Austin

Austin

Psychos

Police

Coins won’t be an issue if you bring him to the battle.

Skin "Collector" was inspired by the contest winner on Reddit: u/Nervous_Active_7430

Main Stats

Type

Support

Rarity

Exclusive

Health

220

Ranged Damage

40

Melee Damage

60

Melee Damage (crit.)

60

Crit. Chance

0% (ranged)

1% (melee)

Crit. Damage

1%

Speed

12

Prepare Time

30s

Rage Drop

30

Special

• 20% chance of getting on kills: 10-25 per kill
• Ability activation limit: 100 times

Behavior Stats

Agility

80

Aggression

100

Detection Range

150

Agility Penalty

50%

Aggression Penalty

30%

Priority Targets

• Fat Zombie
• Witch
• Pooch
• Runner

Morale Stats

Charisma

40

Valor

200

Charisma Radius

• 120 (in front of it)
• 120 (behind it)

Abilities

Perks

Ability Cooldown

30s

Special Ability

The chance of getting coins is increased by 1.5 times

Melee Range

18

Ranged Data

Ammo Capacity

9 (3x3 bursts)

Firing Period

2.8s

Reloading Period

0.7s

Accuracy

100.0%

Range

75

Projectile Spread

20°

Projectile Speed

1000

Projectile Max Distance

350

Projectiles Per Shot

1

Unlock Requirements

Price

500 (Heist Pack)

Player Level

Any

Internal Data

Internal Name

h_austin

Internal Weapon

Uzi

AustinCollector

Austin is a bank robber armed with a Glock 18C, dressed in a white office shirt with a black tie, an American flag print clown mask, blue gloves, and black pants. He carries a black duffel bag strapped on his back.

Collector is Austin's first exclusive skin. He is armed with a Glock 18C, dressed in a black jacket with shoulder insignias, black pants with gray side lines, a brown belt with a gray buckle, and a face shield with a black head strap and gray logo. He carries a marked black duffel bag strapped on his back.

He can be obtained by purchasing the Heist Pack for 500 Money.

Overview

Austin is a ranged Support that functions like a Shooter. He has average stats for his class, with the exception of relatively fast preparation time. He fires his gun in three-round bursts up to four times before performing a fast reload. If approached without ammo, he does a quick melee attack.

On kill, Austin has a 20% chance to produce between 10 to 25 coins whenever he kills an enemy, which can activate up to 100 times per mission. Collected coins are added to the player's storage immediately. This perk is disabled in Events, Skirmish, and Supply Runs. Killing zombies that turned from units or marauders won't activate the perk.

Some time after dying, Austin will turn into Tipsy.

Perks and Abilities

Austin's special ability increases the chance of him obtaining coins on kill from 20% to 30%.

While the increase might seem low, it does speed up the coin grind in the long run, making it a good investment that quickly pays for itself. Even if it doesn't improve Austin's general performance, it's worth buying in the grand scheme of things.

Gameplay

Main Campaign

After sending weak courage units to gather the rage for him, Austin should be the sole unit on the battlefield in order to maximize coin farming potential, as when properly equipped, he will quickly compensate for his cost. The coins earned will greatly aid players in upgrading the bus and their units, buy buff items and other useful resources from Trader, and improve upgrade items, all of which can be prohibitively expensive over the long term. Despite the high cost of the heist pack, players should prioritize purchasing Austin over all else.

Austin's ability to produce coins on kills doesn't work on zombies who've turned from killed units and marauders. Avoid levels such as Mission 2 in Location 4, as both Sergeant and Undead cannot be exploited for coin farming. Although they can give out coins on their first deaths, any subsequent revives cannot activate Austin's perk. However, it does work on certain zombies that transform into/release other zombies, such as Sapper or Prisoner.

Austin's coin-generating potential is best realized in missions featuring dense waves of fragile, low-health enemies that he can easily kill, which are commonly found in earlier challenges.

• For new players, an ideal starting point is Location 1 Challenge 3, which features a high volume of weak Skeletons.
  • Later missions such as Location 4 Mission 15, Location 4 Mission 19, and Location 5 Mission 9 also present highly efficient farming opportunities. It is important to note that successfully farming these levels requires Austin to have sufficiently upgraded stats. Deploying support items to block incoming damage and using Medkit for healing is strongly advised.

