How do you build Genji?

[Panfilo]

Lately I've been on a Genji kick. I find that he's one of the kind of nauts that can be SUPER rewarding to play as when you have competent team members and with your abilities you can set up your buddies to rack up a lot of kills if they are onboard.

Cocoon by itself has great synergy with abilities like Orb, Snipe, Explode, Black Hole Sun, Nuke and many others. A cocooned enemy is easy pickings for these abilities if those nauts know to pay attention to when Genji caught an enemy. To me a lot of the damage abilities are rather lackluster and more effective for farming solar than actually threatening enemy awesomenauts. For example, I like to use Prefab cocoons to deal with weedling nests or cocoon enemy Zoltar's healbot to damage near-dead enemies that rush close to try to get a clutch heal. The slow works really well with good teammates. Last Peridae kind of commits you to pushing/farming (wish you got the 5 solar directly instead of having it fall on the ground!) and lifesteal is nice for sustain but little else. Health packs are also good for allies that pay attention but really relies on allies that are gonna get close anyway (like Clunk)

Monarch Blessing really feels like a lategame upgrade though maybe I'm holding out on myself by not getting it sooner. Unlike Cocoon it really needs upgrades to work well in my opinion. Gettin Out of the Hood is so useful, if anything as an emergency escape tool. But for assasins and agressive nauts it can help your buddies chase down a weakened enemy and finish them off. Heal is also really clutch and synergizes well with speed boost. As for % dmg reduction vs flat, I guess it depends on who you are up against. I imagine that flat damage reduction is far more useful to mitigate DoTs. The advantage here is you can pop the shield AFTER you/your allies get hit with DoTs, while focusing on % reduction relies on you anticipating getting hit by a burst. Some are telegraphed (Explode, Snipe, Black Hole Sun) but many others happen so quick it can be tricky to anticipate them and be close enough to shield your allies in time. I haven't tried the HP boost but plan on experimenting with it to see it maybe it is more worth it than bonus % dmg reduction, and cooldown reduction actually feels like a waste since this ability isn't really a 'spammy' one like Bull or Splash Dash.

Like many other players, I have the most success with Thunder Drum since having an AoE is nice and consistent, good vs weedlings/healbots/etc and VERY good on AI station when you get a wave of 2 drones+3 hummingbirds at you. I also like the DoT since it can nab you quite a few kills in spite of being small (don't underestimate being able to DoT a creep wave/enemy deployables/enemies in a single shot either!). Range is also super useful- I discovered on Aguillon you can hit creep waves in the top lane from the 'concealed' ledge which is nice since it forces enemy nauts to come to you, and synergizes well with DoT and damage. Damage I haven't taken much but I guess it has potential since in general you are hitting most targets 'twice' with each shot. Heal I feel is a trap- too low of a heal, too slow attack to be really useful; I find its better to leave the heal spam to Voltar and stick with Cocoon heal packs/Shield heal to heal my allies when it really matters.

So what's your take on Genji? He's a really fun support caterpillar when your allies are paying attention, but even if you don't feel you can count on them you have upgrades that can help you creep farm reliably just the same.

[kuko]

Well,i have to builds for genji.

First is when i soloq.

I get teh piggy bank and then get DOT on aa and Storm on AA. Then i take another Storm,then i max out aa damage,then take boots. Then i buy cocoon,get 2 jagra eggs,get 2 seeds then get cocoon explosion.Then i take monarch blessing, get speed boost, get one shield,one 100 heal. Max out heal and then max out shield. Then i take health.
This build is very dmg oriented and genji can rek with it. Check my screens .

Another is when i play with friends. Its almost identical. First i take bank,then cocoon and tehn one slow. Then everything goes as the first build. Max out aa,boots,get lifesteal and seeds on ♥♥♥♥,max out slow. Monarch,speed,shield,health,max out health,max out shield and get health.
This build is really useful wehn you ahve Ted/derpl on your team.

[Rotfarm]

Piggy bank seems to be impossible not to use. Genji needs a bit of a buff to certain things. He's really good with a team that knows how to work together but solo queing gets ridiculous at times if you'pre not careful and want to tank.

I'll usually either piggy bank into storm drum and DOT for aa,
OR i'll piggy bank, into storm drum, pick up the boots, and then step out for 5 solar to get the 1st aa upgrade.
From here either max out atk for aa, or get DOT for aa. ThEN coccoon, health, boots, lifesteal, prefab, then transformea. Depending how things are going I may either max build coccoon, or wait for a bit and get blessing and max the heal, max the max health buff and then max the dmg reduction. finish off the health

[Panfilo]

I could be mis-reading this, but it appears if you take flat damage upgrade on Monarch Blessing, a buffed character is completely immune to damage from timerift and a few other DoTs.

Does damage always do a 'minimum' amount? Or is knocking off 30 damage from a 30 dmg/sec DoT basically completely nullify it? What gets calculated first, the % or the flat damage?