History TierInducedScrappy / Paladins

TierInducedScrappy examples for ''VideoGame/{{Paladins}}''. Not every ability or character is liked...

!! LowTierLetdown
* Some of the upgrades you can purchase during games are simply not worth your credits and item slots:
** Aggression was considered the worst card you can get right off the bat (or ever), since its damage increase was considered tiny, and you're often better off buying Wrecker (which does much more damage against shield-heavy characters like Makoa or Fernando) or Cauterize (which reduced the amount of healing an enemy you shoot gets, giving medics no amount of grief). Some people even outright refused to support or play with a team where someone (usually a Viktor) had bought it. Needless to say, people rejoiced when Aggression was removed in Patch 42.
** Deft Hands has become the whipping boy of the cards, as while it gives good increases to reload speed in 20% increments, so level 3 will bring you to the 60% {{cap}} for reload speed, its issues are that, for all but 7 characters, other item cards such as Wrecker, Haven, and Bulldozer are generally considered better cards to purchase for the first or second pick in an item loadout, not Deft Hands. In short, players were taking the item on the false assumption of "If I reload faster, I can shoot more often, which means I'll get more kills", which is very rarely true (if you need to reload mid-fight often enough for reload speed to seem important, chances are you simply have bad aim). The only characters that can outright benefit from buying Deft Hands early on are Mal'Damba (his reload produces a snake that stuns the enemy, and speeding reloads up makes that activate faster, thereby making it harder to avoid), and Pip with the ''Combat Medic'' talent (which minimises reload downtime as you use the potion launchers' shots to constantly heal allies, which does make a genuine difference in a match). There was also the issue of characters who ''couldn't'' reload, buying Deft Hands, and wasting credits; right up until [=OB57=] blanked the item out in 2017 (Sha Lin, Grover, Moji, Maeve and Terminus specifically). Deft Hands may also be helpful on characters with painstakingly long reloads (like Raum, whose reload is four seconds), but there are loadout cards that help with this.
** Until Patch 4.5 changed it, Veteran was '''almost never purchased''' by anyone. The only effect it had was to boost your natural out-of-combat healing, which required you to spend five seconds doing nothing and avoid getting shot at. You ''had'' wait the full 5 seconds, or the item did diddley squat for you. Purchasing Veteran did not reduce the time it takes for the health regeneration to kick in either. If you could afford to wait those 5 seconds, you could also afford to wait the few seconds that Veteran would have saved you, and it was simply better to spend your credits and item slots on something else that was more immediately useful, such as Chronos, Cauterize (before its removal), Illuminate, etc. The only times where Veteran was useful is if you were playing a Front Line with a lot of health (so the max-health-percentage-based effect was bigger) and there was no Support on your team. If there ''was'' a Support on your team, purchasing Veteran was jokingly considered an insult, as in ''"you are so bad at healing me that Veteran does a better job than you!"''. This was ''finally'' addressed in Patch 4.5, where instead of being an out-of-combat self heal item, it increased the base health of a champion in 4% increments, which is not only more applicable to people's play-styles, but significantly more useful on champions with lower health pools (like supports or flanks), increasing survivability. However, it does run into the issue of being compared to Haven, another item that was reworked in the same patch to reduce both direct and area damage. Reducing incoming damage and increasing your max base HP both lead to similar effects; increasing how much you can get shot at [[CriticalExistenceFailure before you die]], and since you take damage almost constantly, it's almost always better to choose Haven over Veteran as it means you can survive more punishment, rather than extending your health pool. That said Veteran isn't ''completely'' worthless for the reasons stated above, and combining the two is a viable strategy in some cases.
** Kill To Heal, which restores HP whenever you get a kill or elimination, is strongly associated with bad players since it only heals you when the enemy you're fighting against dies, rather than during the battle, where you'd actually need the extra health. The healing is also affected by the passive anti-heal in the match, so it's unlikely to make a difference even if you get attacked by another enemy right away. The only times where it might be useful is on certain supports, who get eliminations when the allies they heal get kills (such as Seris and her very spammable "Restore Soul" healing ability).

