Steel, The Unstoppable Force! (Lane, Tank) [Build v.25]

Cheat Sheet

Build One: Damage Tank

Health Potion [1]
Mana Potion [1]
Scout's Ward [1]

Adamant Edge (Strike, Strike, Strike) [9]
Pendulum of Lords (Chrono, Chrono, Health) [9]
Tempered Plate (Guard, Guard, Greater Health) [10]
Tuned Barrier (Barrier, Barrier, Greater Health) [10]
Quartzblade (Health, Strike, Major Strike) [10]
Silverspear (Major Strike, Major Strike, Divine Mend) [12]

Build Two: CDR, Pure Tank

Offensive Maneuvers [3] (Sell before buying Radiant Mantle)

Pendulum of Lords (Mana, Mana, Greater Health) [10]
Tempered Plate (Guard, Guard, Health) [9]
Tuned Barrier (Barrier, Barrier, Health) [9]
Etherweave Mesh (Barrier, Barrier, Barrier) [10]
Quantum Casing (Guard, Guard, Guard) [10]
Radiant Mantle (Health, Health, Greater Health) [12]

Steel, The Unstoppable Force!

Hey, I'm Kizr or Kizr100 (PSN) and I'm a filthy PS4 player, despite the fact my PC can handle Paragon, I prefer the controller. Now I've been playing Paragon for a little while and was lucky enough to join OT9, so fairly late on but it's still given me quite a few games with  Steel, my favourite tank!

Although I've been a little lazy with the guide of late I've decided to take it back up, removing the default deck as the game is too far along for that now and adding in two custom decks.

Summary (TL:DR;)

Steel is tough, some people play him bruiser but personally, I like to run him as a solid wall of metal and flesh, blocking enemy projectiles and causing havoc in the enemy teams ranks. Following my guide will allow you to counter their main carries damage and effectively prevent the opposition from closing in and trapping your carries.

Both of these builds are tanky, one renders you near immortal and the other will give you a nice sting to each metallic thud of your armour clad fists, use these build responsibly, they might wreck somebody else's day.

If you build damage tank, then please play as a tank! Intitiate for your team and protect your carries, also make sure you lock down enemy carries for your team and you'll find yourself winning more games.
 

The Pros and Cons

Pros

• Nigh on impossible to kill
• Two interrupts (Charge/Shield Slam)
• Ridiculously OP wall
• Large & good at body blocking

Cons

• Low damage
• You won't get many kills
  
   

Ability Overview

Unstoppable Force

You're covered in steel, you cannot be stopped. The more allies you're with the harder it is for you to be CC'd or crowd controlled for the uninitiated, this means that stuns, knock ups and silences will not last as long on Steel, increasing with the amount of allies around you.

 Punch

This is your auto attack, you punch stuff. There's actually quite a decent reach on punch, though, so use that to your advantage.

 Shield Block

Your immortal button, hit this and you'll soak up damage like you're a sponge... made of steel. This is perfect if there are enemy carries firing away at your squishies, just get in between them and block away, you will take damage but very, very little.

 Charge 

This ability is what makes or breaks a good steel player, it can knock backwards or sideways depending on your positioning and learning how to use it correctly is key. Knowing when to knock an enemy away and when to knock an enemy into your team comes with experience, but as a general rule of thumb, you should be pushing people away when you have low health team mates and pushing them into your team when you're going on the offensive.

 Force Shield

Another key ability in Steel's arsenal, it's important to remember that this is a multi-purpose tool, it can shield your allies, slow your enemies and block their projectiles, it DOES NOT block your projectiles. Throw your shield behind retreating enemies so that they're slowed while your team closes in, whilst being protected by the shield. Likewise if  you're being pursued by the enemy team throw the shield just in front of your leading team member to take advantage of both the shielding component and projectile block, as an added bonus enemies will have to either take the slow or go around, giving you the team you need to hightail it out of there.

 Shield Slam 

This ability is friggin' badass, you fly through the air like a f****** cannon ball, stunning all enemies caught in the area of effect.  Your ultimate synergises so well with charge it's unreal, you can leap straight into the enemy team, stunning them and then move into position to charge the lot of them straight into your team, combine this is with a well placed Force Shield and it'll be over before they can even comprehend what's happened.

