The Ultimate Maeve Guide: How to Be a Cut Above the Rest (No longer updating)

Overview

Hi everybody, and welcome to my in-depth Maeve guide. In this guide I’ll be going over EVERY small detail about Maeve to help everyone out with playing Maeve. Therefore, some parts will be a little long so everyone can understand and be on the same page about them. I’ve marked certain parts and sections as skippable with a [>>] if you are already familiar with the game or if that part/section isn’t necessary to the guide. Also just a quick note: this guide was based on information present during OB51 and has information from future updates, but I am no longer going to update this guide as I do not actively keep up with Paladins any more. Originally posted by Random people in game: Is that a pro Maeve?

Prologue

I decided to make this guide because at the time the idea came to me, there hadn’t been any new/helpful Maeve guides on here since February, which is obviously incredibly out of date. That was way back when Maeve was first released and was op. Although while I was in the process of making this, I saw a couple other guides come out, so check out the other ones too if you haven’t already.

I also find myself giving tips to friends–or even just random people now that I think about it–and I feel like sharing my knowledge on Maeve with as many people as I can would be pretty nice, so this is the best way I could think to do it.

With cards I’ll state what it does at level 1 and what it does at level 5. (example: X increases X by 10% to 50%.)

Edit: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I finally updated this. Sorry for the delay, I haven’t been on Paladins as much recently, but I want to keep this guide up-to-date and fresh for anyone that reads this. If you see anything outdated, feel free to comment and let me know 🙂 I’m working on new loadouts still, so there’ll be more later.

Basic info on Maeve [>>]

Maeve is a flank champion that came out during OB43 on February 8, 2017.

Maeve’s base movement speed is 385.

Maeve’s base health: 1900.

The Basics [>>]

Let’s start this out right with a little foundation. If you are a more seasoned Paladins player or are already familiar with Maeve/flanking, you can skip past this section.

Maeve is a champion in the flank section.
Flanks are meant to:

1. Flank/get behind enemy lines.
2. Eliminate enemy champions that can/will cause trouble for you and your teammates or champions that are squishy. (Squishy = low health, in case anybody didn’t know)
3. Gank. (Gank = group of people gang up on one or more players)

That being said, Maeve is unique for a flanker, but I’ll talk about that later.

“Why should I pick Maeve over any of the other Flank champions?“
Besides being the top waifu, here are some reasons for playing Maeve:

• Speeds that rival that of Sanic and Andre smithing at incredible hihg speed.
• Along with her high mobility, she’s one of the smallest champions, so that makes her even harder to hit.
• High burst damage.
• If done correctly, she can perform some pretty good surprise attacks.

But sadly, as much as I LOVE Maeve, there are reasons to play other flankers. ):

• While Maeve IS loud, she isn’t actually much louder than any of the other flanks–or any champion at all, atually. For example: Skye makes a very loud noise once shes exits her invisibility; Evie makes loud noises when using Soar; Drogoz with his jetpack; etc. While some champions are louder than others, they all make distinct noises that can give them away. With that said, it is still important to be mindful of how much noise you are making.
• Certain champions can counter Maeve pretty well, such as Sha Lin, Cassie, Kinessa, Makoa due to his hooks… flanks like Skye, Evie, and Andro can do better jobs against some of these champions for the most part.
• While Maeve can double jump and use pounce to get her more places, Evie and Androxus do much better jobs with having a ton of aerial mobility. Evie can fly, Andro can dash in any direction AND slow-fall.
• Other flanks tend to be a bit easier to use than Maeve.
• Maeve is naturally squishy. Flanks like Lex, Androxus, and ESPECIALLY Buck, have more health than her and can take more shots without dying.

Abilities / Ability Overview [>>]

Daggers is Maeve’s basic attack.
“Throw two Daggers every second that each deal 400 Damage.“
Important things to know about Daggers:

1. There is no damage falloff for the daggers.
2. While there is no damage fall off, they are projectiles and don’t go in a perfectly straight line, they have an arch. Predict accordingly when throwing, especially from long distances. **As of OB53 the projectile drop was reduced by 25%.**As of OB58, Maeve was buffed and her daggers now fly around 400 units of speed and the arch isn’t as noticable, but it’s there.
3. The daggers aren’t thrown at the same time.
4. They take time to get from point A to point B.

The most important thing to remember is the delay they have. You’ll need to predict your shots a lot due to #2-#4. Often times I see people have trouble hitting the second dagger or something idk I’m repeating myself too much
Ways to practice your accuracy with Maeve:

• Go into the shooting range and practice hitting the idle bots, as well as the running Pip bot.
• Before the match starts, start strafing and/or jumping and try hitting the knives in the same spot.
• And of course, do your best to hit people with both knives in game! Nothing is better practice than actually doing it against real people who move in all sorts of ways.

Some Tips for Daggers:
Since they are projectiles–aka take time to get from point A to point B–and since they have an arch (not as significant anymore but it’s still there), this makes Maeve the queen of pre-firing. You can use the arch to your advantage and attack people that are on a slope without them being able to hit you, and you can also use this to peek corners and hit people safely without risking being hit yourself.

Pounce is your secondary ability and is a CRITICALLY important ability to know how to use.
“Quickly dash forward. Collide with an enemy to perform a melee strike for 400 damage.“

Things to know about Pounce:

1. You dash a total of 50 units in the direction you are facing unless you hit someone or dash into a wall.
2. If you are airborne when you activate pounce, you can jump once more.
3. If you hit an enemy, you will be knocked back a small amount.

