Super MNC Beginner’s Guide

Super MNC Beginner’s Guide by Tiller

Introduction:

Hello and welcome to Super MNC! This guide is meant for newbies completely unfamiliar with Monday Night Combat or ARTS gameplay mechanics and to help them ease into the game. Even if you have had previous Monday Night Combat experience the rules have changed dramatically enough that it is seriously recommended (read: it is expected of you) that you look into a guide such as this one before rushing off and getting stomped. Again, the goal of this particular guide is to provide an overview of game along some basic strategy so you’re not THAT GUY who wonders where his team has gone when the Annihilator is up. That was a test. If you don’t know what an Annihilator is you have failed it. You should consider studying for the makeup exam later in this guide. More importantly, this guide has PICTURES! I know, right? Let’s get to it then.

Note that this not to be taken as an in depth analysis or a nitty gritty detail fact sheet. I imagine those will have their own topics later to release written by the more knowledgeable and experienced players whenever it is worth getting around to it. Also I intend this to be a work in progress and a community project which is quickly updated as the game changes. If you have a suggestion, critique, or want to contribute post away and I’ll add them on here. If you have more questions or something still remains unclear you should also make a post.

This guide is really stupid long. Here is a breakdown of all the topics covered so you can go right to whichever section you need to read up on.

Table of Contents:

I. Basic Overview
Gametypes
II. Pro classification and the team
Pro Classes
Team Composition
III. Explaining the HUD
Basic elements
Other elements
IV. Controls and Actions
Basic Actions and Commands
Misc Commands
V. Basic SMNC Gameplay Mechanics
Health
Armor
Cash, EXP, and Leveling
Buy Menu
Juice
Weapons
Skills
Grapples
Jumping Mechanics
Buffs, Debuffs, and Conditions
Endorsements
Products
VI. The Arena
Spawn
The Moneyball
Bot lanes
Team Bot Spawns
The Jungle
Out of Bounds
Jumpads
Ejectors
The Annihilator
Product Dispensers
Buying bots
Turrets
Mascots
Drops
VII. Bots
Lane Bots
Jungle Bots

I. Basic Overview(Warning: Acronyms):

—— Super MNC (SMNC) is third person shooter combined with elements of tower defense and traditional Multiplayer Online Battle Arena/Action Real Time Strategy (MOBAs/ARTs) games such as Defence of the Ancients (DOTA) and League of Legends (LoL). Compared to the first iteration of the series, Monday Night Combat (MNC), SMNC moves the game much closer into MOBA/ARTS territory. If you are familiar with these games like the recent DOTA 2 (that actually wasn’t an acronym), SMNC uses similar terminology and basic game logic. You may find yourself right at home.

For everyone else who doesn’t know what this fandangled League of Ancient Time Battles is you might want to start taking some notes now. The game is not a deathmatch arena where Rambo doesn’t know the meaning of the word “comrade”. If you are expecting that, I can safely say this is game is certainly not for you. Though murdering the other team is an important part of the game, SMNC emphasizes and rewards teammates working together to compete objectives to a much higher degree than it does going off on your own. As a matter of fact, if Rambo played this game he would more than likely get killed an obscene amount of times versus any competent team. So yeah, this game is sort of about teaching you how to kill Rambo.

Additionally you can’t approach this like a standard shooter, where death is mostly inconsequential and the only thing that matters is bum rushing the other team when you spawn back. Being killed in this game only makes the other team stronger. The more times you die by their hand, the more easily they can continue murdering you. You need to play much less recklessly and know when to get out before you take too much damage. This mindset is probably the hardest thing for new players to adapt to. It’s more respectable to go 3 kills and 2 deaths than it is to go 10 kills and 9 deaths because of this. The guy that goes 0 and 22 not only makes his battles near impossible, but it over levels the other team to the point where his teammates are outclassed as well.

If you have past experience with MNC you might recognize a lot of what goes on in the game. However, the rules have changed. MNC game sense will help a little bit but ultimately you may find yourself having to relearn the basic mechanics as nearly everything has been reworked and modified in some fasion.

Overview of Gametypes:

Super Crossfire:

Super Crossfire pits the Hotshots and the Icemen made up of five unique pros (player characters) and their NPC bots against one another in a battle to push their respective bots into the opposing team’s base. The goal is to use your bots to bring down the other team’s money ball, which can only be lowered by bots, and damage it until it bursts, winning the game and wonderful cash prizes for your team. For you DOTA and LoL folks, bots are equivalent to your creep. Bots spawn in one of two lanes and will move forward on those designated lanes until coming into contact with something to shoot, be it you, your teammates, or your line of bots.

It is a team’s job to lead and protect their bots through at least one lane to allow them to reach the opposing team’s Moneyball by removing obstacles such as the other team’s pros, bots, or turrets in their way while stopping the other team from doing the same. Throughout the match, various events such as the annihilator or a mascot will trigger and help tip the balance of the game in the controlling team’s favor. Through a leveling mechanic, pros gain experience through cash earned by killing and or assisting in killing enemy bots, enemy pros, blowing up turrets, and other awards such as special kills or kill streaks for both bots and pros. When leveling up, pros gain advantages over one another and can improve their five skills over time.

II.Pros and Team composition:

Classes and Pros:

——Before beginning a match, players choose one unique pro that they will play with for the entirety of a match. No switching allowed, ‘dem the brakes. Pros come in five archetypes: Commandos, Strikers, Defenders, Sharpshooters, and Enforcers. Pros in the same class typically share a general role that they assume in a team and have similar stats, but each have their own set of weapons and skills that give them great variety on how they go about doing their job. All pros have primary and secondary weapons, with each weapon having an alternate fire or ability. In addition, every pro has five skills, which are essentially special abilities. Each pro has three skills that are unique to them while the other two are Offense and Defense, which depending on the pro can give other added benefits for upgrading other than a flat attack power or speed/health improvement. In addition, each pro has at least one grapple with their secondary alternate fire. A grapple is a type of cinematic attack mechanic we will get into later.

Here is a quick rundown on class types and the pros that fall under them. For more specific info on individual pros check the user guides forum and the strategy forum.

–Commandos:

Assassin
Captain Spark
Wascot

Commandos are typically the most mobile pros who have some form of advanced movement skill and can do significant damage when they are up close and personal. As such they posses the highest ground speed but are among the most fragile pros and require more skill to use effectively than your average pro. Their movement abilities allow them to get around the arena faster than everyone else, giving them an edge when escaping or chasing down an enemy. They do most of their damage with melee weapons and grapples which are best used in conjunction with an ambush. Typically they have sort of debuff they can inflict on enemies such as a blind. A side effect of having a melee weapon means they can lunge, which is a quick burst of extra movement speed. It is recommended you do not start playing as a commando until you learn the basics of the game. On a related note, commandos thrive when they can capitalize on a disorganized team and inexperienced players. Many times newer folk will claim that commandos are overpowered when still wrestling with the game mechanics. Don’t be that person.

–Strikers:

Assault
Karl
Megabeth

Strikers are your allrounders, capable of balancing mobility with fire power. They function as the team’s Swiss army knife, with high burst damage abilities for attacking, a mobility skill for movement, a continuous firing weapon to pepper targets, an AOE weapon for damaging crowds, and a moderate amount of health. Though they aren’t the best at anything, Strikers have the tools to be useful in all kinds of situations. As such it is recommended for beginners to start with Strikers since the they are the base that the other classes deviate from, though they are not the easiest to master.

–Defenders:

Support
Combat Girl
Leo

Defenders back up your allies with healing and powerful area denial abilities. What they lack in fire power and mobility they make up for with their potent skills. Each has a method of healing other pros, a deployable that holds and defends an area, and powerful damage or utility skill. They give a team staying power by fortifying gained ground along with keeping their allies patched up on the front lines, all while mixing in their heavy hitting skills to keep attackers and bots at bay. They are incredibly useful in the early game where healing counts the most, but can become skill powerhouses if leveled by late game. Not to mention their deployables, (self functioning auto turrets), come in handy for denying ground and annihilator fights. They have average ground speed but they lack any form of advanced movement, so they must be careful to avoid troublesome situations. It’s recommended that new players start with these pros first, as you will be backing up others and not be the front line fighter most of the time. This allows you to watch and learn by observing what other players are doing and pick up the basics of how different pros operate.

