How to best deal with assassins and pack rats?

[Cortex]

Having played who knows how many hours by now and cleared every stage on legendary multiple times, these two specials remain very troublesome for me, especially the former, who I struggle with even when they're alone, but it's worse during hordes.

Sometimes I don't hear their sounds during hordes, and the assassin tends to be too fast for me to kill it reliably at range, and the pack rat is sneaky in the horde and isn't easily staggered. Side stepping isn't always a luxury during hordes.

Having a team mate aside, I'm looking to improve my own abilities. What tricks do you have?

[S.P.A.S Mλdness]

Depends on your character, class and weapon.
Grudge Raker is nice for assassins, they're fast but don't have much life so there's a lot of options. Eitehr a weapon with fast rate of fire or a large area of effect.
Hook rat on the other hand, have a lot of HP, there's not many weapon to kill them fast unless you make a headshot. The best tip I can give you for them is this :
If you see them coming too close, don't walk back or dodge behind, they will reach you with their hook, dodge on the sides instead.

[CopperBack]

Assasins, keep moving preferable sideways from assassin projectile but since you dont know where always in semi circles fair sized.

Hookerats, face them head on and dodge to the side at last momment takes some attempts to get it right but once you do your usually golden unless enemy blocks you or dodge into wall.

[Scrotum Scratcher]

Gutter runners always crouch before they pounce, giving you time to aim or dodge.

You'll just have to learn how to dodge the hookrats during hordes or kill them outright. I believe you can also crouch instead of dodge to avoid getting hooked, but I have more faith in my dodging.

[Hanzy the Heretic]

One way to practice is to go into modded realm and use creature spawner mod.
Good for learning boss patterns and dancing as well.

[Skelt]

Originally posted by Scrotum Scratcher:

Gutter runners always crouch before they pounce, giving you time to aim or dodge.

You'll just have to learn how to dodge the hookrats during hordes or kill them outright. I believe you can also crouch instead of dodge to avoid getting hooked, but I have more faith in my dodging.

Unless they're climbing some fence, or jumping near a ledge. They can also "correct" their trajectory if they jump almost parallel to a wall, so your best bet is to be near your teammates.

That said, other than improving your tracking and dodging capabilities, you can try to counter-push gutter runners, but it's risky, more so if you're not hosting, because even when successful,
the pounce animation happens and it's usually enough to get stabbed a bit by the surrounding trash.
You can also keep your bombs for these situations, you're not always the one that get disabled, and a bomb can help a lot, at the cost of some friendly fire, which is generally lower than the other option.

[Myrmidon]

Drake weapons, Hagbane, Conflag and Shotguns are the safest bet for Gutter Runners. As long as they're physically hit by something they'll tumble in their stagger animation and can be killed instantly on the spot.

[I AM Atomic.]

One of thing that should help you is spamming ping during horde while you hear sound for special spawn...so turn off music and listen well....lot of weps are capable of shooting trough multiple targets and packmaster are always bigger than small rats which help with hs.

[Karl Power]

Originally posted by Cortex Σ:

Having played who knows how many hours by now and cleared every stage on legendary multiple times, these two specials remain very troublesome for me, especially the former, who I struggle with even when they're alone, but it's worse during hordes.

Sometimes I don't hear their sounds during hordes, and the assassin tends to be too fast for me to kill it reliably at range, and the pack rat is sneaky in the horde and isn't easily staggered. Side stepping isn't always a luxury during hordes.

Having a team mate aside, I'm looking to improve my own abilities. What tricks do you have?

I absolutely and utterly hate assassins and packmasters. I'd guess 90% of the failed runs I participate in get ruined by these abominations. About 80% of the damage I take and 100% of my ragequits are caused by them. The assassins are ridiculously fast and the packmasters will grab you through any horde in front of you while being hard to stagger and kill.

