Overview
In this guide, I’ll be going over a few in depth things about the character Scoop, things that are worth knowing, common techniques, as well as tips and tricks that can help new players, as well as be good to keep in mind for those who are more experienced.
Introduction
Hello, I’m Niz, you may remember me from… um… You likely remember seeing me at… Well, that’s not important, what is important is the guide. This will be a guide centered around Scoop of Justice, some general overview, some tips, some tricks, and a few general details that can be overlooked by some players. You may want to pull up a chair because this may be a long guide, with all of that out of the way, let’s begin with Scoop’s general statistics.
Just as a point of reference for the rating system, the overall rating is comparative to the items in the upgrade row, In no way am I saying that if something’s high rated, it should be your first general upgrade, remember your passive upgrades when you have to, and buy your build in the order that best fits the situation, not by how they’re rating. (By the off chance anyone’s using this as a point of reference to make a build.)
This guide is in the progress of being updated to make up for the leveling system and changes done to Scoop. No doubt this guide will become outdated again in the future, but I intend to update it anyway.
The Gelati Knight Himself
Base Health level 1: 1600
Base Health Level 20: 2816
Health with power pills level 1-20: 1856-3266
Movement Speed: 7.8 (average for a tank)
Slash
Damage (1-20): 100-157
Range: 3.4
Lifesteal: none
Piercing: none
Cleave
Damage(1-20): 60-94
Range: 3.9
Lifesteal: 20% (12-15 hp per target)
Piercing: yes
The minimum of damage and snare time are garunteed when hitting an enemy (not counting variables such as damage or debuff resistance/immunity), reaching the maximum is depandant on how close was the hammer from expiring when it hits it’s mark.
Point blank Damage: 180-283
Max range Damage: 230-361
Snare time: .4-.8 seconds
Range: 17 (This will be VERY important later, Scoop mains will know why)
Cooldown: 7.5 seconds
Damage: 200-314
Heal: 300-471
Cooldown: 13.5 seconds
Explosion Radius range (debateably): 9
Charge Time: 1 second
Scoop’s Hammer
For the most part, Scoop’s main appeal in a lot of games is his use of his Hammers, with the correct build, he can stun for up to 1.54 seconds, which is a dangerous amount of time to remain vulnerable for one character, let alone your entire team. Which even when resisted with BKM, the target is still locked in snare for .77 seconds, for snares this long, you would have to reach the maximum potential of the end of your hammer as well as have the twister lance, and fruity sprinkles. Now, allow me to go over the upgrades, for reference, these will be at a scale of 0-10, 0 being the rarest, but basically telling you to never buy it ever, 5 being average, and 10 basically meaning you don’t have to follow any type of meta for it to even come in handy, there are some upgrades that are either that good, or that manditory because it’s flexible enough to compliment several builds.
Effect:40% increased max snare duration
Cost: 145 solar, two stages.
Overall Rating: 6.5/10
I really wanted to give this a 7, but a 6.5 is due, this is certainly a helpful upgrade to get, this upgrade alone, however, is kinda useless, this is also not an amazing upgrade if you’re attempting to play a completely independant Scoop, and are not expecting your team to act off of your snares, however, with the correct build, and a powerful burst team that needs a character who can initiate, this is pretty essential since every nanosecond can matter in sealing a kill from a team-based attack. Great pick for considerate teams, and sometimes even strangers, not so amazing in a majority of soloqs.
Effect:+75% max snare damage
Cost: 160 solar, 3 stages
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
Brutally Whipped Cream is simply an increase over the max damage your hammer does, being able to raise 150-200 damage to 262-350 damage, although it’s one of the harder upgrades to collect, getting this in your mid game will give your hammers more prescence and give them much more significant finishing potential, and is usually a pick among several builds since damage and CC are very important for a lot of characters, and Scoop’s no exception.
Effects:+5 range, +83 maximum damage, +.3 maximum snare duration.
