Overview
Clunk. You’ve seen him drop out of nowhere with that resounding ‘BOOM’ echoing through your once-living ears. You’ve seen him suddenly vanish only to appear a second later with a resounding ‘BOOM’ echoing through your once-living ears. Heck, you’ve probably been chasing him once or twice when suddenly… ‘BOOM’ is resounding through your ears. Which are most likely not so alive anymore. This guide is to begin you on your path to being able to leave that ‘BOOM’ echoing through the other guy’s once-living ears…
Meet the Boombox
Ok, here you are. You’ve probably read the description by this point, and are wondering how this ‘BOOM’ might be left ringing through slightly un-alived ears. If not, go read the description again. Only return once you have acquired this hunger for knowledge.
Time to get to know your new damage-dealing buddy. “Batteries included!”
Clunk is a tank. This means you are move slowly in most directions (hint hint). This also means you can take quite a pretty punishing prior to perishing painfully.
Clunk may well be one of the slowest characters in the game in horizontal movement, but he is by no means the slowest going downwards. He can also reach heights that not everyone else can, though it takes him more time to reach peak altitude than others.
If anything in that puts you off, stop now, don’t waste too much time on this. I’d advise practicing on the slow-ish guys like Skolldir or Lonestar first. Once you’re comfortable being a lot slower than other nauts, return here, and your training shall continue.
Clunk has two abilities at his disposal (Interestingly, this is the same number as almost every other ‘naut {dang you Derpl and Ted, you three-skilled smarty-pantses}).
The Bite
Note: For the ability sections I’m going to give my main build. If you’re prestiging or haven’t yet unlocked some of these upgrades, see the extras at the end for some low-tier-friendly combinations.
Bite is the annoying skill in clunk’s arsenal. Biting enemies restores health based on damage done. This can be any enemy; droids, creeps, and nauts alike. This particular skill has a very short cooldown, so it can be spammed to keep your health within an acceptable range.
For most games, I’ll take these three upgrades for bite:
Meet the first vacuum cleaner you’ll need. This ‘lil buddy gives your bite extra damage, and thus extra lifesteal. This guy boosts bite from healing 30 health to healing 42! Might not sound massive, but survival takes as little as 1 extra health, so imagine the difference 12 makes!
Second on your vacuum cleaner list is this guy. He gives you a heal-over-time effect every time you bite something, upgrading up to 50 health recovered! Great for when you’re trying to push hard or fall back, it also helps allow more frequent explosions. Can also save your ‘shiny metal’ ass when you’ve been hit by a spit-ball.
This little cleaner makes people stuck. Yeap. When bite connects with anything and you have this upgrade, the bitten thing can’t move for a little bit. This can give you just enough time to create a rather large explosion which they’ll have a rather hard time avoiding.
The Explosion
Here we are. The one you’ve been waiting for. The skill that leaves a great, big, ‘BOOM’ resonating through people’s once-living ears. This skill begins with enough damage to kill things instantly. Combined with bite, and maybe a rocket or two, it can also kill ‘nauts instantly (what, you thought ‘things’ meant ‘nauts? pff). This one does, however, damage you as well as everything else, and normally has a very long cooldown.
This skill is also among the few which have a charging time. Once initiated, it makes a great big circle around you showing what’s gonna get hit by your explosion. Great for you. Unfortunately, it also shows enemies how far away they need to be to avoid your explosion. Not so great. The trick to this skill is timing the explosion so that enemies have almost no way to avoid it. I find that if I say ‘Timing, is, everything’ in my head, it can help time my splode. By the time you think ‘everything’, you’ll be exploding, so position yourself somewhere out-of-sight (up in the sky for sorona, bushes in ribbit, jungle or any launch-pad in AI, and any overhanging area in Aguillon are the best spots) start the explode, and drop as soon as you have just enough time to hit the ground/your target before exploding. Alternatively, if you wanna explode in the middle of a brawl, try and hide the charging amongst other effects, such as a nuke or smokescreen. Another alternative might be if you’re using explode to save a buddy. In this case, make it obvious you’re a moving time-bomb, walk out in the open to chase off them fools. Sometimes it even works! Other times you’re left with a dead team-mate and a pretty beat-up enemy. Bite that fool and finish him off if possible. How dare he. Unless it’s a she. Then how dare she. Other nice times to use this particular skill include when you’re being chased. Drop down somewhere just out of sight, or into a bush, activate s’plode then turn and bite the fool following you. BA-BOOM! Hopefully your bite gave you enough health to survive your own explosion. Most of the time this manoeuvre can also finish off your opponent, or at the least bring his/her health down to a more resonable level. If you survived, brilliant! End that insolent chaser! If you didn’t survive, hopefully a team-mate can finish off that insolent chaser for you.