!!HighTierScrappy
* As of patch 2.05, Champions with talents that buff the team's damage output, (Luminary Jenos, Hunting Party Tyra, and Field Study Torvald) tend to be seen as overpowered. Hunting Party is especially hated because on top of adding a 25% damage bonus to all attacks against the marked target, it also applies a Reveal (meaning you're visible through walls, like a single-target version of Cassie's ultimate), and Tyra has two charges on Hunter's Mark, making the effect spammable. Later patches nerfed these talents so they can't give more than 15% bonus damage.
* Atlas is one of the best Frontlines in the game. He has ''Setback'' (which can cancel any healing the enemies get, or [[YouWillNotEvadeMe bring them back to Atlas if they try to run away]]), ''Second Chance'' (which cancels any burst damage Atlas takes, and lets him attack the enemy's backline and then warp back, healing any damage sustained in the process), and ''Stasis Field'', his main defensive Ability, which, unlike other shields, can absorb an unlimited amount of damage, and Atlas can act freely while it's active. His main weakness is that his Abilities have long cooldowns, but he can bypass that with the right Cards.
* Azaan has a unique Ire resource that empowers his abilities, [[LightningBruiser making his movement ability insanely fast and long-ranged, granting him passive damage reduction, and boosting his damage and granting it AOE explosions]]. Combine this with his Persistence talent (grants a whopping ''40%'' lifesteal on his primary fire and a further passive 5% damage reduction) and the Card Grim Deliverance (which heals him up to 30 HP for each point of Ire consumed by his abilities) and you have a Champion who's nearly impossible to kill thanks to massive self-sustain, especially since Conviction (his movement ability) removes all status effects on him, including anti-heals. A mid-patch nerfed his mobility, but didn't touch his near-indestructibility, making players complain about having the one fun thing about him taken away while still having to deal with the things that made him so annoying to fight against until the next major patch.
* Dredge. The most common complaint about him is that [[ItsEasySoItSucks he's extremely easy to use]] because of his kit. His alternate fire can be spammed, especially if a Dredge player buys Deft Hands, and gives a lot of area denial, his Hurl talent makes it so that his only direct damage ability (Harpoon) can also be spammed and the fact that some of his cards encourage even more [[RuleofThree spam]] by synergizing with his alternate fire means that even a rookie player can fire from literally on the other side of the map by spamming grenades has cause some outrage among players. Fans praise his design and backstory, but wish his kit would be nerfed or changed.
* Furia has consistently been one of the best supports. Her primary fire is a sword that [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter functions exactly like a shotgun]], minus [[ShortRangeShotgun the range issues they typically have]]. Her heal buffs her fire rate when you heal allies with it, and can grant shields with the right card. ''Wings of Wrath'' lets her retreat and attack at the same time. Her Ultimate massively buffs the entire team's damage and speed. Her most infamous ability, however, is ''Pyre Strike'', a slow-moving pillar that passes through walls and stuns and damages enemies caught in it, which can be improved with either Solar Blessing (heals allies caught in the pillar, granting some of the highest healing output in the game) or Exterminate (Pyre Strike deals 75%, formerly 100% extra damage and stops after hitting an enemy, ensuring they get the full concentrated power of the strike). As of version 4.5, Exterminate Furia is absolutely hated for being able to delete anyone caught in the Pyre Strike.
* Io was hated for her ability to summon Luna, essentially being a separate entity who can capture or contest the objective without Io actually being ''on'' it. The ''Goddess' Blessing'' talent also gives damage reduction to the ally being healed by her, making them extremely hard to kill. A flanker being buffed by Io's heal ''plus'' Luna capturing the objective is a lot to deal with coming from just ''one'' champion. This was nerfed in Patch 4.2, so Luna can no longer capture or contest objectives.
* Kasumi quickly became the subject of much complaining after being released. If you thought Lian's auto-aim attacks were annoying to deal with, Kasumi has auto-aim on her ''normal attack'', and it doesn't use ammo, letting her shred enemies with little skill needed.
* Lian has not one, but ''two'' auto-aim abilities, that can be spammed if you have the right loadout thanks to her many cards that reset cooldowns[[note]]Compare to Lex, who also has an auto-aim ability, but it has a long cooldown and the only reduction he can get (outside of buying Chronos) is a flat reduction of up to 5 seconds (out of 15)[[/note]]. This already gives her a bad reputation since she's extremely easy to play well with, but, on top of that, she also has Presence, a piercing, long-range shot that deals 800 damage, which can be buffed up to deal a massive 1200 damage if you pick her Eminence talent, giving her massive burst potential. On top of all that, all of her attacks count as weapon shots, which means they benefit from items such as Bulldozer or Wrecker. She has been nerfed quite severely with just having one auto-aim ability (one of them became just a long-range HerdHittingAttack), and although still potent without falling much into low-tier (though some does her job better), experienced player will note that solely depending on that auto-aim is just going to get Lian crushed since they don't deal much potent damage (although very good at finishing off low health champions), doing that on the frontline will get her crushed to death with the frontliners' Crowd Control, and she's toast if a flanker manages to catch her off-guard. [[NeverLiveItDown Tell that to certain fandom and they still drone around that Lian is still a highly toxic 'auto-aim bitch'.]]
* Tyra might lack mobility which earned her the sneer of pros. But she's still considered a very annoying, often-considered-braindead player for her Fire Bomb, which creates a field of flames that deals percentage health-based damage which is already a nightmare for frontliners and very common in the main game of ''Paladins'' (Siege). But what makes her truly shot up to this is the talent ''Burn, Monster!'', where the Fire Bomb now has increased damage, cripples the enemy (so if a flanker gets near her, they might not manoeuvre that easily if they can't kill her first) and gives a whooping 60% healing reduction for whoever is in there. Add up with how she's one of the machine gun users (and her ult lets her shoot out MORE), she's often considered a terror in the battlefield, especially when most of the Tyra mains will most likely already found a method to circumvent her lack of mobility. Especially if her picked talent is ''Burn, Monster!''
* Vivian is infamous for having a powerful, accurate, fast-firing weapon with a large clip (especially with some cards and talents that give her a chance of not expending ammo while firing) that gets even more powerful with the "Opportunity in Chaos" talent (damage dealt increases by 10%, formerly 20%, after 2 seconds of continuous fire). She also has a shield that can be fired under, but still massively increases her durability since one of her cards lets her work around getting shot in the feet. Her Ultimate gives her two drones that shoot extra projectiles, boosting her DPS even further, ''and'' 1: it has no time limit (the drones remain active until they are destroyed or Vivian dies), 2: while it's active, she can immediately start gaining charge for her next use of the Ultimate, meaning she is quite a hard pest to squash. Many players find her kit really suppressive and powerful for the sakes of it.
* Zhin is notoriously hard to kill since he has three defensive/escape abilities, including one that just makes him flat-out invincible for a few seconds. These abilities can also be given HP restoration with the right cards and talents. And his Ultimate is a near-guaranteed kill on anything except frontlines (or even against frontlines with the Guillotine talent, which also increases Ultimate charge rate and, until it was {{nerf}}ed, gave him invincibility during the attack, making it a 100% guaranteed kill unless the victim gets a ton of healing very quickly) ''and'' it can also be used as yet another escape if [[NotTheIntendedUse you intentionally miss with it]]. To top it all off, his primary weapon is pretty strong, and it launches large projectiles that are easy to hit with, making him very noob-friendly.

