Awesomenauts 101 – Tips for beginners and pros alike! [Semi-advanced guide] [NOT UPDATING]

Overview

A little guide that tries to cover pretty much everything you need in order to understand the game!If you feel you’re losing every game and don’t know what to do to turn things around, this is the guide for you!It’s a bit big on the text, but there’s a small section where things have been simplified and compressed near the bottom for those of you that don’t want to spend too much time reading 😉

Welcome to Awesomenauts 101

This here is a “small” guide with what I hope is some valuable tips for both new and old players alike.

Disclaimer:
The following is in no way absolute and I may be dead wrong about some of it, but I hope there is something in here to help you step up your game and net you some extra wins. Also, a lot of the stuff down here is common sense to many, but for some, it’s something they’ve never even considered.

If there are some terms I’ve not explained correctly, check This thread![www.awesomenauts.com] on the Awesomenauts forums. If it’s not there, either reply to this thread or PM me and I’ll clarify what I mean.

For those of you that feel that it’s TOO MUCH TEXT: Check out the “Lazy man’s Awesomenauts 101” section

If you feel that there is something I should add/remove/change, please comment, mentioning what should be changed and why. There may also be some mistakes in there, if you find any, please point them out (I’m only human after all :P).

The basics of the game

Awesomenauts is commonly referred to as a 2d MOBA combined with a fighting game. The objective of the game is to destroy the opposing team’s towers in order to reach and destroy their drill core.

There are various playable characters (from now on referred to as ‘nauts) in the game, with new additions to the roster appearing every now and then. Each ‘naut has three unique skills with unique upgrades making every ‘naut a different experience. Each ‘naut focuses different ways to reach the objective. For example; Some are better at killing players than others, some are good at locking people in place ensuring that they’re easy to kill, some are good at supporting the team and some are good at pushing and destroying towers.

During the match, your character gradually grows stronger by purchasing items in the shop. Which items are available depends on which ‘naut you are playing as and which set of items you have in your load out. On the load out screen before each match, you choose three items for each of the three skills and three utility items that will be available for you to purchase during the match. Every character has six items per skill and six utility items, so there are plenty of ways to customize your character to better suit your play style.

Items are purchased with the game’s currency, solar, which is automatically earned over time. You can also gain solar by picking up solar that spawns around the map or by destroying droids, killing neutral creeps, killing players, or destroying towers. There are also a few additional ‘naut specific ways to earn more solar.

The basics of the match

At the start of the match and anytime you die, you fly a drop pod down to your base which acts as a little solar gathering mini game. Solar is strewn in a pattern on your way down, and by steering your drop pod left and right, you can collect the solar, giving you an extra boost to buy upgrades with at the start of the game or earn back the solar you lose upon death.

When you land, you head into your base, buy your starting skill(s) and upgrades and head into the lanes in order to farm solar, kill players and damage and eventually destroy towers. You can teleport back to the base at anytime by holding down the F key and standing still for 3 seconds. At the base, you can heal and buy additional upgrades, the teleport is one way though, so you’ll have to walk all the way back to the battlefield, so don’t teleport back to the base when you don’t have to.

The map layout
The maps are made up of various areas. At the beginning only the middle area is available to both teams due to the towers blocking of access to the areas behind them to the opposing team. The middle area consists of one or two lanes and one or two neutral “jungle” areas.

The lanes are the paths to the towers and the paths that your droids will take in order to reach the other team’s towers. The neutral jungles are places to either farm some extra solar or heal up. Neutral creeps spawn in the jungles which upon death heals 30HP and gives 3 solar, they respawn 30 seconds after being killed so be sure to be a frequent visitor, either to keep your HP as high as possible, grab some easy solar or make sure there aren’t any creeps there for your opponents when they want to heal/farm solar.

Droids!
The droids of each team spawns at regular intervals and continually move towards the enemy towers until they are destroyed. When they’re next to an enemy droid, ‘naut or tower they will attack it until it or they are destroyed. Upon reaching a tower, the saw blade droids (Which is the basic type of droid) will deploy a shield, granting them an extra 30HP. This buff is triggered every time they get within reach of the tower, so pushing them back out of the tower’s reach will enable them to deploy the shield again and gain the extra 30HP again since they don’t lose any HP when they’re outside of tower range, their max hp just goes down.

