Paladins We like the big shiny

To provide some background I am an average player. My skill level a long time ago got me into diamond but my reflexes are slower now so I'm about a gold on good days, silver on bad.

Having spend extensive time with this champion, there is some feedback I wanted to provide about how she generally plays and the experience of getting her to 50.

First off, the journey was excruciatingly painful. Let me be clear when I say this. Out of all of the flanks in the game Vora is the weakest flank. People don't play Vora because she is strong, they play Vora because they like the character. Just about any flank that you can pick in the game has a quirk or niche that they do better than her. Some flanks are flat out superior (Zhin, Maeve, Koga).

Also Vora is not an easy character to play. She is Evie levels of hard to be effective with. Her kit is very clunky and there is very little margin of error. Other champions have very powerful skills that flat out delete her or shut down her entire bar very easily. He escapes and invuls are not dependable. You will die many many times to bugs or skills failing. I think this was my biggest issue with her. The bugs. There are alot. We need to talk about those.

BUGS:

You will die to bugs. There are very common bugs that will just straight up kill you without anything you can do about it.

1.) VINE FAILS: Yes, tendril will always fail when you really need it. When you are trying to get away from a Skye bomb, count on tendril to fail. Sometimes tendril will have a green indicator, it will fire, it will latch but it will not pull you or consume the CD. This just leaves you in place to die. This happens frequently. The Vine also takes an incredible amount of skill to make it do what you want. You will get caught on things, you will launch past the platform you want, you will get caught on weird edges or doors. All of these things can and will kill you. Part of it is skill training, part of it is unavoidable bugs. Something does need to be done here. She does need a reliable escape and Vine needs some polishing.

2.) ULT FAILS: I saw the patch notes, thankfully some of this is getting fixed. First off the ult is very hard to target reliably when you have multiple targets in front of you. You get the wrong one many times and it sucks when its a Ying clone or some other deployable. They are fixing the lack of invulnerability with the damage portion -which is critically needed. Most if the time you will die during the animation by getting shot by someone else because its so long. The execute it spotty. Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Sometimes it executes above the 60%, sometimes it fails when they are under. This skill just needs a ton of QA. Right now the only reliable thing that you can do with it is escape.

3.) OBLITERATE GETTING STUCK: On certain bridges or on the payload, obliterate can sometimes get stuck -leaving you trapped for a good 8-10 seconds before the skill ends and teleports you somewhere in the vicinity. This can get you killed or disrupt your flow. It happens less frequently than vine issues or the ult bugs but it is a problem.

4.) HITBOX SHENANIGANS: When you vine, there is a period of time where the enemy can shoot where you were Vining from to still damage and kill you. I've seen this happen when I've tried to vine out of dredge bombs just to have them erupt where I used to be and still kill me.

5.) UNRELIABLE INVUL: Obliterate invulnerability is a lie. Executes and pounce will still kill you through it. AoE damage seems to still hit and kill you as well.

The bugs are the most critical issues with Vora. They need a hard look and rigorous testing to remove, they are the worst part of her current play experience and they make her artificially worse -which hurts bad considering her kit is the worst out of all the flanks.

DAMAGE AND TTK:

Vora has a very strange flow. It takes a long time to get used to and you will really never get used to it because it doesn't play well. Her attacks move very slow through the air (and can be easily dodged by fast champs beyond midrange), they apply DoT damage that takes a bit to trigger. I also note that her shots suck at hitting people peeking because even if the edge of the wave touches a wall, it will consume the whole projectile. I've died many times in peek wars due to this. So don't peek vs a hitscan, you will die. She also has very low health and not many good survival tools. She does have a self heal (darkness stack consumption), but its not instant and you will usually die before it replenishes you. Everything about Vora happens too late.

Damage ticks too slow, heal takes time to trigger, projectiles move slow through the air to hit the target. Playing Vora is like playing in slow motion while everyone else is playing at normal speed. You have to think ahead and outplay your enemies by being two steps ahead of them. She does not have any burst outside of obliterate so she is not going to win any trade wars with any other champ -supports included. Furia can outdps Vora before the DoTs kill her with minimal rage. Also if you do burst with obliterate, it better kill them because there is an aftercast animation that is atrocious. You will die to this alot.

She is an opportunistic ambusher. You don't want to duel on her unless you have healer support or Jenos/Corvus mark. If your target gets healed or pops a strong survival skill, you need to abandon ship and get out ASAP. An example is buck, who will absolutely wreck her in any duel if his self heal is up. Zhin is straight asinine to fight on her.

The only advantage that Vora has is movement. She can get across the map very fast with dual vine slingshots but her momentum is unreliable (see Vine bugs) and Evie is still the queen of crossing distances to assassinate targets. She also has a soft reveal on her slashes so she is very good against stealthers like Strix if you can ambush them.

She definitely has the highest TTK to a target out of all the flanks, so never take anyone head on unless you want to die. If your not ambushing your not going to win.

HITSCAN, CRIPPLE, AND COUNTERS:

There is a lot that owns Vora. Hitscan heroes that can aim are especially bad, such as alacrity Lian or Vivian. They can easily blow you up mid-vine.

