Overview
This is a complete guide to Leon Chameleon for both the new player, the experienced player, the solo-queuer and the pubstomper alike.Contains graphics, a general how-to-play based on game structure and Leon’s mechanics, as well as recommended upgrades for individual playstyles.
Prepare To Absorb Knowledge
DIS GUIDE GUN TEECH U HOW TO B GUD
#D+M1 #2WIN4U
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Disclaimer
This thread is very long – so I have separated it into categories. This guide is for both the new player and the experienced player alike. This guide contains factual information, as well as anecdotal information – take everything with a grain of salt and integrate this information into your gamestyle somehow. This document is not allowed to be reposted anywhere but:
- Here
- Awesomenauts Forums[www.awesomenauts.com]
- Awesomenauts Pro League[AwesomenautsProLeague.com]
- Any property owned by MikalMirkas
Changelog
v1.0a P1.17 – Initial Guide Created (Patch 1.17.3)[www.awesomenauts.com]
v1.0b P1.17 – Added images, a changelog section, more structure to the post, user testimonials, searchable indexes, Leon’s counters, more information on Leon.
v1.0 P1.17 – Added three sections: Sample Builds, ‘Naut Synergies, and a basic How-To-Play. I also added some more information in the tips and tricks, mostly how to avoid being discovered.
v1.1 P1.21 – Updated Clover of Honour (finally, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥).
v1.1.1 P1.21 – Minor grammatical changes, cleaned up the title.
What Is Leon?
He’s obtainable at Level 1, meaning any player can use him. He’s probably the hardest to use properly for a new player, as they will be tempted to stay in Stealth for extended periods of time (therefore they will be useless, 2v3 gg).
Leon’s Strengths
Leon’s strength is his ability to isolate enemies and pick them off out of their comfort zone, as well as to zone enemies, or damage base assets, with Clones. This being said, many ‘Nauts have very good retreatment skills. Keep this in mind as you’re developing a build, and as you’re playing the game. Leon can also push extremely hard, as his Clones can wipe out an entire Droid wave with one Clone, and can chase enemies.
This guide will treat him as an Assassin primarily, and a Pusher as his secondary function.
Leon’s Weaknesses
Leon’s weaknesses are his weaknesses by design – he has no long-range initiation tool that is on a consistent cooldown, an escape mechanism (such as Splash Dash or Explode that can keep you at bay from a Froggy G, or a heavy punishing ability for initiating on Clunk; respectively). He also doesn’t have a consistently reliable escape mechanism. He also has low health, to stop him from steamrolling without obstruction in the lategame.
He also gets completely destroyed by debuffs. Silence doesn’t affect him too much when he’s not at low health, but Stun, Snare, and Slow will hurt him heavily.
His negative matchups are (assuming both ‘Nauts are at a competitive skill level and Leon is uncloaked, along with both ‘Nauts off cooldown at time of confrontation): Leon vs Iron Rifle Raelynn, Leon (No-Cloak) vs HC-Bomb Raelynn, Leon vs Lonestar, Leon vs Froggy G, Leon vs Skolldir, Leon vs Derpl (somewhat), Leon vs SuperSlowCo & Leon vs Genji. All of these are from exploiting Leon’s weaknesses alone, all of them involve bursting Leon at close range with nearly unavoidable results, or isolating the Leon, forcing one side to retreat which will generally be the Leon.
All of these matchups can be overcome using situational awareness and player skill. You also have Cloaking Skin at your disposal, which lets you strike when enemy cooldowns are active. You always have the upper hand in most cases, as you can control your initiation. No other ‘Naut has that skill innately.
Leon’s Utility (Reptile Jump)
Seeing how you’re an Assassin-class hybrid, you probably want Space Air Max (so you can chase), Power Pills Light (more health = more survivability), Med-I-Can (This is a viable, and cheaper, alternative to PPL, also lets you stay in the lane for longer before retreating), and possibly Piggy Bank for the early-game rush. Solar Tree’s weaker than Magnet Piercing, and Baby Kuri Mammoth is pretty garbage. I personally use Piggy Bank on most of my builds for the early-rush, but you can choose your own utility to fit your own playstyle.
