GIJoe Character Strategy Guides

Ok here is a guide for how to play Fine.Brine (The Roach) - ** UPDATED ** March

GIJoe members who excell with Brine are: Sphynx, Artemis, SerialNumber, Death

1) Starting Talents: Fitness, Integrity, Prodigy, Swiftness, Youth, Wealth (0-2-4)

2) Order of Ability learning: Max W (Adrenaline Rush) first for healing (most important for early game) and speed (important before dragging); next max E (Impale) this stuns for 2.5 seconds and causes damage ONLY when you drag someone. The further you drag them, the more damage you do. Lastly max Q (Carapace) for spell resist. The Ult R is upped on lvl 6, 11, and 16 and allows you to go underground to do one large attack (then pops you up). This will auto attack, so watch out for creeps. (W E W E W R W E E Q R Q Q Q Y R Y Y)

3) Brine is a very strong early character. The Adrenaline rush healing allows you to sustain life. Thus you want to get a little energy early to sustain that. Brine abilities stack well with Intel items, so I suggest a decent amount of intel items. But Brine is not a pure caster, because he has to engage and initiate battles. This results in you taking a good amount of damage, thus Brine should be build half intel, half tanky. You farm horribly with Brine, I try to hold Goggles and Treasure all game!

Sphynx's suggested Item order:
1) Goggles (Money is Key)
2) Lost Treasure (2nd Money Item Key)
3) Lost Treasure --> SilverSoul (Best Regen item in the game, but mostly for the speed boost. Key to be used with drag… allows for easier catching, and easier dragging)
4) Lost Treasure Again
5) Lost Treasure --> Parallax (Key for blocking stuns used to disable Brine from initiating)
6) Lost Treasure Again
7) Goggles --> Korhal / Buffer / Chilling (Support item for your team) After this point in the game, your damage will be falling off. You are most useful for surviving and dragging players.
8) ReBuy Goggles
9) Loop Back to Step 7)

Items I like after this point are: Organic, Grav Edge. Its important to note that brine falls off late game, so you become a support hero, so getting support items is likely the best move.

4) Notes on gameplay.

Brine is melee character which basically is an initiating tank. Brine is extremely frusting to face, and should be feared due to the fact he can pull and damage you at the same time. Unlike Micro, laning partners can ALSO damage the character during this drag time. Brine also has an attack on the Q key (natural talent-Acid strike) which does not cost mana. Its basically a high burst damage. This skill should be used for last striking creeps. Brine is very weak and has a lot of trouble with creep kills... steal what you can. Note since it does not cost mana, use this as much as you can. I try to last hit tanks/thors simply because i will likely have least amount of creep kills all game. So saving money is tough. Best way to get money for brine is kills and assists, until you have SHMantle.

How to engage with Brine:

Brine's carapace ability is launched upon using any skill. And W is used for speed before approaching an enemy, so W really casts both at once. I suggest this order for attacking:
1) Press W (speed boost and healing) run towards enemy
2) Impale him with E, then drag him towards your laning partner. The drag lasts 2.5 seconds. You ideally want to drag for only about 2 seconds, because this allows you at the last minute to turn and
3) use your Q (Acid strike to deal damage).

This combo will not kill an opponent at full health, but may result in their death as you continue to chase them, or partner does as well. This combo can kill heroes with half or less health (especially squishes).

Once you have your Ult Ready. The combo becomes slightly more complicated, but can be performed in several ways.. I suggest this approach:

1) Press R (Burrow->invisible underground movement),
2) Press 2 (This is my quick key for silver soul (activate for massive speed boost)
3) Press W to activate your speed/healing and carapace
4) now approach enemy and auto attack him just once. This one attack will do massive damage and unburrow you.
5) Then Hit him with a Q (acid strike)
6) then catch him with E (Impale) and drag him.

This may kill many characters alone. For those that it does not... they are now in full retreat mode. You can hit W again (speed and healing) hope your Q CD finishes during this time and strike again. If you are lucky you may even get E to cool down and drag him again. At this point he is most definitely dead if he is not a late game tank.

