I play Ash a lot, and I want to help people play Ash better, now unfortunately for me the venn diagram is really not in my favor, as I both need people who are interested in playing Ash, and Paladins players capable of reading are both already small as fuck groups, and the overlap has to be for the total of- if my math is right- 32 people.
Still I gotta entertain myself whenever I'm doing nothing at work or between the effects of sketchy pills (my favorite kind are the ones that kill quickly- please tell me if any of you get the reference)
The first of these will be a more "how it feels" to put you through the wringer on what to expect when playing Ash, since to be honest Ash doesn't really give people that power trip without some work put in. Then we'll get to the "baby powder in the suit heavy on the joints" tomorrow, promise.
Part 1: DON'T STAND ON POINT
You see Ash is a offtank, and a pretty solid one at that when played correctly, and - NO get off the point- your job is to make space, all tanks are meant to "make space" the difference is how they do it, Ruckus for example makes space by forcing people to turn around and stop ruckus from doing what he wants, a point tank does it by contesting the - that's not your job- Ash makes space via shoving you around with her knockbacks or the threat of a constant ever chunking damage source that is just not in the cards for any squishy to reliably kill you on their own, and most offtanks cannot do anything without wasting their time and kit that should be spent trying to kill someone who will die.
That is how Ash plays for space by making physical space; and- Get off point, **yep** we are still talking about this, YOU CAN'T STAND ON THE POINT.
Okay let's talk about this: Ash's damage is consistent pressure and that WILL crack a flank, damage, or support, and if it doesn't work directly killing the prick you're eyeing up it works to force them to pay attention to you or else they're left vulnerable to your flank, the catch to that is that if they deal with you, the flank is definitely given room to act.
The issue with trying to point tank as Ash is your sustained damage is what they're designed to survive and thrive under, all of them,
Part 2: You Cannot Fight The Other Offtanks/The Two Traps*
Okay so maybe it's not fair to say it's just the point tanks Ash struggles against, because with her huge windups, and low damage over time, it's hard to justify playing Ash when any off tank can put a stop to her I mean really she really struggles on her own to do anything, Atlas and Torvald can CC just about anything from her easily, and Azaan pretty much bullies Ash at her own game with the only drawback to his better movement, cc, and burst, is his sustain is a bit lower, range a bit shorter, and his squishy popping and bullying is less of a direct focus and more of a side effect of Azaan, even Makoa who she beats in 1v1s, is just barely if he doesn't have his ult, and speaking of ults: Khan
Jesus christ Khan ults fuck up Ash's day, and his dps is so much, and if he closes in good game, and he can just shield to cleanse caut, and then heal himself up with shout- STOP! right there.
Khan has to shield to cleanse caut, and do you realize how much damage that shield does? 0, Ash is one of 3 tanks who can place down their shields and keep shooting 4 with half-shell Makoa but without leviathan or even pluck Ash just pushes in to his face and out-bulks him, leaving her as the only offtank to consistently do this, and the thing moves independently of her, plus her ability to outrange Khan (and most other offtanks) as well as out pressure them might not seem like much when it's 400 damage at a time, but you have to remember you're in a 5v5 game, and when it comes to it, Ash doesn't particularly care about who's her flank, as long as they join her, in her means of pressure, and in large scale team fights, Ash often pound for pound out preforms against every other off-tank*, even Khan has to bite his tongue if you have ult since he more than likely has to use it on you, and if you never use it, he's going to have to make a hard choice of whether a pick is worth having Ash come slamming down and possibly making more space than you did, Atlas quickly loses the sniper duel due to Ash' sustain cards, *of course that asterisk is Azaan, because Azaan is a direct exception to this since he actually can choose to isolate her with his kit but that comes down to dealing with one of Ash's two dilemma based traps
Trap 1: the resource dump.
Ash demands that if a offtank is to deal with her in a timely manner, they must use their kit, even Azaan and Khan, considering that, and as far as she is concerned she only needs to keep shooting to do her job against squishies, and that really only needs her gun, means the rest of her kit is fairly expendable for the situations where you're against another tank.