Leon’s Slash
Your primary autoattack, Slash, is a piercing attack that does 8 base damage. It hits directly in front of Leon – it’s duo-directional, meaning that it only hits directly to the left or right of Leon. Leon’s Slash does full damage against Turrets.
For upgrades, Chainsaw is highly recommended – +6 damage to your existing Slash is very strong. This pairs quite well with Enhanced Muscle Fibers (Attack Speed). For your third upgrade, you can take Backstab Blade for the +8 guaranteed damage on Creeps/Droids, Clover of Skill Honour (aka “omg crits on turrets pls nerf”, being changed to a third-hit system in 1.18) for some additional DPS, Hungry Sword for a bit of lifesteal (Clones can also Slash enemies to give the real Leon health regeneration), or Electrifier to slow down your victims. I personally run Attack Speed, Electrifier and Critical Hits/Backstab Blade. Attack Speed synergizes perfectly with every single upgrade on Leon except Electrifier, which just increases the forgiveness of missing a slash to keep the debuff persistent.
Leon’s Tongue Snatch
Tongue Snatch is an ability that pulls enemies towards you along with 12 base damage – the skill stops the moment it hits a wall, or an enemy ‘Naut. It has a 7s cooldown. Attacks apply for each instance that the end of the tongue touches an enemy, so it will hit any target twice. It essentially does 24 base damage on a successful hit. It has innate piercing that penetrates anything on its way to your cursor. This is why Magnet Piercing and Steel False Teeth are very player-skill based.
On your primary skill, Tongue Snatch, the general upgrades I recommend picking up Garlic & Cheese Mints (Silence) on Tongue for some quick Silence on your victim, Morning Star Piercing (more burst = more fear of presence), and Tongue Stretcher (Range) if you need the additional pull range. Steel False Teeth (Lifesteal) is also a viable choice with Magnet Piercing, as it indirectly enforces you to try to Tongue as many enemies as possible for the optimal return on your Tongue. Double Damage and Magnet Piercing is also good, but don’t expect to gank any low-hp Froggy Gs without Silence and Electrifier.
Remember to buy this ASAP – this will be the way that you ideally want to start hitting enemies. Your basic combo will be to initiate with Tongue, and follow-up with Slash.
Leon’s Cloaking Skin
Your secondary skill, Cloaking Skin, creates a 40HP Clone of you and makes him stand still, acting as a wall. This skill has an 8s cooldown. This can be used very creatively, such as body-blocking an enemy that is chasing you, or to drop it in front of a Turret to make your Droid push last longer. It also gives you the Stealthed buff, which makes you invisible to everyone on the enemy team, until you use a skill (includes Slash), or die. You can still be seen by debuffs that are applied on you – they will float above your head to everyone on the battlefield.
There are two ways to generally build Leon, which is Clone Spam Leon or Assassination Leon. I’ll cover them as listed.
CSL (also known as Clone Army Builds) requires Basic AI Chip (Clone Movement) and one form of damage, generally Aggressive AI Chip (Clone Attack). Blow-Up Doll (Clone Explode On-Death) is quite good too – which one you want to pick will generally decide how you want to use your Clone. I recommend grabbing all three of the above upgrades to use Leon. You want to spam Cloaking Skin as much as possible, to get the Clones doing as much damage as possible – therefore you wouldn’t want to run Pinot Noir (Regen In-Cloak) if you want to build this way.
Do note, that Blow-Up Doll does 20% damage on Turrets, and Aggressive AI Chip has a 51% damage reduction, Blow-Up Doll is generally inferior than Aggressive AI Chip, in most cases.
Assassination builds rely on you being in Cloak and striking a victim. Remain in Stealth for as little time as you need to be. If there’s anything you learn from this guide, let this be it. The longer you remain in Stealth, the more of a liability you are to your team. Do not stop killing something, or planning to kill something. They generally use Surprise Party Mask (Damage On Cloak Breaking Slash), and two other upgrades – generally BAIC (Basic AI Chip) and one form of damage. Some builds also use Pinot Noir to give Leon more regeneration, which means that Leon can stay in the battlefield for longer. You can use it to be stealthy before an initiation, or to pop it in the middle of the fight to retreat, or Cloak and break it immediately for the bonus SPM damage, and a Clone to assist you in the fight. Be creative. SPM also does not work on Tongue, so you may want to break Stealth with a Slash that hits your target, jump away, Tongue him, and then start the assault with your Slash.
