Champions

Champions are the playable characters in Paladins. Each one has their own unique abilities and fighting style. There are currently 60 playable champions in the game.

Champions are organized into 4 different classes: Front Line, Damage, Support and Flank.

Information

Abilities

Every champion has a unique weapon, 4 or more abilities, and a special ability called an Ultimate. Ultimate Ability are not subject to cooldown, but instead have a meter that must be charged before they can be used. This meter passively gains a 1% charge every 3.33s, but can be actively increased by dealing damage to enemies and restoring the missing health of allies. Landing a Killing Blow on an enemy with a high Killstreak grants an additional 10% ultimate charge for each kill streak after the 5th. Using an ultimate will deplete the meter fully, allowing it to recharge.

Deck Building

Each champion possesses 3 unique Talents. Talents grant access to different playstyles by providing strong boosts to certain aspects of the champion, with some talents even causing radical changes to the way their weapon or skills work, usually at the cost of some counterbalancing penalty.

Champions use Cards to increase their performance and enhance their skills, and Items to help them adapt to specific situations in every match.

Unlock Champions

New players start with 6 champions unlocked by default: Cassie, Jenos, Lex, Ruckus, Seris and Viktor. Players also gain temporary access to 4 champions from a rotating free champion schedule. Every Wednesday at 08:00 AM UTC two champions will be changed that remain in free rotation for two weeks. Flank and Support or Front Line and Damage are always exchanged alternately.

v · d · e

Free Rotation
Buck Io Raum Willo
April 19th, 2023 - April 26th, 2023

Additional champions can be purchased for either Gold or Crystals. The majority of the cast costs 30,000 / 200 to unlock, while the most recently released champions cost 60,000 / 300 . A few champions (such as Buck and Grohk) cost 15,000 / 100 instead. Locked champions can be tested in the Shooting Range before purchase.

With the DLC bundles Starter Edition, Gold Edition, Deluxe Edition and the Season Pass players can unlock current and future Champions in the game through a real money purchase.

Mastery Level

Each champion has their own Mastery Level, which increases the more they are played. Achieving new levels with a champion grants special rewards and Cosmetic Items.

Access Ranked

Players are required to have at least 16 owned champions to access Ranked, champions in Free-Rotation do not count.

Champions

A List of Champions with publication date can be found here.

Front Line

These champions are the best at maintaining control of objectives and protecting their teammates through shields, personal force fields, or just by taking fire. Front Line champions gain 100% more Credits for standing near an objective.

Ash

Atlas

Azaan

Barik

Fernando

Inara

Khan

Makoa

Nyx

Raum

Ruckus

Terminus

Torvald

Yagorath

Damage

These champions can consistently deal high amounts of damage. Damage champions gain 100% more Credits for dealing damage to enemy champions.

Betty La Bomba

Bomb King

Cassie

Dredge

Drogoz

Imani

Kinessa

Lian

Octavia

Omen

Saati

Sha Lin

Strix

Tiberius

Tyra

Viktor

Vivian

Willo

Support

These champions offer a wide range of utility, both offensive and defensive. However, they specialize in healing and causing chaos in enemy attacks. Support champions gain 100% more Credits for healing allies. They gain eliminations from healing a target that gets the killing blow on an enemy. Support champions also gain ultimate charge from healing done to teammates besides themselves. Healing that restores 0 Health (for example, healing someone who is at full health) won't provide ultimate charge.

Corvus

Furia

Grohk

Grover

Io

Jenos

Lillith

Mal'Damba

Pip

Rei

Seris

Ying

Flank

These champions excel in both damage and mobility to help them in combat as well as chase and confirm kills from the enemy's rear. However, their low health makes them vulnerable to getting overwhelmed by multiple enemies. Flank champions gain 30% more Credits from landing killing blows on enemies.

Androxus

Buck

Caspian

Evie

Kasumi

Koga

Lex

Maeve

Moji

Skye

Talus

VII

Vatu

Vora

Zhin

Trivia

• All players that participated in the game's closed beta before April 7, 2016 were given all champions that were available back then for free.

• The various champion class icons appear as Steam emoticons, which can be viewed here.

• Most champions have a distinct crystal encrusted in their weapons and/or outfit.

• Many champions originally had several additional skin recolors in the past, though these were eventually removed. The reason given for this was that multiple recolors made the store confusing and messy, cluttered skin equipping UI, and ran the risk of hiding content that could make money.

• There was a way to purchase Champion mastery levels with Gold (every 20 experience points costing 1 ). It was removed with the Paladins 3.2 update.

• Every champion whose name begins with the letter 'S' (even VII) all possess some form of Stealth ability.

• Early concepts reveal that Tiberius, Vora, and Saati were all originally intended to release during 2019, while Corvus and Yagorath were not initially planned.

• Originally, two different champions were intended to follow Yagorath and start off 2021, but were ultimately cut due to unknown reasons. These two characters were later revealed / implied to have been Karne and Valera.
  • One of the two would've been extremely similar to Octavia.
  • Vora originally had kill taunts towards the two of them, being more complaints about the Magistrate and Resistance, and how the she views the two as fooling themselves into thinking they're righteous.
  • Both ultimately never progressed beyond the concept stages and were already cancelled by the time Yagorath's voice pack was being written.

• According to Paladins artist Thunderbrush, at one point he attempted to pitch an insectoid champion, but it was "mercilessly shot down". One of these attempts was an early pitch that would eventually become Betty La Bomba, where it was suggested she be a "bumble-bee girl".

• He also once attempted to pitch a "channeling" type of champion that would've been heavily inspired by Ivan Ooze from Power Rangers.

• Multiple attempts have also been made at creating a "battle-bard" champion, a sketch of which can be seen here, but the idea was ultimately shelved as it couldn't be figured out how to best "transfer the experience to an FPS".

• A possibly related "Frog Bard" champion has also been desired to be implemented by some developers, but ultimately has yet to become reality due to seemingly being too "weird".

• Another scrapped champion concept includes a "gunlancer" frontline champion that was originally set to release at the end of 2022. This champion seems to have been part of a potential future faction, based on the elephant icons appearing on the character, with a similar symbol later appearing in the A Conflict Reignited lore cinematic.

• Another two champions were ultimately scrapped for various reasons (such as schedule / design / developer confidence / etc.), with these designs including a type of Demon Caller, as well as Mechanical themed Support.

• Yet another scrapped champion is the Berserker, who had many different designs, both male and female, with later designs leaning towards male, while also showcasing some potential abilities, such as a type of "rage mode" that would change him into a burning skeleton. They were ultimately scrapped due to not resonating with the developers.

• The Salt skin for Io was originally intended to be its own champion, but was eventually either replaced or changed into VII.

• Modern champion designs are based on two "archetypes", with those being "waifus" and "edgelords".

• Many designs suspected to be incredibly early concepts of Paladins characters (due to the presence of Pip's early concept) can be seen here. Though the exact extent of how much these designs show early Paladins concept art is unknown for certain.

• As mentioned here, even if a champion is killed off in the lore, they'll still remain playable. It's also worth mentioning that no champion in the present day of the lore has died so far, not even Lex or Yagorath.