Theatre of Light/Assassin

Overview

Assassin
Archetype:	Pixie
Health Defense Multiplier:	Melee: x1.75 Ranged: x1.75
Stagger Defense Multiplier:	Melee: x2 Ranged: x2
Walk Speed:	6
Max Light:	4

Assassin is a fragile pixie character who darts around the screen in short bursts to catch the opponent lacking with high damage burst combos. While Assassin is easy to pick up and play, as you get better with her, her shortcomings start to show: Her moveset is very small and it makes her offense quite linear as a result. Additionally, she is very reliant on Light to run her gameplan and becomes extremely vulnerable without it, thus demanding good Light management from the player. If you can overcome these flaws, Assassin will still prove to be a tricky yet rewarding character to play.

Strengths

Weaknesses

Low Cost Burst: Assassin does not need to spend Light to deal good burst damage with her combos and usually ends up light positive with them. Great Burst Mobility: Despite having the slowest walk speed in the game, Assassin's mobility tools such as S1 and SP allow her to fly around the stage at blinding speed and run tricky mixups and feints on the opponent, provided she has the Light. Good Defense: Assassin's SP is a far-travelling evade that can be used to avoid Oki at the cost of light, while she also has a costless S2 parry, along with an unique Evade parry below 50%. Comeback Mechanics: Assassin's skills become enhanced while she is below 50% HP. Her enhanced skills provide additional properties to help with her gameplan. Ease of Access: Assassin's moveset is very small compared to other characters, making her easy to learn and play. Clear Body: Due to her incredibly low speed, both Haste and Bind do negligible effects to her aside from changing her universal dash, as uniquely her SP dash is unaffected by both Haste and Bind . This allows her to shrug off the negative effects of Abnormality Pages such as Metallic Ringing and Cocoon, as well as allows her to run the Forsaken Murderer pages without suffering from their maluses as much.

Samurai Shodown Character: Assassin's combos rarely go beyond 2 or 3 hits due to the high cost in both Light and HP for her main combo extenders. Overexhaustion: Assassin starts every stock with no light at all, requiring her to take large risks or sacrifice health in order to get the ball rolling on round start or after respawning. Paper thin defenses: With the lowest defenses in the game, making any mistakes as Assassin becomes all the more costly. Assassin can easily be killed in 3 or less touches by a majority of the roster. Light Reliance: Assassin is reliant on her SP as a neutral, offensive and defensive tool, and as such requires a constant supply of Light to keep up with her opponent. Running out of Light will put her at a severe disadvantage and likely cost her a good chunk of health or even a stock. Extremely Linear: Assassin's main approach tool is highly reactable and avoidable with Blocks or Evades, requiring the player to play around these abilities with expensive or risky feints.

Move List

Passive

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Walking the Line of Death

Your moves become enhanced while you are below 50% health.

Overexhaustion

You start every stock with 0 Light.

Normal moves

Extreme Edge ATK punished for mashing punished for mashing

Version Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery ATK 12 0.9 0.8 0 0 Melee - - - - A fast melee slash. Often seen as a follow-up from S1 or a successful Deflect Assault. Can be SP cancelled into another ATK or S1 to combo, but this is generally not worth the Light cost. Version Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery [ATK] 12 + 4 Per Light 1 0.9 0 0 Melee - - - - A fast melee slash. Often seen as a follow-up from S1 or a successful Deflect Assault. Holding the button down spends 1 Light to increase its startup and damage. While below 50% health, the held version consumes ALL of your remaining light to deal even more damage. This version of the move is usually relegated to high reward stagger punishes. When you get one though, you can cash out for huge damage, especially if you have 3 Light and are just short of using Boundary of Death. Each additional light spent also increases the range.

Flying Sword S1 the gameplan the gameplan

Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 8 0.9 0.8 0 0 Melee - - - - Assassin winds up before dashing forward, unleashing a slash on contact with the opponent or upon reaching max range. This is Assassin's main method of approach and pressure, as it is fast enough after startup to stuff out most attempts to contest it and it combos comfortably into ATK. Gives 2 Haste Below 50%, the dash becomes instantaneous, blinking to the max range or the opponent if they are in the way.

