Paladins Competitive - Tips & tricks for Ranked

Hey everyone, this is my ranked guide where I will do my best to explain how to improve your gameplay/game knowledge based on my own experience and hopefully help you to climb to a higher rank !
This is my first time writing a guide so any feedback is welcome, I will be editing and updating whenever I can so if I wrote any mistakes or if you have any more useful tips let me know in the comments below.
Enjoy !

Ranked Matches

Current ranked matches are only siege mode games, for most players this mode is obvious already but underneath I made a brief description for the newer players of this game mode:

• Siege is a round based game mode where each team works to earn Objective Points to win
  
• Players can only choose their Loadout + Legendary card at the start of the match
  
• Everyone receives 400 Credits at the start to purchase Items

(You earn 1 credit/second passively while playing but you can earn credits faster by getting flank kills as flanker/doing damage as damage dealer/healing your teammates as support/capturing the point or pushing the payload as frontliner)

4 Objective Points are needed to earn a Victory

These points are earned by:

*Taking control of a Capture Point (+1) [Attacking/pushing]
*Escorting the Payload into the enemy team's base (+1) [Attacking/pushing]
*Stalling the enemy team's Payload until the time runs out (+1) [Defending]

• At the center of the map there is a Capture Point located, at least 1 player is needed to stand in this area to capture it
  
• Each team has a separate capture progress bar that won't be deplete
  
• If players from both teams are standing in the capture point's radius, neither team will be able to make progress until their opponents are removed from the area
  
• If a team is almost done capturing the point and is interrupted by an opponent which got on the Capture Point, there will be a 3 seconds delay (OVERTIME) before that team can resume capture
  
• The team that captures the Objective gains an additional 300 Currency Credits for each player in the team.
  
• a Payload cart spawns and must be escorted to the opposing team's base for an additional Objective Point
  
• The Payload phase lasts 2 minutes & 30 seconds, if the Payload still hasn't reached the enemy base a OVERTIME phase will begin, giving the attackers a last chance to push
  
• The Payload will start to move backwards after sitting idle for too long
  
• The Payload will stop moving/OVERTIME ends if no players from the attacking team stands near it
  
• The 4th objective point cannot be earned by stalling the payload

General tips & tricks

Game knowledge

1. Improving your aim
This may be self-explanatory and obvious but is a really important aspect, optimizing your damage output increases the chance to get kills and thus getting the Capture Point. Champions like Evie or Drogoz rely more on predicting where the enemy will move so you can hit your primary attacks as much as possible which requires some practice and skill just like learning how to aim with Sha Lin or Androxus which are more heavy aim reliant.

2. Play the champions you like but the ones your team needs
Current meta consists of 2 tanks and 1 healer/support but I've seen other team compositions works as well as long if it's played right. Had many games where we only had one tank but a Bomb King which is great at spreading/stunning the enemy tanks with his Grumpy Bomb that camp on the Point, giving us on opportunity to pick someone off and Capture the Point. In the end it all depends on individual player skill, positioning, teamplay and possible counterpicking.

3. Optimize your loadout to your playstyle
What makes Paladins unique is the possibility to build your own playstyle depending on which cards you take. Each champion can have up to 6 loadouts/decks. Play a lot of normals to unlock more radiant chests which contain cards and sometimes Legendary cards.

4. Play normals to practice/learn champions
Paladins had this system where you needed to reach a skill level (Mastery level 4) before you could play that champion in ranked. This was a great way to learn the damage and abilities of champions and how to counter them. I’ve played tons of normal before launching myself into ranked to maximize my game/champion knowledge which I think, gave me a big advantage.
Now you only need an account level of 15 and own at least 12 champions to play ranked.

5.Toxic teammates
If needed use the mute chat/mute microphone button to ignore raging teammates and focus on your own play, raging back won't help you win any games since argueing won't make yourself or your teammates play better either.

6. Target prioritizing: flanks -> damage dealers/supports -> tanks
As frontline, try to hit squishy champions as often as possible like the enemy supports or damage dealers. Unleashing all your damage/abilities on their frontliner won’t help much if the enemy support is backing their frontliner up. For example, Makoa’s hook is a great tool to reel supports/damage dealers in and instantly burst them. (which means: do not hook frontliners !)
As backliner (damage dealers/supports), be aware of the enemy flankers since dying by them will probably result in a collapse of your whole team.
Only focus the tanks if they’re left on their own and no one else is around or if the enemy tank is low enough to kill him/her.