Try to keep an eye on the minimap at all times, so you have some idea of where your potential targets are. Once you have an enemy somewhere you can drop on, ‘initiating smugness routine in 3, 2, 1.’ BOOM!!. Of course, if the guy you dropped on has health upgrades, or is a tank, or you don’t have damage upgrades yet, they’ll survive the initial impact. A bite is an excellent follow-up to explode, as it recovers the health you cost yourself, and dishes out some extra damage. Most nauts will be forced to flee if both these attacks hit. Also keep an eye on where your team-mates are. If one of them’s getting hammered, try get over there with a s’plode primed and ready for those air-headed attackers of an ally.
So that’s the theory, and here’s what I use to make it happen:
Upgrade priority One. Capital One. This upgrade increases the damage the explosion does. Fully upgraded, explode does 100 damage! This is the highest damaging single skill in the game (if you don’t count sentry’s black hole, as that is a situational skill and does not regularly do that much damage… Or froggy’s tornado, which requires a stream of consecutive hits to get that much damage).
The only downside to this is that this upgrade also increases the damage it deals to you.
Upgrade priority two. No capital on this one. This upgrade significantly decreases explode’s cooldown. More frequent explosions = more reverberation through now-dead ears. This upgrade is great! Except that it increases the damage you end up doing to yourself, and believe me, that stacks up fast. Before getting this upgrade, you need to get some bite upgrades or you will kill yourself pretty fast. Probably leaving a great big ‘BOOM’ ringing in your own once-living ears.
Honestly, this one gets priority two as well. This guy slows anyone in your charge radius down so they can’t get out of s’ploding range. Excellent against them speedy types like Leon, Ayla, or Yuri (trust me, he’s slippery sometimes). Sadly, ‘nauts with dash skills (Vinnie, Froggy, Penny) Still get out relatively easily.
The Auto Attack
Alrighty, so you now know something about how biting works, and you’ve learnt how the whole s’plodey thing works… Now what the heck do you do in between times? Excellent question! The excellent answer is: Rocket spam them fools!
Clunk’s basic attack fires a little rocket. This rocket hits a single target for 14 damage over a pretty appreciable range. Sadly the rocket doesn’t move very fast. Nor does Clunk fire these rockets incredibly frequently, even when holding that button down (no, holding the button down harder does not shoot rockets faster… I don’t make the rules). 14 damage is a very respectable amount, especially for a starting attack. There are many ways you can build these rockets, from being able to spam a set of speedy seeking shots, to blasting barrages of behemoth bombs (have I alluded to how awesome alliteration is?). A cool trick to learn with the missiles is to fire ’em where someone’s gonna run into ’em. These things move slowly, so they create a temporary area where most nauts will avoid being, unless they want to take some damage. Try put this area somewhere useful, or somewhere unavoidable.
Here’s my preffered build:
First rocket: This ball of fun makes your missiles faster and more frequent. He’s also pretty cheap, so can be gotten literally any time you’ve got 130 solar spare. This thing can boost your damage output quite considerably, and is quite useful against other tanks who are less affected by your bursts.
Second rocket: The salvo pack gives you a combo attack, kinda like Skolldir’s. Every time you fire, you shoot a bigger rocket. Well, there’s 4 rockets total, number 1 does the base 14 damage, 2 does 18, 3 does 22, and 4 does a whopping 26! Once you fire 4, Clunk loads up number 1 again, and around we go (not quite sure why he doesn’t just keep loading 4, but oh well. Odd programming on this killbot). This one’s the most expensive single upgrade in game. Literally. Costing 400 solar, this one is still worth saving up for, as the boost this gives your attack is irreplaceable.
Third rocket: This one has 2 stages, stage 1 adds a 2 rocket (see above rockets), and stage 2 adds a 3. Why on earth would you use this? Well, because it stacks with the last set! On every 2 and 3 shot, you shoot 2 of them rockets! If you land both of those, your 2nd shot deals 36 damage, and your 3rd deals 44!