!!Both
* Viktor is a bizarre case, because he manages to be loathed for being generic/attracting military-shooter fans, being a no-skill character who racks up kills too easily, ''and'' a low-tier character who's great at nothing (besides dying), depending on who you ask.
* Kinessa falls victim to the same issue - she can be played like a traditional sniper in most FPS games. This gets her saddled with the same baggage Viktor gets (accusations of appealing to "[[VideoGame/CallOfDuty cod kids]]" and toxic players who do not adapt to the MOBA/objective-focused gameplay) and is even more vulnerable without a decent team or support than Viktor is [[note]]At the very least, Viktor is a mobile Damage character, which requires him to keep moving or to stay near the frontline to maximize both his shots and grenades. Kinessa is a stationary traditional sniper who requires staying put in the backline and focusing on the scope in front of her, making her a much easier target for Flankers whose job are to infiltrate the backline with their mobility/positioning skills before killing their target.[[/note]], even though very skilled players can sustain a push by themselves.
* Due to the [[DifficultButAwesome nature]] of Androxus's kit, he falls on both sides of the spectrum. On one hand, a first-timer with him will miss every shot, never use their ''Reversal'' correctly, die within the first second of using their ult, and just be all-around useless. Meanwhile, a sufficiently skilled Androxus is a nigh-untouchable LightningBruiser with unmatched mobility that'll slaughter your backline with ease, and leave no chance for counterplay beyond "kill him before he kills you". Either way, Androxus will make you cry.
* Skye is generally disliked:
** In competitive circles, she's disliked because she's easily outdone by every other flanker due to her limited movement abilities. [[{{Invisibility}} Her main gimmick]] is rendered useless by simply purchasing Illuminate, so her only real niche is forcing some of her opponents to waste credits and an item slot on that (which won't last long, since Illuminate is tied for the cheapest item), after which she becomes dead weight.
** In casual circles, she's disliked because she's difficult to counter without teamwork, damaging poison and shot damage, and that a lot of newer players don't realize that [[GuideDangIt her ultimate is based on line of sight]]
** On consoles, Skye is generally seen as overpowered because the aim assists on consoles makes it easier to land shots and the lower turning speed on controllers mean that players cannot turn around in time to retaliate.
* Skins with different visual and sound effects tend to be labelled as "[[BribingYourWayToVictory Pay to win]]" or "Pay to lose" since the effects tend to either be more subtle and quieter (giving the player using it an advantage) or louder and more visible (giving a disadvantage).
* Maeve has been all over the tier list:
** She was highly reviled after her initial release due to having incredible manoeuvrability, a small hitbox, an ult that completely blinds its targets, and high burst damage. Much like Skye, competitive players figured out how to counter her quickly but casual teams generally have trouble with her.
** After the next update nerfed her, there were complaints about how she was useless now, but just as many complaints about her not being nerfed enough.
** A third side identify the problem not as being Maeve herself but a more fundamental issue of potato-circuit servers and poor, inconsistent lag compensation that make hitting any small, fast-moving target depend less on skill than where you live.
** As of the January 2020 patch, Maeve's main problem is her many cards that give her damage reduction, combined with [[GoodBadBugs a bug that prevents Diminishing Returns from applying on them]], meaning she gets the full boost from every damage reduction card and can be [[LightningBruiser fast, damaging, and resilient]].
* Depending on the patch and skill of the players involved, Torvald is either a boring overpowered bubble-bot, or a boring underpowered bubble-bot ("bubble" being a FanNickname for his shields and "bot" being a variation on "healbot", a term for someone who does nothing but heals). His primary fire is hard to use, and his Silence has short range, so most of his time is spent pressing Q to give his allies shields, which are either too short-lasting and weak to make a difference, or make the shielded champion nearly invincible. His "Field Study" talent was also considered OP in the past, giving Crowd Control immunity and a 30% damage boost to shielded allies (the CC immunity would later be removed, and the damage boost lowered to 10%). His Ultimate is also hated for being ''very'' map dependent: it deals very weak damage, but applies huge knockback in a large area, so it's devastating on maps with BottomlessPits near the objective and useless everywhere else. Not helping is Evil Mojo's hesitance to balance him until they can come up with a significant rework.
* Evie's DifficultButAwesome kit makes her a nightmare to balance. She's a GlassCannon with good mobility and a damaging but slow-moving primary fire, making her dependant on good positioning to be effective. If you don't know how to position yourself with her, you'll just die a lot, but a good Evie player can be devastating. This is a dillema for the balance team: since most players are not professionals, they'll struggle with her, implying she needs buffs, but buffing her would make her ''too'' good among the pros. This has led to her being less popular, which by extension led to her memetic lack of skins (what's the point of wasting company resources making a skin for a Champion few people use, when you could give Ying or Maeve a new skin that would sell more?)
* Strix was formerly considered overpowered. Unlike Kinessa or Sha Lin, the other snipers, he does not have to charge his shots, and could theoretically land 1200 (1800 for headshots) damage each second. And you'd think that a sniper would be weak up close, but, far from an EmergencyWeapon, his pistol was strong enough to destroy anyone who gets too close. With the talent Unauthorized Use, his flare is also replaced with a powerful projectile, giving him even more burst damage up close. And his ultimate, a flashbang grenade, seems underwhelming, but it charges quickly, and the InterfaceScrew it inflicts made flanking him much harder. On top of all that, he can go invisible, forcing players to waste an item slot on Illuminate if they want to deal with him. Season 3 considerably {{nerf}}ed him by weakening his pistol, lowering his HP, and replacing his Crack Shot talent (pistol does extra damage to enemies hit by his Talon Rifle) with Elemental Bullet (Talon Rifle does a small amount of extra damage over time, but can not score headshots). This made him go from the most overpowered Champion in the game to the ''weakest'', since other Champions can deal more damage more easily.
* Yagorath isn't liked in the casual playerbase on the perception that she's too hard to take down, with her kit being punishing to those who try to fight her in a 1v1 situation. This isn't a sign that she's strong, it's a sign that Yagorath severely punishes those who do not work with allies; her greatest weakness, to take her down. On the ranked side of things, Furia and Yagorath worked extremely well together due to Furia's heal beam having the most healing in the game for the longest time, oftentimes stalemating matches, or prolonging battles for far longer than many found comfortable. Not coincidentally, this is why she rarely appeared in either queue until Cauterise was reworked into a passive anti-heal, and Furia's beam, got nerfed to be less effective and harder to use.
* '''Cauterize'''. The developers considered the item necessary when it came to game balance, and noted that it was really hard to do any kind of balance decisions whenever anything to do with healing or shooting was changed, as Cauterize affected those changes. Cauterize was an anti-heal item; an item that should've otherwise been optional for players to purchase, but ever since the beginning of the game, it'd become a part of any players' item purchases in all forms of play, ranked or otherwise. Essentially, Cauterize enforced ComplacentGamingSyndrome on players when it came to buying items, which the developers considered to be unhealthy for the game overall, and in the first 2022 patch; 5.1, the devs decided enough was enough, and the developers reworked it into an in-match passive anti-heal instead, scaling from 25% to 90% anti-heal over the duration of a match for all players. Cauterize itself was replaced with Provision (which restores maximum ammo after an elimination in 15% increments) and that ''itself'' was replaced with Lethality (increasing player movement speed in 20% increments after getting an elimination).
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!! Low-Tier

