Which Champion to Buy?! - Categorizing Battlerite Champions by Autoattack type

What champions to buy with your hard-earned gold? What if you buy someone you just can't seem to get the hang of? This guide explores the similarities between champions by categorizing them based on autoattacks.

The theory is that in 99% of your Battlerite games, most of your damage is from your M1s. By focusing on champions with the same type of M1s, you can slowly learn their other abilities while feeling comfortable with your main damage source.

Introduction

Alright! Today’s guide for beginners will be for choosing your champion in Battlerite! With the advent of F2P, some people are asking what champion to buy first. Besides the, “try in playground” or “choose who you like”, this is my take on it.

The theory is that in 99% of your Battlerite games, most of your damage is from your M1s. By focusing on champions with the same type of M1s, you can slowly learn their other abilities while feeling comfortable with your main damage source.

The idea behind this guide is to categorize champions in “weapon types” based on their M1s (also known as autoattacks), hopefully helping people choose comfortable champions to branch out from their initial one. OR, you can also avoid champions with the same weapon types so that you get to be a more versatile player. Use this guide how you will, it is ultimately a summary of information!

Special care should be taken to playing supports. In BR, supports are not healbots. If you only focus on dealing damage with your M1, you won’t be playing your character to its fullest potential. However, it might help you ease into learning supports if you have experience with their autos.

Chart Representation

Here’s a picture/flowchart thingy where I group the champions in the game by the types that I’ve chosen.

Single Projectile System - Ashka, Taya, Jumong, Varesh, Poloma, Pestilus, Lucie, and Oldur

Single projectile champions shoot off a single projectile and must wait a fixed time before shooting the next. Pretty simple. These are normally characterized by having high range and low mobility when firing. This applies to even Taya unless she activates her Haste.

Playstyle:

• Your character will slow down drastically when winding up your M1
  
• This turns most ranged trades into shooting when it is safe and dodging until you can shoot again
  
• Time between shots needs to be learned instinctively

Pros:

• High range but staying at a far distance is not necessarily good; it can isolate your teammate and leave you out of position to secure the Orb
  
• Less likely to trigger counters than ammo-based champions, each shot is under your control
  
• Better at controlling orbs than ammo-based champions

Cons:

• Little leeway with shots – if you miss your single shot, you do 0 damage (hence why you see funny videos of Jumongs missing shot after shot)

Ammo-based system – Ezmo, Iva, Jade

Ammo-based champions can shoot off multiple projectiles in a row but when their “clip” runs out, they have to wait a bit for a reload before firing again. These champions have middle-low range and are more mobile when firing then single projectile champions.

Playstyle:

• Staying in middle-low range and firing your clip
  
• Weave abilities between reloads (i.e. Disabling shot between reloads on Jade)
  
• Escaping when the enemy tries to reach you and maintaining the distance to keep dealing damage, if safe

Pros:

• More leeway with shots – you can hit 1 out of 3 shots and still do SOME damage
  
• Higher damage in a shorter timeframe
  
• Generally more mobility than single projectile champions when firing

Cons:

• Higher difficulty when trying to land all shots in a clip (also known as tracing)
  
• This is important since this is where ammo-based champions really shine (i.e. Landing all 32 damage from an Iva clip rather than 16 damage if you miss a shot or if you miss some pellets)
  
• Easier to trigger counters because your behaviour is predictable – you will most likely fire the entire clip and enemies will take advantage of this
  
  • This can breed “oh, I couldn’t have helped it anyways” attitudes. Don’t fall into this trap!

Triple Hit M2 system – Bakko, Raigon, Shifu, Rook

The triple hit M2 system refers to when you build up weapon charges with each M1 hit and expend them to do more damage or healing with your M2 (right-click). The weapon charges stack to 3 unless modified by a Battlerite. After 3 M1s, an M2 will always be off-cooldown. Rook is a variant where his M1 speeds up the cooldown of his M2 but does not empower it.

Playstyle:

• Stick to your target and keep repeating three M1s and then your M2
  
• Optimally disengage after your M2 but don’t get greedy, you will still keep your weapon charges for the next engage!
  
• IMPORTANT - Learn your opponents’ escapes!
  
  • Helps you to stick better to your target AND
    
  • This type can heavily punish them if they have no outs (i.e. Pearl just dived and used her counter. You can safely just get on her and beat her to the ground)

Pros:

• High damage per second (DPS) if able to punish enemies with no outs

Cons:

• At higher levels of play, enemies will negate the predictable M2 with a counter or escape which will gut your entire trade
  
• Triggering panics and counters with your M2 will result in you doing VERY little damage – reading your opponent is very important on this weapon type

Charged Weapon System – Ruh Kaan, Blossom, Pearl, Sirius

Wow! There’s only one melee champion with the “charged weapon” system but special mentions go to the supports, Blossom, Pearl, and Sirius, since they also use this type of weapon system.
The charged weapon system is when your weapon charges over time and, when fully charged, will deal dramatically increased damage along with additional effects. For example, Ruh Kaan’s M1 does 10 damage uncharged. When charged, it deals 16 damage, heals for 12 health, AND applies Curse on the target. Champions with this weapon type will generally revolve their gameplay around their charged M1 since they extremely impactful.