Tower destruction and super droids
When a tower is destroyed, the one who dealt the finishing blow gets a 30 solar reward as well as him and his entire team getting 30 solar each (A combined reward of 120 solar, yikes!) and a super droid spawns at their base. The super droid is a stronger droid with an AoE bazooka that does 40 damage to everyone hit, which is a great help in pushing towers. It also drops a large amount of solar, so neglecting your super droid isn’t that good since it’s a large solar boost to your enemies if they destroy it.

Once you destroy the tower, you can move past it, allowing you to reach the enemy’s next tower and once that is destroyed, the enemy’s drill core. On some maps, moving past the place where certain towers stood disables force fields, which gives you an additional route into the new area.

Once you destroy the drill core, it’s game over. You don’t have to destroy all the towers on a map, but sometimes, destroying extra towers can be the key to success due to the escape/attack routes, extra solar and super droid that it gives you.

Situational awareness and planning

One of the most important parts of Awesomenauts (And A LOT of other things, so better pick up on this now!), is situational awareness. In order to make accurate predictions, you have to have as much information as possible. Where are your opponents? Who are they playing as? What can they do? Where are you? Where are your team mates? What can you do? What can they do, and what can you count on them doing? The questions you can ask yourself in order to collect the data you need to achieve victory are many. Now, asking and answering them in the heat of the battle can seem like a chore, but there are numerous ways to speed the process up, simplify it and in due time, make the process automatic without you even have to think about it.

The mini map
One of the most useful tools for gathering a boat load of useful information is the mini map. It shows you where you are, where your team mates are, and a lot of the time, where your opponents are (And where they’re not. That’s quite a good thing to know!). You can always see where friendly units are on the mini map, and you can see where neutral and hostile units are as long as they’re within a friendly unit’s vision (‘naut, droid, turret). This lets you use your droids to keep track of the enemy, you don’t actually have to venture out and scout yourself. Some ‘nauts can also spawn units that can help you with vision (Gnaw’s weedlings and Raelynn’s saw blade summon). Sometimes, having vision and keeping track of the enemy can be invaluable, helping you keep track of safe zones, avoiding ambushes etc. Collect information about the match situation using the mini map and use it to turn the game in your favor!

Also, remember that it works in the exact same fashion for the enemy. That means, that as long as you don’t have an enemy unit on your screen (Be careful of invisible Leons ;), you’re off the radar for the enemy, which is a great starting point for ganks and backdooring! And again, the same is true in reverse, just because you can’t see the enemy doesn’t mean that they won’t swoop in the next second, stun you and horribly kill you while feasting on the solar that will explode from your insides!

The scoreboard
Pressing and holding TAB brings up the scoreboard. Here, you can see kills/deaths and creep kills. You can also see what upgrades the opponent has bought, which can be extremely important information, just press the up/down arrows to scroll through the players. Knowing what upgrades an opponent has is extremely important when coming up with a plan. Will the Clunk be able to snare bite me or not? Does he have slow on his explode? Knowing this can give you a nice edge in battles. You only see the icons of the upgrades that’vebeen bought, so make sure you memorize what ability has which icon, especially the one’s that have a huge impact on the game, like CCs, range and large damage boosts.

Have a plan, to kill everyone you meet…
The most important thing, if you ask me, is to always keep your head cool and plan your game. Don’t just rush in without thinking things through or looking over the situation. Make sure you know what’s going on, and how you’re going to tackle it before you hop into the middle of a group of ‘nauts. The man with the plan is the one who gets the ham!

Positioning

Positioning is extremely important in Awesomenauts. Make sure you’re always in the most optimal place as possible. For example, standing next to a Clunk with snare bite and max damage explode is usually a bad thing to do unless he’s stunned or won’t be able to react. So make sure you’ve got enough distance between you and the opponents so that they can’t reach you with their attacks AND that you’re far enough away that you can react to their movement and respond, either with a counter attack or with a tactical retreat (Running away is not cowardly if the option is dying ;).

Map position
Keep track of where on the map you’re standing. The closer you are to the opponents’ side you are, the longer it’ll take for you to reach/get back up and the reverse is true for your opponents. Don’t chase an enemy into enemy territory unless you know that you can handle some extra company. For example, chasing a Lonestar to their turrets might end up with you being attacked from behind by their Clunk, snare bitten and exploded to death. Know your safe zone and be careful when you’re outside if them.

Higher ground
Make sure you’re also standing in a place so that you have the upper hand. Higher ground is a good example. Due to gravity pulling people downward, it’s usually harder to travel up than down, giving you and advantage. Some attacks are also affected by gravity, like Lonestar’s dynamite, so having higher ground will let you either rain down death from above if you’re the Lonestar or avoid said bombardment if you’re facing one.

