Awkward’s guide to Jimmy mechanics, builds, and hidden techniques [CONTEST]

Overview

Disclaimer: This guide is for the Awesomenauts Guide Contest. I would really appreciate if you gave it a upvote. I’m not trying to take first place, I would just really like to at least get a honorable mention and your support would mean a lot to me. Thank you so much.Also I will maintain this guide after the Guide Contest and will try to keep it current with at least one update per patchI will update the Guide with changes regarding the 4.1 beta once I’m confident that they’re actually implemented. I’m pretty confident the missile change will be reverted based on the current feedback it’s getting, and probably the Charge change too though I don’t think it’s as likely lol remember when i said i would update this btw

Introduction

Jimmy (or Amy if you’re blue team) and the Lux 5000 has been my favorite Awesomenaut for quite a while now. He’s mobile, can take a lot of hits, and not only deals out a lot of damage, but deals out damage that can feel very rewarding to land. He has a LOT of hidden tech – Secret moves that not everyone picks up on, like ways to jump higher than you normally can and stacking a secondary knockback pulse at the end of Charge. He has good build variety and is honestly one of the more interesting nauts.

Currently Covers:

An in-detailed analysis of all the nuances of his Jimmy’s abilities, autoattack, and jump
How to build Jimmy
Hidden techniques, advanced tech, combos, whatever you like to call them
More upgrade and build analysis
Matchups (3/28 of cast complete)

Planned to cover:

How to play offensively and defensively with Jimmy
Demonstrations of how to slip behind someone for a LUX Charge initiation
Matchups (25/28 of cast to go)
– More upgrade and build analysis COMPLETE

The Basics

Jimmy, like all the other Awesomenauts, has 2 base abilities and an Auto attack.

His first, and what I would consider his primary abilitity, is Lux Charge.

Lux Charge propells Jimmy in the direction he is facing upon activating the ability. He will be unable to change direction or slow down, he can however still jump.

It adds a 25% shield to Jimmy and a 70% speed buff. Upon contact with Jimmy, an enemy will receive 40 damage and a minor knockback. If contact is sustained with Jimmy, the damage and knockback will hit 5 times per second, meaning that 200 damage per second (DPS) is inflicted and the knockbacks will be continous and sustained.

The duration of this move is for 2 seconds. While you use it, the skill button for it must be held down to remain charging. Releasing the button will cause the charge to immediately end.

Tip: Is it more strategic for you to go for a shorter Lux Charge in your current situation? Take advantage of the fact that you can control the duration of your charge up to 2 seconds!

The ability has a cooldown of 9.5 seconds.

How Crowd Control (CC) effects interact with Lux Charge

If Jimmy is stunned while in the middle of a Charge, his Charge will be cancelled immediately.

If Jimmy is silenced while in the middle of a Charge, he will no longer be able to manually end Charge and must ride out the full duration of either the silence or the charge, whichever comes first.

If Jimmy is slowed while in the middle of a Charge, the slow applies to the speed value AFTER the speed boost of Charge is calculated. So in the event that a 30% slow is applied to Jimmy. you take Jimmy’s base speed, multiply it by 1.7, and then multiply his speed by .7 so that you have 70% of his total speed (Ie a 30% reduction).

If Jimmy is knockbacked while in the middle of a Charge, it tends to cancel out his monentum pretty evenly if the knockback is in the opposite direction of Jimmy’s Charge, causing Jimmy to Charge in place. If it is in the same direction, he goes faster.

Strengthen, Weaken, and Blind effects perform functionally normally the way they apply to anything else.

Missile Barrage

Missile Barrage is what I would consider the secondary ability of Jimmy. Jimmy goes stationary and shoots off 4 missiles at a rate of one missile per .35s. The ability ends naturally when the 4th missile is fired at the 1.4s mark (note the first missile is fired at the .35s mark, not at the 0s mark)

The ability can be manually cancelled after the .35s mark by tapping the skill button again. Jimmy will still fire his next missile but that will be his last one. Control of Jimmy resumes immediately.

Each missile has an aoe that’s roughly a smidge bigger than its visual indicator.

