So, if you decided to play rank in Paladins, the first important decision is to choose which champion should you pick up. In this guide, I will discuss it from perspective of meta, healer and tanker to make it easier for you to make a choice.

 

So right now the meta is Burst Meta. There's just some champions that can deal a hell lot of damage in a short time. This ones would be Drogoz, Willo, Dredge, Cassie. I would recommend learning Cassie, Lian and Viktor as damage dealers. The reason being because the first three I mentioned are almost always banned in some ranks. Cassie requires skill, which is fun, and can deal a lot of damage with her Big Game talent combo. Lian is also very good and should be used with Death and Taxes talent; free lvl 3 Cauterize right away.

As for healers, right now the best ones are Mal Damba and Ying. Damba with Spirits Chosen and Ying with Life Exchange. I find Mal Damba to be overall more fun to play and more technically skill demanding because of his RMB heal, which is not aimlocked like other champions. Also, even though Ying can output more healing, I think Mal Damba also has a lot of utility which is useful at late game once the whole opposing team is Max cauterize. Damba has cards for giving extra speed for healing, can stun when reloading and has a nice ult. Also I would recommend Grover with his Efflorescence talent. You'll probably get a lot of trash for playing him since some people still consider him to be trash, but he's by far not. As Damba, he can bring utility with his cripple axe throw, extra speed if you use a card for it, you can output quite some damage, and also his ult is nuts, it can open great instances for the team or just extend a push. I'd recommend watching Vex30 videos, he has a lot of healer videos and his explanation of positioning and utility on each healer is really good.

As for tanks, Fernando and Ash are also good picks for some all-around Tanks. Torv/Barik/Ruckus are situational, and shouldn't be picked up too often unless you're with a really good flank you can pocket bubble. Term is buggy. Coming from a level 58 Terminus Main, don't play him. Also you have to notice that having a flank on the team is not always necessary. You can get away with 2 Tank 1 Supp 2 Dmg, depending on the map and opposing team comp. No matterwhat character you choose, you can unlock it fast with Cheap Paladins Crystals at 5mmo.com. With a coupon code "5MMO", you can enjoy 3% off.

Other tips would be:

Learn about Talents. It's very common for many champions to have talents which are really specific, and other talents which you'll want to pick 90% of the time, like the ones I mentioned above. There's others that also work, but it will depend on team comps, loadouts, etc.

Take your time for making loadouts, they're very important, and you should always have a Loadout with CC reduction for every tank. Also take your time on the spawn room before the game starts to check your opponents talents and builds, so you can pick yours accordingly. Also it's good to know about diminishing returns. Some cards + bought items don't stack up. Like cauterize with Lian. If you have her Death and Taxes talent and buy cauterize, you won't get extra 30% healing reduction on your shots. This doesn't apply to some things like Grover's Efflorescence (which gives 50% extra radius for healing) plus a card which can increase his healing area up to 50%. So that's why this talent can be very good.
This are of course tips for getting right away into Ranked. I would just recommend you trying a lot of characters, have fun and experiment. The variety can be very fun and interesting. You should be able to carry yourself at least on the lower ranks.