The Complete Guide to Assists

The most vital mechanic of any Tag Fighter is assist actions. When it comes to 2XKO, this certainly holds true. Good assist usage is one of the biggest differences between newer players and a highly skilled player.

Assist actions define how a team functions, controls space, and creates pressure. This guide breaks down everything you need to know about using assists effectively, including assist attacks, Tags, Push assists, and Tag Launchers. We'll also cover how your Fuse selection affects assist usage and capabilities.

Whether you are learning the fundamentals or optimizing high-level team synergy, this guide explains how each assist mechanic works, when to use it, and how to turn assists into consistent advantages in real matches.

If you are new to Tag Fighters, it can feel overwhelming to have to pilot two characters simultaneously.

Rather than thinking of your assists as completely separate from your Point champ's attacks, try to think of your assists' attacks as just another attack your Point champ has available in their kit. Making this shift can help decrease the mental stack and help you to understand the true purpose of assist actions.

A common beginner mistake is underusing assists. The fastest way to understand when assists are strong or risky is to just start using them frequently. 2XKO is designed so that assists are difficult to punish and virtually every idea and attack becomes stronger when backed by an assist.

Every Champion has a neutral/forward assist, a back assist, and a Super assist (available when KO'd and uses 1 bar of Super meter). Remember to experiment with using each one of these to get the most out of your team!

When to Assist

At a fundamental level, assists serve four primary purposes:

• Extending offense and pressure
• Controlling and contesting space in neutral
• Covering risk
• Repositioning through Tags

You should primarily think about assist usage in two game states: neutral and offense.

In neutral, assists allow you to control space and fish for combo starters without fully committing your Point champ and making them vulnerable.

This is significantly safer than relying solely on your own normals or specials. If your assist gets hit, you can often punish the opponent with a counterattack.

Assists in Neutral

• Jump Up Forward > Tag
• • If the opponent tries to anti-air your jump-in, they get hit by your assist.
  • If they hit your assist, you can hit them with an air attack.
  • Oftentimes, they are forced to block, which then gives you the opportunity to put them in a mix-up.
• Projectile or advancing attack + assist
• • You cover more space and leave less opportunity for the opponent to punish your approach.
  • If the assist attack hits, you can HandshakeTag and convert into a full combo.

Offensive Assists

Call assist to extend block pressure

• Call assist just before the final hit in your Point champ's block string, and the opponent will generally be unable to punish you after they finish blocking.

Assist Crossups

• Call an assist, then immediately side swap the opponent. They'll be forced to block the assist attack in the opposite direction.

Handshake Tag setups and sandwiches

• • Similar to using assist to extend block pressure, you can also use assist to get your two characters on opposite sides of the opponent. Tag to swap between your two characters, and it becomes very difficult for the opponent to correctly block left or right, depending on which attack will hit them first.
• Combo extensions
• • Every champ has limits to how long they can combo on their own and how much damage they can deal. Using assists greatly increases combo length and total damage output.

Because assists are difficult to react to, and opponents are focused on your point character, they will get hit by assists they are not actively tracking.

Assist for Conversions

Assists are most valuable for conversions. This means extending any attack into a combo that the point champ would not be able to do on their own.

Let's say you are playing Jinx and zoning the opponent with her projectiles and traps. You use a forward-moving assist like Ekko's forward tag right after shooting a rocket. If the rocket hits the opponent, Darius' assist will also hit, wall-bounce the opponent, and then you can convert into a huge combo.

In this clip, we see at long range, Jinx can only land her rocket after a long-range machine gun. She could combo into her beam Super, but that damage on its own is still rather small. To get maximize the value of the successful machine gun, she should call her assist out, HandshakeTag, then convert into a proper combo.

Assists in Combos

Another great offensive use of assist is juggling to keep a combo going where your Point champ normally cannot keep attacking.

The exact use for assists in combos is unique to each team, but start by trying to use an assist at the end of your normal combo and see if the move hits. If it does, use a quick attack like M Attack to attempt to extend your combo even further!