The ability is a projectile that can be reflected by Froggy’s Right Back At Ya and deflected by Fist Bump.

Missiles has a 25% damage reduction towards droids, turrets, and bases.

The cooldown is 10 seconds.

How Missile Barrage interacts with CC

If Jimmy is stunned during Missile Barrage, Missile Barrage ends immediately.

If Jimmy is silenced during Missile Barrage, you will no longer be able to manually cancel Missile Barrage until the silence runs out.

All other CC effects behave as expected.

Rattle Smash

Rattle Smash is the auto attack of Jimmy. Rattle Smash operates on a 3 hit combo, similar to Ksenia and Skolldir’s. Every first autoattack of Jimmy starts a combo. While his 2nd autoattack is identiical to his first, his 3rd one is a more damaging attack with a much larger hitbox. For the combo to work, each auto attack must be activated within 1s of each other (meaning you have one full second to use your 2nd autoattack after your first, and you have one full second to use your 3rd autoattack after your 2nd). Missing the 1s timing will reset Jimmy back to his first AA.

Unlike Ksenia’s 3 hit combo, not hitting anything with Jimmy’s AA will not reset the combo.

The first and second auto attack are identical and each deal 105 damage. They will only hit in the direction that Jimmy is attacking.

The 3rd auto attack deals 150 damage and two separate instances of 40 damage. The 3rd auto attack also deals damage in a circle around Jimmy and does not have a requirement of Jimmy directly facing his opponent.

– Note that Jimmy can move around and change direction while autoattacking. None of his autoattacks have to be fired in the same direction as one another.

– Note that you can do not have to hold the AA button to utilize Jimmy’s 3 hit combo. You can simply tap the button at will for more precise timing, as long as your second hits and third hits are within one second of the previous hit.

Jimmy’s Jump

Jimmy’s jump is interesting. It is a hover based jump similar to Clunk’s, Derpl’s and Genji’s. He can either have one long continous jump or he can break up his jump into multiple, smaller jumps by tapping the jump button again in mid air. This allows him to have very good aerial navigation and to constantly change the direction he’s jumping in, making it very easy for him to juke attacks. If you tap the button and quickly release, you can have a total of 6 ‘mini’ jumps.

Did you know? Tapping Jimmy’s Jump button rather than holding it lets you get higher than you normally would.

The Builds

First, for those of you who just want a build and nothing else, here ya go.

[link]

Ok now let’s actually talk about the items. Jimmy has a few upgrades I recommend picking up every single game. I opted to not put photos of the upgrades here to keep the guide less cluttered. If you click on the build link above, you will be able to see every upgrade I’m referencing.

Danger Pins

– Jimmy lets out a small 210 burst that has piercing and goes through walls. It’s an extremely cost efficient upgrade, meaning that the amount of damage you get per solar spent is very very good. It’s a great a last hit tool, helps with clear, and can also be combined with his auto attack for highly damaging combos (as will be discussed in the hidden tech section)

Micey the Mech Pilot

– At the end of the a barrage of missiles, Jimmy with let out a knockback pulse centered on him that pushes people away in every direction. It also includes a .2s stun. Simply put, I think this is one of the most underrated upgrades in the game and I find it surprising I don’t see every Jimmy getting it early considering how cheap and powerful it is. It auto-procs after 4 missiles are fired, but it also procs if you self-cancel missile barrage or if missile barrage gets stun-cancelled.

It’s knockback disengagement pretty much lets you push away an exploding Clunk, a Skolldir going for a throw, an Ayla trying to commit to you with rage, a Ksenia trying to do her auto attack combo on you, and basically any other melee attack. The knockback will straight up cancel Swiggin’s anchor dive mid-animation. The stun will cancel out Froggy’s tornado, Max’s Scene Illumination, Ix’s Psionic Bond, Yoolip’s Gripping Gaze, an enemy Jimmy’s Lux Charge and Missile Barrage, and Raelynn’s Snipe.

