Making guides for competitive games is never easy, and never simple. As such, we’ve poured the knowledge acquired from 35 hours worth Awesomenauts, 100+ online games and the assurance of a 1500+ rating (the leaderboard position changes often, but it’s ~50). Hopefully that’s enough assurance for you that you’re in good hands. Thanks to many XBLA staffers and gamers alike who helped form this knowledge.
Since this guide is for a competitive multiplayer we must stress that things change over time and we cannot guarantee that the strategies employed at the time of writing this guide will stand the test of time as balance patches are released. However! We will update the guide in conjunction with DLC characters are notable patches which have overt effects on the function of different characters. For instance, of Yuri’s mines go from 30 base damage to 32, we’re not going to tell you that. However, if he can all of a sudden use his Time Warp without stopping, we will update that.
There is no map DLC planned for now, but there are at least two characters. They will make their way into this guide at the time of release along with all subsequent releases. For now, please enjoy what we have and do feel free to offer variants to character builds in the comments! While we feel we have chosen good builds and outlined some interesting variants where we found them, it takes a community to find some of the good stuff! So please, if you have questions or suggestions email them to us at guides@xblafans.com or tweet us @xblafans or our guide coordinator directly @emessai.
If you’re new to Awesomenauts, we highly recommend checking out the “How To” before the rest of the guide.\
We’ve added some videos with commentary from our Video Coordinator, Shawn Saris. If reading is too much work, his quick rundowns of the characters will give you a starting off point for understanding the various Awesomenauts. If you need more info after the video, read through the guide! That’s what it’s for.
How To Succeed in Awesomenauts including Tips and Tricks
Thank you for Awesomenaut-ing.
Remember that new DLC character Ronimo Games just announced for Awesomenauts earlier today? GameFAQs member MirorB claims he’s discovered just about every element of the two DLC characters he claims are named Coco Nebulon (the girl recently announced) and Derpl Zork. He claims to have explored the .DDS files and found an unrefined picture of the characters’ sprites (below). Since then he’s posted the description, (some) base stats, move sets and an entire upgrade list of both characters. Since the first post wherein he posted a screen capture of the files he was viewing, no further evidence has been provided. However, having reviewed all of the upgrades, we believe the format is in-line with Ronimo’s build development methods.
Months ago a minor leak was captured by members on the Awesomenauts forums noting two characters, a slug and a girl with goggle, when Ronimo Games posted a screen grab to their Facebook with the DLC characters on it. We now know the girl with goggles is real, so the slug probably is as well.
Here’s the description of both characters:
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A new challenger is approaching! This new Awesomenaut, for whom we have no name yet, is the first of the characters planned to help sustain the Awesomenauts’ community. Looks like she may have some sort of hoverboard, a bot she can summon, and what appears to be a ball of electricity, but we’re not sure yet.
Awesomenauts has been out just over a week now and the leaderboards are steadily populating. In fact, in our review we gave Awesomenauts a Buy It!, so if you haven’t checked it out already you should. If you have no idea what MOBA is, check out our explanation of it! For those of you who have played it, we have some fantastic news for you.
Ronimo Games has issued a community address, shedding some light on their tribulations of Awesomenauts’ release, as well as what’s coming down the pipe.
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Awesomenauts was developed by Ronimo Games and published by DTP Entertainment. It was released May 2, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.
In the year 2012, the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre began to proliferate, and gamers the world over wondered how it would evolve. From the pitch black void of space came Awesomenauts, a game which dared to bring MOBA to the 2D realm. Six mercenary heroes, ranging from an ex-rapper frog to a jetpack-laden monkey, are hired to work for red or blue (sometimes appearing on both teams at once, somehow) and destroy the enemy team’s solar drill. Solar is the form of currency in the future, so having a device which literally mines money is kind of a big deal.
Awesomenauts is a 2D MOBA and it makes no effort to hide that fact. Each player in this three versus three game picks one of the six heroes, each complete with unique abilities and play styles. Both teams have droids that run at the enemy base and attack each other in an effort to destroy the towers and solar drill. Kill them for cash, use your money to buy character upgrades and side-grades, push the enemy base and secure victory for your team.
Just a few days ago we were all sent spiraling away from our computer screens, cringing at the news of DTP’s insolvency announcement. Luckily, one way or another, Awesomenauts has pulled through and is loading into its drop pod at this very moment! Months ago, when the game was announced, we were all taken in by Awesomenauts‘ 80s sense of style and catchy theme song. With this latest trailer, that theme is back with 200% more guitar riff! Surely that guitar riff is Ronimo’s way of assuring us everything is not only fine, it’s awesome!
