Ninja wrote:Sneak Attack can be afforded early on, and the Assassins won't deal enough damage to the Blacksurge to send it into invincibility, and the Blacksurge likewise cannot harm them enough to kill all 3 before another respawns, thus allowing the Assassins to have a virtually amount of time to instakill the Blacksurge. In fact, a little more than half of the time, a L.2 Shrine will kill Blacksurges.
Your hypothetical situation is wrong, unless you're a horrible player:
Ninja wrote:the Assassins won't deal enough damage to the Blacksurge to send it into invincibility
Of course it won't, but it's not like the Assassins will be alone while they fight the Blacksurge. Obviously, it'll have other towers around it and those towers will deal damage, or else you're a horrible player who doesn't understand what Barracks are for.
Ninja wrote:the Blacksurge likewise cannot harm them enough to kill all 3 before another respawns
But it doesn't need to, since only one Assassin at a time will likely be able to fight a Blacksurge--the other two will be busy getting electrocuted by Bluegale storms and trapped in Greenfin nets, or maybe they just can't land a lucky Sneak Attack on that one Bloodshell. Either way, Blacksurges can dispose of Assassins easier than you think unless you upgrade them with Dodge III, which isn't really a good idea when you factor in the immensely scarce amount of gold you get in RT levels.
Now, really, I've spent a lot of time at one point formulating a strategy for RT, so I know what I'm saying: Assassins aren't all that good against Blacksurges. You will practically need to use that Shrine to the fullest, since it's the only directable instakill the player has for the whole levels, assuming they don't have Sha'Tra. The problem, though, is that the Shrine recharges extremely slowly, and Blacksurges show up in larger numbers later on. It sucks if you're like me or BBB, the kind of player who calls in new waves immediately, since Rising Tides forces you to wait for your Shrine to reload so you can instakill that Blacksurge as quick as possible.
And affording Assassins early on isn't actually that effective. Gold in the Rising Tides levels are
extremely scarce--the levels force you to create the most flexible defense you can think of. Assassins aren't as good of an option in Rising Tides since literally four enemies present in the levels can immobilize them with ease (Greenfin, Deviltide, Bluegale, Bloodshell). This means Assassins with Sneak Attack are still only good against Redspines and Blacksurges, and since you want a defense that's extremely flexible as well as cheap, you'll want to instead use just normal Knights, or maybe even Templars.
Now, I know that sounds silly--Templars are completely outclassed by Assassins--but the thing is Rising Tides enemies are extremely low in numbers, and often deal very low damage. Templars are somehow capable of shrugging off a Bluegale's storm when an Assassin would falter, and it doesn't matter if they get immobilized by Greenfins or Deviltides because lol, their damage is
pathetic, anyway, and you're only getting them because of their health bar. What's even better is that they're good the moment you get them--if you want an Assassin to do well against Blacksurges, you'll still need to spend an extra 525 gold on him to maximize Sneak Attack chance. Compare that to just having even a normal, unupgraded Templar, who will effortlessly hold his ground until your Shrine recharges, it's somehow a more viable option.