Solid Walls
Also make sure you’re using walls to your advantage. They can shield you from a variety of attacks and in the case of Coco, you can also attack through them while your opponent can’t scratch you unless they go around (Or have a Coco of their own). A good example of walls being a god send is Raelynn’s snipe. It’s a 80 damage quick burst that’s pretty much unavoidable if the Raelynn’s got good aim, or is it? Stand behind a wall or close enough so that you can jump behind it when the Raelynn charges her laser and you’re home free! After she’s wasted her cool down, you’ve got nine second to run around out in the open and create chaos!

Glass platforms
Glass platforms are also a great tool if used right. They can be used to drop down in order to avoid attacks without wasting a jump (Falling through a platform actually let’s you jump while airborne, even with characters that only have one jump), thus avoiding that whole situation where you’re predictable as crap while falling down.

Jump pads
Jump pads should also be taken into consideration, they allow for a quick retreat, nets you a second jump after you’ve used them and are excellent tools for juking. They can be used both offensively and defensively, allowing for fast travel between places, allowing you to get the jump on your enemies. Remember, if they don’t have the time to react, they might as well have been stunned. An example of a jump pad used in an offensive manner is the bottom lane jump pad on Ribbit IV (The jungle map). You spot an enemy on the top lane (Using the mini map 😉 who is busy with something else, grab the jump pad, fly upwards with max speed and attack as soon as you’re within reach (Can be hard to pull of the timing, but it’s doable and extremely potent on an unsuspecting opponent). It can also be used to remove the negative effects of the charge time for certain abilities, like Raelynn’s sniper or Derpl’s siege mode/nuke, by activating them while moving through the air with the jump pad. Bam! Insta snipe! Well it’ll feel like that for your opponents at least.

The world is your sword and your shield
Remember to utilize ALL the tools you have at your disposal. They’re more than just an auto attack and two cool-down skills, they’re everything around you, and they’re also your opponents and their skills. Know their strengths and weaknesses and position yourself where you’re at your strongest and they’re at their weakest. If they can’t reach you with their attacks where you’re standing, you’ve pretty much nullified those attacks, just by being at the right place. And if they move into a position that’s bad for them, make sure to punish them for it, whether it be just a poke or a kill. And as always, it works in reverse. Make sure you attack from the most optimal place in order to ensure you take as little damage as possible, and making it as hard as possible for the opponents to react and counter/retreat.

The turret is a “safe” zone
You’re not entirely safe while behind your turret. Various abilities can reach you even when you’re behind your turret, such as Coco’s ball lightning and Skølldir’s throw. Make sure you know which ‘nauts can reach you when you’re behind your turret and don’t let your guard down when you’re playing against them.

So, to summarize: The key to positioning is to be aware of your surroundings, your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses as well as your own, and try to tip scales in your favor using the tools at your disposal. Choose your battles and back away when you’re in a bad situation and try and lure your enemy into a position that’s advantageous to you instead of them. Also, you’re not always safe behind your turret, just safer.

Death and dying

The game is not about scoring kills it’s about destroying turrets and lastly, the enemy team’s drill core. A team with 3x 0/10 can hypothetically win as long as they push better and manage to stave off the enemy’s pushes. Sure, it helps to score kills since it nets you some extra money, and it also gives you (Hopefully) superior numbers for a short while. But this is merely an advantage, and an advantage doesn’t mean a sure win. It only means you have better odds and the odds shift at all times, meaning that if you don’t act when you have the upper hand, you might lose your advantage. For example, the superior numbers gained by killing someone is worth nothing unless you use that time for something productive (Like pushing the lanes and putting pressure on your opponents). And the extra solar gained can just as easily be evened out if the enemy scores a kill on your team. And all them levels don’t mean anything if you can’t hit your enemies. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got max damage if your attacks aren’t hitting the opponents.

