Upgrade Discussion: Acorn and Oak!

This is the Acorn and Oak upgrade discussion post, so enjoy!

Unique Upgrades

Little Friend (2 upgrade points): Your ammo capacity for all your weapons are increased while in all of your forms, and the overheat rate for your Treetop Turret in your Acorn Passenger is greatly reduced. Your Shell Shot weapon as Acorn is increased to 56 (instead of the regular 45) and your Wood Grief weapon as Oak is increased to 14 (instead of the regular 10). This is greatly useful during a fight as there is less need to reload and you can keep shooting without having to reload or overheating. Reloading or overheating can leave you vulnerable during a fight, although this upgrade will reduce the chances of this happening during combat. This upgrade is very useful as you will benefit from this upgrade at all forms. 

Hardened (3 upgrade points): You gain a passive maximum health boost in all modes. Your Acorn now has 100 maximum health (instead of the regular 75), which includes while in passenger mode, and your Oak now has 375 maximum health (instead of the regular 300). The health boost will help you to survive during a fight and improve your durability in all modes, as well as improving your chances of escaping a tough situation if you need to. If you can use your Lumber Support ability on an Oak, you can gain even more overhealth than normal, even allowing you to survive most attacks and abilities that deal lots of damage. This upgrade is greatly versatile as you will benefit from it, regardless of your current form.

Nutty Feedback (4 upgrade points): This upgrade only applies to Acorn. Dealing damage to enemies will restore ammo for your Shell Shot, allowing you to deal damage for much longer or possibly during an entire fight if you keep landing your shots without needing to reload at all. You can deal damage with your primary weapon or your regular Sap Trap as well to gain this effect. If you miss many of your shots, this upgrade will not prove to be useful, so if you are having trouble landing your shots, try not to move around as much or focus on attacking targets that are easier to hit for restoring ammo more easily. If you use this upgrade, you should probably use regular Acorn more often because Oak or an Acorn Passenger will not benefit from this upgrade.

Unique Ability Upgrades

Sap Trap and Super Sap Trap

Molasses (2 upgrade points): This upgrade applies to both types of Sap Traps. Any enemy that are in the vicinity of your Sap Trap or Super Sap Trap will be slowed down to 40% of their original movement speed, until they escape from this vicinity. You can use them in areas where there will generally be multiple enemies, such as objectives, and you can use your Sap Traps supportively to slow your enemies down and make them easier to trap and vanquish. If you detonate the Sap Trap or if your enemies destroy it, this effect will end until another type of Sap Trap is deployed. The Sap Trap will emit a radiating aura, allowing enemies to identify the Sap Trap more easily and to identify that they are in the slowdown area, so take these notes into consideration.

Slap Back (2 upgrade points): This upgrade applies to both types of Sap Traps. Your Sap Trap and Super Sap Trap has additional knockback and will knock enemies further away. With this upgrade, you will be able to launch yourself with the Super Sap Trap if you are Oak. The additional knockback could be used to knock enemies away from cliffs and away from you or allies if they get up close and personal. Try placing your Sap Traps in an area where your enemies are trying to head, like an objective, and when your enemy approaches your Sap Trap, launch them away to slow them down. Additionally, try deploying your Sap Traps into a group of enemies and detonate it to seperate your enemies, making them easier to vanquish as they will be seperated.

Rewind (3 upgrade points): This upgrade only applies to the regular Sap Trap. If you do not deal any damage to any enemy with your Sap Trap, the refresh time of your Sap Trap will be reduced to 1 second. You can use the Sap Trap on yourself to keep getting your self launching effect, although you cannot deal damage to enemies or you will not get the reduced cooldown. If you fail to deal damage, you basically get another chance to deal damage to enemies, which is useful. You should consider that if you damage only a single enemy or only deal splash damage, this effect will not activate, so you want to try and deal direct damage to your enemies where possible or miss so you get another chance to use another Sap Trap almost immediately.

Acorn Dash

Quickdraw (3 upgrade points): Activating your Acorn Dash will restore 22 ammo for your Shell Shot. You can activate your Acorn Dash during a fight if you are low on ammo so you do not need to reload as much. As you have multiple charges of this ability, you can basically use your Acorn Dashes in quick succession to restore almost all of your ammo if you have low ammo or you run out. You may want to save most of your Acorn Dash charges for a fight, as restoring ammo will not have much of an effect if you are trying to escape or enter a battle, and you would likely have full ammo at this point. Save at least a single use of Acorn Dash during a battle, so you can essentially convert a reload into a dash which you can use to avoid attacks.

Roll for Damage

Log Jam (1 upgrade point): Your Roll for Damage is now 50% wider and travels twice as fast. Because the ability now covers a wider area, enemies are more likely to be hit by your Roll for Damage and it has the capability of hitting multiple enemies with a single use of this ability. The doubled velocity means that your Roll for Damage will travel twice as fast and enemies will be less likely to avoid it as they will have less chance to react to it before jumping over it, which is especially useful when used while close to your enemies. These benefits will make your Roll for Damage much more effective against enemies, so use it frequently and when multiple enemies are around to make this ability much more beneficial. It is a cheap upgrade as well which is cool.

Natural 20 (2 upgrade points): Enemies will now take knockback when they are hit by your Roll for Damage ability. You can use this knockback to push enemies away from particular areas, or you are more likely to hit the same enemy multiple times with a use of this ability, as they may be pushed back into another log. You can use this ability when your enemies are close to a cliff or hazard to try and push the enemy into it, or use it when enemies get close to you and your allies to keep them away from your team. You may get a better advantage if you use this ability in an area with a low roof, as your enemies will not be able to jump over your logs to evade them and they will take the knockback. This knockback can be utilised well in a variety of situations.

Lumber Support

Party Supplies (3 upgrade points): You and your Oak that you are riding will be healed at a faster rate, it will not increase your total healing, although the healing will resolve more quickly. You and your Oak that you are riding will additionally retain the armor from this ability for an extra 4 seconds. You can use the increased healing speed when you or your Oak is at critical health to reduce the chance of being vanquished with the healing, or use it during a battle and your enemies should not be able to deal damage faster than you and the Oak are healing during this time, especially paired with the armor that you get during this time, which is useful.. You can effectively fortify yourself and the Oak under intense combat for longer to keep yourself in the fight.

I have now gone over the upgrades for Acorn and Oak! Some of these upgrades only apply to certain modes, so you should be careful of which upgrades you use and when. There are many different upgrades available that can suit lots of different playstyles for players. Some of these upgrades apply to you in all modes which is especially useful if you transition between forms often. There are some cheap upgrades to choose from if you still have spare upgrade points.