Evolve Jack Guide

Evolve Jack Guide by Arkpit

I’ve yet to come across a comprehensive guide to my dear Jack and ended up taking things into my own hands so please feel free to chip in on anything we forget to bring up or if something is straight up wrong. Love the Jackal to death but we need to just bring up his current state of the game before we move on to the details of this amazing character!

Is Jack even good? How does he compare in the meta towards to alternatives?

Jack is very much a strong pick in the game right now, especially after his satellite got a nice buff and his pistols are now able to kill the Gorgons spooders when missing a shot. He does suffer a lot from pubs so we have to understand that most things in this guide will be quite difficult without a pre-made group. His kit is extremely dependant on your positioning relative to both the players and the monster which require more setup and communication than with a Griffin harpoon but have the potential for more damage mitigation if it all sticks!
So let’s go over his kit before we move on to the monster individually and perks!

Dual Pistols

Pistols go pew? Honestly though, there are 2 sets of pistols and despite being a lvl 40 Jack I still don’t know the difference on them but I do think there was a subtle one outside the looks.
They got a little buff from 24 to 30 damage so they aren’t all terrible anymore but they are still not great compared to the other Trappers (except Waggie…).
That being said, they get the job done and that job is killing spidertraps and banshee mines pretty much whenever you are reloading repulse or fighting any sort of Kraken (getting to that in a bit).

Thanks Fddazzed for mentioning the movspeed with pistols since it doesn’t seem to be in plain text anywhere after the Stage 2 patch. In legacy Jack could run while shooting and not losing speed to compensate for not have chase abilities HOWEVER, this have been removed in stage 2 and you are now slowed while pewpew’ing.

Survey Satellite

Shove it into the ground and green lasers of death will hunt the monster down and ever since it got buffed it is SUPER useful now. Even if it doesn’t catch the monster straight up it shows the path the monster is taking so you can cut him off.
Excellent at detecting jukes after a planet scan since the range is 130m(!).
Does a little damage as well so you should ALWAYS keep it up inside a dome.

Repulsor

Well well, the reason why Jack is at all interesting and needs a more detailed description of what it ACTUALLY does. This is what the wiki say:
“Jack fires a force-field that can stop monsters dead in their tracks. When angled correctly, the field counters the momentum of a monster with a green beam, slowly depleting its capacity.”
While this isn’t wrong it doesn’t really help either since people gets very confused about how it works when you are in a fight so let’s go over the facts first!

• Repulse is a BLOCK and not a PUSH
• Green indicator means you are stopping something
• Red means “git gud”, no but you need to either abort or angle the beam better

Some examples of what this means are:
Kraken doesn’t get “pushed down” by a repulse, it stops it from flying UP so it slowly falls at a normal rate!
If a Goliath stops and throws a rock the beam is not green, stop wasting energy!
Wraith is angle galore and unless you make that beam green when abduct is about to hit you need to practise more and angle more precise!

While you channel to stop something it is important to remember that you repulse with a “shield” where the ammo/energy could be viewed as health because the more force you are stopping the faster you get drained. Example if you run without any extra capacity perks and a Goliath charge, you are all out and need to swap to something more helpful until reload is done.

Thanks to zarfoobla for pointing out that the beam does indeed BEND! It has roughly a 90 degree arc and bends more the further out you go so you never have to stand right infront of danger! It is many times possible to stand in a safe spot and angle a block!

Perks

• Slot 1: Movspeed / Thrusters
• Slot 2: Capacity
• Slot 3: Capacity

So because of where we left off on the Repulsor I would always recommend Capacity (both slots) over Reload which makes you more reliable and allows for more errors in gameplay!
Capacity will block both Leap+Charge while reload will let one of them through.
Reload will also affect the satellite but it never felt nearly as helpful as the extra capacity.
For slot 1 I prefer either celerity for some extra running or Thrusters for little extra to help in the domes.

General

2 Blocks. This is very key to Jack and needs to be lodged into your brain that with capacity you are allowed to block 2 things from monsters that can be repulsed, examples:
1 Charge + 1 Leap Smash = 2
1 Charge + 1 Traversal = 2

Traversal counts for more than just running against you but not as much as an ability but the “math” stays the same. Why this matters is that as soon as you’ve seen 2 things being blocked, even if there is a small bit of energy left, SWAP TO GUNS! The next thing will barely be stopped anyway so reload asap and shoot some bullets.

It is important to note that anything that isn’t a repulse target HAVE to be dodged and your team also need to know what they can save fuel on, aka what you can repulse safely.
Auto-attacks from a monster should basically always just be facetanked as always if the choice is that or use your last jetboost as with any character in the game.

OGoliath / Meaty

Repulse targets: Leap Smash, Charge, Traversal.

If you manage to consistently stop leap and charge without being drained by traversals during a dome you are doing a great job!

Mistakes against the Goliaths are when you repulse during Rock/Fire since it only drains energy and will do nothing to prevent dmg.

• Wait for OGoliath to initiate with a Rock, as soon as he throws you start repulse because he WILL follow this up with a charge or Leap most of the time.
• Meteor will often traversal+firebreth for a fight and you can’t do much about it, just be on your dodge game and get ready for the upcoming charge once he is in!
• Meteors highest damage is leap so there is your priority while not getting caught in a charge!

Wraith

Repulse targets: Abduct, Warpblast.

This matchup takes a lot more practise than the others due to angels and hard to spot the two repulse targets.

You will be repulsing the Decoy many times, just re-position and try again, thankfully not many Wraiths use Abduct while they are mashing buttons with her Decoy out.

IMPORTANT: Wraith traversal CAN NOT be repulsed! It is considered a “blink” which moves through repulse.

• Abduct can be spotted by Wraith suddely stopping while looking at someone, repulse right away but be mindful of the angle he is going for!
• Warpblast is extremely often used to follow up an abduct when hunters try to run so even if you miss Abduct, get ready to save your buddies!

Kraken / Elder Kraken

Repulse targets: Aftershock/Chain lightning, Traversal.

Jack hates everything that is named Kraken and for good reason since not only is the angle of repulse rediculously hard to get right on a flying target, it’ll barely slow them down anyway.

Don’t let the old “Sometimes you can push him down” thing fool you, it is not how things are played out and for several reasons:
To force a Kraken down you need to be above him and good luck with that on capacity perks and it’s not a “push” it is a “stop” so it only prevents from going up.

On a more helpful note, the Aftershock and Chain Lightning are the only 2 things you can be helpful in repulsing.

Mines is your entire contribution against Kraken but a good one once you get the hang of it!

• Just shoot and keep satellite up, the repulse will be a waste of time for most parts.
• MIIINES! Learn to recognise what the Banshee Mines look like vs. OG Kraken, they are a big pile of his dmg!

Gorgon

Repulse targets: Traversal.

This matchup can be rough for a Jack but by no means will it leave you useless!

After the dmg buff Jack can now more consistently take out spider-traps and I would urge you to always have this as your priority.

Always look for spidertraps and then get ready for Web!

I’ve yet to encounter a mimic that does any real impact, my teams simply dodge and unload damage against the spooder standing still for once.

• After Gorgon throws web at someone he’ll either spew acid or jump at the target, this is your queue! Repulse the follow up traversal after Web or Acid!

Behemoth

Repulse targets: Traversal.

Mr Bob is super boring for Jack since all he can do is repulse his movement and he barely ever use it unless he wants to be an autobot (“Roll out!”).

• Keep satellite up and shoot. Stop him from leaving with repulse.

And when it’s all said and done I really do hope he’ll finally get Sunny <3

Thanks for reading guys and please, by all means add to the list in comments and I’ll add things as we go :D