Introduction Top
Hello, I am Statusbaked, the current jungler for Phoenix Reign. This is a guide for how I play
Taka successfully in both rank play and competitive matches.
I enjoy playing
Taka because he is extremely versatile, and works well in almost any composition and with any support hero. He is extremely powerful in the early game, making it easy to snowball matches and allow the lane player to scale into the late game easily.
Taka is a bursty assassin and excels at singling out a single enemy and taking them down quickly. Be especially wary of enemy vision and overextending, as Taka is very easy to kill if caught out of position
Watch some gameplay of my Taka in action
here.
Abilities Top
One of the most important and little known aspects of Taka’s kit is getting and maintaining stacks on his perk. Each stack of his perk gives additional damage and cooldown speed. Executing a mortal strike and using abilities are ways to get stacks as well as maintain them. Additionally, mortal strikes give Taka a burst of move speed to help him stick onto mobile carries, making him a great pick against agile heroes. Be sure to keep stacks when clearing jungle and make sure you have 5 stacks before you fight to give yourself an instant advantage. If you see your stacks are about to run out, use Kaku to reset the cooldown or attack a minion.
Taka’s A skill, Kaiten, is one of the most versatile abilities in the game. Not only does it do a lot of damage, Taka is immune to ALL damage and crowd control while it is channeling. Use it to dodge any type of strong crowd control and damage like a Catherine stun or a Ringo ultimate. Additionally, since the ability has a small range, you can use it to close gaps between enemy heroes and continue to deal damage. In the early game while farming, use it when a minion is two auto attacks from dying since it will deal damage and reset your auto attack right after.
Level up this ability at every opportunity, since maxing it makes the energy cost zero, helping Taka’s energy consumption immensely.
Kaku(B Skill)
Similar to Kaiten, Kaku also has a variety of possible situational uses. Since this ability gives Taka stealth and hides him from vision, he can use it to sneak around the map and either kill opponents or steal jungle camps. In team fight situations, use it to stealthily engage or to disengage after dealing a large burst of damage and remain healthy. In the early game, when going cp, and when low health in jungle, the heal this ability gives is extremely powerful. Use it when you’re low health in early engages, wait until the stealth expires and surprise your opponent. Additionally, it can be used to keep stacks and to move quickly through to jungle.When playing against Taka, be sure to buy lots of scout traps and always carry flares to counter the stealth.
Taka’s ultimate is a large gap closer that applies a mortal wound and deals a burst of damage, but also potentially puts him in a bad position. Always try to use this ability to single someone out, or on the person your team wants to focus since the mortal wound will reduce healing from all sources, including fountain. Do not use it when all of the enemy team is close together, since it will put you right into the middle of all 3 members and likely result in you getting bursted down yourself.
Hero Pairings Top
Lane heroes to pair with Taka
Since
Taka does extremely well in the early game,
Taka does extremely well with both early game laners like Ringo or late scaling heroes like
Vox,
Celeste and [Skye. With the early lead
Taka gains in the jungle, the Laners will be free to farm up and scale to do the majority of the damage in the late game.
Support heroes to pair with Taka
With Taka’s immense versatility, all support heroes pair well with
Taka. However, in this meta
Ardan and
Phinn are my favorite support heroes to have with Taka. Phinn’s insane early game damage and late game crowd control make snowballing easy and keep Taka alive late into the game. Similarly, the Vanguard slow and speed boost allow Taka to stick onto any hero and the Gauntlet helps to lockdown and separate carries.
Playstyles Top
The early game is the most important phase of the game for Taka, as it usually determines how successful he will be. Since Taka is extremely strong in the early game, get an early defense item at first shop and immediately fight the enemy if you have full stacks. If you get low, use your Kaku to heal and return to the fight, or to sneak away to steal enemy camps/escape. If you win the fight and it takes long enough, go to enemy backs and take them. In order to keep up aggression, try and keep a mental note of when the enemy backs are going to respawn and try to contest them. If you are ahead, only take your middle healer and shop camps. By the time you do that, the enemy’s camps will be respawning and you can contest them again.
The mid-game is entirely dependent on how well the lane is doing, and how far ahead you are in jungle. If the laner is behind, try and gank the enemy laner or push them out of lane so your own laner can catch up. If your lane is ahead, use your jungle advantage to push objectives and snowball the lead further. By now, you should have a sorrow blade, and t2 defense items and as such will do lots of damage. Try to further your advantage by taking objectives, continuing to take enemy backs and allowing your laner to get a maximum amount of farm, since he will likely be doing most of the damage in the late game. Be sure to buy infusions at around the 12 minute mark, and stay infused for the reamainder of the game for maximum success.
Taka starts to fall off in the late game, so the main goals for him are to weaken enemy heroes and apply atlas. Try and single out the squishiest enemy and apply the mortal wound using X-Retsu, apply atlas and back off. After wearing the enemy, if they are still healthy, peel back for your laner and keep him alive as long as possible. If an enemy dives onto the laner, peel him off and focus him down so the laner survives, and the fight will then hopefully be a 3vs2.
Thank you for reading! I hope you found it useful, send any questions you may have to @StatusbakedVG on Twitter.
Visit the
Phoenix website for updates on our competitve teams and for more player spotlights and guides!
-Statusbaked
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