Attack Jack specific questions

Gears 5
#1

This is NOT me looking for advice on cards to run.

Instead, I have specific questions about the offensive build (Focused on its ultimate and the card that makes your laser hit harder), and on the way to play the defensive build (cards designed towards forging).

In short, it can get summarized in 2 questions,.

A)People on this forum who host games, would you kick Jacks who don’t have the Forge cards? (50 wave runs).

B)What do people mean when they say to know to use Jack?

First, opinions about it? I play with 3 different friends (who all host) and hey ALL share the opinion of “a Jack who doesn’t Forge is an useless Jack”. How annoying lol. If a random Jack joins and says “no Forge” or something, gets instantly kicked under the premise of being a noobie who doesn’t know how to use Jack.

Never mind the fact that I’ve played with them on Frenzies with the ult-focused Jack and end up sometimes with the most kills etc,

Second, how popular is that? I assumed my friends were weird about that, but his morning (with the mutators that help Jack blow everything up) I hosted my own lobby as Jack, typed “No forge” on wave 2 and instantly, 3 people left. All were class level 20 re up 40+ so not exactly people who were new to the game.

Now, playing with randoms, there have been 2 incidents were I’ve called out as “not knowing how to use Jack” how is he used? Personally if there’s a Forge, One time being told to uninstall the game lol. I run the card that makes invisible while carrying weapons so I keep forging while everyone else kills. Makes games faster as I don’t need the last enemy to get downed while I Forge, on boss waves I hide the Forge and stick with the group to see if someone needs a revive etc. If anything, I think the things I’m missing is going to the other side of the map to get ammo boxes and marking bosses, lol. Is this what they mean?

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#2

I haven’t seen a Forge for a long time now. The last one I saw was one my friend accidentally bought, so that kinda says it all about my experience lately! I’ve seen JACK’s in my games, but they tend to be medic and hijack orientated. I was under the impression that using JACK and a Forge was really passe nowadays. I personally don’t have the patience for it anymore because it prolongs the game by a fair bit.

Some weapons seem to bleed much better than others. I’m fairly sure some of them are broken. Like the DR1 Trishots for example, seem to do tiny bleed damage, but Enforcers and Claws outdamage Trishots by alot.

EDIT:
Also a little side note, regarding Carriers and Flocks, the Cankers the Carrier shoots from its chest and the Leeches generated by the Flock count as enemies, so when using hijack and Backstab, you can kill them to prolong your ultimate (same applies to say, the Anchor’s Barrier Feedback).

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#3

Yesss, forges make the game slower… plus makes he beginning harder, especially now with the enemies being more aggressive. Without Forge, and if the team doesn’t sit on the base, master runs take a little bit less than 2 hours… I remember back in Op 2 days and so, where master runs were like 3 hours long, lol,

Yes, I’ve seen Trishot robots do nothing at all, lol. I prefer the Salvo ones given you can just keep shooting Salvos over and over.

So, Jack’s now usually are just there (or should be) as medics, ? Would you accept one playing as such in your lobby?

#4

I’d personally be fine with JACK in my lobby. Generally speaking, I just want one high-damage class as a minimum so we can deal with bosses. I wouldn’t be too prescriptive as to what class I would and wouldn’t accept. But if we ended up with a team like JACK, Mechanic, Blademaster, Combat Medic and Nomad, then I wouldn’t rate our chances because we would struggle with certain enemies (like fliers), especially if the enemy health regeneration mutator was there. It’s all about having some balance. But then again I rarely host my own lobbies…

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#5

Mad Man Jack will zap 'n attack with his laser gats

#6

Just play what you want (obviously playing the role properly) and a offensive role is just as good or even better at least for me. The game is in a poorly state that those players make it worse with that stupid statements like this or “deposit all or kick”, ironically I put on lobby’s name sometimes “no engineer, no build nor deposit, use perks” but they’re all mindless that just still deposit to fabricator or build sentries as non engineers instead of use ammo regen perk for example.
I’ve obliterated enemies as Jack hijacking Elite Drones with Claw or Mulcher Scions, even with Imagos I survived waves, meanwhile Demolitions building 2 lockers and still suck.

#7

No, I specifically always write “No Forge” into the chat when a random Jack joins. It’s pointless since OP 5 since you’re better off and faster with power taps.

I have no idea to be honest… in my opinion that would mean using an aggressive build now and ignoring smelting. In our case we’re skipping every wave anyways (unless someone forgets lol - or the base needs some serious attention).