7. Use your environment to your advantage, for example to evade damage or dodge ults like Skye's Time Bomb, Ruckus' Hexa Fire or Seris' Convergence. Hopping around a corner or wall will keep you alive.

8. Loadouts can be copied from top players if you don't know which cards to take. I though prefer to compose my own decks so I can adapt them to my playstyle.

9. Only 1 player is needed to capture the Point, having more players on the Point doesn't make it capture faster.

10. Dismount enemies that come from spawn after getting some picks as flank or damage dealer, by just hitting them you can dismount them and slow them down so they can't contest and have to walk all the way to the Point.

11. When dismounting enemies, try to not get killed, the point of dismounting is to just delay the enemy so your team can get the Capture Point without it getting contested.

12. Ignore enemy team borders/frames, don't let it scare you. If you're a better player/teammate you don't need to worry.

13. Use VGS commands: to communicate (warn teammates, if ultimate is available, ... or to annoy your teammates ;D)

14. It's better to retreat/disengage instead of running into the enemy team to suicide and trying to deal the maximum amount of damage possible. It's often not worth for a kill either.

15. Don't waste ultimates randomly but try to used them when needed and synergize them with ultimates from teammates.

16. LP decay stops at Gold V which means you won't lose LP for being inactive when your rank is below Gold V.

17. When someone takes a while to connect it can happen that this player won't connect due to internet/server issues, a bot will replace this player even though the player name will still be shown, to recognize if this player is replaced by a bot, no Legendary card will be picked and the bot will randomly use VGS commands during the game, as far as I know there isn't a fix yet for players that couldn't connect or leave which result in 4v5 games and instant losses/wins most of the time, hopefully a fix comes soon for this problem.

18. Adapt to each situation: Frontline doesn't have to sit on the Point if another teammates is on the Capture Point.

19. Don't overextend, will result in a death where you will be picked off.

20. Swap possible champions in the champ select to secure some strong meta picks.

21. Group as team in choke points since it happens so much, teammates going in 1 by 1 and dying instead of grouping and forcing a last push.

22. Flank unpredictably, know your flank routes.

23. Be aware of enemy death times to delay their supports or damage dealers.

24. When tilting: take a break, play something else or go outside for a while since you won't be focused in this state of mind.

25. Don't contest the Capture Point when your whole team is dead, don't rush blindly in.

26. Options -> Gameplay -> Team display in the upper screen: useful as support to check out who is low on health, who is alive and who isn't from allied or enemy team.

27. Death screen (button 'y' by default during death) gives information about the damage done to you and which abilities, killcam can learn you how opposite champion works or where you have to watch out next time, useful to detect hackers too.

29. Sound is an important factor in Paladins since abilities, going into stealth or ults can be recognized. In the Champions tab on the main menu you can also check out the skills of each champion and every ultimate has a particular shout for each champion that you can play to hear/ help you recognize it.

30. You can see your teammates with a glow around them through walls, be aware who is near you, who needs help and who needs to back off.

31. In the end Paladin's is still a team-based first person shooter so besides getting solo kills, also play like a team player since you win as a team and not by yourself. Everyone has a share in a win or loss.

32. Learn from games you've lost and what you could've improved to carry the game. You will make much faster progress in general if you can analyze situations quicker and better in your next games.

33. Master a champion you're comfortable with for each clas, filling for a good team composition can result in a win or loss even before the game starts.

34. Tanks can flank pretty well too if communicated with your team what you want to do as frontliner! Like Ash or Torvald can be a real pain in the ass to deal with if he/she sits on you when playing a squishier champion. Don't underestimate the damage that can be done by tanks !

Champion tips

1. Don't waste escape abilities unless you're sure you can secure a kill without risking to die. Using escape abilities defensively will often get you out of sticky situations.

2. Unlock all champions so you can use them all in ranked, by playing all champions you will have a greater champion knowledge and you'll know how to play against certain ones.

3. Don't accidentally click or use an ability while mounted since you'll have to walk the whole way, wasting precious time and risking a 4v5 for your team.

4. Not all champions can deal headshot multipliers, meaning you can hit headshots with certain champions like Viktor, Androxus, Kinessa, Skye, Buck, Ruckus, Barik, Jenos, Strix, Talus.

