How to be the
PRIMUS OF HOUSE AICO
This guide is geared for people who already has a decent amount of experience of gameplay, and are trying to learn Khan. This guide will include basic information on talents, skills and abilities, then will continue on how and when to use them.
Regarding loadouts, I am a firm believer that loadouts should be personal and I originally did not want to include loadouts. Despite my own opinion I will still add them because you, the readers, are most likely beginners to Khan and would not know where to begin. You may go through trial and error on which cards you’d want to be in your loadout. However that takes a lot of time, time that some of you might not have. Thus, I will be sharing my own loadouts to give you a small boost. You may also copy pro player loadouts if you don’t trust my own xD. In that case, I suggest copying from main tank pro players such as Rubbu or Tulky. Feel free to edit them as you see fit to match it to your own preferred playstyle.
Who is the Primus of House Aico?
“The Patriarch of House Aico issued a challenge to his captains: hold the house’s banner for as long as possible. Few were strong enough to last a day. The last captain to receive the test, a young man named Khan, held the banner for hours. As his arms tired, he beckoned to a common servant and asked her to take it from him, “Even though I must fall,” he said, “the banner will remain.” This was not test of strength, but one of loyalty to House Aico. Khan passed the test and proved himself worthy of command. Today, he serves Lian as advisor and protector”
Khan is a hybrid, semi-support, frontline champion, who is capable of fulfilling both the roles of a point tank and a bruiser tank*. His skills center around solidifying team position and breaking apart enemy lines. Khan has a 4000 health pool with a 350 movement speed.
Skills Basic information, usage and tips
Main Weapon: Heavy Repeater
Fires one 200 direct damage shot every 0.26 seconds
- Base clip size: 20
- Reload speed: 1.5 sec
- Effective until medium range
200 damage every 0.26 seconds? Doesn’t seem to amount to much now doesn’t it? Well no worries because I have a piece of good news for you.
In theory, Khan’s heavy repeater has the second highest weapon dps* (damage per second) among the frontlines. This weapon dps alone allows Khan to act with impunity against enemy squishes* and sometimes even against enemy frontlines. Now that’s all fine and dandy, 2nd highest dps and all that, but I want you to remember: that’s only in theory. It works under the assumption that every bullet you shoot is a confirmed hit.
But don’t panic yet, you don’t need an aim like those of pro players. I have an additional piece good news for you: It’s very easy to confirm hits bullet after bullet. Why would that be? Two reasons: Recoil and Weapon inaccuracy. The heavy repeater doesn’t have any recoil and its inaccuracy is minimal. As long you could track the enemy’s movements, you could pound that weapon dps into your enemy. (The gun feels like it shoots flying jackhammers rather than a bullet lmao) While I’m not saying that you could get a 100% hit rate, it is easy to get a decently high enough hit rate that you could already feel the terror coming out of the enemy at the sight of their health rapidly decreasing.
But wait. There’s more.
That’s right. I have more good news: As a hitscan weapon* he can deal bonus damage from doing headshots. Yeah more damage for our Primus in addition to his already high dps. And in case you forgot, it’s easy to land his shots, that means that once you find the enemy head hitbox and if you could lock onto it, they’re gonna get an even heavier pounding than they usually receive. (Innuendo may or may not be intended)
Is there any bad news to this weapon at all? Well if there was any, it would be the effective range of this weapon. Its effective range would be the length of 2 capture points placed side by side, if you shoot further than that, the damage starts to decrease. Furthermore, if your target is as far 3 capture points placed in a line, you might as well prick them with needles. Yes, the damage decrease at that range is that drastic*.
There are four cards that can be added into your loadout that augments the heavy repeater if shooting is what you like. That would be: Bloodthirst, Excessive force, Martial law and Open Fire. Blood thirst adds lifesteal to your weapon attacks, Excessive force increase your clip size and the remaining two gives you ammo when you activate Khan’s skills.
Before I end with this section, there might be some people, who have tried Khan or have seen other people use Khan, say “That’s load horses**t Khan doesn’t always get a high amount of damage at the end of game stats” Regarding that, the answer simple. Khan doesn’t always spend his time shooting at enemies unlike damage or flank class champions. A good Khan uses and manages well his other skills as well, which we will now get into.
