Saati is the newest Paladins damage champion, a trick shooter bounty hunter equipped with a heavy fantasy-styled Deagle, and a bag full of cool tricks. She arrives in Paladins at the start of September in the Trickshot update, which also brings a new Event Pass, new Trials of the Realm, and a Stone Keep map revamp.
Overview and abilities
Saati is a damage champion in Paladins, which generally means her job is to sit in mid-range and soften enemies trying to claim the objective, while also watching out for flanks and being a general nuisance. She has 2200 health, and her abilities have no cooldowns and use a resource system similar to Koga’s energy bar instead. She has 8 pips that recharge over time, and each of her abilities consumes a number of pips, allowing her to double up on a chosen ability at any given time.
To do her job, Saati is armed with a bulky Hand Cannon that deals 525 damage every half-second and has a 7-round magazine. It has a 1.5 headshot multiplier, and its damage dropoff begins at the 60 unit mark. This gun can melt most characters in Paladins in under two seconds, and no cover or invisibility works against it, thanks to the rest of Saati’s kit.
- Ricochet: Saati flips a slow-traveling coin into the air, which flies in an arc and deals 100 damage to the first enemy it hits. If Saati shoots the coin while it’s in mid-air, it deals 250 to the closest enemy within 65 units; the coin also stops moving after the first shot, making successive hits easier. The coin will be destroyed after landing 4 shots on it, exploding and dealing 550 damage to enemies within 10 units. This ability costs 2 pips.
- Blast Back: Saati blasts enemies in a 45 unit cone in front of her for 250 damage, knocks them a short distance back, and sets them on fire. She simultaneously pushes herself back up to 25 units. This ability costs 4 pips.
- Dead Ringer: Saati becomes invisible for 1.5 seconds and deploys a cardboard cutout of herself (yes, really) which doubles as cover and a turret. The Dead RInger cutout fires a three-shot burst in a straight line in the direction it’s facing every second, each shot dealing 150 damage. The cutout has 1500 health and Reveals enemies for 1 second for every shot that the enemy lands on the decoy; landing a killing blow on the Dead Ringer will reveal that enemy to Saati for 3 seconds instead. This preposterous, awesome ability costs 4 pips.
- Wallbang: Saati’s ultimate ability supercharges her Hand Cannon to fire up to 3 piercing bullets. Each bullet pierces through all terrain and enemies in its path, dealing 777 damage to anyone and anything struck.
Tips and key cards
The first thing to note about playing Saati in Paladins is that you may be tempted to use Ricochet all the time, and that would be a bad idea. Ricochet is very flashy and fun to use, but even with perfect hits, it deals less overall damage than simply shooting enemy champions with your crystal-powered Deagle. This ability is best saved up for when you really need to hit opponents cowering in cover. Dead Ringer is usually a better investment of your pips since it punishes opponents when they fight it, and also when they ignore it.
Unlike most Paladins champions, Saati comes with great flexibility built into her base kit. Every ability in her arsenal can do multiple things. She can reposition herself, go invisible, knock enemies back (or up), set up cover and turrets, deal damage around corners, blow stuff up, reveal enemies in cover or in stealth, and much more. For that reason, it pays off to take base Armor and Weapon cards and play reactively, rather than try to build up a specific ability or tactic.
Our recommended Saati cards are Designer Armor x 5 (health increased by a total of 250), Sure Shot x 5 (ultimate charge rate increased by a total of 15%), and Bullet Hopper x1 (magazine size increased by 1). The remaining points in your build can be spent to deal with specific situations or enemy compositions.
- Against teams with multiple short-range champions and flankers, you can take the Window of Opportunity talent with the Plated Leggins and Grab and Go cards. This combo punishes enemies who get too close to you.
- The Heads or Tails talent is good in general, but it’s especially useful against shield-based tanks, of which Paladins has no shortage. When using this talent, put a couple more points into the Bullet Hopper card to ensure you always have ammo for Ricochet. While they don’t have any mathematical synergy with the talent, you can also take the Steady Predictions and Steel Coin Purse cards to make your Ricochet that much more useful.
- The Improvised talent lets you deploy your Dead Ringer cutouts more often, which is handy when your team doesn’t have the staying power to properly control the point. To complement the Improvised talent you can take the Reinforced Standee and Paper Design cards.
Since the pip system allows Saati to repeatedly spam the same ability, you could also build a few extra decks for her that focus on specific parts of her kit.
- Wallbang spam – Sure Shot x5 and Steady Predictions x 5. This combo allows you to use Saati’s ultimate ability as often as possible, taking advantage of her ability to find opponents without actually having line of sight on them.
- Full armor – Designer Armor x5, Plated Leggins x4, and Steel Coin Purse x4. These three cards grand Saati extra health and damage resistance. Combine them with the Heads or Tails talent for the healing, or the Improvised talent for more Dead Ringers.
- Surveillance – Seek x5, Bullet Hopper x3, and the Heads or Tails talent. This is the most revealing effects you can stack onto Saati’s kit. It’s dubious whether this combo actually helps you win, but you can run it if you are obsessed with keeping tabs on opponents.
- Close quarters – Designer Armor x5, Grab and Go x3, Plated Leggins x5, and the Window of Opportunity talent. This is the optimal combo if you would like to play Saati as a flanker. With this deck,getting up close and hitting unsuspecting backline champions with Blast Back is an almost guaranteed death sentence.
- Never running dry – Bullet Hopper x5 and Grab and Go x5. This is the definition of overkill, but if you absolutely hate reloading you can run this card combo.
