Overview
A short guide containing the most important things to keep in mind in ‘nauts imo.
gl hf
Hey fellow gamers, Jakob here with a hopefully instructive guide where I shall give some very important tips/guidelines for our & ronma’s awesome game.
This is directed at newer players, namely those coming in after ‘nauts went F2P, but I’m sure the majority of all players can benefit from it.
There’s a LOT of stuff in ‘nauts that guides can cover… aiming, movement, positioning, matchups, synergies, counters, how to carry or turtle, when to do what (like teleporting, engaging/initiating, backing off, jungling…), upgrades, roles, basics, specific ‘nauts and builds/playstyles, push guides etc.
My goal here is to simply write down stuff I think everyone should be fully aware of. Some of it may be obvious but if they didn’t need any stressing I would not be writing this guide.
After almost 5 years (and ~1800 hours) of playing I am still not L1 material, but I have accumulated some experience by now and would like to share my knowledge.
Without further ado, let’s start!
CLEAR THE DROIDS, ALWAYS PUSH AFTER A WIPEOUT
1.
This is so so so so important.
Yes, sometimes it’s better not to clear. Sometimes you should rather participate in a teamfight and use your skills on enemy ‘nauts and not droids, and it’s nice if you can bait the enemy to your turret and get easy kills.
However, generally, you should ALWAYS kill droids.
This is why::
-It allows your team to quite possibly push, making it possible to win the game, and also keeps a lot of harm away from your turrets. And also, it takes away a lot of the pressure that the enemy team can exert on yours. So if you want to win, clear.
-It is the correct way to play Awesomenauts and it allows comebacks
Have you ever joined a “lost” game and thought: “Man, my teammates suck but the enemies do too” and then tried to 1v3 them and lost horribly afterwards? Well, it’s happened to me plenty of times. Really, Awesomenauts is a game of numbers, and as long as you are behind in both solar and levels, you most likely won’t be able to duel someone no matter how good you are or what the skill difference is, let alone win a 1v3.
The correct way to play, as long as your team can kinda hold their own, is to farm – kill creeps and more importantly droids-, play defensively, try to get enough money —> upgrades to be able to kill the enemies (whether alone or with your team), regain map control and eventually turn the game around.
This applies to any player. Even the best players like niki can’t simply go into a 1v1, 1v2, 1v3 when they’re behind, unless the situation speaks for it! (e.g. the enemy is almost dead, or his ‘naut hardcounters the enemy ‘naut, or his victim is L5) No, they have to play safe, clear, try to kill ‘nauts and make plays to eventually regain the upper hand.
Yeah and also, this is the correct way to play the game. After the removal of numerous solar items in the past, you get your income through picking up solar and killing ‘nauts and structures (which is made possible by clearing), but also by killing creeps and droids. So by killing things you not only significantly increase your chances of winning, but also get beautiful solar which you absolutely do want to have.
-It helps with not overextending
As long as you are busy clearing stuff, you can’t foolishly get killed in enemy territory, at least that’s my logic and my way of thinking. As long as you don’t “overextend”, you don’t die (makes sense, right?), which means more solar, more map presence, more pushing and defense power, more everything basically. Except for kills, but most of the time it isn’t worth trading kills anyway, since as a rule of thumb it’s better to have fewer kills but also fewer deaths. Exceptions are if it allows your competent team to secure a wipeout or you get 2 or 3 kills in return for your death or you kill a fed player and receive their bounty (often a kill on the enemy MVP is crucial for winning the game!). You can always (at least hopefully) get more kills during the course of the match, but you can’t reduce the amount of times you have died.
So yeah, DON’T GET KILLED.
If you keep dying, it’s because you (well maybe your router too) are screwing up over and over again. If you hear your announcer counting down every or every other minute, you should stop for a moment, think about what you’re doing wrong, avoid making the same mistake again and play safer afterwards.
2.
PLEASE. I have had to write this in the chat so often it’s the only sentence I’ve considered using a macro for.
If you have just wiped out the enemy team, no matter how much solar you have or how little health, as long as your base is not getting destroyed all remaining members of your team should charge at the enemy structures and go wild on them.
No, it’s never better to teleport back, heal up, get new upgrades ready for combat. YOU’RE MISSING OUT ON FREE DAMAGE that could, and often does, win the game. No, having too little health is not an excuse unless you are the only one left with a laughable amount of structure dps output. There’s enough skills and shields who can tank stuff (for example bull, totem, anchor, Can’t Touch This) and if you rotate and take turns tanking turret damage there shouldn’t be any lethal issues at all. If there’s only the enemy base left there’s literally 0 excuses; if you didn’t attack it you most likely just threw the game away in this case.