5. The latest champion releases will be automatically banned for 2 weeks. This allows Hi-Rez to balance out new champions for ranked play.

6. You can cancel Viktor’s ult by pressing E once again to conserve charges.

7. Willo, press space bar during ult to fly up and to shoot down at the same time.

8. Use Makoa's ult when you’re low because it will replenishing your health but allows to smash around in melee range. You can also use your hook while in ult to reel those enemies in and bash their faces in !

9. Makoa hook can be extended by turning around when hook has landed and enemy champion has been pulled towards you.

10. Counter Torvald’s ultimate Hyper Beam with the item Resilience.

11. Aim heavy champs like Androxus or Kinessa need lots of practice before they can really be efficient in ranked. Don't jump into ranked with these champions if you're poor at them and if you really want to climb.

12. Learn how to counter champions or abilities for example Makoa's hook goes through Androxus Reversal or don't ult as Drogoz before Fernando has used his ultimate.

13. Keep holding left click with Ruckus when reloading, it keeps the max rate of fire when coming out of reload animation (miniguns keep on spinning).

14. Use Bomb King's Poppy Bomb during your ultimate animation to launch yourself into the enemy team.

15. As frontliner dont rush to the point and waste your shield ability instantly, I've seen this being done by so many players. Consider your shield ability as a safety mechanism. Like for example as Fernando you can dish some damage and use your shield when you're low since the enemies in front of you won't be able to hit you. You will regenerate health in the meantime and it gives your support the time to heal you back up again if his cooldowns aren't up yet. Don't forget to always turn around and have the enemies in front of your shield so you won't get hit from the back or the side.

16. Seen lots of Makoa's do the same too, rush to the point and instantly shield. Don't do this and try to hook some squishy champion into you and burst them down. Shield yourself when you're low on health or use it to protect your teammates. Be careful for enemies trying to get into your shield to take you down.

17. You can Shell Spin as Makoa while using Shell Shield to escape from a fight. Use this to avoid enemies going near you into your shield to take you down.

18. Run into Barik's shield and Ash's shield to avoid damage from the enemies. If you're getting hit from behind or the side, just dance around the shield so you absorb the least damage as possible.

19. Grover has a passive ability combined with Blossom which heals nearby allies passively, don't expect from Grover to heal you constantly but try to play around each other as frontliner.

20. Don't throw your ult out as Seris when Fernando's shield is up, everyone behind Fernando's shield won't be pulled in her ult. Pretty sure it also works against other deployable shields like Barik's but not so sure about Ash's shield . Champions with a personal shield will be pulled in though like Ruckus' Emitter or Torvald's Recharge shield.

21. Drogoz can be annoying to deal with since everytime his ult is up, he can one shot someone. Try countering a Drogoz enemy pick by picking a champion who counters this like Fernando's ultimate, Ash's ultimate or maybe Lian's ultimate. Hiding around corners where he doesn't expect you to be when you hear his ult being used can be tricky sometimes but I've avoided lots of deaths by doing this.

22. As Jenos, you should only use Stellar Wind for floating around on the ground. When jumping off a platform you will float down really slowly downwards so desactivate Stellar Wind to get down way faster and re-use Stellar Wind to escape roam fast on the ground again. Notice that Stellar Wind has no cooldown !

23. Maeve has a double jump if you press the space bar twice. Took me a while to notice how enemy Maeve's were so mobile because the double jump isn't mentioned in Maeve's champion skill tab.

24. Use Ruckus' Emitter always defensively, try to dish most damage as possible and when you're getting focused use Emitter to give yourself the time to escape with Advance to regenerate health behind cover. Ruckus is really vulnerable in the open and quite immobile so try to pay attention to your positioning.

25. Use Ruckus' Hexa Fire ultimate from the side or even better, in the enemies back since decent players will just hide behind cover if you just run up and ult in front of them.

26. Spammable abilities: Ying illusions, Jenos Astral Mark, Torvald's Protection, Mal'Damba stun, Grover Axes ... Use them whenever you have them off cooldown to help your teammates out.

Supports/healers

In alphabetical order: Grohk - Grover - Jenos - Mal'damba - Pip - Seris - Ying

• As support your top priority is keeping your teammates alive but when your healing abilities are on cooldown, try to dish damage too with your other abilities/primary attacks. Being a support doesn't mean that you are someone's dog since good players now when to back off from fights and understand that supports have cooldowns too. Keeping your teammates alive without dying yourself often resulted in me carrrying the game.

