Assassination

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Assassination is a much feared trait that some units and certain Heroes have access to, a trait that causes their attacks to have a chance to deal massive damage against enemy units - typically killing their target outright! When this happens, a visually striking yellow skull animation is displayed over the victim, accompanied with a ghastly sound. Buildings are completely impervious to Assassination attempts.

Damage
When a successful Assassination blow has struck, the target unit suffers 1000 un-typed damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistance. However, in version 1.03.1+ Titans gain a hidden 33% damage reduction against all attacks, which even applies to Assassination blows - reducing the damage to 670.

Bounty
In addition to inflicting damage, the unit that inflicted the Assassination blow (even a Hero if it were them) is rewarded with 100 gold. At the time this is awarded, mini text will be displayed over the attacker stating the gold reward. However, even though Heroes are also rewarded with gold for their Assassination blows, no text will be displayed. In version 1.03.1+ the gold reward was reduced to 85.

Unit Assassination Chance
There are three non-Hero units in the game capable of inflicting Assassination blows: Wasps, Gnolls and Assassins. Their chance of inflicting a successful Assassination blow per melee hit is 4% + their current level. This means their minimum chance is 5%, with 24% being their highest possible chance excluding upgrades.

Unit Assassin Upgrades
The Dark Elf race has access to two researches, Blood Potion and Dark Order. Both of these researches increase the Assassination chance for Wasps, Gnolls and Assassins by 3% each. When both are researched, that gives the aforementioned units a base Assassination chance of 10% + their level.

Hero Assassination Chance
Assassin class Heroes (and Dark Elf Heroes) have access to the Assassin skill and for each point invested in the skill past the first gives the Hero +1% chance of inflicting an Assassination blow per hit. The first point invested in the skill will offer +3%, so having 2 points in the skill, for example, will give you a 4% chance of Assassination. An attacking Hero's level has no affect on his own Assassination chance but opposing enemy Heroes will reduce the chance by up to half their level, giving Heroes the only unit in the game to have any form of protection against Assassination blows - but only when attempted from other Heroes. An Assassination chance can never go lower than 1% when reduced in this way.

Assassination from Hero Items
There are a couple of Hero items that give a Hero the Assassination trait, or add to the chance if they already have the skill. They are the Assassin's Blade (+5%) and Shadowsiv (+1%)