!!High-Tier

* '''Cauterize'''. The developers considered the item something of a NecessaryWeasel when it came to game balance, and noted that it was really hard to do any kind of balance decisions whenever anything to do with healing or shooting was changed, as Cauterize affected those changes. Cauterize was an anti-heal item; an item that should've otherwise been optional for players to purchase, but ever since the beginning of the game, it'd become a part of any players' item purchases in all forms of play, ranked or otherwise. Essentially, Cauterize enforced ComplacentGamingSyndrome on players when it came to buying items, which the developers considered to be unhealthy for the game overall, and in the first 2022 patch; 5.1, the devs decided enough was enough, and the developers reworked it into an in-match passive anti-heal instead, scaling from 25% to 90% anti-heal over the duration of a match for all players. Cauterize itself was replaced with Provision (which restores maximum ammo after an elimination in 15% increments) and that ''itself'' was replaced with Lethality (increasing player movement speed in 20% increments after getting an elimination).

* Dredge. The most common complaint about him is that [[ItsEasySoItSucks he's extremely easy to use]] because of his kit. His alternate fire can be spammed, especially if a Dredge player buys Deft Hands, and gives a lot of area denial, his Hurl talent makes it so that his only direct damage ability (Harpoon) can also be spammed and the fact that some of his cards encourage [[UpToEleven even more]] [[RuleofThree spam]] by synergizing with his alternate fire means that even a rookie player can fire from literally on the other side of the map by spamming grenades has cause some outrage among players. Fans praise his design and backstory, but wish his kit would be nerfed or changed.

* '''Cauterize'''. The developers considered the item something of a NecessaryWeasel when it came to game balance, and noted that it was really hard to do any kind of game balance when they constantly had to take into consideration Cauterize whenever anything to do with healing or shooting was changed for balance. Cauterize was an anti-heal item; an item that should've otherwise been optional for players to purchase, but ever since the beginning of the game, it'd become a part of any players' item purchases in all forms of play, ranked or otherwise. Essentially, Cauterize enforced ComplacentGamingSyndrome on players when it came to buying items, which the developers considered to be unhealthy for the game overall, and in the first 2022 patch; 5.1, the devs decided enough was enough, and the developers reworked it into an in-match passive anti-heal instead, scaling from 25% to 90% anti-heal over the duration of a match for all players. Cauterize itself was replaced with Provision (which restores maximum ammo after an elimination in 15% increments) and that ''itself'' was replaced with Lethality (increasing player movement speed in 20% increments after getting an elimination).

** Deft Hands has become the whipping boy of the cards, as while it gives good increases to reload speed in 20% increments, so level 3 will bring you to the 60% {{cap}} for reload speed, its issues are that, for all but 7 characters, other item cards such as Wrecker, Haven, Bulldozer and Cauterize (before that got removed later on) are generally considered better cards to purchase for the first or second pick in an item loadout. In short, players were taking Deft Hands on the false assumption of "If I reload faster, I can shoot more often, which means I'll get more kills". More often than not however, that just doesn't happen (if you need to reload mid-fight often enough for reload speed to seem important, chances are you simply have bad aim). The only characters that can outright benefit from buying Deft Hands early on are Mal'Damba (his reload produces a snake that stuns the enemy, and speeding reloads up makes that activate faster, thereby making it harder to avoid), and Pip with the ''Combat Medic'' talent (which minimises reload downtime as you use the potion launchers' shots to constantly heal allies, which does make a genuine difference in a match). There was also the issue of characters who ''couldn't'' reload, buying Deft Hands, and wasting credits; right up until [=OB57=] blanked the item out in 2017 (Sha Lin, Grover, Moji, Maeve and Terminus specifically). Deft Hands may also be helpful on characters with painstakingly long reloads (like Raum), but there are loadout cards that help with this.
** Until Patch 4.5 changed it, Veteran was '''almost never purchased''' by anyone. The only effect it had was to boost your natural out-of-combat healing, which required you to spend 5 seconds without shooting or being shot at. You ''had'' wait the full 5 seconds, or the item did absolutely nothing for you, and purchasing it did not reduce the time you had to wait for the regeneration to kick in. If you could afford to wait those 5 seconds, you could also afford to wait the few seconds that Veteran would have saved you, and it was simply better to spend your credits and item slots on something else more immediately useful, such as Chronos, Cauterize (before its removal), Illuminate, etc. The only time where Veteran was useful is if you were playing a Front Line with a lot of health (so the max-health-percentage-based effect was bigger) and there was no Support on your team. If there ''was'' a Support on your team, purchasing Veteran was jokingly considered an insult, as in "you are so bad at healing me that Veteran does a better job than you". This was ''finally'' addressed in the aforementioned Patch 4.5, where instead of being an out of combat self heal item, it increased the base health of a champion in 4% increments, which is not only more applicable to people's play-styles, but significantly more useful on champions with lower health pools (like supports or flanks), increasing survivability. However, it does run into the issue of being compared to Haven, another item that was reworked in the same patch to reduce both direct and area damage. Reducing incoming damage and increasing your max base HP both lead to similar effects; increasing how much you can get shot at [[CriticalExistenceFailure before you die]], and since you take damage almost constantly, it's almost always better to choose Haven over Veteran as it means you can survive more punishment, rather than extending your health pool. That said Veteran isn't ''completely'' worthless for the reasons stated above, and combining the two is a viable strategy in some cases.

