Free Agent - NA
I consider myself to be an above average Paladins player. I've mostly been playing against bots for the first two seasons (don't judge me plz) but now that I have more experience playing against real people, I feel like I am in a better position to make this tierlist. I've also racked up on more than 3500 hours on Team Fortress 2 mostly playing scout, soldier and medic so I would like to think my experience helps me to know what is difficult to play and what is not.
ss
Evie is by far the hardest champion to master in the game. She requires consistent use of flick shots. Her two movement abilities are fast which requires good mechanical ability to use. Evie mains use her Wormhole Talent the majority of time which requires you to memorize her original blink spot. Tracking her cooldown timers and using all her abilities is a must. She is prone to being killed if her movement is bad. She requires excellent game knowledge and game sense in order to utilize to her fullest potential.
s+
I cannot for the life of me land headshots Andro's autos consistently. Maybe I just suck or the server lag hits me too hard but his F feels clunky to use. Anyways, it's obvious why Andro is in this tier. You need to be precise with your aim and flickshot while keeping track of your cooldowns. He has a lot of skill expression with his F because you can quickly combo it with your other abilities. As with all the champions in this tier, you need excellent game knowledge and game sense in order to utilize them to their fullest potential.
Maeve's daggers are not as easy to land as it seems. She requires quick thinking, good movement and precise aim to pull off well.
Sha Lin is also difficult to play and master because if you miss one shot, you are prone to being instantly killed. He does not use a scope like Kinessa and Strix so imo, it is harder to land headshots with him. If you play with the Desert Silence talent, it requires additional skill since you have to perfectly time the use of the silence. If the timing is on point, the outplay potential is limitless. Like all stealth champions, Illuminate counters you but if you can be quick and precise with your aim, you can kill squishy and/or low health opponents before they can react to where you are.
Bomb King requires precise aim as well. It's difficult to consistently land sticky bombs. If the opponents are farther away, it is harder to land the stickies because they are thrown at an arch which often results in bombs thrown over people. His Poppy Bomb allows skilled players to consistently outplay their opponents.
Mal'damba requires a lot of juggling between abilities. It's really stressful playing him since you have to keep track of so many things at once. His stun after his reload is hard to land because your mind is busy processing the current state of the game and keeping track of cooldowns.
s
Kinessa requires excellent game sense and good aim. She is harder to pull off than Strix because the lack of quick scoping damage. Quick reaction time with her is a plus since it is easy to flank her in a lot of maps. Skilled Kinessa players can outplay you with their aim and using Transporter but there's not much else to her. Oppressor Mines is a weak albeit straightforward ability.
Atlas is weirdddd. He is not that mechanically difficult to play besides landing Setback and leftclicks but his kit is so non-intuitive. Like his abilities don't do damage and aren't straight forward to use. Just because of this, I find him difficult to be effective with. He's also very situational so I don't have enough experience commenting on what it's like playing versus his hardest counters.
s-
Cassie is your standard shoot from the backline DPS champ. She's similar to Lian but without the auto aim. Her abilities are pretty straightforward and precise aim is key to mastering her.
Koga is similar to Zhin. They both have dashes for escaping and are super mobile. Koga requires a bit more precision and concentration since it's an automatic weapon and you have to keep track of energy usage on top of cooldown timers.
Lian is easy to dominate people with since she has a high burst of damage while being agile. Mastering her movement ability in sync with the rest of her kit can be challenging. It's easy to mistime her ult ability.
Putting Dredge in this tier is probably controversial but hear me out. Spamming Broadside is easy against noobs but landing his left clicks consistently on top opponents with good usage of movement abilities is hard. It's like Bomb King level hard. He is very easy to be flanked on and portal only helps you get away once. If your portal locations are bad or are too predictable, it's easy for the enemy to outplay you. His ult is surprisingly more difficult to land than I initially thought.