Make sure you have the advantage, and not your enemies!
But alas, an advantage is still an advantage if it’s utilized. So make sure it’s YOU who have that advantage and not the enemy. Play it safe, don’t chase into dangerous territory unless you’re sure you can survive. You dying is a pretty hefty boost to the opponents if it’s at the wrong time and even if it isn’t, it’s still an advantage, and it’ll add up if you keep on dying. But all is not lost if that kill manages to escape, they were probably hurt quite badly and need to go back to base to heal which will take a little while. Use this time you managed to “win” to your advantage, for example to push the lanes and get closer to their turrets. Also, most of the time it’s not a good thing to go for kills that will end up in a “draw”, i.e. both you and the opponent dying, due to the fact that no one actually gets anything from it. Depending on who dies, it can actually be crippling with draw. Your most potent defender dying can result in a much easier push for the opponent. Even though it’ll be 2v2, depending on the match up, it can be a pretty one sided scenario. So don’t gamble with bad odds unless you REALLY have to. Dying is never a good thing, and the yields of a suicide run very seldom make up for the sacrifice.

So, to summarize: Don’t risk your life going after risky kills unless you absolutely have to! Staying alive is far more important than getting kills. Make sure you know where you are and where your team mates as well as your enemies are in order to know how safe it is to move around in a particular area of the map. Always be wary when you’re in a high risk area (The enemy’s side of the map for example), and be prepared to escape at all times if you’re alone and/or low on health.

Strength in numbers!

The more of you there are, the more damage you will deal and the faster you will deal it. You will also have a higher combined health pool, allowing you to soak more damage. You’ll have the ability to surround the enemy, access to more abilities with various effects etc. In other words, EVERYTHING is better in a group. This means that you should never stray too far away from your team mates. You’re much more threatening when you’re together than when you’re alone, and you’re also safer. Sure, you sometimes have to run around on your own, whether it’s to collect some extra solar, push another lane, grab some health or something else. But always keep in mind, that if you’re alone, you’re weak. Make sure that you don’t over extend and get trapped by the enemy while you’re far away from your team making them unable to help you. The closer you are to your team, the faster they will be able to help you, whether it be you escaping towards them or they moving towards you.

And as always, the reverse is true as well. The closer the enemy is to his team, the faster and more likely it is that he/she will get back up. So, fighting that weak Froggy G by the enemy’s tower might not always be such a good idea, because due to how close you are to their base, help can and probably will arrive.

Don’t teleport everyone at the same time
This is also important while on the defense. Don’t teleport back to the shop all at the same time, since this will end up with an undefended turret, which can result in some quick turret destruction for the enemy team if they push during the time you’re all shopping. Make sure you only teleport back one at the time. Even when you’re very low on hp, a lot of the time, you can contribute to the defense even while standing behind the tower with your ranged attacks. Sometimes, this will be enough to repel a push, and you didn’t even go into range of the enemy!

Use voice commands!
When you’re playing with random people, or when you’re just not using voice chat, voice commands are invaluable to bring stuff to your team’s attention. If you need help, press 2 and they’ll get a message and a marker on the mini map, hopefully ending with them helping you. Attack and defend can be used as well. Attack can be used either to signal you initiating, you wanting someone else to initiate, or just plain pushing. Defend can be used to signal a withdrawal, you heading back to base or tell your team to defend a turret under attack. They’re not perfect in any way, but a lot of the time, they can be useful since they’re A LOT safer and faster than typing.

Summary: The more friends you have close to you, the safer and stronger you are. So stay close to your team mates as much as possible. And remember that the enemy can also get backup, so that lone player might not be such a sure kill that you thought since his friends might jump in at any moment and stun lock you and then proceed with killing you. Also, remember to keep people on the defense at all time, don’t leave the turret undefended by teleporting back to base everyone at the same time

Footsienauts and you!

Footsies is a term that comes from fighting games. It’s where you’re putting pressure on your enemy with attacks, moving back and forth, hoping to make the enemy commit a mistake allowing you to move in and kill them. I can be as simple as moving into a “worse” position in order to lure the enemy out, poking them with ranged attacks for small amounts of damage to lower their health making it dangerous for them to stay on lane. The goal is to abuse mistakes made by the enemy in order to gradually weaken them and/or kill them, allowing you in the end to push toward their turret and damage/destroy it.

Sometimes you have to pull and sometimes you have to let go a little
The trick in footsies is to always be on your toes, knowing how much you can advance on the opponent while at the same time being able to dodge their attacks. It’s like a game of tug o’ war. Sometimes you put hard pressure on the enemy to later lean back and play it safer letting them get close, just to quickly moving in as soon as they over extend. You move back and forth until someone slips up and advances too far or simply not backing up in time. The basics are pretty simple, but it requires a lot of practice to get it right, since there are loads of factors that one needs to be aware of. Most importantly I’d say is to know just how far attacks reach and how fast the characters move, since it’s all about moving back and forth.