* Io was hated for her ability to summon Luna, essentially a separate entity who can capture or contest the objective without Io actually being on it. The ''Goddess' Blessing'' talent also gives damage reduction to the ally being healed by her, making them extremely hard to kill. A flanker being buffed by Io's heal ''plus'' Luna capturing the objective is a lot to deal with coming from just ''one'' champion. This was nerfed in Patch 4.2, and Luna can no longer capture or contest objectives.

* Tyra might lack mobility which earned her the sneer of pros. But she's still considered a very annoying, often-considered-braindead player for her Fire Bomb, which creates a field of flames that deals percentage health-based damage which is already a nightmare for frontliners and very common in the main game of ''Paladins'' (Siege). But what makes her truly shot up to this is the talent ''Burn, Monster!'', where the Fire Bomb now has increased damage, cripples the enemy (so if a flanker gets near her, they might not maneuver that easily if they can't kill her first) and gives a whooping 60% healing reduction for whoever is in there. Add up with how she's one of the machine gun users (and her ult lets her shoot out MORE), she's often considered a terror in the battlefield, especially when most of the Tyra mains will most likely already found a method to circumvent her lack of mobility. Especially if her picked talent is ''Burn, Monster!''

* Yagorath isn't liked in the casual playerbase on the perception that she's too hard to take down, what with her kit being punishing to those who try to fight her in a 1v1 situation. This isn't a sign that she's strong, it's a sign that Yagorath severely punishes those who do not work with allies; her greatest weakness, to take her down. On the ranked side of things, Furia and Yagorath worked extremely well together due to Furia's heal beam having the most healing in the game (until the beam got nerfed, which made that method much harder to do), oftentimes stalemating matches until Cauterise III could be obtained, or prolonging battles for far longer than many find comfortable. Not coincidentally, this is why she rarely appears in either queue.
* '''Cauterize'''. The developers considered the item something of a NecessaryWeasel when it came to game balance, and noted that it was really hard to do any kind of game balance when they constantly had to take into consideration the Cauterize item whenever anything to do with healing or shooting was changed. Cauterize was an anti-heal item; an item that should've otherwise been optional for players to purchase, but ever since the beginning of the game, it'd become a part of any players' item purchases in all forms of play, ranked or otherwise. Essentially, Cauterize enforced ComplacentGamingSyndrome on players when it came to buying items, which the developers considered to be unhealthy for the game overall, and in the first 2022 patch; 5.1, the devs decided enough was enough, and made the developers outright remove Cauterize as an item, and made its anti-heal properties passive instead, scaling from 25% to 90% anti-heal over time, depending on where you are in a match. Cauterize itself was replaced with Provision, which restores maximum ammo after an elimination in 15% increments.

** Deft Hands has become the whipping boy of the cards, as while it gives good increases to reload speed (in 20% increments, so level 3 will bring you to the {{cap}} for reload speed) for all but 7 characters, other item cards, such as Wrecker, Haven, Bulldozer and Cauterize (before that got removed later on) were still generally considered better cards to purchase for the first or second pick. In short, players were taking Deft Hands on the false assumption of "If I reload faster, I can shoot more often, which means I'll get more kills". More often than not, that just doesn't happen (if you need to reload mid-fight often enough for reload speed to seem important, chances are you simply have bad aim). The only characters that can outright benefit from buying Deft Hands early on are Mal'Damba (which makes his reload that produces a snake that stuns the player activate faster, thereby making it harder to avoid), and Pip with the ''Combat Medic'' talent (which minimises reload downtime as you use the potion launchers' shots to constantly heal allies, which does make a genuine difference in a match). Up until [=OB57=] in 2017 blaked the item out, there was also the issue for characters who ''couldn't'' reload buying Deft Hands; Sha Lin, Grover, Moji, Maeve and Terminus specifically.

* '''Cauterize'''. The developers considered the item something of a NecessaryWeasel when it came to game balance, and noted that it was really hard to do any kind of game balance when they constantly had to take into consideration the Cauterize item whenever anything to do with healing or shooting was changed. Cauterize was an anti-heal item; an item that should've otherwise been optional for players to purchase, but ever since the beginning of the game, it'd become a part of any players' item purchases in all forms of play, ranked or otherwise. Essentially, it was an inherently powerful anti-heal item that enforced ComplacentGamingSyndrome when it came to buying items, which the developers considered to be unhealthy for the game overall. The first 2022 patch; 5.1, made the developers outright remove Cauterize as an item, and made its anti-heal properties passive instead, scaling from 25% to 90% anti-heal over time, depending on where you are in a match. Cauterize itself was replaced with Provision, which restores maximum ammo after an elimination in 15% increments.