Landing shots with Willo is more difficult than Drogoz because she is shorter. Perhaps this is because I have very little play time with Willo but the angle you are shooting from with her just seems harder. She has more utility abilities than Drogoz which gives her more skill expression. She is less forgiving for poor positioning since her movement ability, Flutter, is short distance. I also believe landing shots in her ultimate form requires more skill to use than Drogoz's one hit KO ult which is why I am putting her a tier higher.
Buck's talent Bounce House is the only reason why I am putting Buck in this tier. It requires the use of flickshots for mastery. Other than that, I put Buck in A- Tier.
In order to master Strix, you need to be good at quickscoping or not scoping at all depending on the situation. He is easily flanked and requires good game awareness in order to not be a position where he is getting dove on.
Pip's Weightless is extremely rewarding when used correctly. It just sucks how inaccurate he is shooting while he has it activated. Besides that huge drawback, he has lots of outplay potential for a support because of Weightless.
Terminus requires hitting Calamity Blast shots accurately to refill his use of his Power Siphon to soak up damage. It's difficult to land Calamity Blasts consistently because of the "recoil effect" while shooting and the delay before he starts shooting? Also opponents can hide out of line of sight or use their movement abilities to make you miss the blasts which leaves you vulnerable. I put him in this tier solely based on the fact I have so much trouble hitting enemies with Calamity Blasts. His ultimate is easy to play around. Perhaps he should be a tier lower for other people.
a+
Drogoz is my favourite champion to play because it's so effortless to deal damage with him using the Fusillade talent. 1k damage per shot without needing to charge up anything or aim for the head? It makes any 1 v 1 duel you encounter so easy! He is top tier in close to midrange combat. You don't have to have precise aim like all the other hitscan champs. Unfortunately, around experienced players, he gets hard countered by Evie, Andro, Sha Lin, Lian, Burst Mode Viktor, Strix, etc. so there are very strong limits with what you can and cannot do regardless of mastery level. Luckily, Drogoz is versatile so if you are faced against a counter, you can play like passively like Cassie and rely on Fire Spit or Fusillade empowered shots. There is still a lot of skill expression with him such as landing air shots and being able to predict your enemy's movements. I think using the Combustible talent, activating the Fire Spit and landing your shot right after is the most difficult part about mastering him.
Imani's kit is complicated because of the two stances. Her fire side is like Sha Lin and her ice side is like Tiberius? Her movement ability is very slow which makes her being vulnerable while travelling. The dragon ult is a nightmare for noobs to handle but is almost useless in high level play. I don't have enough experience with her to put her in a higher tier.
Zhin was already touched on a lil above. He requires less precision than all the champions in this tier but utilizing all his abilities effectively needs mastering.
Makoa. I don't know how people land Makoa hooks because I certainly can't. Other than that, he's not mechanically hard to master.
a
Tiberius is average when it comes to difficulty of aiming. His ult form does take some practice to use and can be used to outplay foes. All of his other abilities are straightforward.
Talus requires precise aim because his effective range forces him to fight in close quarters. His annoyance factor is high since it seems like he's consistently in your face. There is some outplay potential in his knockback ability, Blitz Upper.
Grohk is average in terms of difficulty of aiming. His abilities are relatively straightforward. Mastering totem placements and using Ghost Walk at the right time are the most difficult parts about him.
Ying is relatively difficult to play only because of the talent Life Exchange. It's easy to panic hit F (Dimensional Link) but inexperienced players often find themselves dead as the placements of their illusions weren't optimal.
Lex is surprisingly more difficult to play than I initially thought. You have to be comfortable with where you land after your slide ability and be able to start hitting shots right after. The Death Hastens talent makes it significantly more difficult to land autos.
Viktor is here because burst mode Viktor requires pretty good precision to use effectively but all his other talents and abilities are very basic to use.
Corvus requires less concentration than Mal'damba to be effective with. His weapon is easy to aim with and his escape ability is similar to Kinessa's.
