Ted McPain is a Naut that's been in the game for a long time, that shouldn't be a surprise but despite his inception being in 2013, he remains misunderstood by many, and mastered by very few. I don't claim to be a master, but I've won 152/254 games (62% winrate) on Ted as of writing this. This has given me a decent bit of insight into the theory behind Ted, and the playstyle that you need to be successful with this Naut. This series of guides is going to be a bit of an attempt to describe how I've had success and share how I think Ted fits in with the rest of the cast.

While certain Nauts like Leon or Voltar are always going to end up playing a certain way (Given the nature of their abilities) Ted tends to be a bit of a different animal. He's capable of doing quite a few different things, and as a result his skill ceiling is rather high. This also means that single item choices can drastically change what he can do at any one point of the game.

From the outset, I believe there are 3 essential items that are all conveniently affordable with your starting solar, and you'll end up with all 3 of them bought within the first 3 minutes of the game. Those are Regen, Range, and Stunpack™. Regen will allow you to be much more active on the map for the first few minutes, and will almost assure that you can sustain long enough to get to 305 solar and purchase your other two essentials. Conversely, Range allows you to safely poke and prod at enemy turrets very early, and even opens up for some very handy harass on tighter maps like Aig and Ribet. Last but certainly not least is Stunpack™, whose appearance is unthreatening but whose effect is practically what makes Ted as strong as he is. Stunpack™ is both an offensive and a defensive item, opening up for both early kills and clever escapes. The decision to purchase any one of these 3 at the outset is one that needs to be made in a split second based only on the information of the map and the enemy lineup.

Midgame starts when you have all of your beginning essentials purchased, and this is where you pick up most of your damage items. Your first one is a no-brainer, figuring 100% of the time. I don't need to tell you why more gun damage is good, so I won't bother. From there it can be tricky, though. Ammo Weekly is a great purchase if you're in need of more pushing power, or need to end your fights faster. Power Pills are good for lasting longer, naturally, but can be a bit underwhelming at face value. Tedrisville is an item that I could have justified as an essential two patches ago, but given a nasty range nerf, and an increase in self-sustaining Nauts, it's hard to justify it as more than a midgame item for extra damage output. Armpit Shaving Cream is something that should be bought in correlation with Pills, but it increases Ted's ability to be a tanky brawler by a decent bit. Finally comes a decision between Starstorm Statue and Boots. The more games I play, the more I think Statue is simply irreplaceable. The argument for Boots has always been easier catch, better chasing, and quicker responses to splitpush. But I think there are items that do each of those jobs already; If you're desperately seeking catch beyond Stunpack™, Stunstrike™ is a luxury that becomes a sidegrade against Nauts like Vinnie, Yuri, Skree, and Chucho. For dealing with splitpush, Phonenumber has historically been an item that's quite literally hit or miss for its investment value, but its convenience on maps like AI Station and Ribet cannot be understated. And as far as better chasing, why not just kill them instead with your 10% extra damage from Statue? All this is to say that Statue is an item that allows you to push your strong midgame damage into the solokilling machine that is Ted McPain in the hands of an expert.

Now we did touch on nearly everything in the midgame segment, so it's about time to talk about everything else. Because once you're at a conceivable lategame, it becomes a pick and choose from the “everything else” basket. So to save time I'm just going to write up a bit of a list here jotting down my opinion of all of these supplement items.

Airstrike DoT - Generally ineffective due to self-sustaining Nauts, and other, better alternatives exist
Airstrike Damage – It's damage. Killing people faster is good.
Double RPG – Quite a fun item to use, and can be extremely effective when you need to constantly apply pressure to tanky lineups
I-Don't-Carebear – Good for what you'd expect, catching out stray targets and punishing deathball lineups with AoE followup
Hamburger Phone – Very ineffective for what you're giving up. It's a bit of a neat utility, but save for maybe games on Sorona you're going to look over this very often.
Personal Assistant – Always sort of an odd choice. More suited for a pushing playstyle, and not too expensive for its decent usefulness.
Angel TP – Fairly useless. Shotgun is only ever enough damage when you have the stimpack attack speed, and you're not going to get your money's worth from this item as a result.
Sniper Toothbrush – You need Personal Assistant to get your money's worth from this item, but you can't have both of those as well as the essentials of Ammo Weekly and Stunpack™
Shotgun Grenades – I'll concede that I don't take this item almost ever, but at its face value you're taking a bit of an odd item that provides a sort of delayed harass whose damage is underwhelming
Shotgun Mag+ - If you're some kind of bizzare Ted player who despises the idea of using Tedris, this item is a strong enough alternative to make it work.
Shotgun Knockback – The epitome of a situational item. Skolldir, Ayla, and maybe Lux are the only Nauts strong enough against Ted to warrant an item that hits your targets away from you.
Piggy Bank – Having Tedris from the start sounds like a pretty appealing idea, but you're foregoing quite a lot of power from Statue for it.
BKM – It's BKM. Pick it up when it's good to pick up BKM, and when the hard disables are what's killing you in fights.

Phew, that was a long one. But it's important to cover everything. Because like the very reason that Ted was conceptualized as a black man, it's important to remember diversity. Ted is extremely fun to play, and his items will make or break that. There's a bit of a beautiful simplicity to Ted, however; Almost every item that's considered good is done with the express purpose of getting things done. You want to be active on the map, getting frequent kills and taking rare deaths, and I'll go into positioning and ability use for those at a future time. For now, I think this is a good starting point to get people into the Ted mindset, and I hope I'm able to make more of these analysis posts in the future!

This guide is also available to read on the Awesomenauts Forums: http://www.awesomenauts.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=51201