** Aggression was considered the worst card you can get right off the bat (or ever), since its damage increase is considered tiny, and you're often better off buying Wrecker (which does much more damage against shield-heavy characters like Makoa or Fernando) or Cauterize (which reduces the amount of healing an enemy you shoot gets, giving medics no amount of grief). Some people even outright refuse to support or play with a team where someone (usually a Viktor) has bought it. Needless to say, people rejoiced when Aggression was removed in Patch 42.
** Deft Hands has become the whipping boy of the cards, as while it gives good increases to reload speed (in 20% increments, so level 3 will bring you to the {{cap}} for reload speed) for all but 7 characters, other item cards, such as Wrecker, Haven, Bulldozer and Cauterize (before that got removed later on) are still generally considered better cards to purchase for first or second pick. In short, players were taking Deft Hands on the false assumption of "If I reload faster, I can shoot more often, which means I'll get more kills", which, more often than not, just doesn't happen (if you need to reload mid-fight often enough for reload speed to seem important, chances are you simply have bad aim). The only characters that can outright benefit from buying Deft Hands early on are Mal'Damba (which makes his reload that produces a snake that stuns the player activate faster, thereby making it harder to avoid), and Pip with the ''Combat Medic'' talent (which minimises reload downtime as you use the potion launchers' shots to constantly heal allies, which does make a genuine difference in a match). Up until [=OB57=] in 2017 blaked the item out, there was also the issue for characters who ''couldn't'' reload buying Deft Hands; Sha Lin, Grover, Moji, Maeve and Terminus specifically.
** Until Patch 4.5 changed it, Veteran was '''almost never purchased''' by anyone. The only effect it had was to boost your natural out-of-combat healing, which required you to spend 5 seconds without shooting or being shot at. You ''had'' wait the full 5 seconds, or the item did absolutely nothing for you, and purchasing it did not reduce the time you had to wait for the regeneration to kick in. If you could afford to wait those 5 seconds, you could also afford to wait the few seconds that Veteran would have saved you, and it was simply better to spend your credits and item slots on something else more immediately useful (such as Chronos, Cauterize, Illuminate, etc.). The only time where Veteran was useful is if you were playing a Front Line with a lot of health (so the max-health-percentage-based effect was bigger) and there was no Support on your team. If there ''was'' a Support on your team, purchasing Veteran was jokingly considered an insult, as in "you are so bad at healing me that Veteran does a better job than you". This was ''finally'' addressed in the aforementioned Patch 4.5, where instead of being an out of combat self heal item, it increased the base health of a champion in 4% increments, which is not only more applicable to people's play-styles, but significantly more useful on champions with lower health pools (like supports or flanks), increasing survivability. However, it does run into the issue of being compared to Haven, another item that was reworked in the same patch to reduce both direct and area damage. Reducing incoming damage and increasing your max base HP both lead to similar effects; increasing how much you can get shot at [[CriticalExistenceFailure before you die]], and since you take damage almost constantly, it's almost always better to choose Haven over Veteran as it means you can survive more punishment, rather than extending your health pool. That said Veteran isn't ''completely'' worthless for the reasons stated above, and combining the two is a viable strategy in some cases.
** Kill To Heal, which restores HP whenever you get a kill or elimination, is strongly associated with bad players since it only heals you when the enemy you're fighting dies, rather than during the battle, where you'd actually need the extra health. The healing is also affected by Cauterize, so it's unlikely to make a difference even if you get attacked by another enemy right away. The only times where it might be useful is on certain supports, who get eliminations when the allies they heal get kills.

* Azaan has a unique Ire resource that empowers his abilities, [[LightningBruiser making his movement ability insanely fast and long-ranged, granting him passive damage reduction, and boosting his damage and granting it AOE explosions]]. Combine this with his Persistence talent (grants a whopping ''40%'' lifesteal on his primary fire and a further passive 5% damage reduction) and the Card Grim Deliverance (which heals him up to 30 HP for each point of Ire consumed by his abilities) and you have a Champion who's nearly impossible to kill thanks to massive self-sustain, especially since Conviction (his movement ability) removes all status effects on him, including Cauterize. A mid-patch nerfed his mobility, but didn't touch his near-indestructibility, making players complain about having the one fun thing about him taken away while still having to deal with the things that made him so annoying to fight against until the next major patch.

* Lian has not one, but ''two'' auto-aim abilities, that can be spammed if you have the right loadout thanks to her many cards that reset cooldowns[[note]]Compare to Lex, who also has an auto-aim ability, but it has a long cooldown and the only reduction he can get (outside of buying Chronos) is a flat reduction of up to 5 seconds (out of 15)[[/note]]. This already gives her a bad reputation since she's extremely easy to play well with, but, on top of that, she also has Presence, a piercing, long-range shot that deals 800 damage, which can be buffed up to deal a massive 1200 damage if you pick her Eminence talent, giving her massive burst potential. On top of all that, all of her attacks count as weapon shots, which means they benefit from items such as Cauterize or Wrecker. She has been nerfed quite severely with just having one auto-aim ability (one of them became just a long-range HerdHittingAttack), and although still potent without falling much into low-tier (though some does her job better), experienced player will note that solely depending on that auto-aim is just going to get Lian crushed since they don't deal much potent damage (although very good at finishing off low health champions), doing that on the frontline will get her crushed to death with the frontliners' Crowd Control, and she's toast if a flanker manages to catch her off-guard. [[NeverLiveItDown Tell that to certain fandom and they still drone around that Lian is still a highly toxic 'auto-aim bitch'.]]

* Yagorath isn't liked in the casual playerbase on the perception that she's too hard to take down, what with her kit being punishing to those who try to fight her in a 1v1 situation. This isn't a sign that she's strong, it's a sign that Yagorath severely punishes those who do not work with allies; her greatest weakness, to take her down. On the ranked side of things, Furia and Yagorath work extremely well together due to Furia's heal beam having the most healing in the game, oftentimes stalemating matches until Cauterise 3 can be obtained, or prolonging battles for far longer than many find comfortable. Not coincidentally, this is why she rarely appears in either queue.

* '''Cauterize'''. The developers considered the item something of a NecessaryWeasel when it came to game balance, and noted that it was really hard to do any kind of game balance when they constantly had to take into consideration the Cauterize item whenever anything to do with healing or shooting was changed. Cauterize was an anti-heal item; an item that should've otherwise been optional for players to purchase, but ever since the beginning of the game, it'd become a part of any players' item purchases in all forms of play, ranked or otherwise. Essentially, it was an inherently powerful anti-heal item that enforced ComplacentGamingSyndrome when it came to buying items, which the developers considered to be unhealthy for the game overall. The first 2022 patch; 5.1, made the developers outright remove Cauterize as an item, and made its anti-heal properties passive instead, scaling from 25% to 90% anti-heal over time, depending on where you are in a match. Cauterize itself was replaced with a similarly old card; Provision, which restores maximum ammo after an elimination in 15% increments.