Speaking of awesome, check out our impressions of the game from PAX East if you’re not sure what it is still (by some amazing chance). If you know what it is but aren’t sure how to approach it, or how to play it, check out our XBLA Primer on MOBA for a rundown of the genre to which Awesomenauts belongs and some of its trademark features.
[UPDATE]: Beta is now live for download, however, the servers will not go up until 2 PM EST (11 AM PST).
With the much-anticipated Hybrid beta finally on its way, we’ve been searching for some additional info on the beta itself. After following up with 5th Cell, they’ve kindly informed us on what’ll be in the beta. Here’s the breakdown:
So there you have it guys, everything you need to know about the Hybrid beta. Looks like there’s a good portion of the game being shown off here with plenty of time to dive into it. Two and a half weeks puts the end of it squarely in the middle of May, around the 16th. Check out the beta trailer if you’re not sure if you’re interested or know what it is, but suffice to say it’s no typical third person shooter. Last but not least, we have 30 codes to give away tomorrow! We’ll let you know how when the time comes.
For those of you who want to play with or against us here at XBLA Fans, we’ll be a part of the Variant faction.
As a reminder, we want to reiterate that you CANNOT CHANGE YOUR FACTION once you pick one in the beta. You also CANNOT ALLY WITH FRIENDS/MEMBERS OF THE OTHER FACTION, so if you want to play with your friends make sure they’re the same faction as you. There are unfortunately no private matches in the beta, so take heed of this now.
While everyone knows what strategy games are, and role playing games, and massively multiplayer online games somehow the multiplayer online battle arena genre remains confusing and mysterious. Perhaps this is because, despite being a combination of strategy, RPG and MMO (aka SRPGMMO, but nobody liked that acronym) being something everyone can understand, it in no way adds up to MOBA. However, like every other genre, MOBA is branching out, growing and adding elements from other beloved genres, so before things get out of hand let us explain what MOBA is.
The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre is a micro-MMORPG experience with strategical elements surrounding it, hence the combination of the three. MOBA combines some of the key features of each genre, and bakes a peculiarly delicious cake. First and foremost, however, MOBA games are team-oriented, with one team competing against one other team. Each team has a core (or something like one) which they must protect. If their core is destroyed, they lose.
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Welcome to our gigantic Fez completion guide! This guide will take you from no achievements to 12, zero g to 200g and we’ll take you there… delicately. Thanks to community member MRX93 for helping us ever so slightly here and there. Without further ado… we have to explain some things.
[Editors Note: We highly recommend not using this guide until you can't go any further on your own. Fez is about exploring and getting lost. Polytron put it best when they said "play like the internet doesn't exist". That being said, we know many people will become frustrated and want help. This guide is written for them. Please use it only as an emergency cheat-sheet.]
There are two ways to complete Fez. Complete it like you’re playing it, and to complete it for the sake of completion. We here at XBLA Fans are aware of this and have set up our guide in accordance with the different types of Fez players.
We have taken great care to separate anything and everything that would be considered a spoiler. Our policy follows that any puzzle that requires knowledge acquired outside of the area to which the puzzle belongs (barring basic knowledge and specific sections) will be posted in the SPOILER ZONE. Each area has one, and each zone is marked very clearly in text and with pictures. Each picture hints at what the spoiler covers. Once you’re done with many areas and have accrued much knowledge you’ll want to come back and check each spoiler tag to see if you can now complete that puzzle.
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Abilities BreakdownSpecial 1: Time Warp – Yuri’s Time Warp, as it is now, is strange. By default it’s a relatively short aura he activates that causes a slow field around him. This slows all things inside it, including projectiles, characters, solar etc. Time Warp is not easy to use (stressing that again) because Yuri has to stop moving to use it. With that in mind don’t stop to slow someone down that’s right next to you because they’ll just stay next to you for a longer period of time. The Time Warp can be modified to provide a healing bonus or a speed up bonus, either of which is arguably necessary for Time Warp to be worth much. However, if you can make it work as just a slow field we recommend taking the size expansion so enemies aren’t frozen in space right next to you.
