I've yet to fight an assassin I can stay in a fight with. I have to flee post haste because they never seem to miss wrtist breaks etc.

I know command denial is the key, but I don't play giants or strong raes.

What can be done?

Well, here are some suggestions with the assumption that the assassin will get a strong kot on the first try, but that you'll get the first combat move. Also, bash/trip are not options and you have no second spec.

Hands:
Just do your thing.

Daggers:
(flee/) hamstring, artery, stab
With screwed dodging and massive strength/dex loss, even if he gets a slowing kans on you your chances are pretty decent.

Axe
pincer, whirl, shieldcleave if applicable. dirt/hook?
You pincer, he eats axes for two rounds plus pincer damage. Even after the kot you're still going to be hammering him unless you lose both axes via str (gear for str in this case).

Mace
drum, boneshatter, backhand...
Similar to the pincer, but more upfront damage instead of extra rounds. Again, assassins don't know maces so by the time he's about to kans he'll be pretty hurt. Backhand ensures you keep doing damage.

Whip
entwine, eyejab, strip, sting...
You're not using your offhand anyway, so entwine has no drawback. He doesn't know your weapons so you should be able to out-melee him, doubly so if he's going barehanded.

Sword
Flurry, wield axe or mace. Not a good matchup for you, though if you land a huge flurry right at the start then you might have enough of a lead to come out ahead.

Spear/staff
impale, wield axe or mace. Terrible matchup for you. You're probably not going to win. But the stat loss from impale might help a little as long as you can wield a decent weapon

Then again, I suck at PK, but from my brief assassin experiments, crunch-kot did not by any means guaruntee victory.

You'll want to have decent +str/dex in your gear set. If you are a warrior, never neglect enlarge, and if you have to flee and eat/quaff your prep, do it. Then reengage. In my opinion, your hitroll and inherent dex stat will help you in avoiding kote and kanset. So don't ignore hitroll.

Now when it comes to tactics, most assassins are going to stack at least one command the round before they can execute it. Use that to your advantage. You don't have to throw in the dirt before the disarm because you should likely be able to just disarm and then bash/trip. Or, go straight damage. Pugil, chop, flurry, pincer. Just lay it on so they're gushing and then bash.

I guess.

Its pretty much a dex vs dex (with skill % taken into account), if you can lower the assassins dex they'll land a lot less. Kot is not that hard to land anyhow but you can stop them ever landing kans.

At the most, I'd guess the assassins hitroll would come into it. Not your own.

Yhorian.

Depends on what you're playing. All you've said is that you're not playing a giant or a strong race. You can try tripping them if they're not flying, but that's only a good choice if you're likely to outdamage the assassin. If you're a warrior and wielding a weapon they don't learn, then you should probably be outdamaging them in melee (depending on their preps).

If you're playing a class other than a warrior, then your options really depend on what class you're playing.

Having played lots of assassins (but relatively few warriors), I know I was always supremely worried about fighting any axe or mace user. Dagger users tended to also rock my world. Whip/flail was scary by virtue of entwine. Polearm was even pseudo-scary, since if you don't get the big kot then things can get ugly very fast. The least scary warriors to fight were spear/staff specs. Spear/staff specs are probably second, but with them you always have to fear the gigantic flurry.

I haven't seen the Maladicts having any noticable affects on Assassin successes.

Daggers are a problem because of the maledicts. It's hard to hold on to your weapons, and the dagger guy only needs one dagger to maledict you. Having your str and dex lowered also screws the assassin's ability to dodge. The warrior also has more hp, and is getting concealed attacks (at least until the assassin makes him drop a dagger). If the assassin doesn't land big-kot, then he's much less likely to make a dagger spec drop his weapons than, say, an axe spec, whose weapons are likely to be heavier.

With dagger specs there's also the problem of getting tons of bleeding affects on you and dying to the bleeding. This is mostly only a problem if the assassin is gold-poor, or if the fight is taking place in his hometown. (Meaning that he has to teleport to escape the warrior, and teleporting puts him out of reach of a healer.)

As the assassin, I'm not trembling in fear from a dagger spec warrior, but neither am I expecting him to be easy prey.

Unarmed defense trumps/comes close to trumping daggers so causing an assassin to drop a weapon isn't neccesarily a good thing.

What's more, I have never been in a fight with an assassin that hasn't broken my wrist unless I was able to bash him down.

So what is the secret to not getting a broken wrist besides bash?

>So what is the secret to not getting a broken wrist besides
>bash?

1. Total command denial.

2. Kill him (or make him flee) before he can succeed.

Those are your only two options. Possible third option (that nevertheless involves you getting your wrist broken):

3. Let him break your wrist, but make sure he dies doing so.

Pro, try using stab-twist.

Assassins don't take very many unblockable MANGLE-DEMOS to flee or drop. It's some combination of damroll, saves and HP. Your typical situation is mostly damroll/HP and less saves. If you're doing damage, the assassin probably isn't. Kotegaeshi is a measly massacres, Kans is a mangle, at best without muter maladicts. You can far outstrip an assassin's melee damage in most cases by fleeing, using hamstring, fleeing again, artery, then underhand, and a couple stabs which might have twists. Any combination of those moves with 2 or more stabs laced in (provided they're done before he completely rapes your dexterity) will far outstrip the damage an assassin can land on you before he starts actually trying to lag you. A stab/twist is also quite a fair trade for any kind of kotegaeshi.

You also need to watch for the old blindness dust/disarm, which will #### you more than any kotegaeshi if you're a dagger spec primary.

In summary, you're a warrior. Facing someone whose business is maladicts. This is one of the rare cases where daggers can shine in the brute force arena while there being a pretty hefty chance of applying maladicts as well, as opposed to making their maladicts their number one game. The reason you flee/hamstring and flee/artery is it makes these a single round lag. But it's up to you when to start putting out the frontload damage before he rapes your ability to tank his regular melee rounds, the sooner the better. Short of spike-toed boots just about any combination a dagger spec can pull can far outshine an assassin combination by being A) quicker and b) far more damaging. You're getting tanked by unarmed defense because, well, daggers are easy to parry. Dump your damage through the parry/dodge then! It's a similar principle as pincer, but you're in a better position to sneak up and underhand to finish the kill.