Some tips for Pounce: Since Pounce causes you to dash in the direction you are looking, you can use as kind of like an Andoxus dash. You can use as an extension of your jumps, a quick getaway, or something similar. Pounce can save your life if used at the right time. Don’t think of this as “an easy way to get 400 damage off” because if you’re careless, you WILL miss and it WILL either kill you or get you very close to death in most situations. Another thing is that you can use Pounce to sort of dodge attacls. If you’re close to dying and you’re in a 1v1 situation, it would be better to pounce sideways in order to hit a couple more knives before they can get more hits off. (thank you to RaptorTwitch for pointing this out!)

Prowl is your main “obvious” mobility ability.
“Move 50% Faster and increase your jump height for 4 seconds. Firing your weapon or using another ability will cancel Prowl.“

Things to know about Prowl:

1. Prowl is VERY loud and will alert people nearby of your presence. Be wary of this if you’re attempting to stealth.
2. It isn’t stated in the ability description itself, but you have more fall control during prowl.

Tips for Prowl: Besides being an way to flee, a way to heal, and a way to jump higher, you can use Prowl as a sort of bait. It’s loud and very obvious, so there are many situations where you can use the sound to make someone come to you and surprise them or make them think you’re going one place, but in all reality you’re faking them out and you can surprise them while they look for you.
Baiting takes a little practice, but it can be helpful once learned.

Nine Lives is your bread and butter.
Reset the cooldowns of Pounce and Prowl and heal for 400.
Things to know about Nine Lives:

1. The cooldown for this is almost as much as the cooldowns for Prowl and Pounce COMBINED. Keep a watchful eye on this.
2. This is important to any build since you will want to be reseting your cooldowns a lot.
3. As of OB52 the animation for this ability was cut from 0.7s to 0.4s.

Tips for Nine Lives: Don’t be afraid to use it just because of the cooldown! Rock that hefty cooldown. But do NOT spam it. If your cooldowns still are going to take a relatively long time to finish, use it to get them back (this applies to battle and out of battle). Be careful to not get ability-happy after using it, because you can find yourself in some pretty sticky situations if your abilities aren’t accessable to you. Don’t just keep it as a pocket heal, because it’s more than just that. If you look at it like that, you won’t be using it at its full potential.

Midnight is your ultimate, and can be misused rather easily.
“Enemies within 300ft have their vision restricted to a 30 foot radius for 4 seconds.“

Things to know about Midnight:

1. People affected by Midnight will have a purple circle around them showing how far they can see.
2. Like other ultimates, if Maeve dies, the effect wares off.
3. As of OB61, Midnight is now affected by Resilience, but the shortest it can last is 2 seconds rather than 4.
4. It’s not openly stated in the description, nor is it implied otherwise, but anyone within 300 feet of Maeve will have their vision restricted until either Maeve dies or the effect wares off. It’s not an AOE ability; you can’t outrun it when you’re affected by it.
5. ***IMPORTANT***: USING MAEVE’S ULTIMATE DOESN’T COUNTER CASSIE’S ULTIMATE, THE ENEMY TEAM IS STILL ABLE TO SEE YOUR OUTLINE. BE WARY OF THIS.

Tips for Midnight: Midnight is a tough ability to know how to use properly, You can use it as an ultimate counterer fairly easily, it’s great to counter a Drogoz trying to ult someone from a distance. It’s a great way to disorient a team and/or pick out a single target. Don’t use it if your you have all your abilities on cooldown because you won’t be able to capitalize on your ability as much.

How to play Maeve

This section is a little open to discussion since I admit I could probably be better at “flanking”, but this is just what I find to be best for Maeve.
I will also be talking a little about Siege/Payload AND Survival as well, so there’ll be 2 parts. However, this applies to any gamemode and any flanker, so this will be a quick headnote:
It’s a good idea to wait a little bit before going to flank. You can use this time to catch people off guard and see which way is best to go (like where the most people are or where would be the safest but most efficient way to flank the enemy team).

Important for general play: don’t be predictable with your jumps. If you jump too much, you’ll restrict some of your movement since you can’t change direction much and go in an arch. Practice your jumping.

First and foremost: Don’t keep doing the same thing over and over every round in a match. If you keep flanking left at the start, the enemy team will catch on and you’ll get countered. Mix it up! Keep it spicy.
***Important***
Don”t think that all you should do is kill people. While it’s important and feels good :^)you should prioritize the cap and the push. Try to help capture when you can and make sure the payload is being pushed/defended. Don’t spend A LOT of time doing it, but you’re a part of the team too.

Maeve is a..unique flanker, to say the least.
Everyone plays her a little differently, but the way I have found her to be MOST effective is to stay grouped up with the team/someone else at first. Now before you say anything, this is what I just do to START. Doing this is a good way to stay alive and keep pumping out damage since you’ll be grouped and it’ll be harder to target one person at a time. If you try to go rushing into the backline right away, chances are (unless the enemy team isn’t very good at helping eachother out) that you’ll die faster than you want or that you’ll not do as much as you had hoped to do. Staying grouped for a bit can help you to assess the level of cooperation the enemy team has, who to pick off first, and who to be wary of. While there ARE champions to target first and to avoid, it still depends on their level of skill with said champion. Once you have a hold on the point and if the enemy team is dead/respawning, it would be a good idea to go ahead and attack people with a teammate or two before they can get to the point. I think there’s a name for this, but I don’t know it, so…
A good thing to do is to find angles to attack from. Go around the objective and throw knives from all over. is a little outdated since this was when Maeve was released, but watch it. This guy has great aim and does pretty well with getting angles and moving around.
*******IMPORTANT**********
Always watch your cooldowns. you don’t want to get caught in a fight with all your abilities on CD, because chances are you’ll end up dead unless you can finish off the enemy before they finish you.

