Paladins is Hi-Rez Studios' free-to-play team hero shooter, out of beta since May 2018, and it is no longer being developed. Hi-Rez halted active work on Paladins and the original SMITE on 6 February 2025 during a restructuring that cut a large share of its staff, and the game has been in maintenance mode since. Servers are still up: Steam concurrents in August 2026 average roughly 900 over a rolling 30 days with 24-hour peaks near 1,500, against an all-time high of 60,712. Balance is frozen, so any tier list from 2025 onward is still accurate.
This guide covers everything you need: core mechanics, the best characters, weapons worth investing in, location progression, and the tips that actually make a difference.
Core Mechanics
Five-card loadouts capped at 15 points
Each champion equips exactly five cards, and each card can be set from rank one to rank five, with the total ranks in a loadout capped at 15. Cards come in Armor, Weapon and Ability types, so a loadout is a choice about which three of your abilities you are actually committing to.
Talents chosen before the match starts
Every champion has three Talents, picked alongside your loadout at the start of a match. Talents change an ability's behaviour rather than nudging a number, which is why the same champion plays like two different characters depending on the pick.
The in-match credit shop
You earn credits during the match and spend them on items across four categories: Defense, Utility, Healing and Damage. Each item has three ranks. Cauterize, which cuts enemy healing, is the item most matches are decided by and the one new players skip.
Four champion classes
Damage champions handle sustained output and shield breaking, Flanks dive the back line, Front Line champions hold the objective and soak, and Supports heal and debuff. A team without a Front Line loses the point, and a team without a Support loses the fight after the first trade.
Siege point-and-payload rounds
Siege runs in two phases. Both teams fight over a central capture point, then the winner escorts a payload toward the loser's spawn while the loser tries to stop it. First team to four points takes the match.
For a deeper dive into how these systems interact, see our Paladins combat guide.
Characters Overview
| Role | Tier | Playstyle | Key Stats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Damage: hitscan poke | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Damage: projectile burst | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Flank: dive assassin | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Front Line: shield anchor | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Support: main healer | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
For full build breakdowns with gear and stat priorities, see our Paladins builds guide. For rankings, check the tier list.
Weapons Guide
| Weapon | Why It Matters | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Cassie's Crossbow | A hitscan-feeling crossbow with solid mid-range damage and a small magazine. | New Damage players who want consistent output without projectile leading. |
| Viktor's Assault Rifle | A hitscan rifle with a large magazine and the most conventional first-person shooter feel on the roster. | Players transferring aim skill from another shooter. |
| Maeve's Daggers | Fast-firing thrown daggers with short effective range and a brutal falloff curve. | Diving isolated Supports and finishing low targets. |
| Barik's Blunderbuss | A short-range spread weapon on a Front Line champion who deploys turrets and a Barricade. | Point defence on Siege maps with tight capture areas. |
| Grover's Throwing Axe | A heavy thrown axe that does real damage for a Support weapon and rewards prediction rather than tracking. | Supports who want to influence a fight beyond healing output. |
Cassie's Crossbow: A hitscan-feeling crossbow with solid mid-range damage and a small magazine. It rewards steady tracking rather than flicks, and its damage falloff means she wants an elevated angle within the mid third of the map.
Viktor's Assault Rifle: A hitscan rifle with a large magazine and the most conventional first-person shooter feel on the roster. Viktor is the champion most often recommended to players coming from other shooters because nothing about the aiming is exotic.
Maeve's Daggers: Fast-firing thrown daggers with short effective range and a brutal falloff curve. Her damage only exists inside about a dozen metres, which is why her whole kit is built around closing that gap and leaving again.
Barik's Blunderbuss: A short-range spread weapon on a Front Line champion who deploys turrets and a Barricade. Barik holds ground rather than shielding a team, so his weapon exists to punish anyone who walks into the space he has fortified.
Grover's Throwing Axe: A heavy thrown axe that does real damage for a Support weapon and rewards prediction rather than tracking. Grover is the Support who can genuinely contest a Damage champion in a straight fight if the axes land.
Full breakdowns in our Paladins weapons guide.
Location Progression
| Location | Level Range | Key Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Frog Isle | All ranks, common in casual queue | Balanced flank routes, clear high ground, short payload path |
| Stone Keep | All ranks | Long sightlines, strong poke angles, punishing open capture point |
| Jaguar Falls | All ranks | Vertical flank routes, elevated healing positions, tight payload chokes |
| Timber Mill | All ranks | Close-quarters engagements, strong shield chokes, short rotation times |
| Magistrate's Archives | All ranks, best for learning a new champion | Fast respawns, continuous fighting, low rotation punishment |
Frog Isle: A Siege map with a raised central point and multiple approach lanes, one of the earliest maps in the game and still one of the most balanced. The side routes make it a strong Flank map without abandoning the Front Line.