Zoning

Zoning could be considered a part of footsienauts. It’s pretty much a zone where you’re able to react before the opponent reaches you and counter attack. Coco’s Ball Lightning and Raelynn’s Sniper are two good examples of good zoning abilities, due to their long range and knock back properties. You see the enemy advancing, when they get close enough, you attack and damage them before they can reach you. If they’re still a threat, you withdraw, if they’re weak enough, and it’s safe, you move in and finish the job. It’s mostly a mid- long range tactic, but can be employed as long as you can attack the enemy before they can reach you and still let you dodge their attacks.

Look for openings

Make sure you’re always on the lookout for openings. Whenever the opponent makes a mistake, make sure you take advantage of it and punish them, whether it’s them over extending (Moving to close), wasting a cool down skill, taking unnecessary damage from a level hazard or a droid. Whatever it is, make sure you take advantage of it, otherwise, the mistake they just made doesn’t matter.

Abuse cool-downs
Cool-down skills are very powerful, but once you’ve used them, you can’t use them until the timer reaches zero. This is when you move in on the enemy. If, for example, a Coco uses her Ball lightning, then that’s 5-7 seconds she can’t use it again. Move close, put pressure on her and try and get her before she can use her cool-down again. However, if you can’t finish the job before she can use the cool-down skill again and can’t shrug of a hit from it, withdraw before it’s available again.

Keep track of your team mates
If, for example, a Froggy G moves in on the enemy and stuns them, make sure you’re there to back him up and take advantage of the stun. Sure, sometimes the Frog launches himself into certain death and there is no way you can move in together with him and help him out. But a lot of times, you can move in without much risk and put some hurt on the opponents. If you don’t, the Frog might actually have put himself in a really bad position, due to not getting the support he should have gotten. Make sure you don’t miss the openings created by your team mates; otherwise they might become openings for your opponents instead. As mentioned earlier, team work is over powered.

Roaming

Roaming is the act of moving between lanes instead of staying put in one place. It can be used in order to put pressure on multiple lanes at the same time. It is best employed by fast characters that can kill droids fast. Coco, Raelynn, Froggy, Leon and also Lonestar to some extent (His slow movement can be quite the con, but on some maps, the vertical movement makes up for it) are good roamers.

There’s usually more than one lane
Most of the time, it’s best to concentrate your efforts on one lane, due to the fact that superior numbers result in a much stronger and safer pushing force. This usually leaves one lane neglected, which will result in the droids pretty much being the only ones doing pushing on the bottom lane. The thing is, droids actually do quite good damage when they reach a turret unchallenged by enemy droids/’nauts so it’s in your interest that your droids reach the enemy’s turret instead of theirs reaching yours. So, tending t the sub lane is really important. This where the roamers come into play! Due to their fast burst and high movement speed, they can push the bottom lane while spending as little time as possible on it, letting them return to the team faster than other ‘nauts. This basically either ends up with letting you get a free push on the sub lane if the enemy neglects the droids or, if they attend to them, superior numbers on the top lane for your team, if your teams roamer(s) does the job the fastest.

It’s not a perfect plan though…
It’s not without its backsides though. When you’re roamer is away on his/her business, the main lane’s defense will be thinner, so the people there will have to play it a lot safer until the roamer returns. Droids are pretty weak, and ‘nauts can’t really approach a turret unless they’re accompanied by them, so make sure you stay back and focus on destroying the droids with your ranged attacks and you’ll be fine.

Why it works
Roaming works because you don’t always need all three players in order to defend properly, due to being backed up by your turret. Pushing against a defended turret however requires superior or equal numbers in order to be safe and effective.

Keep it to one roamer unless you’ve got a good reason to have more
It’s usually not good to have more than one roamer unless the third ‘naut is a really good defender due to the lack of defensive power on the top lane. Theoretically, you can have an entire team composed of roamers, moving your pressure at all times, creating one big huge race of the pushing. It would be hard to pull off correctly, but if done right, it could open up a lot of ganking situations while the enemies are also moving between lanes, but this requires a lot of team work and good communication to pull of so I only recommend it to advanced players.

There’s a time and place for everything!

