A Players Guide to Penny Fox

Overview

A guide to the character “Penny Fox”, I go through stats and tactics. As well as describe to you my build, and the idea behind the upgrades.

Introduction

What is up my fellow Awesomenauts, I’m PineappleRocket and I welcome you to my second Awesomenaut guide! In my first guide I covered the basics of Vinnie & Spike, and gave the run down. In this guide I will attempt to do the same. So lets cut the jibber jabber and get to the meat of this guide, shall we?

As many of you may know Penny is one of the Starstorm nauts, at the moment she is the second newest character (following Sentry) and she has to be one of my favorites. She falls under the category of initiator in the growing spectrum of roles for nauts. As I had said, she’s an initiator — for those of you that don’t know, initiators are people who INITIATE combat. They dash like abilities, or abilities that bring the enemy close. Examples: Admiral Swiggin’s chain grabby thing, Froggy G’s dash, Vinnie & Spikes Dive, the list goes on — I guess this is where my specialty lies within Awesomenauts, since Vinnie & Spike was also an initiator. So for the role of an initiator, you will need to play aggressively, or at least semi-aggressively. Most of the time, I would suggest assisting a fellow teammate while he attacks the turret or drill by keeping enemy nauts away from him (I believe Penny’s strengths lie in taking down Nauts), but that’s enough about her role. Lets move on to the upgrades.

And on a side note, I have heard a lot of mixed feelings about Penny. Some people tell me she’s way too squishy, and all around a bad character. While some people tell me that she’s the most broken character in Awesomenauts – so please, keep the constructive criticism generally around the guide, not the character (Personally I find her balanced).

Pounce

Penny’s (arguably) most valuable ability is her pounce, similar to Froggy G’s splash dash except you will collide with enemies sending them back. The default stats for this ability are: 20 Damage, with an additional 5 per charge, a cooldown of 7s, you travel 4.6 with an additional .4 per charge, a stun duration of .65s, and and the knockback power ranges from .6 – 1 based upon how many charges you have.

The way Penny’s abilities work compared to other nauts is a little unique, also a little heavy on the math. So for the sake of simplicity within this guide, we will be doing all the stats as if you had all 4 ticks ready.
The first upgrade I would highly suggest getting is the Photovoltaic Lightning Charger, which is an upgrade that decreases the cooldown of Penny’s pounce from 7s to 5s — for those of you who don’t math, the upgrade decreases the cooldown by 2s. — It costs a mere 140 solar and is a very valuable upgrade for essentially any role you put Penny in.
The second upgrade I would suggest getting is the Electric Bike Lock, this upgrade increases the damage of Penny’s pounce. Its a two level upgrade, costing 135 Solar each, costing a total of 270 solar. Each level increases the damage by 20%, so level 2 will upgrade the damage by 40%. Causing the pounce to do a total of 42 damage (Like I said, all math will be done as if you are fully charged). That increases the total damage by 12 points, since the attack would regularly do 30. This is a good choice because you want to be able to hit hard and fast, and to hit hard, you need increased damage.

The final upgrade I suggest for pounce is the Big Bang Horn, this upgrade will increase the stun duration for the pounce. It is a 2 level upgrade, each level upgrading the duration by .1s. Each level costs 100 solar, which is a very cheap upgrade totalling in 200 solar to max out this upgrade. This will make the total duration .85s.

Altogether the pounce upgrades will cost you 540 solar, which isn’t too bad. On a side note, the Stunt helmet upgrade, which increases knockback seems like it could be a viable option – if used correctly, but personally I’ve never had to use it. I like to stick to my main 3, now on to the energy pulse.

Energy Pulse

The energy pulse is Penny’s second ability, it’s similar to Coco’s lightning ball. This ability also causes enemies hit by it to receive amplified damage, which is very useful. Also, Penny’s moves are very useful when used in combination of each other. Generally, I pounce at the opponent, initiating combat, get as many hits in as I can and then try and use the energy pulse as the final blow. So let’s move on to the upgrades.

Tied for the most important upgrade are the Scout Binoculars, and the Bug Jars. For the sake of simplicity we’ll start with the Scout Binoculars.
The Scout Binoculars are a one level upgrade item. Costing a total of 210 Solar. What this upgrade does is it increases the distance that the energy pulse will travel by +3.5 changing the range from the standard 5.5, to 9 which is a much better range. This is very important for catching enemies after they run behind the turret or blowing off their feet by shooting through the floor.

