Hello, I'm XenoTek the current starting jungler on the new Phoenix Reign roster. Welcome to my Lane CP
Baron Guide, where I will explain how I play
Baron successfully in both ranked and competitive matches.
I hope you enjoy!
-Xeno
While less important to a CP Baron, Baron’s perk still provides a lot of extra damage- especially in the early game. Baron’s passive amplifies auto attack damage, scaling with a WP ratio. This is very useful in helping with early clear speed, as CP heroes generally have a relatively weak early game. If enemies are grouped up and these auto attacks crit, combined with Porcupine Mortar, this will deal a LOT of damage.
When Porcupine Mortar is activated, Baron launches a missile to a target location that explodes doing full AOE damage and slowing the whole target area. This slow is increased by WP to a cap of 65%, and decays over 2.2 second. Porcupine Mortar has two charges, with a short charge time per charge. This charge time can be reduced by purchasing cooldown items. If you have 2 charges available, it is possible to use both so that they land at nearly the same time.
Porcupine Mortar is the most important part of Baron’s kit, especially for CP builds. While relatively weak at first, it will scale massively with items. By building more CP, the range of this ability. Weapon increases the amount of slow provided, to a max of 65%. What makes this ability so powerful is its extreme spamability and incredible range in the mid-late game. Use the cooldown to your full advantage by spamming them around the team fight area, making it very hard for the enemy to maneuver without getting hit.
Frostburn can be very useful since if you hit one Porcupine Mortar, landing the rest will be super easy. To ensure you land it, it’s usually best to place it directly on top of them since they will most likely have to boots to get out of it. To prevent escapes, you can put it behind them or to prevent dives you can place it on top of/around yourself.
Upgrade Priority:
Porcupine Mortar is Baron’s most important ability and should be treated as such with the upgrade priority. Take an upgrade point whenever it is available, and max it at level 8.
Jump Jets is a rather simple ability, but is extremely important to Baron’s kit in providing mobility to an otherwise slow and immobile hero. Once activated, Baron charges for a short time and jumps to the target location, gaining a boost of movement speed once landing. The maximum range of the jump is increased with CP, but Baron charges for a longer time the longer the jump distance is. Basic attacks reduce the cooldown slightly, and Baron’s first attack after jumping fires quickly and reloads instantly.
Use Jump Jets to create distance from the enemy, and as a free escape over walls. The jump distance is crazy long with lots of CP, and can jump over ANY wall.
Upgrade Priority:
If the overdrive on Jump Jets is taken, Baron gains immunity during his fly time. This sounds good, but unless the enemy has a lot of CC abilities I would recommend maxing the ultimate instead.
Once activated, Baron targets a location for a massive strike. After a 3 second wait, massive damage is inflicted on a fairly large target area, with more damage dealt towards the summer. Enemies will hear the sound of the ability beginning, but will not be able to see the area until shortly before impact.
Due to the long cast time, this ability is extremely hard to land. Knowing this, it is usually best to use this as a zoning ability than trying to use it for damage. If the enemy is diving on top of you, you can also use Ion Cannon on top of yourself to either scare the enemy away or deal pretty much guaranteed massive damage. Try to force the enemy to move into the ability by placing it behind them and then pushing towards them.
Upgrade Priority:
Each upgrade point in Ion Cannon passively and permanently increases Baron’s basic attack range. Additionally, each point massively increases the total damage and the range. I would recommend maxing Ion Cannon in pretty much every scenario.
Roam Heroes to Pair With Baron:
Lance- Has super strong peel, and can help carry Baron through his weak early-mid game.
Ardan- His gauntlet helps force out reflex blocks to get away or else sit inside a large circle while getting melted by Porcupine Mortars. Additionally, Vanguard helps Baron kite better and create even more distance from his opponents.
Lyra- The slowing auto attacks help Baron to land his Porcupine Mortar shots, and her B creates excellent separation.
Catherine- Catherine is probably the best hero to set up for Baron with her stun and silence.
Jungle Heroes to Pair With Baron:
Taka- Taka is a decent pairing with his strong early game, but lacks cc to help line up skill shots. Taka+lance is good for snowballing the early game while Baron scales up.
Lance (WP Jungle)— creates another basically support that helps locks down heroes so that it’s easy to line up skill shots.
Skye- Skye’s excellent mobility forces enemy to choose one of the carries to chase, and often leads to the enemy falling into Baron’s damage.
Kestrel- Combined with Phinn, has a LOT of lockdown potential and early game pressure to help Baron scale.
CP Baron is relatively weak in the early game, which is why it’s really good to have an early game jungle/support duo to make sure your team doesn’t get snowballed early. Try to get your jungler to focus on the lane and helping you to get to late game, especially if they are struggling in the jungle or aren’t completely dominating the enemy jungle. Farming is relatively hard in the early game, so I recommend starting with a weapon blade and keeping it for a while to make farming slightly easier. Don’t push the lane too hard or else you might have to overextend to farm. Instead, try to keep the lane as close to even as possible so it is easy to shove it into the enemy turret if you need to rotate.
Baron starts to spike as soon as he gets Broken Myth and Eve. By then, you will probably also have Travel Boots and a Reflex Block and maybe some t1 defense. At this point, you will start dealing quite a bit of damage and can begin sieging turrets. Start really focusing on objectives, as Baron can take them fairly quickly and easily and they are essential for scaling into the late game. Try forcing the enemy into a 2v3 in jungle so you can start taking turrets extremely quickly.
Late game, Baron is extremely powerful. He shoots so many mortars that is impossible for the enemy to even get close to you. With a Clockwork and Halcyon Chargers, Porcupine Mortar will be up nearly 100% of the time, allowing you to pretty much endlessly spam it. In team fights, try and poke them as much as possible before really engaging. It is pretty easy to get Broken Myth stacks, but make sure you have full stacks before engaging. See the Abilities section for tips on using the abilities in certain situations.
- This build is based off of the massive amount of cooldown. Recognize that all abilities are on extremely low cooldown and Porcupine Mortar will be up pretty much 100% of the time.
- Take advantage of the Jump and Added range on Porcupine Mortar you get from building CP. Both of these are ridiculously long, so be sure to take full advantage of what you are given.
- Be careful of enemy gap closing abilities, as that is baron’s downfall. Against a Taka, it might even be a good idea to buy a mine and place it around you in team fights to make sure you always have vision of him.
- Focus on getting to late game. CP Baron is really weak in the early game, but scales massively with items and level. Play to his strengths.
Thank you for reading! I hope you found it useful. Send any questions you may have to
@XenoTek_VG on Twitter,
Team Phoenix or comment below.
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-XenoTek
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