Paladins – Guide to Playing Bruisers

Brusiers. Next level up on your journey to playing Front Lines. A popular role only some know how to play. The Bruiser is a moderate risk playstyle with a high reward. Focused around doing damage, and destroying supports. You will frequently deal with multiple opponents on a consistent basis.

Introduction

Note: Credit goes to Rockman

Bruisers are a damaged based archetype, they specialize in creating pressure on the opposing team to open opportunities for kills. Overall bruisers show up having very high damage numbers on the scoreboard and are usually holding down at least 2 people at a time during a game.

First Steps

The first step like with any beginning of a match is to choose your champion. Playing a Bruiser can be accomplished by any Front Line but some are much better at it than others so there will be a few questions you need to ask yourself in order to make the right decision.

1) How comfortable am I with how this champion does damage?

Similar to the Guide on Playing tanks, this is arguably the most important question when choosing the right bruiser. Asking questions such as; is spamming Fernando’s flame lance too weak/slow for me? Or is Ash’s burst cannon awkward to use? Are all relevant questions to understand how you play.

2) Am I comfortable surviving with this Champion?

A champion’s sustainabiliy and the comfort level you are able to manage with that champion are two completely different things. When approaching this topic you should try to ask yourself questions after playing a game or two. Questions such as How did I approach that mob? How did I plan to get out of that situation? How did I help my teammate? And where was I usually positioning to do damage? The comfort level you were able to have answering these questions will determine how comfortable your survivability with that champion will be.

Here are some picks that I think make great bruisers due to the balance of sustainability, mobility, and damage.

What makes these different from any other bruiser? Mostly situational awareness, they have more space to work with and don’t particularly need to specialize taking over any specific region.

Quick Note – You do not need to choose these Champions. There are many ways to play and these are just here to make available for you or someone to work with.

Learning Your Champion

There are many things you can do once you have chosen your bruiser, here are some things you want to consider.

1) Get comfortable with your cooldowns.

Like any champion having your cooldowns available is always a good thing. Bruisers particularly don’t have an issue with this but its always a good thing to keep in mind. Fine tune what skills you would like to occur more often.

2) Learn your champion’s attack range.

Every champion has a certain range of effectiveness. Someone like Ash has 2x more Range than Fernando (at base). So you want to consider what you’re comfortable with and play according to who you’re up against.

3) How many can you take on?

This generally comes with practice. Normally a bruiser’s goal is to be able to take on two people but in best case scenarios you want to be able to hold down 3 or 4 which will be quite difficult.

4) Stand in the front of danger and take it on.

Its not good to be doubtful. You have a job and you’ll learn more by taking chances.

5) Check your Loadout.

You don’t want to be focused too strongly on defense. You will want to be ready to move around on a moments notice. A typical Loadout should have 3 credentials. One – Some form of sustained healing. Two – Some form of reliable burst (whether it be damage or crowd control) And Three – Some sort of escape plan.

6) Know some matchups. Do you need Crowd control reduction? or do you need to dish out some crowd control yourself?

Some bruisers can have terrible matchups. For example; and Ash isn’t going to do an amazing job against a khan. So you want to consider your options. Learn how to play the matchup and take some risks if you need to.

7) Simulate a matchup that u can easily 1v1 with before you take on the 1v2.

You can use your imagination to prepares your options which will lays down some goals and provides a foundation that you can use during the fight.

Advanced Steps

1) Walk away.

Success in walking away during a fight will lead to a lot less deaths in the near future.

2) Use your surroundings.

If you can peek using corners, or intimidate an opponent out of their comfort zone you’ve done a good job.

3) Know you won’t always find success in killing.

Overextending as a bruiser is so tempting to do since you always seem to have that option available. Don’t do it…at least not often, you might end up trapping yourself in a bad scenario where you can’t help your team. Its always good to consider the consequences that go with the risk.

4) Have patience.

This follows along the same lines as point #4. Having patience is like waiting for your team to do something. Once someone goes off that’s your opportunity to convert that into an advantage.

5) Always consider securing an area on the map.

Its not always good to be rushing the opponent all the time. You can often find that it might be better to just stay where you are and hold off any flank routes and choke points. You can provide much more support for your team just by holding off certain routes.

6) Take advantage of any routes.

If at any moment you find that there’s a spot where you can poke the enemy. You should take it. Generally speaking most maps have are categorized by having a Left, Right, and Middle route. It would be good if you can take over a route that is occupied.

7) Have confidence.

Many bruisers have to engage knowing where they have the advantage because if they don’t it’s gonna be rough backing out. Knowing how much damage you can dish out, how much you can take, what your escape routes are, etc, are all very important and In the end…having experience is the best way of knowing what you’re capable of.