Cost: one purchase of 270 solar
Overall Rating: 10/10
I think it’s considered an act of Masochism to not get this upgrade. I’m pretty sure I have 9 out of 10 Scoop mains support when I say Twister Lance is a pretty essential upgrade. There are many reasons for this, due to it’s +5 range, it increases his range from 17 to 22, that’s a near 30% range boost, it’s not necessarily the range, although it does help it’s case, but it also increases your damage and snare duration by flat numbers, while Brutally Whipped Cream and Fruity Sprinkles increases by a percentage, this means that if you get one or both, those become significantly better in their full potential as well. One other thing that makes Twister Lance pretty amazing is that, in depth, it makes nearly every other upgrade in Scoop’s Hammer row better. If you use Snow shovel, you can hit droids, bounce the hammer on the ground, and hit an enemy who tried to jump out of it’s way, healing you for 225 rather than the 150 from just droids, if you’re using Frozen Snow cone, the increased snare time compliments it in chasing and finishing foes, and it simply increases the maximum potential of Brutally Whipped Cream and Sprinkles alltogether. Fantastic upgrade, often a first pick among a lot of Scoop players and for good reasons.
Effects: -1.5 seconds for frozen hammer cooldown
Cost: 140 solar, 2 stages
Overall Rating: 5/10 6.75/10
I was told by a couple of players that this upgrade was better than I gave it credit, so I decided to give it some testing in a week period. After some experimentation with this upgrade in matches, I realize that I was wrong about this upgrade. Well, not only seeing the results myself in game, but considering that the argument for Twister Lance can also apply to Ice Cream Van Music in a lower degree, with this item, you gain access to your hammer more often, meaning that you have more pushing prescence, which as Scoop, you sometimes DESPERATELY need. This also allows you to have more harassment abilities, and are able to have hammers on the ready in six seconds, with Scoop’s hammer cooldown being 7.5, and Froggy G’s splash dash being 7.5 at base, this could mean the difference between him being able to negate your hammer damage every time or not.
Effects: Self Healt 75 health per target hit with the hammer
Cost: 145 solar 1 stage
Overall Rating: 4.5/10
I’ll get this out of the way, depending on your build, you can go much worse than Snow Shovel, the upgrade itself can really depend on your enemy team’s compisition, your team compisition, as well as how deep it is in the match. A Scoop who intends to get no sustainability in his AA nor his binding yet will get Ice Cream Van Music can consider this a fair investment, easy to pick up early game, and gives you plenty of sustainability when pushing against droids easily gives you 150 health, with that being said, if you’re in a lane defending, and there is a set of droids, and the entire team is there, you can heal for 375 health hitting all 5, which is nice, but an uncommon situation, so the benefit is often between 75-300 health per hammer, most common being 150 every hammer. Why I rated this upgrade below average is that in a lot of situations, this may come in handy… If it weren’t Scoop, His AA and his ability, Bindings of Justice already give him a great amount of sustainability at base, and if you can help it, it’s usually for the best to not oversustain yourself, or your overall CC or damage could end up falling short late game.
Effect: Movement Speed +3 for 2 seconds when hitting at least one target with your hammer.
Cost: 130 for 1 stage
Niz’s personal favorite
Overall Rating: 6.5/10
I never quite understood Yellow Snow Cone’s Design… They say it’s not lemon flavor, then what is it? Banana? Banana would be by far the grossest of all flavors for a snow cone that is yellow, and also, if it’s a snow cone, why does it have the texture of ice cream, and is in a waffle cone?
I’m getting distracted, if it were up to my biases, this would be a 8/10 for overall rating, however, Yellow Snow cone is not necessarily an amazing upgrade all the time, but it does come in handy when you have to do your own stunts, which makes it a fantastic soloq tool. Usually you will want to either get this or fruity sprinkles depending on how much you trust your team to cover your escapes or capitalize off of your hammers, or if your team already has an adequate initiator and you need to seal the kills as one of the slowest nauts in the game…
The Magic of Snow Cone
Yellow Snow Cone, in my opinion (Yes, I said opinion, there will be statistics here, as well as opinions, if you have a problem with this, it’s prob’ly for the best to downright skip this chapter.) and it shocks me to see a lot of Scoop players who soloq neglect the upgrade completely. There are several things that make frozen snow cone superior to fruity sprinkles in soloq especially.
