What's up -- Today's video is about Makoa!
First off I'll show you how to best use Makoa's cannon - and hook - and then I'll commentate over a game with Makoa I had earlier today
Most importantly I'll go over my mistakes but also try to talk over my decisions as well
So first there's an interesting mechanic in Paladins that we don't always see in first-person shooters
the crosshair in the center of the screen is not entirely accurate so depending on what champion you're playing - in this case Makoa
Your cannon prefers the right side of your screen, or the right side of the crosshair, while your anchor prefers the left
The farther you are from your opponent the less obvious this is gonna be, but up close, even if your crosshair's like *right* on them, there's still a chance you can miss so
Try to respect whichever side you're going for whether it's your hook or your cannon
You can see me firing even from behind a wall where I can't see the enemy but I'm still hitting them - same thing for my hook
It's good to get a feel for just how far off you need to be when aiming with your crosshair, and just get that down so you're most consistent when you land your shots and your hooks
So talking about the hook specifically, you probably know prior to watching this but Makoa's hook prepares bonus damage on your next shot onto that target after you hook them
As long as you don't shoot anything else after you hook them or it's within a short period of time
Since the hook travels faster than your cannon ball you can actually fire the cannon first, and then hook, to get a quick burst of damage
This isn't always practical or even necessary but sometimes you need the burst damage
If you're at damage fall-off distance it's actually pretty bad to do this because you're not gonna get as much bonus damage as you would want, so it's better to hook them in first but..
If you're up close it actually does quite a bit
So the next thing, you may have seen me do this already but you can actually turn the person that you hook in whichever direction you want - whichever direction you end up facing
As long as they don't become clipped behind the wall like you can see here
This is really important to do consistently as it disorients your enemy and it also further displaces them so they're not where they want to be.
ideally when you hook people your team will follow up with their damage. It's not really about you bursting them it's about your team
So spin them in front of your team and serve them on a platter - just how they want it
This trick can also be used to hook people off ledges like on Frog Isle for example
Be careful when using this against champs like Cassie, Sha Lin, Bomb King, because they might just knock you off instead
In conclusion, spend some time in the shooting range, try to land the more difficult hooks.. spin around 180 degrees, go for that crazy hook, go from behind walls, do your thing.. get creative with it.
I'm gonna try not to ramble so much for this commentary and only talk over the important stuff but we'll see how that goes. KittyPurr
He misses his hook which means I have about 6 seconds to make sure I land mine before his is back up again
I land a really awkward and kind of lucky hook here which abuses the hitboxes
And it puts him out of position where Mal'Damba is able to stun him and we pick him up
From here we want to keep that momentum going and try to clean up the rest
The hitbox for the hook itself is much taller than it is wide
This means you can go for really cheeky hooks from over ledges
Even when you can't even see them.. if you know they're there
I try and fail here to grab Viktor but it could have gone really well
I had to give Kus the ol' BM (Bad Manner) death stare here cause' him and his viewers had sat on me pretty hard in one of our past couple games so
I had to get him back somehow..
Throughout this whole engagement you haven't really seen me touch the objective and for some of you that might be.. strange or alarming
There's actually a misconception about how tanks are best played
and it's largely because of the propaganda that Hi-Rez proliferates about how to play tanks!
Hell, they've even thrown in a credit incentive to get tanks to sit on the objective
In reality though if you're a solo tank the best way to *die* is to go straight to the point
Unless you've got a ruckus on your team, Makoa really should never rush the point
Take out the backline, then worry about the objective
Realistically though the best person to sit on the point is your healer
I mean if you look at the pro scene that's exactly what they do - you put a Ying or Mal'Damba on the point
While everyone else is pushing forward, dismounting, or just trying to go for a pick
like Makoa, he wants to be sitting in some forward position, waiting to pick off someone
and once they're down 4v5 there's nothing they can do - they have to wait for their team to respawn
Now of course if your healer's in danger the tank comes to the rescue
And there's always times where you're going to want to contest the point but
It doesn't change the fact that tanks are really good flankers
So much for not rambling ....
First big mistake of the game is here where I decide to ult for no foreseeable gain
It's perfectly OK to die
At the time I thought I could stall the push longer with this play
Since I believe I'd have enough time to recharge my ultimate again before the next round
I was out of melee range, I cancel my ultimate so I can shoot again
But that's mistake #2 because I was actually still at like 7k health
And I drop down to 4k because of that
So I wasted about 3k health for really no reason
If my plan was to stall I should have just let them melt me a little bit more
But then again I mean the whole thing is just charging their ultimates by shooting me so
It's really just a bad trade overall - I should not have ulted I should have just died
This next fight was more of a mistake on Bomb King's part but
Since he Poppy's us away it lets me abuse the hook around the pole
This is the exact thing I was talking about before in the shooting range but in actual application
Had I not hooked him while he couldn't see me, he might have killed me instead
Just to clarify for anyone unsure of what your goal should be while defending
It literally boils down to this..
