Some might say surviving a twisted family of cannibals and serial killers is the worst thing that could have happened to Julie in Texas Chain Saw Massacre. They would, of course, be wrong. Julie was sadly born and raised in Southern California, which frankly, is a fate worse than bisection.
Living through the horrors of sand, surf, and sport, Julie is more than prepared to deal with the Family, escape through the back exit, and return to the desolate hellscape that is her home; ashen sands and all. She might need a bit of help from her mates to do all the technical stuff, but other than that, she is raring to go.
For some more general tips and tricks, check out our how to win more games guide. If you want to know how all the characters rank up, check out our survivor tier list.
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+ 5Overview of Julie in Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Julie is the designated runner and hider of the group. She has little to know dexterity, and her upper body strength leaves a lot to be desired. Years of living on the west coast, however, has toned her body into refined steel. Tough as old boots, energy out the wazoo, and sneakier than most characters combined, she certainly leaves a mark.
Julie is fairly difficult to play, sadly. Her stats aren’t particularly well spread, her ability is a bit on the niche side, and if we are being perfectly honest, most other characters are better right out of the gate. That doesn’t mean Julie is bad - it just means you have to put in a bit more work to get out alive.
click to enlarge + 5Best Julie attributes in Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Julie’s attributes are distributed in what could be described as “the least helpful way imaginable.” Her focus is heavily slanted toward stealth, which is arguably the worst stat in the game to be proficient in. This results in lower stats everywhere else, and those stats are where the money is.
On the plus side, she does come with decent toughness and endurance with scores of 25 and 30, respectively. This makes her one of the tougher characters in the game in addition to having a pretty great stamina pool. Where things fall off heavily are her strength and proficiency, the two stats that do all the heavy lifting when it comes to escape.
Her strength is a piddly 15, the lowest in the game, and makes it so Julie struggles to do anything physically oriented. Proficiency 20 is slightly better, but still on the low end of average, which isn’t great.
Right out of the gate, Julie feels like she is at a noticeable disadvantage. This can be fixed later on, thankfully.
click to enlarge + 5Julie’s unique ability in Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Stats are important, but what makes a character truly shine is their ability. Julie is no exception to that, although, again, her light is a bit dimmer than most. Her ability is Ultimate Escape, and it does the following:
While active, grants immunity to tracking from Cook and Johnny while greatly reducing stamina consumption from running.
This ability is fine. It helps counter almost half the cast of killers and it makes it so Julie can outrun anyone. This meshes well with her high endurance and can help get her out of harm's way when harm comes a-knocking.
Here's the rub though, half the ability does nothing in some games. Cook and Johnny might not be in play, which leaves you with a pretty underwhelming stamina boost as your big, game-changing ability. When compared to any other character, Ultimate Escape can really fall flat.
In ideal scenarios, it can be useful though. If Cook or Johnny are in play, then you have a noticeable advantage against them; especially if they are both in play simultaneously. This does help with her steal-focused stats, but it still feels a bit nebulous; a smidge inconsequential.
Finally, because of this ability and her base stats, Julie brings nothing to the team at base. Her ability is purely selfish and her stats don’t allow her to effectively complete tasks. At level 0, Julie often feels a bit like dead weight.
click to enlarge + 5Attribute progression for Julie in Texas Chain Saw Massacre
This is where we can fix that, however. From the get-go, ignore stealth. You want to put exactly zero additional points into that stat because it is already too high, to begin with. With that out the way, we can safely ignore toughness and endurance for the time being.
This leaves us with strength and proficiency. We recommend pumping five points into strength to bring it to 20. Once done, alternate between strength and proficiency until both are around 30-35 points. From here you can either push those stats to 40+ or work on your toughness for a bit.
Once you have a few levels in you, Julie will start functioning like a productive member of the team and she won’t feel quite so inadequate.
click to enlarge + 5Best early game perks for Julie in Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Sadly, Julie’s perks are focused a bit too heavily on stealth and toughness, which are fine perks, but not ones we think Julie should be leaning on. Thankfully, she does have access to some solid proficiency perks, and that’s where we are going to focus our investments.
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With Julie, we recommend going ‘right’ on the skill tree. Remember, all perks become more powerful as you use them. Stick with the same perks, and you will grow in strength far faster.
Efficient Locksmith
For our Julie build, we want her to break out of her niche and work towards being more of an all-rounder. We also want her to have better inventory management so she can spend less time hunting for gear, and more time gunning for the exit. This is where Efficient Locksmith comes into play.
It’s a simple perk that doesn’t always work. Heck, even at max level, this will trigger less than 50% of the time. However, when it does pop off, it will save you a lot of time. This perk gives you a chance to retain your unlock tool after use, with that chance increasing from 20% to 40% with experience. It’s not flashy, but it can accelerate Julie’s game plan nicely when it triggers. If it triggers multiple times in a single game, you have basically ensured your escape.
Bomb Squad
Another inventory management perk, Bomb Squad removes the need for bone scraps when disarming traps. This is very useful when it crops up, and it only gets better as your rank perks up. When maxed out, traps are dismantled 80% faster, which allows Julie to get in, disarm, and get out all without needing any items.
This frees up her inventory for healing items, unlock tools and fuses; all of which are useful to have on hand.
Conditioned
Conditioned plays into Julie’s endurance game. It makes it so your stamina takes less time to start regenerating. This combined with Julie’s high stamina, rapid regeneration, and ability to reduce stamina usage turns Conditioned into a very solid perk.
That’s all we have for Julie in Texas Chain Saw Massacre. To help you navigate the game, check out our guide covering all maps. You can also have a gander at our tips and tricks for surviving as the survivors.
For more articles like this, take a look at our Guides and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre page.