The Bug Jar is a pretty simple upgrade. It increases the damage of your energy pulse. Each level increases the damage by 2, per tick… As I had said before, I will be doing all the math as if you have all 4. So each of the three levels will increase damage done by 8, totalling in an additional 24 damage (I confused myself doing this math, I believe it to be correct but if you notice any issues please tell me, and I will correct them immediately) making the overall damage of the attack 56. The reason for getting this upgrade is pretty simple, you want to be able to deal a lot of damage as fast as you can. To do that you need to upgrade damage. Each level costs 185 solar, costing a total of 555.

The final upgrade I suggest for this is the Sentient Rock, this will add a silencing effect to your energy pulse. Its a very cheap upgrade costing only 95 solar per level, and it is a two level upgrade. On level one it will add a silencing duration of .6s and level 2 will add a silencing duration of 1.2s. For any of you that don’t know what silence is, it is an ability a few nauts have that if you attack an enemy with it, they cannot use any of their abilities. So its actually very useful — especially when dealing with pesky leons that go invisible as soon as you attack them.. I have experience.

Those are all the upgrades I can suggest for the energy pulse, its not the most amazing upgrade but it can be very useful and these upgrades make it an even better tool. Purchasing all of these upgrades will cost a total of 955.

Claw

Next on the list of upgrades are the upgrades for your base attack, the claw. Penny’s base attack is by far the most important — Because without ticks you can’t use your abilities, and without the claw you can’t get ticks — So the choices for the claw are easy, but first I’ll go over the base stats. It has a damage of 10, a very short range of 3.2, and an attack speed of 109.1 (Which isn’t slow but isn’t by any means fast).
The first upgrade and the most important upgrade to get is The Nine Tails Badge. This upgrade will boost Penny’s speed by 1.6 as long as she is fully charged. This is very important for Penny, since she is reliant on her agility. to get the upper hand on other nauts. The upgrade only costs 180, and is only one level. When playing a game, its usually my third upgrade (Solar tree > Boots > Nine Tails).

The second upgrade you have to get is The Living Treasure Map. This is the second most important upgrade, and is basically mandatory. This is a two level upgrade costing 165 per level for a total of 330. It will increase the damage of your attack by 15% per level, maxing it out with 30%. This will make your attack speed 141.83, which is a very decent number. This upgrade is very important to get because you want to get as many ticks as you can, as fast as you can. So the faster your attack speed, the faster you’ll get them.

The final upgrade is a toss up between the Cookie Monster Badge, and the Grey Man Group Badge. The Cookie Monster Badge will increase the damage of your claw attack, while the Grey Man Group Badge will add a 5th tick for your skills. Which will boost nearly every other single upgrade you have. Personally I get the Grey Man, but it is also unlocked at a very high level while the Cookie Monster Badge is unlocked by default. In the end it is up to you on which upgrade you want.

Player Upgrades

The last upgrade we’re going to talk about is the boots, as I had said before, Penny relies on her agility. Without it she’s terrible. So while playing as Penny, avoid things that hinder your agility such as stun, snare, Swiggins, and slowing effects. The boots are also a must have because they give Penny the ability to do quad jumps, which are very useful.

Along with the boots, I generally go for regeneration and Solar Tree but those are purely personal preference.

Synergy

Another important thing to discuss is who’s good on her team, and who’s a character you should avoid fighting.

Now since Penny is an aggressive, initiating, burst type character, you’ll be wanting a support player on your team. Not necessarily a Voltar, but a Yuri or Genji. Someone who can give you buffs, and health. Those upgrades will help you put a bit more oomph into your attempts at pushing.

It is no secret that Penny is in fact a squishy character. So any attacks that render your agility you should avoid. That will include Swiggins, Gnaw, Derpl, etc. Penny’s key edge over other players is her agility, so use it to your advantage at all times – especially the quad jump.

Conclusion

I hope you all enjoyed the guide, if there’s anything you guys think I should fix, add, or change tell me and I will get on it. Thank you very much for reading till the end, and I’ll see you in

Awesomenauts! Also, make sure to check out my other guides if you haven’t already!
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