–Sharpshooters:

Sniper
Gunslinger

Sharpshooters are the precision class. Those with steady aim and ability to click heads will be much more effective when it comes to the raw damage output these pros possess. Each has the ability to do critical damage with a head shot from any range with their primary weapon. In addition they have skills that can incapacitate and hamper the enemy team’s pro or bot movement and can provide wide AOE damage with other abilities to temporally deny an area and damage bots. They have little in the way of health but that doesn’t mean you should underestimate their skills in close quarters. While it’s possible to be a contributing member to a team even if you can’t constantly headshot, a player who can click heads will be magnitudes more effective. New players should not start here until they have basic game sense down and even then the class is much more suited for highly accurate players. You may always be a more effective Striker/Defender/Enforcer than if you were to play as a Sharpshooter. I know I am : [

–Enforcers:

Gunner
Tank
Veteran
Cheston

Enforcers are pretty much your front line. They have the largest health pool and the highest close range damage output but possesses the slowest ground speed and in general lack mobility (for the most part, Cheston and Veteran can be quite mobile). With their high health they have longer staying power than other pros and become the focus of the enemy team’s attention when they spearhead pushes or stand their ground. At this stage in the game, they have the most diverse selection of pros thanks to combining two previous classes from MNC under the mantle of enforcer. As such they are less alike than other pros in their respective classes and it’s hard to say anything else outside of the fact that they have high health and they hit hard at close to medium range. One unique feature to a majority of enforcers though is jetpack assisted jumping that slowly propel a pro upward in place of the standard jump. All in all these pros are easy to pick up thanks to their health and more straightforward damage abilities. Newbies should also look here to start. Particularly Tank and Cheston.

Team composition:

So those are the classes in a nutshell. An optimal team can have one of each class of pro, but some classes can see less use than others. For example, forming a team with two enforcers and dropping either the sharpshooter or the commando is arguably more powerful for beginners. Sharpshooters and commandos are used more like a utility class rather than the backbone of a team, at least in lower level play. At least one Striker, one Defender, and one Enforcer are absolutely necessary to cover your bases. Its generally unacceptable if more than 1 sharpshooter or commando are picked on the same team since you sacrifice firepower for a role that only one player needs to assume. To draw a Team Fortress 2 comparison, it’s akin to having 5 spies or 5 snipers on a team of 12 which significantly hampers the overall team’s effectiveness. Also to note is that the game is highlander, meaning there can only be one unique pro on a team of 5. For example, you can’t have 2 combat girls, but you can still have a 2 Defenders such as a combat girl and a support on the team. This was done for balance reasons as pro skills could stack upon themselves and make the game grind to a halt. Though practice mode disables highlander if you want to replicate that hot 5 vs 5 all Veteran grapple action.

III.The HUD (heads up display)

——The HUD at first seems a little cluttered, but in time you’ll get used to it. Below is both a quick reference of each important element so I don’t bore you to death.

The Basics:

1. Health Bar – Green bar a little higher than the center of screen. It shows the current pro’s hitpoints out of their current max with the little white numbers attached underneath. Regenerates over time when out of battle. A Pro dies when it reaches zero though if you been playing games long enough I’m sure you guessed that.

2. Armor Bar – Yellow bar below health bar. Shows armor rating. Gained via armor pickups, overheal, skills, and through products. Damage received is taken out of armor until it reaches zero, with any remainder being taken out of health.

Sidenote: When at full health/armor without taking damage for a while the bar eventually becomes more translucent and hides itself so you can focus on murdering things. Otherwise the bar is solid.

3. Crosshairs – Used for aiming and shows weapon’s potential spread of pro’s active weapon. Different weapons have different crosshairs, and overall accuracy can be tampered with in game via skills, firing, buffs and debuffs. Melee weapons also have a cursor to mark the center of the screen as a formality although they hit in a wide range in front of the pro using it. Secondary cooldown is shown as a circular timer in the middle when grapples or secondary fires are on recharging.

4. Level up Notification – Circular flashing icon with an arrow pointing up above the skill box to the right of the screen. Indicates you have leveled up and can spend one or more skill points in the skill menu. It disappears when you have no more skill points left spend.

5. Skill box – Three square horizontal icons to the right of the screen. Shows images of current set of unique skills a pro has. Shows skill cooldown or availability via numbered countdown and dimming of the icons. Brightened skill icons means the skills are able to be used. A skill’s current level is shown as colored in boxes within the skill icons.

6. Cash – Current amount of money on hand that is used to purchase items around the arena.

7. Ammo bar – Bar and number next to the bullet icon to the right of the screen. Shows current amount of ammo a given weapon currently has left in its clip with both a number and some type of bar. Reserve ammunition is unlimited so you will never run out.

8. EXP Bar – Very bottom on the right hand of the screen, shows total cash earned which is represented as experience. This means earning money = experience. It also shows your current level left of the bar and progress to next level.

9. Product Icons – Smaller square icons arranged vertically to the very right of the screen. These are products in use by your pro build. Infinite use, but will go on cooldown shown via a red status bar and will only be activated in specific situations that the product describes.

10. Juice bar – Purple bar stretching the bottom of the screen. Shows current amount of juice built up. It will flash with an alert when it is full. It can only be activated when the bar is full. A pro will be covered in a purple outline letting you know that you or others have full juice in reserve. When activated, your pro is covered in a liquid like glow based your team colors. You also get sick guitar riffs to go along with it.

11. Status Bar – Very top of the screen. Shows a lot of different information on game progression:

11a. Team Bar – Your team’s makeup and each player’s health. Also shows their respawn timer if they are respawning.

11b. Enemy Team Bar – the enemy’s team makeup and respawn time if dead, but not their health.

11c. Lane Bars – Current lane conditions for both lanes based on bot location, numbers, and progression. Top bar is your left lane, bottom is your right lane. There are little icons underneath the bars that represent where the turrets are in relation to the bot pushing line. The Bot line represents the closest bot on that lane to the opposing moneyball for each respective side.

11d. Moneyball shields – Silver icon next to team icons, shows up if moneyball shields are intact and will blink when damaged. They will disappear when a team’s moneyball is down.

11e. Moneyball health: Represented as as a team’s mascot icon for each team. It will gradually fade over if moneyball is damaged.

12. Objective marker – Current objective marking your money ball and the enemy’s. Changes if either team’s moneyball is up or down. Normally this points you in the direction of the enemy team’s ball and it’s condition, such as “escort bots” or “Attack moneyball.”

13. Jetpack bar – If your pro has a jetpack assisted jump, this bar will be present. It shows you how much fuel is left in the jump. You must land again to refill the bar. Some other actions may reduce how much fuel is in the bar, such as an aerial charge skill.

Other HUD elements:

Earning notifications:
These will be little flashes of text showing you what feat you or your team accomplished and the money earned. Bringing turrets down, bot streaks, and pro kills are examples of what pops up. It will also show up for when the enemy breaks your turrets or activates the annihilator.

Team Vision:
When you or your teammates have a direct line of sight to a pro on the enemy team, they are outlined in their colors and pro silhouette with their health status, levels, and armor rating over their heads regardless of where they are on the map. Your teammates will also show up in your color with same information as long as they are alive on the map.

Damage notification:
A gold, shield like outline flashes on your character as you are taking damage along with a red directional cursor to show where the fire is coming from. The more that outline twists, the more damage you are taking.On death the shield bursts, giving visual flair to a kill.

Teammate Status Bar:
These bars are above your teammates’ pros are show what condition they are in. You can view their level, hp, and armor level.

Enemy Status Bar:
Just like the team status bar these work the same way. You can view enemy hp, armor, and their level when you or someone on your team is looking at them through the team vision.One thing to note is that the level numbers change color relative to yours. Gray is 2 or more levels below you, green is one level below, yellow is same, orange is one level above, and red is two or more levels higher than you. Dominations show up as a broken heart if they are dominating you.

Bot/Turret Health Bar:
Exactly what it sounds like. An HP bar for bots and base turrets show up on them when damaged.

Lockons:
-For some skills a lock on is required or shows up as part of an ability. These form as red or green diamonds on the enemy, your team, or your team’s deployables. When you see them there is a lock.

Deployables:
-Unique to defenders who have deployable turrets. They will have icons showing where they’ve been placed. The icon color determines how much health a deployable has at a quick glance. Red means nearly dead, green means its healthy.

Mascot icons:
-These show up when a mascot is on the field and will point you to where they currently are running around. Each mascot has a unique icon, but the music should already have given away which mascot it is.

IV.Controls and actions

——- Moving around is just as similar to other games you’ve probably played. You can choose to play with a keyboard or controller and configure the bindings however you want. Tweak it to your heart’s content and find something comfortable for you. For example, I map my skills on my mouse extra mouse buttons to free up “Q” for weapon switch and “E” for buying. I’ll use the default keyboard settings to explain here.

Gameplay centric actions:

Basic movement
“W”, “A”, “S”, and “D”
This combo moves your pro around like any other third person game out there.

Move camera
Move your mouse yo
Looks around and allows you to aim.

Jumping
“Space bar”
Jumps if on the ground. For characters with a jetpack you hold the button rather than tapping.

Primary Fire
“Mouse 1” (left click)
Uses current weapon’s primary fire.

Secondary Fire
“Mouse 2” (right click)
Activates the current weapon’s alternate fire.

Reload/Lunge
“R”
It reloads your weapon to full ammo capacity. If you have a melee weapon equipped, your pro will perform a lunge that can do damage and rush forward for extra mobility instead.

Switch weapons
“MOUSE SCROLL WHEEL DOWN”
Cycles between the two weapons a pro has.

Action/Buy
“F”
This is your action command for buying and activating various things around the arena. You are prompted when you can purchase something.

