Paladins Seris Champion Impressions

It’s been a very long time since I’ve had the time to sit down and write a Paladins piece, but I’ve missed it so. I was incredibly bad with Maeve and Lex, so I passed on writing about them. I don’t feel comfortable writing about Flankers because I’m absolute bollocks with them. However, we have a fairly new support: Seris! And with Willo the damaging Fairy coming, what a brilliant time to try and catch up! So, let’s talk about her! She’s definitely a different support than what we’ve had. She packs a punch with her slow moving bullet-hell auto-attack, has an incredibly strong heal, and she can do the thing I want the most: Wombo Combos with Torvald! Torvald’s pretty much my favorite character in the game, and so anything that can synergize with him is fantastic.

But I stand by the following statement: Seris is the strongest healer in the game. More than Ying, more than Mal’damba. She’s a single-target healer, sure, but she heals for 2k over two seconds, and it only requires LOS. As long as she has line-of-sight, she can heal her friend. Even if they leave LOS after that, heading around to flank or sneak off, they’re fine! It’s ridiculous. Though honestly, I like her in a two-healer comp, with an AOE healer, and one of the bigger tanks. Pair her with say.. Ying and Torvald, or Fernando. She’s very much a different style healer, something fun, something powerful. She gazes into the abyss, and it gazes back.

Pros: 

• Bullet-Hell Time: Her LMB is amazing. It’s slow as fuck when far away, but it can make people misjudge/move away, and you can card into it having a stun! It’s a large orb though, and it travels through enemies, so while it only has a one-second stun, you can catch quite a few people with it without a lot of effort. It’s not as good as “Mortal Reach” but you know…
• Restore Soul: Restore Soul is the best heal in the game, right now. I know I said that above, but it bears repeating. Ridiculous range, tons of HPS, and with Chronos, you can do absolutely ridiculous healing! Part of me thinks that it would be best paired with another healer, but she can certainly stand on her own.
• Mmm. Combos: Not only are they a fantastic snack product, she can produce them! She can set up some absolutely beautiful results in a fight. If you catch their whole team with her ult, dragging them into the Soul Core, you can 1. Torvald them off the map, into the sea, 2. Viktor can use his “Play of the Game” button, 3. Tyra can flame them and just unload her infinite bullet ult, or 4. Bomb King can hug them … you see where I’m going with this. So many characters pair well with her. She belongs on all teams, all the time.

Cons: 

• Too Much: Seris is meant to be played aggressive. I don’t think you can be that passive with her and succeed, but I could be wrong. Being too aggressive with her can be terrible though, spamming your LMB all the time, so that people aren’t being healed. Not a good look.
•  Bad People: This isn’t an inditement of her as a character, but how people perceive her. She is not a flanker. Stop it. Stop doing it. It’s bad. If your healer is off somewhere being sneaky, you know what isn’t happening? Your tank isn’t getting any damn heals! 
• Channel+Fireball: Downside to that amazing heal? It’s channeled. While it’s going on, you can’t really do anything but heal, and hope someone doesn’t murder you. The auto-aim on it can definitely be bad if you accidentally get locked on to the wrong target…

As far as her Legendary Cards go, I think hers are all pretty good. The only card I haven’t tried yet is her “Soul Collector” card. I like the idea of it, but the stacks reset on death. Maybe if only some of them did. I don’t know how I feel about it.. but if we have two healers, I tend to run “Agony” because that 1-second stun can really change the complexion of a fight, with teamwork. With teamwork mind you! The best overall has to be the “Mortal Reach” card though, which increases the range by 300%, and duration increase of 1 second. I think she’s one of the first characters where I’m genuinely torn on what card I ought to be using. I’ve used a few builds on her, all of which I’ve had pretty great success on. However, that first week was a nightmare. Oh my God, I’ve never seen so many awful supports before… But it’s the curse of the new!

Builds:

• Blood Pact [III], Soul Forge [IV], Umbral Gait [II], Spirit Leech [II], Essence Rip [I]: Mostly a “Restore Soul” build, with the Movement Speed buff from your Weapon, and an 8% increased heal on Rend Soul. It’s a really sound build, and one I have on my account right now. The first one I tried though, was:
• Dark Sight [II], Blood Pact [II], Soul Forge [III], Bane [III], Nether Siphon [II]: Soul Forge is easily one of my favorite cards, because I love CDR. Thought about pushing that card a little farther in this build. This was a build I set up around “Agony,” for the most part. It’s very much a Rend/Restore Soul build.

There are a few other ways you could definitely build her. I think at the end of the day, she’s strong with almost every comp I’ve encountered. You can heal your flanker, if they’re far away and just escaped or about to 1v1 someone else. You can keep your tank alive while standing on the point [that happens, right? People do that?], and fire off a round of Bullet Hell Orbs to make your opponent think twice about going in on them. Seris is amazing, and definitely one of my favorite supports to come to any game in a very long time.