To summarize:
Since OP 5 I suggest to NEVER use a Forge anymore. It slows the game down and is pointless if you cover power taps. On all maps there’s a possibility to cover at least 2 power taps if not more. If you want to be on the save side, swap out Zapper Upgrade with Optimizer if you join random games. However I never do that, I just quit. I’m not sitting there for a 3h game just to smelt everything because the team is unable to hold power taps. In that time I can complete two runs. In Frenzies it’s especially worthless… besides with Aggressive Enemies you put yourselves at an even higher risk at the start of a Horde.

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#8

Honestly, at this point I discourage Jacks in general. They absolutely break the in-game economy by Wave 15. Playing Master with a forging Jack has become so incredibly boring.

Though on the dailies, I have met some offensive style Jacks who don’t forge at all. That’s an interesting build that I’d be willing to play a full 50 with, long as they don’t continually die across the map.

#9

Offensive Jack miles better than Forge Jack imo. When taps were redesigned, Forges were no longer required really. Plus the nerf to Jack’s smelting card makes me always run offensive Jack.

Edit - For a 50 wave run, I would probably drop Mind Control Expert and add Optimizer if host insisted on a Forge build Jack.

#10

I find it dumb that if I takeover a pouncer I don’t do any bleed damage at all unless I melee which isn’t practical.

#11

I’ve been in a lot of 1-50 games where I’ve had the Optimiser card and the engineer never bought a forge, leaving me with 2 completely useless cards (I like to also use Portable Resupply so I stay cloaked when holding weapons) we still end up with plenty of energy due to taps and I’m completely useless at dealing any form of damage without hijack/zapper cards. The team usually are smart enough not to get hit or go down so I’m not needed as a medic either, so I end up leaving as a bot would be more useful than me at that point.

Frenzy on the other hand I always run hijack/zapper cards and can MVP a lot of waves if I’m careful. I usually play quite selfish and max cooldown so I can ult every wave, but it’s worth it if you hijack the right enemy drawing aggro and thinning out the wave, saves on team resources too. The team starts with 50k and it’s easy to hold all the taps on certain maps, so a forge is pointless.

Only problem with Hijack seems to be that there’s only really 2 or 3 enemies worth hijacking; Elite Claw Drones, Mulcher Scions (which are rare), and occasionally Salvo DR-1’s for constant splash damage bleed procs. Every other enemy deals barely any damage and your bleed wont help as much

#12

Absolutely not. Not only is an offensive Jack a force to be reckoned with, they still retain a fair bit of support capabilities, such as the healing beam and zapper debuff. There is great value in having Jack on the team.

Jack can also be great with a 100% support build that doesn’t include any forging cards. Portable Resupply is incredible for reloading weapons in the early waves when there aren’t any lockers yet, and can still be useful later on a match. I’ll say, however, that it requires communication.

Lastly, I don’t kick people just because they are employing a strategy I wouldn’t normally use with a class. There are many viable builds, and I like to have creative people in my lobbies rather than the same meta every time. Now people using builds with no synergy whatsoever who only drag the team down, that’s a different story.

This sounds so subjective. How could anyone know what they mean? From the rest of your post, it sounds like some are still stuck on the old Forge strategy, which has been irrelevant for a long time. These days, focusing on building fences and lockers and defending taps is much more viable.

I’ll say that the notion of Jack being useless unless they are forging is complete nonsense. Kicking them for wanting to contribute to the killing (which is what the mode is about) is a really odd attitude and speaks of some people’s inability to detach from the meta and adapt more strategies.

From what I can tell, not popular enough to be widely accepted, as evidenced by your experiences. I often see Jack players and even engineers build forges in frenzy dailies.

If they want to build one in a 50-wave, I can at least understand it. It still has some merit. But in a frenzy? By the time you upgrade it, the game is over.

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#13

I’ll never say no to a Jack on the team. Even a level 1 Jack has fantastic support capabilities, being able to easily move around invisible reviving and healing teammates with the beam, stunning and debuffing enemies with the Zapper, Hijacking problematic enemies even if just to take them out of the situation, and even operating as an emergency repair tool (although expensive). You don’t need any cards for all that.

Also, many people don’t know this, but the heal beam gives about 40% damage resistance to those being healed, which stacks with other classes and can make some absurdly tanky and even outright invincible. Really fun to have a CQC class being followed by a Jack pretending to be a Bastion (and hiding behind cover all the same), and going on a rampage!