Ability Priority

-> -> -> ->

Advanced Ability Usage

Punch

Punch is your normal melee attack for general purpose bashing, it has a small AoE effect where you'll be able to hit the two closest targets to your primary target, we don't upgrade punch for the reason that we're not looking to deal out damage and there's little point in wasting the ability point on something that could have been used for more defense.

Shield Block

Shield Block should be used consistently throughout the game to block incoming projectiles and spells, it won't save you from CC such as Rampage's Boulder but it will render the damage almost nil. You should be using this to save allies from damage by standing in front of them and taking the beating instead, we can take it! From what I've tested it seems as though Shield Block will only reduce damage from frontal attacks, floor AoE's will still hurt.

Charge

Charge is one of our only damaging abilities and it has a hell of a lot of uses. Charge knocks enemies backwards or sideways depending on where you hit your target, you will Charge the full length of the target assist and go through every everything in your way. Your positioning while using this ability is very important as whilst it can be used to save your teams, a bad charge could also doom them. I personally like to use charge as wave clear when I'm not team fighting, if I'm not going to use my ultimate then I'll generally use Charge to force enemy players away from low HP team mates as seen below.

Force Shield

Force Shield is an excellent tool and will likely be nerfed in the very near future, this is due to the fact that it provides immunity to ranged projectiles, a shield if you pass through it and a slow if an enemy passes through it, the picture below demonstrates one way we can make Twinblast useless in team-fights and also put us in an excellent position to retaliate or retreat. If we want to retaliate we can wait out Twinblast's ultimate and run through the Force Shield, gaining a nice shield in the process and then going on to pursue and kill our target, conversely if we wished to retreat Twinblast would have to either run through the shield and be slowed, or run around the shield and lose time, either way it gives us the advantage. Using it badly is actually difficult because it's so rewarding, but placing it just behind a retreating enemy is a great way to couple defence and offence.

Shield Slam

Shield Slam is a fun ultimate, it allows you to soar through the air and cannon ball into the enemy team, causing damage and stunning everyone caught in the effect. I personally use this ultimate as a positioning tool, choosing to fly slightely behind the enemy team and following it with a charge to force theirs squishies right into the line of fire before they can react, this ultimate can also be used as a last resort to escape or to save an ally from certain death by stunning their aggressor and knocking them away. Again, you can't really go wrong with this one, just be sure to position yourself well and be aware of the map to avoid getting yourself murdered by the entire enemy team.

Wombo Combo

Use -> -> for maximum devastation in surprise ganks and team fight initiation!

Early Game

Play defensively and help your lane buddy farm the minions whilst forcing the enemy laners to back off using your high HP pool and defensive abilities. Although you're still pretty tough, do be wary of incoming ganks, placing your ward correctly will help with this. I like to throw it down near the invisibility pool for an earlier alert. Make sure that your first purchase is the correct type of armour, it's useless buying armour against an energy user. Though I do recommend buying both types with no upgrades first and then upgrading the most relevant, this gives you a good base and protects you from all damage types.

Mid Game

You can start being bolder now, you have both defensive items and a fully upgraded Tempered Plate or Tuned Barrier. You're not the immortal tank just yet, but you should be participating in team fights. Never underestimate the element of surprise when playing Steel, the R > Q > E combo can absolutely devestate enemy players, but make sure you've communicated your intent to your team via the in-game comms. An epic gank is only epic if you actually pull it off. Don't think you're Rambo though, you'll easily be shut down by a coordinated enemy team, be wary of the map.

Late Game

By this point in the game you've got both items fully upgraded and your Pendulum of lords halfway and you can tank a crap ton of damage, use this to your advantage, push lanes and hit the turret a bit while pinging your team to go elsewhere, the enemy team will come for you and you'll face them, stunning them with your R and throwing down your E, which you can charge through and travel mode to escape safely. This buys time for your team to deal with turrets and is how I've been winning games of late with the starter deck. I believe this plays to steels strengths, he's one of the only hero's that can do this and live, but always be aware of team fights, if there is one, you need to be there to initiate and harass, don't be afraid to die for favourable trade offs, it's not our KDR that matters!