Skills

Skill 1 – “SHIFT”
Skill 2 – “Q”
Skill 3 – “E”
They activate your pro’s unique abilities if they can be used.

Buy Menu
“B”
Brings up the buy menu to interact with and buy skills from. Pressing the buy menu button again gets you back into the action.

Activate Juice
“LEFT CONTROL”
When juice is full you can activate it with this key, otherwise the button will do nothing.

Taunt
“H”
Show off bought and equipped taunts with “H” for five seconds of being provocative.

High Five
“C”
Want to let your teammates know you appreciate them or you want slap their face? Use the high five. If you don’t sync them with another player you will get hilarious results.

Misc/Chat commands:

Check Scoreboard
“TAB”
To check the scoreboard press and hold “TAB” for as long as you want to check on it.

Overhead view
“ALT”
Gives you an overhead view of your moneyball so you know what is happening around your base.

Quick chat commands
“V”
Brings up the quick chat menu and then press any number on the menu to throw out a message command into the chatbox for your team to see.

Talk
“T”
If you have a Microphone you can communicate to your teammates using your voice for as long as you are pressing the button. You will hear a little tone to know you have activated it.

Chat
“U”
Opens the text chat. Type whatever you want in it and press “ENTER” or click the send bottom to send the message and close it.

Team Chat
“Y”
If you only want your chat to go to your teammates use this. Only your allies will see it.

Mute menu:
“M”
Brings up the player list and quick mute feature. You know, for those guys who won’t shut up. This also has the added benefit of showing what products other players are running on their pro. Use this at the start and plan around what others have.

Options menu
“ESC”
Opens up the options menu to adjust settings and exit the game.

V.Basic Gameplay Mechanics

Health

Health will regenerate in this game after a time where you aren’t taking damage. The regeneration time and rate varies per class and isn’t really that substantial.

You can boost regeneration via Regenitol vendors, the heal beam from a defender, juice, or returning to spawn. Custom Endorsements can also decrease time for regeneration.

When health is low enough, the green bar turns to red and starts pulsing, with a grid pattern becoming visible across the screen and heartbeat sounds warning you of death.

Armor

Your armor limit is about half your max health. Armor doesn’t reduce the damage taken nor does it diminish in time.

Overheal is when a defender is healing you when you are at full health. Instead of health it starts giving you armor. You can also gain armor passively through products, certain skills, and armor shard drops.

Currently there is nothing in the game that will penetrate armor rating and do direct damage to health, so there is no reason not to have it. One thing to note is that you will not regenerate health if taking damage even if you have armor.

Cash, EXP, and Leveling:

Cash is experience. Once your earn enough in game your pro levels up and you can purchase one skill point. Killing/Assisting, tagging, item pickups, mascots and goal completion can earn you money, and in return experience. Once earned your experience never goes away, so in a sense your exp represents total cash earnings at that point in time. You can spend the cash you get on various things in the arena.

Levels are very important in how combat and skills play out in game. There are 15 levels that can be earned when playing in a match. Each level grants more HP and more attack power, along with a skill point which in turn can be used to buy skills. At lower levels you can only buy up to a specific level, so even if you have the skill points to spend you can’t reach a level 3 or 4 skill at your current level. In addition, the more leveled someone is, the more powerful they are in relation to you, and vice versa. In general, you want to be at least on par with the other team in level or better. An overleveled, or “fed” player can feel like an unstoppable force. You can’t go head to head with a leveled enemy without your team. This is the reason for the “DON’T DIE SHOOT BOTS” quick explanation people often give to new players.

The more you die, the more exp the other team gets for killing you, and things quickly snowball. Going 1 kill and 0 deaths is much better than 9 kills and 7 deaths. Often the bane of an experienced player’s existence is a someone who just rushes out and dies which just keeps making the other team much stronger. If you are getting double digit death counters in one game you may want to reassess your approach.

Buy Menu 

This is a screen that pops up when you use the buy menu command. From here, you can purchase skills ranks, view information on skills, and information on your base status on your current level and your next one. To view information on skills, just point the mouse in the direction of the radial menu. Buy with by clicking it so long as you have 1 or more skill point and the level necessary to unlock that skill’s rank. If you can’t buy something it will be highlighted in red. Careful when you access the menu because you are a sitting duck if you stand around in a hot combat zone. The enemy will see an outline of the menu rotating around your pro and know you are buying something. Only buy when you are in a relatively safe spot if you are going to take your time deciding what you want.

Juice 

Juice is essentially your super mode. It grants you critical hits (150% damage and no damage falloff), quick health regeneration, a speedboost, and a reload speed boost for a few seconds. It isn’t a win button though like in MNC as you can easily die if you are not careful. You know someone is juiced if they enveloped in a moving shiny outline glowing their team color. You know if someone else has the ability to juice if you see a purple outline flowing around them.

Juice can be gained through taking a large threshold of damage. A more reliable source are from also small juice pick ups dropped by mascots and bots such as Fujis which will always drop juice on destruction. You can buy a full bar through the Spunky Cola dispensers.

There is no shame to use juice if you are in a tight spot and are low on health. Using juice to heal up and cover a retreat is a worthy reason to use it. It’s also useful for taking on a large amount of accumulated bots in a lane. Taking on Jackbots for example is much easier as they fall really fast to a juiced player. It’s not all about murdering the other team, but it certainly excels at that.

Juice does not offer any form of damage resistance and you will also lose accumulated juice on death based on level. The higher level you are, the more juice you will lose on death.

If activated when being grappled, your pro will break the grapple but consume most of the juice. You can still be grappled though if you are juiced before the grapple is initiated. Grappling an already juiced player is a great way to waste their precious juice time. However, if you grapple someone while you are juiced the bar stops depleting until your grapple is over though it will stop health regeneration. So Don’t be afraid you’ll waste yours by pinning down someone, because you won’t!

Weapons:

Weapon Types:
There are three main types of weapons.

Hitscan

Like in all other games this means that the weapon will hit whatever it was pointed at within it’s spread when fired. Most bullet based weapons make use of this. There is no dodging hitscan weaponry if the cursor is pointed at you. For this reason most of these types have falloff damage to negate this attribute at longer ranges for balancing purposes.

Projectile

These shoot an object into the world in some fashion. They are not guaranteed hits, as these have travel time in between when the projectile was fired and when it impacts. Additionally many projectiles have splash damage, where they have an area of effect on detonation. Against moving targets you must lead and predict where to fire the weapons, and thus it takes more skill to use effectively. Since you can dodge projectiles, there is usually no falloff damage when you hit with them to reward prediction. These weapons are most susceptible to latency.

Melee

This is basically a hitscan weapon that only hits up close. So long as you are swinging and you are right next to something, you’ll be doing damage. All melee weapons come with a lunge or combat roll ability that replaces the reload function (since you don’t reload melee weapons) and grants the user a burst of mobility.

Primary and Secondaries:

Primary

Your primary weapon for your pro. It is usually more useful for its pro’s role. Typically you’ll have this out most of the time when you are attacking, but not always. Learn what each primary does in relation to that pro’s secondary.

Secondary

These are your pro’s utility weapon. While they may not be as consistently useful for damage dealing, they often useful in the situations they are designed for. A secondary might give a pro more range and less fire power, since their primary is only effective at short ranges. It might be a melee weapon, which comes with a combat lunge ability. Also, every secondary weapon will always have a grapple as their alternate fire. It’s standardized for all pros that way. Sometimes this is the only grapple a pro has.

Other Weapon Mechanics:

Damage Falloff

Some weapons have damage falloff, which means the farther away you are when you hit someone, the less damage it will deal. The reverse is true, meaning the closer you are the more damage you do, which is called ramp up. This is simply for balancing reasons regarding the reliability of hitscan weapons and plenty of games have this mechanic. Typically this deals with hitscan weapons that are bullet based. Most projectile weapons don’t have falloff since they are not guaranteed hits at a distance, so use this to your advantage when engaging at far ranges. Also to note: Sharpshooters don’t have damage falloff for their primaries since precision is what they specialize in.

Critical Hits

Critical Hits, otherwise known as crits, are weapon shots that dish out more damage than normal (150% damage if 100% is the normal rate). They are indicated by purple tracers or trails being left in the wake of your weapon when firing. They are mostly random with their low default rate of 7% per shot/stream but some skills and actions can augment that chance. Gunner’s Deploy gives him higher crit chance and products such as critically late influence the rate. Juice, however, will force crits for as long as it lasts, meaning you gain a lot of firepower with its activation. Crits also ignore falloff, so they do full damage anywhere they hit, making hitscan weapons deadly and powerful from all distances.

Tagging

This is actually really important and a lot of people don’t know about this. Tagging simply means you get credit for kill assists and bot assist so long as you did damage to them within 5 seconds of their demise. There are few exceptions such as slimbots and gremlins. So when people tell you to tag or shoot all the bots, they mean really to shoot everything at least once before it dies to get easy exp credit. This is especially useful early game to get a level advantage.