- The hammer doesn’t need to hit your desired target for you to close in the gap on said target thanks to the speed boost of hitting any enemy that can take damage from it.
- As long as the hammer hits anything, no matter the damage or how many, you always get the +3 speed boost, making it significantly more helpful in more situations where a facesnare or 75 hp while running will not help nearly as much.
- Including Space Air Max, Scoop’s movement Speed goes from 8.4 to 11.4, (For reference, Ayla with her boots and three wheeler is 10.6, Penny with her boots, bade of the nine tails, and grey man gets 12, a Scoop, the tank, can temporarely keep up with harassers and assassins with a single 130 solar upgrade)
- Scoop landing a hammer on his desired target with a snare focused build can snare for 1.54 seconds, the duration of Frozen snow cone is always 2 seconds, giving you benefits that even Baby Kuri Mammoth can’t stop.
- With 11.4 Speed from the hammer, combined with baby kuri mammoth, Scoop can negate a vast amount of slowing effects applied to him.
- One upgrade of 130 solar for the full benefits means you can grab it and go whenever you feel comfortable to.
Now, does this make it better than fruity sprinkles? No, not nessecarily, fruity sprinkles are still significantly more helpful in team fights and initiating. But depending on what your team compisition is, who you’re fighting with, against, and what your play style might demand, these two upgrades will be both things to heavily consider.
The Power of Bindings Of Justice
Bindings of Justice is an upgrade that comes incredibly handy for getting into the battlefield and coming out fine while your opponents are a bit taken away. One of a melee character’s greatest weaknesses is their lack of angeling, nearly every melee naut has an ability that makes up for it, Scoop’s binding and hammer certainly makes up for his strike’s lack of power. Sword Strike’s early game is actually fairly decent, Leons have to think twice when taking you on because you can still sustain yourself far better than he can. For early game, bindings is great for getting yourself healed quickly without having to back down from pushes, and it’s 170 damage does wonders for finishing early game. Keep in mind, these upgrades range into 2 types, damage, and sustain, it’s generally considered a good idea for Scoop to pick up 2 damages and 1 sustain, of course the specifics matter, but that’s usually the pattern. Now, to go over his upgrade…
Type: sustain
Effect: Increase self healing by 100 each upgrade
Cost: 145 solar, 3 slots
Overall review: 4.5/10
Don’t get me wrong, Milk of Righteousness is kinda similar to Snow shovel in the sense that it’s not a bad upgrade, compared to others in certain combinations, you can do better, but you can do so much worse, but if you’re using Scoop’s binding in favor of damage vs sustain, then you may often use this when your health is fine, which means that you’re spending 435 solar for an ability that you’re not using to it’s full potential. It’s still a fantastic item for tanking multiple bursts.
Type: Damage
Effect: Hits nearby enemies every .2 seconds during binding, for a total of 5 hits, doing up to 60 damage per hit.
Cost: 170 for 3 stages
Overall Rating: 6/10
Triple Banner is a helpful upgrade for dealing additional damage and punishing enemies that have to get up close and personal… Or if you’re able to get up close and personal. Unlike the base burst and ice queen, Triple Banner benefits in not having to be a complete hit or miss, you can do just enough damage to an enemy that would manage to get out of range for your burst while charging up in some occassions. Although Triple Banner is nice to have, it is pretty expensive and does a total of 300 damage max on it’s own, making it much more of a late game tool. Comparing the full damages, Triple Banner canmake an enemy suffer 470, rather than Ice queen’s 330, but this is under the assumption that you can land ever bit of the banner, making this upgrade a bit iffy, and focused on taking out more stationary enemies, if you’re going triple banner, it’s a good idea to focus on your tracking, and maybe use a chasedown Scoop build.
Effect: Increases Binding’s end damage burst to 330 total
Cost: 170 solar, 2 stages
Overall Rating: 9/10
Once you get the hang of landing Scoop’s binding end damage, this item will become your bread and butter, causing enemies to suffer 330 damage after already taking hits from your hammer makes it fantastic for finishing enemies, It’s cheaper than triple banner, and doesn’t give any telltale signs in the animation that you bought the upgrade, causing enemies that aren’t checking your purchases to have a nasty surprise if they’re not paying attention. Great for early game minibursts as well as sustaining yourself while putting others on the spot.