Some people will take the other booster (The Juggernaut “Fat Pete”) instead of the last one we discussed. Granted, Fat Pete boosts your 4th attack to 52 damage.. but that’s an addition of 26 damage to the base salvo, whereas the other one has a combined additon of 40 damage, so personally that’s the one I favour. If you’re a little lacking in the accuracy, Petey may be better for you, as you only have to worry about landing the one pair of rockets. Another method would be missing on the attack speed, and getting BOTH boosters. This can be highly effective, so long as you don’t mind the much slower firing rate. I haven’t run the numbers for the difference, but I reckon the attack speed ends up being more useful.
I’ll discuss all the upgrades for all the skills in more detail later on.
The Belt of Utilities
Alrighty, so we’re through with the abilities, now we gotta look at the utilities.
You’ve most likely seen all these ones discussed a hundred times over by now, so I’m only gonna do a cursory, clunk-related look at ’em for now.
Power Pills: The health boosts. Clunk starts with a lot of health. Honestly, it takes some pretty special circumstances for Clunk to need these before late-game. Circumstances like major burst or mega sustain on the other team. In both scenarios, it’s really gonna be your team that pulls you out, not your health. This upgrade can be essential earlier if you want to explode frequently, and is certainly essential late-game.
Med-i-can: Who doesn’t love regen? Clunk, that’s who. While regen can be a life-saver, this is an upgrade Clunk can actually skip out on most of the time, unless you’re up against some major damage-over-time.
Space Air Max: Speed boosters. These things are darn-near essential on a s’plode-based Clunk. Without these, getting into prime priming position can be a pretty painful process. While it is perfectly possible to play without these, I reckon not having them isn’t worth the extra slot that gives you.
Solar Tree: Situational. If you’re good at farming droids and ‘nauts you won’t need this. If you know it’s gonna be a long, slow game, it might be worthwhile. If the game’s shaping up to be pretty quick, it’s a waste of a slot. Take a look at your team, your opponents, and the map, then decide if you really need that little extra solar.
Piggy Bank: Unless you are certain of victory within five minutes, do not get this. While that 130 solar looks tempting, it becomes a liability later when you can’t get that extra health because the piggy’s hogging a slot (*inserting sarcastic laugh here on your behalf*).
Baby Kuri Mammoth: Interestingly, this is an upgrade I find really useful on Clunk. This cute ‘lil fella reduces the effect of all debuffs on you by 50% fully upgraded. This includes stuns, slows, knockbacks, silences, and blinds. This is actually the bee’s knees for Clunk, as he’s usually highly vulnerable to slows, silences, and knockbacks. With the Mammoth, say goodbye to your worries over such effects, as the effects are reduced to half their usual effect! Foxy and LS aren’t gonna be pinning you to walls as easy, derpl and other clunks can’t snare you for their burst for long enough, gnaw can’t slow you down enough to escape your fury. As I said, this is the bee’s knees of Clunk’s utilities.
The Friends
So you now know something of the tools you can use to cause mass reverberation through partially un-alived ears. Now you need to know something of who on your team can assist you in causing said reverberations. Awesomenauts being a team game, having teammates who complement your own resonations is essential to ensure maximum success on the battlefield.
This crazy healer can keep you nice and healthy. I mean, really really healthy. While he can’t heal death, anything short of that he can fix pretty quickly. Voltar lets you explode more frequently at less risk to your own health. He also synergises with your bite to make you really really hard to kill.
Voltar also has a few little boombots of his own which can dish out 64 damage in a burst with the right upgrades. Combined with an upgraded bite, and a full s’plode, you and your little healing buddy can dish out 206 burst damage instantly! To give you a hint on how much that is, Froggy G’s base health is 115, and Clunk’s is 205. Add a few rockets after that, and there’s very little chance the other guy’s walkin’ away again. Death to the squishy things!
This cruisin’ space gal is an excellent supporter for Clunk’s reverberations. Coco being able to cause some pretty sweet vibrations herself, as well as being able to slow down the opposing ‘nauts for your bassy reverberations. Coco’s burst goes up to 68 damage, so that’s 209 with your bursts. Plus Coco slows down the other guys afterwards, making it even harder for them to escape the oncoming barrage, and even giving you time to get ANOTHER bite in! Totally narly!
(By the way, these are in no order whatsoever)
Genji can be a brilliant ally for your boombox. Genji can use cocoon to initiate with an enemy, locking them in place so you can prepare an explosive welcome for their re-entry. He can also give you a buff to your defences and a snazzy burst heal to keep you in the fight longer. If upgraded right, he can also let you move relatively quickly for a while!