There are people on this forum who claim hordes aren't the problem. In my experience they are, and that is precisely because hordes cover an assassin's or packmaster's approach and keep the players from actively looking for specials. Since you asked for individual improvements, I'd suggest the points below. I am no super player by any means, but I think these tips should help anyone still struggling (like me):

1. Try to kill stuff fast. Individually and as a team. This frees you to look out for specials.
2. Listen, and look around you. You know that. But train yourself, even while in combat with a horde, to being able to look out for and engage specials. New players will happily hack away at slave rats and ignore the assassin. But the assassin should be your priority target. Even in a horde. That is also why you need to:
3. Be mobile (not in a straight line though). Mobility is reasonably good 'passive' protection from specials. Blocking doesn't help, pushing only against assassins. Most of all, mobility allows you to create some breathing room to fire your gun at the packmaster. If you manage to dodge away from that Chaos dude, spot the assassin, grab your gun and face-shoot the bugger, then you're good. However you can only be mobile if you:
4. Stay on the fringes of the horde, and do not rush inside. Do not get cornered. You know that.
5. You also, obviously, need to be proficient with your ranged weapon. In case of bad aim, use a spray gun. I can't aim, my favourite is either grudge raker or blunderbuss. Got many assassins. Close range face shot kills packmaster on champion.
6. Do not hesitate to use a bomb on an assassin or packmaster you can't quickly reach otherwise. They ruin your run, that bomb is worth it.
7. Stay together. Always. Again pretty obvious but so many players on public servers run off somewhere for no apparent reason. Don't. My general rule is to always stay close to the host. For my protection and his.

[Cortex]

For reference, in reply to some queries.

I play mostly Zealot, Handmaiden, Shade and WHC. Favoring strong mobility, but my mobility gets skewey when I have to worry about packrats and assassins.

[Scout]

Originally posted by Cortex Σ:

Having played who knows how many hours by now and cleared every stage on legendary multiple times, these two specials remain very troublesome for me, especially the former, who I struggle with even when they're alone, but it's worse during hordes.

Sometimes I don't hear their sounds during hordes, and the assassin tends to be too fast for me to kill it reliably at range, and the pack rat is sneaky in the horde and isn't easily staggered. Side stepping isn't always a luxury during hordes.

Having a team mate aside, I'm looking to improve my own abilities. What tricks do you have?

How to deal with asassins-you dont,every time i fail true solo its because of some silent asassin under horde or even better-double asassin spawn,one of which silent,hell i have runs where asassing jump on the wall near me and then instantly pounce again,most broken ♥♥♥♥ in the game,same with packs,but they are way easier to detect.

[SteelaiRizel]

Originally posted by Cortex Σ:

For reference, in reply to some queries.

I play mostly Zealot, Handmaiden, Shade and WHC. Favoring strong mobility, but my mobility gets skewey when I have to worry about packrats and assassins.

If you see a packrat or assassin coming during a horde with WHC pop that ult. Breathing room is great.

[Cortex]

Originally posted by SteelaiRizel:

Originally posted by Cortex Σ:

For reference, in reply to some queries.

I play mostly Zealot, Handmaiden, Shade and WHC. Favoring strong mobility, but my mobility gets skewey when I have to worry about packrats and assassins.

If you see a packrat or assassin coming during a horde with WHC pop that ult. Breathing room is great.

Ye, WHC has that benefit. The other three have it to a lesser extent.

Curious. Never tried it before, if I dash at an assassin with Zealot or Handmaiden, will the pounce still happen?

[managerimankeli]

A simple thing that 99% of player base fails: tag them. I can't remember what default keybind is but it's probably garbage, since people suck at doing this. Your tag button should be something you can hit easily all the time, like Q. Just makes dealing with all specials/elites so much easier when you can keep track of their whereabouts and animations at all times.
For example, maybe you're not in a good position to deal with that incoming PM in the horde, but if you're looking that way and can tag it, maybe someone can snipe it or whatever.

[Myrmidon]

Originally posted by Cortex Σ:

Originally posted by SteelaiRizel:

If you see a packrat or assassin coming during a horde with WHC pop that ult. Breathing room is great.

Ye, WHC has that benefit. The other three have it to a lesser extent.

Curious. Never tried it before, if I dash at an assassin with Zealot or Handmaiden, will the pounce still happen?

Assassins and Packmasters can grab/pounce Handmaiden, Slayer, Foot Knight and Zealot during their ults. Not entirely sure if it's intentional but no one really has any evidence to validate nor invalidate whether or not it's supposed to happen. It is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying though.

[SteelaiRizel]

Originally posted by managerimankeli:

A simple thing that 99% of player base fails: tag them. I can't remember what default keybind is but it's probably garbage, since people suck at doing this. Your tag button should be something you can hit easily all the time, like Q. Just makes dealing with all specials/elites so much easier when you can keep track of their whereabouts and animations at all times.
For example, maybe you're not in a good position to deal with that incoming PM in the horde, but if you're looking that way and can tag it, maybe someone can snipe it or whatever.

I have it as middle mouse button. Best tag button for me i can use tbh. It's originally T.