Stone Keep: A large Siege map with a wide open central point and long sightlines into it. Hitscan Damage champions and long-range Supports gain more here than anywhere else, and diving across the open middle usually ends badly.
Jaguar Falls: A Siege map built around verticality, with elevated platforms flanking the point. Champions with vertical mobility get more out of it than the map's size suggests, and the payload path is one of the more contested in the rotation.
Timber Mill: A Siege map with a compact point and heavy cover, which favours close-range Front Line and Flank play over poke. The choke on the payload run is narrow enough that a single well-placed shield can stall the push outright.
Magistrate's Archives: Used for the faster modes rather than Siege, with a single contested area and short spawn distances. Onslaught here rewards sustained team fighting because respawns arrive fast enough that a partial wipe rarely ends the fight.
See our maps & locations guide for detailed area breakdowns and our walkthrough for the optimal progression path.
Tips That Actually Matter
- Buy Cauterize by the second team fight in every single match. Anti-healing is the item that decides whether your damage sticks, and a team that skips it will out-damage the enemy all game and still lose the point.
- Concentrate your 15 loadout points into cards affecting three abilities rather than spreading one rank across five cards. A rank-one card in Paladins is close to no effect at all, so five weak cards is functionally an empty loadout.
- Check the enemy Talent choices on the scoreboard during the opening ride to the point. Talents change how abilities work, so the same enemy champion can require a completely different approach between rounds.
- Ride your mount from spawn every time. Walking back after a death is the single most common reason a team loses the first capture, and the mount is free.
- Buy Wrecker against shield-heavy compositions and Haven against burst Damage. Both are cheap at rank one and the AI-adjacent habit of buying the same three items every match costs more games than aim ever does.
- As a Flank, target the enemy Support first and leave before their Front Line rotates. A Support kill wins the fight; a Front Line kill you spent nine seconds on gives the enemy team free time on the point.
- As Front Line, use a shield to break line of sight rather than to absorb chip damage. Cassie and Viktor cannot damage what they cannot see, and a shield spent on poke is a shield you do not have during the actual engage.
- Learn one champion per class rather than five in one class. Paladins locks you into a team composition at select, and a player who can only play Flank is a liability in roughly a third of games.
- Treat every guide and tier list published from February 2025 onward as current. Development stopped that month, so the balance patch you are playing on is the last one, and older guides are the ones that need checking.
- Queue during peak evening hours. With a 30-day average near 900 concurrent players on Steam, off-peak queues in some regions take noticeably longer and produce wider skill spreads in the resulting lobbies.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Skipping the item shop entirely, especially Cauterize, and then blaming the Support for the enemy tank not dying.
- Spreading loadout points evenly across five cards so that no card reaches a rank where it changes anything.
- Instant-locking a Flank on a team that already has two, then losing the point because nobody can hold it.
- Diving the enemy Front Line as a Flank instead of the Support, which trades your nine seconds for their two.
- Expecting new champions, balance patches or content updates; Hi-Rez ended active development on 6 February 2025.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Paladins shutting down?
No. Hi-Rez ended active development on 6 February 2025 and moved the game into maintenance mode, but the servers are still running and the game is still playable. There is no announced shutdown date. What stopped was new champions, balance patches and content updates, not the service itself.
How many people still play?
On Steam in August 2026, the 30-day average sits around 900 concurrent players with 24-hour peaks near 1,500. The all-time Steam peak was 60,712. Console populations are counted separately and are not visible on Steam charts.
Is Paladins free to play?
Yes. The base game is free with a rotating champion roster, and champions can be unlocked with in-game currency or bought as a bundle. The card system was reworked years ago to remove the pay-to-win complaints that dogged the closed beta.
How do loadouts work?
You equip five cards and distribute ranks between one and five across them, with a hard cap of 15 total ranks per loadout. Cards are Armor, Weapon or Ability type. You also pick one of three Talents at the start of each match, which changes how a specific ability behaves.
What are the game modes?
Siege is the main mode, played as a capture point followed by a payload push, first to four points. Team Deathmatch runs to 40 eliminations and Onslaught is a ticket-based fight over a central point. Ranked play uses the Siege ruleset.
More Paladins Guides
- Paladins Best Builds
- Paladins Tier List
- Paladins Walkthrough
- Paladins Beginner's Guide
- Paladins Tips & Tricks
- Paladins Weapons Guide
- Paladins Combat Guide
- Paladins Boss Guide
- Paladins Maps & Locations
- Paladins Crafting Guide
- Paladins Classes & Characters
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- Apex Legends Guide: fps game with similar mechanics
- Rainbow Six Siege Guide: fps game with similar mechanics