Spam Healer(s): Jenos
I consider Jenos one of the strongest supports in the current state of the game since you don't have to face the enemy team to heal your teammates. By using Astral Mark through walls you should be relatively safe if not caught out. Combined with Void Grip and Stellar Wind you still have a really good escape and by zigzagging all around to safety it's really hard to get Jenos down. As full healer Jenos you can include a card (Cosmic Barrier) which grants you damage reduction while using Stellar Wind which allows you to survive even more. Jenos feels a bit unbalanced to me since his Astral Mark range is pretty decent (range can also be extended with the card Lightyears) and it's sometimes hard to spot him if you play against him, making it hard to take the other enemies down since he'll be just spam healing his teammates everytime his Astral Mark is up.

Direct Healer(s): Seris - Mal'Damba - Ying

Area Healer(s): Grohk - Grover -Mal'Damba - Pip

Passive Healer: Grover
What a lot of players forget is that Grover has a passive healing ability combined with Blossom. I've been flamed in lower tiers for not healing while playing Grover because some players don't understand how Grover works. His only ability to heal instantly in an area is Blossom so try to play around each other as tank(s)-support. Grover grouping with 2 tanks can be a really strong synergy if the enemy team doesn't know how to deal with it.

Itemization

This overview is useful to me since this item tree and the corresponding costs can only be checked when ingame and there is so little time to check the items and costs out with such small timers between rounds and deaths.
Also when I started playing it could be really confusing what to buy and what not. Itemization is an important part from mid to late game but everything depends on which champion you are playing, which champions your teammates are playing and which opponents you have to deal with.

• Frontliners gain 100% more Credits for standing near an objective.
  
• Damage dealers gain 100% more Credits for dealing damage to enemies.
  
• Supports gain 100% more Credits for healing allies and also charge their ultimate for healing teammates.
  
• Flankers gain 30% more Credits for landing killing blows on enemies.

Defensive
Illuminate - Increase the range at which you see nearby stealthed targets by 15/30/45 units
(cost: 200/400/600)
Resilience - Reduce the duration of Crowd Control and Slows by 30/60/90%
(cost: 200/400/600)
Blast Shields - Reduce the Damage you take from Area of Effect attacks by 7/14/21%
(cost: 300/600/900)
Haven - Reduce the Damage you take from Direct attacks by 7/14/21%
(cost: 300/600/900)

• Illuminate is a great pick if you're having trouble getting flanked by a Skye as support or backline but can also picked up offensively to have a greater pick potential while flanking for the enemy Strix or Sha Lin
  
• Resilience is a great item against CC or displacement abilities like Ash her knockback, Pip's ultimate Evil Mojo, Bomb King's Grump Bomb or Torvald's ultimate Hyper Beam
  
• Check out the section HAVEN or BLAST SHIELDS for knowing which item to pick up against which enemies

Utility
Master Riding - Increase your Mount Speed by 15/30/45%
(cost: 300/600/900)
Morale Boost - Increase the rate at which you charge your Ultimate by 15/30/45%
(cost: 300/600/900)
Nimble - You gain +10/20/30% Movement Speed
(cost: 300/600/900)
Chronos - Reduce the Cooldown of all your abilities by 10/20/30%
(cost: 400/800/1200)

• The cooldown reduction from this item is applied after the passive reduction from the champion's loadout

Healing
Rejuvenate - Receive 10/20/30% more healing from other players
(cost: 200/400/600)
Veteran - Heal for an additional 4/8/12% of your max Health every second when out of combat.
(cost: 200/400/600)
Kill To Heal - Getting a kill or elimination heals you for 300/600/900 Health
(cost: 300/600/900)
Life Rip - Your weapon shots gain +10/20/30% Lifesteal
(cost: 300/600/900)

• Affected by Cauterize
  
• Life Rip does not lifesteal from deployables or external shields but does from personal shields like Ruckus Emitter or Torvald's Recharge

Offensive
Bulldozer - Your weapon shots deal +50/100/150% Damage to Deployables
(cost: 200/400/600)
Cauterize - Your Weapon shots reduce the effect of healing on your target by 30/60/90% for 1.5s
(cost: 300/600/900)
Wrecker - Your weapon attacks deal 75/150/225% increased Damage to Shields
(cost: 300/600/900)
Deft Hands - Increase your Reload Speed by 20/40/60%
(cost: 400/800/1200)

• Bulldozer affects Deployables like Barik's Turrets, Grohk's Healing Totem, Inara's Warden's Fields and Impasse(wall), Ying's clones ...
  