Several Key points:

One attack after using the ult, and you pop up (no longer invisible)... make sure you hit the enemy hero with this attack. NOTE: you can use E drag while underground, so you can drag first and then turn and hit with your burrowed autoattack after. These are all situational depending on the position of the hero.

Alternative strategies with Brine.

Brine works best with movement/intel/health-defense items.
There are 2 additional items I have NOT added to my build, but can be very effective:

1) Flare Gun, for an additional burst damage
2) Impact Dial for an additional boost on your drag.

I do not like to use these items, because I find that it complicates the brine character. So many different keys to hit... honestly using these items additionally with the combos I have listed above, simply makes me play the character worse. When I try to use the items, i end up making other mistakes. I find impact dial is also not needed as speed alone will increase the range of your dragging.
If you can implement these items, they should be added early, likely before silver soul.

Queen.Imperius (QUEEN)

GIJoe members who excel with QUEEN are: Scottwins, Sphynx, Bear and QiaoJiao

tAkTiCStorm's Suggested Build:

1) Starting Talents: Cunning, Fitness, Prodigy, Brilliance, Swiftness, Youth (1-1-4) (Can switch out either of last 2 for wealth though is not nessesary)

2) Ability Learning order: Q,E,Q,W,Q,R,Q,E,W,Y,R,E,W,Y,Y,R,E,W

3) If you have wealth go straight to lost treasure for health and energy for early Kassia crystal or if not get duran pendant. Next Nitrogen Retrofit and coat of arms. Then buff up int with Ihan with gravity edge on side.

4) Notes on gameplay.

Laning: Queen always has and always will be a laning monster. With early mass banelings you can wipe out creep waves and push towers but remember banes deal less damage to buildings. Be careful of snipers and foes with area damage attacks as they can murder all your banes. Place creep tumors just outside the opponent's tower de-cloaking range and stay back from the line of fighting unless all opposing heroes are accounted for a good distance away or dead.

Team Fights and Ult: In team fights just keep away and fire repetitive baneling waves at enemy heroes. Use a quick r,q to stun and deal massive damage to heroes. DO NOT aim to have the ultra out all the time and save it to save you or kill someone or something. When summoning an Ultra always target the hero you want to kill as it will automatically attack hostile creeps or towers or you can use it to re-gain momentum by stunning the whole opposing team. And always stay in range of you team so you can heal them easily. DO NOT go for mass kills but do send wave targeted to heroes as they will often back off to prevent mass health loss. But stay on creep and you and your banelings will be fine.





Alternative but similar build suggested by Sphynx/Scottwins:

1) Talents: Cunning, Fitness, Prodigy, Brilliance, Youth, *Transport* (Transport is a key skill for queen that I highly suggest, to avoid missing any creeps while laning)

2) Ability Order: Similar to Taktic's suggestion, only do stats last.

3) Item Order:

1 - Soul Engine (Its cheap, and since Queen kills ALOT of creeps, this is a massively useful item to start with)... provides healing and energy regen on every creep kill
2 - Ihan Crystal (start with 2 intel pieces) - The regen is needed for spamming spell, and the INT and Health stack all important for early survival
3 - Nitrogen Retrofit - Key reason for this item is the slow on spell damage. This aids banellings striking heroes once a first one hits.
4 - Gravity Edge - To max spell damage
5 - Yamato Reactor - For spell damage, speed boost, and Cool Down Reduction (helping Queen spam spells)

Additional Items: Kassia Crystal for healing. Korhal Vanguard for buffing creeps and allies. Symphonic Seed is great when you get assists. Any Intel or Armor item is usually your key for new possible items.
Alternative Build: Max out your CDReduction in order to literally spam spells ALOT. The Ultralisk can stay alive the entire time, and be recast when it dies with 3-4 CDR items.

