Spunkiest: Guide to Gold-Endorsement Juice

Introduction
Hello all. Although I just registered on this forum, I have lurked here from time to time, seeing that I play MNC a whole lot lately. I wrote this quick guide today about using Gold-level Juice and posted on the Steam forums, and felt like it should be posted on the Uber official forums as well.

What is this?

For a while in my time playing Monday Night Combat, I've made quite a few custom classes. My preferred endorsements were Armor, Skill Recovery, Reload, maybe Health Recovery. I used to consider the Juice endorsement to be perhaps the most underpowered endorsement, only being better than Critical Shot. However, with the unlocking of my 6th custom class slot, I decided to give a Gold Juice class a shot.

This is what this guide is about: with the boosted juice and by playing carefully, one can take advantage of the free juice and get a full meter quicker.

Rundown: Class Setup

So which position to play? Honestly, that is up to you, but the thing that you must keep in mind is that you must focus more on staying alive versus killing other players. More on that later.

That being said, my preferred position is Assassin. With her skills focusing on both getting in and out of situations swiftly, as well as her infamous potential damage output while juiced, she fits well with the goals of this class. I will be focusing this guide around her, mainly.

As for other positions: Tank, Gunner, even Assault is a fine choice, but their mobility is limited compared to the Assassin, and decent Snipers will always have the potential to erase all your juice-building work in one shot.

As for endorsements, this is what I run:

GOLD:

Juice
Duh. Having two juice pickups' worth is more helpful than you think to filling your juice bar. Having Juice endorsement bronze or even Silver doesn't give enough to really justify putting them as an endorsement on a "normal" class, and a Juice-centric class really prefers Gold level endorsement.

SILVER:

Armor
Even though the general strategy for this class is to keep away from other players (again, more on that later), it's still good to have some extra bulk just in case. Armor, honestly, is an endorsement you just can't go wrong with.

BRONZE:

Skill Recovery
Having faster skill regen is something that mainly helps the Assassin, since her skills are focused on improving her mobility and stealth aspects. If you aren't playing Assassin in this class, you can use whichever endorsement you want. I would recommend Clip Size, Health Recovery or Rate of Fire. Bronze Speed is too little a bonus to really help, Accuracy and Reload you may not really need, and we don't really need to discuss Critical Shot.

General Strategy

Playing a Juice class is a bit different from playing any other class. You have to practice a general "survivalist" strategy, where you keep yourself alive and keep the juice steadily flowing. This may be a bit selfish-sounding at first, but you will be killing lots of bots and eventually shredding players/turrets when Juiced, which is very helpful for the team.

General pointers include:

• Bots are your primary targets!
  Bots are easy money, juice, and occasionally drop helpful Juice pickups. As an Assassin, they are easy pickings for you (always strike from the back!). However, take care when standing close to them; ejectors will ruin your day! Spamming Shurikens at them kills them just fine, and also brings me to my next point...
  
• Shuriken Launcher takes Precedence!
  If you've been playing Assassin for a while, this may seem quite strange to you. Normally you use that murderous disc shooter against Moneyballs, Turrets, and other things that just stand still. However, as a juice-building class, you want to keep your distance from people and kill bots the majority of the time. If a player is heavily wounded or you are able to easily backstab someone, by all means go for it. However, you will be getting the majority of your juice from bots, as mentioned before.
  
• Upgrade your active skills first!
  The order I generally upgrade my skills when playing Assassin Juice class is:
  
  Passive 2 -> Cloak 2 -> Dash 2 -> Smoke Bomb 2 -> Cloak 3 -> Dash 3 -> Smoke Bomb 3
  
  You probably noticed that I did not list Passive 3. The reason for this is because you honestly do not need the Katana immediately due to how much you'll be using the Shuriken launcher. If you really feel the urge to get it and you have lots of spare cash, by all means go for it. Just remember that fighting other pros really puts your survivability at risk, and extra melee damage won't really tip the scales in your favor.
  
  Katana does kill bots faster, so if you can get it reasonably, go for it. Just watch out for ejectors, again.
  
• When in doubt, retreat.
  Get used to retreating when playing this class. If a situation is not going exactly how you want it to, cloak and dash. Firing your Shurikens as you retreat is not recommended, especially against players who have weapons built for medium-long range. If you do find yourself too close to another player or several, smoke bomb is your best friend. Remember to press your jump key shortly after deploying one, and you'll be sent high into the air and (mostly) away from harm.
  