• Cauterize at lvl 2 or 3 shuts most healers down, has a big impact from mid to late game.
  
• Cauterize is best on champions with consistent damage like Viktor, Tyra, ... so debuff keeps getting applied.
  
• Consider buying either Cauterize or Wrecker when starting a match since destroying those annoying shields and reducing the healing on enemy players will greatly increase the chance of winning early fights.
  
• Deft Hands is a great item for Maldamba since his reload animation throws a cobra and stuns. The more being able to reload, the more stuns you can try to land.

HAVEN or BLAST SHIELDS ?!?

Blast Shields = Area of Effect damage
Ash, Bomb King, Drogoz, Evie, Fernando, Pip, Seris, Tyra (abilities), Willo

Haven = Direct damage
All other champs deal mostly Direct damage

(Check main menu -> Champions -> Skill tabs to see which abilities are Direct or Aoe damage !)

Ranked maps

1. Know the map layouts, knowing where you can safely hide to regenerate health or where you can flank/can get flanked can keep you longer alive during fights.

2. Use bushes in the maps, to hide, heal or dodge enemy fire

3. Some maps (Fish Market, Frog Isle, …) contain edges where you can throw enemies off, these are one hit kills so displacement abilities can be really useful here like Ash's knockbacks, Bomb King's Poppy Bomb or Torvald's ultimate.

4. Timber Mill: left hand side at base is closer to Capture Point

5. Frozen Guard: in the spawn you can see a icicle in the right or left corner of the entrances to the map. These indicate which exit is closer to the Capture Point.




These are the current Siege maps in Ranked ordered alphebetically:

Abbreviations

AoE = Area Of Effect
CC = Crowd Control = includes stuns, slows, displacement
Legendary = Legendary card used for each champion
Loadout = Deck of Cards used for each champion
Auto attacks = Primary attack = Left click damage
Secondary attack = Right click damage/ability
Ulti = Ultimate
Healer = Support
Tank = Frontline
Squishy = Low health pool champions (= vulnerable)
Point = Capture Point in Siege mode

About myself

This part of my guide shows the proof it's not impossible to climb fast if you focus on improving.

Been playing Paladins for quite a while now, mostly trying to improve on the champions I like to play and help me to climb. These are the champions I prefer:

Frontliners: Ruckus, Makoa, Torvald, Inara, Fernando
Damage dealers: Viktor, Willo, Strix, Tyra, Bomb King
Flankers: Evie, Zhin
Supports: Jenos, Seris, Ying, Grover

To me these are the mechanically and aim wise easier champions than some others so I know I still have points to improve on like aiming, reaction, timing and such so I can play other harder champions at maximum efficiency like Drogoz, Lex or Sha Lin.

My ranked road season 1 went like this:
Played 15 provisionals: won 9 lost 6 if I remember correctly, landed in Gold V.
Climbed from Gold V to Gold III.

Here under a picture of a ranked game when I was still in the Gold tier. I lost even though doing pretty okay but not enough to carry my team to victory. This if proof that getting a lot of kills still doesn't mean you'll automatically win the game. In the end I made too many mistakes that cost us the game by dying on stupid occasions. Gold can be pretty rough but it's possible to carry your team in Gold and lower tiers as individual.



I don't know how but I guess I was doing pretty well in general because one night I promoted from Gold III to Platinum III which surprised me a lot !



Currently I am Platinum 1 slowly trying to get Diamond ! (09/09)



Reached Diamond ! (14/09)


Still climbing ! (19/09)

[Angemon Takaishi]

Thank you for using my photography in your guide ^^

[DUCATISLO]

update it bro

[yungyoof]

you did good

[tEspur]

can you update this to OB67 plz?

[ballsack tied to trailer hitch]

i got placed diamond V and can't get out

[Mordid]

:D

[Carbala]

Good general guide, thanks for taking the time. Very helpful.

[The Hero Of Hogwarts]

@XIxTURDxIX what do you mean graphics update? I dont think that such a thing happens to most games past beta. And balance > graphics

[XIxTURDxIX]

do you know when they will do a graphics update to this game?

[delicious]

Seris deals area damage as well