4) Notes on gameplay:

I have a few key suggestions.
1 - Stay on your creep. You have decent movement speed on the creep, but you are the slowest character in the game off it. DO NOT walk in dangerous areas without creep... You will be ganked and killed easily, even with your tanky, healing, banelling defence.
2 - Remember you are a Caster. Play more like Raynor, and you will live for a long time. Beyond very early, Never use your auto attack. Not on a Tower, not on a hero. Its pretty worthless. But mostly, because if you are that close to enemy heroes, you will die. Stay well back, and cast
3 - Early Game, prioritize killing creeps, not heroes. The heroes will dodge your banellings, thus wasting them. Banellings are your ONLY weapon really, and ONLY strength. They need to kill as many creeps as possible. I aim the hero to place a deep creep colony, or when i think he is playing dumb, or pushing into me. But generally I pick creeps first. By level 8 the tower you are attacking should be dead. Also the enemy hero should be poor as their tower should be stealing a decent number of their kills. You can't die early... It will result in you being blown out. You have to do the early game well. Try to play flawless. Take no risks. That is how Queen excels. Risky queens are bad queens.

Queen can be alot of fun. Enjoy.

Strategy guide for Infernal.Mandrake (Drake)

GIJoe members who excell with Drake are: Sphynx and Sephon (others?-talk to me and ill add your notes here).

1) Starting Talents: Fitness, (Discipline or Health Regen), Integrity, Swiftness, Youth, Wealth (0-3-3) (I currently am using health regen)

2) Order of Ability learning: Max Q (Lance) first for pulling enemy heroes; next max W (martyr) for chasing down enemy heroes; next max E (molten armor); and of course R is your ult, and needs upping at lvl 6, 11 and 16.
(Q W Q W Q R Q W W E R E E E Y R Y Y)

3) The key to playing Drake is to get Health regen / Armor / Life to support martyr. This aura does damage when others are close, and SHM is a great stack with it. Generally this is my item order
Item order:

1) Lost Treasure (helps with health regen, money-drake farms poorly at start) - When you start with this item, you should realize Mandrake doesnt start very tanky without buckler, be careful!
2) Buckler (Get this item asap or you may die)
3) Lost Treasure --> Silversoul - This speed boost makes chasing heroes with martyr easy, also this item has the best health regen in the game.
4) Super Heated Mantle - Great for stacking damage on your martyr, and for creep kills.
5) Organic Carapace - This is a very key item for Drake. The 1% healing per second allows you to heal OUT of battle very quickly.
6) Buckler --> DST (This item can be gotten quicker if you find you are doing poorly)
7) Lifetech Nanosuit - This item adds life, and heals you once you drop below 30 life. This can be quite annoying for opponents as they charge you to get the kill, and you never seem to die
8) Nitrogen Retrofit - Adds life and intel for more damage on spell casting. But the key here is slowing is added to your martyr damage, making hero chasing even easier.

-Additional strats can include more health regen items to make martyr permanent. I find this is unnecessary as Silversoul/DST/Organic provide plenty.
-I find the silversoul can really aid getting KILLS with Drake, if you die too often, feel free to base your build on DST/Organic/SHM for Armor/Life

4) Notes on gameplay.

Drake can be one of the more deadly tanks in the game. People who do poorly with drake take many risks early, assuming he is invincible. Drake becomes invincible mid-late game. Early game, with his melee attack, Drake is actually fairly weak. Martyr should not be used before level 6 IMO. It causes too much damage to yourself and will likely result in your own death. For those new to Drake, martyr is great and deadly to both others and yourself. Try not to overuse it. Drakes passive ability is also heavily OP. +2 STR for kills or assists. Thus this character can easily snowball if fed. Here is how to perform a proper drake attack early. Pull enemy hero to you, auto attack him, only use martyr if you are lvl 5-6 or higher, and hope your partners kill the hero. If you turn Martyr on BEFORE you pull a hero, they take more damage once they are pulled towards you.

1) Turn on Martyr
2) Shoot Lance (if you miss, turn off Martyr)
3) If you grab the hero...hit and hold R (Drakes Ult then goes off, they are stunned next to you)-Martyr adds extra damage to the hero.
4) Follow and Chase hero if they live. (use silversoul to help you chase hero)

If you Ult without Martyr on, no extra damage is done while they are stunned next to you.

