Assistant's guide to Graduating

This guide seeks to help any would-be assistant learn about their strengths and weaknesses. It briefly goes over early game, before setting out into the strengths of every single notable graduation talent tree. If you want to turn your assistant into the perfect resource manager, a source of free EXP and money, or just turn them into an incredibly tanky swordsman that every single creature on Europa should fear: this is for you!

Welcome!

The assistant in Barotrauma may seem like a joke at times especially considering that there's an entire talent tree dedicated to being a clown: more on that later , but I find them to be a vital part of any long-lasting crew for their ability to hyper-specialize into specific roles that drastically improve the quality of life, resource gain, or outright killing power on any submarine. They've been nerfed from being severely overpowered in the past, but this does not stop them from being a force to be reckoned with. This guide will briefly go over assistant's early game, but primarily gets into why things like graduation ceremony are, without a doubt, the most powerful talent in the entire game by a long shot.

Just for starters

As a "jack of all trades", the Assistant starts off without many special quirks or gimmicks for the first few rounds. For this time, your gonna want to spend time doing generally convenient work on the submarine as you grind as many different skills as possible (which may be incredibly important later).
First things first, consider getting a few AI assistant crew mates. If you can coerce others into becoming an assistant with you or possibly get your captain to purchase some assistants from an outpost, you become a little stronger. This is due to the talent, "Indentured Servitude", which can either be almost worthless, or incredibly strong due to how quickly you can push yourself and your assistant buddies to late game talents.
For the first few rounds, I would go with the talent "Starter Quest" (for the skill buffs and exp gain) before anything else, and then either Skedaddle, or pack mule. Crew layabout is an "okay" talent, but I primarily stick it onto one, specific Assistant with a specific set of talents that will be referred to later.
While this is all happening, you should think of what you want your assistant to look like late game, because your entire build should revolve around the talent "Graduation ceremony". Various talents throughout this guide have been circled on pictures attributed to a certain class guide due to their help in creating an "optimal" version of whatever talent tree your graduating into. However, these circles are exclusively for choice talents, or starter talents incase somebody wants to try and find the best path to get to whichever graduation ceremony they'll go as.

Graduation ceremony is easily the strongest talent in the entire game.

The graduation ceremony talent is a talent at the end of the tree, "Apprentice" for the assistant. It should be prioritized as much as possible because it has the ability to take other talent trees from other classes, and make them even better due to some of Assistant's potential buffs that can be acquired after you've gone down the entire apprentice tree. If you have a general idea of what you want to apprentice into, then the following section(s) can help you think of what talent tree you should attempt to go for. Typically, you can't just "choose" a talent tree. However, if you can get a lobby owner to restart the lobby until you've gotten what you want, then you can create an incredibly strong build based off of set buffs that work incredibly well together. What makes graduation ceremony extra powerful is it's ability to select every single talent in a tree and give it to an assistant: including any talent that ends up being a "choice" talent. Security officers aren't able to select both Crusty Seaman and Inordinate Exsanguination, but the assistant's graduation ceremony can: leading to combos that would be impossible on any other class.

Captain

The captain apprenticeship is amazing for the politician tree primarily, but gunslinger is an incredibly strong alternative too. Below are my two listed favorite talent builds for whenever I apprentice into captain.

Literally just Mr Beast, the "Politician"

The politician assistant is, however, fairly boring. I would heavily suggest giving this role to atleast 1 AI assistant, alongside the talents: "Crew Layabout", "Peer Learning", "Jenga Master" (If you plan on sticking to politician assistant as a human, or if you are in solo), "Logistics Systems", and "Treacherous Scum". This will turn your politician assistant into an extremely useful asset who passively gives you and your entire crew free money, EXP, repair buffs, etc. If you have the space for an extra crew member and dont need help with other aspects of the team such as repairs or security, then this is the perfect filler role.

A GUN WITH ONE BULLET: the "Gunslinger"

The gunslinger assistant specializes into revolvers and handcannons while also gaining passive buffs for drinking and being alone. They excel at staying alive due to their extra physical damage resistance from Lone Wolf, which is a talent that typically doesn't find much use outside of solo due to the captain's general need to stay onboard and watch the radar. This turns them into the perfect choice for sending into a wreck, abandoned beacon station, etc: just for taking out everything in sight. Do note, they should always take tasty target when they eventually reach the grayshirt tree.

Security Officer

The security assistant is, in my opinion, one of (if not) the strongest possible choices for assistant apprenticeship. All 3 talent trees are very powerful choices, and the security officer is an amazing pick if you cannot restart rounds to try and get a specific talent tree.

Michael Phelps, the "Frogman"

The frogman assistant has the ability to become (to my knowledge) the fastest swimmer in the entire game out of every class due to its ability to work with water prankster, and a slipsuit. With this, an assistant can pick up a harpoon gun and do critical damage to various enemies with the spec-ops skill. I also find that you can get plenty of use out of psycho clown and a boarding axe, which is an incredibly fun sub-genre of frogman clown assistants.