I think that the Forge Chore build is absolutely boring and unfun. I won’t disallow a Jack that wants to do it in 50 waves, but you will never see me doing it. I’m glad it isn’t META anymore, even if the population is still slow to catch on after all this time.

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#14

I disagree (also you forgot the Boomshot Scion which is the strongest one). With Rampage, almost any Hijack has some potential. Buzzkill Scions and Dropshot Scions for instance are very powerful now if you can handle them. An Imago and regular Drones are also very convenient for the early couple waves. Obviously you’ll have to push but they’re manageable and can ouput decent damage.

#15

Did they stealth buff Jack’s hijack? I remember Boomshot Scions couldn’t oneshot anything and did at most maybe 3/4 of a Drone’s HP (forget trying to kill another Scion/boss), Buzzkills needed like a whole clip/magazine. Since my post I have accidently found out that Boomshots are now wiping out the entire map without bleed.

Enforcers and Hammerburst still take too long to kill imo and you don’t get a lot of value except maybe 2 or 3 kills and being a distraction

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#16

If I were to rate the enemies based on best Hijack, I would rank them

  1. Mulcher Scion (675 a bullet with slower overheating and fast cooling, can solo many bosses)
  2. Boomshot Scion (very powerful and since he is a Scion, he is very tough)
  3. Elite Drone (fast, agile and has a very strong weapon. 630 a shot with a Claw is nice)
  4. Cyclops (chainsaw is very useful and the Lancer does decent damage)
  5. Lambent Grenadier (fast and strong)
  6. DR-1 Devastator (damage is very good and he is tanky. Kinda slow though.)
  7. Dropshot Scion (bleed makes him very good but lacks the power of their Boom and Mulcher brothers)
  8. Flame Grenadier (damage with bleed is very good but he has to get pretty close)
  9. Drone/Lambent Drone (while his HB only fires 3 shots at once, it does 3x damage per bullet. He is basically an Elite but a little weaker)
  10. Bolter (decent damage but kinda fragile)
  11. Grenadier (good damage, is fast but isn’t as strong as the Drone or Elite Drone. Think of him as an Infiltrator that isn’t as powerful but is a lot tankier.)
  12. Imago (high rate of fire means lots of bleeding)
  13. Shepherd (basically a tougher Imago that is walking in cement)
  14. Hunter (good early on, headshots were nice with Execution Rules but now that is gone, there is less of a need. Their damage is decent)
  15. Elite Sniper (cannot get crits for some reason but bleed is alright and EMBAR stun)
  16. Elite Grenadier (damage is underwhelming)
  17. DR-1 Protector (too slow and its Overkill isn’t powerful enough)
  18. Deadeye (slower, weaker Elite Sniper)
  19. Elite Hunter (way weaker than it should be)
  20. Juvie (in the later rounds, too fragile and the damage isn’t high enough.)
  21. Sire (fast but too weak. Reviving someone makes it get stuck)
  22. DR-1 Oppressor (gun is way weaker than it should be and of course, slow)
  23. Ice Scion (cryo takes forever to freeze outside of the Freezing Sniper modifier, might as well just melee everything)
  24. Tracker (weak, unlikely to kill most things)
  25. Popper (underwhelming and might actually kill you. Also very fragile)

Those are the things that come to mind.

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Tips & Tricks for Each PvE Class in Gears 5
Is Hijacking enemies who uses Scorcher a bad idea? Also, can Jack spot 2 enemies without doing damage?
#17

You left out the pouncer even though they need to fix the bleed for it when using the ranged attack.

#18

Demolitions that I have been running unto lately, buy grenades to toss every damn wave, its ridiculous, I played Jack today, and every wave I was picking him up, tossing a grenade, getting downed for 12 waves on Daily

#19

I guess I would put it in between Elite Sniper and Hunter.

#20

It’s fine to play a non-Forge Jack. The economy is so broken that late-game power is abundant. I would also be concerned that using all of your power on an upgraded Forge in early waves would jeopardize the squad due to the new Aggressive modifier.

That being said I have played almost exclusively Frenzy for several months and haven’t seen a Forge in at least as long.

I am fine w/ scrapping when playing as Jack (especially when my friend is an engineer) but it is a tedious niche to be placed in. Said friend is more into Hijack/Offense and is often MVP between damage output and revives.

tldr; I’m happy to see a Jack in my game regardless of how they play, and am usually impressed regardless of their choice.

Edit: This thread has convinced me to play as Jack the next time I log in.