For Later game, Martyr + SHM seems to result in more damage than your attacks. Following heroes and pulling them to you is the entire strategy to killing them. This is the bonus of Silversoul. A drake charging you down being faster than you is scary and deadly. You can be that deadly drake.

Go Go Fireworm!

Strategy guide for Prelate.Zeratul (Zeratul)
GIJoe members who excell with Zeratul are: Strider and Axtrimaitex
1) Starting Talents: Might, Bloodthirst, Fury, Veteran, Fitness, Swiftness (4-1-1)

2) Order to learn the abilities: Q W E Q W R Q W Q W R E E E Y R Y Y

3) Build order of items:

1) Duran's Machette - it gives good life steal for getting creeps
2) Ocelots Revolver which makes zeratuls Q much more powerful.
3) Ocelots Revolver --> BlackHoleMagnum (BHM)
4) Stun Knife
5) Adrenaline potion - the adrenaline is extremely good on zera, gives you just that little bit of bonus damage you need to get the kills.
6) Stun Knife --> Time Splitter - you must buy the other pieces of the items as soon as you have money for them or you will not be able to get as many kills as you can, always get the agility in the itemes with the exception of stun knife because that item is needed before the agility in Time Splitter.
7) Phantom Menace - the speed buff and agility makes Zeratul all round better.
8) Hand of Mengsk (HoM) this item reduces spawn time AND gives lots of agility. Agility is extremely important to Zeratul because his w does bonus agility damage when attacking from behind.
9) Khali Blade - damage is always nice.
10) Sell Durans machette and buy Contamination Shard - With this items you can melt tanks in seconds. So summary: Durans. BHM. Time Splitter. Phantom. HoM. Khali. Contamination.

4) A few notes about this character's specific game play style: Zeratul in my opinion will always be the king assassin. At the start it is usefull to buy a sentry ward and place it at the enemy firebat then creep on the tank there just close there, after you've solo'd that tank is when you get your planar ability then you can wait on the cliff by firebat and see if they creep there they most often do and often go low on hp then you can just run in and Jump (Q) them if they survive that and are low hp a good planar (E) will end them, the rune comes at 3:00 so while you are waiting on cliff you can check for rune. Until Zeratul gets BHM and Stun knife he's not amazing at killing stuff, but still good so just creep up, play near to our towers if you can. Planaring them into tower and bubble is amazingly effective. and the durans Machette will help you keep your health up while you creep. Once you have bhm and Stun Knife you can start roaming the map and picking off low health heros, just run up bubble them then Jump (Q) Behind them and you should get the kill. if you don't you can planar yourself away to saftey! Remember to keep your ADRENALINE potion going, don't let it wear off if you can. And once you have the full time splitter you can start to dps down towers pretty fast so b-dooring becomes an option. Then just carry on buying items, Bubble,Jump,Dead. But always ALWAYS remember to activate Stun Knife / Time Splitter before you bubble/Jump. Have fun being an amazing assassin!

Axtri's build is fairly different to mine, Maybe he'll do a guide too.

Strategy guide for Alpha.Crackling (Ling)

(This guide is stolen from SLP Highdrator)

GIJoe members who excell with Ling are: Sarpedon, Strider, Sphynx (I play it... not really excell with it mwahaha)

1) Starting Talents: Might, Fitness, Integrity, CDR, Swiftness, Wealth (1-2-3)

2) Order of Ability learning: Talents:
- Q (Jump) for excessive damage
- W (Vicious Bite) for healing and increased damage
- E (slowing) deals damage and slows targets

QEQWQRQEWERWEWYRYY Something like that (Q/E for early kills), slow then jump. Later add W before or after the jump

3) Ling seems like a hit and run character. Massive damage done in first few hits, then run away. Hopefully you kill them

1) Lost Treasure
2) Machette
3) Revolver
4) Kinetic Cell (helps with ling energy hunger)
5) Kinetic Cell -> Energy Saber
6) Adrenaline (250 +18 Agil item, rebuy when you can, bonus damage/armor is worth it)
7) Revolver -> Black Hole Magnum (BHM)
8) Vibranium Sheild and then eventually Galactic Defender
9) Coat of Arms
10) Shinobi
11) ShadowMourne

(I did not properly steal the END of this build, so only accurate up to Galactic Defender. Those were his final Items though.