On the other hand, Genji can also cocoon an enemy who would otherwise die from your super explosions, thus saving their miserable skins for a time. It really depends on how good your teamwork is. Watch what your Genji’s doing, and try keep track of when he’s likely to try cocoon the other guy. Adjust your timing accordingly. They shall not pass!
What’s the best thing to go with a crazy amount of damage? More crazy damage of course!
Derpl can upgrade his nuke to get 90 damage in a burst, almost enough to rival your own awesome explosions. Do I need to crunch numbers for you? Fine, I will this time. Adding on your own awesome explode and bite combo, this big guy upgrades your burst to a curaaazy 232! To add to Derpl’s burst, he can also dish out some sustainable damage to rival your rockets. Plus he can slow enemies down with the right upgrades.
Not only does this big hunk of robotic walker boost your burst and supplement your sustain, he also has a sweet snare! Derpl’s snare upgrades to hold people in place for more than enough time to fully charge a rather large explosion for that poor trapped fool. Add a snaring bite after Derpl’s snare and you can hold down a ‘naut for even longer after the trap. So. Yeah. He’s not getting out again after all that. Besides that, Derpl wuvs catz, and that can’t really be a bad thing.
Meet your new nautical companion ‘naut. Admiral Swiggins! The squid admiral is a rather helpful companion in your battles against those inferior landlubber ‘nauts. His anchor drop ability roots an enemy within a small area for 3 seconds, which as I’m sure you’re aware is plenty of time for a certain explosion to ‘rock their boat’ so to speak. The only drawback is they CAN still move, so there is still some accuracy required to land said explosion.
While Swiggins does not have amazing burst, his ability to anchor opponents for a relatively long time makes him a valuable ally for Clunk in most forays. Swiggins also has a good amount of sustainable damage, and can briefly stun those hard-to-reach landlubbers. Together, you shall swab their decks!
Se hello to your simian companion! Yuri is an excellent support ‘naut, he has in his pack heals, speed boosts, and some neat-o damage! Yuri’s mines hit for 70 damage each, and they can be stacked up ready for some guy to land on. If you notice some guy attempting to jump over these mines, try giving them a snare bite and watch the hilarity!
In addition to the mines, Yuri has the capability to slow down enemies in an area, and accelerate allies within this area as well. Between the two effects, the explosion resulting from Clunk’s awesomeness is MUCH harder to get away from. Yuri can also add heals into his time bubble, which can completely restore the health you lost from exploding. Their heads will make wonderful trophies!
While I identify these ‘nauts as your biggest supporters, any ‘naut with a knockback/pull ability is your friend, as they make escaping your wrath just that little bit harder. I’ve identified the above as the main best allies because they provide support above and beyond simply bumping enemy ‘nauts in your direction.
Any ally ‘naut who is capable of high burst is also helpful for you, if you can coordinate your bursts.
The Enemies
Great, so there’s some ‘nauts that can help you out. Awesome. Guess what though? There’s ‘nauts that can cause you some major issues too! Fortunately, there is no ‘naut which can absolutely completely totally counter you by itself… but if you end up against a team of these, then good luck! I hope you have good teammates!
Remember that space chick we talked about earlier? And how she’s one of your best supporters? Yeah? Guess what, she’s also one of your worst nightmares!
Coco’s lightning ball ability doesn’t just do damage, it has a knockback too, which can make landing a nice explosion just that little bit harder. The number of times I’ve missed a double kill due to a Coco ball…
Coco’s slowing ability can also cause you issues. I mean, aren’t you slow enough by default? Coco’s slow makes it harder to s’plode, bite, and run away, so if you get caught escaping, better have a backup plan.
Coco’s basic attack can deal out some pretty high sustainable damage, and it works better on slower characters who just can’t get away from her (guess who fits that description).
If you find yourself up against a Coco, play it safe, and try not to wind up somewhere solo. Coco appears out of nowhere and disapears just as fast, leaving a slow and a burst in her wake. She can swoop in or out again pretty soon afterwards, so actually catching her in the open is quite a chore, and fighting her near jungles is almost impossible solo.
Coco is usually somewhat vulnerable to burst in the early-mid game. If you can surprise her and keep her in place, she’ll at the very least have to make a trip back to base to recover from those extreme vibrations, or at best she’ll be unable to make the trip.
