Knowing the best perks for Jake is a matter of understanding the beautiful yellow beast that is Jake the Dog, what he excels at, how he finishes, and what aspects of his kit you want to crack with perks to turn him into a machine totally.
Our boy ThirtySix has been playing a ton of Jake, has pretty much tried it all, and imparted on us some wisdom about what makes Jake tick, what the best perks are for Jake, and you can benefit from all his knowledge and playtime.
This is a no-brainer; the bounce house is no good. Catching people in your stretchy body and then clapping them with your cheeks for a finisher is good enough to make it worth it just because of that.
It's great for edge guarding against people trying to recover or overaggressive opponents who will walk right into your sticky molasses booty.
If you've done any playing at all of Jake, you probably know that his side aerial is one of the best moves in the game, straight up. You can knock people at a distance with it, making other bruisers easy to manage at a distance, and helping you to destroy enemy projectiles. You CAN AIM IT all the way up, all the way down, and everywhere in between, making it a crazy finisher for hitting people trying to recover, above you, and everywhere else.
Cracking out his side air is critical to making him an absolute beast. Lumpy space punch powers up all your aerial attacks, making it a must-have when playing Jake the Dog and using his stretchy fists of doom.
Again, you'll be using a ton of stretch artillery shell-like punching mitten, so powering up that fist will benefit you since you'll be using it all the time. Percussive punch power will allow you to do 5% more damage with all attacks that knock enemies horizontally, meaning that punch will do more damage all the time you use it.
Knockback influence is the name of knocking out your enemies in a smash-like fighting game like MultiVersus. 15% knockback influence is just that. It gives all of your moves with knockback influence 15% more juice. You will notice people flying further earlier in the stock, and it makes playing Jake and smacking someone with a diagonal downward stretchy fist into the bottom of the map very satisfying.
Kryptonian skin gives you an all-around 6% damage reduction. Jake is a bruiser and often plays a tank role in 2v2s, so it's good to have this armor buff for your team. When I use Kryptonian Skin, usually, it'll be Lumpy Space Punch, Percussive Punch Power, and Kryptonian Skin. Along with Sticky, of course. This is an excellent go-to perk when you are playing a tank for your team or playing 1v1. That extra 6% damage reduction will make the difference for you in a close match.
The Snowball effect is a tremendous anti-tank perk. If you're having issues with a superman in 1v1, for example, the snowball effect will help you rack up fast, crazy damage on him to the point where you can eventually launch him off the map.
It's a good perk all around and makes a noticeable difference in almost every match, helping your team to both snowball considerable damage on enemies and come back from behind, as well, when you need to.
Many other blogs say that you should use second wind beneath your wings, a perk that allows you to get another special attack when you have ringed someone out in that aerial, giving you three total in that air.
Not sure why every blog is regurgitating this same take, probably because they are all regurgitating the same take... I mean, go look at all the other blogs you find about Jake's best perks in MultiVersus.
Anyway, that perk makes no sense to us for Jake. On someone where you are putting yourself at risk to finish people and wasting a lot of your specials (like superman), this makes sense. We don't see a viable playstyle with Jake where you are putting yourself at risk that much. The riskiest thing you'll likely do is get very close to the top border using your up special attack, which doesn't make sense with this perk.
If you feel we're wrong about that, please let us know why!!
Jake the Dog is a stretchy, good boy who throws heavy hits and has a lot of range over the average bruiser. His down special makes it easy to come down hard on people like batman, who are always trying to knock you vertically, even though Batman can break it with a well-timed uppercut!! He's well-rounded and rewarding to play a lot of as you get better and better. Stretching that butt into someone and then comboing them out of the top of the map is a pleasure, the likes of which I rarely feel in games these days.
Think we're wrong about any of these perks? Let us know. You can hop in our discord anytime and talk as much trash about our takes as you want!