Everything has it’s time and place. Running back and forth between the shop consumes time for example, lowers your team’s defenses for the time you’re away, so doing this regularly is ill advised Do it only when you’ve got pressure on the enemy, since doing it while they’re pushing your turret will most likely result in a lost turret for your team. It might not always be the best course of action when on the offense either. Sometimes it’s better to keep on pushing, even though you might have 600-700 solar in your bank account. For example, you might have a really good push going and going back to shop would let the enemies push you back. Sometimes, a good push is worth more than the upgrades a few hundred solar can buy you. Wager the pros and cons before you teleport back to shop/heal. Do you REALLY need that extra damage/health/stun duration/etc. right now? Are you actually in danger due to your low hp at the moment?

The same, as mentioned earlier, applies to offense and other stuff as well. Are you really in a position to chase that low HP ‘naut that’s escaping? Will you be able to kill him before he reaches safety/gets back up? And if you can’t, will you be able to survive if the enemy gets to you? Should you really be pushing alone right now? Perhaps you should draw back and heal in order to better defend? Wager the pros and cons against each other before you do something that SEEMS to be a good thing.

Be efficient!

Time is money! Make sure you’re always doing something that’s contributing to your cause. Sometimes, being passive is the way to go, but a lot of times, moving around is far better, since it keeps you from becoming to predictable. If you’re standing by your turret all of the time, the enemy will know exactly where you are and can use this to their advantage. If you move around, you’re harder to predict and your threat area isn’t as easy to calculate, making it harder for the enemy to approach safely. Also, when moving around, make sure you kill all droids you come across, pick up all the solar off the ground and kill neutral creeps (Unless someone else needs the health more than you). And while moving around, use the most efficient routes. Can you use a jump pad to reach your destination faster? Which route will give you the best advantage in terms of position? There are loads of ways to be more efficient. Make sure you’re looking for them and using them when you find them.

Make sure you’re doing everything as efficiently as possible, don’t idle unless you have to, try and not spend too much time in shop etc.

Who needs it the most?

Do you really need that health pack? Or does your almost dead Voltar need it more than you? Who will be able to make most use of it? Perhaps it’s best for you to take it and the Voltar to go back to base and heal there instead? Or maybe the Voltar should grab it and then heal you, gaining some extra solar while at the same time still being on lane? It all depends on the situation.

Share the neutrals
The same goes for neutral creeps. If four neutral creeps spawn in the jungle and you and a team mate goes up there to heal. You’ll be at full hp after two creeps, so don’t grab all four of them. Let your team mate take the other two. You’d gain six solar from killing them while he’d gain six solar AND 60 health. Remember that you’re in a team, if you’re team mates are in a better position, so are you. Be considerate. Also, make sure you check the mini map before you kill neutral creeps, maybe a team mate is on his way to the jungle in desperate need of healing, while you’re at full hp and will only gain a small amount of solar from the creeps. Let him grab the health and solar enabling him to stay on lane and avoid teleporting back. Teleporting back for just health should always be avoided if possible.

Defense before offense!

Always prioritize defense before offense. This is true in all aspects of the game, but most important when it comes to turrets. You can’t heal your turrets, once the damage is done, it’s there to stay. The only way to handle it is to make sure the damage is never done in the first place. Don’t let the enemy reach your turret, whether it be their ‘nauts or their droids. The turrets are your entire team’s life bar, and as mentioned, it can’t be refilled, unlike yours, so if damage to the turret can be prevented by taking damage in it’s place, do it, unless it puts you in risk of dying.

Don’t defend next to the turret, if you don’t have to
Make sure you don’t defend right by the turret if possible. The enemy droids will get health boosts if they get close enough, which makes it harder to dispatch of them fast. Also, if the enemy has droids with them to your tower, the turret will attack the droids instead of the ‘nauts, making it much safer for the enemy to stand next to your tower and damage it. Put up your defense about half a screen to a screen away. This will give you enough time to deal with the enemy droids before they get their health boost, while still putting you close enough to the turret to retreat behind it if things get sour. It also makes it MUCH harder for the enemy to get damage in on the turret due to the distance as well as you still defending the way to it.

Dodge, dodge, dodge!
Prioritize avoiding attacks before landing your own. As mentioned in the footsienauts section, damage adds up, and sooner or later, you’ll either die or you’ll be forced to retreat if you take too much damage. Remember, an attack that doesn’t hit you is equally worthless no matter how many upgrades it has. It doesn’t matter if the Leon has maxed out his auto attack damage. If the attacks don’t connect, they’ll deal zero damage.