Later on in the game Coco can become a very fast, tough brawler, so much so that you’ll really need a hand to take out. Don’t try and 1v1 a late-game Coco unless you know exactly what you’re doing… and have a backup plan ready.
Yep. Another ally gone rogue becomes one of your greatest enemies. Genji the Pollen Prophet is the one guy who makes exploding a super hard endeavour. His cocoon ability cancels your s’plode mid-charge. Really painful for you. Sadly un-painful for the other guys. Thankfully there’s multiple ways to work around this particular silk wall.
One effective method is to fly up out of sight and drop suddenly on/near Genji. Most Genjis will assume you’ve tried to initiate s’plode out of sight, but you are actually just cleverly baiting. If he takes the bait, brilliant! The other team has a habit of clustering around cocoons, so as soon as it hatches, the countdown begins. If you have slow on s’plode, this tactic works really well. Snare bite is handy too.
Another way is to stay nearby and wait ’till Genji uses the cocoon on an ally, and come in with a bang when they cluster around said ally. If allies are fast/willing enough, they might also manage to intercept a cocoon which was meant for you, in which case you can initiate that countdown as soon as possible.
Alternatively, if the Genji’s just too hard to trick, simply build more into bite and aa. If your bite is upgraded nicely, then cocoon really helps you more than harms you as it just gives your bite more time to cooldown.
Those are Clunk’s main two adversaries, and the ones worth the most mention. Other ‘nauts can cause setbacks and can be a nuisance, but no-one else really hard-counters Clunk. Any fast ‘naut is on your trouble list, as they are a pain to try pin down and hit. Anyone with a knockback is annoying, as they make landing s’plodes a heap harder.
Also, watch out for characters like Lonestar and Skolldir who can force you into a turret/trap and keep you there. Clunk is very difficult to escape with, so play it careful, and try stick with your team wherever possible.
Interestingly, one of the easier targets for you is Raelynn. Although her snipe has a knockback on it, whenever she activates it she’s stuck in place for awhile. Get in close with a snare bite and it’s one toasted sniper ready to serve.
Another tasty target for you is Voltar. By himself he’s particularly vulnerable to snares and bursts; two things Clunk specialises in. Voltar is also a good target for team fights, as he’s still vulnerable to burst (at least early-mid game), and makes his team a lot harder to kill. Kill him first, and the rest usually fall to pieces.
Even your alter-ego Clunk can make for some good crunches, if you don’t mind a few bolts in the teeth. Catching an enemy Clunk off guard with his s’plode on cooldown is a great opportunity for some crunching. Or exploding, either works. Other Clunks don’t get away very fast, so catching them alone can be a lovely experience, as Clunk cannot outrun himself.
In general, anyone with low-mid health is a good target, provided you have the means to catch them. This means anyone (‘cept tanks) without power pills is a late/mid-game target, and easy munching if you can catch them.
The Game Begins
Gosh. Here you are, all knowledged up… Now you know all the basics around the skill uses, and have a suggested build you might try. You know your allies, and you know your adversaries…
Now it’s time to learn the hard part. What’s that? You thought you were almost done? Haa ha ha…. ha… ha… You’re serious? Oh… BAAHAHA. Aha.. aha.. ha.. ha… ahh. Come come padawan, let’s move on to lesson two.
“Clunk, all wound up and ready to go!”
So here you are, fresh outa your drop-pod on some alien planet. Time to get bashing! First things first, check your opponents. They’ll be key in working out how you gotta play this (if you’re not sure how to check, the default is to press the ‘tab’ key). What opponents you got? They all squishy? Good! I advise Bite and Self-Destruct (SD) to start. They all fast? Bite and Boots. They tanky? Bite and SD. Mixture (the most likely composition)? Your call. You heard me, I can’t hold your hand through everything, so you’ll have to do some thinking on how you want to play. Sometimes it’s better to leave off the s’plode for a bit until you have enough catching power to utilise it properly. Other times you really need that burst early, so SD is first on the shopping list. Another important factor is what team-mates you have. If you have a Voltar, you can even skip on getting bite first-off, as he’ll probably be able to keep your health within an acceptable range for starters.
