Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare: Assassin Loadout Guide

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I've played a ridiculous amount of Advanced Warfare in the last six days. AW has its grasp on me in ways other CoD's in the past simply haven't, and it's become pretty clear why. It's the Pick 13 system (adapted from Black Op's 2 Pick 10, which I also immensely enjoyed). The give-and-take of the loadout points leave a lot of room for flexibility and specialization. I can go especially gun-hoe in one area, and leave another lacking for the sake of balance. My favorite thing to do in AW's multiplayer is to try out wacky classes and find genuinely effective ways of using them. Hence, my Assassin class. Here's the setup and why each part of it is useful.

Primary & Secondary:

The point of this class is to use nothing other than your trusty knife to get the job done, so go ahead and clear both of these slots to make sure of that. Using a knife is a bit faster than the “Exo punch” that players use when holding anything else. So in a moment of up-close encounters, you'll find yourself winning the race to melee more often then not.

Wildcards:

Since our primary and secondary slots are costing us literally nothing in loadout points, we can go kind of nuts with Wildcards. Go ahead and grab Perk Greed for all three. Perk Greed is the best choice for Wildcards here because both our Exo Ability and Exo Launchers are very important to the class, so you don't want to trade one for the other in this case. So in the absence of that, going all-out on perks is a nice bonus.

Above is a clip of the class in use. This serves as a good example of what the class is like. A lot of satisfying success, but plenty of deaths as well.

Perks:

Since we're going nuts in this department, this is where the class has the most flexibility. My main point in the perks here is to become as much of a ghost as possible. This class leaves you extremely vulnerable, so it's best that you give your foes as few opportunities as possible to see you before they meet your blade. Once you've accomplished that, the rest is up to the imagination.

Perk 1 Slots: Lightweight & Low Profile

These are perks that I typically attach to most of my classes anyways. Moving faster is extremely useful, and being invisible to UAV's and Exo Ping is especially useful when your entire gameplan revolves around getting up close and personal. I'd definitely say the more important perk here is Low Profile. If Lightweight doesn't sound ideal, my next substitute would be Overcharged–great for extending the battery life of your Exo ability. But I choose Lightweight because, accompanied by the Exo ability to follow, it allows for running at maximum speed.

Perk 2 Slots: Cold-Blooded & Peripherals

To be clear, if I had the perk unlocked, I'd be using Fast Hands in the place of Peripherals. Fast Hands allows for fast Exo ability and launcher use, which is uber essential for my “stun and stab” approach. But for the time being, I'm using Cold Blooded and Peripherals. Cold Blooded ties back into being as invisible as possible, as it protects from thermal, target enhancers, and threat grenades. Peripherals has one major use, as it makes sure no skull and crossbones is displayed on enemy players screens upon your assassinating, meaning that infiltrating a bundled group of enemies becomes a lot more fun for you. It's a good reason to keep it around, but in the future I'd rather take Fast Hands.

Perk 3 Slots: Blast Suppressor & Hard Wired

Blast Suppressor is another perk I stick on every class that I make. It's a no-brainer for me, as I generally hate ever being seen on radar. Being able to zip around the map without having to worry about dooming myself simply for jumping is a comforting feeling, and is incredibly useful in the context of this class. The last thing you want is to be boosting up above an enemy getting ready to pounce just as they look and and open fire because your boost jump gave you away. In this way, it's essential. Hard Wired features a laundry list of immunity, the most important of which is to Stun grenades. Not having to worry about stunning yourself in the process of stunning a target is paramount to most of my kills.

Exo Ability:

This is another aspect of the class that could be taken in a few different directions. I experimented with of the abilities before finding most comfort in Exo Overclock. Getting that extra boost of speed, especially when paired with Lightweight, is a deadly combo when an enemy sees your approach and is dead before it registers in their head. It also activates immediately, unlike so many other abilities, so it becomes more reliable in a time of panic. But if running faster doesn't sound like the best option for you, consider Exo Cloak as your next best choice. Even though in reality the cloak doesn't make you all that invisible, it can occasionally disorient or throw an enemy for a loop.

Exo Launcher:

Stun grenades, Stun grenades, Stun grenades. Stunning an enemy means they won't be able to keep up with your movements as you approach them, especially if your approach is from above. It's like catching your prey in your web and forcing them to watch as you skulk up to them for the kill. For the sake of this class, I definitely suggest taking the proper Stun grenades, and not the Variables that have stuns within them. The one drawback of Variable grenades is that you can't remotely detonate them after firing. But more often than not, you'll want your stuns to active the second they hit the ground. The window is small to get the kill, and you don't want to wait around dodging bullets longer than you have to. There's also a good chance your foe will simply boost jump away from the blast radius pre-detonation, so the entire strategy becomes useless. Stuns are crucial here. Use them wisely.

Scorestreaks:

At this point we've exhausted all of our points except one. Here's the thing about this Assassin class–you're going to die a lot. So unless you're much much better at staying alive than I am and feel confident in 800 point scorestreaks, you'll probably want to use this last point on a cheap streak like UAV that can only improve your chances of finding suitable prey to go after.

So that's the class as I built it! I'm entirely aware this is not some ground-breaking new idea, but I just had the thought and decided to roll with the perks and equipment that made sense. I've had a ton of fun experimenting with this class and have found resounding success, especially in Kill Confirmed, where you can always count on confirming the kill due to your proximity. Please let me know of any changes that you've made to this design, and how you think it can be improved!

Morgan Park is an Associate Editor at Front Towards Gamer from Bakersfield, CA. He is a destroyer of evil, watcher of Chuck, craftsman of sandwiches and that dude with the deep voice.

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