What does Assassination in Shadow's mean?

[Blood Wolf]

Trying to make Naoe and potent as possible in removing ALL health chunk's in one hit when killing things, and i noticed in the black smith engravings list that there is a helm with Remove Two Health Chunks Assassination from shadows.

Like technically what does that mean exactly? Do i need my detection all the way down before striking? Do i just need to be lightly obscured? Can i be in a shadow of a building mid day?

Google isn't answering this for me so i was hoping one of you know.

[Harris]

I haven't used that, so your guess is as good as mine. I assume it refers to you quite literally being in shadows aka invisible. It sounds like an incredibly niche thing if so. Because it not only relies on you being in shadows (which pretty much is only a thing at night), but also on your being able to lure your enemy in there.

Realistically, the only place where I can see you being able to use this consistently is within castle interiors after taking lights outs. This kind of situations are exceedingly rare, to the point it becomes as niche as shoji doors assassination.

And in the late to endgame, you get the kind of power which allows you to run around in broad daylight, while still pulling off assassination, making this thing redundant.

So let's go back to your original goal of "removing all health chunks in one hit when killing things". Assuming you're in the endgame, Naoe takes out 5 chunks, 4 with kunai to the head. Master Assassin gear gives flat +2 in every situation, up to 6 chunks with kunai and 7 chunks otherwise. That is already an overkill in most cases, as only guardians have 6-7 chunks of health. Heighten Senses ability also adds +1 segment while using it, bringing it up to 7 with kunai and 8 otherwise.

if you would still like to push it past 7 segments, then you'd need to consider which type of assassination to specialize at. In my experience these are, from worst to best: (listed only those you can boost)

- double assassinations (this relies on your target standing next to another enemy, which most of the time will not be the case)
- air assassination (this relies on verticality of the level, making this unreliable and useless for rural targets)
- assassination (this would technically boost the damage of your Hidden Hand, however this ability doesn't work against targets, and these are the only enemies to currently have more than 6-7 health chunks)
- assassination with kunai (good, but you can only boost it by +1 with head engraving, where it competes with many other useful engravings)
- rush assassination (great for midgame, you can get +2 on a kusarigama called Demon Tooth, however this pretty much locks you into using kusarigama while tanto is better in the endgame, also the animation of rush assassination is pretty long)
- run assassination (great for endgame, you can get +2 from the Cerulean Puzzle trinket from the battle pass, and even another +1 from the head engraving, which is an overkill)

I run Master Assassin's Gear, Heighten Senses and Cerulean Puzzle, which gives me 10 segments of damage during the ability. And I haven't seen any kind of enemy that would have more than that.

[Blood Wolf]

Not in endgame yet, don't have Progress Naoe's story Engraving yet, i just wanted to make sure i can kill everything in one hit, kinda a pet peeve having to take off 5 chunks off a 6 chunk guy, not being able to finish immediately cuz armor, and either straight up fighting him just to break his armor or running away and Re-Assassinating him.

[Harris]

I think the best part of an experience is to go through all "steps" of stealth progression. Like, initially even a 3-chunk armored samurai is an existential threat for you. Then, you start to be able to one-shot them. However, brutes are still dangerous. Later on, they won't be. Et cetera.

As for those Daishos (the very enemies you'd like to one-shot, I imagine), I had my share of fights where I would first eliminate all the surrounding enemies to make sure I'm not having to fight a group. Then, I would open with my best assassination option and transition into an open duel, making sure to throw kunai or shuriken to interrupt a Dasho when he takes out his health potion.

But if you want a moment that clearly divided stealth game into "before" and "after" for me, it was unlocking rush assassination (gotta grind that knowledge level 5). By that point you're gonna have, like, 4 chunks of assassination damage, so with Demon Tooth you'll have 6 on rush assassinations, 7 if you also get an engraving on your headpiece. Hope this helps.

[Blood Wolf]

Tested it a bit, nothing from various levels of detection or lightning, at this point i'm going to assume it has something to do from assassinating from a hiding spot or something, regardless a rather niche and worthless perk.

[Fluffy Shrimp]

Notice the eye icon in the middle top of your screen?
When the eye is closed, means you are in shadows and it'll trigger.