Risks include MISSING your charged M1. It does not matter if you accidentally pressed M1 with absolutely no one around. Your charge will still be expended. This means that playing this weapon type requires precision since missing will almost always mean you lose the trade or someone will engage on you.

It is also important to mention that these champions have ways to recharge their weapon which can lead to ridiculous amounts of damage OR their own death if they get too greedy. For example, Sirius recharges his weapon by successfully countering. This normally leads to his gameplan being to Space in, hit once with his charged M1, successfully countering then hitting again with his charged M1. Now, if no one hits that counter, Sirius is a sitting duck with no escapes nor a charged weapon. The same applies to Pearl. However, that’s an oversimplification. At higher ranks, you’ll see Sirius players shy away from that and still be extremely effective. The key is not being too greedy to recharge your weapon. (IMO Ruh Kaan’s recharge method is not too punishable but that’s a topic for a Ruh Kaan-specific guide)

TL;DR

Playstyle:

• Initiate when weapon is charged
  
• Trade while effects given by weapon is still in place
  
• Back off until weapon is recharged through time or abilities
  
• Repeat

Pros:

• Extremely favourable trades when successfully hitting charged M1s
  
• Burst damage which increases the chances of leaving permanent damage
  
• Generally easy to use

Cons:

• It’s all or nothing. If you miss, you’re donezos for that trade.
  
• Highly predictable
  
• Greedy recharges through skills will be more and more frequently punished at higher ranks

3 Hit M1 Chain – Freya and Thorn

With the newest patch, Freya gains a new “type” of autoattack and Thorn was introduced with it. In this chain, you will deal damage in a set, i.e. 10/10/16, where each one is an autoattack. Regardless of if you miss, the chain will continue. This means that, before you initiate with Freya, you could set your autoattack chain to the third Bash, dealing 16 damage instead of 10 on your first attack.

Playstyle:

• Stick to target and keep spamming M1 while evading damage with counters and invincibility frames
  
• Trades are often best disengaged after the third hit if you’re out of cooldowns

Pros:

• Sustained damage, will often win if the opponent has no cooldowns as well

Cons:

• Lack of burst damage, sometimes hard to chip away at opponent’s max HP without CC or follow-up
  
• Can get into mindset of “if I spam M1, I’ll win trades,” don’t neglect evading enemy damage, their burst can deal more damage to you if they disengage successfully

Floater - Croak

Fine, Croak! Break my attempt at categorizing everyone somewhat neatly. *Sigh*

Croak doesn’t really adhere to any of the above groups. The closest is probably ammo-based. Croak relies on quick 4-hit swing that will slow down drastically if you don’t reload it. You can reload it by not swinging for a while or by using your Frog Leap or Camouflage. This makes him unique in BR as his playstyle is revolved around reloading his autoattacks by weaving in abilities.

An in-depth Croak guide would be better if you’re planning to learn strictly about him but, for the sake of completion, I’ll throw in my own comments from my experience in playing him in Diamond.

Playstyle:

• In and out playstyle by reloading autoattacks using Frog Leap and Camouflage then retreating
  
• Landing your M2 is the key to sustaining in a fight well as Croak. Practice this!

Pros:

• Very slippery, very hard to catch
  
• Good burst damage from stuns and quick 4 hit swings

Cons:

• Your escapes are also your source of damage. Don’t overextend by using all your abilities as damage, you will get punished heavily!

Afterword

Well, that’s my two cents on champion similarities. I definitely felt this divide when I was picking up champions to play in Season 2. I started with Croak and then tried out ranged champions but found out that I couldn’t land skillshots to save my life. When I got slightly better at Jade, I found out I couldn’t play Jumong. Then I picked up Bakko but couldn’t play Rook. You get the point.

Eventually, I got around to being decent at most people but there are weapon systems that I’m better at. I’m much better with the triple hit M2 system with Raigon and Shifu than I am with Freya. The trick is finding what you like the most and what you play the best with.

Hopefully this guide helped you find out what champion you want next! Let me know what you think below.

Afterafterword

I really don’t mind writing guides, so if you want any questions answered, ask below and I might find inspiration and write something in the future. Since I sit around Diamond, I don’t really like specific champion guides, there are people more qualified to talk about that. I’ve written another guide here about how to NOT trigger counters. Check it out sometime!

[Remi]

Another way to categorise is movement speed on mouse 1 attack

[DunnoU]

Definitely, a lot of the game is just moving unpredictably to dodge things. Watching good Tayas play, like Averse, makes me feel bad to be the other person haha.

[SilverByte]

Really good. Though I've noticed that the first 5 champions I tried to "master" (get to level 10) all have different aa styles. Guess this means I'm going for versatile player status. The most satisfying is really the ammo-based system once you get a bit good at tracing. I think one of the biggest counters to ammo-based users is just moving a bit unpredictably so they miss half their clip

[Vyxel]

Really cool way to classify the champions. Certainly gave me good insight on game mechanics.

[Gasometer]

lot of text but still like it good work