"Gnaw eat you!"

Mmmm delicious Awesomenauts! Welcome to my guide for Gnaw! Thank you for taking a look and reading it! In this guide, I'll cover Gnaw's various attributes, abilities and builds, along with the different play-styles you can use. I'll finish up with a few tips and tricks, as always, and then it'll all be over.

• Gnaw is unlocked at level 7, which means you should get him in a couple of matches. You can give Gnaw a try if you want, but if you find him uncomfortable, try switching to a different 'naut and come back once you understand the game and other characters a bit better.
  
• Gnaw is one of the most versatile characters in the game (I'll go over it more in the builds chapter) so there's never a single build that works best. After reading the guide, try experimenting with other items that work well with one another and change your purchase order depending on the situation you're in.
  
• I'm not some sort of MLGPRO Awesomenauts player. There are way better players out there who probably know Gnaw better than I do. However I still believe this guide will teach you the basic and advanced features of Gnaw and will allow you to play better as Gnaw or against him.

Readied your stomach? Let's jump right into the guide's first chapter.
(You can read the update log here!)[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

"Yum Yum!"

I know you can't wait to lay your hands on the king of DoT (and obviously the cutest pet in the universe), but before we go over all of Gnaw's... digestive abilities, let's go over some of Gnaw's basic stats:

• Health: 140 (170)
  At 140HP (Which steadily increases to 170), Gnaw has more HP than most other nauts. This doesn't make him a tank by any means though, so don't rush in a team fight expecting to survive a ton of damage.
  Speed: 7.4
  Gnaw's base movement speed is also pretty high. Paired with boots and a bite upgrade that increases his speed when attacking, Gnaw can chase down most 'nauts with ease.
  Attack Range: Short
  Gnaw is a melee character, meaning you'll have to be very close to your targets in order to hit them. Be careful when chasing enemy 'nauts because if they find a way to turn the tides, you'll rarely be able to escape alive.
  Role: Defensive
  Gnaw's abilities, paired with his focus on DoT allow him to send enemies scurrying away. His Weedlings also serve as great defensive sentries.
  Type: Roamer, Harraser
  Good Gnaws usually manage to control the jungle, while great Gnaws control the entire map. His abilities allow him to ward the map to tell where enemies are, as well as harrass and damage them over time.

So while Gnaw doesn't really have the ability to deal heavy damage in an instant, he's still a great asset to the team. But that's not all. Much like every other 'naut, Gnaw has his pros and cons:

• The best DoT character in the game. Very useful during early game.
  
• Both of Gnaw's abilities are versatile and can be used in multiple situations throughout the match, regardless of your item choices.
  
• Great area denial, allowing you and your team to defend or attack more safely.
  
• Gnaw is very agile and can juke other players relatively easily once you get the hang of it.
  
• He can also chase most enemies down and bite them to death (Mmm, delicious!)

• Burst damage characters are very dangerous and can destroy Gnaw's weedlings (and later in the game Gnaw himself) quickly.
  
• Gnaw doesn't really have any escape abilities. He can slow enemies down and get increased speed when attacking using certain items, but they're not as useful as other escape abilities in the game. They also come at the cost of other, potentially better items.
  
• Gnaw lacks burst damage. Because of that, enemy 'nauts, especially ones with escape abilities, can run away and survive your attacks if you aren't assisted by another 'naut. This also makes it troublesome to go against tanks, even ones who don't have full HP.
  
• Voltar.[goo.gl] That damn Voltar.[goo.gl]

Now that we're done digesting this delicious fact sheet, let's move on and learn about Gnaw's abilities.

"I spit on you!"

You know how it goes - Gnaw, just like most other 'nauts, has 2 unique abilities, a main attack and a jump. This chapter will tell you all about them. First up: Acid Spit.