Special 2: Mines - Yuri’s mines are incredibly powerful when upgrades and are the only thing he can activate while moving. He can place as many as he’d like but they only last for so long before blowing up on their own. Though the mines are fantastic for cleaning up droid waves for easy farm, they can also be used when being chased or when chasing (and directly on top of) someone to deal massive damage. These mines are key to playing Yuri in most scenarios, so if you want to get good with Yuri, you’ll have to practice with them.
Yuri has a lot of different setups but sometimes it’s difficult to make use of only one power upgrade. For instance, his Time Warp can be made into a healing aura, but with only one healing upgrade it’s not powerful enough to really help a lot. He has a bouncing mine upgrade, but without the carpet bomb upgrade it’s even easier to dodge the mines because you can simply walk under them. He has an upgrade to his laser which pulls people in, but without the slow they’ll hardly even feel it! It’s not like these can’t be made to work without their counterparts, but it requires much Yuri practice.
As such, we’re going to avoid the, not-enough-eries of the Yuri setup, and go for what works.
Don’t take…
With this build we’re going to focus on absolutely not taking the Time Warp at all until we need it. Time Warp can be very useful in a support situation, but Yuri’s tools at this point in the game are better geared towards defense or offense. So…
If you’re playing offensively…
Yuri loves mines and mines… well I’m sure they love him back. Offensive Yuri is 100% about mines and only roughly 20% about lasers. Since Yuri can lay mines while he’s jetpacking, take the mines early and just be absolutely annoying with them. Lay them on platforms, in pushes, every single everywhere you can. Early game mines might not pick up kills but any you can put next to the enemy turrets always have that chance to pick up random kills of nearly-dead enemies who are running away. The goal here, regardless of mine-laying responsibilities, is to stay alive.
If your enemies keep going for you, it’s important not to keep dying trying to land mines on them. Take extra health so you can get out into the thick of it, then continue to max your damage and other mine upgrades. As the game progresses, you’ll start farming all the droids with relative ease if you leave them in the lanes. However, it’s important to take advantage of the geometry. Drop mines from high above where you can, or hide them in bushes or on platforms that your team mates use as escape routes. An offensive Yuri has to stay alive, but he has to be bold too, chase people with mines or get them to chase you; those things hurt.
If you’re playing defensively…
A defensive Yuri takes more laser abilities than mines, especially early on. Since you have to stop moving to use your laser, it’s very difficult to use the laser offensively, or at least for attacking other players. As such, to make the most of the laser, upgrade it to max as soon as possible. Start with the maximum range increase so you can hit incoming droid waves from a safe distance. Yuri doesn’t have much survivability and his laser does more damage the longer you use it, so hide behind the tower or your team mates at first. You can also float just under platforms and fire from under them to hit things on the lane above.
Laser Yuri is super annoying, so when we say defensive, we mean… annoying? During a push, the Yuri laser is super powerful once you’ve upgraded it entirely. Just because you’re defending your towers doesn’t mean you have to stay at home all cuddled up in your bed. Go out with your laser, destroy things from afar. You can pick up your Time Warp ability to speed up your droids, team mates and self.
When you’re losing…
See above. Play defensively and use the laser because it does ridiculous amounts of damage to things that are stuck in one place. If the laser isn’t working because you maxed your mines first, then stay far away from the enemies while they push (via jetpack) and drop mines from above. Whatever you do don’t waste your money on the time warp, it’s just not worth it as a major defensive major.
Yuri is a bit of a beast with… Uhm. Yuri… is difficult. A lot of Yuri is on you, we can’t teach you all of it. If he gets hit by a knockback or stun, his jetpack turns off. Brutal, right? Leon hits, Clunk missiles, Leon tongue, Froggy dash, Lonestar bull, all these things make him plummet back to Earth. Or whatever particular planet you happen to be on at the time. He has to stop to turn on his Time Warp, he can’t jetpack and laser (probably because he combined the two, maybe not the best idea) and most of all he has a morningstar attached to his tail. This guy is tough, so remember if you first start playing him and die horribly, you’re at par for the course, just keep practicing.
That said, let’s kick some butt with Yuri. Like all our builds, we’re going for the widest, best paved and most attentively observed middle of the road as possible, something for everyone and everything. However, since literally every thing is situational with Yuri, we’re just going to explain what each row is supposed to do and allow you to meld that into each game as it happens.