Now you’re either going to cap or you’re not going to cap (or push/defend), so I’ll be going over what to do for both.

Just stay around the point and kill people when you can. Don’t force fights and stay alive as much as you can. What use will you be to the team if you’re dead?
Granted, you may die, but that’s okay. Just get back and don’t go in alone.
You can also use the cart as your shield; you can hide behind it and throw knives at people AND it can help protect you from enemy fire.
Going ahead and picking off people who are alone/away from the group at this time would be a good idea, but just be careful.. If things get out of hand, get away as fast as you can.
If your team is having trouble getting the cart to push all the way because the enemies keep respawning, using your ultimate (assuming you have it) would be a good idea. Chances are they’re just panicking and they don’t have any coodination, so it’ll be easy to pick people off with it.

Try to focus on picking the lower health people and then going to the people who are on the payload. Don’t directly go up fight the people on the payload if one or more of these things are occuring:

1. You are alone.
2. There is more than one person on the payload and they aren’t low health/squishy.
3. Someone who you’ve been having trouble killing is there.
4. This one isn’t as much of a no-no as the other ones, but if there is a support and a tank there and nobody else from your team is nearby, you probably should avoid being close range. Tanks take long to kill and with the added healing, it puts you at too much risk.

Try to get around, and when given the chance, go closer to their spawn and try to at least hit them off their horses. You want them off that payload as long as they can be. If they try to ignore you and just keep running to the payload, punish them for underestimating you.

Legendaries/Talents and You

In this section I’ll be going all the legendaries Maeve has since they are all viable in one way or another.
And no, I will NOT call them talents. >:(

“Deal 30% more damage with your first two shots within 5s of Prowl ending.“
**IMPORTANT: THIS MEANS PROWL HAS TO END BEFORE YOU THROW YOUR KNIVES. So if you throw knives during prowl, they won’t do extra damage. It is only AFTER prowl ends.**

So as of OB54, Cat Burglar no longer allows you to triple jump, which means it’s time to update this section… gutterwash. ;(
The new Cat Burglar is one of the more offensive legendaries for Maeve, and prior to this update it allowed Maeve to triple jump. The cool thing about it is that it doesn’t matter when Prowl ends, as long as you activate it, you’ll get the buff.This means that you can have Prowl active for just a moment and you’ll still get the buff. Once you have the buff, you’ll deal 540 damage per knife. when choosing this legendary, you should have your playstyle be more poke rather than pouncing in and out and whatnot. Use pounce as your main mobility rather than prowl.

Some tips for Cat Burglar:
Use Prowl often. It’s a good idea to get the buff if everyone on the enemy team is away or respawning so you can be primed and ready for when they come back. Just remember if nobody is around to not blindly throw your knives, or your buff will go away. Do your best to land both knives after prowl and use cooldowns wisely. You don’t always need to use ninelives to reset.

Eliminations reset the Cooldown of Pounce and Pounce deals 10% more damage.

Rouge’s Gambit is another offensive legendaries, and can be [b} spicy[/b]. The upside to this is that you don’t need to actually get the last hit to reset Pounce’s cooldown, you just need to at least get one hit in, plus you do more damage with your pounce. The nice thing about this legendary is that it really helps you get in and get out. You can get a pick on someone and then dash right back out, OR get more kills. This works especially well when you have a deck that heals you when you hit someone with pounce, and gain damage reduction after using it.
I enjoy using this legendary, but the concept isn’t the best because if you want to be offensive, you’ll have to be confronting enemies and since Maeve is pretty squishy, it may not always work the best for you. If you’re not using pounce offensively often, you may just be better picking Cat Burglar to get extra damage on your daggers. But don’t let that stop you from picking this legendary 🙂

Some tips for Rouge’s Gambit:
This is a decent legendary for those who like to be as mobile as possible. The elimination cooldown reset and the Nine Lives cooldown reset means lots of pounce spam! It’d be a good idea to spend some time to learn when you should use Nine Lives to reset your cooldowns versus just getting an elimination. Learn when to use pounce to jump in and when to use it to get different angles.

Pounce now excecutes targets below 35%.
P.s.: Sorry for missing this in the last update! I had it copied and I forgot to paste and save before finishing. Updated now <3

Street Justice is probably my favorite offensive legendary for Maeve. It’s great for finishing tanks or that support that keeps just slipping through your fingers. It’s also pretty satisfying. :^)

Some tips for Street Justice:
Know when and who to pounce on. Tanks are your primary targets, only after supports. You’ll want to adjust your playstyle around this and build a loadout with damage reduction on pounce and probably some speed boost on it so you can get out or chase more. Try to save pounce for your offensive skill and less as a movement skill when you’re fighting. If there’s nobody around, feel free to use pounce to get to different angles, but you want to be always around midrange from your enemies so you can avoid taking tons of fire but be close enough to pounce if needed.

Cards Ranked On Practicality Pt.1

No card is useless. Every card can be used in the right deck. I will be going over every card and talking about what they do at each card level and where they shine the most. The more helpful cards will be put first, and the less helpful ones will be near the bottom of the list.