Skills:

When you activate a skill, the action will be performed and the icon will be grayed out and a timer will appear on top of it. The skill has been put on cooldown for a short while and you must wait until the timer counts down until you can use it again. When close to zero, the timer will show the second down to the decimal so you have an exact timeframe for when you can use it again.

Specific skills won’t activate immediately even if they are off cooldown because conditions such as a lockon aren’t met. OThers are timer based, meaning they are active for as long they don’t run out of ability time and you can toggle them on or off.

Leveling up skills typically make them more powerful or give them some special attribute. For the three unique skills a pro has they’ll power them up and reduce cooldown time.

The passive skills are offense and defense, which is standard for all pros. Leveling up offense will increase attack power and depending on the pro give their weapons a new property, such as gunner’s mortar splitting and his minigun turning into dual miniguns. Leveling up defense will increase HP along with base speed and can also give unique pro bonuses such as Support’s bot aura.

Also be warned that there are also things like the Scrambler bot that will block all skill use if they are near you, reflected by grayed out skill icons and a special skilldrain symbol above your pro’s head, so if all your skills won’t work then you might want to check your surroundings.

Grapples:

—Grapples are a type of combat action that when landed perform a flashy melee attack animation that damages the one being grappled and holds both the grappler and the grapplee in place until it finishes or is interrupted. They are used for holding pros in place, launching them off the map, and dealing a nice chunk of damage. Well that and looking awesome.

All grapples are initiated in close quarters combat on the ground. Pros in the air can’t be grappled or grapple themselves, and you must be in melee range in order to grab someone successfully. Latency not withstanding.

All pros have at least one grapple via their secondary’s alternate fire. Some may have more via skills or another weapon’s alternate fire.

While in a grapple both pros take reduced damage (50%) from incoming fire and cannot be grappled themselves.

They can be performed on all pros, Bouncers, and Jackbots. Additionally, they be performed on Mascots, but only on Chicky Cantor will it work. Bullseye and Juicebot will counter and knock you down for a second.

Bouncer bots can also grapple pros and take a large chunk of your health doing so. Watch out for them getting close.

Grapple Types:

Holding Grapples

These are your standard grapples that holds a pro in place and does damage until the animation is finished, then both pros are released and the battle goes on.

Throws

These toss their victims in an arc after the animation is through. They are handy for tossing other pros off the map for an instant kill, sending them into your teammates/turrets, or keeping someone at bay. They do the same amount of damage as holding grapples though.

Special and Skill grapples

These grapples are part of the unique skill set or ability a pro has. Typically grapples that are attached to a skill will do more damage than a standard grapple when leveled up. Special grapples like Assassin’s backstabs are a part of the class and increase damage done if a pro is grappled from behind. Wascot possesses Shifty Shuffle, which will counter grapple anyone attempting to grapple him while active. They’re the rule breakers that deviate from the norm, so know your opponent!

Other Grapple Mechanics:

Interrupting grapples:

Grapples can be interrupted via a teammate using a stun skill like Karl’s short circuit, killing the attacking pro before the grapple is over, or on your own by activating juice. Juice will knock the person grappling down but uses up nearly all your juice. Sometimes its better to juice and run away if your enemy’s team is coming to help or you’re about to be rung out. Other times it’s wasteful since you can afford to take the damage. Size up the situation if you can, but better safe than sorry.

Grapple Cooldown:

When you land a grapple there is a small cooldown before you can use that specific one again. You can still you others if your pro has multiples. If you miss a grapple, you can quickly attempt to try again after a moment.

Jumping mechanics

Normal Jumps

Normal jumps allow pros to quickly hop up and down to make yourself to dodge projectiles, evade grapples, or get on top of obstacles. You may think of yourself as an erratic target if you jump spam, though against someone good enough it just makes you a more predictable.

Jetpacks

Jetpack assisted jumping exists for some of the heavier pros. Instead of hopping up themselves, they have their jets in their backpacks carry them upward. These jumps are longer, slower, and integral to their pro’s playstyle. For as long as you hold the jump button and the fuel lasts, the jetpack will remain on. When you touch the ground again the fuel gauge will refill quickly. Jetpacks are actually quite exploitable and more advantageous than one may think. With the longer air time and higher jump these pros can avoid grapples or ejectors, they can reach some unusual locations and jump to the jungle without a mobility skill, combine it with a charge skill as a mobility tool, and maneuver when knocked into the air or slightly off the arena, etc. Another unique property is that the afterburn from the jets can also light pros behind you on fire which means your jump can do damage, be it unreliably since it’s usually a bad thing your enemies behind you. Their disadvantages amount to being relatively slow and the downtime before being able to jump again the jets need refill on the ground.

Fall damage

Most pros will take fall damage from falling from a high place. The damage isn’t that significant, but it can kill if you are low on health. It also stops health regeneration for a second or two, which wastes some regenitol or juice healing. Pros like the assassin don’t suffer from fall damage when their skills are leveled up.

Buffs, Debuffs, and Conditions

–Various things make your pro or bots better or worse depending on pros, arena objects, and mascots. Buffs make your pro more powerful in some fasion, while debuffs weaken them. Often these affect more than one thing. For example, Assassin’s smokebomb is both a debuff for accuracy and a blind. Here are some run of the mill examples that form the core:

Run Speed

Your pro’s speed can be buffed and debuffed often throughout a game, meaning faster and slower movement speed. Examples include Supports overclock making him run faster and Gunslinger’s knee cap which halts a good bit of movement.

Stuns

You can’t do anything during stuns except hope and pray the enemy team doesn’t have you in a bad spot. They literally disable you for a second or two giving the enemy enough time to gain the advantage. Avoid stun skills at all costs! They can also be used to break grapples, which is very useful. Karl’s Short Circuit and Wascot’s Crook Hook are both stuns.

Bot/Turret Stuns
Same thing as a stun, but for bots and turrets instead. Many skills that don’t stun pros can stun bots and turrets, which keeps them from doing anything, like moving or shooting, for a short time. For example, gunner’s slam knocks pros back, slows them down, and stuns bots.

Fire
You’re on fire man, which means you are constantly burned for damage unless someone puts you out or you tank it out. Since it does damage it stops all health regeneration for it’s duration, but it can be put out by healers and products. Cheston’s Barrel and the Tank’s jetgun are examples of things that can set you on fire.

Blinds
Self explanatory, covers your screen with something obtrusive for a second or two, making it hard impossible to see anything going on. This has obvious attacking and fleeing advantages. Tank’s product grenade and Captain Spark’s Megahurtz are blinds.

Rooted
Similar to being slowed but you can be stuck in place and cannot jump while under it’s effects. Sniper’s ice traps and the Veteran’s Flying Falcon slam are examples of this.

Skill locked
You can’t use any sort of skill, grapple, or advanced movement ability when under it’s effects. Scramblers and upgraded sniper ice traps are things that can induce a skill lock. Since you cannot grapple anyone, use skills, or lunge, you have to focus on the source of the skill lock and either move or destroy it.

Accuracy
The reticule will grow or shrink depending on the buff or debuff. Gunner’s deploy gives him an accuracy buff.

Damage
You do more or less damage. Juicing and Wacot’s Party Pooper are examples of each.

Skill regeneration
Lowers cooldown on skills. Support’s Overclock skill will reduce the cooldown on his other skills.

Health Regeneration
Quickens health regeneration. Buying regenitol and Leo’s Bot Code-x are examples of this.

Endorsements:

—These are passive stat attributes that you can buy on the endorsement page. They affect things like maximum health, speed, skill regeneration, rate of fire, accuracy, etc. You buy and then assign the builds to custom pros.
The number of slots you can equip increases by your agent level, with every 4 levels giving you another node until you unlock them all at level 96. There are five tiers of endorsements. The higher the tier the bigger it’s bonus, the more expensive it is, and the more chance it has side effects to balance out the gains on the positive side. Mixing and matching is key to getting the most out of what you want.

There are no default endorsement sets. You’ll need to buy a few with earned combat credits and equip them. You can also win them in prizes at the end of the match.

It’s more beneficial to only buy endorsements when you have the levels and combat credits to make them count. For newer players, it’s best you ignore them until you get some experience and agent levels under your belt. They really aren’t of any use until you have enough slots to see a noticeable effect.

Products:

—Products are passive actions that trigger automatically in game as a result of some event. They vary in what they do but they give your pro perks that help out on the battlefield. There are a lot of them as well which may be hard to keep track of at first. You can only buy these and with combat credits earn while playing the game just like endorsements. You can also earn these through the prize system at the end of a match.
There is a default set every player has, being Snappy Comeback (a speed boost after respawning), Overarmor (which will give passive armor regeneration at level 10) and the Parting Gift (which heals allies on your death).

They typically have a level requirement where the passive ability comes into effect and a cooldown before it can be used again. Examples include plenty of on death bomb and debuff products, Hot Hands that burns grappled pros, money magnet that sucks up coins around a pro, Jumpy Spunky which allows a pro to jump 400% higher when juiced, and a lot more. Look through them and see if any suit your fancy and what other players might be running.

VI.The Arena

—Various contraptions and useful gimmicks populate each arena. Knowing what they are and how to use them is vital. Here’s the skinny most of the features features:.