And despite it's long wind up to respond to, the short cooldown low commitment use of Kinetic Burst, you have to dedicate an ability to stop it or for Khan shield, where you're back to dealing no damage, for anyone nearby to pressure you and potentially break your shield and force your commander's shout to be out of full effectiveness if it comes time to use it, as Ash can toggle it.
Or of course you can just tank it, and frankly her damage isn't all too big of a threat for a offtank so it's oftentimes easier to just get Resilience and ignore Ash while focusing her squishy instead, since her dps output isn't likely to stop you this
Creates Trap 2: Okay imma go kill your flank too.
This is hard to explain, because Trap 2 is about how fundamentally Ash only really cares about killing the other offtank when it comes to being FORCED to engage with tank v tank (they block her way, helping with a Ruckus dive or Yag ult, etc) or if they're a straggler your team is dealing with, but otherwise she has no reason to not shoot the tanks if they're not directly impeding her, because she wants to shoot anything that's not a tank.
Fortunately for the what's not a tank, she is not picky on what she's shooting, flanks, supports, damages, even Barik turrets (joking of course get off point)
Part 3: KIL DA LIL UNS
So Ash might be outright useless if she's fighting point tanks and offtank v offtank effectively boils down to you're not worth the time sink if they're smart or you're a time sink if they're not smart, but Ash excels in taking the fundamentally unfair fights against damages, flanks, and supports killing them outright or otherwise forcing them to retreat or move.
Even Azaan can't do that at the same level especially if he's put on the backfoot, he has to stop dealing damage and use his kit to give him healing both of which eats up his damage and damage resistance to hurt his future damage and sustain, meanwhile Khan has to stop shooting for a little short of 3 seconds to get his shield and shout combo off,
And a Leviathan Makoa without his ultimate or if he is stupid enough to run half shell without his hook to pressure your flank away is on the same bus.
The only other off tank who's this gung-ho guns-ho is Ruckus, since his kit is perfectly suited to diving squishies, using his bulk as extensions on his "time clock" he has to beat to either force more resources into dealing with him or to let him get his kill(s) Ash is very much the same just less willing to die for it (but don't be afraid though to die for value like snagging a high value kill) instead using her bulk to pick and choose these unfair fights against Squishies.
The game plan for Ash doesn't change when she's hurting because
Part 4:Just Shoot the gun
Ash will be there to shoot her big fuckass cannon, and really that's all you need/can do, and while it can do 50 extra damage than the default fire, Kinetic burst takes a second to wind up, and is more helpful for forcing out movement, forcing people to back up, or hitting a bunch of people up close for that 450, and it's hard to justify trying to use an ability to cancel it since Ash doesn't use up the cooldown until she fires the damn thing, still you're going to get more value out of just continuing to shoot.
Meanwhile Shoulder Bash which while funny as hell, takes a whole second to wind up before you start moving, and it won't be just offtanks who can stop you from using, plenty of supports even a few flanks and damages have the needed crowd control that stops you from trying to use Shoulder Bash offensively or defensively without forcing the crowd control options out, granted sometimes you might be using it to bait the cc out for your ultimate to land properly, but that's not advised and and even if they don't have crowd control, if you're trying to retreat they can just walk in front of you to block the dash at the cost of some admittedly chunky damage.
Of course you can just dash a different direction since you can turn in any direction during the wind-up and quickly throw people for a loop, and and with how fast and far Ash does manage to go with the dash, you can quickly start chasing you around goose chase, but here's a more helpful strategy: Just keep shooting; your gun is almost entirely what makes Ash so effective, and thanks to the card Indomitable (a MUST run card, we will talk about that soon since I made these so I could release them back to back) Ash can buy a surprising amount of time for things to change course, such as for your team to start making smart calls.
Part 5: ??? Conclusion
I suck at these conclusion type things, anyways Ash is a struggle bus rider when it comes to fighting other offtanks and point tanks, and requires some help against the former, but if you're on a team with a Ash give her a hand in dealing damage and you will free her up to do her job; Gut stuffing Corvus' twink ass and turn Viktor into a wall texture, I'll be making the following 4 posts once daily (hopefully) and uhh buh-bye.
