L4D Special: The Assassin

The last thing that many a lonely survivor will see, are two red eyes staring down upon them from the shadows...

The Assassin is an infected zombie with an obscure mutation. Somehow, his skin absorbs light, making him almost totally invisible as long as he remains totally still. If he moves, then light refracts from his movement and he become temporarily visible again until he has remained static for long enough for light to start absorbing perfectly again. Only his glowing eyes give him away, and even they have a coating which makes them hard to see unless he moves. Even when you kill him, his corpse becomes invisible when it comes to rest, thus making it hard to tell whether you have even killed him or not. Worse still, the assassin has learned to play dead which he uses to his advantage, as I will demonstrate later.

The Assassin also has long blades for arms, which he can use with almost lethal force. If he charges up his basic melee attack for five seconds, he can perform a deadly lunge attack which instantly incapacitates a survivor (survivors revived from this state are set back to the health they had when they were incapped for balancing reasons.) If the assassin finds an incapacitated survivor, he can then perform a pinning attack in which he kneels down on them and repeatedly stabs them until they die (similar to the Hunters pinning attack, but much more powerful.) Even so, his basic melee attacks are much more powerful than that of a standard special infected save the tank or witch (he strikes for 15 damage.)

Another skill the Assassin has is to play dead in which he collapses onto the floor to fake his own death. If he waits long enough, he can become invisible while on the floor, which he can use to avoid attacks which would have killed him if he were standing up or even crouching. However, he still takes damage in this form, so isn't total safe.

All this said, he is extremely fragile, and while not as weak as a boomer, is less durable than a hunter or smoker. His 125 health make him easy pickings if he isn’t cautious. As well as this, if he is damaged even slightly or set on fire, it renders his perfect light absorbing skin damaged and unable to work for a period, and he become visible for a period of time (depending on how badly he was damaged.)

But be not fooled. This infected moves silently and with great speed, as his running pace is the same as that of a hunter or common infected. He also has a trick that no other infected zombie has. He regenerates lost health. It’s a slow regeneration, but enough to keep him alive while on fire and shrug off stray shots. (He can only be invisible at full health, so his slow regeneration has to kick in to fix any damage inflicted.) If he is set on fire, it does however reveal where he is for a long time, but unlike on the other infected, eventualy it will go out.

Like the hunter or smoker, he dosen't have a theme as such, but does have an audio cue, which would be in his case, a series of high pitched violin strains or the scraping of metal.

Verses mode controls:
Left click: Play dead, or get up if allready playing dead
Right Click: Melee, Lunge (only after charging the melee attack for five seconds) or Pin (only on incapacitated survivors)

Max Assassins In-Game: 1

Relevant Achievements:

Survivor:
Ghost Shot: Headshot an Assassin while they are completely invisible

The old cure: Set 9 Assassins on fire with Molotovs

Infected:
Dues-ex-machinima: Incapacitate and pin 8 Survivors as an Assassin

Gentlezombie: Incapacitate a survivor from behind as an Assassin

15728-28228: Survive a whole round as an Assassin without dying, and incapacitate at least each survivor once

Dead or Alive: Play dead 50 times as an Assassin

Barrier Breaker: Break down a door instantly as each of the infected classes with the ability to do so

Gmod Version: [link]

Trivia:
-The Assassin has been through about ten different combat models, including one that made his melee power a pinning attack, an instant kill, and a recharging attack, rather than a chargable attack.
-His separate pinning attack was added later to make him better at killing incapped players.