Keep in mind that Leon’s Cloaking Skin, being Leon’s escape mechanism, isn’t a guaranteed getaway – generally, Leons take the quickest path to get out of a fight, which isn’t always the most reliable way – it’s the most predictable. Try to be erratic with your movement as you’re making an escape, while staying out of the range of enemies that are trying to check around for where you might be. Damage will show on you, as well as DoT – Raelynn’s Crosshair indicator on Snipe will also show you in Stealth – avoid skilled Raelynns while at low health. You can also still bump into enemies, giving away that you’re Stealthed. Also, your Clone will expire shortly after you spawn him – this is an indicator to enemies that you have recently used the skill. Teleporting also breaks the Stealth.
Sample Meta Leon Builds
The meta is very lenient for Leon, but there are always a few key factors in mind when making your build.
- You always want Tongue Snatch as soon as possible. This is your bread and butter.
- You, unless running a gimmick-oriented build, always want Chainsaw Add-On on your Slash build. You want to get at least two stages of this before Level 10. Some people prefer taking Backstab Blade instead of Chainsaw, I highly advise against it unless it’s key for some gimmicky build, such as an early-game domination build.
- It’s generally advised to not build Cloaking Skin before you have Tongue maxed, but it can work.
There are a few builds, and generally the most effective ones are playing Leon like an Assassin, who farms Droids for Solar every time Tongue goes off of cooldown.
My current build (as of writing) is this build[nautsbuilder.com], you get Piggy Bank and then rush right into maxing Tongue, starting with Magnet Piercing and Morning Star Piercing as soon as possible for the 42 damage burst (destroys Droids effortlessly), and then Range to increase your support. Pick up base Cloak, build Slash and Utility in an alternating fashion afterwards, and then build Cloak. You should be at the end-game by here.
You can also use a Clone Army[nautsbuilder.com] variation, but I like the safety, and psychological effects of Surprise Party Mask. Leon behind you + big damage numbers against you = oh god what do, panic, panic, panic, *mashes the 2 button*.
You can also go a raw damage build[nautsbuilder.com], either using Clover of Honour for pushing, or Backstab Blade for PvE and some consistent damage on enemies, should you initiate on them from behind (or both, but Chainsaw’s more reliable than Backstab Blade in most instances, and CoH took a massive nerf since when I was writing this so CoH isn’t super viable anymore, and BB is better for laning anyway).
There’s also a supportive build[nautsbuilder.com] which relies on Leon applying heavy debuffing to help his teammates isolate ‘Nauts and then to kill them. Same build order as above. Only things that you really need are Range, Silence, Attack Speed and Slow. Everything else can be shifted around.
Super Regeneration[nautsbuilder.com] – You sacrifice damage for lifesteal, and you get insane amounts of Regeneration for when you are fleeing – you have no reason to teleport unless you can’t pop Cloaking Skin, or you need to buy upgrades. Helps with newer Leons, but you lose some of Leon’s utility. You can change Cloaking Skin however you want, I would personally use Surprise Party Mask and Blow-Up Doll instead of the Chips – Aggressive AI Chip does give Lifesteal back to Leon if the Clone slashes. This also heavily limits Leon’s ability to kill, due to Hungry Sword limiting Leon’s DPS. I’d personally swap it out for something else.
Super Initiation[nautsbuilder.com] – You can pretty much guess how this one works. Tongue to initiate and Slash to GG.
How To (Generically) Play
Alright, early-game. You’ve just dropped from your Drop Pod.
First on the agenda, do not die. This applies the whole game, unless there’s an advantage to taking down a target for your life, generally against an enemy that is wiping your whole team, or pushing your lanes heavily, such as Lonestar, or Derpl. Dying makes you lose 30 Solar, and losing Solar right now is a bad thing.