Mines
Mines are brutal, evil, painful things and you should take every advantage of that. When you go mines, you go all in, don’t go “kind of” mines or “maybe some back up” mines, make them hurt and make them scary. That said, they’re not the best choice if you keep dying. Outside of constant and instant death, going with mines is a fantastic idea for this one reason: at max level they do 78 damage each. That’s a LOT of damage, that will kill most characters in two mines depending on how they’ve built and that will stop entire teams from entering bushes. Put your mines everywhere, even if they’res nobody there. Drop a mine when you’re flying to your base, to the enemy base, to the jungle! It doesn’t matter where, put one in your own shop!
Realistically though, they’re great for chases as if you’re above the person you’ll hit with the mine (unless they’re faster than you). Even if you’re busy running away, it’s always a good idea to be laying mines. Clear droid waves with these mines to keep the money coming.
Time Warp
This thing is so finnicky, sometimes it’ll save you, kill your enemy and save the day and some times it’ll be absolutely useless and get you killed. This ability is to supplement whatever successful strategy you’ve got going on, as long as it can be helped by slowing. If that won’t work, then try helping other people! The slow field works great when people are running away because you can get in front of them, then lay mines and they can’t react fast enough. It also helps save your friends as they run away, which it should be used for whenever possible. Getting the max size and duration are quite necessary to the Time Warp being of any use, so get those first if you get this ability at all.
Laser
This build is designed to do maximum pain with the laser, clocking in at 6 damage at max level coming out way too quickly at way too far a distance. The best strategy here is farming for the first part of the game with the laser, picking up droid kills and wearing down enemies as they try to push (max all laser parts, don’t skimp on anything!) then combining it with the time warp. It takes practice, but if you can laser someone’s health down, hit the time warp to slow them down then get in front of them and laser them some more, you’re guaranteed some fish-in-a-barrel style kills. Who doesn’t want those? Beyond that the laser does amazing damage to turrets at max level from especially far distances, sometimes outside of turret range (subject to change)!
When you’re losing…
Yuri needs money to be awesome, his early game is pretty weak because he’s so easy to kill and so many enemies have great methods of killing him. As such, you should always go money first. That being said, sometimes Yuri just has bad games, bad starts because he has no survivability. In the interest of playing it safe then, use the laser to farm from afar, poke at your enemies and keep pushes from doing too much damage to your towers. There’s no use running out to a jetpack-y grave, just farm farm farm and push back once you’ve gotten more solar! It’s that simple if only because Yuri can’t turn the tide of games, he needs a team to do it.
Freaking annoying pain in the butt
These variants more or less are just about each row since, again, Yuri is very dynamic. With this variant, take mine longevity, bouncing and carpet bombs then just fly around wherever you’d like and make the entire battlefield full of pain and sorrow for the enemy team.
Soviet health insurance
Combine the Time Warp duration with both healing upgrades to turn Yuri’s Time Warp into a super-support ability. He can’t heal quite like Voltar, but he can keep a push going, save enemies and save time by cutting down on trips to the neutral monsters.
Get over here!
More supplementary abilities, take slow, size and speed on the Time Warp and combine it with the max range, pull and slow of the laser. This brutal combination, though it takes forever to get going, ensures your team mates will never have to chase anyone anywhere ever again. Hit the warp, grab the guy, watch him die!
Abilities BreakdownSpecial 1: Heal bot – Voltar’s heal bot is many things, but first and foremost it’s a useful. This ability places a bot which heals all friendly units in the aura range. After a set amount of time or if the heal bot is destroyed, it disappears. The heal bot can be healed by Voltar or anyone else with healing powers. The bot is great, obviously, for healing while defending a turret but it can also be used to tank tower damage so your allies can attack from behind it. It’s for this reason that Voltar’s heal bot is a far more awesome ability than it sounds. On top of that, Voltar’s healing wave doesn’t heal himself, so the heal bot is a good way to accomplish that.
Special 2: Drone Gate - The drones that surround Voltar are even more versatile than his heal bot. Each drone, of which there can be 2 – 4 depending on upgrades, has its own bit of health and will seek out high value targets surrounding Voltar. His drones can put out ridiculously high amounts of damage on single targets, making assassination attempts far more dangerous for the enemy than for Voltar. The drones can also be specialized for tanking, stopping all incoming bullets and other forms of pain for quite a bit of time before they start to dwindle away. Suffice to say, Voltar’s drones can turn him into pretty much whatever he wants.
Voltar is a pretty interesting character with tons of different ways to play him. Luckily, what we feel is the best way to build is synonymous with how he’s played when you first acquire him. Of course with later upgrades you pick up the cheaper versions of some of the upgrades, so we take those, by since they’re the same as the earlier versions we’re going to combine this and our actual build together.