I don't know where to put Io because I hate playing her. I think her kit is fundamentally weak since you have to heal your target to the optimal level and then start dealing damage while other supports can do damage and heal at the same time. High level players can kill Luna so fast and the cooldown to get Luna back is so long...it just feels she has her limits and mastering her won't change the course of the game too much.
a-
Furia is easy to deal damage and heal with. All her abilities are very straight forward abilities. Since she got nerfed again, it is harder to play her since the decay on Wrath is much faster now which screws up with landing your autos. Her Solar Blessing talent is the hardest thing to master since it requires coordination from your team as well.
Grover is easy to play like Furia. It is slightly more difficult to land autos with him since it's not hitscan. Landing Crippling Throws and using his ultimate at the right time are the most difficult parts about Grover.
Khan's ult is hard to land consistently. Other than that he is mechanically easy to play.
Inara revolves around juggling her damage reduction abilities so at least one is activated at any given moment. I don't find any of her kit to be challenging as she is extremely tanky.
b
Seris is rated slightly harder to play than Jenos because it is harder to land her autos (at least for me due to the delay of the projectile) which makes using her Agony talent (stuns enemies if you land 4 Soul Charges on them) more difficult. She also needs line of sight to heal allies unlike Jenos which makes her less forgiving to poor positioning. Her escape ability prevents her from healing for quite a long time (not sure on the exact amount of time) which also adds onto her difficulty because you have to decide in the spur of the moment whether not healing your allies is worth your own survival.
While Moji players require very little amount of aiming, she is very squishy which makes her less forgiving to poorly-timed Magic Barriers and Scampers. Bunny hopping takes some practice and using her ultimate isn't just one click of a button. Often times you have to pair the ult with using Magic Barrier and/or Scamper first.
c
All of these champions have low skill expression except for their ultimate abilities which are all very impactful when used at the right moment. Their other abilities are very straightforward to use. They are not as reliant on being on top of tracking their cooldown timers compared to the other champions above.
A master Skye player needs to deal consistent headshots in order to be effective because she has no other forms of consistent damage other than her Debilitate ability which got nerfed severely. Her outplay potential is minimal as long as the enemy builds Illuminate and more experienced players tend to rely on audio cues to know where she is. She has no gap closers or vertical mobility which leads to my conclusion of her having low skill expression.
Ashe is technically harder to play than Skye if you're new to FPS games; however, I find that since she is so tanky, it is much more forgivable if she misses a shot or two. Getting environmental eliminations with her takes some game knowledge and good timing but those things aren't hard to learn. Her movement ability is a get out of jail free card or can be used to initiate on a good target. Using it effectively just takes practice and isn't difficult to execute properly.
Fernando requires very little aim like Moji but since he is a tank, it is more forgiving if he misses a Fireball. His ultimate requires good timing to use but there's not much else to say.
Ruckus is easy to aim with and is a very good beginner champion. The only difficult thing about him is landing the missiles and knowing when to duck in and out of a fight because he's not very tanky.
Torvald used to be a great champion but what do I know, I wasn't playing Paladins at the time. Nowadays, he is resorted to being a shield bot with no mobility and subpar damage.
Barik has simple abilities to use. It's also easy to aim with him. I don't know why anyone would rank him higher.
Raum is like Ruckus but is way tankier and has a get out of jail movement ability. Mastering him requires you to play around his counters such as crowd control abilities. Landing his ultimate on multiple enemies isn't that hard since the spread is so huge.
Tyra's lack of mobility and ease of use in her kit makes her easy to master. Good usage of Burn Monster is the hardest thing to master about her.
Jenos is just right click and heal. Then you fly around with your movement ability and remember who you are healing in order to be able to rotate between healing 3 people at the same time. Landing his ult is sometimes luck and sometimes skill. Having voice comms tell you when it is the optimal time to use the ult doesn't really make his ult difficult to master. He's also really easy to aim with.
d
Extremely easy to aim with. Abilities very straightforward to use. No escape ability. Very low mobility even with the movement speed increase with her loadout. Long clip size promotes standing still while shooting.