Take your Solar Utility and Magnet Piercing (if you have it) and start farming hard. You want to get Slash maxed as fast as possible. Always tongue Droids in pairs of two (they form in two naturally), or if you can, tongue Creeps if they can appear in more units than that (such as on AI Station 404).
Don’t overextend for ganks, just keep pushing the lanes, and if you can, try to hit three targets per Tongue – two Droids and one ‘Naut. This will force enemies to retreat, giving you more time to push, and Tongue droids.
Farm, farm, farm. That’s all you need to do, for right now. Remember, that in order to win, you need to push Droids and secure kills. Pushing Droids is more important than kill securing. Saving your allies is more important than kill securing (unless it’s worth the ‘Naut sacrifice, i.e. a feeding Gnaw against a Legendary Lonestar).
Pick up Cloaking Skin whenever you feel that you need it.
By now, you should have one skill maxed (around level 10-15), hopefully anything but Cloaking Skin, unless you’re running an early-clone-spam gimmick (which can work, providing your team is carrying you for the first 8 minutes or so).
Keep farming. Start ganking when possible – keep pulling enemies out of position and annoying them to no end. When you see a gank that opens up, either go in full force, or use Stealth and get your Surprise Party Mask bonus, should you have purchased that at this point.
Basically, keep breaking stuff. Don’t stop pushing, and if you are being pushed, Tongue people into your Turret, and then harass them. Steal all the health packs on your enemy’s side (they also give you 3 Solar per kill, which is pretty good). Basically, you want to starve the enemy enough, or push hard enough to force your enemies to start farming.
You should have something like this[manu.habite.la], or this[manu.habite.la], by the beginning of the mid-game. You can also rush Slash, but I’d advise against it. Your Tongue should be able to do everything for you.
Slash should be 2/3rded by now, no exceptions. Sometimes it’s wiser to get Backstab Blade / CoH before Chainsaw, if you think that you’ll be initiating a lot, very early. By around Level 27, you should have Slash maxed. Go to town, because realistically, nothing can stop you, if you play passively. Keep killing Droids. Farm as much as possible, but since you can now kill efficiently, I’d say to only farm when you feel that it’s safe to do so, as your Tongue being on cooldown is an invitation for others to initiate on you.
If there’s someone that’s low level on the enemy team, never stop poking them. You want to make them feed as hard as possible. Keep pushing Turrets as much as possible. This is where the game starts to break, should someone die.
You’re maxed. Woop.
Keep pushing Turrets.
Keep killing Droids.
Keep poking enemies.
Keep killing enemies.
Keep playing mindgames with your Stealth ability.
Your only role is to make the enemy fear you enough that he’s starting to Stealth-check rapidly. When he stops, initiate, and either kill, or flee. They should get so paranoid that they will eventually break down, and start turtling. This is your time to push the Core and win the game. Hopefully, you had this done in the mid-game. After the late-game, the teams are about evenly-matched.
‘Naut Synergies
99% of Leon’s synergy revolves around his Tongue, or his CC abilities on Slash, or Tongue. Tongue is extremely valuable because of all the utility it has. This is because Tongue has a ministun on ‘Nauts, and an applied knockback (also known as the “pull”) on Leon’s Tongue. This forces enemies to enter scenarios they wouldn’t want to be in.
What does this mean? You can pull enemies into:
- Derpl’s Grid Traps
- Yuri’s Mines
- Raelynn’s Time Rift (my personal favourite)
- Clunk, pre-explode
- Genji’s Cocoon
- Lonestar’s Dynamite
- Coco’s Ball Lightning
- Your Turret
- Your Clones
- The Worm, on Sorona (Tongue Stretcher needed)
- Ayla’s Evil Eye / Enraged Ayla
- Anything that has a motion pattern that has an appropriate reaction time for the Leon to grab his victim.
You can lay your Clone down to Tank damage from any source, or to bodyblock a damage source with your Clone. This is especially helpful when forced to turret-dive at low health. However, enemies can use your body to lifesteal or Solar farm off of, like Gnaw’s Weedlings, so use them appropriately depending on the scenario.
Because you are Stealthed, you can also bodyblock during your Stealth. This gives away your position, but only while you’re being an obstacle. This can make or break ganks, as the enemy won’t be able to retreat into safety, while you’re mimicking his motion patterns, blocking him from retreating. This is extremely helpful in communicative games.