Acid Spit:

• Cost: 135 Solar
  
• Damage Over Time: 30
  
• Damage Duration: 9s
  
• Cooldown: 8s
  
• Goo Lifetime: 4
  
• Range: 6

By pressing the right mouse button, Gnaw will spit out 2 lumps of noxious goo in a set arc (Meaning that unlike Lonestar's dynamite and Raelynn's timerift, you can't adjust the trajectory of the projectiles by holding the button down). The lumps will land once they hit any object, and will remain in their position for 4 seconds. Any character, droid or critter that touches the goo will be poisoned, receiving 35 points of damage over 10 seconds.

• Warning! If the goo touches a turret, it will disappear.
  
• Tip! Keep in mind that the goo's trajectory is fixed regardless of your momentum.

Aggressive Acid (170 Solar): Goo will last longer and drip through glass platforms and drip down. (Goo will now drip, goo lifetime: 6s)
Tentacle Soup (150 Solar): Adds a slow effect to the spit. (Level 1: 20% slow. Level 2: 40% slow. Slow lasts for 1 second)
Overcharged Metabolism (150 Solar): Reduces cooldown of spit. (Cooldown: 6s)
Feather Ball (145 Solar): Goo balls now travel further. (Distance: 20)
Spike Slime (180 Solar): Increases DoT. (Level 1: 40 damage. Level 2: 50 damage. Level 3: 60 damage)
Split Spit (190 Solar): The goo will split in 2 when an enemy awesomenaut touches it.

The acid spit is a great area denial and harassment tool. Enemy 'nauts will generally try to avoid them, and those who are hit by it will suffer an annoying damage over time which will deny them the ability to teleport back to base. Acid spit can be used to slow enemies down for ganks and escapes, as well as generally deal more powerful, annoying damage by mid-game. Let's move on to Gnaw's next ability, which is as versatile as this one.

"I poop on you!"

Gnaw's second unique ability is the incredibly versatile Weedlings.
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Weedlings:

• Parts Required: 5
  Damage: 20
  Weedling Damage: 7
  Attack Speed: 66.7
  Health: 60

Pressing the middle mouse button will stop Gnaw for a short moment and have him sneeze out a Weedling in front of him. The Weedling spawns with about 33% health and will attack any enemies or critters in range. The spawn itself also deals damage. The weedling will regenerate health if it's lower than 100%. Gnaw can hold up to 2 weedlings and have up to 4 active in the field. Each weedling requires 5 parts to spawn, which you get by biting enemies and critters. You also get a weedling part every 12 seconds.

• Tip! If you want to spawn a weedling on enemy droids to help pushing, make sure you do it only after you've lowered the enemy droid's health, or else they'll kill it before it manages to restore its health.
  
• Tip! You can place weedlings in the jungle area to have them farm critters for you. Just remember that this will also deny critters from your allies, not just the enemy.
  
• Tip! Weedlings also act as wards. If an enemy comes near them, they will show up on the minimap. Very useful when you want to know where the enemy is or if they're setting up an attack.
• Tip! You can spawn multiple weedlings in a hiding spot to create a trap against unsuspecting enemies. Just remember that it might not work more than a few times, and that nukers like Coco and Raelynn can destroy all of your weedlings at once.

Corrosive Spores (180 Solar): Increases the damage of weedling shots (Level 1: 9 Damage. Level 2: 11 Damage).
Wild Growth (175 Solar): Increases the damage of weedling spawning (Level 1: 30 Damage. Level 2: 40 Damage).
Fertilizer (180 Solar): Weedlings that live after 15 seconds grow stronger (Total of 100HP)
Overgrowth (110 Solar): Weedlings require less parts to build. (3 Parts)
Flex Neck (140 Solar): Increases attack speed of weedlings, (Level 1: +15%. Level 2: +30%. Level 3: +45%)
Bag of Seeds (150 Solar): Allows Gnaw to have more weedlings active at any given time (Level 1: 5 Weedlings. Level 2: 6 Weedlings)

Weedlings can be used offensively, defensively or supportingly. They can be used to push against towers, protect your own towers against enemies or ward any area of the map. Regardless of your item choices, Weedlings are very useful in many situations. We'll learn more later, but for now lets continue to Gnaw's basic attack (Nom!).