4) Notes on gameplay.

Ling does alot of damage. Think of him as a Damage burst character, as opposed to aa. The bulk of his damage is done with W and Q. Use the Ult to engage and run away. You are a hit and run guy. When you have galactic defender, use it when you are low on life to survive. The bonuses in gal def work best when you are low on life. Picking when to engage is key with this guy. He is super strong AND super squishy. His best defense is speed, and to kill the other guy first! LOL. GL

Strategy guide for Toximancer.Vespus (Toxi) ****UPDATED MARCH*****

GIJoe members who excell with Toxi are: Sphynx, Sever, PWNShow and Townsy.

1) Starting Talents: Might, Lifesteal, Fury, Fitness, Integrity, Swiftness (3-2-1) (Zeal would also be a good talent on him, and many use fortify to really use his ult and live in battles)

2) Order of Ability learning: Talents:
- E - This is basically your slowing ability, it works on every shot
- Q - Your slime spit, not a lot of damage, but 30% slow on target
- W - Constantly casting armour/health regen, Also causes slowing of opponents weapons speed once they attack you (Natural counter to AA heroes)
- R - Area cast spell damage. This won't actually kill someone, you need to last hit them, but it is wide and damages well.
His Passive skill increases speed when you are low on life, similar to virgil but based on %'es so it is better.

I find this order works fairly well: Q E E W E R E Q W Q R W Q W Y R Y Y

3) Toximancer is an AA (auto attack) hero but is sort of a counter to Nova and Darpa. The straight DPS on toximancer is much lower. The real strength to toximancer is the ability to harass / Kite / and gank heroes using his slowing abilities. Toximancer can be really annoying to fight because you are always slowed.
Generally this is my Item order:

1) Machette
2) Stun Knife (stuns)
3) Hammer (Slowing)
4) Pyre (Wpn speed for some DPS)
Optional items
5) Hammer --> FOE (big life boost on Hammer)
6) Great Item on Toxi is Chilling. Makes heroes that attack you lose 60% weapon speed
7) Nitrogen Retrofit (Life and Slowing. With this item you really are slowing them by massive amounts when attacking.
8) Stun knife --> Splitter


9) Optional Choices:Other items here I would pick are sustain items like Organic, or Phantom Menace to help kite better etc.


4) Notes on gameplay.

Toximancer is sort of a snowballing character. Can go either direction. Try to play safely with him, he harasses well, but does not fare well in a head to head fight. You are best fighting someone while running and shooting, or chasing them down. If they are fighting you head to head, you don't have enough life until Nitro is done, and even then, they probably have more. As for the Ult, carrying smoke grenades can really help stay invisible while your ult is working. This can be extremely annoying for them. They will target you when your ult is up, so the smoke is directly countering that, while the ult still damages them.

GL.

Strategy guide for Vorpal.Valedict (Vorpal)

GIJoe members who excell with Vorpal are: Sphynx, FMage, and Silentkill.

1) Starting Talents: Fitness, Spell Resist, Integrity, CoolDownReduction, Swiftness, Wealth (0-3-3) (Vorpal does not use energy!!)

2) Order of Ability learning: Talents:
- Q - Surge (Warp pull) is very handy for both damage and pulls. This is Vorpal's bread and butter. Works as a great escape or pull.
- E - Javelin (damage and pushes targets, if you can push them TOWARDS your base, or AWAY from theirs, they will hate u )
- R - Area damage spell
- W - Spell resist reflect, for the most part "useless"

Actual Order (Q E Q E Q R Q E E Y R Y Y W W R W W)

3) Vorpal is a tank, with a nice mix of pushes and pulls. He should be played as a tank, you can get kills naturally with his skills, you don't need to buy items to try and get kills. You just need to play him better with his skills.

