How to use the Sumo/Jugglenaut?

I remember the sumo being the cute little strider with 2 heatrays and a troll jump, so much so that yesterday I sent one into the enemy base alone and was confused why it didn't do any damage.

Later that very game, I ended up using my sumos to hook the enemy's 2 grizzlies in so my jacks could dildo them to hell. I thought the new sumo's purpose was to use it's gravity guns as a GTFOver here against annoying skirmishers so they couldn't shoot and run.

Onto the next game where the enemy made a ball of recluses. I sent in my sumo with its jacks, except the sumo was slow as ball (cause it is one) and the recluses simply stayed out of range, damaging my sumo until it died.

Onto the next game, the enemy made a grizzly, except this time was smart enough not to let it get close to my sumo. I tried getting my sumo to hook it in, except as both grizzly and sumo move around the same speed, I had no luck. It's short and slow jump didn't help either. Thankfully my ally had reapers close by.

The sumo is supposed to be a 'riot' unit, except on it's own it has no reliable way to do damage. It's only weapon has no real purpose other than anti-skirmisher/anti-heavy, and even then, most heavy units can simply run away when they see it. It's jump range is so small that it can't really jump in range of something trying to run away.

In the sumo's current balance, I can't really imagine it doing anything. I feel we should either make it cloakable so it can surprise unsuspecting heavies, or make it jump farther or move faster so it can catch up with heavies trying to run away.

Remember that like the Newton, the Jugglenaut can be toggled to attract or repel units. Very few units are fast enough and have enough range to escape a Jugglenaut when it jumps at them as long as it is set to Attract.

In my experience it's a very scary unit and generally can't be destroyed by conventional forces.

It is not exactly supposed to be a riot unit, although it does tend to destroy raiders. It has to have some icon and description.

Sumo with heat rays was like a really big Jack. It needed it's own identity. The Jugglenaut is super strong against almost every mobile unit, it can pull commanders in and blow them up on it's own just through pull/push then the commander hitting the ground.

To use it correctly, however, you must be careful where you jump it: Don't jump it into your own forces, and use the jump to gap close or escape (Which it's perfectly possible to do versus most skirms if you time it right).

The main trick to the Jugglenaut though is that you have to toggle the beam between pull and push in order to suck the unit in, then push it out with maximum speed. Just pushing a unit around from max range will just push it out of range before it can gather momentum. This is okay if you are already sorrounded (there is enough distance to push units to death that have already closed on you) but at max range, you have to combine push and pull so the Jugglenaut does not get distracted just pulling and trapping one target but doing no damage.

The second thing you need keep in mind about the Jugglenaut is that the overlap between the arc of both it's beams is relatively small. Versus heavy targets like commanders you need both beams to be focused lift them off the ground: Once something is lifted off the ground it's very easy to toss around like a rag doll and you can kill prettymuch anything doing this. It's hard to do this when there is more than one target in range as the beams target independently, sometimes they will just fire at whatever they feel like.

So yeah it's hard to use, but in the right hands it's one of the strongest rush units in the game because it's main weakness is static defences.

I hope that's not a battle where he juggled with my commander -_-

I think he was being sarcastic lol
It would be nice to see a replay of great Jugglenaut in action

Its already pretty easy to use honestly, as long as it's being supported by raiders, it can strike fear into the hearts of lobsters your enemies

quote: So why not give it a small damage stomp for every step it takes?

Because it will then mostly use this ability to kill allies.

Isn't it better to just give it a short-ranged attack then?

That could work, give it a small chomp/bite attack like chickens have theirs, or a larger ones with a big cooldown.
It could open up like a pokeball and chomp, mincing units it kills(and maybe reclaim metal if it did enough damage to crush the corpse into scrap) and fire out anything too HP bulky to kill.