Type: Damage
Effect: Increases damage of sword strike during Binding of Justice’s Charge by 50%
Cost: 225 solar, one stage
Overall Review: 3/10
This upgrade is pretty damn courageous to come out and say “Hey, I’m an upgrade for binding of justice focused around Scoop’s Sword Strike, and increase damage with your attacks of sword strike by x1.5 while you’re charging your binding. That’ll be 225 solar and one of your precious upgrade slots, please.” Scoops AA (auto attack) attack speed is enough for him to get one slash and one cleave in at base in a single second, that means, if you get the timing down perfectly, your slash and cleave will do an additional %50 damage boost off of it’s current attack power. This mean Scoop must always be within melee distance while charging binding to fully utilize this ability, and to use it effectively, he has to build several things into his AA for it to even be considered worthwhile, it’s an incredibly situational upgrade and as it is now, is simply a weaker version of HC Bomb or Pool Boy.
Type: Sustain
Effect: heal 300 health over a period of 5 seconds
Cost: 135 solar for 2 stages
Overall Rating: 6.5/10
Similar to the milk of Righteousness, except significantly more cost effective, and a few other differences that are not necesarily even downsides, due to penguin Squire’s heal over time, it is a less anti-burst heal, however, with it being cheaper and giving you more healing benefits in a single stage, it gives you fantastic early game sustain, and when you use the binding for burst and overhealed, if you are still taking damage in those 5 seconds, you are still getting healed, making it easier to ensure you don’t waste nearly as much of that healing power, giving you 60 health every second while fully upgraded, alongside your cleave’s lifesteal, Scoop can hold his own against DPS for an adequate amount of time.
Niz’s Personal Hated
Type: Sustain
Effect: Cleanse (cures all DoT on you and nearby teammates, giving any health not lost by DoT back.)
Cost: 90 solar, 1 stage
Overall Rating: 1.5/10
Cleansing cup is one of the most situational items in the game, and struggles to even excell when it’s in the situations where it does come in handy, there are several reasons why Cleansing cup is a waste of space in general, but if you’re not going to read that chapter, then I will say here, that it is an ability to counter DoT on a character that can already counter DoT well, in a game where very few characters center around DoT.
Why Holy Cup needs to be Cleansed
Gnaw’s base spit, Nibb’s Eternal Flame Damage over time upgrade, and Skolldir’s base earthquake do damage over time along the lines of 300, Skolldir’s earthquake does 350 damage.
Scoop’s binding of justice, simply at base, heals for 300 health, meaning that if Scoop gets hit by any of these, he can completely counter it with a binding afterwards, or if he’s already lacking 300 health, he can already heal and treat the situation as if it never happened. This is only one of the few flaws with Holy Cup, there are multiple to point out:
- Holy Cup provides no benefits when it comes to healing against enemies with no DoT abilities, or enemies who have DoT upgrades, but choose not to take them.
- Buying Holy Cup for the sake of sustaining yourself is usually pointless since Scoop’s binding already combats DoT, and if you have it available already, chances are, you’re going to see the light of day, holy cup or not.
- Penguin Squire combats DoT and still gives you healing in general.
- Holy Cup psychologically tells you to use bindings prematurely to get the most out of cancelling out DoT for you and perhaps your teammates.
- You’re still slower than most nauts, and they’re likely not going to hold still for a full second when burning to death to wait for your binding to give them just enough health to make it out alive.
- You SHOULDN’T feel like you need to get it to save teammates since everyone can get med-i-can.
All in all, there’s so much more you can do better with that slot than holy cup, just about anything else in any other situation would likely work better, even if you’re in a situation where Nibbs and Gnaw and heavily depending on their DoT against Scoop… For some reason… If you’re able to get a binding of 300 health in, and your base regen, you should be just fine in a majority of situations, if you die while trying to use your binding, holy cup wouldn’t have saved you anyway.