1. Heal for 40 to 200 Health every second during Prowl.

Walk it Off is a card I like to have in all of my loadouts. Having the choice to heal while you run away is incredibly helpful and can save you often. Maeve’s main source of healing is Nine Lives (with legendary and/or the card), but that has a HUGE cool down and you can’t always rely on it. Having this card so you can heal up while you run away is incredibly helpful. It often saves me when fleeing a fight or getting some extra health when I accidentally run into someone rather than waiting to get out of combat.

1. Nine Lives now heals for 80 to 400.

This card is on most of my loadouts as well. While having Artful Dodger does heal you for 380, that may not be enough to as healed as you need to be, and without that legendary, Nine Lives doesn’t heal you at all. Having Nine Lives also have the ability to heal you is incredibly vital to your survivability. You CAN run a build where you have your loudout set to make your main healing source being Prowl and/or Pounce, but those aren’t the most reliable since for prowl you don’t recover health THAT quickly and since you need to actually HIT someone with Pounce in order for it to heal you. I usually have this card in any loadout used for Artful Dodger. Otherwise you should invest in a different card. Unless you’re running Artful Dodger, healing yourself for 160 isn’t going to help much, so you may want to exchange it for something like Savagery.Not having healing on Nine Lives can be a little strange, but it’s fine if are aware of it and play around it.

1. Increase your maximum Health by 50 to 250.

Maeve is one of the most squishy champions, sitting at 1900 health. Not the lowest–side note: She had 1800 until OB49 where she got 100 extra health–but it’s down there. Only Evie has less health, and she has 1800. So while she does have great mobility and high damage, you can still die pretty fast if you make a mistake. This card is on most of my main loadouts and is pretty helpful, but not as necessary/helpful as it was before Maeve got the health boost. It’s a small boost, but anything helps.

1. Reduce the Cooldown of Nine Lives by 1s to 5s.

Nine Lives is essential to every Maeve build. No exceptions. Whether or not you use it to heal yourself, it resets your cooldowns and can allow you to escape a sticky situation or keep the pressure on the enemy team. Maeve has some pretty hefty cooldown times, especially on Nine Lives. Reducing those cooldowns is important.
I like to have this on my main builds as well, but I wouldn’t recommend it on a Rouge’s Gambit build since you’ll be resetting your Pounce cooldown with eliminations and even if you have Patch Up, 160 health isn’t worth relying on, so usually Chronos is enough for a Rouge’s Gambit build.

1. Pounce heals you for 70 to 350 Health on a sucessful hit.

You’re going to be using Pounce often no matter what kind of build you’re using, so why not have it heal you when you land a hit? While it admittedly isn’t very much, it’s still helpful. This card fits into most builds and it doesn’t hurt to have it equipped. This card is a good substitute for Shred and vise versa. This card is right in the spot of being helpful but not “top priority” helpful. Use this card if you don’t know what else to add, but it’s not usually going to be a priority unless you are using a Rounge’s Gambit or Street Justice build.

1. Reduce the Cooldown of Pounce by 0.5 to 2.5s.

Like I said before, Maeve has some hefty cooldowns and you’re going to be using Pounce often enough with any build, so this card doesn’t hurt to have. It fits well into most loadouts unless there are other cards that would be more beneficial. You can even slap it into a build if you don’t know what else to use! This is helpful in a Rouge’s Gambit or Street Justice loadout.

1. Gain 6% to 30% Damage reduction for 2s after using Pounce.

Sixth Sense is helpful anytime since you’re using Pounce to either get right up in someone’s face and do an attack (since that’s what Pounce is) or to escape in a hurry. Whie there are times when I think to myself “I wish I had Six Sense equipped…” I don’t find it to be ALWAYS that helpful. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still spicy and is a good idea to have it, but it’s not the best on every build. It’s great on a Rouge’s Gambit build though! Also very helpful for Street Justice to help you be more offensive. However, like Shred and Savagery I don’t see it as something of high priority. It can work anywhere and is a good idea to have it, but you won’t NEED it most of the time (other than Rouge’s Gambit or Street justice builds).

1. Increase the speed bonus of Prowl by 10% to 50%.

Personally I don’t feel a major boost from the base speed increase Prowl provides or like it makes THAT much of a difference, so this card really helps you get around faster. I like to have this card in my deck at at least level 2. This card pairs well with Streetrunner and Featherlite.

Cards Ranked on Practicality Pt.2

These first few cards aren’t exactly to be considered worse or better from order of apperance,
they’re all about the same in terms of practicality.

1. Increase the duration of Prowl by 0.5s to 2.5s.

This card isn’t that bad actually, I’d use it more if I didn’t prefer using other cards. A longer prowl feels pretty nice to have and works well with Walk It Off and Chase for a nice survivability/prowl build. If you have Walk it Off equipped as well as this card, you will be healing longer since your prowl lasts longer! There’s really nothing really bad about this card or anything, but whether or not you use it is just up to your preference and your loadout.

1. Kills and Eliminations grant 10%-50% Movement Speed for 4s.

This card is pretty spicy. It’s not a bad card to have, it just depends on if you like it or not. It can stack so multiple elims/slays makes you go pretty fast. It’s a good way to A. get a kill and get out, B. get a kill and make your way to the next target as fast as you can, C. get a kill on the side and make your way to a different position, such as the objective, a different spot to flank/group, or attack the enemy team at their base. I’ve seen a good bit of competitive loadouts with this card too! This card would be a good addition to a loadout if you play very mobile.