Spawn:

The spawn rooms are mostly safe havens for both teams as they are where you start out at the beginning of the game or where you respawn to when killed. You can’t fire out of the laser grid exits and the enemy can’t walk or fire in either.

There are three exits and that appear darkened from the outside so no on can peek in. Nothing but the annihilator can damage you in here unless it was a previously attached assault bomb. There are bugs which still need to be worked out, but it is intended that no enemy skill or bot can affect you if you have already entered the spawn. It will also quickly heal any damaged pro on the spawn pads, so it’s a good place to retreat to and heal up when you are low on health.

The Moneyball:

Destroying your opponent’s moneyball while protecting yours is what the whole game revolves around. They sit right in front of the team spawns guarded by level 3 Rock-it Turrets. Like turrets they are shielded from all damage until a bot attacks or jumps on it, bringing down the shields and sounding a buzzer alerting everyone that it’s open season. However, you must have pushed and destroyed all the enemy turrets up one lane before the bots will go for it.

The moneyball has a lot of HP, and continuously damaging it will both give the attackers a bit of money and keep the ball down. The attacking team’s bot lanes will also start spawning jackbots to put even more pressure on the defending team. Eventually the shields will restore if it is not taking damage for about 30 seconds.

When a moneyball’s HP reaches zero, the game ends, and the team who destroys their opponent’s moneyball wins. If your ball goes down, push attackers out with bot spawns and coordinated pushes while preparing to deal with the inevitable Jackbot that will arrive.

Bot lanes:

These are where the lane bots go. Bots on both sides push out of their base towards the moneyball. They are denoted by colored arrows moving opposite of one another on the ground.

Lane bots won’t travel off the lane unless they get knocked off by some outside force and will eventually try to get back on.

Team bot spawns: 

These are where your lane bots naturally spawn and there are two of them situated on a lane. You can buy specific lane bots here.

The Jungle:

The jungle is the highest or lowest layer on the map. It usually provides advantageous positions to attack lanes while also housing the all important annihilator. It is patrolled by special black colored jungle bots that appear from two specialized bot spawns located on symmetrically opposite sides.

Jungle bots are different and more powerful than standard bots and they all target and attack any pro that enters the jungle. Because they are more dangerous, destroying them yields more exp, better drops, and more cash than standard bots. A pro can level up quickly if they continue to farm the bots as they spawn. There are three types of bots that will spawn in the jungle which are Grimlins, Blackjacks, and Bouncers.

Typically pros with advanced movement skills can quickly escape or travel into the jungle if they find themselves at a disadvantage.

Out of Bounds

[*]This simply means anywhere off the arena. Falling out of bounds results in instant death, which is is only reliable OHKO in the entire game. The boundaries of the arena are pretty apparent since most out of bounds areas are huge pits. Be smart about your positioning and your footwork on more risky terrain!

Buyable objects:

—These are things you can buy in the arena with your hard earned cash.

Jump pads:

-Cost: $100

What it does:
Jump pads are purchasable objects that launch a pro in up or in a given direction. Use these to quickly take you up a floor. When inactive they are not glowing green nor project a hologram. Once you buy a jump pad, they are usable by you, your team and also the enemy for the rest of the match. Careful where you buy them, as you could just helping the other team by spending money for them.

Where they’re at:
All around the map. Usually at a point where it is convenient to move up or down a level.

How to use it:
Simply walk into it after purchase.

Strategy and other details:
A character with a combat roll can use the jump pad and the roll together to send them flying. Handy for Commandos to escape or chase someone down. The angled jump pads also make landing predictable for those who don’t have a mobility skill, so throwing down traps at the spots where the enemy will come down is a smart thing to do. For example, assault can set a bomb, defenders can throw down turrets, and the sniper has his ice traps.

The Annihilator:

Cost– $1000

YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT THIS THING IS, WHERE IT IS, AND HOW TO USE IT ELSE PEOPLE WILL GET REALLY MAD AT YOU.The annihilator is one of the most important arena elements to keep track of as it provides a great advantage to whoever controls it. Let me repeat, its vital at all stages of play to know how it works. One of the most frustrating things for an average player in this game is when people on your team, particularly newer players, ignore it. So take notes now.

What it does:
When the Annihilator used, it creates bursts of generated lighting that locks on and DESTROYS ALL ENEMY AND NEUTRAL BOTS currently on the field and damages every enemy pro. There is no way to avoid the damage, not even in spawn. Imagine a game of chess where whoever controls a specific square gets to take his arm and knock off all his opponents pieces and then gets to laugh. That’s what and Annihilator does. It is an incredible tool for lane pushing and swinging the tide of battle.

Where it’s at:
It is located in the center of every arena on the highest or lowest floor. It looks like a holographic circle made of lightning bolts with an exclamation mark in the middle of it.

When to use it:
It pops up exactly 5 minutes into the round, allowing anyone to activate it. After it’s use it will be on cooldown for another five minutes. A typical match can range from 3 or more Annihilator strikes.

How to use it:
Simply buy it when active. The catch is that you are locked into a buying animation and must stand still for at least 5 seconds to purchase it. The holographic icon turns blue and a circular timer pops up when someone is in the act of buying it. In that time, the other team can kill you or knock you off it to reset the activation. If interrupted you will still keep your cash. Your money will only be removed if the buy attempt is successful. Any kills and bots it destroys we be credited to the pro who activates it.

Basic Strategy:
Because the annihilator requires time to activate you’ll need the team to safely protect the user, thus versus competent players it becomes highly contested. This pretty much guarantees a massive team battle in a tightly confined place meaning the area will quickly become a hot, steamy mess of fortifications, skill spam, and concentrated fire. You’ll want to hold on to it and keep the other team off of it as long as possible until it is safe to buy it or that it is clear you have lost it. For that reason alone you shouldn’t just hop up and immediately attempt to buy the Annihilator unless you are sure the other team isn’t going to show up. Five seconds of standing still means enemies will have their way with you if you suddenly find yourself surrounded by them. Stuns, grapples, skills that push/pull you around can all be used to interrupt the 5 seconds of buying. Always know what your pro can do for hold or push people off the annihilator.

If someone on your team is buying the annihilator, it’s your job to keep him safe while they are doing it. Block shots, tank incoming damage, and intercept grapple attempts and skills that will knock your teammate off the buy pad.

What if I don’t get it:
Then you are a terrible person. Well not really. The Annihilator, though incredibly powerful, is not a win button. It helps a freaking lot but it’s not that difficult to bounce back. If you know you’ve lost it after a team fight or that the Annihilator been so heavily fortified that it is suicide to jump in there, then you should lick your wounds and retreat. Early game Annihilators can easily kill or heavily damage most lower level pros if they have some health missing. Make sure that you survive the lightning and back off in your now weakened state to heal up at spawn or a regenitol vendor. Even if you didn’t die you are now easy pickings for anyone who thinks it wise to chase you down. Though throughout the game the damage becomes more and more manageable, with enforcers able to shrug off the lightning easily. Denying enemies those easy kills will at least help curb their level advantages and keep you in the game.

You’ll want to take that money you were going to buy the annihilator with and use it to purchase lane bots to help get your bot lanes back up to snuff. Split the cost with your team by having different members buy lane pushers before heading back out and defending your turrets. If you managed to kill off a lot of the enemy team, their push won’t be that effective with two guys on the lanes, so keep in mind that the most powerful annihilator pushes are ones that have a majority of the team there to help destroy things afterwords. Just be ready for the next one.

Ejectors:  

Cost – $250

What it is:
Ejectors are the two circular yellow pads on each bot lane that have an exclamation mark in the middle. They are activated by holographs in the lanes with an exclamation mark and four waves surrounding it.

What it does:
They literally eject pros from the arena and destroy bots. They can usually destroy or heavily damage most bots minus a Jackbot, and they damage, dizzy, and throw all enemy pros standing near or on them. They will not harm the bots or pros on the team that activated it. Ideally they are used to easily clear lanes of a lot of bots and toss any pro on them off the map or towards your team. Those on the edges will be thrown in that direction, but those in the middle might be thrown up more. After its use there is a short cooldown time before someone can purchase it again.

Where it is:
There are two per map in the middle distance wise between two lanes. They’re located in key contention areas and are situated near dangerous edges of the map. On some maps the same ejector can be activated via two different buttons on opposing sides, so watch out.

Strategy:
Like I said before, you’ll want to use these when you know there is a bot push that’s going to be hard to repel or you can catch an enemy pro or two in the blast. Your best bet is to nab pros not paying attention is by activating the ejector from behind them, though that may be risky if you have no escape mechanism. Even if you don’t outright ringout pros, they are now slowed to the point where you can do some heavy damage, especially if they get thrown in your team’s direction.

Avoiding ejectors is as simple as jumping over them when you see someone activate the panel. Jetpack assisted jumps are great for hovering a while on top of them. You get credit for each bot destroyed, pro killed, or assist earned when you activate the ejector, so it can be a boon for experience and you might recoup your costs quickly, especially if you can nab most of the money dropped from the bots. It’s not recommended to be used in the early game unless you are certain you can ring out more than one pro. This is mainly because the money you throw down on it means you are out $250 for the first Annihilator. They are more more easily affordable later on in the game.

