No offense intended by all of those reasons are circumstancial.

1. The fact that you are picking Solar Tree doesn't necessarily give you an advantage and we aren't really here to speculate on Solar Tree vs Piggy Bank so I'll leave it.
2. Even at its starting damage, you can use ball to clear creeps with ease. Simply detonate then attack for .5s to kill the packs easily well into the later stages of the game. Add blaze damage in and I don't really see a massive difference in Solar gain.
3. Yet again, your kill numbers is pure speculation. I get plenty of kills early game with blaze set-ups, you can't say categorically you get more with Orb and so you get more money without better numbers to back it up.

I tried this spec out last night, and you're right it is safer than Blaze builds.

It's also very slow. The cost to increase ball damage is 235 per rank, which is massive, so by the time you have enough ranks for you to see a real difference (for the purposes of this argument lets say 2) enemies have a much more versatile arrangement of upgrades.

That being said, in the mid to late game the damage is superb for hero kills, although not helping for tower pushing at all.

This playstyle seems to penalize your team in some ways though. You say you set-up easy kills in big brawls since it can just glide in, which is true. This also means you are hanging back while your team 2v3s in most situations, waiting for a big damage dump payoff while your enemies can focus down your team mates.

Compare this to blaze, which not only has a strong early game for pushing and for hero kill set-ups due to slow, it also allows you to move quickly through the field distracting your opponents while your team fights while also locking down your enemies movements and dropping slow in case they get hit.

Now having played both, there are strengths and weaknesses for each. Like you said, you designed this after losing to Derpl - who a blaze coco has no chance against. If I was playing against a solid Derpl, I would likely go ball lightning spec as well - it's deadly against him. But otherwise, you are trading a slow early game for a kill assist mid-game and a strong endgame. Blaze on the other hand is a strong early game, with a slower mid-game and then a strong endgame by adding ball damage to existing damage and slow of blaze.

In short, both work and I respect your build. I was just trying to prove that Blaze is competitive as long as you have some actual skill with it, and in a lot of ways (despite decreasing your survivability) it can help your team more than the massive hits you can pull of with ball due to the lockdown and slow you can achieve when you arent burning them down with the damage stack.

EDIT: Ironically, considering you set-out to explain why Coco is a "carry" and not a "support", orb spec feels a lot like heavy mine damage spec on Yuri. Sure, you are doing a lot of damage in one hit - but you are sacrificing maneuverability and power combinations in order to sit back and repeatedly use ball while out of range of your opponents.

Just saying, if you ask me which sounds more like a support character, the one sitting back and using one ability for big damage hits or the one zipping around the melee slowing and stacking dots, I know which one I'd pick.

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Xbox Live player/PC player | Mains: Froggy/Yuri - Subs: Gnaw/Clunk/Coco | Xbox Tag/Steam ID: Inkk la

i'm not sure what you mean by circumstantial. the solar tree is part of my build, and the strategy i've discussed in my OP. yes you can melee damage the drones, but you have to put yourself in harms way, and the flying drones (i don't know the name for them) are very difficult to melee to death because of the awkward height of them. and when there are two or three enemy nauts approaching with the drones, and you're by yourself with very little health, you can still kill the drones with the ball, but i wouldn't try with a melee and blaze.

i can say categorically that every game that i've played against a coco who buys blaze early, i've had more kills, and have out ranked them by about 4-6 minutes into the game, with the disparity consistently growing. maybe i've only been playing against scrub cocos, but at this point i don't think so. and perhaps if i wasn't on the other team building up a ball lightning coco, they would have been more affective.


with regards to the cost, as i've indicated, the most important thing is to get your ball to 40 damage so you can kill the drones. from there i will focus on the other upgrades before building up the damage. my exact perk plan is this:

solar tree->free health->ball lightning->increase damage-> increase rate->boots->increase explosion size

once i have those things, and the only two that cost more than 135 are the damage(235) and explosion size(190), i'm golden. adding damage to the ball is of course great, but i can do all the things i need to at this point.

i would have a tough time saying that this plan is penalizing my team as my highest win % that i personally have is with coco (67%). if there is a 3 v 3 turret battle, our drones are getting through, and their drones are not. and while i'll get some sneaky kills, i'm also creating opportunities for my teammates to get kills as well. any time i see an enemy who is not aware that my ball lightning is headed towards them, i will always let it drift past them so that they are knocked back toward my teammates. i can also defend the turret by myself regardless of my lack of health while my teammates teleport back to the base to replenish their health/use the store.



well people can have different definitions of what they consider support, and in some sense, i agree that the early game role is more like support. but as the game unfolds, once i've got my ball lightning maxed, and i move on to upgrading my melee, i'm on the offensive. as much as this discussion has turned into blaze vs ball lightning, i originally wanted to stress how good cocos melee is if you max it out. this is expensive and takes a long time, and if you start by trying to max it out, you're in trouble. i played four games tonight i went 9-1, 4-4, 7-2, 8-2 and led in kills for my team each game. i don't view that as support.

Not to be a real jerk, but if you think 67% win percentage means you're doing well.....well you're not. Also I'm going to presume those 4 matches were in matchmaking, where even Voltar can end up being the top slayer, simply because matchmaking is filled with idiots.