Now for the early game, Clunk has a few setbacks. For one, he’s slow. Even if you got your shiny new boots on, you can be harassed really easily by most fast ‘nauts. Not to worry, they’ll pay for it later. For now, try and either stick with your team, or stick to a lane. If you’re sticking to your team, try and work with them to pin an opponent or a group of opponents in a corner. Start the timer. I can give you an 80% guarantee they won’t all get out alive, provided your teammates didn’t pick the other guys’ corner to trap them in…
Bite is absolutely amazing in the early game. With it you can stick around for ages in a lane, just by chewing on the droids that try and push through your droids. Clunk can deal some decent damage to turrets in the early game, but watch out for characters like Leon, Lonestar, Penny, and Skolldir who can pull/push/throw you into the turret you’re trying to trash, and some of ’em can keep you there. If you’re gonna die, and you know it, start the timer. You might be able to take one or two of ’em with you, or at the very least force ’em back to base. Clunk is one of the most annoying chars to kill, since he has a habit of going out with a bang. Don’t worry, if you die between activation and when the s’plode would usually go off, it goes off anyways, it’s nice and unique like that.
Important things to get for the early game usually include:
Self-Destruct > Extra Damage (1 stage)
Bite > Extra Damage > Snare (sometimes)
Auto Attack > Attack Speed (1-2 stages, situational)
Boots
Solar Tree (If you’re gonna get it)
Extra Health (1-2 stages, situational)
Not necessarily in that order, and not all games need these. This is a generic template which works for most games. Early game is usually up to about 10 minutes in, depending on the solar gain of the characters. I’d say around 1500 solar’s getting towards the end of early-game.
So you’ve bashed a few fools, maybe been bashed a few times, and you’ve gotten your early-game upgrades. Welcome to mid-game.
“Damage exceeding tolerance!”
In the mid-game stage, Clunk really starts to come into his own. This is the part where they run away. By mid-game, your damage is up at the point where few ‘nauts would dare try and 1v1 you, and even fewer want you to ‘drop in’. This is where your dropping tactics come in most handy. This is also where your higher health starts to become a little more obsolete, and where your speed becomes even more restricting.
By this time, there’ll probably be 1-2 turrets missing from either or both teams. Or the game could be over, depending on the scenario. Either way, around the 1500 solar mark is where Clunk needs to work on his sustainability, since his burst is becoming a little less ferocious, and his speed easier to take advantage of.
Around mid-game I’ll start getting these upgrades:
Self-Destruct > Cooldown > Extra Damage (stage 2) > Slow
Bite > Heal-over-time > Snare
Auto Attack > Attack Speed (full) > Salvo Pack
Extra Health (full)
Mammoth (if you didn’t get tree)
Again, not necessarily in this order, this is a generic template.
The shopping list’s a lot bigger for this part, as this is the longest section of the game (usually). Mid-game goes from the 1500 solar mark to around 4000 solar, so before everyone’s maxed, but after everyone’s got their base necessities. Most games will end here, for better or worse.
This part of the game is where you really need to work with your team, as the other guys are obviously not doing poorly.
During this part of the game, your tanking power goes through the roof, with your boosted health and self-healing capabilities. Abuse it to keep your squishier team-mates safe. Absorb what hits you can, and dish out what punishment you can. During mid-game drops become less effective, and are a lot more risky. Try keep the s’plodes for the starts and ends of fights. If you’ve got the cooldown reduction, then you might just be able to use it in the middle as well!
After a while, everyone starts to max out their upgrades. The game is usually near to done at this point, unless you’re really evenly matched with your opponents. Finish up getting all the upgrades you’re missing at this point. By late-game Clunk’s pushing power is legend. Between munching on anything in your way and spamming your salvos of shiny shots you can knock down turrets and bases ridiculously fast, provided you’re not interrupted by them inconsiderate opponents of yours. Late-game usually occurs past 4000 solar.
If you reach this point, you found a really good game. If possible, get your team-mates to defend while you try push a lane. Alternatively, as Clunk’s stopping power is brilliant, tell your team-mates to go all-out while you hold the fort. Be careful though, as dying at this point is practically game over.
There’s nothing after late-game, that’s the game’s final form, so make the most of it. Go! Fight! Win! And comment when you get back, matey, I enjoyed your visit.
Well done padawan, you made it to the end of the main guide! You have almost all the information I can give you. I’m almost in tears. Almost. I’ve still got some more bits and pieces to share, like when you might want to grab the charge-time reduction for s’plode. I’ll discuss that next, but if you’re just after the base info, that’s all I got for you, the rest is extra.
Have fun with your new-found knowledge on how that shiny metal Clunk works!