- Total DPS is calculated as: (Damage per shot x Magazine count)/( Magazine count x Fire rate + Reload speed)
- Squishes is a term in Paladins community occasionally used to refer to non-frontline champions
- Hitscan weapon are a type of weapon in game where bullet travel time is instant
- Reduction of damage dealt over range is termed as damage fall-off
Alternate Fire: Bulwark
Activate your gauntlet’s Bulwark with 6000 Health. Regenerates while inactive
- Regeneration rate can be increased through cards
- Shield can be toggled on and off, as long as it isn’t destroyed
- If the shield is destroyed, the shield must recharge to half capacity before being used again
- It approximately takes 7 seconds to recharge up to half capacity and 14 seconds to fully recharge
- While inactive, it regenerates approximately 429 shield health per second
This is Khan’s personal shield, and unlike Khan’s heavy repeater that mostly has good news, this shield has balanced advantages and disadvantages. Let’s start with the disadvantages first.
The disadvantage is: It is hella smol. If Makoa’s shell shield is a great dane and Fernando’s shield is a german shepherd, Khan’s shield is a chihuahua. It is so small that protecting others is a very difficult feat. Hell, protecting yourself with it is even difficult if you are under heavy fire. If you do plan to protect your teammate with it, you basically have to body block with the shield up.
The second biggest disadvantage stems from the fact that it is a smol shield. You can only defend yourself from one direction: from the front. Your sides and your back is wide open and susceptible from enemy fire. But it doesn’t end there, it won’t protect you from above and below either. If your enemy is above you, they could shoot at your head. If they are below you, they can shoot at your feet. You can’t even look ‘up’ nor ‘down’ with your shield to protect yourself if the enemies are above or below you.
Now before you say “Its f***ing useless then ain’t it”, remember that it’s only the disadvantage, I haven’t started with the advantages yet.
Its advantage is: It doesn’t have a cooldown. It’s a 6000hp shield that you can bring up and down whenever and whereever the f*** you want to. If there’s anything that resembles a cooldown, it’s only when the shield gets completely broken down. But that’s a matter for managing the shield health. This advantage allows you to protect yourself from annoying things that occasionally isn’t much worth using a shield for other frontliners. For example: Drogoz’s floating spit balloon. You can easily protect yourself from the spit explosion (assuming it wasn’t exploded above your head), or even better catch the spit and prevent the damn thing from exploding in the first place (use the shield to catch not your own body because enemy will deal bonus damage on you from it).
There are many cards that augment the strength of your shield, such as increasing recharge rate, increasing shield health, healing you when its up. But the best one is Hopeguard, with it, you receive increased healing when the shield is up, at max level its essentially a free rejuvenate 3. The reason it’s the best because bringing up your shield allows cauterize to stop. Along with a good support you can get yourself to full health from the brink of death in a snap even if there are five people shooting at you at the same time.
My tip in using the shield is to distribute the damage you will receive between your own health and your own shield. This would essentially make you a 10k hp red giant of terror for your enemies. As to how to do the distribution, I’m afraid you’ll have to learn that with your own. It’s something that can’t be explained in mere words and experience is the best way you can learn it.
First Skill: Battle Shout
Let out a fearsome shout, briefly granting damage immunity to yourself. Additionally, heal yourself and nearby allies for 1000 health.
- Shout provides 1 second damage immunity
- 15 second cooldown
No. You read that right. A frontline capable of healing others. No. He is not a support. Khan is a frontline champion that could heal allies. This skill is Khan’s strongest skill
Before you shout OP read that its only 1000hp. It’s a little less than half of your average squishy hp and it’s also on a 15 second cooldown. Still. More often than not, healing yourself or an ally for 1k would mean the difference between life or death, especially if the enemy has burst champions
There are three different situations where you could best use this skill, and each situation caters to the different features of the shout. One for the damage immunity, one for the self heal, and one for healing allies. Of course there times when 2 situations, maybe even all, can happen at the same time. But honestly waiting for such a time to occur would usually end up the skill being used only once or twice for an entire match. A waste don’t you think? Hence you should use it if even one of the three different situations pop up
When you are expecting a huge amount of burst damage, you can use the shout for the 1 second damage immunity. By huge I don’t mean HUGE, I mean HUGE amount of damage. Such as damaging ultimates like Skye bomb, Terminus reanimate, Dredge fidget spinner of death etc. Make sure you time it right, because most damage ult times have build up time and your damage immunity only lasts one second. It’s not gonna be funny for your teammates if you panicked upon hearing a skye shout “Time’s ticking” and ended up using the skill earlier than you should be. You may use of them for other huge burst of damage like Drogoz disgusting spit fire combo, Imani Kamekameha, Bombking grumpy bomb etc., but it wouldn’t be much of worth ya kno, using the shield for those is much more efficient.