Luckily in the higher leagues ( 1,2, maybe 3) most players seem to have grasped this concept, however I still regularly see L1 (meaning actually otherwise good) players not giving a * about the huge mistake they’re committing. In competitive and high league gameplay, a random droid push is not normally seen, so a wipeout is basically a dream scenario for pushing.
The same principle applies to 3v2 and 3v1 situations, however in those cases the rule applies less severely. In 3v2 situations it might even be better to heal up and go shopping, take map control, clear and farm etc. instead of going for a hard push. However, in 3v1 scenarios I heavily advise pushing, more precisely splitpushing if possible (= attacking both lanes so the lone enemy can’t defend both turrets). If your base is highly vulnerable, it’s very wise to leave a defender back at the core to fend off the one enemy should he try to come finish off the game.
TEAMWORK, BE NICE AND ENJOY THE GAME
Ah yes, teamwork. This is a multiplayer game, and when your team works together, it is much much much more effective (= doubled-tripled health and damage output, more CC to capitalize on, buffs, heals, the list goes on and on) and you are much more likely to win. Funnily only a small amount of players actually try to teamwork or in other words abuse the most broken tactic in the game, and most of the time when I see teamwork it’s either genuinely good players, premades or a Voltar comp.
I think the main reason teamwork is so rare is because in SoloQ the teammates are usually not reliable + they have different plans and it’s better trying to win the game “on your own”. However, if you do have good teammates or when you’re in a premade, why not teamwork?
As long as your team has proper positioning – so as to avoid AoE stuff and snipes, dashes and more – and you have one mobile guy who takes care of the other lane, there are pretty much no disadvantages to teamwork.
If you want to see synergized gameplay, I recommend to check out any high-league games from recent tournaments… I guarantee you that you will see some nice teamwork in action.
It’s also really fun, some of the most fun matches I’ve ever had were because my team and I worked together amazingly. Who doesn’t know combos like Skolldir Throw into Clunk Explode, the cheesy Tongue into Mines or Ix Psionic Bond into Derpl Traps? Scary stuff.
If you’re a toxic player who finds this cringy, please leave at once. However, I claim that nearly all gamers play this game for fun (after all you can’t make a living out of playing Awesomenauts yet) and want to have that in their games.
Who, with at least some hours in the game, hasn’t experienced frustration so far? Maybe people who have only played against Level 0 bots, which should be around… 0 players. Or who hasn’t been salty? Again, probably very few.
So yes, frustration is normal, but do not let out your frustration on your teammates or your enemies. Yes, even if it’s the teammate who’s causing your frustration.
Aside from lag, premades and lacking balance, teammates can be a main cause of frustration. Who hasn’t had that feeding ally that lost them the game? And who hasn’t been that feeding ally?
Anyway, what I want to say is: be nice and don’t be rude. Even if what you want to do is scream “GO BACK TO PLAYING LEGO” at your teammate, I can assure you that it’s not gonna help one bit. It’s actually the opposite: it spoils your relationship with the player, perhaps makes them feel terrible, and certainly doesn’t make them play better.
Therefore, unless the teammate is the rare troll or I have zero faith in them, I often try to give unsolicited advise like “stick with me xX♥♥♥♥♥_SlayerXx” or otherwise say stuff that will actually contribute to the match. Yes, some feeding teammates are ignorant ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but most of the time they are just bad and very very often new players that don’t know what to do.
This way, my team has managed to pull off some cool comebacks (meaning you go from frustrated/salty to happy, excited, relieved…) and I guarantee it to be a much better approach than ranting at your teammate(s).
If you prefer to write nothing in the chat, fine. Just don’t make it worse by yelling stuff at other people.
gg wp
And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed the guide and keep the most important points in mind.
Feedback/Constructive criticism and questions are welcome, if you have something to contribute to the guide write it in the comments and I might add it.
P.S. Here is a post made by Bets, it’s one of the most significant posts out of the thousands I’ve read. If you want to improve at Awesomenauts you should definitely check it out: [link]
P.P.S. check out this absolutely awesome, new & up to date guide by niki: [link] it’s very well done, useful, insightful and detailed, and I doubt there’s anyone who learnt nothing new from it. 🙂