"Omnomnomnomnom!"

Gnaw's main attack is his noxious bite.

Bite:

• Damage: 7
  
• Damage Over Time: 10
  
• Damage Duration: 5s
  
• Attack Speed: 130
  
• Range: 2.8 (Melee)

Gnaw's primary attack is a melee-range bite. The bit does medium damage and deals additional damage over time. A single bite can deny the enemy from teleporting back to base for 5 seconds, which is great in case they try to hide and escape. In addition, as mention previously, each bite against an enemy or critter will give you one part for your weedlings (if you have unlocked the ability).

Rotten Teeth (245 Solar): Increases your DoT (Level 1: 20. Level 2: 30)
Chattering Teeth (175 Solar): Increases your attack speed (Level 1: +15%. Level 2: +30%. Level 3: +45%)
Filed Teeth (195 Solar): Adds a lifestealing effect (30% of the damage you deal will heal you)
Dental Braces (165 Solar): Deals the DoT over a shorter period of time (2.5 seconds)
Rabbit Teeth (185 Solar): You will move faster after biting an enemy or critter (+3 speed for 1 second)
Diamond Teeth (180 Solar): Increases bite damage (Level 1: 9. Level 2: 11. Level 3: 13)

Just like all of Gnaw's abilities, his bite is also very versatile. Depending on your build, you can use it as a survivability tool or as a great damage dealer. Either way, Gnaw's bite is an indispensable tool of his arsenal and should not be underestimated. More on that later.

For now, let's take a look at Gnaw's incredibly high jump.

"Gnaw is on a roll!"

Finally, Gnaw uses his Skroggle Jump to reach high places.

Pressing W will have you jump a single jump. Holding W will let you jump up higher. With boots, Gnaw has one of the highest jumps in the game!

• Tip! If you walk onto a jumpad, you can press W mid-flight to double jump, giving you a bit of extra distance.

Now we're ready for the exciting stuff, the builds! But these won't be the usual builds you might be expecting to see...

"Gnaw get gizmos! Yum yum."

When it comes to builds, Gnaw is special, in my opinion. Both of his abilities are so unique and can be used in so many different ways and situations, it's impossible to create a build that specifically indicates which items you should get. So instead, I'll show you two item sets for each ability (Other than utility items) which you can mix and match with each other to create a build that fits your play style!

Because of that, there is also no set purchase order. I'll cover it in the next chapter, but basically you should just go with the flow and buy whatever suits your needs and playstyle.

"Let's go!"

Before I get into the ability builds, I'll cover the utility items. These items stay pretty much the same regardless of your playstyle.

1. Power Pills Light: Power Pills Light is a great item that gives Gnaw a much needed survivability during late game. It also allows you to make full use of your jungle weedlings, which will kill critters for you. You don't have to buy this item right away: buy it only if you barely (or don't) escape fights.
2. Piggy Bank: 150 free solar, just for you! A great boost which will allow you to make your spit deadlier, weedlings stronger or bites faster. If you're anti-solar items, you can replace this with Baby Kuri Mammoth.
3. Space Air Max: These boots should probably be purchased before mid-game. They will allow you to move faster (and thus chase better), jump much higher and give you increased juking capabilities. Very useful on Gnaw.

Remember that there is no set purchase order. If you find yourself in need for more health or speed, don't be afraid to delay an ability upgrade or two for them.
You should also buy at least one ability with your solar. I recommend buying Acid Spit first, but weedlings are also very much a valid option.

The Aggressive Spit item set aims for increased harassment capabilities as well as overall map domination by allowing your spit to cover as much of the map as possible, as well as stay in the map for a longer period of time.

Overcharged Metabolism: The decreased cooldown is essential for proper harassment. Having your spit available faster means you can deter enemies from approaching a certain area more often as well.
Spike Slime: Increased damage. What's not to like? Very useful when playing aggressively, but also useful before a teamfight or for harassing enemies. If you find yourself using spit often, you can invest the spare solar from your piggy bank in the first level of this item, which makes spit a lot more dangerous during early game.
Aggressive Acid: This, combined with Overcharged Metabolism, will allow you to constantly harass and deter enemies from strategic areas.