1. Gain 10%-50% increased Movement Speed when out of combat.

This is a card that I often think “man, I wish I had that card right now…” to myself when I don’t have it equipped. It’s pretty useful so you can get around faster when you’re not fighting or to escape a little faster (assuming you sit long enough to get out of combat). This is in no way a bad card and is great in the right loadout!

1. Gain 10%-50% Movement Speed for 2s after Pounce ends.

This card is another one of those cards that I sometimes wish I could just have. This is really helpful for when I want to escape using pounce so I can get out of there “fast as ♥♥♥♥ boi“. This fits perfectly into a mobility build and doesn’t hurt to have in a Rouge’s Gambit build.

1. Gain 6%-30% Damage Reduction for 2s after using Nine Lives.

I recommend using this card if you find yourself stuck in front of an enemy/enemies often and the heal from Nine Lives (assuming you have some) isn’t cutting it for you. hah, get it? Because Maeve uses knives to cut things? Yeah? Right then.. It’s helpful for if you get low in maybe a 1vX situation and you need that healing to last you a little bit longer.
If you use this card, DO NOT USE IT AS A CRUTCH. Don’t rely on it to keep you alive all the time, it won’t work out like that.

1. Take 4%-20% less damage when below 40% health.

This isn’t too bad, damage reduction is good. It’ll help you when in a pinch; a little bit of damage reduction can go far. This is a fair addition in any deck. Not as good as it used to be. You have to level it up high if you want it to be worth the slot.

1. Gain 10% to 50% Movement Speed for 2s when you activate Nine Lives.

I like this card. It’s a good little boost to help you either chase someone down or get away from somewhere faster. This isn’t a bad addition to any loadout.

1. Gain 5% to 25% damage reduction while using Prowl.

This card got reworked in OB68, so it’s somewhat more practical now. Though, it shall stay here for now. This card works well with Walk it Off since you get more healing and less damage. This card has become more of a solid pick to add into your decks and will really help you get away or chase people. You can’t really go wrong with this card. Just make sure to not waste the prowl if you’re running away, keep it on unless you have nine lives available.

Items Pt.1 [>>]

Items are critically important to every match, and picking the correct ones for the correct situations is just as important.
I was originally going to go over only the items that I use myself, however, I felt it would be best to discuss every item. This section will start out with the main items you want to get as Maeve and we’ll work our way down to the items you don’t want to get/the items that aren’t as helpful in the next section, part 2.

The type of utility card you want to use depends on your loadout and who you’re playing against. If your loadout is already fast and you don’t feel you need lots of ults, go with Chronos!
You want to get those abilities out as fast as you can–especially Nine Lives–and the best way to get them out a lot is to reduce those cooldowns.
Here’s the numbers for how much your cooldowns will be reduced to at each level (excluding cards):

1. 10% reduction
   • Nine Lives: -2 seconds; 18 second cooldown
   • Prowl:-1.2 seconds; 10.8 second cooldown
   • Pounce:-1 second; 9 second cooldown
2. 20% reduction
   • Nine Lives: -4 seconds; 16 second cooldown
   • Prowl: -2.4 seconds: 9.6 second cooldown
   • Pounce: -2 seconds; 8 second cooldown
3. 30% reduction
   • Nine Lives: -6 seconds; 14 second cooldown
   • Prowl: -3.6 seconds; 8.4 second cooldown
   • Pounce: -3 seconds; 7 second cooldown

I personally don’t like to go beyond Chronos 2 because at just level 2, that’s already 1200 credits you’ve commited to one item. Going to Chronos 3 DOUBLES that amount, so you won’t have many credits to spend elsewhere.

Back when I had started writing this guide, I didn’t go as deep into this item as I now wish I had. A friend told me to try out using Morale Boost on Maeve, and it really is just as helpful as Chronos or Nimble. The increased speed of how much you get your ult is amazing and having it available often is great to turn the tides of a battle. The night before the time of writing this, I saved a match because I got my ult, I was able to pick of miltiple people by myself on the objective since they were blinded. This has now become my main utility item for Maeve and I really recommend it to higher skill leveled Maeve players.

Maeve has pretty good sustain, but since you’ll be away from a healer a lot, you’re going to want a bit more to help keep you alive.
There are only 2 items you want to get from the healing section:

Life Rip is pretty helpful, but not THAT helpful. At base[/previewimg] level, by h[/previewimg]itting both of your knives you heal yourself for 90 health, which may not sound too helpful, but it’s the little things that count. **edit: I spoke about this like you only were going to get level 1, which was a mistake on my part. This is helpful and at level 3 you get almost 300 health if you hit both knives.

What Life Rip does at each level:

1. +10% Lifesteal
2. +20% Lifesteal
3. +30% Lifesteal

Note: You only get lifesteal from Daggers, nothing else.

Times Life Rip is helpful:

• Say you’re fighting against a Sha Lin: He can easily 2-shot you with 2 fully charged shots. If you can hit him with two knives at level 1, that increases your health by 90, giving you 1990 health, and if you hit him again, that puts you over 2k. This means that he will no longer be able to two shot you, and he’ll have to take a little longer to shoot you again (Just go with it for examples sake)
• If you don’t have any obvious targets on the enemy team, this would be a better choice than Kill to Heal.
• If you’re having trouble killing someone (like an enemy flank) and you keep getting close, but not quite there, having your basic attack heal you can increase your chances since you’ll be healing with every knife you hit.

Liferip isn’t bad but Kill to Heal is going to be better because you don’t need to actually hit a lot of shots on someone to kill them, they can already be low on health, or someone can come in and kill them or take a lot of their health away… etc.