Buff your health bar
Make sure you grab HP. It’s nearly impossible to not get hit all for the entire duration of the match, so make sure you have enough health to cover for your lack of dodging ability. The more HP you have, the more room you have for mistakes. Technically, you can play without any HP upgrades as long as you don’t get hit, but by end game, you WILL get OHKO’d by nearly every ‘naut if they manage to hit you with an attack. If you’re confident in your ability to dodge the enemies’ attacks, you can skimp on the HP, but in an environment where you’re fighting people of equal skill, you can pretty much assume you will get hit, and thus, HP will be a life saver. So DON’T skimp on your health upgrades.

Higher health also let’s you tank more damage, i.e. take attacks in someone else’s place. It could be a turret being attacked, a droid wave you want to reach the enemy with as much HP as possible or it could be a team mate running from an enemy that needs some shielding. The more HP you have, the more you can tank before you’re put at risk.

Don’t over commit!
When in a fight, always keep track of how things are progressing. If things go south, don’t stay in the battle, withdraw and heal up or try and move the battle to a better position.

Restricting movement

Awesomenauts is an action platformer, thus, movement is a HUGE part of the game. The more freely you’re able to move around, the bigger advantage you have. And as always, the opposite is true as well. The more restricted your movement is, the less freedom you have and the more predictable you’ll be. Therefore, controlling the enemy’s movement is an extremely potent weapon.

Body blocking
You can’t move through enemy units. This is something that can be used to your advantage since you can pretty much block an enemy from moving past you if you time your jumps with theirs well enough. If they try to move past you and you don’t want them to, try and predict their movement and make sure you jump so that you’re always parallel to them, this prevents them from getting past you and can be a deciding factor in if they die or not. You can lock them in place between you and your turret, you can keep them in place just long enough for your cool down to be useable again or for you to get enough time to land those last auto attacks that will finish the job.

Traps, mines, weedlings, rifts…
There are various abilities in the game that creates entities on the field with negative effects for the enemies and/or positive effects for allies. If used correctly, it can limit the enemy’s movement severely which can give you a huge advantage. A Derpl snare trap/Yuri mine place on an important platform can limit the enemy’s movement tremendously, making it much easier to land attacks on them, since the area in which they can move through freely has been limited. Sure, they can move through that area, but they’ll have to face the penalty of a snare/damage, which is not something one wants to be doing on a regular basis. But it’s possible for them to ignore the hazards, so make sure you take advantage of their recklessness and punish them even further.

Level hazards are great tools, both offensively and defensively, since you’re limiting the enemy’s movement, but not your own. A nest of weedlings, for example, can be the perfect safe zone, since carelessly moving through it will result in large amounts of damage. But they’re only effective if they’re put in the right place. If they’re in a place where they can be avoided without much penalty, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re playing a ‘naut with level hazards, make sure you look at good places to place them. A Yuri throwing down mines at random is laughable compared to one who knows where to put his mines in order to deny as much important movement for the enemy as possible.

Some tips on where to place your hazards
Glass platforms are usually good targets for level hazards since you can move through them from underneath as well, making jumping when you’re under them potentially dangerous. They’re also used to reach various places, meaning a well placed snare can pretty much lock an entire area off for the enemies. Placing snares/mines/etc. in the path of a jump pad is gold as well, since using the jump pad will automatically put you in the path of the hazard, thus, you’re invoking a penalty on using that jump pad, which if ignored could prove fatal for the enemy.

It’s not only about the numbers

A game isn’t won with numbers. The superior DPS isn’t what let’s you win, which should be obvious if you’ve read so far. Sure, damage is great to grab, both as a means of winning battles and as a psychological tool. But sometimes, sacrificing damage for some utility can be extremely potent. A good example is Skølldir’s range upgrade. It doesn’t really net you any extra damage, but it lets him hit stuff with his third punch much easier and ups his threat radius by a huge amount, making it more potent than picking a damage upgrade over it in most situations.

The same applies to level hazards. Sure, you can get higher DPS with Yuri’s mines if you grab cool-down reduction instead of lifetime. But the lifetime upgrade gives you the advantage of time, you don’t have to refresh your level hazards as often, leaving less openings to the enemy when you’re replacing them.

It’s not about of the numbers, but effect you get.

Character specific stuff

Go to this topic on the Awesomenauts forums for some great character specific tricks: Click![www.awesomenauts.com]

Team compositions and roles

Check this great guide on team composition and team roles out:
Awesomenauts forum link![www.awesomenauts.com]

It should give you everything you need to know about the various roles and how to create a good team composition.