Tips and Tricks
Hungry Sword is percentage-based, meaning that you can optimize your time by pushing all the entities (generally Droids) that you want to get Lifesteal off of into one spot, and then Slashing them to recover health.
Slash pierces, so you can do some AoE inside Turrets.
As of 1.19, Clover of Honour is the only ability in the game to crit structures. You can also preserve the critical hit briefly by not slashing and saving it for another target.
Tongues induce a mini-stun on-hit, meaning that you can interrupt an enemy’s skill if they don’t have debuff immunity.
Don’t over commit to killing an enemy. It’s usually enough for Leon to harass them out of the lane early so that he can farm more effectively. This applies evenmoreso with enemies that have melee-ranged burst mechanisms, such as Clunk or Lonestar. Feel free to poke them with Tongue, and then exploit their cooldowns by running back at them after you dodge their burst mechanism.
Be careful of slowdowns! If your Tongue is caught in a Time Rift, you’ll be stuck in the Tonguing animation until your Tongue comes back. This also applies for Yuris that have Time Warp.
Enemies are stunned while the Tongue is touching them – if you have Range, a skilled teammate can abuse this. The bottom lane of Sorona is a good example, if your Leon has Tongue Stretcher, you can Tongue an enemy into the Worm while someone is pressing the button.
Tongue can be used to pick up Solar, if you have Magnet Piercing – this can be used to safely grab Solar in risky places, such as Sorona’s bottom lane.
When you pull someone in with Leon’s Tongue, you can activate Cloaking Skin in the process. Assuming you have Cheese ‘n’ Garlic Mints and Aggressive AI Chip, this guarantees that both you and your Clone will hit the enemy at least 3-4 times. You can get over 10 successful hits if you are running Electrifier.
On Aig, in the jungle, there are two jumppads that you can fall under. Your base Clone, if placed on one of these platforms, forces the enemy to stop and kill the Clone before they can drop down the platform to use the jump pad. This can be used to kill those that have poor jump height, such as Voltar. Slowed enemies also have reduced jump height, so Electrifier’s pretty good with this tactic. This trick applies with any jump pad that has terrain around it, as Leon’s Clone has collision.
When fighting on Aig, you can use the Stealth Orb along with Surprise Party Mask to apply the SPM bonus when you break Stealth, and then quickly use your Cloaking Skin skill to apply a second SPM bonus.
This damage stacks up very fast, and is extremely sudden.
When you’re Stealthed, people can still hear you move, regardless of ‘Naut.
When you’re Stealthed, the floor panels on AI Station will light up, when you walk on top of them. Try to walk with your team, if you can – when there are lots of panels around.
When fighting an enemy with a Snare, you can bait out a Snare by quickly using your Clone and retreating slightly, and then start harassing your victim since their CC skill is off cooldown.
If your Clone kills a Creep or Droid, Solar or a Health Pack will teleport directly to you. Keep this in mind if you’re Stealthed, and you’re near an enemy, or if you’re making a quick escape in the jungle.
Clones can’t grab Stealth Orbs, or activate the button in Sorona. They also can’t grab Solar – these are dead giveaways that the Clone is a Clone. You may want to run next to it while unstealthed to make it appear that is is a Clone, if there is Solar on the field. Clones also can’t activate the floor panels on AI Station.
Clones won’t make a groan when they are damaged. Players do.
Be careful when picking up Solar when you’re Stealthed – this is a giveaway that you are nearby.
Play the part – Clones spawn with 40HP – you can try to riskily mimic the Clone’s walking AI while at low health and gank someone by not presenting yourself as an immediate threat. Your Clones have lower speed than you, if you’re using Space Air Max. Don’t run next to a clone while unstealthed, either – this is generally a giveaway that you are unstealthed. If you have time to summon two Clones, you can make them walk next to each other – this is great bait if you have Blow-Up Doll on your build, and then a quick Tongue to kill your enemy / start ganking.
NOW YOU’RE READY
you have now learned to Leon
congradulation
now go stomp and make me proud ;_;7