** Deft Hands has become the whipping boy of the cards, as while it gives good increases to reload speed (in 20% increments, so level 3 will bring you to the {{cap}} for reload speed) for all but 7 characters, other item cards, such as Wrecker, Haven, Bulldozer and Cauterize (before that got removed later on) are still generally considered better cards to purchase for first or second pick. In short, players were taking Deft Hands on the false assumption of "If I reload faster, I can shoot more often, which means I'll get more kills", which, more often than not, just doesn't happen (if you need to reload mid-fight often enough for reload speed to seem important, chances are you simply have bad aim). The only characters that can outright benefit from buying Deft Hands early on are Mal'Damba (which makes his reload that produces a snake that stuns the player activate faster, thereby making it harder to avoid), and Pip with the ''Combat Medic'' talent (which minimises reload downtime as you use the potion launchers' shots to constantly heal allies, which does make a genuine difference in a match). Up until OB57 in 2017 blaked the item out, there was also the issue for characters who ''couldn't'' reload buying Deft Hands; Sha Lin, Grover, Moji, Maeve and Terminus specifically.

** Deft Hands has become the whipping boy of the cards, as while it gives good increases to reload speed (in 20% increments, so level 3 will bring you to the {{cap}} for reload speed) for all but 5 characters, other item cards, such as Wrecker, Haven, Bulldozer and Cauterize are still generally considered better cards to purchase for first or second pick. In short, players were taking Deft Hands on the false assumption of "If I reload faster, I can shoot more often, which means I'll get more kills", which, more often than not, does not happen (if you need to reload mid-fight often enough for reload speed to seem important, chances are you simply have bad aim). The only characters that can outright benefit from buying Deft Hands early on are Mal'Damba (which makes his reload stun activate faster, thereby making it harder to avoid), and Pip with the ''Combat Medic'' talent (to minimize downtime when reloading the potion launcher that you shoot constantly to heal your allies, which does make a genuine difference). There was also the problem with players buying Deft Hands for champions that '''couldn't reload'''; Sha Lin, Grover, Moji, Maeve and Terminus specifically. An update ''finally'' fixed this, with Deft Hands no longer being a purchasable item for them.

* '''Cauterize'''. The developers considered the item something of a NecessaryWeasel when it came to game balance, and noted that it's really hard to do game balance when they have to take into consideration an inherently powerful anti-heal item; an item that should otherwise be optional for players to purchase, but ever since the beginning of the game, it has become a part of any players' item purchases in all forms of play. The first 2022 patch; 5.1, made the developers outright remove Cauterize as an item, and made the item passive instead, scaling from 25% to 90% anti-heal over time, depending on where you are in a match. It was replaced with a similarly old card; Provision (a variant of which was in the closed beta of Paladins in 2015), which restores maximum ammo after an elimination in 15% increments.

* '''Cauterize'''. The developers considered the item something of a NecessaryWeasel when it came to game balance, and noted that it's really hard to do game balance when they have to take into consideration an inherently powerful anti-heal item; an item that should otherwise be optional for players to purchase, but ever since the beginning of the game, it has become a part of any players' item purchases in all forms of play. The first 2022 patch; 5.1, made the developers outright remove Cauterize as an item, and made the item passive instead, scaling from 25% to 90% ant-heal over time, depending on where you are in a match. It was replaced with a similarly old card; Provision (a variant of which was in the closed beta of Paladins in 2015), which restores maximum ammo after an elimination in 15% increments.

* '''Cauterize'''. The developers considered the weapon something of a NecessaryWeasel when it came to game balance, and noted that it's really hard to do game balance when they have to take into consideration an inherently powerful anti-heal item; an item that should otherwise be optional for players to purchase, but ever since the beginning of the game, it has become a part of any players' item purchases in all forms of play. The first 2022 patch; 5.1, made the developers outright remove Cauterize as an item, and made the item passive instead, scaling from 25% to 90% ant-heal over time, depending on where you are in a match. It was replaced with a similarly old card; Provision (a variant of which was in the closed beta of Paladins in 2015), which restores maximum ammo after an elimination in 15% increments.

* Vivian is infamous for having a powerful, accurate, fast-firing weapon with a large clip (especially with some cards that give her a chance of not expending ammo while firing) that gets even more powerful with the "Opportunity in Chaos" talent (damage dealt increases by 10%, formerly 20%, after 2 seconds of continuous fire). She also has a shield that can be fired under, but still massively increases her durability since one of her cards lets her work around getting shot in the feet. Her Ultimate gives her two drones that shoot extra projectiles, boosting her DPS even further, ''and'' 1: it has no time limit (the drones remain active until they are destroyed or Vivian dies), 2: while it's active, she can immediately start gaining charge for her next use of the Ultimate.