The Extra Bits
Aww, you stuck around for the extras! How nice! Well, without further ado, here we go:
First off: The bite upgrades I skipped over previously.
This cleaner gives you a semi-permanent +15 boost to your max health whenever you bite something, to a whopping +90 max health fully upgraded! All this extra is removed if you die, so you’ll have to re-build it by biting everything in sight. This upgrade is brilliant if you skipped on health pills for solar tree, or if you need a litle extra health to survive the punishment you’re taking.
Buying this guy allows you to bite two things at once. Amazing if you’re often being attacked by enemies in multiples, as it doubles the health you recover if you bite two things at once. A good substitute for the heal-over-time if you find you need that extra health upfront and often have two things to bite at once. If you’re using snare, both targets hit will be snared, not just one of ’em.
This is another flat boost to your bite’s damage. This version comes in 2 stages, which add up to be more expensive than the other version (the one I suggested). Good if you want to have some extra burst damage on the bite, though it’s not as cost-effective as the other one.
If you’ve not yet unlocked some of the higher-tier upgrades, not to worry! There’s plenty of fun stuff to be done with the first upgrades.
Personally, as I rolled with my rank 0 alt, I found that I’d go for these upgrades:
This buddy for the damage. Yeah he’s not as efficient solar-wise, but he gets the job done wonderfully!
Still this guy for same reasons as the other build.
Here’s the new one, as the regen’s not unlocked yet. The extra health from this guy is awesome! Bite up a few creeps and droids prior to engaging any ‘nauts, and watch them tremble before your crazy health bar!
Now onto the s’plodey upgrades:
The hard hat reduces the damage you do to yourself when exploding. This upgrade is one I often end up swapping the slow for. If you’re not having much trouble with landing s’plodes, but are having difficulty with the damage you’re doing to yourself, this upgrade is a life-saver!
This one gives you a shield to incoming damage while charging explode. Excellent if you’re getting hit by a lot of burst, as it allows you to take practically anything without too much hassle. You do have to remember though that you’ll still take full damage from your own s’plode, so using this to tank a single snipe or Coco-ball isn’t likely to be worth it unless you also have hard hat (or no damage upgrades). Excellent if you often get hit by a few bursts at once, especially since the shield requires no charge time. Just fire it up as they’re firing and watch their burst disintegrate.
This one I find extremely offputting, though can be brilliant if you can get used to it. This one reduces the time explode needs to charge up by 0.5 seconds. It is not advised to use this with either the slow or the shield, as it reduces the time they’re active, but this also gives the other guys less time to get out the way.
Now the s’plodey one’s pretty easy at low-tier if you like helmet, slow, and damage; they’re all still there. If you don’t like using the helmet, you’ll have to stick with the shield. Shield can be usefull, as I mentioned before, in reducing the burst you’re taking… But usually I’ll get the first two and only get the shield if I reach late-game.
Alrighty, that’s the s’plodes out the way. Here’s the AA (Auto Attack):
Frag shells give your rockets area damage. A great upgrade if you’re often facing large crowds of enemies all tightly bunched together, as it lets you hit all of them at once. Also can be useful for hitting the enemy base or a few turrets, as it lets you hit them from above or below respectively. On certain maps, you can hit ‘nauts through floor with this as well.
This one lets your missiles home on on the nearest target. Can be useful if your aim isn’t brilliant, but is really annoying if you’re trying to shoot past something. Doesn’t home on invisible peoples.
Ol’ Petey here gives your fourth shot an extra missile for 26 damage. As I said earlier, I find this one to not be as useful as having the two extra missiles, but to each his/her own. Pete also has a larger explosion radius than the other shots when used with Frag shells, which can make it easier to land.
When low-tier you don’t have access to the salvo pack. Or the homing sensor. That’s ok! I’ll usually take the double rocket one (you know… two and three), attack speed, and exploding shells. The s’plodey shells smash stuff that’s all snuggled up together, can hit turrets (and players) through some floors, and can always damage bases from on top of them. Pretty neat if you’re into sneaky tactics. ;-D
“Victory for Clunk!”
And there we go, all done!
Thanks for reading all the way though this collection of clues to clobbering crowds of cauliflower-crowned clowns, using a conveniently-combustible cranky cyborg! And thanks for not geting angry at my awful alliterations all over this advisory article! (Well… Hopefully you didn’t…)
Have a great time leaving a resounding ‘BOOM!’ ringing through un-alived ears!
|KB| Jinkers signing off.