Also, thinking people are stupid for not spending almost the entire patch upgrading the LB, before upgrading TB and Shock is silly. You don't have to have a decked out LB to be successful. It's narrow-minded to think that's her only useful ability. Personally I love going mixing it up all the time. It just depends what you have in mind, what your going up against, who your playing with, and what tickles your fancy. Her turret killing capabilities are arguably her best feature anyway, but that's just my opinion as well.

Another thing, using both Solar Tree and free pills seems very contradicting to me. First, there's the whole Solar Tree vs Piggy Bank that makes ST look useless.I may be wrong but I believe I saw you say you're using boots? So you don't have the regular pills. ST is only beneficial in long games. It takes awhile to pay it self back, then longer to even make it worth using over piggy bank. By the time it starts really kicking in, it's getting late game. So that late game you're running around with only base +30 hp, in a game where many Nauts can burst you hard and fast with 50-90 dmg. You become a liability to the team and yourself at that point. Even worse is since you have such low hp, when you die and lose solar, you make ST even more useless since thats just more solar you lost from using it. They just don't seem right together.

Everyone plays a little differently and I'm trying not to slam on your style, but personally I think your loadout needs improvising and you should keep an open mind about her other abilities.

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i wasn't bragging about 67%, i was merely providing a number so as not to be accused of simply making claims without anything to back it up. yes matchmaking IS filled with idiots, and they are often on my team. that has led me to have quite a few losses. i'm not claiming to be the best player, my point was in regards to whether this strategy was merely beneficial to me or to my entire team, which is a fair question.

who said anyone was stupid? i'm narrow minded? ball lightning her only useful ability?

i don't think you've read this exchange in it's entirety. you can upgrade as you please, but there is infact going to be one setup that is the most efficient whether it's the one i've specified or another. and seeing as most people seem to think coco to be rubbish, and i've consistently been able handle cocos that upgrade there blaze early, i am of the view that this is the root of their problem. also everyone who does anything differently than me is stupid.

i use solar tree because it's better in the long run, i use the free health so as not to be a liability in the beginning. there may come a time when i will switch the free health for the paid health but, to this point i haven't needed the extra health. part of my loadout is to buy the lifesteal for her shock late game, so i have more health options aswell.

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bacon bacon bacon bacon

Once again, your ability to defeat other cocos with your build is no indication that it's a better build. It just indicates it's better to defeat other cocos.

As for your gold gain claims, they are problematic at best. Considering the downtime on flying droids and your definition of "relative safety" I still have my doubts that you are generating much, if any, additional gold to a Blaze spec.

In regards to "beating" other Cocos who go blaze, I can say that I've never lost to another coco as Blaze spec.

But I think we can all agree that people generally play Coco wrong and this gives her a bad rep.

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Xbox Live player/PC player | Mains: Froggy/Yuri - Subs: Gnaw/Clunk/Coco | Xbox Tag/Steam ID: Inkk la

Coco is probably one of the most expensive Awesomenauts in the game. As an example here is the costs of one of her builds with BL with Damage, Cooldown and AoE. Blaze with Damage, Duration and Length. Shock Attack with Damage, Speed and Turret+ and finally Paid Health, Boots and Piggy Bank:

Coco

Ball Lightning 1030
Blaze 1150
Shock Attack 1340
Support 585

3955

That being said this build capitalizes on three styles of play:

BL for incredible burst damage.
Blaze for incredible punishing ability to chasing or fleeing Awesomenauts.
Shock Attack for Turret Destruction.

I read everything And everyone has their own opinion of how something works because what works for you might not work for me. It's due to play styles. To you her best way to go is the one described. Someone else might try it and fail because it isn't their play style. To the other fellow Blaze is the way to go. Again someone might try this and fail terribly.

In my experience both BL or Blaze gets the job done. I tend to go Blaze with level 1 on everything than followed by BL with at least Level 2 on damage. I always get health within 4-5 upgrades independent of how I'm building her.

What I've noticed is that mixing Blaze with BL can really ruin an enemy Naut because Blaze can be used to form the circle of doom whereupon you practically build a Blaze trail around your victim than BL them while they are slowed and taking damage. Blaze can get some serious kills when upgraded. The BL can do the same. It's a matter of preference. Someone else might want to spec her for Turret destruction so they would go Damage, Speed, Turret+ and easily wreck Turrets.

Also is the 67% win rate your global percentage or the specific one to Coco?

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I actually play coco very similarly she is the only character I play other than Clunk where I actually use the free health pills sometimes but it really depends on my mood and the game I'm in for what I am gonna do with coco I will say however that I have used the solar tree free health pills and max out BL a lot and its worked quite well for me with an 85% coco win ratio

Health pills? Nahh
I don't need them, to me I use the base health as a lure. They think that cause I'm low health I'm an easy target but coco being the way she is with blaze and BL she can easily punish those who chase. And honestly I dont even think coco has a specific build like in then comments above they clearly show that she can be used either way and still rack up kills very easily. I look at her like a support defense in a way

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PSN : Jay-Teea

Wat do I put here?