Generally this is my Item order:

1) Goggles
2) Lost Treasure
3) Buckler
4) Goggles --> Korhal Vangaurd
5) ReBuy Goggles
6) Goggles --> Buffer
7) Tanky Options: Organic Carapace / Lifetech Nanosuit
8) DPSy Options: SHM // Nitro (Both are great with him, and still provide some Tankyness/Life)


4) Notes on gameplay.

Vorpal has a very nice mix of pushes/pulls/tankyness. Overall I consider him the 4th best tank in the game behind 1) Micro, 2) Drake, 3) Justicar. Vorpal can warp himself and creeps closer to your own tower. This is a handy move while landing to force their heroes MORE out of position for yourself or partner to kill. A key hint i have is, never use your surge warp to attack going forward because you may find your self trapped in a battle. Try to save it for escapes or pulls into your team. IF you must use surge TOWARDS the enemy, it should be going for a LAST hit.

Another nice move is to loop around get behind them and use the javelins to TRAP the hero. These pushes can do a lot of damage. U can also surge forward and then use javelins to strike a hero.

The Javelin should really be called the "hammer toss" as ANY creep in front of you OR behind you will be hit by the javelin. Think of it as a hammer circling around your hero. In this way you must be far from creeps to use javelin throws on heroes.

A good way to use the Ult is to surge people into it to suck them into the death cloud. Once again be careful about using this diving TOWARD the enemy or base. Again its nice if it works, but consider it extremely risky, as you have no escape after and a stun can freeze u in a team fight or near a tower for an ugly explosion of your hero

Vorpal can be played really safely. Ideally he should have very few deaths in a game.

Strategy guide for Sarah.Kerrigan (Kerrigan)

GIJoe members who excell with Kerrigan are: Sphynx

1) Starting Talents: Might, Lifesteal, Fury, Fitness, Integrity, Swiftness (3-2-1)

2) Order of Ability learning: Talents:
- Q - Kerrigan's Boomerang Provides Damage and Slowing on Target
- W - Bouncing Damage, great for Farming Creeps
- E - Poison//Minions (Minions appear at lvl 2)
- R - Ult spammable Bomb

Actual Order (W, Q, E, Q, E, W, Q, Q, E, W, R, R, W, E, R, Y, Y, Y)

NOTE: Delay R (Ult) until Lvl 10/11, it doesn't do enough damage, and its much better to stack up W/Q/E together to help farm and DPS heroes. The Ult is nice at higher levels, but lower levels is not worth getting especially as this build is more DPS, less casting.

3) Kerrigan is basically a Ranged DPS like Nova or Darpa, But Requires more farm to be useful. There is really only 1 way to play Kerrigan that I have found that is even remotely viable.

Generally this is my Item order:

1) Hunter's Hatchet
2) Machette
3) Arcbound Ravager: Pieces in this order: Culling Saber, Graviton Booster, Graviton Booster, Serated Cleaver, Serated Cleaver Finish Item
4) Coat of Arms
5) Darwin's Might
6) Khali Blade
7) Additional Damage or Health/Armor Items (Situational)


4) Notes on gameplay.

Kerrigan early is great at farming, but not extremely strong vs heroes. She pokes at people and must utilize the boomerang well to fight heroes. The best move to do well is to focus on farming and jungle-ing. Although she is a STR hero, she is not very tanky. Her entire advantage is based on fast farming, thus use that. She will be virtually worthless until you complete Arcbound. Without it, you can't kill anyone really. So basically just farm and help others until you get it.

Once you get CoA, you should be able to do a lot of damage. Kerri's Passive/Machette/Lifesteal Talent should provide a lot of health sustain while creeping. Darwins can be used to heal to full life in 3-4 hits on things. Very useful.

Overall Kerrigan is a weak hero. She takes too long to power up. But once she is strong, she can get many kills in a row.

Change for unix talent build to 1-1-4 with upgraded spell damage talent.