A more advanced tactic is to “fake out” and bait the enemy team into wasting money on the ejector in the early game. Simply stand on top of it while observing what the other team is doing. If they are near the button they might be compelled to press it if it looks like you’re vulernable. Instead jump when they activate it and now they are down $250. This pretty much grantees that player won’t have $1000 for the first Annihilator because they didn’t recoup anything from a kill. Jet pack assisted pros are more effective at doing this.

Be warned that this works both ways. Mistime a jump and you’ll be ejected, and the player who buys the pad might be mind gaming you by standing close to the button, just waiting for you to jump and hit you with it on your way down.

Later on when you have an important bot push you may want to activate the ejector to make sure the other team doesn’t. The Ejector won’t harm your bots, so denying the enemy an easy way to deal with your push may be a smart move. Just be sure you don’t waste your money and that your decision was worth it.

Product Enhancement Dispensers:

These are purchasable bonuses that look like billboards scattered around the arena. Buy them for a buff which will put them on a short cool down before someone can purchase them again.

Metabolightning:

Cost – $200

What it does:
Gives you a temporary 15 second speed boost.

Where it’s at:
Usually located right out of spawns, but are available elsewhere too.

Tips:
These are moderately useful for getting back into the fight if you have the spare change to do it. They help augment any other speed boosts, but they don’t last very long and some might see it as a waste. You might want to save the money for other things like bots. Pros with slower movement speeds like enforcers will probably get the most mileage out of them.

Regenitol:

Cost – $250

What it does:
Removes burning and boosts health regeneration for a short while.

Where it is at:
All over the map. Usually one near spawn, one in the jungle, and others at key points in a lane.

Tips:
You’ll probably use these more often then any other dispenser simply because it’s one of the easiest and fastest ways to heal up on the front lines. So long as you are not taking damage your natural healing rate is boosted substantially. Make sure you avoid damage until you heal up to a certain degree or else all you did was waste money. Don’t buy this if most of your health is intact or a defender is willing to heal you.

It’s better to not use your money on Regenitol before the first annihilator fight. You’ll be down a good bit of cash if you buy it to heal up. If it is clear you lost it, then heal up enough to survive the damage.

Spunky Cola:

Cost – $1500

What it does:
Gives you max juice.

Where it’s at:
All over the map. Usually in the jungle or by spawn.

Tips:
These are handy if you have the cash. Buy when you need juice to stop a push. For example, if someone buys a jackbot you could juice and take it down quickly, which is much more cost effective than buying your own jackbot.

These can also assist in pushes. Buying juice and then pushing Rock-it turrets or the moneyball helps your siege greatly. You won’t have $2000 in cash in the early game, so you’ll use them later on as the match progresses.

Don’t waste money on it if you nearly have a juice bar filled up. Fill it up, Juice, then come back and buy some more when that’s through.

Spawn Bots:
These allow you to spawn player bots. These bots will look different than normally spawned bots of the same type, which may or may not effect the way some pro’s skills work against them. For example: Leo’s Bot Code-X will only work on naturally spawning bots. Each button will spawn something different, and there will be a cooldown before you can buy something again. Anything a purchased bot does in the way of pro killing and bot homicide nets you the cash and the exp credit, so sometimes you can recoup your costs a bit. In addition, these bots will not drop items or exp on death unless it is a player spawned jackbot.

Team bot spawns: 

Each team has a set of these right at their side’s bot spawn. Bots purchased here are lane pushers, meaning they will travel up the lanes, with the exception of scramblers who will travel the lanes until they spot a pro to go after.You can purchase two different waves here:

Lane pushing wave:

Cost – $500

This consists of one Fuji bot and two scramblers. The Fuji is a high health bot to tank lanes. The scramblers will go after pros and disable all their abilities when they get close, so they are handy for catching pros off guard and in a position where they can’t use an escape mechanism or powerful skill, which forces them to focus on the Scramblers and fall back. This creates an opening to assault attackers or further disadvantage the opponent’s defenses. They are very handy for help filling your lanes up after a losing the annihilator.

Jackbots-

Cost – $4000

Gives you the biggest and baddest bot in the game which suits it’s high price. Jackbots demolish turrets other bots on lanes, which makes them very threatening if not stopped. Though a juiced player will be able to take down a jackbot quickly and counter your investment with $2000 saved, a dual Jackbot spawn in the lanes is a powerful tool to be used for offense. A surprise jackbot is known to win games.

Neutral spawns:  

—There are two of these on every map. They are able to be used by friend and foe alike. You can purchase two pro hunting bots from here. They only focus on attacking pros and will ignore lanes. Be careful when you buy them relative to where the enemy is. They’ll chase pros into their bases and run right into turrets, wasting your investment. These bots won’t yield any drops or experience when destroyed by the enemy.

Team Blackjack

Cost- $500

A team colored Blackjack bot that will pepper the enemy with lasers at a distance and melee up close. Average stats all around and easier to kill. Best used with a Bouncer purchase and not on it’s own.

Team Bouncer

Cost – $1000

Yields a team colored bouncer who is fast and will soak up a ton of damage before being destoryed. They are great distractions for your team as they can grapple enemy pros and hold them in place. Their high health, surprising speed, and powerful melee will ensure the other team is forced to attack them or risk eating a whole lot of damage.

—————————————-
END OF BUYABLE STUFF
—————————————-

Other Arena elements:

Turrets:

Turrets are basically what guards a base from being overrun from both enemy bots and wandering pros. They are powerful and have a lot of HP. In Super Crossfire they come fixed in place and you are unable to heal, upgrade or purchase new ones. Once they are gone, they are gone. On the other hand, pros can’t damage turrets until a bot breaks it shield. So escorting bots to a turret is key. After a period of time where the turret is not being damaged by anything the shield will restore. On destruction each turret will give $100 in cash and exp to attacking team.

A turret will lock on to something and fire at it when it comes into its lock on range. What it shoots at is seen by a laser that is pointed at it’s target. Its lock on range is smaller than it’s firing range, so when it locks onto a pro you must move farther away than the location where the turret started firing at you. Turrets will always prioritize bots over pros so keep that in mind when making a push.

–In Crossfire turrets come in two forms:

Lazerblazer

These are the outer most turrets and guard outside of the lanes. They come in level two in and three flavors, with the level 3 having more firepower and HP. They rapidly fire hitscan lasers that will always hit you if they are locked on and can do a ton of damage if you find yourself in range of them. They are incredibly lethal in the early stages of the game.

Rock-it:

Rock-its only come in the level 3 variety and there are two of them guarding each team’s moneyball. They are immensely powerful and resilent and fire a projectile rocket that can be dodged, but shoot so fast that the splash will still hit. A few hits from these on any pro at any level will result in a quick death. Even in the cover of bots you’ll need to avoid the splash damage they dish out. Stun them or shoot them from range if at all possible.

Mascots:

Mascots show up to give out items and buffs to those who control them. They appear at set times during a match and will leave after a certain amount of time has passed. Each mascot has their own theme song and arrival announcement by Mickey Cantor so you know when they’re in the arena. Currently mascots spawn only in the jungle, though they have been known to fall to the ground floor or off the map entirely.

Bullseye:

Who is this:
Bullseye is the offical SMNC mascot played by fans, who typically gets murdered in game.

When does he appear:
About 4:30 into a match before the first annihilator and runs around for about 20 seconds before exploding in a bunch of coins, then reappears about every 4:30 after that.

What he does:
Gives out drops while running around the jungle. Shooting him results in more cash and exp. He will drop every type of item in the game and is the best source for juice, speed pickups, and bacon in the game. If you try to grapple him he will just counter grapple, though some pros have interaction grapples that are just for show and funny. The counter grapple will do no damage but eat your grapple skill. Eventually he explodes in a pile of coins.

Strategy:
He’s handy for quick healing and skill recovery when he drops lots of churros. Grab some easy juice and speed up buffs off of him. He helps make the $1000 for the first annihilator if you are short some cash, while also acting as a great indicator for it. However, by the time you realize Bullseye is on the field the annihilator may already be overrun.

Chicky Cantor: 

Who is this:
A giant armored chicken that flies onto the field with a heartwarming real life story of how he came to be. (you can read it here)

When does he appear:
Typically late in the match at the near the third Bullseye spawn. So approximately 15 minutes into the match which is mid to late game. He will run around for about two minutes before naturally leaving.

What he does:
Prances around the jungle attacking pros who get to close with his beak. When HP is brought down to zero he grants the Chicky buff to the finishing team before laying a golden egg and flying away. He also will slam the ground after a short time and dizzy himself. He has a lot of HP, and the only conventional way to bring his HP down to zero is to grapple him, where your pro will ride on Chicky for a short while and will do a lot of damage. Yeah you heard me. You get to have rodeos with a Giant mech-chicken. You can only grapple him when he stuns himself after his slam attack. It will take at least two grapples before you bring his health down to zero.

