Paine — Patch 1.63 Verdict
[Web: S+ | Web: S+ | Web: A | Web: A] Ranked S+ on zathong.com. Ranked S+ on metatierlist.com. Ranked A on pillarofgaming.com. Ranked A on commonsensegamer.com.
Paine — Assassin Guide
Key Insights
- Passive (Soul Divide): any skill hit primes an empowered auto that teleports you behind the target and deals double magic damage.
- Passive (Soul Divide): kills and assists permanently raise your energy cap toward 200, those early jungle skirmishes are stat gains, not gambles.
- Q (Soul Tidings): grants CC immunity on cast, letting you eat a point-and-click stun (Grakk, Thane) and arrive behind them mid-animation.
- Q (Soul Tidings): cast through thin terrain walls then recast to teleport across them, creating ambush angles that never show on the minimap.
- R (Acknowledge): the startup includes a backward hop that makes incoming skill shots whiff if you time the cast as the projectile arrives.
Strengths
Soul Divide teleports him behind backliners through any frontline.
Soul Tidings CC immunity hard-counters hook-and-chain combos.- Kill-stacking energy snowballs his ceiling harder than any jungler.
Elegy's wide silence controls Dragon and Abyssal Dragon fights.
Weaknesses
- Displacement mid-combo (Baldum, Arduin) kills the Soul Cut window.
- Slower clear than Kil'Groth or Veres; counter-jungling delays Loki's Curse.
- No escape when Q and R are both on cooldown, a 3-4 second dead zone.
- Magic-resist stacks crush his late-game; he has no AA sustain fallback.
Matchups
Abilities
PSoul Divide
Each time Paine uses an ability, his auto attacks within 4s are converted to Soul Cuts, dealing magic damage. After Soul Cuts appear, the first hit teleports him behind the enemy and deals 2x damage. Kills or assists increase max energy by 10 (max 200).
1Soul Tidings
Paine commands a spirit that deals magic damage to enemies it passes through. He gains crowd control immunity while this skill is active. When the skill ends or is reactivated, he teleports to the spirit's location, dealing magic damage and slowing enemies hit for 1s.
2Elegy
Paine plays a melody, dealing magic damage and silencing nearby enemies. If enemies remain in the magic circle for over 2s, he recovers energy.
RAcknowledge
Paine leaps backward then dashes to a target location (taking reduced damage during this time). He deals magic damage and inflicts 50% reduced damage to enemies he passes through.
Skill Order
Priority: R > Q > W| Skill | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Soul Tidings | 1 | · | 3 | · | 5 | · | 7 | · | 9 | · | · | · | 13 | · | · |
| 2Elegy | · | 2 | · | 4 | · | · | · | 8 | · | 10 | · | 12 | · | 14 | · |
| RAcknowledge | · | · | · | · | · | 6 | · | · | · | · | 11 | · | · | · | 15 |
Loadout
Desolate
Spirit
StainJungle
1
2
3
4
5
6Core Combos
Standard All-In
1P2RThe bread-and-butter gank pattern: fire Q toward the target, consume the Soul Cut teleport with one auto as soon as you appear behind them, drop Elegy to silence any escape skills, then R forward if they try to run, use this sequence in 90% of your ganks.
Wall-Hop Opener
R1P2When approaching a sidelane gank over terrain, open with R through the wall to land directly on the target before they can see you on the minimap, then chain Q into Soul Cut into Elegy to finish; the surprise arrival from the wall is usually enough to delete a squishy laner before they can react.
CC-Immune Engage
12PRAgainst poke-heavy or hook-heavy enemies (Grakk, Riktor), walk into range and cast Q first to gain CC immunity, drop Elegy immediately to silence, consume Soul Cut, then R to close if they survive. The Q cast completely skips the 'gets hooked before doing anything' death pattern other assassins suffer.
Escape and Punish
21PRWhen dived under tower by an enemy assassin, drop Elegy at your feet to silence them first, then reposition with Q while the Soul Cut auto hits through the silence window, and finish with R if needed or use R purely as the escape vector. Turning a gank-on-you into a double kill is Paine's single most demoralising play.
Expert Video Guide
ROV : สอนเล่น Paine ตัวโกงเพราะสกิน แพทซ์ล่าสุดสายถึก+แรง!!! — Jayop
Gameplan
Paine's first spike lands the moment Loki's Curse completes, usually around four to five minutes if the jungle route is clean. From there through roughly twelve minutes he is at his most dangerous relative to the map; most supports and mages haven't built magic resist yet, so his burst-then-teleport combo one-shots them. He dips slightly between Loki's and Hecate's Diadem because his damage is technically single-item, but he stays threatening on mobility alone. Post-Hecate's (third or fourth item) he re-enters a second spike through the mid-game objectives. Late game against full builds, pick your moments rather than diving blindly.