“Getting a kill or elimination heals you for ___ Health.“

Kill to Heal is the only other healing item you should get. It’s your choice as to which one you want to pick, one isn’t significantly better than the other all the time; which one is more helpful is situational. Personally, I prefer to have this item over Life Rip.

What Kill to Heal does at each level:

Times you should consider Kill to Heal:

• When the enemy team is more squishy/you have more targets.
• When you are confident in your ability to keep your health maintained and staying alive versus needing a more consistent supply of healing.
• You do a good job of getting eliminations or slaying people yourself.

Cauterize is the main item you should be getting from this category. The WORST thing to happen while you’re fighting someone is that they get healed to the point where you won’t be able to kill them without a high amount of effort (change)))), especially when the enemy team has a Seris, Buck, Pip, Ma’Damba
Champions that are troublesome on the enemy team due to healing (TL;DR)

Seris, Pip, and Mal’damba are supports that can heal people instantly from range and will cause you trouble if you let them get their heal off on their target, so having Cauterize handy is a great counter for this. I only recommend getting it before you get your healing items if your targets are getting healed too often and it’s causing you to lose fights, otherwise it’s probably a good idea to pick-off the support when they’re not grouped.

For Maeve and Buck: Buck can heal himself for 1000 health over 4s, which is more or less a Seris heal–the problems that should pose should be pretty easy to see. Maeve can heal herself 500 with just her legendary, even more with Patch Up. Good way to counter it is just to use cauterize.

Wrecker is something I only really recommend choosing if there’s a Torvald on the enemy team or if there’s no champions that can heal themselves and more champions that have shields. Even then, that’s still rather situational though.
Final Verdict: you’ll only really want wrecker if there’s a Torvald.

Items Pt. 1.5 [>>]

I ran out of space in the Items Pt. 1 so I’m adding this to extend it; this is just an extension of the precious section, not a new one. The content in this section won’t be new.

After playing around more and more with nimble, I’ve noticed that nimble is pretty good for Maeve. Her kit is all about her movement speed, and nimble compliments her very well. Not a bad item, when you use it depends on the team you have, the map, and who you are going against.

While staying alive is all nice and dandy, especially since you want to stay alive as much as possible. However, there’s really only 2 items you’ll want to get from this section.

Illuminate is 1. VERY cheap, and 2. VERY helpful against champions that use invisibility. Admittedly, there are few champions you can use this against, the main one you want to use it for is Skye, but I like to sometimes run it when there’s a Sha Lin on the enemy team. This is a great way to shut down his ultimate or catch him trying to escape with his F.
You COULD also use it for Seris, but that’s not as helpful since you can’t hit her in her Shadow Travel. It is helpful to see where she’s going if she’s running away, though.

This item is now more useful since Maeve no longer has a CC cleanse. I mainly get this item if I’m dying due to CC a lot. CC can be dangerous to Maeve since she’s squishy and has little damage reduction and her mobility is what makes her great. If you’re goign to get this, at least get it to level 2 since it’s cheap and 60% reduction is a reasonable amount.

Items Pt.2 [>>]

This section was originally for items you don’t really want to get, but items are important and every item can be useful in different situtations. <3

I was a fool for telling you guys not to get this. Offensive items or chronos should still be your priority, but damage reduction can take you far, now especially since you can get Haven AND blash shields (though I wouldn’t usually recommend that).

Master Riding is actually pretty nice. It can really help you get that “flank” position since you’ll be faster than your enemies, and it can help you get back to the fight if you have died. This item is a MUST HAVE on Ice Mines. The map is massive and one death can set you back over 20 seconds.
I’d recommend this card if you want to target a support or a sniper in the enemy backlines. Be careful not to dive too hard though!

This item is mostly a preference pick. If you wanna be fast, just DO IT. DON’T LET YOUR DREAMS BE JUST DREAMS. Not much else to say.

I’ve seen this being used before, but it’s not anywhere near as helpful for Maeve as Kill to Heal or Liferip would be. Sure, you can get out of combat fast, but you don’t have much health so you regenerate it all back pretty fast as it is.

There’s not really much point to getting this since you regenerate very quickly (you can also use prowl to increase how fast you heal out of combat too) and since you’re going to be in combat a lot anyways. This item is not worth it.

I know I said before this card is stupid and not to get it, but forget I said any of that. This card is a good pick if you’re in a party with a healer or if the healer you have is trustworthy. A healer that can top you up fast is a good healer. Consider investing some credits into this once you are sure you want it and have some offensive items set up.

This item is the most situational of all the items. The only champions you can/should use this for are Inara, Barik, and Ying. But as a flank, you shouldn’t really sit still to hack away at a stone wall in front of you when you can just go around or over it, nor should you really spend too much time trying to break turrets/rocks.

Times when getting Bulldozer wouldn’t be a bad idea:

1. There’s an Inara on the other team (and no other frontline other than Barik) and her Warders Field is giving you and your team some trouble with her Treacherous Grounds legendary.
2. There’s a Barik on the enemy team and his turrets are giving you a hard time. Even then, just having this at base level is enough.
3. The enemy team has a Ying that doesn’t have the Resonance legendary equipped. However, Cauterize would probably be more practical.

Definitely get this. :^) lol jk don’t try to pls. If you are able to get this item as Maeve I’d consider sending a bug report to Evil Mojo

Who You Counter and Vise Versa

Every champion has a counter champion, regardless of their role. In this section I’ll just be going over who Maeve counters and who counters Mave.
****Note****
Some of these may be less of a counter than others, feel free to share your opinons.