More about Sword Strike
Due to Sword Strike’s consistent attack speed, Scoop can do one Slash, and one cleave every second. Slash doing 100 damage, Cleave doing 60, meaning that his DPS is fairly easily tracked as 160 at base. Scoop’s well known for his abilities over his actual main attacks, this is because his attacks are fairly feeble, even when fully upgraded, with that being said, let’s go over his upgrades:
Effect: Increases attack speed by a total of 30%
Cost: 130 solar, 3 stages
Overall Rating: 6.5/10
Chain Mail Tunic is a decent, reliable upgrade because it’s the only upgrade in the entire row that increases his DPS for both attack patterns and is not situational, very reliable for an upgrade working with Scoop’s AA, if you’re thinking of having some more droid clearing power in your sword strike, this is a good place to start.
Effect: +60 damage for your slash in your sword strike.
Cost: 145 solar, 3 stages
Overall Rating: 4/10
60 damage is a nice amount to get on your AA, don’t get me wrong, the problem is, it’s only in his sword strike, but that’s not really the problem, 160 in a sword strike can be rather nice, however, Sword Strike itself is considerably the weaker of the two attacks of Scoop, this upgrade’s nice to have when you’re stacking damage, and dealing with a singular target, but I don’t find it very viable.
Effect: When near an enemy, all damage you do is increased by 20%
Cost: 110 solar, 2 stages
Overall Rating: 8/10
When it comes to AA upgrades, spoonman is one of the few upgrades that are taken before Scoop runs out of other things to buy outside from outside of his AA row. Due to it’s 20% increased damage when near teammates, it makes his damage yet more powerful from hammers, bindings, and melee, so it’s not a huge surprise when I say that this is RARELY ever purchased to do more damage with your sword strike, it is much more effective in team fights and is often purchased for hammer as an additional stage of brutally whipped cream, and sometimes getting even more burst in with your Binding of Justice, unfortunately, you don’t get to get that benefit nearly as often when your teammates won’t follow you in due to their lacking ability to instantly get 300 health back and harm their enemies in the process… Peasants.
Effect: +40 damage with Cleave, +10% Lifesteal on cleave.
Cost: 205 solar, 1 slot
Overall Rating: 7/10
If you’re going to use your AA as Scoop ever, Double Licker Sword is a fantastic choice, the illusion of this upgrade is that it only has a little lifesteal increase on it’s ability, but since it’s lifesteal was already a percentage and not a flat number, the +40 damage increases the lifesteal further, so with 30% lifesteal, and 100 damage a cleave, you heal back 30 health a cleave, and due to it’s piercing, you can hit groups of droids and get 60 health back a second, which is always handy when playing a tank. A lot of Scoop players who have outclassed me often pick this upgrade up, make of that what you will, but it certainly is handy in how it gives you so many small things that make Scoop’s combat, sustainability, and clearing potentiall significantly better for one purchase.
Effect: Heal 50% of your health when an enemy Awesomenaut dies.
Cost: 205 solar, one stage
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
Halberd of Justice comes incredibly in handy in moments where you’re in a team fight and take considerable amounts of damage, and are about to be finished as a trade off for an enemy naut death, in fact, in exchanges where someone dies on both sides and a large amount of health is lost, more often than not, with the Halberd, Scoop’s the one who will still be standing his ground in the lane. Although very situational, it’s very good to have for the brave who take leaps of faith to finish an enemy while the enemy team is ready to end you the nanosecond your moment of glory ends. This ability heals at the minimum 800 health per enemy naut death, which is enough to survive most cases of burst and allow you to get out to spam that taunt button to your heart’s desire, I won’t judge, the Halberd will though.
Effect: +50 sword strike damage when below 70% health.
Cost: 160 solar, 2 stages
Overall Rating: 6.75/10
Titanium Coneshield is similar to Halberd in multiple ways, in the sense that they’re both pretty situational, they both only really benefit when you’re not currently a healthy little peach, and they both become much better with the purchase of power pills. Since Titanium coneshield increases both your damages by 50, is average in pricing, and the situational part can be countered with certain upgrades, it is certainly an upgrade worth picking up if you use your AA, this is a bit more challenging to run with than some other upgrades but when it comes to dealing more damage and having more pushing power when turret diving, this is certainly nice to have.