When Out of Range

This will take practice, but focus on memorizing the exact maximum range of your team's assist attacks. The worst use of an assist is throwing out the attack only for the opponent to be just outside your assist’s effective range.

Your assist will just stand there and stare blankly at the opponent, waiting to get hit. Even if you HandshakeTag, the opponent can hit you first if they are not in blockstun.

• In slow-motion it's clear to see Blitzcrank's S2 Special pushed Yasuo out of range of Ahri's ForwardTag.
• • Becuase Yasuo is out of range, but the Ahri player still performed a HandshakeTag to her, Yasuo is able to attack first, and gets a free punish.

To Save the Cooldown

If your character already gets a full combo from a close-range hit, an assist may be unnecessary. When the extra damage is minimal, it's sometimes better to save your assist so it's immediately available when the opponent recovers.

Don't forget that after each combo, you need to land another successful attack until the opponent is KO'd. Landing that next attack is much easier if you can assist as soon as the opponent recovers with whichever recovery option they chose.

When the Opponent is Baiting Your Assist

Champions who have piercing Supers, such as Jinx's beam Super or Braum's S1 Special Super, are constantly waiting for both of your characters to be on screen so they can get free damage on your assist champ and possibly land a Happy Birthday.

While assist calls are generally safe, using them when the opponent is doing nothing gives them the opportunity to counter. Try to predict your opponent's attack patterns and cut off their attacks just before they come out.

When to Tag

Tag is inseparable from assist usage in 2XKO.

• Anytime your assist is offscreen (and alive), you can HoldTag to perform a Quick Tag. Be careful doing this raw, as any prepared opponent can hit you during the swap.
• Any time your assist is on screen, you have access to HandshakeTag, allowing you to swap characters without giving up momentum.
• The final way to swap champs is to use Tag Launcher during a combo. This is one of the best combo extension tools in the entire game, so spend a bit of time in training mode to figure out what follow-up attacks your team can do after using Tag Launcher.
• Double Down Super Tag
• • Technically, Double Down gives you access to a unique type of Tag where you call in your 2nd character during the first's Super.
  • Universally in fighting games, this mechanic is referred to as Delayed Hyper Combo, or DHC.

Recover Health

Remember that your characters can recover their gray health while off-screen as the assist. If you're getting on low health, use one of these 4 Tag optoins to swap.

Also referred to as Pushblock, Push Assist is the most powerful defensive tool in your arsenal. During any opponent's block string, Push Assist shoves them away from you, interrupts their pressure, and creates space.

When correctly timed to make your opponent miss an attack, you can land a counter hit by attacking immediately after using the Push assist.

The trade-off is that it more than doubles the regular cooldown time of using an assist.

Push Block is one of the few answers to extended block pressure. However, using it and not getting a punish can leave you at a disadvantage while you wait for assist to come back online.

No matter which Fuse you use, all the tips and guidelines mentioned above will apply to your team.

Depending on which Fuse you run, there will also be a few extra unique uses you will have access to.

2x Assist

Grants an extra assist charge, dramatically increasing pressure uptime, combo extensions, and defensive options.

Freestyle

The ability to HandshakeTag twice in a single string of attacks is extremely versatile and powerful.

The main uses are block pressure, mixups, and sandwiches, which help you land the crucial first hit to start a combo.

Double Down

Double Down teams can Super Combo and HandshakeTag during Supers. This gives Double Down two unique ways of tagging out that anyone running a different Fuse cannot perform.

Most importantly, during Super like Teemo'SsDart Super, you can HSTag if both your champs are on screen to start controlling and attacking with your assist champ.

Side Kick

Sidekick cannot swap between heroes, but they have buffed assist actions.

• You can TagHold to control how far your assist runs before attacking.
• You always have immediate access to your assist champ's Super assist.

Note that when using 2X Assist, you must input ForwardTag to perform a 2nd neutral/forward assist