For self heals, it would mean that you should this skill as a means of self sustain. It would help a lot to relieve a little burden from your support from directing healing resource to you, allowing the support to heal your other allies more. (Of course as a frontline, the support should still prioritize you). A tip I can give you is if you are cornered and dying but need to survive for single moment more, I suggest you bring up your shield for 1.5 seconds and then use the battle shout. That should allow for any cauterize to wear off and allow you to get a maximized 1k heal.
As for healing allies, just wait for cauterize to wear off. Like how you would do it as if you are a support champion. Do note that the healing radius is around the size of the capture point, it’s not that big.
This skill also has its own cards that can augment its strength, there’s one that grants additional heals upon activation, there’s one that grants a speed buff, and finally there is one that reduces cooldown. The most important one is the last one I mentioned, which is Never Surrender!.
Oh, by the way. This is the skill I meant when I said “solidifying team position” at the intro
Second Skill: Commander’s Grab
Surge forward! Grabbing, stunning, and throwing the first enemy you contact. Deals 600 damage.
- Melee Damage
- 1 second stun
- Grabbed enemies are thrown behind Khan
- 12 second cooldown
This a movement skill. This is also a damage skill. This is also a crowd control (Slang: CC)* skill. A three in one skill that can be used for three different situations as well, just like the battle shout. However unlike the battle shout there its usage is much more complex due to the nature of the skil. Prepare yourself for a small wall of text that I’m about to slap you with.
Let’s start discussing about how to use the skill as a movement skill. One word:
DON’T
Personally. Just don’t. As much as you can, don’t use it as a movement skill. It’s a waste to use it as such. The dash is too slow, there’s a lot of animation involved, the distance is covered is also too low, about the diameter of the capture point.
Well there are cases where you have no choice to use it as a movement skill, most of such cases is just to escape. Which is acceptable. It’ll likely end up you dying anyway because of how slow it is.
But if you are going to use it chase people around… good luck, I guess?
TL;DR As much as possible, don’t use this skill as a movement skill
There’s not much discussion about using it as a damage skill. You could use it as a finisher to confirm kills, you could use it as an opener to gain the advantage against your opponent. It’s a 600 burst. Not something that can be shrugged off especially when it’s a squishy.
Now the most important aspect of this skill, is the CC. An easy way to use it as such is on those who are using channeling skills. Why? Because it f***s them up lmao. For example you see Fernando/Makoa bringing up their gigantic shields, or Androxus with reversal up. Just be the naughty child, grab them and cancel their skills.
However. It doesn’t end there, because it’s not just a stun on the enemy, it’s also a knockback, albeit one that goes behind you; where your support and damage dealers are. To put it in analogy, using this skill is akin to you basically throwing a juicy animal (or juicy branch if you a vegan) into a den of hungry wolves. “So you mean I can just grab anyone and threw them at my teammates?”. Yes, however you have to carefully choose on who you throw to your allies. You can’t just willy nilly throw anyone you could grab to your allies. What if you threw a full health frontline backwards? You did throw in a juicy animal to a den of hungry wolves but that animal you threw is a tiger. You can expect what will happen right? It’s bad. Very bad. A pack of wolves may be able to deal with a tiger but casualties are highly expected. And similar to that your damage class allies may be able to deal with the full health frontline but you can expect the frontline to wreak havoc in your backlines. What you want to throw in is not a tiger, but a juicy lamb, one that your teammates can easily deal with.
This means that there is an order of prioritization.
- First and foremost would be the enemy support. You’d want them to be in a position they don’t want. They’re the juiciest lambs you can find around town.
- Second would be any annoying enemy damage or flank class, especially those who brazenly walked in front of their frontlines.
- Last would be the enemy frontlines, but it shouldn’t be any frontline. It should be low health frontlines, those who are trying their best to survive. Even a dying tiger can’t be much of a threat against a pack of wolves
Keep this order in mind as you think of how the wolves will tear these juicy animals part
You think I’m done with this skill? Nopeee. There is still more. It’s the disadvantage of using this skill as damage/CC skill. Remember that I said this “dash is too slow, there’s a lot of animation involved, and that it covers too little distance”? The disadvantage lies in there. Using this skill leaves you vulnerable. In order for you to grab and throw someone, you have to get a lot closer to them than you’d like. More often than not, you’d end up in positions you don’t like, e.g. somewhere where all five enemies can shoot at you at the same time. Even if you managed to grab someone, it might be also in the position where the remaining four guns can still shoot at you. Which means that while you are trying to make an offering to your teammates, you might accidentally end up offering yourself to your enemies. And that’s bad.
