Assassin jumping instantly after spawn

[Frostysir]

Hello!

So i feel like i’ve had the unfortunate luck of enduring an upsurge of cases in which assassins spawn and literally jump someone 1 second later. Like just before writing this i was running a bubblebo hailque, my merry band made it all the way to the canals area when we get hit by a horde but well, no problem we already got past a few.

Fighting starts but then i hear the assassin sound que, i look up and…there it is, just about to land ontop of my face. I chalked it up to bad luck and decided to not mind it too much, i mean packmasters without soundques also happen.

But then it happened again when we made it to the first grim area, and after that i was really not amused and i still am not. Silly me fighting hordes and instantly looking up to check where the assassin is only to see him half a meter away from being ontop of me.

As realistic this rendering of assassins is i think it´s not suitable for this game!

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Also some guy in the game suggested that its been a thing since the Engi patch that whenever a special spawns in cata it also spawns a duplicate one of that type but there are only soundques for 1 every time. I dont know if its true or intended or not but it seems to be occurring for assassins at least.

[zaru]

Can confirm, I’ve been hit by assassins that way many times this year. I hear the spawn sound and they’re already flying at me. Often from crazy positions, not even doing a 360° check helps me spot them sometimes because they can also skip and instantly jump from ledges way above you.

I already made a thread complaining about the numerous bug issues that assassins have, they are by far one of the most bugged enemies in the game and probably the most dangerous one.

Edit: Had it happen twice since posting this, at the last time I could literally still hear the spawn sound while it was on top of me

[NewNoise10]

Yeah, the assassin rat is an irregular and out of place special, it has janky and frantic movements, as well as questionable mechanics. There are times where it’s extremely hard to track its movement as it moves quickly and sometimes aimlessly, another problem, is that it gives no warning whatsoever when it attacks, you are warned when they spawn, yes, but there is no such warning when it attacks. It can also seemingly insta pounce you as its animation to crouch is, what, 0.5 seconds?

Worst of all, even if you do dodge it, and are able to attack it, it can literally, just teleport away to repeat the process of harassing you all over again. (This is extremely irritating to a melee focused career) There are even times when you are attacking it, that it will insta pounce you. It’s a poorly balanced enemy. At least the hook rat and lich, once they fail their attack, they cannot attack you again right away, and they need to retreat before they can try again. Assassin rats don’t need to retreat to attack you again, and their escape mechanic is literally black magic. They should run away and flee, not teleport away.

In short, they’re a special enemy that is in desperate need of polish and refined mechanics, but I’m not sure if Fatshark will even bother putting the time into fixing this special and making them a more enjoyable and balanced enemy to square off with. Hopefully, some day they will.

[Argonaut14]

Add into that they immediately cause damage. Leeches don’t until you arrive at them while being leeched, and hookrats don’t until they strangle you up on the post. Admittedly you get killed by the horde wailing on you but the specials themselves don’t cause damage for some time. I’ve definitely seen assassins pinballing around bouncing from one pounce to the next, somehow dodging a push and then pouncing three inches on top of you.

Assassin just spawns in your pocket and stabs the living sh*t out of you… or, every now and then, they base jump off a cliff.

[spatnack]

@Frostysir

I dont know if its true or intended

Hedge very recently confirmed that the double spawns is not a bug but the sound issue definitely is

[Frostysir]

@Argonaut14

Add into that they immediately cause damage

Damage seems to vary too unless i am imagining things, sometimes a quick pounce&save leaves me taking about 10% of my health but other times i lose like 30%.

[Argonaut14]

I agree it’s inconsistent, but they do cause damage from the get-go. If a player is on their own with a hookrat getting dragged around they can last ages and remain on green health if the rat never finds a spot to string them up. This is what makes assassins so dangerous and infuriating for me - dodge them twice and they land a whisker outside of your melee weapon range only to pounce on you and cause so much damage so fast.