Lazy man’s Awesomenauts 101

-The game’s won by destroying towers and the core, not by killing players. Prioritize that!
-Defend your turrets! Their hp can’t be regenerated. Any damage done is there to stay. Make sure your opponents can’t get close enough to damage your turrets!
-Work on your situational awareness, make sure you know everything that’s going on in the match.
-Don’t just rush in, make sure you know what’s going on and have a plan on how you’re going to handle it.
-Watch the mini map at all times!
-Keep track of the opponent’s upgrades.

-Position yourself so that you have an advantage over the opponent.
-Higher ground is great!
-Use your surroundings to your advantage.
-Your turret is a “safe” zone. There are plenty of abilities that can reach you if you’re standing in the model of the turret. Make sure you know the range of abilities and if a ‘naut can attack you while you’re behind your turret (Coco and Skølldir for example).

-Kills don’t win you the game, they merely give you an advantage
-Advantages can be lost if not used
-Avoid dying, most often, it’s a pure disadvantage and if not, you can nearly always hope for a “draw” at most.
-Play it safe! Don’t take unnecessary risks, avoid damage whenever possible and make sure you always have a way to escape if things go south.

-Strength in numbers! Make sure you stick together with your team as much as possible, and if you’re alone, make sure you have a darn good reason for being so and that you have a VERY reliable way to escape.
-The closer you’re to the enemy’s core you are, the less safety you have and the more the opponent has. If you’re alone, you’re support is less reliable and vice versa for the opponents.
-Don’t teleport back to base the entire team all at once. DON’T leave your turrets undefended, no matter how low your HP is, most characters can destroy droids from behind the safety of your tower, so teleport back one at the time in order to not leave your defenses entirely down.
-Use voice commands!

-Learn how footsies work, it’s an integral part of the game!

-Learn how to zone properly!

-Don’t neglect your sub lane. Droids can deal large amounts of damage to your turrets even on their own. If you have a good roamer on your team, let them handle the sub lane and make sure the enemy droids doesn’t reach your turret.

-Look at all options available. Sometimes, going back to shop might be an incredibly bad idea if you’ve got an incredibly good push going for example, no matter how much solar you’ve got on hand. Wait ‘til the push ends and go back and shop after that.
-The same goes for attacking. Sometimes, it’s better to pull back instead of pursuing opponents or pushing. If the opponents have a large advantage over you, play defensively and wait until you have the upper hand before you go on the offense.

-Pick up gray solar from the ground wherever you go. It adds up over the course of the game and can potentially earn you quite a few levels.
-Stay on the move, if you’re moving around, you’re less predictable and your threat area is harder to calculate, making it easier for the enemy to make mistakes.
-While moving around, there are often more than one way to reach any given place, ask whether you want speed or safety or tactical advantage while moving around.

-Share the health pick ups and neutral creeps. It’s in your best interest that NO ONE on your team dies, since if anyone on your team dies, it nets a solar advantage as well as superior numbers to the opponents.

-Prioritize defense before offense at all times unless you’re at and extreme disadvantage and have to take large risks in order to turn the battle.
-Make sure you try to dodge ALL attacks. An attack that misses deal zero damage, no matter what upgrades it has.
-Don’t defend right next to your turret unless you really have to. If the opponent’s droids reaches your turret, they gain extra hp and the opponents might be able to get in some damage on your turret.
-Buff your health! Upgrading is the only way to counter damage upgrades besides dodging and it gives you more room for mistakes. It also let’s you tank damage.
-Don’t over commit. As soon as things look hairy, withdraw. It’s better to survive than to risk your life on an unsure kill.

-Movement is a huge part of Awesomenauts, restricting your opponents’ movement is extremely important, whether it’s through standing in their way yourself or using level hazards such as mines, traps, weedlings etc.
-Learn to body block. A well done body block pretty much has the same effect as a snare, and can potentially last forever if you’re good enough at matching your opponent’s movement.
-Don’t just place your level hazards haphazardly, learn where they’re in the way the most. Look for important platforms and place them so movement on those platforms is dangerous.

-Remember, the game isn’t about the numbers. Superior DPS isn’t going to give you a sure win, it’s merely an advantage among others. A LOT of other factors affect the outcome of the match than just the numbers. Radius on AoE effects, Range, Speed, status effects etc. They all have an effect on the game. It’s not about the numbers, but the effect they and the other factors have on the game.

And that’s that!

Thanks for reading! I hope you found something in this little guide useful that will help you improve your game and let you enjoy Awesomenauts further 🙂
If you have any thoughts, please post them below and I’ll add/revise if needed!