*** Aggression was considered the worst card you can get right off the bat (or ever), since its damage increase is considered tiny, and you're often better off buying Wrecker (which does much more damage against shield-heavy characters like Makoa or Fernando) or Cauterize (which reduces the amount of healing an enemy you shoot gets, giving medics no amount of grief). Some people even outright refuse to support or play with a team where someone (usually a Viktor) has bought it. Needless to say, people rejoiced when Aggression was removed in Patch 42.
*** Deft Hands has become the whipping boy of the cards, as while it gives good increases to reload speed (in 20% increments, so level 3 will bring you to the {{cap}} for reload speed) for all but 5 characters, other item cards, such as Wrecker, Haven, Bulldozer and Cauterize are still generally considered better cards to purchase for first or second pick. In short, players were taking Deft Hands on the false assumption of "If I reload faster, I can shoot more often, which means I'll get more kills", which, more often than not, does not happen (if you need to reload mid-fight often enough for reload speed to seem important, chances are you simply have bad aim). The only characters that can outright benefit from buying Deft Hands early on are Mal'Damba (which makes his reload stun activate faster, thereby making it harder to avoid), and Pip with the ''Combat Medic'' talent (to minimize downtime when reloading the potion launcher that you shoot constantly to heal your allies, which does make a genuine difference). There was also the problem with players buying Deft Hands for champions that '''couldn't reload'''; Sha Lin, Grover, Moji, Maeve and Terminus specifically. An update ''finally'' fixed this, with Deft Hands no longer being a purchasable item for them.
*** Until Patch 4.5 changed it, Veteran was '''almost never purchased''' by anyone. The only effect it had was to boost your natural out-of-combat healing, which required you to spend 5 seconds without shooting or being shot at. You ''had'' wait the full 5 seconds, or the item did absolutely nothing for you, and purchasing it did not reduce the time you had to wait for the regeneration to kick in. If you could afford to wait those 5 seconds, you could also afford to wait the few seconds that Veteran would have saved you, and it was simply better to spend your credits and item slots on something else more immediately useful (such as Chronos, Cauterize, Illuminate, etc.). The only time where Veteran was useful is if you were playing a Front Line with a lot of health (so the max-health-percentage-based effect was bigger) and there was no Support on your team. If there ''was'' a Support on your team, purchasing Veteran was jokingly considered an insult, as in "you are so bad at healing me that Veteran does a better job than you". This was ''finally'' addressed in the aforementioned Patch 4.5, where instead of being an out of combat self heal item, it increased the base health of a champion in 4% increments, which is not only more applicable to people's play-styles, but significantly more useful on champions with lower health pools (like supports or flanks), increasing survivability. However, it does run into the issue of being compared to Haven, another item that was reworked in the same patch to reduce both direct and area damage. Reducing incoming damage and increasing your max base HP both lead to similar effects; increasing how much you can get shot at [[CriticalExistenceFailure before you die]], and since you take damage almost constantly, it's almost always better to choose Haven over Veteran as it means you can survive more punishment, rather than extending your health pool. That said Veteran isn't ''completely'' worthless for the reasons stated above, and combining the two is a viable strategy in some cases.

*** Until Patch 4.5 changed it, Veteran was '''almost never purchased''' by anyone. The only effect it had was to boost your natural out-of-combat healing, which required you to spend 5 seconds without shooting or being shot at. You ''had'' wait the full 5 seconds, or the item did absolutely nothing for you, and purchasing it did not reduce the time you had to wait for the regeneration to kick in. If you could afford to wait those 5 seconds, you could also afford to wait the few seconds that Veteran would have saved you, and it was simply better to spend your credits and item slots on something else more immediately useful (such as Chronos, Cauterize, Illuminate, etc.). The only time where Veteran was useful is if you were playing a Front Line with a lot of health (so the max-health-percentage-based effect was bigger) and there was no Support on your team. If there ''was'' a Support on your team, purchasing Veteran was jokingly considered an insult, as in "you are so bad at healing me that Veteran does a better job than you". This was ''finally'' addressed in the aforementioned Patch 4.5, where instead of being an out of combat self heal item, it now increases the base health of a champion in 4% increments, which is not only more applicable to people's play-styles, but significantly more useful on champions with lower health pools (like support champions), increasing survivability.\\
However, despite that, many players insist the reworked Veteran is just an inferior version of Haven, which the same patch reworked to reduce both direct and area damage. Reducing incoming damage and increasing your max HP both essentially have the same effect, increasing how much you can get shot at [[CriticalExistenceFailure before you die]], and Haven increases that amount more. The new Veteran isn't ''completely'' worthless, but it's almost always better to choose Haven instead.

*** Until Patch 4.5 changed it, Veteran was '''almost never purchased''' by anyone. The only effect it had was to boost your natural out-of-combat healing, which required you to spend 5 seconds without shooting or being shot at. You ''had'' wait the full 5 seconds, or the item did absolutely nothing for you, and purchasing it did not reduce the time you had to wait for the regeneration to kick in. If you could afford to wait those 5 seconds, you could also afford to wait the few seconds that Veteran would have saved you, and it was simply better to spend your credits and item slots on something else more immediately useful (such as Chronos, Cauterize, Illuminate, etc.). The only time where Veteran was useful is if you were playing a Front Line with a lot of health (so the max-health-percentage-based effect was bigger) and there was no Support on your team. If there ''was'' a Support on your team, purchasing Veteran was jokingly considered an insult, as in "you are so bad at healing me that Veteran does a better job than you". This was ''finally'' addressed in the aforementioned Patch 4.5, where instead of being an out of combat self heal item, it now increases the base health of a champion in 4% increments, which is not only more applicable to people's play-styles, but significantly more useful on champions with lower health pools (like support champions), increasing survivability.

* Azaan has a unique Ire resource that empowers his abilities, making his movement ability insanely fast and long-ranged, granting him passive damage reduction, and boosting his damage. Combine this with his Persistence talent (grants a whopping ''40%'' lifesteal on his primary fire and a further passive 5% damage reduction) and the Card Grim Deliverance (which heals him up to 30 HP for each point of Ire consumed by his abilities) and you have a Champion who's nearly impossible to kill thanks to massive self-sustain, especially since Conviction (his movement ability) removes all status effects on him, including Cauterize.

* Tyra might lack mobility which earned her the sneer of pros. But she's still considered a very annoying, often-considered-braindead player for her Fire Bomb, which creates a field of flames that deals percentage health-based damage which is already a nightmare for frontliners and very common in the main game of ''Paladins'' (Siege). But what makes her truly shot up to this is the talent ''Burn, Monster!'', where the Fire Bomb now has increased damage, cripples the enemy and gives a whooping 60% healing reduction for whoever is in there. Add up with how she's one of the machine gun users (and her ult lets her shoot out MORE), she's often considered a terror in the battlefield, especially when most of the Tyra mains will most likely already found a method to circumvent her lack of mobility. Especially if her picked talent is ''Burn, Monster!''