Cai Yan

Cai Yan's assigned seat is directly beside her marksman from minute zero. The early job is not damage — it is making sure your partner cannot die. When the enemy commits, answer with Skill 2's ricochet stun; if they are tangled up with their minion wave, the bounces chain-stun and the trade collapses in your favor. After every exchange, walk alongside with Skill 1 running and the chip damage simply refunds itself, letting your partner keep farming instead of recalling. Until the Ultimate arrives at level 4, check bushes, hold position, and refuse to be the one caught forward.

Cai Yan's presence grows from the 4:00 Tyrant onward. While your team burns the boss, the flank is the most dangerous moment on the map — meet whoever walks in with Skill 2, and the ricochet stuns stall the contest cold. Her Ultimate spends five seconds auto-targeting the lowest-HP ally in range with healing and a defense buff, so rather than panic-casting mid-brawl, open it just before the enemy's burst lands. Between the Passive's speed surge on taking damage and her self-heal, she is far harder to catch than the health bar suggests.

Late fights become a staring contest over Cai Yan's Ultimate — the enemy wants it forced early, you want it perfectly timed. Absent anti-heal, its five seconds of rolling heals and defense buffs absorb an entire round of enemy focus. Stand diagonally behind your carry, and cast it where only the ally you intend to save sits inside the ring; that placement is the entire skill expression of this hero, because a frontliner soaking the heal is a wasted Ultimate. Fill your slots with team utility items and forget your own scoreline entirely.

Cai Yan's teamfight reduces to two real decisions: spend Skill 2 on the enemy's entrance or on their retreat, and choose whose feet the Ultimate covers. The ricochet multiplies against clustered enemies, so its highest value is meeting the opening dive; if it misses, drop back and wait out the cooldown. A teamfight where the healer dies first is close to an automatic loss — never surrender the backmost position, no matter how won the fight looks. And triage coldly: the ally who can still fight outranks the ally who is already doomed.