How to build/play assassin?

[Pierro]

the stealth has a pretty long cooldown even with upgrades, and the knife feels a little weak compared to the raider knife, which im used to, my only successful run was with berserker and i wasn't playing like an assassin that time

[Robotma]

Yea i would also like to know the best ways to stealth.

[nightingale2k1]

you should backstab the enemies to get high damage. lure them .. hide and then dash and backstab. it is not easy because the asssassin only have one dash.

[Shazbot!]

You're not actually supposed to "stealth" anything, nor to "tank", assassin is best suited for hit&run gameplay. Yeah active camo provides nice alpha strike opportunities, but it's not supposed to be your main tool of the trade, plus it provides nice panic "i'm outta here" button. it doesn't work against bosses, but you can recycle it for good chunk of dodge chance bonus

[Pierro]

after a few days of playing, ive found stacking dodge, and cycling smoke/stealth when your shield drops is really effective, i finished a 205% difficulty run. evasive manuevers + keeping cool keeps me alive, and using the dagger to get credits/HP is very effective. i avoid proc items that cause explosions, so i dont kill myself when i backstab enemies. if anyone else is looking for assassin tips, try some of these.

[Jayne_Cobb]

Cheers for the tips!

I'm on lvl 13 with my assassin right now. While I get through the levels without
great hassles on 190% difficulty I get smoked by the first boss in a matter of seconds.

[HealthBar]

My experience tells me that tactics revolving around melee weapons such as Scoundrel's Dagger starts to fall off as you go into V-Reality Chambers (3rd world). Open sightlines with fewer cover, Chrono Troopers who teleport all over the place, rocks and orbs which look unflankable and deal severe damage as you get close to. Military Base (4th world) is much more dangerous overall, getting close to the enemy becomes a bad idea. So I recycle them for an empty slot and more Credits.

Assassin's move speed is surprisingly slow for a close-range attacker, at 340, while the fastest Breacher is at 447 and the Raider runs at 380 with double dashes. Since the opportunity to increase mobility is hard to come by, it's often better to rely on Soft Point ammo for slowing down the enemies instead.

Common weapons such as Spectre and Tactical Observer unlock SP ammo, and once you acquire those weapons, you can now use other ballistic weapons with SP ammo. Spectre also grants 7 Dodge while in inventory, and it's an SMG, thus benefiting from Lv5 Talent. You could also start with TP Grenade Flash for guaranteed crowd-control.

[HealthBar]

It seems that Heat Spreader is very useful for the Assassin. It's one of the very few items which allow you to deal damage while not breaking stealth. Dealing damage with the Heat Spreader also attracts other enemies nearby, and since burn bypasses shields, it gives you better chances for backstab kills.