In order to use this skill effectively as a CC skill, you have to weigh the risks and benefits. There is no way I can list all possible scenarios and tell you how to do it. The best way for you to learn is to dive in there and grab the experience for yourself. (That line was totally inteded)
NOPE I’M NOT DONE YET. BEAR WITH ME FOR A WHILE. Just one more paragraph. After all we still have the cards. These cards can help you out a lot. There are 4 cards for it but only two are crucial. One is the cooldown reduction card, Hulking strength and one that grants damage reduction after grabbing an enemy, Close and personal. These two cards are needed if you are the type to offer up lambs to your allies.
Yes, this is the skill I meant when I said “breaking apart enemy lines” at the intro nyahaha
- Crowd control or CC are the status effects of the game. There are a few different types of CC in game. CC is countered by CC immunity and Resilience
Ultimate: Overpower
Target an enemy and drag them to you. You may move your powerless victim as you see fit or send them flying with a mighty blast
- This ultimate is a skillshot, meaning you have to aim it like you would with a gun
- Overpowered enemies gets stunned and silenced that lasts 5 seconds.
- The duration can be reduced by resilience, with a minimum duration of 2 seconds.
- Target receives 50 direct damage per second for the duration of the hold
- Target is thrown away by 100 horizontal units after the duration of the ultimate. Target may be preemptively thrown away before the duration ends
- If target hits a wall after being thrown, target receives 700 direct damage.
- If target hits another enemy champion, both targets receives 700 direct damage each
- Khan is CC immune for the whole duration
- Khan is refunded 30% Ult charge if target dies within 2 seconds or if he misses
Before the change at Patch Fire and Ice, this ultimate was one of the reason Khan was a must pick/ban. His Ultimate was a auto aim and was basically a guaranteed kill. By Patch Fire and Ice they changed his ultimate into a skillshot, drastically decreasing his standing among the frontlines. However that change doesn’t mean that his Overpower is currently weaker that it was before. In fact it may even be stronger as the compensation for the change was an increase in grab range.
There are two standard ways to use Khan’s ultimate. One relies on map knowledge and terrain, and another requires teammate’s coordination.
The first method is utilize the map terrain and environmental hazards and immediately throwing the unwilling victim until kingdom come. This usually means throwing the enemy at the map edge or at other enviromental hazards.
The second method is used if the map terrain is too far or that enemy is smart enough to not go to areas where Khan could easily Overpower them and throw them to their deaths. This involves signaling your teammates that Khan, the sacrificial altar, is prepared and ready to make an offering to whichever deity the teammates gives his praise. Simply put, just grab an enemy, shove them in front of the ally and let them gobble up the unfortunate soul.
Khan’s ultimate is similar to his commander’s grab in a few ways. You could say that his ultimate is just a better version of his skill. One example of them being similar is Overpower puts a single enemy into a position they don’t want. “Then should I use the prioritization order of commander’s grab for Overpower as well?” NOPE, unlike the Commander’s grab, there is no prioritization of which target to Overpower. Typically you should just use it on the enemy main frontline to make it easier for your team to collapse on the remaining enemies. However you may also cast it on whoever is most annoying among the enemies. Examples would be their hard carry champions: an Androxus dabbing around, or the 1 in 100 Bugzy level Kinessa, or an Evie teleporting everywhere and nowhere. You could also use it at that annoying prick who uses brain dead, no skill champions and just lovesss to spray and emote on your dead body for no reason even if they had no part in your death.
The only important matter to consider upon using Overpower, is where you would use it. The reason is similar to Khan’s 2nd skill as well. Using the Overpower leaves you vulnerable, especially if you managed to grab a far target. For the entire time you are waiting for the enemy to reach to your hands from his/her original position, you are stuck at your position. While the enemy is in your hands, you cannot do anything else but turn and move around. You maybe CC immune for the duration, but you are not damage immune. You have to choose a position where you could safely grab an enemy where there is an easy access to an environmental hazard or to your teammates, all the while making it difficult for enemies to reach you.
Talents
Lian’s Shield
- Bulwark recharges at 100% effectiveness while it is raised
This is the default talent, and is the first talent you would get to use for Khan. What this talent does is that your shield would recharge itself as it is active. The recharge rate would be as fast as it would be if it were inactive. The purpose of this is to increase the defensive capability of the shield while being raised. You should pick this talent if you aim to play as the point tank.
This talent is generally viewed as a bad talent, but in my own opinion it’s a viable talent although it could use a little more buffs.
I suggest you should start with this talent first in order for you to learn how to manage the shield health and distribute damage between you and your shield.
Storm of Bullets
- Your weapon fires 40% faster and has 10 more rounds, but deals 25% less damage per shot
With this talent, the heavy repeater now fires a 150 direct damage every 0.156 second. This effectively increases your DPS by 18%. What’s not mentioned in the description is that there is also another change to the weapon: recoil. This talent adds a little recoil to the weapon, but it’s something that’s manageable.