You lost the objective.. fine.
Your best odds of winning the next round are to have all 5 of your ultimates ready
And to get as many credits as possible
Usually from damaging and killing enemy champions
Bonus points if you're able to bait out the enemy ultimates at the end of the round
As long as they don't end up pushing in the payload
I tunnel in on the Viktor way too much here and go for a hook that was never going to happen
I then over-commit
I try to peel away here and throw up my shield but I was too late
While I do have my ultimate, there would be no gain from using it here since a few of my teammates had just respawned and I would melt instantly
I was extremely close to using my ultimate here but I hoped to survive just a little bit longer before needing to use it
It's best to get the absolute most out of the bonus 10k health as possible but
There's also a good chance that we lost this point because of my decision
My build provides 1,000 health per target that I hit with my shell spin
This is why I'm able to stall for so long when I roll into 3 people
The next fight shows why Makoa is such a contested pick
He can stall longer and stay alive longer than any other champion
Since overtime is approaching, my shield is enough to make Cassie and Grover lose interest and go for the objective instead
It's really good for me since I can flank for free now
I miss the first 2 hooks of the round and my team pays their life for it
I'm able to sneak up on Viktor but our two healers are still dead so it doesn't really matter
While reviewing this clip just now I learned something I had no idea about in regards to cancelling Makoa's ultimate
It even prompted me to test it out in the shooting range to confirm
So the way you would think it would work with Makoa's ultimate is say you had 4k health left in your ulted form,
You could cancel your ultimate and you would still be at 4k..
What actually happens is it scales down by a percentage of your maximum health
Since 4k is nearly half health in ultimate form, it would bring you down to about 2k health
You can see in the actual game that's almost exactly what happens
It leaves me a lot squishier than I initially planned, and I die pretty quick
Just earlier on though, I cancelled at about 7k health and it brought me back to full health.. so what gives?
Shouldn't it have brought me down to 3/4ths health?
After testing it seems that if you cancel his ultimate at any point above his maximum health of 4,800
It will be restored to max health instantly
However, if you drop down below 4,800 - even slightly - It will scale down by a percentage of your maximum health
So, if you're at 4,799 health, and cancel your ultimate, you will go down to about 2,300 health
It's really important to know and it kind of blows my mind that I didn't realize this sooner
Bomb King's landing every single bomb like a god and 3 of my teammates are dead
This is a good time to back away and just give them the point
There's 0 chance we can contest this
If I had angled my hook down just a little bit more after jumping, I might have actually got someone here
This is what it looks like from Viktor's perspective
Notice I go from about 1,400 health to 3,400 health from this shell spin
Sometimes the best way to survive is to play aggressive
Using my ultimate here was very questionable once again since there's only about 45 seconds left and I won't have much time to charge it back up
It may seem strange that I went for life rip 2 on Makoa but,
Life rip for whatever reason was unaffected by cauterize in OB42
So, 20% life steal was adding a noticeable amount to my effective health for these extended engagements I keep fighting
Swap out life rip for cauterize in this situation next patch
I was almost positive Mal'Damba was going to kill Bomb King so I didn't bother to go try to kill him
But something must have happened off screen that I didn't see
I also missed my shell spin which got me killed
Something really important happens while I'm dead
Grover and Makoa ult at the same time, which has no synergy whatsoever and is a huge waste
We probably would have lost the game had they not done this
I come back and clean up Makoa and my ultimate's ready which sets us in a good position to defend the point
I can hear Bomb King on the upper platform and I wait for him to peek over before I hook
I try my best to body-block for my Mal'Damba but I'm not able to save him
I'm closely watching the capture points to make sure I time my shell spin before they can cap
At this point my team should be getting back to the fight soon and my only goal is to contest the point without dying
I stalled just long enough for my team to get back and they're able to clean up the rest
Often times as a tank you have to be the one to die and sacrifice yourself in these situations
Besides landing shots and hooks consistently, good Makoa play boils down to how well a player can manage his ultimate
And know when and where to die, and for what
In a lot of ways a tank relies on his team to do their job and he can't really work on his own
I did get a crazy amount of damage for Makoa this game but if you look at the eliminations you can see that the rest of my team did work too
I know Pip was causing a lot of havoc on the backlines
Even though he had a classically low amount of healing
Mal'Damba spent a large part of the game focused on keeping me alive which also contributed to our win
I hope this video was helpful in some way for you and I thank you for watching
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