A few notes about some of those cancellations

Vs Anchor Dive, any stun on knockback always cancels out anchor dive. However you have a small window of timing on this one. A lot of the times, if he’s anchoring from max range, if you Micey right away it’s not gonna hit him. Remember, you want your knockback to hit Swiggins, not his anchor!

Vs Froggy’s Tornado, if he’s picked up Twister Tweeters, the explosion will automatically proc as soon as Tornado is cancelled – Keep a little bit of distance so you can avoid the damage!

Vs Psionic Bond, it has to be Ix that gets hit with the stun, not the person tethered. And of course, a displacement already happening won’t be cancelled, you have to cancel the bond before Ix decides to proc the displacement effect.

Vs Gripping Gaze, if Jimmy is gazed out of Missile Barrage the knockback pulse won’t occur until AFTER the Gripping Gaze ends. Watch out! A very easy way to bait out Gripping Gaze is to try to Missile Barrage in front of him and self cancel it right before you think he’ll Gripping Gaze. That way, it’s cancelled immediately and he barely gets any of its damage in. Better safe than sorry on this one, if you end up knocking him away before he uses Gaze, you’re still not in a bad spot. Now if he gazes before you self-cancel, that’s a lot worse…

Vs an enemy Jimmy, Micey will cancel both of Jimmy’s abilities (and proc the other Jimmy’s Micey the Mech Pilot, if he bought it). Want to win vs another Jimmy? Bait his Lux Charge, immediately double tap Missile to cancel it and then Charge him.

Vs Raelynn’s Snipe, watch out for Iron Rifle, which is a CC Immunity upgrade during the arm time of Snipe. If you see a bubble or circle appear around Raelynn, then she will not be affected by knockback or stun

Let’s talking about the Autoattack Row.

I think two upgrades you should always buy are Flip Arm Add-On (Autoattack Damage) and Nano Repair Bots(Lifesteal). Jimmy has incredible damage output unlocked by his damage upgrade. His lifesteal, if you’re actively finding 3rd hits (as only 3rd hits proc the lifesteal), will by far outpace the amount of health you gain from regen.

His 3rd upgrade is a little bit more flexible. I personally always prefer gettin Skullplate Trophy, which increases his attack speed by 16% per stage whenever he’s under 80% HP. A lot of people like Steel Boxing Glove, which gives him a 30% shield for 2 seconds whenever he completes an autoattack combo after using an ability, but I think attack speed is better because it’s a significant DPS increase (32%) and it lets you get more lifesteals. So while shield only makes surviving easier, attack speed makes it deal more damage to enemy nauts, clear faster, and push harder on top of making survival easier. Another upgrades have fringe uses, for example Pop-Out Rattle Cage (Increased size of Rattle Wave) lets youre more easily hit squishy but speedy nauts that try to kite you, like Froggy G or Penny.

Charge Upgrades

Always get Danger Pins, as mentioned. There’s a reason it’s so good that it got its own section. Pretty much all of the Lux Charge upgrades have their uses. I would say the best one is the one I have in the linked build, but for example, Plutonium LUX Keys (speed up on charge) lets you escape more easily when you use Charge to run away. It lets you chase harder. It lets you get to team fights faster. It lets you surprise displace more effectively.

Another good Charge combination is getting the Castle Ice Cream Flavoured Pacifier (Charge heal) and combining it with Bovinian Breastmilk (Shield increase). So, Pacifier heals the amount that you shield – I like to think of it as an upgrade that gives you a staggered shield – it reduces the amount of damage you take with a delay, so you have to be able to survive the initial burst without it. But since the amount you heal is equal to how much damage was shielded, it effectively doubles the strength of the shield. For example, at base the shield is 25%. You heal the damage you shield, meaning at the end of the fight you effectively had a 50% shield. If you use Bovinian Breastmilk, which upgrades the strength of the shield 10% per stage, you end up with a 45% shield. With Pacifier, that means you effectively had a 90% shield.

Sounds absurd right? Hold my beer and watch this:
that’s the most I’ve ever healed, but if you’re confident and convince yourself that you can tank, for example, a Clunk Explode or a Pulse or a Derpl Nuke, getting burst heals of 1000 is not uncommon.