• Tip! After purchasing this item, your spit will drip down if it lands on a glass platform. This is very useful, especially in areas like AI Station 404's jungle, where it can drip down onto unsuspecting enemies.

The aggressive spit item set is useful if you're looking for map domination. Try to spit onto glass platforms and strategic areas like hiding spots to maximize your control over the field and harass the enemy.

The supportive spit item set is may look similar to the aggressive set, but instead of focusing on map domination, this set will allow you and your allies to chase down enemies who get hit by your spit. As such, instead of aiming at strategic spots and surfaces, with this build you should try to aim directly at enemy 'nauts.

Overcharged Metabolism: The decreased cooldown is essential for proper harassment. Having your spit available faster means you can deter enemies from approaching a certain area more often as well.
Tentacle Soup: This is the core of the item set. The extra slow will allow you and your allies to set up ganks and give chase more easily against unsuspecting targets.

• Tip! When spitting, you'd want to hit as many 'nauts as you can. However you can also spit at low-ceiling locations like Augilion's bottom jungle or wrecked turret locations to increase the chances of enemy 'nauts stepping inside the goo.

Spike Slime: Increased damage. What's not to like? Very useful when playing aggressively, but also useful before a teamfight or for harassing enemies. If you find yourself using spit often, you can invest the spare solar from your piggy bank in the first level of this item, which makes spit a lot more dangerous during early game.

The supportive spit item set aims to help you and your allies give chase and decrease the enemy 'nauts chances of escaping. Try coordinating with your team to make full use of the slow effect.

Weedlings can be used in a variety of ways, with different item sets suitable for different goals. This item set aims to make your weedlings as dangerous as possible: High damage, fast attacks and a lot of HP to help them survive nukes.

Corrosive Spores: Extra damage is just one part of the weedlings' recipe for destruction and havoc. You'll most likely want to get a couple of levels of "Flex Neck" first to maximize the weedlings' efficiency.
Fertilizer: After buying Fertilizer, your weedlings will get 40 additional HP if they survive for 15 seconds. If you're making a weedling nest, try to think at least 15 seconds ahead so that the enemy will have a harder time getting rid of it.
Flex Neck: The extra attack speed is the 2nd half of the weedlings' damage increase combination, increasing their attack speed by up to 45%. This is a very dramatic increase, and when combined with the damage increase, they can deal a lot of damage, especially when grouped together in a weedling nest.

Remember than when you spawn weedlings, they start with 20HP. This means that they are very vulnerable and can be taken out easily. Think a few steps ahead, plant the weedlings while the enemy is busy defending.

Support weedlings are less about damage and more about arena control. This item set focuses on allowing you to spam your weedlings around the map to help your team set up (or avoid) an attack, deny jungle farm and generally get your team better map control.

Overgrowth: This will allow you to get a weedling with 3 bites instead of 5. Very useful in the early game.
Fertilizer: After buying Fertilizer, your weedlings will get 40 additional HP if they survive for 15 seconds. This will give your weedlings some much needed survivability, because when spread out, they're easier to take out. If an enemy decides to try and destroy a fertilized weedling, your team should have enough time to gank him if they pay attention to the minimap.
Bag of Seeds: Extra weedlings mean better warding and overall map domination. Don't forget to place any weedlings you may have around the map to make sure you keep the enemies on their toes.

The supportive item set will not help you much in terms of damage, but it will help your team with much needed vision and map domination. Just remember to keep getting those bites and weedlings to make the best use of your items. You'd probably only want to pick this set if you are playing with people you trust.

The aggressive bite item set is best suited for a chasing and ganking play-style. It is heavily based on biting damage rather than damage over time, so if you find it hard to stick and chase a single opponent, you might want to try the supportive bite.