Matchups

-Strong Against-

 Kallari

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's just Kallari slapping you with her daggers and not doing much, punch her in the face. Kallari should offer you very little in the way of problems unless she catches you below 25% HP with your pants down, you're going to win every trade.

  Gideon

He's channeling the void watch out! Or don't, either way once your fists crunch his giant nose he's not going to be channeling much but the blood from his face. Gideon poses a small risk at the start of the match, use your Charge and Shield Slam to interrupt his ultimate and pummel him down. Once you hit late game he stops being a problem for you altogether.

  Dekker

Dekker, she's a pain the ass but not a problem for you, if she traps you with her ultimate you can weather it. If she stuns you, you can weather it, Dekker is not a problem for you to square off against and you're going to win any trade once you catch her.

 Gadget

Who? Oh yeah, that mage who turned out to be a support the whole time, despite having the mage tag. Gadget's damage is neglible even after her buff, try not to walk through her acceleration gates and you're golden.

 Howitzer

Everyone's favourite furry hamster/ cat creature can unfortunately only give us mean looks and look cool in his mech suit. The worst he can do is knock us off of our target but just re-engage and carry on.

 Murdock

Strong against Murdock? Well yes, we can't take too many hits from him but we should be blocking his projectiles with Force Shield and locking him down for our team with Shield Slam, so yes, we are strong against Murdock.

 Sparrow

Sparrow much like Murdock only requires you to block a few shots and close in with Shield Slam to lock her down for the kill, not a problem for us at all. As an added bonus her entire ultimate can be blocked with Force Shield.

 Twinblast

Twinblast is good fun to play against, he'll keep you on your toes by dashing around and using his high AS and crit to burn you down, however, his ultimate is completely negatable with your Force Shield and he's so squishy that he'll be dead within a couple of seconds once you've stunned him.

-Evenly Matched-

 Feng Mao

Since his nerf he hasn't been anywhere near as problematic to deal with, you still need to be wary of him but most trades are going to be fairly even if you're both playing at the same level.

 Grux

When Grux got nerfed it was a good day for everyone who didn't play Grux! Now he's pretty much perfectly balanced and as such we're on even terms with him, though most of the fight will be dashing, stunning, and dancing with each other.

 Rampage

Ahh, good old steroid fish. You're not going anywhere fast against Rampage, it's going to be blow for blow, use your stun during his ultimate transformation to stop him regenning his HP, it takes a little practice but can be done.

 Sevarog

Holy f**k it's a ghost! Which tanks... yeah. Just like Rampage you're going to be duking it out for a while, he can knock you away and you can leap straight back in.

-Weak Against-

 Iggy & Scorch

This duo of trouble is a gigantic pain the ass for us. They'll only let you fight them on their terms, you cannot stop the turret damage and they can knock you away with their ultimate if things go bad. Engage with team support and try to shut them down with a Charge, Shield Slam combo fast.

 Muriel

Muriel is a hero you can't bully, her shields will completely negate your damage and prevent you from securing enemy kills. She needs to die in any team fight, but so do the Rangers, due to this I'm putting her down as a weak matchup.

 Grim.exe

GRIM.exe is a tank killer, his entire kit is set up for it. He can displace us, permanently slow us and block our stuns with his shield. Whilst we're probably the best tank to face him due to Force Shield, it's still going to be extremely hard to deal with a kiting GRIM.exe player.

Patch Notes

v.24.0

• Fixed a bug with Charge ability where you would hit enemy players directly behind you when dashing.
• Fixed a bug with the Force Shield ability where the slow from his shield was applying multiple times.

Change Log

12/05/2021 - Removed Circlet of Health and added Silverspear to build, changed upgrade cards for more cost-efficient upgrades.
                   - Added Patch Notes section
                   - Added Change Log section
                   - Updated Matchups section
                   - Added new tank build