[EN] Haven vs Blast Shields – which should you take?

Overview

This guide is focused on when should you build Haven, and when Blast Shields.

Difference between Haven and Blast Shields

Both Haven and Blast Shields provide you with 7/14/21% damage reduction, but Haven only protects you from direct damage, and Blast Shields only from aoe (area of effect) damage. Though, if for example Drogoz’ rocket hits you directly, it doesn’t count as direct damage. Many people think that it provides them protection from aoe projectiles directly hitting you, but it doesn’t. People often take Haven no matter what enemy team has. That’s why I created this tutorial.

Champions – damage type

Champions’ abilities that deal direct damage:
– Barik – Blunderbuss (LMB, up to 600 every 1s), Turret (Q, 150)
– Fernando – Fire debuff (200 from basics)
– Makoa – Cannon (LMB, 650 close every 1s), Dredge Anchor (RMB, 100)
– Ruckus – Miniguns (LMB, 53 every .04s fully spun up), Hexa Fire (E, 120 every .04s)
– Torvald – Gauntlet (LMB, 50 every .1s)
– Cassie – Crossbow (LMB, 650 every .75s), Disengage (RMB, 200)
– Drogoz – Fire Spit (RMB, 150 only when hits you directly)
– Kinessa – Sniper Rifle (LMB, 150 every .15s), Sniper Mode (RMB, up to 1000, fully charged deals extra 30% damage), Oppressor Mines (Q, 4 every .2s)
– Sha Lin – Long Bow (LMB, up to 1000 fully charged every 1.5s), Planted (Q, 800, 6 shots)
– Tyra – Auto Rifle (LMB, 120 every .9s)
– Viktor – Assault Rifle (LMB, 130 every .1s, first 4 shots from clip deal extra 50)
– Grokh – Lightning Staff (LMB, 85 every .1s), Shock Pulse (RMB, 125), Tempest (E, 200)
– Grover – Throwing Axe (LMB, from 400 to 1200 the further it travels), Crippling Throw (RMB, 300)
– Mal’ Damba – Spitting Cobra (LMB and reload, 450 every .55s, reload up to 550)
– Ying – Illusory Mirror (LMB, 5 ticks of 120 every .7s for .5s, hitting all 5 ticks deals extra 100)
– Androxus – Revolver (LMB, 600 from close every .5s), Defiance (RMB, 300, hitting all deals extra 500)
– Buck – Shotgun (LMB, up to 550 every .9s), Net Shot (RMB, 150), Buck Wild (E, basics deal 1100)
– Maeve – Daggers (LMB, 2×450 every 1s), Pounce (RMB, 600)
– Skye – Wrist Crossbow (LMB, 150 every .1s), Poison Bolts (RMB, 3×10% of target’s max health over 5s)
– Inara – Stone Spear (LMB, 3×225 every 1s)
– Ash – Shoulder Bash (F, 800)
– Lex – Magnums (LMB, 680 every 0.7s), In Pursuit (RMB, 1050 over 1.5s), The Law (E, 600 or execute when below 65% hp)
– Zhin – Inferno Blade (LMB, in succession of 2×450 and then 700), Counter (RMB, 700, melee range), Spite (E, 5×400)

Champion’s abilites that deal aoe damage:
– Barik – Flamethrower Turret (E, 400 every 1s)
– Fernando – Flame Lance (LMB, 30 every .1s), Charge (F, 200), Fireball (Q, 450 + 50% for every target hit, so enemies have to be aligned for extra damage)
– Makoa – Shell Spin (F, 150), Ancient Rage (E, 650 every .8s)
– Ruckus – Hexa Fire (E, 250 every .25s)
– Torvald – Hyper Beam (E, 50 every .1s)
– Bomb King – Detonate (RMB, 900 + 30% on every next stuck bomb, so first one deals 900, every next 1170), Poppy Bomb (F, 150), Grumpy Bomb (Q, 800), King Bomb (E, 2500)
– Cassie – Blast Shot (Q, 450)
– Drogoz – Rocket Launcher (LMB, 950 every .85s), Fire Spit (RMB, detonated with LMB 1000), Salvo (Q, 250)
– Tyra – Nade Launcher (RMB, 700), Fire Bomb (Q, 9% of target’s max health for .6s, up to 90% of max health)
– Viktor – Frag Grenade (Q, 750), Barrage (E, 1400)
– Mal’ Damba – Gourd (Q, 200 every second)
– Pip – Potion Launcher (LMB, 600 every 1s), Explosive Flask (RMB, 150)
– Ying – Shatter (RMB, 500)
– Androxus – Reversal (Q, 75% of damage taken in the “shield”), Accursed Arm (E, 1000)
– Buck – Heroic Leap (F, 350)
– Evie – Ice Staff (LMB, 930), Ice Storm (E, 40 every .25s)
– Skye – Time Bomb (E, 3000)
– Inara – Warder’s Field (F, 150 per second), Seismic Crash (E, 500)
– Ash – Burst Cannon (LMB, 400 every 0.9s), Kinetic Burst (RMB, 300), Assert Dominance (E, 350)
– Willo – Wand of Overgrowth (LMB, 500 every 0.75s), Seedling (Q, 5×500)
– Seris – Soul Orb (LMB, 210 every 0.3s), Rend Soul (Q, 100 per charge from LMB up to 4)
– Zhin – Whirl (F, 400)

Most of aoe attacks have damage fall off.

If some of these are wrong please correct me in the comments.

How to counter with Haven/Blast Shields?

Your choice between Haven and Blast Shields matters a lot. Sometimes enemy team has balanced team, meaning that they have a few direct and a few aoe champions. Which will you pick – that bases on role and character you’re playing. Imagine a situation when enemy team is made of Ruckus, Grover, Evie, Sha Lin and Viktor. With this enemy team composition Haven would counter most of enemies. But if you are playing Kinessa or Sha Lin, basically snipers, that Evie would be a big problem for you, so you should rather consider picking Blast Shields. If enemy team for example has Bomb King, Drogoz and Torvald, you may instead of shields consider getting Resilence – item, that reduces CC (crowd control) effects, but Blast Shields wouldn’t be a bad choice either. Crowd Control means stuns, slows, knockbacks, knockups, roots, pulls etc. Resilence counters characters like Bomb King a lot, because BK has 2 stuns and 1 knockback in his abilities, but Blast Shields counter him a lot too because he deals heavy damage with Detonate. If you’re a frontliner, you should consider taking items that counter enemy tank, damage and support champions. If you’re a sniper, you should rather focus on countering flanks. As for example Drogoz or Androxus, even if most of the enemy team has a lot of aoe and only few direct champs, you should consider Haven since you’re most likely in the air, where hitting you with aoe attacks is hard. As a flank, you have a lot of mobility, so enemies that have slow projectiles shouldn’t be much of a threat, but enemies such as Kinessa, Sha Lin, Cassie etc. might be a bigger problem than for example Drogoz or Bomb King.

Summary

Countering is not an easy task, since you have to have a lot of game knowledge, know what items do, what all characters do, and who in the enemy team would be the most dangerous to you. I hope that my guide helped you. If you feel that something is missing from this guide, please tell me in the comments.

PS. I put this guide in all languages, so everyone can see this guide (since countering is pretty important part of this game) and maybe there will be people that will help with translating this guide to other languages, so more people can learn from this guide.