Chattering Teeth: Extra attack speed is very important in this build, and is very useful on Gnaw in general. It will allow you to do more damage over a set amount of time as well as gather parts faster for your weedlings. In this build, it will also allow you to regenerate your health very quickly when used with the rest of the items.
Filed Teeth: Depending on how your match is going, you will want to get this item either before or after the next item in the list. It will allow you to get 2 HP per bite without extra damage and up to 4HP per bite with extra damage. Multiply that by 3 attacks per second (once your have Chattering Teeth maxed out) you have yourself an impressive 6-12HP regen per second!

• Tip! If you don't feel like you will need the lifesteal, you can go for Dental Braces instead. This will shorten your DoT duration by half, effectively doubling its tick damage.

Diamond Teeth: Extra damage, extra attack speed and extra survivability turn you into a very dangerous chaser. If the enemy is getting some max HP upgrades, you might want to buy this item earlier.

The items in this item set should only be bought depending on what's going on in the field. If you find yourself capable of chasing down enemies, you might want to focus on attack speed and damage first, saving lifesteal for later in the game. If you need some extra survivability, an early lifesteal can do wonders to your health when properly used.

The supportive bite item set is more DoT oriented, which is very useful wen playing as a support Gnaw. Your damage over time will be immensely powerful, allowing your team mates to get the kill and the extra solar for it. It's very useful when you have a more powerful carry in your team like Clunk or Leon.

Rotten Teeth: Increase your damage over time by up to 20, tripling your tick damage (A tick happens every 0.5 seconds)
Chattering Teeth: Extra attack speed is very important in this build, and is very useful on Gnaw in general. It will allow you to do more damage over a set amount of time as well as gather parts faster for your weedlings. In this build, it will also allow you to reset your DoT faster and more often, as each bite "resets" the DoT effect.
Dental Braces: Completing this build are the Dental Braces which will decrease your DoT duration by half, but will also double your tick damage!

A maxed out supportive bite will deal amazing damage over time, scaring enemies away often. It's a good set if you like to use hit-and-run tactics, and when combined with a good, damaging spit, it can do a lot of hurting (and deny teleportation!) with little effort.

"Ow, ow! Hurting!"

WARNING! This part of the guide includes a lot of math, calculations and excel charts. If you have Arithmophobia, you may want to skip to the end of this chart to get the TL;DR version.

Calculating Bite Damage

When I started thinking of the builds, 2 very obvious choices came up: A bite damage focus (The aggressive build, will be referred to as DMG for now) and a DoT focus (The supportive build, will be referred to as DOT for now). When I initially thought about it, both seemed very similar in strength, but the DMG build was more useful because it also had that extra lifesteal to it. So I decided to crunch the numbers.

I will be looking at fully developed builds only, so obviously the information here is much different during early game and maybe mid-game, depending on your purchase order.

First off, let's look at the common denominator: the attack speed. Gnaw's base attack speed is 130, meaning 1.3 attacks per second. When the attack speed is maxed out, it increases to 188, meaning 1.88 attacks per second.

Now, let's look at the DoT. Gnaw deals DoT over 5 seconds, with a damage tick happening every 0.5 seconds. After buying Dental Braces, the DoT duration decreases to 2.5 seconds, with ticks still happening ever 0.5 seconds (which means that each tick is now twice as powerful).

With this information in mind, lets take a look at 2 situations: Biting continuously for 1 second versus biting for 2.5 seconds (the decreased duration of DoT). Calculating these two actually require different equations, which will be detailed for every situation.

2.5 Seconds of Biting

In order to calculate the damage done by Gnaw's bite over 2.5 seconds, we will have to use the following equation, assuming you have purchased Dental Braces:
Bite DPS * 2.5seconds + DoT (+DoTdmg 2.5s later)
Without Dental Braces, the equation will look a bit different:
Bite DPS * 2.5seconds + DoT/2 (+DoT/2 2.5s later)

Let's break it down a bit:

• Bite DPS: This is the amount of damage Gnaw's bite deals every second.
  
