How To Play Maeve - Hints & Tips - The Ultimate Guide

This will be the third of our Champion Guide series, on the Paladins Champion Maeve.

We will, as usual, be doing a video guide with more information to go along with it! Which you can find here:

(Cassie Guide)

(Ying Guide)

*NEW* (Evie Guide) *NEW*

(Guides Playlist)

YouTube Version

Maeve - The Ultimate Guide

Introduction: (What makes Maeve special, who are her main targets for killing/damaging?)

Hello! Maeve is one of my favorite champions in Paladins, and today we will be going over her. She is in the spotlight at the moment as one of the best flanks for competitive play, and we will be going over how to improve your game with her to help your team towards the win. With a double jump, Maeve is one of the most mobile Champions in the game, allowing you to traverse maps and reach new firing sports. Either way, let’s get right into the abilities section.

Ability Overview

Ability Overview: (A run through of Maeve’s abilities, when to use them, and how to maximize their impact.)

(Daggers) (LMB) (Direct)
Throws two daggers per second, each dealing 400 damage. This allows for some serious burst
damage (800), but the best thing about them is their fast projectile speed, along with no damage falloff. Paladins seems to love not having damage falloff on projectiles, who knows why. Ultimately, this allows a Maeve who knows the trajectory of her knives to finish of targets with long range shots and put some damage onto enemies before engaging. Another bonus, is the lack of a reload, helping you in yet another way to win those 1v1’s.



(Pounce) (RMB) (Direct / Movement) - [10S]
Another key part of Maeve’s kit, her pounce is a perfect ability for finishing off targets, and has the versatility to be used as an attack and/or movement ability. With street justice, this allows for some massive damage, what’s making Maeve a go to pick at the moment. It’s also important to remember, when pouncing that hitting an enemy will cause Maeve to be bounced back, so make sure not to pounce on an enemy when on the side of the map… it can ‘backfire’! Pounce will also penetrate through shields, making you a Frontlines nightmare.




(Nine Lives) (Q) - [20S]
Quite a simple ability, yet is very important to learn when and where to use it. Nine Lives resets the cooldowns of your pounce and prowl abilities. I like to use it to:

• To finish off a close fight, for example taking down an enemy support or key player.
  
• Have a massive movement potential, for example, many a time has a Khan knocked me off the map for me to use 2 pounces, with prowls and double jumps to get back on, it does mean you’re out of cooldowns, but can save a life you desperately need.

(Prowl) (F) (Movement) - [12S]
Prowl allows Maeve to move 50% faster, and jump higher for 4 seconds. Often the extra jump height can allow you to get to positions you thought would need a pounce, try and learn what you can make jump-wise, so that you can save Pounces for getting away or attacking. It’s also important to note that using other abilities will cancel Prowl. You do still gain some momentum however, so it can be used very nicely to strafe in a fight. Prowl is extremely loud, so be careful, you’re not much of an assassin, an enemy sniper can easily hear it with their sounds up, and react accordingly.



(Midnight) (E) (Ultimate)
Blinds enemies within 300ft, restricted to a 30ft radius for 4 seconds. Now who knows what these lengths mean, but it’s very important when using midnight to know that only people near you will be affected, many Maeve’s, my old self included, use their ultimates at the start of a round when they are a way away from the enemies, remember to get closer. A useful tip is to look out for the blue circles which indicates someones vision, often enemies will hide against walls in buildings, you can see this blue circle through the wall, and attack them, (it works kind of like Makoa’s shell shield, where the graphic penetrates walls. If Maeve dies, the ultimate will be cancelled - and Cassie’s ultimate also negates the effects somewhat.

Talents

(Rogue’s Gambit)
I have only personally used Street Justice and Artful Dodger, but if you are a reserved player, I have seen many highly skilled Maeve’s use this legendary; sniping you with daggers and using their pounces purely for mobility, it’s a playstyle you should try, and works well on maps such as Ascension Peak with long sitelines but lots of Aerial space.




(Artful Dodger)
This is a legendary that is very useful when going up against teams that have a lot of crowd control, but it’s functionality is odd… for some more testing on this remember to check the video guide, since before making this guide I wasn’t totally sure on how the ‘cleansing’ of crowd control worked in game, did it just stop current knockback, did it give you CC immunity?



(Street Justice)
By far the meta-card, allows Maeve to deal insane damage to Frontlines. Dealing 30% of missing targets health as bonus damage on pounce, this means that an Inara with a quarter health (1175), can take a 1460 damage hit (400 Base + (0.3 * 3525)). This is insane, and in essence, the reason Maeve is so good at the moment; it also allows you to do 800+ damage pounces to Damages and Flanks, for great finishing potential!




(Cat Burglar)
I don’t really see this card ran, and it seems quite underwhelming - with a speed/prowl loadout you could possible make it work, I implore you to try it out and see how it suits your playstyle.