Sword Strike: Slash vs Cleave
Ok, yeah, this one’s going to be a bit of a stickler part of the guide, but it’s always good for Scoop players to know that their Slash attack and their Cleave are very different attacks, and although it’s not as important As Leon’s Clover of Honour, it’s certainly important to know the differences. For the sake of reviewing, I’ll go over the attack patterns again.
Damage: 100
Lifesteal: none
Piercing: no
Range: 3.4
Damage: 60
Lifesteal: 20%
Piercing: Yes
Range: 3.9
When it comes to the general overview, Cleave is superior to Slash, yes, no matter how much cleave is upgraded, Slash will always do equal to or more than Cleave will, even so, Cleave has piercing, lifesteal, and more range. These are all small things that make it stronger, If Cleave lacked lifesteal or piercing, the combination would not be as good, but since he can pierce and lifesteal, cleave allows Scoop to have sustainability of 24 health a second when hitting a set of droids, which is 1,440 health per minute, already giving him the sustainability that can compete with med-i-can, although it’s not passive, Scoop simply being in action with cleave gives him health back. We then have to go over the fact that he does 100 damage on a slash for droids, although Cleave only does 60 damage, it can hit both droids in a group, allowing him to do a total of 120 among them, and that’s only if there are two, if there were a stack of 4, Scoop can deal a total of 240 damage among them all with his cleave vs his 100 damage slash, allowing him to sustain himself and deal with crowds much easier.
Another small important detail about Cleave over slash is that their range difference is .5, this means, In slash vs cleave, not only can cleave go through multiple enemies, give Scoop health back outside of his binding, but allows him to reach out and hit enemies up to 15% farther than his slash could reach them, which, when an enemy is hanging by the wire, being able to tap them with that 60 damage can mean them going to the shop to heal, or you going to the shop with the solar from your kill.
Small Tips
Now, to finish stuff off, a few small tips that can change the game for you when playing Scoop.
- Always aim in front of the ground of your opponent when throwing a hammer, the bounce makes it more difficult to jump over or avoid than a hammer thrown in a normal arc.
- When you need to rely on snares to escape, get creative with your hammers, hit them against places they will reflect to hit the enemy instead of hitting them in the face with the hammer to maximize your head start when escaping.
- Binding Of Justice is a type of targeting system, if you prepare it and it goes off right after someone takes a jump pad immediately before detonation, it will still register and hit them from the distance.
- If your opponent is surviving with incredibly low health from your assaults with binding+hammer, carefully check your environment, will any droids block a slash? If not, go for the extra 100 damage hitting them with a slash, or if you think that they’ll begin to outrun you, have a Cleave ready to end your opponent before they’re out of range.
- When an enemy is not too low on health and heading to their turret, don’t aim the hammer directly at them when you know it won’t get the kill, if you have twister lance, bounce the hammer off the turret to hit them when they’re heading towards it for greater amounts of damage and snare time, and perhaps even landing the kill.
- Don’t throw your hammers upward, when you throw a hammer, you want to have it bounce from the ground from being thrown downward, increasing it’s maximum range, and the bounce including it’s hitbox making it more difficult to avoid.
- It’s not unheard of to think Hammers damage and snare time are reliant on the hammer’s distance, this is false. The hammer’s damage and snare time is centered around how close it is from disapearing before it hits somebody, throwing a hammer straight up at an enemy, going up about 5 feet, tapping them lightly, then disapearing will often be just as effective as throwing the hammer from across the lane and hitting them at full speed and the hammer disapearing around the same time it did in the example mentioned above.
Credits
and with this, I conclude my guide on the character Scoop, I would like to give my thanks and regards to the Awesomenauts Gamepedia website for making the information easy to access, and thank you for reading the guide, keep serving that cold justice.
Credit to NerveAweNuh and Da Man for the input about Ice Cream Van Music rating change.