Missiles

Again, get Micey the Mech Pilot. There’s a reason it’s so good it got its own section.

Adventures in Rocketland [/b ]is your standard damage upgrade and you can basically never go wrong with it. Dealing 900 damage late game by landing all 4 missiles is nothing to sneeze at either. If you combine this with the Very Hungry Zurian, then you can deal extra ~120 damage and have a bigger AOE. Late game, you’ll be popping ~430 damage missiles. Like that’s actually really good.

Baby’s First Cage Fight (-2s cooldown) is really good as well. Missiles is the sort of ability that you just spam whenever you have it off cooldow. The only times you don’t is if its unsafe or you’re saving Micey the Mech Pilot for something. With Cage Fight, you’re pushing more, clearing more, the full 9 yards. And 2s is a strong value for something like this.

Robo Daddy and Mommy (30% shield) is good too and kinda fitting to my personal playstyle though it feels a bit outclassed by other options (not to mention Jimmy’s tanking capabilities via his Charge row are so much more potent). You can go in first with missile, bait people to attack you while you’re shielded, knockback pulse 1-2 of them away, and then Charge initiate on a straggler.

The Hidden Tech/Nuances

Jimmy has a LOT of hidden tech. I list the tech, describe it, tell you how to do it, and then put a gif of me doing it.

Change the direction of Danger Pins

This one is simple. Simply in the middle of a Charge, hold the opposite direction that you’re charging in and at the end of the Charge Jimmy will turn around before using Danger Pins. You really don’t have to hold it, just tap it at the end of Charge. But holding it doesn’t hurt anything and can make it easier to learn the timing.

Button Input: Charge->Tap Opposite Direction of Charge->Release

Trigger Micey the Mech Pilot to fire at the end of LUX Charge

Micey the Mech Pilot, the Missile Barrage upgrade that causes a knockback pulse and ministun to emit from Jimmy after his missiles end, can be made to proc not after Missile Barrage, but LUX Charge. To do it, proc missiles and before your first missile fires, hit charge. The missile stance will cancel and Lux will start charging. After 1.4s (the full duration of missile stance) have passed or Lux ends his charge (whichever comes first), the Micey knockback pulse will emit.

Button Input: Missile->Charge before first missile->end Charge before 1.4 seconds have passed

Bonus: One missile will shoot at the same time as Lux’s charge also

Trigger the 3rd hit AA Rattle Wave after a Charge

If you activate your 1st and 2nd Autoattack and then activate and end a LUX Charge, your next autoattack will be a 3rd AA Rattle Wave if you end the Charge within the 1 second timing window of the AA Combo. This allows you to quickly put a tiny bit of Charge damage + Danger Pins into your AA combo.

Button Input: 1st AA->2nd AA->Charge->Let go of Charge-> Use 3rd AA no later than 1 second after you used 2nd AA

Tapping to jump to jump higher

If you tap the jump button rather than hold it, you will jump higher!

Button Input: Tap Jump, tap again before falling. Can do a total of 6 taps.

Bonus: Here’s some jumps that you can only make with this tech!

Jimmy vs other knockbacks

This really isn’t a tech but just something you should know about. When jimmy is charging and gets knockbacked in the opposite direction it tends to cancel out.

Jimmy’s vertical hitboxes (3rd AA and Danger Pins)

Wasn’t really sure what section to put this in, but I guess it’s tech lol. Like most melee attacks, Jimmy’s Autoattack and Danger Pins have terrain piercing, meaning they connect independently of what environmental objects are in the way. The verticality of the hitbox of the 3rd AA and Danger Pins is not to be underestimated!

Matchups

Very straight forward, here’s how Jimmy’s matchup goes. I’m not gonna stuff this section too much, if there’s no recommended items I just default to my previously posted build.

Format

Matchup Rating: 1-10 (This is a rating of how much the matchup is in favor of Jimmy, 1 being not in his favor 10 being in his favor)
Pros: Things that go Jimmy’s way in the fight
Cons: Things that don’t go Jimmy’s way in the fight

About Me

stop sniping me

Awesomenauts – the 2D moba Guide