THE WALL (My personal favorite), the "Enforcer"

For good reason, this is my absolute favorite graduation ceremony assistant choice. It allows the assistant to become incredibly tanky, while also making the most use out of ceremonial swords out of any class. If you can properly grind the skills needed for the swords earlygame, then these being dual wielded with psycho clown and some crawler blood can become an incredible threat to anything in their path. It takes extra setup in the fact that you will have to get 50 helmskill and Medical skill, which are generally hard to come by as an assistant. But if you can convince your teammates to work with you on this build, then you can successfully create one of the most disgustingly powerful class combos in the entire game. If you want to get extra in character, try to get yourself some husk immunity via genes alongside a friendly mechanic to craft some iron armor. That way, your a nigh-immortal schizophrenic husked clown knight that rips things apart in seconds, and you can take an absolute beating before you finally succumb to injuries. This includes killing simple things like mudraptors and crawlers, but i've even succeeded in beating up crawler mothers, the occasional hammerhead, and entire outposts of people that I simply do not like.

E1M1, the "Gunner"

I used to sleep on this talent tree, but with the addition of tasty target, this becomes a very strong choice. If you can keep yourself alive, then you get extra benefit from multiple enemies being nearby targetting you to gain up to a 60% rifle damage buff in the open ocean, or even a 70% damage buff when out of water. I find that this is still the weakest security talent to put onto an assistant, but its not bad by any means whatsoever.

Medical Doctor

Personally, I don't get much use out of medic assistants. I'm sure they arn't necessarily bad, but i've never used them either with assistant. That said, the medic talent tree is a very safe choice to take.

Your crew's best friend, the "Medic"

I have not personally used this tree, but i'm sure that miracle worker could find good use when mixed with true potential. They gain extra swimspeed which can help bring somebody out of a fight, but they can also drag unconscious friends around quickly to decide when to bring them back into a fight: for their safety, and your own.

Engineer

The engineer is a solid pick for any assistant, who will primarily find use out of electrician and physicist.

Car battery consumer, the "Electrician"

The electrician tree is all around solid for the assistant, but an assistant's tankiness fits especially well with lightning wizard which can help an assistant keep enemies stunlocked with the arc emitter/ electric stuns until a more threatening crewmate walks up to deal with them. Not only this, but... its just a genuinely strong choice if you need an extra engineer. No gimmicks, just a good worker. They arn't necessarily much better than a regular engineer with electrician, but I find electrician to be fun enough to be worth including due to the stunning effect of lightning wizard being nice in combination with tasty target.

In the flesh... the "Physicist"

Psycho clown + the tankiness of assistant + incredible crowbar damage. This is an incredibly fun pick for any assistant who wants to cosplay gordon freeman and take advantage of psycho clowns 150% melee swing speed boost. Combined with a hardened masterwork crowbar, this is an extremely deadly assistant class that can easily wipe out many smaller monsters that you may come across, while also providing general reactor buffs that allow you to manage power and fuel easier.

Mechanic

Finally, the mechanic. The mechanic assistant is incredible for both brawler and scrapper: the former being a really useful tool for defending your team in a cave or anywhere dangerous, and the latter being one of the most important talent trees that assistant could possibly take. Debatably, I would say its in the top 4 of the most powerful options, only being rivaled by politician, frogman, and enforcer.

Resource Management Sim, the "Scrapper"

The scrapper assistant has to be one of my favorite picks for solo games due to their ability to craft everything cheaper and at higher qualities (Including masterwork EVERYTHING), to deconstruct ore/items for extra resources, mine efficiently, and just be an all around resource saver. They manage to mix very well with the clown tree's swimspeed for mining, but most importantly, they can get every single part of the crafting tree which means that they are the most efficient character for doing anything with a fabricator or deconstructer.

Juggernaut, the "Brawler"

The brawler tree is an incredible choice for any assistant due to it providing 2 different "choice" talents, giving extra bonuses to assistants for picking it. It lets them take on the role of a hyper-tanky melee class that centralizes on beating the living daylights out of anything that they deem a threat. With an exosuit and tasty target, they can become the priority target of any monster that would otherwise attack a weaker crewmate: as you laugh off meaningless hits in your incredibly tanky diving suit, thwacking anything nearby that may harm you or the team with a melee weapon.

Final summary + extra notes

If you want to become even stronger, you could always stack endocrine boosters on some of the more combat-oriented classes. Egghead is a super powerful skill boost you can find via boosters which will help most of the class builds listed here, for instance.
With all of that being said, other talent trees that haven't been mentioned are still entirely viable. I could have mentioned machinist which is really useful for a crewmate mechanic, or weapons engineer which opens the door to crafting plenty of useful items. But i've only listed trees that I find to be the most interesting or all around useful. I hope this guide helps you pick out how you want to look in the end of your run as an assistant!

[Yato]

Using "The Wall" build w/o greyshirt talents with 2x ceremonial swords and a exosuit i was able to survive and deal 25% of the remaining damage during the last fight in the game. That's my favorite build path now.

[turdbergler657]

devs actually said they left it in on purpose during unstable on github when somebody complained

[Rat Crusher]

Oh yes I did. I actually ended up writing my third guide for assistant after discovering that incredibly silly bug. It's truly incredible.

[turdbergler657]

Have you tried out the new "mind wipe" item yet… ASSISTANT META IS BACK BABY!

[Dad, the furry queen]

Very helpful (unbiased)

[Prinio]

Indeed... It is a very nice guide!

[Tragedy]

Nice guide! :)