Depending on Austin's level and item stats, it is possible to take advantage of the zombies that appear at the end of the final wave. By keeping multiple Austins alive and using rage abilities such as Medkit and barrels for defense, the last wave enemies can serve as bonus revenue if the player is well prepared. In later missions, Armored Skeletons appear as part of this wave, so taking precautions is recommended to ensure they can be properly exploited for extra coins. If the bus is destroyed, and Austin is still alive on the field, he can still collect coins from kills.

While Austin's perk is undoubtedly great, he is a terrible unit in just about every regard, having poor survivability and damage for a ranged unit with no other meaningful attributes. While his rage cost could favor him as an alternative for when courage is more scarce during a mission, it may not be suitable to replace another more capable ranged unit for this quality alone.

Skirmish

In League, a combination of Austin's unique ability being disabled, mediocre performance as a ranged unit, the lack of any useful resistances, and a high cost of 30 make him one of the worst ranged units to use. There is no reason not to pick something else.

Item Sets

While there are no sets in the game that properly support Austin's intended purpose, simply equipping him with something viable for a shooter is good enough. Both Hunter and Military fulfill that role, but their use cases still differ a little. Hunter is better for improving Austin's overall performance, should he be used for regular mission completion as a member of either of his teams. Meanwhile, Military allows to give him high stats without making him overly strong, which is perfect for coin farming in graveyard missions. The Butcher set is pointless, as the reward it provides is very small in comparison to effectiveness of Austin's own ability.

Austin benefits most from flat boosts, with damage and health being the most important ones. Being a ranged unit, a prep. time watch is the best option for him. Giving him at least +15% to range is advised, as Austin's low base value puts him at constant risk, and decreases Hunter's effectiveness. Among books, +% crit. chance proves to be the best option, as it perfectly synergizes with Psychos' 2/2 power, while complimenting his damage support playstyle in Police. However, it also requires pursuing +% crit. damage through extra buffs. In case this is too resource intensive, going with a +% health book is an acceptable alternative, especially if Austin is used strictly for coin farming.

Skins and Synergies

Austin is part of the following teams: Psychos and Police.

Skin	Sprite	Team	Unlock Req.
Austin		Psychos	Available when unit is obtained
Collector		Police	300 / 5000

Thanks to the fact that Psychos directly helps with making Austin easier to use, he ends up being a great option for the team, especially thanks to being one of the very few ranged units in it, despite his poor performance. In case you have access to Clown Chopper or Red Hood, it becomes a valid strategy to use 2/2 strictly as a support option for Austin, making him effortlessly generate fuel for his own clones. He also helps 3/3 builds a lot by staying on field for longer periods than the likes of Saw and Berserker, who also happen to be the best tag-alongs for the bank robber. If he has a critical build as well, it can assist himself heavily in collecting Rage to give himself Fury.

As for Police, Collector is generally pointless for that team, as they have an overabundance of proper ranged units. While he does benefit from the 2/2 power (and all others at a lesser extent), it's only ever useful for farming. Anywhere else he is strictly outclassed, courtesy of his poor playability and rather small health compared to alternative Units.

Trivia

• Austin is a direct reference to Dallas, one of the characters from the Payday series.
  • Both Austin and Dallas are names of cities in Texas.
• Before update 2.8.4, Austin was able to generate extra coins on reviving enemies. An undocumented nerf introduced in that update now only allows Austin to get coins from them on the first kill. Enemies that transform into other zombies do not fall under this effect.
• Before having his perk reworked and switching to a gun with a higher rate of fire, Austin had a different sprite.
• Austin's Police skin, Collector, was originally submitted by Reddit user Nervous_Active_7430 as a skin contest submission. It is the first community-created skins to be officially added to the game, though with some design changes from the original.
• Before it was removed in update 4.1.4, Austin was in the Psycho class.
  • In the past, Austin used to be the only psycho class unit to cost courage.
• As to why Austin is a Psycho, is because of Payday 2, where if you kill an officer with a saw, they’ll call the player (or Austin) a psychopath for using a saw to kill enemies.
  • This goes mainly for SWAT members, FBI members, GenSec personnel, and also ZEAL personnel within Payday 2.
• There is an odd frame within frame 7 of the Collector skin, where within the face shield he is still human on his chin area while the rest is zombified.
• Oddly, the 2nd frames of Austin and Collector make his handgun look similar to his DA:Q sprite’s handgun on death.

Gallery

• 

  Austin's sprite prior to update 2.5.0
• 

  Old Advertisement of a Bundle to get Austin.
• 

  u/Nervous_Active_7430's fanmade sprite used for inspiration for Collector's design.
• 

  Promotional Artwork of Collector and Nomad Polina.