Kinessa is both a Maeve counteree and a Maeve counterer, so I will go over both aspects here to save on space.
Kinessa lacks in mobility and her health pool is about the same as Maeve’s, sitting at 2000 base health. This makes Kinessa an easy to target to pick off if left alone. However, she IS dangerous and can make or break a match depending on if whoever is using her can use her well or not… just like that. Smart Kinessas will be ready to be targetted and flanked and sometimes roll with her legendary Supression, which buffs her mines. Being slowed down makes you a VERY easy target. If they are running with the Eagle Eye legendary, she will one-shot you with a headshot. I like to have a loadout with the card Persistence on at least level 3 for when I see a Kinessa using the Supression legendary. You want to try and sneak up on Kinessas and kill them as much as you can; burst them down as fast as you can.

When you see a Strix on the enemy team and you’re playing Maeve, you should be thinking “that Strix is going to hate me by the end of this match” or something like that.
While, like Kinessa, Strix can kill you fast, it’s incredibly easy to kill a Strix as Maeve. His only source of getting away is stealthing, but it only takes a pounce to get him out of his stealth. Just don’t come at him in a way that makes it really easy to hit you with his rifle, get up in his face, and you’ll be fine. Even if he shoots you once with his rifle, as long as you hit him and get up in his face, you can still be fine. You want to get illuminate 2 relatively soon into the match (not first item though) and it’ll make him even easier to kill.
Do not fear a Strix. But do NOT get cocky. There are great Strix players who will destroy you if you don’t respect them.

This is kind of weird to have here and isn’t relevant if you play competitive, but Maeve counters herself so again, I’ll just go over this all in one part to save space and save you some reading.
Maeve is small, moves fast, can heal herself, and just isn’t the easiest to hit due to the fact she’s always jumping around and strafes pretty fast since her base speed is the the highest at the moment. A good way to do well in a Maeve 1v1 is when they are jumping (since chances are they will at some point) to predict where they’ll be at the end of their jump and throw closer to where they will be. Once you jump, it’s harder to change the direction you’re going so it will be easier to get hit. This is a little different for people with Cat Burglar, but it’s more or less the same concept. Make sure to land your pounce and keep on eye on their health, when they use Nine Lives, what their loadout is, and what legendary they have. A Maeve with Artful Dodger will heal more and be a little hard to kill, while one with Rouge’s Gambit won’t give you the same problem for the same reasons.
Also don’t be too predictable with your jumping. If she ults, wait half a second and then use yours. that way she’ll be blinded longer than you.

This is one is one that is a bit more open to discussion as I am unsure about this myself.Willo can be countered by Maeve for about the same reasons as Kinessa; she has low health (2200 at base) and her only mobility ability doesn’t take her that far. While she can deal HUGE damage, she is an AoE/blast damge champion, so keeping yourself airborne/above her makes it harder for her to get solid damage off on you. Be sure to watch out for her seedlings because those will get you rekt ezpz.

Cassie is a good counter for Maeve and you should observe the enemy Cassie when going against one.
Cassie hits hard with her basic attack doing 650 damage every .75 seconds and 850 if she’s equipped with her legendary Exaction, which makes her a big threat to any Maeve–assuming this Cassie has decent accuracy. Any Cassie can 3 almost shot you at your base health, so be VERY careful. Surprise attacks would be a good idea to use against her when possible. Take note of her loadout and when she uses dodge roll if she’s using the Exaction legendary. Don’t stay too close for too long and if the fight takes too long,

Sha Lin is pretty much the most anti-flank damage character there is. Sitting at 1000 damage per fully charged arrow plus a rapid fire ability = ez dead kitty. 🙁 Getting illuminate wouldn’t be a bad idea for a counter to him since his ult is mainly cloak and he can cloak for a few seconds to get away as well. Other than that, just be very careful when you’re against a Sha Lin. Try to get him by surprise or when he’s focusing other people. Avoid walls or being below him because he can stun you with his RMB, but with Artful Dodger that’s not as much of a problem but you can still get caught. He has average health, so burtsting him down would be a decent idea.

A damage Ying can be a little pesky, but shouldn’t be too much trouble for you. However, if she uses Shatter and more than one illusion hits you, that can be some pretty heavy damage. Plus if she hits you with all 5 of her shots that’s extra damage off, so that can be a little worrying.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand she can teleport. The thing I recommend for when she teleports is to be in a safe spot and watch where you last saw her/where one of her illusions are so you can be ready for if she goes back to that spot.

The tortoise versus the cat… not exactly how I remember that story going, but this works too I guess.
p.s. spread the meme
You should be wary of any front liner, but Makoa can M E S S Y O U U P . Makoa’s LMB does 650 damage per hit, but the shots are slow and he can’t shoot very fast.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.
If this Makoa has his Pluck legendary equipped and he hooks you, you’re probably going to be dead sooon. His hook does 100 damage when it hits you, and then with the boost from the legendary, if he shoots you he’ll do an extra 1170 damage. And just like that, you’re almost dead. Not to mention if he pulls you into a group of his teammates…
Using Artful Dodger to get out of those hooks is a good idea, but you’ll have to be quick about hitting it before you get pulled in. Otherwise just avoid him when you can (especially since he’s a frontliner and has a ton of health).

Champions You Should Target

I’m going to keep this section short, sweet, and simple.

• Supports.
• Squishy champions.
• Champions that you counter.
• People who are giving your team the most trouble.

