Meiko is an Agility-based Tank that excels in self-sustain and absorption. Her powerful combo-based Palm, Kick, and Fist attacks will keep you buffed and topped up — but make sure you keep rhythm; otherwise, you’ll find yourself dropping like a rock.
This guide will teach you the basics of playing Meiko in Fellowship, how to use her abilities, and which talents to use for the best build. If you are looking for tank-specific advice, check out our Tanking Guide for Fellowship.
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Table of Contents
- Meiko’s Abilities
- Meiko’s Combo Finishers — Fighting Techniques
- Stone Shield Mechanic
- How to Play Meiko — Basic Ability Guide
- Meiko Talents and Build Progression
- How to Tank as Meiko — Warden of the Temple Build
- Gearing and Stat Priority
- Change Log
- High self-sustain that scales with damage and talents.
- Great mobility with direction based dashes and a free-aimed leap.
- Very effective when tanking bosses.
- Very squishy without her main defensive buffs.
- Aggro management late-game can be difficult.
- Ultimate is weak offensively, particularly in AoE situations.
Meiko’s Abilities
| Ability/Icon | Name | Cast / Recast | Range / Radius | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Spirit Palm | GCD | ↔ 5yd | Deals 40% Agility damage to target enemy. Grants access to Palm Technique finishers. |
 | Wind Kick | GCD | ↔ 5yd | Deals 20% Agility damage to your target and other enemies near your target. Grants access to Kick Technique finishers. |
 | Earth Fist | GCD | ↔ 5yd | Deals 40% Agility damage to target enemy. Grants access to Fist Technique finishers. |
 | Fighting Techniques | Instant Combo | ↔ 5yd | Grants access to Finishing Moves based on Combo Builders used. For more details, see Meiko’s Combos. |
 | Stone Shield | Instant 30s (2) | Self ↻ 8yd | Summon 3 stones around you that deal 50% Agility damage 4 times to all nearby enemies. Each stone increases your armor by 35%, up to a maximum of 105% and while at least one stone is active, they soak 25% of all damage you take. Each stone has a health value equal to 560% agility. Every 1% of each secondary statistic increases the final amount by 2% Haste is applied as Cooldown Recovery on Stone Shield. |
 | Shatter Earth | GCD 60s | ↔ 30yd ↻ 8yd | Leap and slam the ground at target location, dealing 300% Agility damage to all enemies in the area and leave an area of quaking earth that deals 55% Agility damage every 1 second to any enemy standing in the effect for 6 seconds. |
 | Gust | Instant 30s (2) | ↔ 10yd | Quickly travel forward a short distance. |
 | Taunt | Instant 8s | ↔ 30yd | Taunt the target, forcing it to attack you for 6 seconds. Taunt also sets your threat to the highest on the target. |
 | Stagger | Instant 12s | ↔ 5yd | Interrupt the target’s spellcasting and prevent it from casting for 4 seconds. Must interrupt a spell, or it will have no effect. |
 | Serenity | Instant 10s | Self | Instantly heal yourself for 240% Agility Each time you Auto Attack an enemy, Serenity gains +40% increased healing, stacking up to 50 times. |
 | Cyclone | Instant 60s | Self ↻ 10yd | Create a Cyclone of strong winds that instantly pulls in enemies within the radius to you. Interrupts spells. |
 | Stone Stomp | Instant 120s | Self ↑8y | Send a shockwave through the ground in front of you, dealing 90% Agility damage to all enemies and Stunning them for 3 seconds. |
 | Twin Souls: Bulwark | GCD 180s | Self | Split your soul into the Sibling of Wind and Sibling of Earth for 20 seconds. Sibling of Earth Summon the Sibling of Earth, who taunts all enemies in a 10yd radius around them every 1.5 seconds. If the Sibling of Earth is destroyed before the duration ends, Twin Souls: Bulwark ends. Sibling of Wind (YOU) As the Sibling of Wind, you take 20% of any damage dealt to Sibling of Earth. |
 | Twin Souls: Army of One | GCD SPIRIT ABILITY | Self | Split your soul into the Sibling of Wind and Sibling of Earth for 10 seconds. Sibling of Earth (YOU) While Twin Souls: Army of One is active, you take 40% reduced damage. Sibling of Wind Summon the Sibling of Wind, who swiftly teleports to and strikes nearby enemies up to 40 times dealing 90% Agility damage with each strike. Spirit Ability When you activate your Spirit ability you gain Spirit of Heroism, granting +30% haste for 20 seconds. |
Meiko’s Combo Finishers — Fighting Techniques
Meiko’s Combo Finishers are her unique class feature. Her Palm, Kick, and Fist are combo attacks that allow you to use various finishing moves instantly during your global cooldown. There are three types, and two finishers per type. The first attack determines which type of finisher, and the second attack chooses which of the pair to use.
For example, Spirit Palm followed by Wind Kick allows you to use Double Palm Strike, while Spirit Palm followed by Earth Fist allows you to use Spirited Vortex.
Meiko will always remember the last two attacks you do, so if you then pressed Wind Kick, your finishing move will become Earthfist Barrage.