• Mascots are good for juice, but keep your distance.
  Bullseye not just drops cash, he drops a fair amount of juice powerups as well. When he spawns, by all means go chase him. However, remember to keep your distance: other players will be going for him too, probably enemy teammates as well. Again, Shuriken him for fast cash, and sweep up the juice powerups when it's safe. The same strategy can be applied to Juice Bot as well, just that he drops more juice goodies for you to sweep up.
  
  However, a good tactic is that, if you are generally safe, melee the mascot. Remember that melee strike key you forgot about after the tutorial? Hitting a mascot with it yields lots of juice, so if it's safe, go for it!

So You are Juiced. Now What?
Honestly, this is up to you. I'm pretty sure all of you have had a chance to be juiced normally and generally know what to do when you have that power. As an Assassin, you can be one-woman wrecking ball for enemy turrets. I'm not 100% sure if having the Katana (Passive 3) will be best for this, but I've found that not having it doesn't hurt too much. Upgrading to Passive 3 when having full juice is a great idea, though, if you have the money.

One thing to keep in mind: If you are at risk of dying, it's better to activate your juice instead of risking losing all your hard work for nothing. At least you'll kill your atacker(s) and wipe out some bots as well. Furthermore, you'll still get quite a bit of money anyway to buy stuff with.

What about Juice Dispensers?
If you have the money, go for it. However, in my time playing as a Juice class, I've found that if I stay alive for more than a minute, then I'm already up to 50% or more juice. I personally feel that expending $500 for juice when your juice bar is 50% or more is actually a waste, but that is just my opinion. Again, if the opportunity presents itself, go for it.

In Overtime, however, going for juice dispensers should be a top priority. Deny them from your enemies, and enjoy your juice!

Conclusion

Although not the most deadly class, playing a Juice-centric class is actually quite fun and a fresh playstyle, in my experience. I do need to play it a bit more, but I hope you guys give it a try. Lastly, if you guys have any constructive criticism, feel free to leave it here! Thanks again for reading!

Couldn't you melee a bot twice or four times and get the exact same amount as a gold juice endorsement?

Gold Juice just doesn't seem to be effective for me at all. The only glass I would use it on is the Support. I feel the Assassin if killing bots frequently enough like she should be, really, really does not need a juice slot in endorsements.
Then even on the support who I only really play on Spunky doesn't really need it. If I was going to, it would just have to be for the start of the game then if I die switch back maybe. Because if I have gold juice I can heal a few base turrets get my firebase down and heal it too along with my team. Then once I've gotten juice and used it, the starting boost of juice has gone and it no longer is benefiting me at all. But I don't think I would even use it in the first place, as a support I try to stay alive as long as possible and is probably the class with I least die with, and actually get the most kills too. (Talking about pubs).
So if I'm staying alive and not dying often enough to use the gold juice to its best then...
:\
I don't want to suicide to get a bit of a juice boost up, nowatimsayin.

If the juice endorsement increased your juice gain rate, then it would have a purpose.

interesting set up, how does your gold endorsement remain useful after your 1st juice though. especially with the strategy of survival? or is the goal to get juice and suicide rush with it?

First off you only get the benefit for any juice endorsement at spawn and nothing more.

I find the Tank an excellent choice for a Gold Juice build, he is devastating and resilient.

Here is the setup I prefer:
Gold Juice
Silver Clip
Bronze Skill

Gold juice with silver clip help you gain full juice at a tremendous rate.

Admittedly, a juice-centric class isn't the most fantastic class in the world; I was just trying to go for something fresh in terms of custom classes.

Sorta, but being Juiced is a game changer in itself. I agree that it's not very useful after your first juice, but if you still play very carefully you can keep on juicing. And if you die, well you can start the process anew with your boosted juice.

I'll have to try it! Tank is my favorite class to play overall, I just worry about Snipers and Assassins without any armor endorsement.

Gold juice is something for the first few minutes of a game, After that you can buy juice anyway.
So aslong as you don't want to have two custom classes for one game gold juice for me is pointless.

Problem is I juice multiple times in one life, but the juice endorsement only helps me the first time. The rest of it is a wasted endorsement. I would rather waste 250 buying juice with my bar half full than waste a gold endorsement.

Gold Juice classes during overtime. You don't get the juice boost without it and it doesn't stop you from having gold everything else.

i like xbox

Good to know, but I think maybe you're on the wrong forum. You want general discussion.