Hello and welcome to my Taka Guide! My IGN is CullTheMeek, and I'm a member of the competitive team Alliance. However you may know me from my previous team, Gankstars Sirius. I've been playing in competitive for as long as I can remember, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon.

This a guide focusing on the complex mechanics and item builds for Taka. If you're looking to learn some tricks and find the right items to build, look no further. Later in this guide, we will be talking more indepth about proper gameplay with Taka as well as specific items to pick up, but we'll start by taking a look at Taka's Abilities, and things about them that may not be in the ingame ability descriptions.

House Kamuha

Taka's passive Skill. This is one of the few passive abilities in the game that provide reliable mobility, and all you have to be autoattacking. Let's look at the ingame descrption.

Every 5 seconds, Taka's next basic attack is replaced with a Mortal Strike. Mortal strikes deal 40 (+25 weapon ratio) bonus damage and grant Taka a burst of move speed. Whenever Taka Mortal Strikes or uses an ability, he gains a stack of Ki, which speeds up his Mortal Strike timer by 0.9 secs and grant's 25% cooldown speed. (5 Ki stacks max)

House Kamuha, when comparing it to other passives in the game, provides a lot to Taka. The catch is that you need to generate Ki stacks for this passive to come into full effect. This is pretty easy to do. In jungle, you'll find yourself quickly with 5 Ki stacks. The trick however, is keeping those stacks. The easiest way to do this is by basic attacking. If you think that you won't be able to fight the enemy jungle duo, or if the enemy laner rotates down to jungle and yours doesn't, then look to go up to lane and basic attack the lane minions to maintain your Ki Stacks. If you find yourself with nothing to basic attack, then you can always use your second ability, Kaku, to refresh your stacks. However, you should only do this when you think you'll be able to refresh your stacks with an ability or a basic attack at the end of the refreshed duration. This is because Kaku costs a lot of energy and it's a long cooldown to burn.
Now that you know how to keep the stacks, now on to how to use them. As long as Taka maintains 5 stacks of Ki, you can make every autoattack a Mortal Strike, simply by waiting for the timer. This means you'll be provided with a constant stream of move speed as long as you keep autoattacking. When you need to catch up to someone, or run away, basic attack anything close to you to get the move speed. Also, remember that this also refreshes your stacks! In teamfights, use the move speed bonus to outmaneuver enemy carries. Skill shot dependant heroes will have a very hard time landing their abilities if you have the constant move speed bonus.

"Tell your mom to stop calling me" -Taka

Kaiten

Taka flips over his target, cutting it with his switchblade. Taka is invulnerable to damage and debuffs while in mid-air.

This ability may seem simple, but it's actually a very high skill cap ability which when used correctly, can completely turn the course of a fight. While Taka is mid-air, he is completely invulnerable.. to anything! There's nothing else in the game like that! It's an extremely powerful ability. There's also another important component to this ability, the fact that taka flips over his target. Of course, this means that you will end up on the other side of an enemy after the ability.. however the distance in which the kaiten moves Taka can be increased if the enemy hero moves farther away from you while mid air. This is important because when you're chasing someone, you want to be able to follow them. If you see an enemy hero using a boots activation or an escape ability, you can use Kaiten to follow them a long distance.

However, this isn't always the proper use of Kaiten. When playing Taka, you should look at the heroes on the enemy team. Let's say the enemies have an Ardan Celeste Koshka. Before a teamfight, think about what you want to use your Kaiten for. Against this specific comp, you can typically avoid the core collapse from celeste due to Taka's high move speed from House Kamuha. Koshka's ultimate however, cannot be avoided. When Koshka uses her ultimate, try to have your kaiten ready for it. Also, if Koshka doesn't use her ult on you or you have a reflex for it, Kaiten can be used to avoid the extremely high damage from Celeste's ult, Solar Storm.
This is just an example, but with Kaiten, as well as with any reflex blocks and abilities that serve as a momentary reflex block, it's all about knowing what you're going to use it on before going into the fight.

"..that somersault thing!" -Taka

Kaku

Taka throws a smoke bomb at his feet, vanishing from enemy sight and gaining move speed. This illusion ends early if he strikes a target or takes direct damage. Turrets and Flare Guns can still see Taka. This ability heals Taka while he is invisible.