[Coffee Addict]

save yourself the headache and just turn on guarantee'd assassinations

[RainWolf]

REMEMBER GAMERS VOTE GAME OF YEAR

[Letterit]

Originally posted by Harris:

I haven't used that, so your guess is as good as mine. I assume it refers to you quite literally being in shadows aka invisible. It sounds like an incredibly niche thing if so.

Don't smoke bombs allow trigger a sort of invisibility?

They enable easy assassination in middle of combat and I wouldn't be surprised they trigger assassination in shadow.

[Devil Daughter]

Originally posted by RainWolf:

REMEMBER GAMERS VOTE GAME OF YEAR

You call every game, game of the year.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1721060/discussions/0/516333426061618589/#c603027736121841689

[ZemX]

I could swear I tried that assassinate in shadows headgear when I got it and it didn't trigger just any time I was hidden, like in a bush or something. It seems like it would literally only be at night when in shadow, like it says. Not very useful. I prefer stacking the +1 assassination and +1 run assassination if I need to take down something big earlier in the game.

Or else just shave off a few bars with a kunai and then finish him off when he comes looking for you. Or use smoke and just assassinate him twice. I think that's how I took down that Pond Yamabushi jerk.

[Fluffy Shrimp]

Originally posted by ZemX:

I could swear I tried that assassinate in shadows headgear when I got it and it didn't trigger just any time I was hidden, like in a bush or something. It seems like it would literally only be at night when in shadow, like it says. Not very useful. I prefer stacking the +1 assassination and +1 run assassination if I need to take down something big earlier in the game.

Or else just shave off a few bars with a kunai and then finish him off when he comes looking for you. Or use smoke and just assassinate him twice. I think that's how I took down that Pond Yamabushi jerk.

It works for me even in day time.
As long as you can get Naoe's status to be hidden, it will trigger.

Notice the eye icon in the middle top of your screen?
When the eye is closed, means you are in shadows and it'll trigger.
Another helpful indicator of whether Naoe is hidden is the white outline around Naoe.
Navigate around to find bushes or what not to hide. Prone on short grass will help with that too.

[Acpolax]

There are a lot of things not working the way you would expect them to work. For example the "throw Kunai upon assassination" or last week I bought a robe of the enraged for Naoe from the Animus store. It has the engraving "Vanish after 2 seconds while crouched or prone." but honestly it doesnt do anything. Actually I bought it cause I thought it would look cool but it doesnt look cool either.
However I would advise to just unlock the skills to remove more health segments within the assassin skill tree instead of using that engraving.
BTW you can progress your wisdom level just with Kuji Kiri´s, Kata´s, Kofun´s, Path´s and mounted bow shooting. You dont need to fight anyone to unlock skills and thats what most of the engravings are just skills. However there are better engravings than to remove 2 health segments with assassinations, I mean if you struggle with normal combat just use an engraving that helps you with that, it doesnt make sense to force assassinations when you dont even know how to propper stealth!

[Blood Wolf]

Oh I'm much further than when i posted this, max knowledge level now, also got that tanto's Assassinate mid combat which helps make naoe a beast. But ya after the failure of this perk i think there isn't any good legendary helms for her, i think finding a purple helm with a natural good + to assassination is the best thing for her.

[Acpolax]

Originally posted by Blood Wolf:

Oh I'm much further than when i posted this, max knowledge level now, also got that tanto's Assassinate mid combat which helps make naoe a beast. But ya after the failure of this perk i think there isn't any good legendary helms for her, i think finding a purple helm with a natural good + to assassination is the best thing for her.

How dare you being further than when you posted this!
Anyways, I really enjoy the hood that lets you jump over enemies while running towards them. Its especially usefull in combination with the skill that makes enemies vulnerable after jumping over them. Also I think the hood is the only thing that can trigger a jump over an enemy without being useless like the skill that lets you jump over after a parry which on its own makes the enemy vulnerable already.

[Shin Happens]

As someone else posted here... just ignore all this nonsense and turn on guaranteed assassinations, this has always been the most stupid change in any of the AC RPG games. That Shadows allows you to assassinate people like you used to be able to do is a real boon. It also frees up some mastery points early on because you do not need to waste any points on assassination skills. So you can leave that to when you have more than enough mastery points.