The Chicky Buff grants the entire finishing team 50 Speed, 750 Armor, Heals 1500 Health instantly, and +25% Health Recovery that lasts for 4 minutes. A pro who is under the effects of the buff will constantly shed white feathers. Chicky buffs will also stack with bacon, but not with other Chicky Buffs as it will just refresh the timer. These give you quite a noticeable edge in combat but the buff will be removed on death just like bacon.

Juicebot 

Who is this:
A crossover from the Penny Arcade comic strips where he is known as Fruit ***er. Juicebot dances around much like Bullseye, but instead drops fruit instead of juice boxes. His theme song is incredibly catchy.

When does he appear:
Right now it’s a 50/50 chance of either Bullseye or Juicebot spawning at one point in the match, so he’ll spawn at one predetermined point at the time when Bullseye does every 4:30 or so minutes into the match.

What he does:
He dances around in the jungle aimlessly just like Bullseye. Similarly you can’t grapple him either. You can shoot him to get cash and drops as well. The key difference is that he only drops more of his own fruit juice drops that are identical to juice boxes. When he’s on the field make sure your team fills up on juice.

Drops:

Drops are items that come out of pros and bots when you destroy them or out of mascots when they show up. They are all advantageous and each have varying degrees of importance, though when the opportunity presents itself you should always collect them.

Combat Coins: 

What are they:
Little gold SMNC coins with Bullseye on one side.

What do they do:
Give you around $5 of money and EXP per coin picked up. Seems to vary and round you to the nearest 5 or 0 in the single digits, so some coins may give $4 while others may give $6.

What drops them:
Pretty much everything you can kill and the Mascots. Bots and Pros will all drop coins on death. They are the most common drop in the game. The bigger the bot the more coins they drop is a general rule.

Tips:
Don’t ignore these guys. They help bolster your cash and exp gain. Many newbies outright ignore collecting the coins and they’re only putting themselves at a disadvantage. While they don’t provide much, collecting them over the course of the game means you might have some extra cash for more bot spawns, regenitols, and even a level advantage.

In the early game they are key for leveling up faster than your opponents. Just a few coins here and there already will put you at a level advantage in the beginning, which allows you to establish dominance much more easily.

Watch out for bogus coins. Wascot’s Primary weapon launches fake coins that explode when you get near them. Always check for a Wascot on the other team before going Scrooge McDuck on a convenient pile of coins.

Armor Shards:

What they are:
Little bronze bits of metal that resemble shoulder pads.

What they do:
On pick up gives 250 points of armor.

What drops them
Blackjacks, Bouncers, and Jackbots

Tips:
There is never a reason not to pick these up. Since armor basically gives you more staying power regardless of HP you should always make it a priority to pick some up unless you’re nearly full and instead let your teammates have them, especially if they don’t have a ton of health. They are especially powerful earlier game where HP on the low end and one shard can nearly fill your bar on the squishy classes, though the first time you’ll see them will be when the first blackjack spawn is killed.

Speedups 

What they are:
A little icon that resembles a foot with wings on it.

What they do:
Give you a temporary speed boost on pickup.

What drops them:
Mascots like Bullseye and Juice bot will randomly drop them when on the field. They are slightly rare compared to other drops. Jackbots will also drop five of them when destroyed.

Tips:
These really are not super important. The speed buff is noticeable, but you’ll only be getting reliable use out of it when you take down a Jackbot. It’s random with Bullseye and Juicebot show up around the the first Annihilator and beyond. Since it’s a rather rare drop, the speed up is minor, and since it wears off quickly, it really isn’t that important. You could use the extra speed in combat when taking the first annihilator or retaliating after a Jackbot push but that’s about it. If a mascot starts showing up between Annihilator intervals it can also help with pushing and escaping, but to be honest these can be mostly done without. If you’re near a mascot in the first place you’ll be wanting churros and juice instead. These are just a nice little bonus.

Juice Boxes/Fruit

What they are:
Little purple juice boxes. Also appear as little orange fruit dropped by Juicebot

What they do:
Fills a good portion of the juice bar.

What drops them:
fujibots, bouncers and jackbots, with Fujibots being the most common and reliable. Mascots like Juicebot and Bullseye will randomly drop them too, though Juicebot is the only one to drop the fruit.

Tips:
These fill up your juice a lot faster and much safer than taking damage. You should be going after these if you see them drop because of how powerful juicing can be in a pinch. Unless of course you already have a full juice bar or are juicing because then they do nothing. In the event that occurs, let your teammates have them if they are around. Juice box drops are the cheapest and the best source of juice.

Bullseye drops a good amount of juice. You might want to consider having your team up there to fill up on juice before the first annihilator fight, or whenever he shows up. Juicebot will only drop juice, so he’s a juice giving machine (literally).

Naturally spawning Fujis are the most common bot that drops juice reliably at two boxes per bot death. Make sure you are near one near its destruction to suck up the juice drops. Be aware though that your fujus will drop them as well, so be sure to deny your foes the juice pickups by stealing them yourself when they die, but be wary that opponents may do that same for theirs.

Churros

What they are
Little crunchy and tasty treats that come in little bags.

What they do:
Instantly heal some HP and boosts skill regeneration for a second or two.

What drops them:
Gremlin Blackjacks, Bouncers, Jackbots, and Mascots.

Tips:
Churros can be used offensively as they give you cooldown reduction regeneration on skills and a a bit of HP to go with it. Finding two of them can heal a low health class up a good bit. Not to mention you can use your skills more often. Pros with long cooldowns can use them to essentially spam heavy hitting skills. The healing helps negate damage sustained in encounters with jungle bots which is where they will appear the most since the only lane bot that will drop them are jackbots Let your teammates have them if they are low in health or have a powerful skill on cooldown.

One easy strategy is to use all your beneficial skills, then grab a nearby churro, and then use them again. For example, with Cheston you can use your Roar and Barrel ability then rampage jump to a churro, which will give you all those skills back to do it again.

Bacon:

What it is:
It’s two slabs of sweet, juicy bacon.

What it does:
Grants 50 Speed, +25% Skill Recovery, Heals 1500 Health instantly, 750 Armor, and gives +25% damage(just like real bacon does!). It’s so celebrated that you know if someone else has gotten bacon since it will be announced to everyone.

What drops it:
Very rarely it will drop randomly from Jackbots or the mascots. It’s more common with the Mascots though.

Tips:
You always want bacon. It gives you an advantage where it counts and it’s rarest drop around. There is no reason not to have it. That’s all there is to say. If you can grab it get it. If by some act of divinity two slabs of bacon spawn next to each other let your teammate have it since it won’t stack. It will also stack with the benefits of the Chicky buff to make you a mean killing machine.

Wascot’s coin launcher also has an alternate fire that shoots tofu bacon. These have a greenish tint and are not something you want to pick up as they slow you to a crawl for a second or two. If you see a lot of bacon around it’s probably a Wacot’s trap or you are a wizard.

VII. Bots

Bots are your key to opening up a can of whoopass on the other team emplacements. Escorting yours to shielded turrets while destroying your opponent’s is essential to winning the game. You can tell how damaged a bot is even if you don’t see it’s HP bar, since they will start showing outside wear and tear the more damaged they get. They come in a wide variety, so here’s a breakdown of each bot type and what they do. Note that if a bot is taggable, you get assist money and exp if you attacked them in the last 5 seconds before their death. Otherwise only the person who landed the final blow will get the exp and cash.

Lane spawn:

Lane bots naturally spawn or are purchasable from the two lane spawners on each side of the map. Most push right up lanes with the exception of the scrambler, and will shoot turrets, other lane bots, and pros who get in their way.

Slimbots 

These little guys are hardly a threat on their own. They don’t have much HP at all and the lasers they shoot aren’t threatening. They spawn in bigger numbers naturally and tend to cluster behind stronger bots for protection.

Type: Lane pusher
HP: Very low.
Attacks: Hitscan lasers that do minimal damage. Medium firing interval.
Special abilities: None.
Spawns: Naturally in the lanes with other bots.
Grappleable: No
Taggable: No
Drop: 1 coin.
Other notes:

They only offer those who land the finishing blow the EXP though, so finish them yourself if you can. Don’t underestimate their ability to kill you at low HP in the early game though, they have hitscan lasers, so you can’t dodge if you get in their range and they fire at you.

Shadies

Shadies are bigger badder slims. They pack more of a punch…literally!

Type: Lane pusher

HP: Medium

Attacks: Projectile laser orbs at range,does moderately damaging punches at close range.
Special ability: None
Spawns: Naturally with other lane bots. usually in a groups of two more more.
Drops: 3 coins
Grappleable: No
Taggable: Yes
Other notes:

At lower levels the punch and firepower can hurt, but you can dodge all their moves with some fancy footwork. At later levels they become pushovers that are easily turned into fodder. They have a moderate amount of HP and drop cash, armor, and churros. You can tag these guys for assist botkills.