This is one of the few abilities in the game that provide invisibility! It also gives taka a ton of healing, and it has CP scaling on this heal. This ability can be used for a whole bunch of things. Sneak up to lane and use your kaku to pop up next to the enemy laner. Use your kaku to sneak past your enemies to steal away some jungle camps. In the thick of combat, use Kaku to heal back some health and escape from danger. But be weary of scout traps and flares, as they can reveal you while invisible.

"I was never here.." -Taka

X-Retsu

Taka bursts through his target, carving an X with his switchblades for lethal damage. The target suffers a mortal wound, reducing it's healing by 50% and taking damage per second over the next 3 seconds. The wound's duration is refreshed whenever taka mortal strikes this target, Grants bonus Ki stacks based on number of ability points in X-Retsu.

This is the skill that makes CP taka viable. It has a very high 170% CP ratio and quite high base damage. What's more important is the distance that you can close with this ability, and this is true with all of Taka's skills. As weapon power, you'll mostly want to use this for mobility but also try to use it on the enemy carries. It inflicts a mortal wound which will reduce healing from fountains and other sources such as lifesteal. Also, whenever you Mortal strike the target, the mortal wound and the damage over time is refreshed. For CP taka, it's very important to keep autoattacking the target you X-retsu so you can keep the damage over time on the target.

"Crazy deja-vu.." -Taka

Ringo

Ringo goes very well with Taka as they both have very high single target damage. Ringo can use Hellfire Brew to weaken a target while Taka can finish them off. This combination works with cp ringo/wp taka and wp taka/cp ringo.

Catherine

Catherine does well with taka because of her ability to lock a target down and cause disruption among the enemy backlines. When catherine stuns, Taka has an opportunity to use all of his burst on that target and take them down quickly. In teamfights, catherine's silence can allow taka to have free reign on his enemies, allowing him to use all of his burst without fear of being locked down or the enemies returning too much damage.

Early game can sometimes be a bit rough for Taka. He needs time to farm and get levels so he can hit his first big powerspike of level 6. This isn't always the easiest task. However, with the right jungle rotations Taka can typically farm safely while keeping his distance from the enemy junglers if he has to. If the enemy junglers are invading and look to take your farm, Kaku is your friend. Use it to sneak past them and into the enemy jungle to steal away their farm. It's not the most efficient way of farming, but sometimes it's what you have to do.
Between Taka's jungle rotations, he may roam up to lane to surprise the enemy out of a Kaku and provide a swift gank to set the enemy laner behind. The kills will give the experience that Taka needs to hit level 6 as fast as possible. Make sure your own laner is ready for the gank so they can follow up as well!

"Meh, whatever." -Taka

Mid game is where Taka shines. Keep constant rotations on the jungle while roaming up to lane often. If you see that the enemy laner is alone, don't hesitate to make your move. However, try to avoid diving under turret too deep. Now that it's the mid game, teamfights will start happening more often. Taka is very squishy until he finishes a tier 2 defensive item, so be careful not to overextend in teamfights because you will get focused down. When the opportunity presents itself don't be afraid to do some counterjungling. Taka is one of the best counterjunglers because he can 1v1 trade effectively, he has a lot of mobility, and he has a lot of burst damage to secure jungle creeps when they are being contested. He also has his Kaku to escape from most bad situations.

"Let's provoke a teamfight!" -Taka

In the late game, Taka slowly starts to fall off. The enemy team likely has enough defense to prevent Taka from being able to burst them down quickly enough. (with the exception of crystal Taka, who actually scales extremely well into the late game) In late game engagements, be very careful and do not extend too far in teamfights unless you're sure you can secure the kill.
However, there's one thing that Taka does very well, even in the late game, and that's using an atlas pauldron. Landing an atlas on an enemy Vox or Ringo can win an entire teamfight, and Taka is arguably the best hero at applying this item. One trick to almost always land the atlas pauldron, is to let it charge up and then use your ultimate X-Retsu to close the distance with your target. If you time it right, the enemy hero is instantly atlas pauldroned with almost no warning, except if they see you charging it up. An easier way is to use your Kaku to sneak next to the enemy carry so that they don't expect it. You can even atlas somebody while you're flipping over them with your Kaiten. There's so many ways for Taka to apply atlas !! Use this to your advantage.

"Wait, have I killed you before?" -Taka

I hope my guide helped you out! This was a first time experience for me, making a guide. If my guide helped, let me know why. If it didn't, what was it lacking? I'm very accepting of feedback. This also won't be my last guide, I'll definitely get around to making another in the next coming weeks. & remember..

"You are adorable" -Taka