Itemization

Crosses - Represent Items I would not recommend buying under any circumstances.
Hearts - Items that you can safely buy in most situations.
Ticks - Items that are decent or conditional and depend on what the enemy team is running. An explanation of when to use the ticked items will be included in our planned item purchasing guide.

This section is to show you some good Items to buy on Maeve, obviously these are subjective and can change depending on the situation!

1 - Attack/Defense - Cauterize, you can get Wrecker, only if you’re going up against something like a Torvald. I recommend buying Cauterize up to level 2 or 3 depending on your team. A blue item can also be helpful if Cauterize is not needed, just analyze which one will be the best for your situation.

2 - Healing / Utitlity - After thinking about the other items, you can pick up these, I like Kill To Heal (especially when my support is lacking), it allows you to get those top plays and can save you many a time throughout a game. Rejuvenate is always an idea if you have a Jenos who is healing you a lot, just for that extra edge in 1v1’s. For Utility, I would normally purchase Nimble - but it’s not something I focus on.

Loadouts

I predominantly use two loadouts, as I say every guide these are just mine, feel absolutely free to import them and change them as you see fit, my Paladins name is Creeves.

Street Justice / Pounce -
This loadout, really is just centered around using pounces for as much effect as possible. The cards also grant you a lot more survivability. I like ‘Walk It Off’, since it really does allow you to escape by the skin of your teeth in some situations, but the heal cards can be replaced for more points in Shred/Sixth sense. (Have a Good Support / No Support deck.)




Speed -
More a fun loadout, speed is one of those things that gets worse as the players you’re against gets better, but if you can master controlling this is could be effective against a lot of skillshot damages such as the Snipers, Sha, Cassie and Drogoz.

Hints & Tips

Hints and Tips: (Tips on how to use Maeve, special circumstances, etc.)
You can pounce immediately after throwing knives to deal a deadly combo, similarly to Cassie’s blast shot, this will help you to burst down the enemy in a fight. It’s important to keep in mind when playing with Street Justice, to reserve pounces for when the enemy has lost a decent amount of health.

As mentioned in the Pounce section, Pounces totally pass through shields… this makes Maeve even more of a threat to Frontlines such as Nando, Khan and Terminus, finishing them off easily as they retreat. It’s also able to pounce through Androxus’ reversal, giving Maeve the upper edge in a 1v1.

Using pounce, will reset your double jump, helping you to traverse the map; I would highly recommend experimenting with jumps you can make on different maps - they can pay off for some epic flanks.

Ranked

Ranked: (Maeve in ranked, when she is banned, who she might counter.)
Up in Diamond/Masters, where I am, I have seen Maeve banned a decent amount recently, she’s definitely a top pick, especially against a very bulky team with for example an Inara. She’s also quite effective against Drogoz and, of course Andro, at the moment. You don’t really need to worry about her being countered by much; she’s not a first-pick though, try and grab your Frontlines then, but is good in the middle or end of the drafting scene.

If you can master Maeve, she can be a complete game changer in Ranked and can earn the team a massive victory.

Thank You For Reading!

Thanks for reading the comprehensive Maeve guide, good luck on getting more wins, and please leave a favourite and a comment telling us what Champion you would like to see next.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

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[yoink]

Hmm, I actually disagree with the burner items section. Deft hands is very helpful, maybe the most important. LOL (nice guide btw)

[LongCuT]

Amazing thx <3

[MH_VOID]

Nice guide @Creeves. I just want to say that I find the best counter to Maeve is Barik's turret since it has aimbot and therefore can't be strafed and takes more than 1 hit to kill unless you have Bulldozer and while attempting to kill it you are vulnerable to other champions. I also find that Jenos' Void Grip can be a complete counter provided he is using his Void Grip legendary.

[ЯΣП]

i used to use Rouge litterally all the time (because i wanted to use something uncommon and back in my day, street justice didn't exist), now because meta hanges, im going street justice.

[Ezyzz]

Nice guide!! Im using the 1st loadout changing "walk it off" for "to the limit", just need to be accurate

[AC Seaweed]

(Midnight) (E) (Ultimate)
Blinds enemies within 300ft,
now i know how big furias ult is

[[COS] CrazyLasagna]

I personally use Rogue's Gambit and I actually run it with Morale Boost. Midnight allows for the ability to make some huge plays since you can steamroll. Also, you mentioned Rogue's Gambit working with a reserved playstyle, but it actually works very well for being hyper aggresive or diving.

[Stalker]

Patch 1.2(recent nerf) have hit Persistence + Sixth Sense and Scar Tissue. It's no longer accurate as the SJ loadout now.

[Chiquitabee]

I like thats its not a guide that just tells you to use Street Justice like most Plebs do xD

[Creeves]

Thanks Major Gamer, :D