Quick tips that I don’t know where else to add:

• If you’re fighting against a Bombking, try to not strafe in the same patterns or stay right in front of him for very long. Bomb King can kill Maeve really fast, so you want to avoid getting stuck as much as you can.
• I’ll come back here and add more tips that arise. Feel free to send your own and I can add them here! 🙂

Playstyles/Builds

In this section I’m just going to be talking about the playstyles you can use for Maeve, giving some insight on them, and also adding some recommendations for loadouts you can use for each. Click the images to see a more full size picture of the loadouts.
These are only templates to help guide you in the right direction, you can edit the loadouts as you so see fit.

**IMPORTANT: My cards are leveled, but just pretend they’re all level 4 to go with classic/competitive. These loadouts would remain the same regardless of the card level.**[/b]

This is a loadout that will fit for most Maeve playstyles and legendaries. I recommend this loadout if you’re new and want somwhere to start off.

This is my personal loadout that I use most of the time. I use this with Street Justice or Cat Burglar. This helps with chasing people down and having nine lives available. I use others too, but this is just one I like. x)

This is a build I use if the enemy team has champions that deal HUGE damage per hit, like Sha Lin, Kinessa, sometimes Cassie, etc. Other than that it can be used whenever you want, it’s preference. I made this to so you have more health, but also have more effective health since the damage reduction kicks in, so you’ll live longer. (ignore the same name as the last loadout, I’m not original.)

For this loadout you’ll want to play with either Street Justice or Rouge’s Gambit. This will either support you being offensive or help you get away with pounce. Feel free to pouncealot. :^)

One Last Thing

This video has some GREAT tips that helped me become a better Paladins player. It’s worth your time to watch it, it’s helpful.

Credits

Well, you’ve sucessfully now made it to the end of my guide, congratulations! You deserve a sticker. You should now be well on your way to being a cut above the rest. :^)

This guide took me over a MONTH to make due to the many delays and because I had to research everything, test it all out, write it and make sure it made sense…plus I am just really bad at finishing things lel.
A HUGH MUNGUS thank you to everyone who cointributed to this guide. This means a lot to me to make something like this and I’m glad you all helped me. <3 I’d like to in particular thank my not so biological or legit child Clouded who was there to help me with testing, recording, and just giving input to this guide, and of course to the dankest snek for helping me test he could. Check out his –>> Fernando guide <<–, it’s pretty spicy. He put good work and effort into it (and I helped him create the guide, but that’s not as important), and it turned out pretty gg. Plus it’s got thse spicy memes. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
And of course, last but not least, BluJ for just being positive the entire time while I wrote this guide. You motivate me. <3 Stay spicy. :^)

A BIG thank you to Tweets by corgiallyyours for letting me use their art as https://twitter.com/CorgiallyYours/status/861151321205952512 It’s one of my favorite Maeve fan arts, check out their other stuff[neuzu.deviantart.com] too! Seriously, much love. 🙂

• Cassie image[splashbrush.deviantart.com] made by Spashbrush[splashbrush.deviantart.com]
• Ying Image[www.deviantart.com] made by CLeRu087[cleru087.deviantart.com]
• Kinessa image[avionetca.deviantart.com] made by Avionetca[avionetca.deviantart.com]
• Willo image[dream-piper.deviantart.com] made by Dream-Piper[dream-piper.deviantart.com]

• Author: https://t.co/8Q2C9MCu74@PaladinsGame @HirezPixie @HiRezMartini pic.twitter.com/W1pcroutgM

  — Pampa (@lordpampa) May 7, 2017

  , author is linked in the tweet

**I own NONE of the pictures used in this guide (other than the screenshots I suppose) and none of them were created for the use of this guide, I take no credit for anyone’s art. Please add and message me if you want to talk.**

Updates

I’m going to be updating this guide every so often depending on what’s going on for a while, so I’ll be adding what additions/changes are being made to the guide here to save you time and to save on you wondering “wait, was this like this before…?”

• I had forgot to add this, so I added Nine Lives to the Abilities / Ability Overview section. 🙂
• Added more tips for Rouge’s Gambit in the Legendaries and You section.
• Updates here and there for more insight on the new gamemode Onslaught.
• Added this section. :^)

• Small update touching upon the changes to projectiles done in OB53 in the Abilities / Ability Overview section.
• Soon there will be a complete change to the part about Cat Burglar since in OB54 it is going to be completely different.

• Rewrote section about Cat Burglar.

• Added more to Nimble.

• Added a little more to Nimble.

• Moved Nimble to Items Pt. 1.
• Changed description of Chronos slightly.
• Made Items Pt. 1.5 to account for lack of space in the first part.
• Added a little bit to how to play Maeve.

• Changed what was said about Nimble in Items Pt.1.
• Minor change to Chronos in Items Pt.1.
• Minor change to Liferip in Items Pt.1.
• Edited the Playstyle/builds section.
• Added Drogoz and Strix to Who You Counter and Vise Versa.

• Added various changes throughout all the guide to accomodate for the changes done to Maeve in OB61. Please comment if you see any mess-ups.
• Changed several points in the guide. i.e. recommending Nimble, moving Morale Boost to be more important, etc.
  1/2
  • Updated the guide to be in OB64.
  4/8
  • Updated all the cards from Cards Unbound and made a reminder that Resilience is 300/600/900 credits now.[/list[
    4/19
    • Updated loadouts in Playstyles/Builds.
    1/21
    • Updated items, cards, and legendaries.