Early Game
Levels 1–6- →Run a red-buff start into a full clear toward the enemy side, looking to invade at level three with Soul Divide already active, Paine's CC immunity on Q makes him one of the safest early invaders in the game.
- →Gank mid at level four the moment you have Q and W ready simultaneously; mid-lane mages with no dashes are free kills and every kill stacks your energy cap toward the 200-unit ceiling.
- →Contest Dragon at its first spawn (usually around three to four minutes), your Elegy silence prevents the enemy jungler from kiting around the pit and Punish secures the objective cleanly.
Mid Game
Post Broken Spear- →Rotate between every successful kill and the nearest uncontested objective; Paine's mobility means he can kill a carry on one side of the map and arrive at Dragon or a tower before the enemy team can collapse.
- →Focus your ganks on eliminating enemy supports and mages rather than tanks, your damage does not care about physical armor, and silencing a support before a teamfight starts is worth more than burning health on a Maloch.
- →When ahead, burn wards aggressively in the enemy jungle with your Q-teleport scouting angle and force pick patterns; Paine wins map control games faster than almost any other S-tier jungler this patch.
Late Game
Teamfight phase- →Identify the single squishiest enemy carry in every teamfight and save your full Q into Soul Cut into W into R combo exclusively for them, do not spread skills across multiple targets or your burst becomes meaningless.
- →Stay at the edge of every teamfight until an opening appears; a poorly-timed dive into Elegy range of your own team or into a Baldum zone is the primary way Paine players throw games from a winning position.
- →Build Arctic Orb as your sixth item and use its active the moment you are focused after the dive, the brief invincibility covers the window where both Q and R are on cooldown and lets you chain a second rotation.
Pro Tips
- →You can cast Q through thin terrain walls and then immediately re-cast it to teleport across the wall, this is not widely known and creates ambush angles that are nearly invisible on the minimap.
- →The Soul Divide energy cap increase from kills is permanent and carries across respawns; prioritise early skirmishes in the first three minutes specifically to push that cap up before your first back, because higher energy means more Q and W casts in every subsequent fight.
- →Against an enemy with a point-and-click stun who is about to fire it (Thane, Maloch), delay your Q cast until you can see the animation wind up, then press Q immediately, the CC immunity frame will eat the stun and you arrive behind them while they are mid-animation.
- →R's damage reduction on enemies you pass through is 50%, but it applies to every enemy in the dash path simultaneously, in a 5v5 teamfight near Dragon, deliberately aim the R through the largest cluster of enemies rather than at the carry, because the mitigation debuff on five targets is worth more than a clean kill on one.
Paine is for the player who wants to be the most disorienting force on the map, someone who is never where the enemy thought they were and has already started the next kill before the current one finishes animating. His S-tier status this patch is genuine and earned, but it only shows up for someone who has drilled the Soul Divide auto-cancel timing until it is unconscious. One thing above all: the Soul Cut empowered auto is your highest-damage action in any rotation, and spending a skill to trigger it then failing to consume it is the most common reason Paine players underperform.
Paine — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Paine good in the current ROV patch?+
Yes. Paine is firmly S tier on the Thai server this patch, with strong pick and ban presence in Diamond-and-above lobbies. The Loki's Curse buff, the current pile of squishy mid-lane mages, and the relative lack of reliable Paine counters all converge to make him one of the highest-value jungle picks available.
What is the best build for Paine?+
Consensus Thai-server core is Loki's Curse first into Gilded Greaves, then Boomstick, Hecate's Diadem, Rhea's Blessing, and Arctic Orb to close out. Loki's Curse is non-negotiable first because its burst amplification lines up exactly with the Soul Divide empowered auto window; any other first item noticeably weakens his early-gank damage.
How do you counter Paine?+
Pair a displacement or heavy-CC support (Baldum, Arum) with a vision-generating jungler (Lindis): the first breaks his combo, the second removes his surprise factor. Individually, building Rhea's Blessing early on your support and mage buys enough bulk to survive his first rotation and gives your team time to collapse while his cooldowns are spent.
Is Paine hard to play / good for beginners?+
Hard, and not a beginner pick. His entire damage output is gated behind the Soul Divide rhythm, specifically knowing when to hold an auto to consume the Soul Cut teleport, which takes real practice under the pressure of a ranked game. Players comfortable with mechanically complex assassins like Murad or Butterfly adapt fastest.