This talent has been my favorite talent since its release and trust me, it is very enjoyable. If I were to describe this talent with a single word. It would be “Oppressive”
Why?
Remember when I said you could “act with impunity” at the main weapon section? That was the base weapon. With this talent you could even pressure the anchor-wielding pissed-off Makoa* (You still can’t challenge him though) If you can manage to land half of your magazine with headshots you could chunk off a third of an ulting Makoa of his health. And that’s only half the magazine. Even if you don’t feel like landing headshots and simply content with body shots you could already chunk off half the health of an ulting Makoa if you land the majority of your shots on him. With another ally shooting at him, the both of you could melt big scary tortoise pretty fast.
Generally you should use this talent if you plan to act as a bruiser tank although it’s not impossible to play point tank with this as well.
- Makoa in his Ancient rage has a base health of 9500
Vortex Grip
- Victims of Commander’s Grab are stunned for an additional 2s
This talent is a big must if you like to grab people and watch them suffer as they desperately mash their escape button for 3 seconds HAHAHAHA
On a more serious note, you should pick this talent over Storm of Bullets if your team lacks CC skills. Just as it is with my favorite, this talent is generally for bruiser tank playstyle but its not also impossible to play point tank with this one.
Loadouts
In building your loadouts it’s best to test it yourself but the general gist is that:
- Must have at least one of the core cards at high level in your loadout
- Good cards are cards that are useful at any level (All core cards are good but not all good cards are among the core cards)
- Situational cards are cards that are only good at high level but not useful as filler cards
- Bad cards are cards that may be used as filler cards but never invest more points in it. But if possible don’t even bother using it at all
| Core Cards | Good Cards | Situational Cards | Bad Cards |
| PlatemailIncrease base health | Close and PersonalGrab damage reduction | Vigorous DefenseSustain on shield | Shield WallIncrease shield health |
| Never SurrenderBattle shout CDR | Into the BreachSpeed buff on shout | Ready for WarIncrease shield hp recharge | Hold the LineShout heal increase |
| Hulking StrengthGrab CDR | LifetakerCdr on eliminations | ChokeholdGrab heal | |
| HopeguardShield rejuvenate | BloodthirstAdd lifesteal | ||
| Excessive ForceClipsize increase | |||
| Open FireAmmo on shout | |||
| Martial LawAmmo on grab |
I will be showing my loadouts as an example:
1. Main loadout
| Never Surrender5 | Platemail4 | Excessive Force4 | Open Fire1 | Bloodthirst1 |
This is the loadout I mainly use. It’s generally to be partnered with the talent Storm of bullets, and I usually do bruiser tank playstyle with this loadout.
2. Trust the support
| Hopeguard5 | Never Surrender4 | Platemail4 | Ready for War1 | Open Fire1 |
This is the loadout I use when I have complete trust on the player playing support. Which means I never use this when I play solo. It doesn’t matter for me which talent I use for this one.
3. Hard diver
| Hulking Strength5 | Close and Personal4 | Never Surrender4 | Platemail1 | Bloodthirst1 |
For this loadout, I use it with Vortex grip and as with my main loadout I do it for a bruiser tank playstyle.
4. Old main loadout
| Never Surrender5 | Hopeguard4 | Into the Breach4 | Lifetaker1 | Open Fire1 |
This was the old loadout I used before Patch 2.01. During that time I still had complete trust in random players using support.
5. Experimental loadout
| Hopeguard5 | Never Surrender4 | Vigorous Defense4 | Ready for War1 | Never surrender1 |
This is a loadout I fooled around with when I was trying to make the talent Lian’s shield as strong as possible. This is meant to be played as point tank and it doesn’t really matter which talent to use with this one even though it was made for Lian’s shield.
If you do not trust these ones you may also copy pro player loadouts to get you a boost. Feel free to edit any loadouts you copy as you get used to playing Khan
If you’d like more information on playing Khan, check out Jay Flare’s guide to playing Khan:
As well as Joshino’s own guide to Khan:
Warning though, this videos still has info on Firing Line, an old talent of Khan that was removed by Patch 2.01. This talent was also one of the biggest reason why Khan was a must pick/ban frontline before Patch 2.01
I hope you find this guide helpful, not just to beginner Khan players but also to experienced ones. May you find Khan enjoyable as much as I do with him
This guide is not perfect and you don’t necessarily have to follow everything written here. Sometimes playing your own way can be a good way to play any champion. And as it is not perfect, this guide can, and will be improved over time as we learn more about Khan’s synergies and as more champions and maps will be added to game.
