How to play as Makoa

Makoa Tips

As a Damager or Flanker, Makoa was one of the most annoying champions to deal with. His hooks can deal a lot of damage to enemies and make them vulnerable to other enemy champions easily. This happens as it renders the enemy no movement for a good two seconds and forced them into enemy front line. There are  two ways to play him which is aggressively, like Flanknando or passively which is to hook enemies on front line and let your teammates do the rest of the damage. In Bird's recent video ¹, he has ranked him as S+ champion meaning he is the greatest of all champions currently in Paladins and will most likely get the first pick as Tanker. Don't rush the middle point, try to pick the enemy off at first then proceed to capture the objective. It would be useful if there's a healer and a Damager going along with your plan.

How to Dredge Anchor

I think one of the most difficult skill to master is hooking. It's sort of to your upper left crosshair but I'm still not consistent and skilled with it. I take it as Sha Lin's arrow where it takes about .5 seconds to reach the enemy. Its best to get a feel of it in the Shooting Range to calculate the distance and timing of the hook. Make sure not to flick the shot as the time it takes to do that would disrupt the Hook direction as it needs a little time to settle so a smooth transition is always better. Moving the crosshair too quick towards the enemy and Hooking at the same time might cause the direction to defer and thus missing the target.

Another tip is to turn 180 degrees ² after hooking them in order to make them confused and also to bring them closer to your allies to damage. Turn when the enemy is halfway through the distance from you otherwise they would bug out by suddenly oscillating themselves for no apparent reason.

Shell Shield

Useful for negating ultimates from Champions such as Androxus, Ruckus, Viktor and Tyra that reduces the amount of damage output received as the shell protects at least half of the attack before it dies out. It can also protect your allies for a short time of 6 seconds so it would be wise to calculate how many seconds you have until you have to use shell spin to get to a safe position, at least for a moment.

Shell Spin

A great way to gain some extra health or to escape a heated battle. Simply run away from your enemies when your teammates get battered or stall them long enough at the payload. It's also great to chase down enemies on the backline especially if they are not a Frontline champion.

Ultimate 

Use Ancient Rage when stalling a payload or trying to capture a point. It's best use for increasing health while trying to inflict damage upon the enemy. It is not easy as it is a Melee ultimate and enemies can just walk away. However, you counter this by quickly hooking them and then slashing them to their demise. You can use it optionally when your health point becomes very low and try to gain max health points. Cancel at around the 4800 mark ² to reset your health point to the maximum level possible as if you stop it after 4800 your health would stay the same and not be replenished. 

Loadout

There's two ways to go about this and it depends on your legendary card. If your going for the Pluck legendary card then you aught to opt for Bird's loadout build. If you go for Half Shell legendary card you can follow my build. I guess the main difference between the two legendary cards are offensive and defensive. With the Pluck legendary card, you are able to gain more damage after a hook but you won't be allowed to attack when your shield is up whereas when using Half Shell legendary card you are still able to fire your cannon when the shield is active. It also frees up Makoa a little as you are still able to maintain speed to escape or go on the offensive.

Bird's ³ build for Dredge Anchor Legendary Card

My build for Makoa for half shell legendary card

Generally speaking the order of items usually goes to Chronos first to level two, then you either go for Cauterize or Wrecker at level 3 depending on the enemy if there is a Ruckus or a Torvald. For defense items, choose Resilience and give it a priority after Chronos when going up against Bomb King or Pip to counter Grumpy Bomb, Explosion Flask and Chicken Ultimate. I'd do the same when going up against a good Mal'Damba as well. I would only take Haven or Blast Shields on rare cases when there isn't Champions that have crowd control or when I have already maxed the Utility and Offensive items.

Utility(Level 2)

Offensive(Level 3)

Defense(Level 3)

Resources

Reference

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1 Omgimabird TV. (2017). Bird Teaches - Ep. 16: Tierlist OB49. [Online Video]. 8 May 2017. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTBDWf9yFZo. [Accessed: 20 May 2017]. ^↩

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2DefNotHanzo. (2017). [Paladins] Makoa -- Guide / Commentary! [OB42]. [Online Video]. 5 February 2017. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2G-f9XIIAg&t=321s. [Accessed: 20 May 2017]. ^↩

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3 Omgimabird TV. (2017). Bird Teaches - Ep. 5: OB44 Legendary Cards & Loadouts. [Online Video]. 22 February 2017. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUchIYwH4NI. [Accessed: 20 May 2017]. ^↩