• 2.5 Seconds: We are calculating the damage done over 2.5 seconds, which means we need to multiply the DPS by that number.
  
• DoT: This is the amount of DoT Gnaw's bites do.
  
• DoTdmg 2.5s later: This is the additional DoT damage done to the enemy. Because each bite "resets" the DoT timer, biting for 2.5s effectively doubles the amount of DoT done to the enemy. This damage doesn't technically happen during the first 2.5 seconds, but they are important nonetheless.

Without Dental Braces, the DoT duration is doubled, meaning that the amount of damage done over 2.5 seconds is halved.

Lets place in the numbers!
DoT build:
(22*2.5)+30+(30) = 55+30+(30) = 85DMG/2.5s (115 2.5s after that)
DMG build:
(40.84*2.5)+5+(5) = 102+5+(5) = 107DMG/2.5s (112 2.5s after that)
DMGDoT build [DMG build but with DoT duration decrease (Dental Braces) instead of lifesteal (Filed Teeth)]:
102+10+(10)=112DMG/2.5s (122 2.5s after that)

So as you can see, the DMGDoT build will net you the most damage, with the DMG build right behind it. It's not so surprising, as constant biting with increased attack damage can deal some serious damage. The interesting statistic here is that when looking at a 5 second interval (2.5 seconds of biting + 2.5 seconds of DoT), the DoT build actually out-damages the DMG build. What is not visible in these statistics though, is the terrific lifesteal you can get with the DMG build, so you might want to keep that in mind.

1 Second of Biting

Of course, you won't always manage to chase your enemies across the map. More often than not you'll find yourself in situations where you can only land a few bites before running away. So this time, I'll take a look at 1 second of constant biting.

As previously mentioned, a maxed out attack speed gives Gnaw 1.88 attacks per second. I can't exactly calculate what is the duration of a single hit, but I can tell for sure that Gnaw will be able to land 3 hits during that timeframe (as 0.5*3<1.88, which necessarily makes this true).

With that in mind, let's continue with one more stat: tick damage. A tick happens every 0.5 seconds, which means that you will have 2 ticks of damage every second. That means that the amount of DoT alone done to an enemy after 1 second of biting is actually 2 ticks of DoT + the entire DoT.

Alright, so now we should know how the basic equation should look like:
Bite DPS + 2tickDOT DMG (+DoTdmg)
Without Dental Braces, the equation will look like this:
Bite DPS + 2tickDOT DMG (+DoTdmg/2) (DoTdmg is divided by 2 because an additional 5 second timeframe is somewhat long. Most of the time the enemy will be able to heal themselves within that timeframe).

Number crunching time!
DoT build:
21+12 (+30) = 33DPS (63 2.5s later)
DMG build:
39+2 (+5) = 41DPS (46 2.5s later)
DMGDoT build:
39+4 (+10) = 43DPS (53 2.5s later)

As you can see, there is one bar which is way longer than the others - DoT build's 2.5 second DoT. That 30 damage nearly doubles the amount of damage you deal in just 2.5 seconds! Once again, lifesteal is not included in the calculations, so don't forget that as well.

These are the calculations for just the bite damage. Combine that with a spit and your team, and you've got yourself some serious damage being dealt in a relatively short time frame.

TL;DR

Like to hit and run? Can't chase your enemies? Want to let your carry get the kills? Go for the DoT (Supportive) bite build!
Like chasing and killing? Need some extra survivability in the field? Go for the DMG (Aggressive) bite build!

"Blargh, Gnaw eat too much..."

Thank your for reading my Gnaw guide! It's a little different than my other guides but hopefully it will just as useful. I have put a lot of effort into this, so if you like it please like, favorite and share this with your friends!

Please leave any comments you may have. Good, bad or just plain trolling (although I'd really like it if you don't post that last one). I always read all of your comments and take them into consideration. Your support is always appreciated and it's what's pushing me forward to create more and better guides!

       
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Don't forget to take a toilet break,
Creepy Pie (AKA Jono00).