Voltar is all about support, no matter how he’s played, so Voltar always needs to pay attention to his team’s makeup. Of course, it’s not just the teams, sometimes people play their heroes one way or another way, so it’s important to communicate with them. However, we’re going to run with some typical compositions and strategies here when discussing how to build Voltar. Keep in mind no matter what you do, nine times out of ten you should take your solar gain on the healing wave first to help boost level progression. Take piggy bank or solar tree next, depending on what you brought.
If your team has a lot of sustain…
If your team is perfectly capable of taking care of itself, but needs help pushing and dealing damage, it’s your job to be a pusher. Here you’ll take your heal bot and quickly get its damage upgrade. This will help with your pushes as well as make you more difficult to kill should someone attack you in your healing field. Getting the heal bot to maximum longevity and cooldown reduction will allow you to have it up at all times (unless it gets destroyed), turning you into an absolute pushing machine. The damage output also helps.
As the game progresses into late game, take your damage boost and amount of drone upgrades for your drone gate so you can help with dealing damage. At this point in the game towers should start falling to massive Voltar-supported waves of droids you help create. Also, pool your resources as a team to keep super droids alive, they do impressive damage and get harder and harder to fight as they stay alive since they do such painful damage in such a wide area.
If your team has low overall health…
If you’ve got a team of low health characters all running in and out of combat, dealing damage, hit and run, assassinations etc. then you’ll need to be able to accommodate them. If you want, you can just push on your own (see above) but that may not end well if your other team mates are under-leveled because they’ve been dying. Should you choose to chase your buddies and keep them alive, you’ll be taking your drones with shield upgrades so you can stay alive, boots to chase (and escape), and your healing power bonus. If you need to, take the range as well, but Voltar is pretty fast on his… robes?
Building the healing bot will help late game, but max out your droids and healing power first. This build makes Voltar not only helpful to your team, but scary to the other. It allows you to run after your team mates, but render your enemies ineffective while they chew through the drone shields. The healing bot will be helpful in the later game since the distance covered becomes greater and so does the overall amount of damage being traded.
If you have to push on your own…
Sometimes your team is being crazy, and sometimes you’re not sure what their goals are or how their strategy is hanging together but they seem to be holding their own. In times like these (or… just because) it’s up to you to be your own unstoppable force. When your goal is just to get damage dealt to towers and pick up droids for money, it’s all about Voltar’s own sustain. Take your heal bots and drones early, then boots and health so you can survive out there.
As the game goes on and you start to really take towers with massive droid waves, get shields on your drones and increased range and heal on your healing wave. The goal here is not only to be able to escape, but to force the enemy to choose between you or the massive, full-health wave of droids you’ve amassed in front of their turrets. While effective, it’s important to remember that just because you can push well with this build doesn’t mean you can leave defense up to your team mates; since you can only be in one lane at a time, make sure you still are supporting other lanes when they need it.
When you’re losing…
Voltar can be either unstoppable or completely useless when his team is losing. There are two situations, either the enemy team is putting out way too much damage or your buddies can’t bring them down. If the enemy team is putting out too much damage but isn’t particularly healthy or tanky, build up your droids and put damage on your heal bot to make every push of theirs painful for them. Then your team mates should be able to survive long enough to finish them off, if you don’t do it yourself. If the other team is too tanky and your team mates can’t survive long enough to get through them, it’s time to start supporting players directly. Take a powerful heal wave and heal bot (maximize healing potential) and just keep them alive as they peel enemies off your turrets.
Voltar, the Warlord
Voltar’s drones, healbot and even his healing wave can be turned into powerful damaging forces. This build, while expensive, can be incredibly painful. Take max health and regeneration for your general abilities, then focus on your drones. Get them to full damage (with both damage upgrades and increased drone count) and then you’re free to run around the map ganking people by chasing them. Use Voltar’s floating jump ability to stay uncomfortable ranges above characters (especially Leon) to force them to jump at you to maximize damage. Late in the game take the damage heal wave and your enemies will crumble before you!
Voltar, the Medic
This build is similar to the above build, but you take maximum healing on everything rather than damage. This allows your healing wave to amass incredibly large droid waves and keep your super droids alive. Use your healing bot to tank towers (and players) and get knockback on the healing wave to keep enemies at a distance while you facilitate safe droid passage. Lastly, the drones on this build are for protection, so get the cooldown and shield upgrades so they’ve got your back at all times.