Fujis 

These guys are the fat tanks of the bot variety. They can take a good amount of punishment and dish out decent damage for a lane bot so be careful.

Type: Lane pusher
HP: High
Attacks: Shoots a projectile orb that does moderate damage.
Special ability: None
Spawns: Naturally after a new few minutes in waves of one with other bots. Can be bought along with two scramblers for $500
Drops: 5 coins and 2 juice boxes.
Grappleable: No
Taggable: Yes
Other notes:

To quickly take one down in the lower levels requires a team effort.They can outgun other lane bots with exception of the Jackbot and soak up a ton of damage from turrets. The first Fuji spawn is usually the most powerful since you are low leveled at the time, meaning they can easily push to your first turret.

You’ll want to be stunning and destroying these before they get to the turrets regardless, since they can tank turret fire extremely well, especially if there are more than one of them. They drop a good amount of stuff on death, and give a nice bit of exp so make sure you tag them. When you plop down $500 on lane bots, you’ll get a Fugi along with the scramblers which is handy for stalling other bots.

They first spawn on opposite sides so they won’t run into each other early game, thus they push that side harder. From your team’s perspective when looking toward the other team’s base, your fuji will first spawn on your right lane, while the enemy’s will barge down your left.

They are the best and most common source of juice. Be there when you kill one to suck up the juice for yourself or your team. Deny the enemy juice if they destroy yours by taking it first. Juice denial is an important factor when you deal with fujis.

Bought fujis look different from regular fujis and will not drop any items or yield any exp. However, they’re presence in a lane is still a threat.

Scramblers

These are a special type of bot that can only be purchased in pairs along with a Fuji bot at a team lane spawner for $500. They’ll travel the lanes until they target enemy pros and mess with their skills.

Type: Pro chaser
HP: Moderate
Attacks Melee with their arms at close range. Moderate damage.
Special ability: Skill locks any pro who gets within range of their drain for as long as it is alive. Don’t yield EXP or drops on death.
Spawns: On purchase in pairs with the Fuji bot at team lane spawners.
Drops: Nothing
Grappleable: No
Taggable: No
Other notes:

Their special ability is to skill lock any enemy pro in range, meaning they can’t use their skills, advanced movement, or grapples until they get out of range or destroy the scrambler. Since they don’t have a lot of HP, you need to capitalize on the small window they offer. Skill locking a pro drastically lowers their engagement and fleeing options, so attack when they corner a pro who can’t get way or fight back.

Jackbot

The biggest and baddest bot on the block. Jackbots stop for nothing, not even other Jackbots.

Type: Lane pusher
HP: Very high
Attacks: Twin cannon projectiles for high damage.
Special ability: Ground pounds when pros get too close, throwing and damaging enemy pros all over the place.
Spawns: Naturally after 26 minutes have elapsed, replaces lane bots when the moneyball goes down for the attacking team, or purchasable for $4000 at team lane spawners.
Drops: 4 coins, 5 armor shards, 5 speed, 2 churros, and 1 random item.
Grappleable: Yes
Taggable:Yes, Also awards an extra $200 for the pro that finished it off.
Other notes:

These are the big bads. Without a team working together they are tough to bring down on their own. Their HP and Attack power blows through any other bot combination, including other jackbots. They will rip through turrets easily, including Rock-its. Their slam can ring out pros caught in it.

You can grapple them to do some damage and stop them from moving for a moment, but you are vulnerable the whole time you do it. The grapple is different than your pro’s standard grapple as it takes a long time to finish which essentially is stalling the jackbot while your team picks it apart.

The most efficient way to take them down is for someone to juice and use their crit damage and stun abilities to finish them off before getting to any turrets. Since they start spawning for the attacking team when the money ball goes down, multiple Jackbots will start to build up if you can’t keep the ball from recovering.

At least one Jackbot is coming your way if the enemy gets your money ball down, sometimes two depending on the bot spawns. Even if you repel the other team you’re going to deal with these guys for as long is the ball is down. Keep your team prepared for them.

Jungle/Neutral spawners:

Jungle bots spawn out of the jungle spawners and attack and pro that steps foot on the jungle. They yield a lot more exp and drops than normal lane bots, but they tend to be more powerful and durable. You can buy the jungle bots like the Bouncer or Blackjacks for your team at one of two neutral spawners in the lanes. They look different from their jungle variation to distinguish them as bought from the spawners. The only true difference is now they work for a team and control skills like Leo’s Bot Code-x won’t work on them. Don’t underestimate their strength either.

One important thing to note is that Jungle bots will rapidly recover HP if left alone for a while. Doing a lot of damage to a bouncer and then hopping down from the jungle will allow it to regain all the HP it lost after a period of not being damaged.

Gremlins:

Gremlins are a lot more visible and larger than their MNC counterparts. Gremlins are the first jungle bot to spawn and later spawn in waves. They are pretty fast and do some decent melee damage. As of right now they are only located in the jungle.

Type: Pro chaser

HP: Low

Attacks: Quick and moderately powerful melee swipes.

Special abilities: None

Spawn: First to spawn in jungle and eventually spawn in groups of 2 or more.

Drops: 1 coin and 1 churro.

Grappleable: No
Taggable: No
Other notes:

Gremlins aren’t taggable so whoever finishes them gets their relatively high exp, especailly at lower levels. Early junglers are always after the first Gremlin spawn in the first 20 seconds of the match since they provide such a boon for exp.

You can steal the exp if you manage to land the killing blow while some sap softens it up for you, but don’t steal them from teammates unless they’re going to be attacked by it and will die. If they get up close then can put the hurt on you as a squishier class, so watch out.

The first spawns on the left spawner for the Icemen which is the right spawner for the Hotshots team and then the next spawns on the opposite side and continues from there. The first churro dropped helps with cooldown and health early game.

Blackjacks

The only ranged fighter in the jungle, Blackjacks are more powerful than Gremlins and can fire down on you outside of it. They move pretty fast, so don’t get caught in their range at low HP.

Type: Pro chaser

HP: Medium

Attacks: Hitscan rapid fire lasers for constant damage, close range punch for moderate damage.

Special abilities: None

Spawns: Jungle Blackjacks naturally spawn a little ways into the match, about mid game. Bought at neutral spawners to attack pros in lanes.

Drops: 3 coins, 1 armor shard, and 1 churro.

Grappleable: No

Taggable: Yes

Notes:

Blackjacks really aren’t that tough, but it can be hard to get away from them with their lasers if you are caught with your pants down. Getting closer to do more damage can leave you with a robot fist to the face, and the move fast enough to keep up with pros on the ground. Pick up the churro they drop to regain lost health or skills you used to take them down.

They have been known to spontaneously fire down on those below in the lanes if they are situated on an edge. They won’t miss with their hitscan lasers either, so take them down outside their range.

They are only useful to buy in the neutral spawners very early in the game. Otherwise it’s probably better to buy lane bots instead. They just don’t have the HP or speed of Bouncers to be nearly as useful.

Bouncers

Bouncers have the ability to cause all sorts of chaos if they show up uninvited for an annihilator fight. They have enough HP to harass a group of pros and the speed to make sure you move out of the jungle. Their grapple holds you in place and damages you, making you a sitting duck for the other team.

Type: Pro Chaser

HP: High

Attacks: Rapid, damaging melee punches.

Special ability: Lunge Grapple. They can lurch forward and hold a pro in place for moderate damage.
Spawns: Naturally later in the game around the third annihilator. You can also purchase them for your team to hunt pros in the lanes at the neutral spawners.

Drops: 5 coins, 3 armor shards, 2 juice boxes, and 1 churro.

Grappleable: Yes. You can throw or damage them to keep bouncers in place or put distance between you and them.

Taggable: Yes

Notes:

A squishy class going up against a bouncer can get ugly if at a lower level and have no protection in the jungle. They are pretty fast on their feet since they have a faster running speed than any pro. The lunge they do before a pro grapple is lightning fast, so stay farther out of melee range than you would normally would.
The grapple and lunge combo does have a cooldown time. After landing a successful grapple a Bouncer can’t grapple another pro again for a little while. He will, however, keep punching people.

You can avoid the grapple by jumping, but do so at your own peril. They will lunge forward to grip you anyway, hitting and damaging you in the air, which has been known to send pros unsuspecting pros flying out of the arena. The name Bouncer Born came out of this little quirk since they let out a little grunt before sending you on your way to oblivion.

They drop a good bit of juice on death, making them handy for filling up the juice gauge along with three armor shards to beef up your defenses.

They are incredibly useful distractions when bought at the neutral spawns. They will hunt pros down, grapple and hold while doing decent damage, all while you’re free to shoot at the victim too. They have enough HP to shrug off a lot of damage, so the other team has to switch focus to them or risk getting clobbered. Just make sure they don’t run straight into turrets.

Take them down with the team to avoid having nasty surprise when in a jungle team fight. With some fancy foot work you can actually avoid all the swings they send your way, but it is risky. You can actually throw the bouncer down from the jungle if your pro has a throw grapple, making the lives of your enemies worse…or your team. Also remember you could just be giving them free money if it is already weakened…