost pack for mobility and combat flow control is how you utilize it to its utmost. It has a higher skill ceiling then the other classes I feel but is so very rewarding to master

[Grim@FU_BARRACUDA]

The assault, is in my opinion an interceptor calls and its role is to make sure that other classes can carry out their job. That means, if something is coming to close to sniper or tactical, you jump in the way and take care of it. You can do this at any time, no matter what build you use. You need to realise that not every class is meant to be top kill score ;-)

Well you can ofc also jump behind the enemy lines and take care about ranged units aswell and you should ;-)

[Mike]

For pve, assault should be able to carry more grenades than anyone. An assault marine relies on their grenades far more than other Astartes infantry, and they carry more as well in the lore.

[Avengernaut]

Originally posted by Targaryen22:

My assault build is built around using ground pound to recharge the boost charges I use to get the attack off (skill that recharges jump pack by 10% per kill with ground pound). You boost to the party, kill enough to refill both boost charges and finish the mob. Ez claps ez profit. If things aren't that simple (higher levels or more majors or bigger enemies in the mob) you have now just refilled your jump pack and can then use it to gtfo lol. My assault is 25. It's my favorite class by virtue of being as close to a Grey knight interceptor as I can currently get too play.
Gun strikes after heavy sweeping hammer attacks on minor enemies to refill shields and boost pack for mobility and combat flow control is how you utilize it to its utmost. It has a higher skill ceiling then the other classes I feel but is so very rewarding to master

Against tyranids maybe. Against chaos enemies, usually by the time you open up a minoris enemy to a gunstrike and perform said gunstrike, you've lost more health than you've gained and you're constantly getting shot from everywhere and the minoris enemies leaping at you while you do all that...

Originally posted by Xenohunter617:

The assault, is in my opinion an interceptor calls and its role is to make sure that other classes can carry out their job. That means, if something is coming to close to sniper or tactical, you jump in the way and take care of it. You can do this at any time, no matter what build you use. You need to realise that not every class is meant to be top kill score ;-)

Well you can ofc also jump behind the enemy lines and take care about ranged units aswell and you should ;-)

No... it should not play like that otherwise everyone would be bored and not play it.... Every class needs to hold their own and rewarding players who choose to use teamplay tactics. Like, if you get a match where you have 2 bot allies or just really bad teammates, that class you are playing better be able to solo carry.... Every class needs to do this for this very reason in this game. As a matter of fact, one of the devs had said in a blog post that they didn't like it when team games were too team-oriented and required too much teamwork... so they tried to design space marine 2 that way.

Also, in Space Marine 1, assault could jump behind enemy lines and take out ranged units really really well and it was REQUIRED if you wanted to win that horde mode in that game.... Ranged enemies were the most damaging enemy type and would wipe your squad if you let them build up and would stop shields from regening out of combat.

[Targaryen22]

Originally posted by Avengernaut:

Originally posted by Targaryen22:

My assault build is built around using ground pound to recharge the boost charges I use to get the attack off (skill that recharges jump pack by 10% per kill with ground pound). You boost to the party, kill enough to refill both boost charges and finish the mob. Ez claps ez profit. If things aren't that simple (higher levels or more majors or bigger enemies in the mob) you have now just refilled your jump pack and can then use it to gtfo lol. My assault is 25. It's my favorite class by virtue of being as close to a Grey knight interceptor as I can currently get too play.
Gun strikes after heavy sweeping hammer attacks on minor enemies to refill shields and boost pack for mobility and combat flow control is how you utilize it to its utmost. It has a higher skill ceiling then the other classes I feel but is so very rewarding to master

Against tyranids maybe. Against chaos enemies, usually by the time you open up a minoris enemy to a gunstrike and perform said gunstrike, you've lost more health than you've gained and you're constantly getting shot from everywhere and the minoris enemies leaping at you while you do all that...

The missions with chaos are an entirely different matter honestly. The chaos missions are far more painfully annoying then I honestly think is worth it. There's not a lot of defense with assault, and defense is king when fighting the chaos aholes

[Alfred J. Kwak]

you have to basicly gunblast your way through and look at that animation a bunch of times, then it has the chance of good survival, other then that, oh boy

[Jámez Bondo]

Assault is currently underpowered in PvE, so there is really no build that makes it great. Here are some pointers If you are still committed to playing it for style points, though:

- Your pistol is your main weapon. Pop gaunt heads and weaken warriors before engaging in melee.

- Whatever melee weapon you use, take the balanced or fencing variant. Parrying makes your life a lot easier, so going for the block variants is not worth it at all.

- Don't just jump strike blindly into blobs. While tempting, this will get you killed. Plan your jumps carefully and target already weakened warriors to scalpel them out. Precision Strike perk helps here. In general, wait for your team to engage and follow up with targeted jumps to clear out important targets, you are not a bulwark.

- When swarmed, either jump to a more favourable position or try a combination of dodging and parrying to break surrounds. Wait for Warriors to jump at you for an easy parry into gunstrike. If you are under a lot of pressure, use grenades and jump strike to buy yourself some time or trigger that crucial execution on warriors.

- When you can freely engage a swarm, shoot as many minoris with your pistol before going in. Majoris are easy to parry into execution, so don't worry too much about them right away. It's the little bugs that will kill you.

[Ahriman]

Originally posted by ganjou241:

Assault Marines (squads) in lore operate in groups right? How can a lone single assault operate the same way as a squad of Assault Marines? ROE would change to hit and run..

All of our fellow Space Marines in the Operations mode operate in Squads, as a side note. None of the ones we have operate solo, ever, including the Vanguard. Reiver Squads (which the class is based on) is also a squad of its own.

But to quickly ask the counter question on the matter, how come a dude in lighter version of the Primaris Armour with a knife is superior as a wrecking ball than the being with twice the mass wielding a hammer that would pulverize even Power Armour on impact strapped to a small jet engine? That's kinda the problem here. Based on the trials alone, they designed the Vanguard to be the hit & run, high value target melee exterminator, but due to the heavy limitations put on the Assaults core ability and the sheer volume of traits that allow Vanguard to become a parrying and dodging god, it quickly turns into a situation where the Vanguard can, and is practically encouraged to, rush into 5+ Warriors to take them out while in the lore, the Assault would, and should, have far greater success in the task. Basically, the Assault should be more or less be able to do what everyone can do already against the Cultists. By simply ramming the enemy with the Jump Pack should deal notable amount of damage, up to the point where it kills basic enemies (Gaunts and Tzaangors) in front of you when dashing, and burns those right behind you, making you the wrecking ball the Assaults are in the lore.

Considering we have already seen in the campaign how they imagined Assaults to operate, once in a cutscene, once while fighting against Chaos, and in both sections we get to use the Jump Packs, they heavily encourage the use of shock attacks where you slam down, exterminate the enemies around you and move onto the next pack. This is not what you do in the Ops mode as the Assault, as you cannot survive a swarm. You jump in, kill what you kill with the landing (mostly to recharge the jump faster), maybe take out a Warrior/Rubric Marine, then immediately fly back into the air once the mob you sent flying has gotten back up.