Cripple is a 100% Vora autokill. If you get crippled at any time during your assault, your dead and there is nothing you can do about it. Sand trap Sha-Lin, Warder Inara, a grover that can aim with his cripple axe, Tyria throwing a firebomb with burn monster at her feet... any type of cripple is 100% hard counter to Vora. She has no way to play around it because it locks her vine and it locks obliterate.

BUILD VARIETY:

This is another area I have a problem with. Vora has very little build variation. Between her talents, Relentless Pursuit is the only option. Sure people run Unyielding but this just turns you into a weak midrange DPS with no survival power. If you do Flank with Unyielding Pressure, most of the time you are going to be kill trading with the enemy because one Vine is not enough to save yourself if you get attacked during an assassination attempt.

She also has very little variation in her cards. The following cards are pretty much essential to play her reliably:

1.) SHARPENED RESOLVE - Everyone 5s this card because if you don't your just going to die. This is her only reliable sustain and is every deck.

2.) WHAT MAY COME - Most players 5 this to get the 20% DR on vine. Honestly the 3s is too short and it's never there when I need it but the community swears by this card.

3.) OTHERWORLDLY TETHER - This is one of her best cards, even as a filler. The shield is actually reliable and with 2-3 points, can be enough to save you during an escape.

4.) NEW PURPOSE - Filler or not Vora's HP sucks, her survival sucks. You need as much HP as you can get.

You are going to have some or all of these cards in every deck. It leads to very little customization because anything without these cards will fail pretty hard (trust me I tried hard to deviate). Personally I run a non-standard deck that has all of these but What May Come, but a seriously competitive build should have all of these.

There is very little flexibility to her playstayle. You basically Spider Gwen across the map and pick off already damaged or isolated targets. That is all you can really do. Anything more will kill you. Given the right opportunities, Vora can be very dangerous -but is the least dangerous out of all of the flanks.

ITEM CARDS:

Cauterize, every single time. Any chance to reduce healing is needed for Vora because her DPS is already atrociously low for a flank and not bursty, there are plenty of opportunities for a target to heal or get healed when attacked by her. What is not really well known is that Life Rip is actually really good on Vora because her DoT procs it, giving her some level of consistent healing from it. I would say the items of importance are Cauterize > Life Rip > Nimble. If you are good enough with the Vine, you can get away with minimal nimble.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

I don't really want to say what skills should be changed. I already know Vora will be closely monitored after the bug fixes, I don't think that anyone will be surprised that she is still weak after all the fixes from Eternal Pyre are in. Her win rate out of the flanks is one of the lowest for any new champ released, being largely under 50% in most builds.

I am sure Hirez is aware of her lackluster performance and the help she needs. I'll leave it up to them to determine how she should be buffed or what skills should be adjusted.

The community clamors for baseline 2 charges on Vine. I heavily agree with this, she simply is non-functional without Relentless Pursuit.

Because she is DoT based her sustain needs to be better. While your targets are bleeding out from your DoTs they are still shooting you in the face, and they will kill you. Many of my assassination attempts result in both me and the target dying. Other flanks, namely Zhin and Maeve have exponentially better survival than Vora, more damage, and more burst.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Vora is a cool champ, but she is weak. You're going to have to put a ton of effort into outplaying other people simply because their champs are better than you. Does she need buffs? Hell yes she needs buffs.

I was actually shocked and appalled for the upcoming Eternal Pyre patch when I saw no buffs for her. Well I understand the logic, she's a buggy mess right now and her bugs need to be fixed first before she can be balanced out. Ok I get that.

You won't be seeing any top level Vora play in any tournaments or by "pro" players. They know she is weak and they won't draft her. Androxus will still be the top pick for flanks as he currently is literally a god with no downsides. If you want to be a serious flanker and competitive you should pick him and not Vora.

I personally plan on staying with Vora. Yes I have painful games, yes I die ALOT to bugs and it gets frustrating (hopefully Eternal Pyre helps). People should understand that when you pick Vora, your not picking a top end flank with a near flawless kit. Underneath Vora's dark exterior, giant scythe, and persona that oozes "murder" she really is an underdog with a wiffle bat. You are going to feel this when you play her. It will be painful.

Just know that when you play Vora, your playing Vora because you like Vora. It's something about the champ that makes her likable, not her kit or her (lack of) ability to reach good results for average effort. When you play her your going to need to put it more than any other champ just to be decent. Your going to have bad games, your going to lead the death boards. You are going to get crushed in duels against superior champs (e.g. skilled Zhins). Your going to get blown away by your assassination target that just got a heal and now your don't have a reliable means of escape because your vine failed.

Playing Vora is a sense of senseless dedication. It's pride in being the underdog. It's pain and suffering. But in the end it was all still fun and I would do it again even though there are superior champs that I could dominate games with if I put the same level of effort into playing them that just makes Vora decent.

Also, her gold skin is sweet, even if she still is 90% legs.

submitted by /u/lordhelmos
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New Torvald skin <3

Posted: 05 Dec 2020 07:58 AM PST

submitted by /u/Bohaazil
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when your f*king healing potion stuck in a wall

Posted: 05 Dec 2020 04:41 AM PST

submitted by /u/kojiro1234541
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When your panic ult works out for the best

Posted: 05 Dec 2020 11:03 PM PST

submitted by /u/DefinitelyAnAthiest
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