What Does an Assassin Do?

I was thinking about making a guide on the role of an assassin. What he does, his priorities, etc. So I ask the Smitefire community, what does an assassin do?

An assassin is god (or character, to be general), who provides the highest DPS - damage per second - possible, in order to immediately remove another from the fight. They sacrifice any form of survivability for the sake of dealing all 100% of the enemy's health, to turn the tide to a 5v4 in a teamfight.

Note that an assassin does not have to be a melee character. Freya is a very good example, as before the patches she had the highest DPS in the game with just her 1-2 combo, higher than even Anhur's ultimate with a full damage build.

An assassin has to either have a way to close a gap quickly as a melee, or provide a hard CC that allows for a set up. Armillary Sash, Assassinate, Banish, and Cocoon are all very good examples of this. This also shows why pre-patch Kali and Bastet started to be built more as bruisers than assassins - they lacked the CC to ensure an easy kill, so they built more sustained damage to survive.

Assassins general do not need much penetration, either, as bruisers and tanks are not a main goal, but the squishy ADC's and Mages are. Items such as Titan's Bane and Obsidian Shard are more favorable to assassins than The Executioner or Spear of the Magus, for they usually open with abilities and do not have time to auto attack to rot away base protections.

In summary, an assassin is a pure-damage, mobile, CC based god, who is able to immediately remove a single target from a fight before they are able to react. This should not include mages with an ultimate that one shots, however, such as Release the Kraken, as this is a team-fight oriented ability, while assassins rely on removing a single target BEFORE an engage. They should also be absolutely amazing in 1v1 situations as duelists.

Thanks for the input. What do assassins do late game? Also, what do you think of buying a few defensive items and playing as a bruiser? (Strictly late game, got it from the Nocturne strategy of doing just that)

Late game hopefully doesn't happen if you play an assassin right. Otherwise, they do two things:

1.) find any god that is away from the main pack, and slaughter them. Keep in mind that it may be an ambush.

2.) act as what RagingStorm calls a "janitor", or coming in about halfway or close to the end and clean up the remains of the teamfight. Unless the teamfight was really one-sided to the enemy team, it usually wins the teamfight and gets a few kills for them.

Oh right, you play LoL.
Anyway, Assassins late game focus on roaming nearby teamfights. They are the most replaced god in the meta (For jungling bruisers) because they rely on picks and catching people out of position. Due to their extreme squishiness, their power decreases similar to an inverse-exponential scale, where they start almost infinitely strong with their initiation, but they become basically irrelevant, or die, afterwards.

If catching someone out is not a possibility, the assassin seeks to position himself on the side of where the teamfight is about to occur, and waits for one of the tanks to initiate. He then has a clear flank opportunity to engage the squishy targets he so desperately needs to attack. This is why assassins are one of the most complicated roles to play - if you do not have perfect positioning and timing with your engagement, they will live, and you will most likely die afterwards.

Building bruisers instead of an assassin relies on your team having a better composition to drag a teamfight on. If their assassin is able to take one of your carries out, you will lose. But due to your more tough nature, and (at least, as it should be) lifesteal, you will prospoer as a fight drags on, since their jungler will have exhausted their use. However, certain gods simply cannot build bruiser, such as Loki, who HAS to one shot a target, or simply be useless.

Compositions that favor a bruiser over an assassin are ones that draw a fight on through tankiness and heals. Examples are compositions with Ra or Chang'E, with a solo lane that has a very tanky bruiser or tank itself, such as a lane with Hercules, Guan Yu, Sun Wukong, etc. If you have gods like Poseidon or Anubis, you'll want an assassin to follow up the immense power of the ultimate.

Seems I've constructed an essay, so a TL;DR is necessary again. Assassins look for people out of position, or in teamfights, a chance to gib the enemy carries. Bruisers prosper over assassins with compositions that benefit from long engages over quick, volatile engagements.

IMO the only real assassins in Smite are Ne Zha and Loki. Freya, Anubis, He Bo, Hun Batz and Thanatos etc. play really similar though, but I wouldn't call them pure assassins (maybe Anubis, but he just has a really hard time doing it).

In the early game your job is to look for overextended targets and try to keep the carries down and just get big, your real job comes late game in teamfights.

In the late game you are going to go for the enemy that wins the fights for the enemy team (which isn't always a carry, but 90% it is), so if Sun Wukong wins every fight for the enemy team your job is to kill him. Your build has to make you able to 100-0 your target and then hopefully be able to get out (so cdr, penetration and flat damage), then your team can spread the enemy team 4v4 and when they call for a cleanup on aisle six you'll be ready to secure a kill or two.

As Raventhor said assassins are best in team comps that are generally squishy, so if you don't got a bruiser in the solo lane (or the jungle) your team might benefit a lot of an assassin who can kill the enemy carry before he/she can deal any damage to your team.