Paine — Patch 1.62 Verdict
[Default: B]
Paine — Assassin Guide
Paine punishes sloppy positioning before the enemy team even realizes a fight has started. He plays in a rhythm that is almost musical: cast a skill, let the empowered auto (Soul Cut) snap him behind his target, cast again, repeat. When that rhythm is flowing he is one of the most miserable heroes to play against in the game. What separates him from a standard burst mage-assassin like Murad or Quillen is the sheer mobility layered into every part of his kit: Q teleports him to his soul projectile, the passive teleports him behind his target on the empowered auto, and his ultimate has a backward leap baked into its startup. You are never where the enemy expects.
He sits S tier this patch for two reasons. The current item economy rewards the Loki's Curse rush hard, and its burst amplification lines up almost perfectly with his Soul Divide window. And the Thai-server meta has shifted toward frontline-light rosters with a lot of squishy mages in mid, which Paine feasts on. He is not a beginner pick; the passive timing and Q re-cast spacing demand real game sense. But for Diamond-and-above players willing to put in the reps, the gap between a clean Paine and an average one is enormous.
Strengths
- +Soul Divide's teleport-behind mechanic makes Paine nearly impossible to body-block, letting him reach backline carries through an entire frontline without Flicker.
- +The CC immunity built into Soul Tidings gives him a hard counter-play window against hook-and-chain combos that shut down other assassins entirely.
- +His kill-stacking energy system means he snowballs harder than almost any other jungler, each successful gank literally increases his ceiling for the rest of the game.
- +Elegy's silence covers a wide area and doubles as objective control, making him dangerous at Dragon and Abyssal Dragon in ways that pure burst assassins are not.
Weaknesses
- −His entire burst sequence requires precise skill-then-auto rhythm; any ability that displaces him mid-combo (Baldum, Arduin) breaks the Soul Cut window and he does almost nothing.
- −The early jungle clear is slower than dedicated fighter junglers like Kil'Groth or Veres, meaning aggressive counter-jungling can delay his Loki's Curse rush and stall his power spike by a full minute.
- −He has no hard escape if both Q and R are on cooldown simultaneously, good enemies will track his ability timers and commit dives during those three-to-four second dead windows.
- −Against heavy magic-resist stacks (Rhea's Blessing on multiple enemies or a dedicated tank building Gaia) his damage falls off sharply in the late game, and he lacks the AA-based sustained damage to compensate.
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.
How to Use Paine's Kit
This is the engine that makes every other ability hit harder, after any skill lands, your next auto-attack teleports you behind the target and deals double magic damage, so you should always have a skill on cooldown to cook that empowered hit. The most common mistake is panic-recasting Q before consuming the Soul Cut; you lose the teleport proc entirely and your burst window collapses. At high stacks of the kill/assist energy bonus (pushing toward 200), your mana sustain and cooldown feel drastically better, so early skirmishing in the jungle to stack energy is genuinely worth the aggression.
The re-cast is the skill, sending the soul in one direction, letting it drift past the target, then teleporting to it from an unexpected angle is what separates good Paine from great Paine. The CC immunity during the initial cast is a real get-out-of-jail card against point-and-click crowd control like Grakk's hook; recognise those windows and cast Q into the chain rather than after it. Never let the soul expire on its own unless you are using it as a fake-out; the re-cast range and speed are long enough to close almost any post-fight escape.
The silence radius on Elegy is deceptively large and it is your primary peel tool if you get dove by a counter-assassin, drop it underfoot and the mute buys you enough time to re-establish distance with R or Q. The 2-second energy restore mechanic is not just a laning curiosity; in a prolonged teamfight or while taking an objective, standing inside your own Elegy circle for the full duration gives you back enough energy to throw an extra cycle, which can make the difference between a clean ace and a missed kill. Do not cast it at max range on a running target; it needs to land centred on them for the silence to connect reliably.
The backward hop at the start of Acknowledge is not flavour, it is a micro-dodge that can cause skill shots to whiff entirely if you time the cast as the projectile arrives, and experienced Paine players abuse this constantly against heroes like Diao Chan and Natalya. The 50% damage reduction on enemies you pass through means you should aim to clip as many targets as possible during a teamfight dive rather than targeting a single carry cleanly; split the mitigation across the whole team. Use it as an escape tool by targeting a point behind you through terrain; the trajectory can jump walls that most heroes cannot cross.
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 immediately chain Q → Soul Cut → 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 somehow 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.
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 → Soul Cut → W → 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.
Matchups
Paine is most vulnerable to rosters that pair a hard-CC support (Baldum, Arum) with a vision-generating jungler (Lindis); that combination dismantles his surprise-arrival plan and his mid-combo safety at once. If you see that comp in select, check whether your team has a second carry to take the pressure off, and build Arctic Orb earlier than usual. He is a relatively safe first-pick when your team has a binding or displacement support like Aleister or Grakk, since their CC guarantees the Soul Cut window you would otherwise have to make yourself. In solo queue without coordinated support, ban Baldum before unlocking Paine; nothing in the current pool punishes him as cheaply.
Paine gets countered by
BaldumHis barrel toss interrupts Paine mid-combo before the Soul Cut auto lands, completely dismantling the burst window, and his persistent knockup removes the advantage Paine gets from positioning.
ArduinArduin's displacement ultimate physically moves Paine away from his target at the worst possible moment, and his tankiness means Paine's single rotation does not kill him, leaving Paine exposed with cooldowns spent.
LindisHer passive-vision trap reveals Paine's jungle position constantly, removing the surprise-arrival advantage that most of his gank patterns depend on, and her root-on-basic-attack disrupts the Soul Divide auto rhythm.
ArumArum's hook and follow-up lock-down catch Paine during the gap between Q and the Soul Cut auto, and her team-wide peel means his burst rarely reaches the backline carry she is guarding.
Paine synergizes with
NatalyaNatalya's root zone holds enemies in place for the exact duration Paine needs to complete his Q-teleport-behind-and-burst sequence, and her own burst stacks with his to one-shot even tanky mids.
AleisterAleister's binding and follow-up knockup gives Paine a guaranteed free Soul Cut proc on any target Aleister locks, effectively turning every Aleister CC chain into a confirmed kill on the lowest-HP enemy.
GrakkGrakk's tentacle pull yanks targets directly to Paine's feet, removing the positioning puzzle Paine normally has to solve himself, and the setup is so fast that the enemy rarely has time to use a dash escape.
IlumiaIlumia's ultimate creates a large slow zone that groups enemies together and keeps them inside Elegy's silence radius, letting Paine clean up an entire clustered team rather than hunting targets one-by-one.
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.