Deflect Assault S2	Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 0 - - 0 0 - 5~?? Guard - - - A basic parry that leaves the opponent stunned in front of you, long enough to land an ATK or S1. Cannot be SP cancelled

Overcome Death S2 (Below 50%) downgrade downgrade

Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 4 (x Haste ) 1 0.9 (Per hit) 0 0 - Evade - - - An evade parry that is affected by Haste up to 5 times, however does less damage per hit. Cannot be SP cancelled Due to it's evade, can counter unblockables and close range projectiles. With 2 Haste , does 12 damage, while with 4 Haste , does 18 damage. Not affected by Predation

Extreme Speed SP This move has no visual This move has no visual

Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery - - - 1 (raw) 2 (cancel) 0 - Evade 1~10 - - 30F Assassin blinks a good distance in the movement direction, Evading attacks during and for a short while after the blink. The cornerstone of Assassin's gameplan, being the source of her mobility despite her slow walk speed. Most of your Light will be spent on using this ability to avoid your opponent's options and mix them up. Can be cancelled into any other move SP cancelling any attack into this move will result in it costing 1 extra Light.

Psyches

Flashing Strike ATK > ATK Generally not worth it Generally not worth it

Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 11 N/A 0.7 0 2 Melee - - - - Assassin performs a wide slash with a dramatic cinematic flash on hit. Other than usage in meme combos, useful for getting an additional Light from a combo, and getting to lower health for different specials. Can only be used if the prior ATK lands On hit, deals 25% of your max HP to yourself Can combo into Boundary of Death. With predation due to maths, can be used 5 times instead of 4. Is able to hit meaty if you scale the combo enough.

Boundary of Death S1 > S2 (HOLD) thankfully not a 1 in 4 chance thankfully not a 1 in 4 chance

Base damage P1 Scaling Value P2 Scaling Value Light cost Emo level Hit type Properties Startup Active Recovery 0, 40 1 0.5 4 3 Melee - - - - A fast dash forward, on hit leading into Yujin's signature Boundary of Death cinematic slash. Deals massive damage, and is a stylish way to end rounds if you have the luxury of possessing 4 Light. Most of the time you will find yourself needing to spend that Light on SP, so this move is rarely seen unless the Assassin player is actively fishing for the hit.

Strategy

Recommended Decks

Standard
EL1: Cardless/Cocoon
EL2: Predation
EL3: N/A
The average deck of most Assassin players, alleviates some speed and trades off some of her already low health to gain more mobility.

Shi Association: South Section 2 Director
EL1: Violence
EL2: Chained Wrath
EL3: N/A
Turns Assassin into a highly volatile burst monster, making her combos do upwards of 30-40 damage on even the tankier classes like Charger, and making her boundary able to crack the 70+ damage barrier and potentially instant kill lighter classes such as Ranger with over 112 damage. The 4 Bind given is also not too much of an issue, as it does not affect her SP or S1, but only impacts her universal dash.

Gameplan

Assassin has a very solid and set in stone gameplan being: Get to the enemy using S1, use ATK, and then get away before they recover with an SP or another S1, or attempt to bait and punish with your parry. Through the entire game, this is essentially set in stone, as contrary to how the kit suggests, going below 50% Health can prove incredibly detrimental and has little applications. Due to combo scaling and heavy P2 from most loops, a combo that extends and capitalises off looping S1, ATK~ATK ends up doing near fatal self damage, while the opponent only takes around 40% due to minimum combo scaling. While your basic parry can lead into a heavy punish through ATK~ATK, S1, ATK, your enhanced parry only does a maximum of 18 damage, and thats if you have 4 Haste when you usually only have 2, making it only deal 12.

Upon reaching EL3 and gaining Boundary of Death (shortened to just BoD,) a consistent way to combo into it is through ATKATK BoD, with the combo doing 40 damage, while there are longer routes you can do, it costs too much health and ends up doing usually less.

For cards, Fairies Care can end up saving your life if fighting shorter combo characters, but absolutely fatal against characters such as Vanguard and Knight, while Violence ends up being a good damage increase due to your incredibly low speed not being too tarnished by the Bind. Upon reaching Emotion Level 2, it is important to note that Predation's built in Haste does NOT affect Overcome Death, making it a simple "get faster dashes and do 30% more damage in exchange for a lower health bar," Chained Wrath has the same effect as Violence but instead of neutering your damage, leads to a much higher burst damage combo.

Combos

These are basically all of her valuable combos, if you'd like to spend some health you can extend with ATK~ATK and go into S1, ATK but this is generally not worth it.

Basic Combos

Condition Notation Base Damage vs Samurai Light after Turn Notes
S1 starter 0 Light S1, ATK 16 +1 Light ???
Basic Light sink route 2 Light (S1)/(ATK) > (forward)SP, S1, ATK (19)/(23) -1 Light ???
BoD confirm 3+ Light (S1,) ATK~ATK, S1~[S2] (42) 46 +1 Light ???