Here’s an easy to read table with all of Meiko’s combos and finishers.
| Finisher Ability | Name | Setup Combo | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Double Palm Strike | Spirit Palm > Wind Kick | Strike the enemy with both palms, dealing 130% Agility damage. Grants Spirited Strikes for 30 seconds. Spirited Strikes +20% Magic Damage Reduction +5% Parry |
 | Spirited Vortex | Spirit Palm > Earth Fist | Meiko creates a vortex of winds around her, providing +5% Dodge Chance and dealing 21% Agility damage every 2 seconds for 30 seconds to all nearby enemies. Enemies damaged by Spirited Vortex have 35% reduced Movement Speed for 5 seconds. |
 | Rising Storm | Wind Kick > Spirit Palm | Perform a powerful jump kick, dealing 60% Agility damage to your target and nearby enemies. Damage is reduced beyond 3 targets. Grants you 2 charges of Stormfall. Stormfall Your next Lashing Stormkick deals 100% increased damage. |
 | Lashing Stormkick | Wind Kick > Earth Fist | Perform a roundhouse kick, dealing 39% Agility damage to your target and nearby enemies. Damage is reduced beyond 3 targets. Lashing Stormkick heals you for 200% of the damage it deals. |
 | Rising Earth | Earth Fist > Spirit Palm | Uppercut target enemy, dealing 126% Agility damage. Grants you 2 charges of Earthfall. Earthfall Your next Earthfist Barrage deals 100% increased damage. |
 | Earthfist Barrage | Earth Fist > Wind Kick | Pummel your target with 5 quick punches, dealing 23% Agility every 0.3 seconds, leading into a final powerful uppercut for 92% Agility damage. You can move while channeling Earthfist Barrage. Earthfist Barrage heals you for 200% of the damage it deals. |
Stone Shield Mechanic
Stone Shields are Meiko’s tank defensive mechanic and worth highlighting due to how important they are. When applied, they appear on the UI next to the character. The bar is the health, and the 3 yellow orbs are how many shields you have left.
Each stone increases your armor by 35%, up to a maximum of 105% and while at least one stone is active, they soak 25% of all damage you take. It’s important to note that without Stone Shield, Meiko is very squishy. So it has to be managed effectively through cooldown management, kiting and later on, talents.
Stone Shield also does a ton of damage. Don’t sit at 2 casts ready to go until you hit 0, use the second charge when it’s ready. Stone Shield also has no duration, so pre-cast it at the start of the dungeon and in between pulls.
One other quirk of Stone Shield is that they do not take damage while doing the spell animation, even though they’re still providing mitigation.
How to Play Meiko — Basic Ability Guide
Spirited Strikes and Spirited Vortex combo finishers are both powerful defensive buffs that also assist with keeping threat, so keep them up 100% of the time.
After that, you will use the Rising Earth > Earthfist Barrage finishers against 1-2 targets and the Rising Storm > Lashing Stormkick finishers in packs of 3 or more as filler combos. These abilities will heal you and have other effects, so the more consistent your rotation is, the tankier you are.
Meiko can use Gust to kite and to move between packs quickly, as well as Shatter Earth to jump on them. This will keep the dungeon at a rapid pace. Shatter Earth is one of your strongest damaging abilities, so it should be kept on cooldown unless you’re about to use it to jump to another pack.
Cyclone can be used as an AoE interrupt or to pull enemy ranged and casters into the group. Stone Stomp can be used when targets are grouped up enough in front of you to act as a second group interrupt / stun. Both of these abilities can interrupt not only spells but also non-kickable abilities as well, if the target can be CC’d.
Twin Souls: Bulwark will effectively stop you from taking almost all damage from enemies for a short period of time. When Bulwark is off cooldown, prepare to do a large pull to get the most value out of it. Bulwark is valuable at the start of the dungeon where you can do a large pull, and then use the extra time to setup your Spirited Buffs.
Finally, Twin Souls: Army of One will do a large burst of damage but also make you take significantly less damage for 10 seconds. Never use Bulwark and Army of One at the same time, as their effects do not stack.
Meiko Talents and Build Progression
Below is the build we recommend for Meiko that focuses on manually sustaining your buffs for a net benefit through Warden of the Temple, and sustaining your Stone Shields through Serenity and Spirit.
Quick Reference Talent Table
| Talent Points Total | Talent Tree (Row + Column |
|---|---|
| 2 Points | 1A |
| 3 Points | 1A + 2B |
| 4 Points | 1A + 3C |
| 5 Points | 1A + 3C + 4C |
| 6 Points | 5A + 3C + 4C |
| 7 Points (Contender) | 5A + 3C + 4C + 2B |
| 8 Points | 5A + 3C + 4C + 2B + 6B / 6C |
| 9 Points (Adept) | 5A + 3C + 4C + 2B + 1C |
| 10 Points | 5A + 3C + 4C + 2B + 1C + 6B |
| 11 Points (Champion) | 5A + 3C + 4C + 2B + 1C + 3B |
| 12 Points | 5A + 3C + 4C + 2B + 1C + 3B + 6B |
| 13 Points (Paragon) | 5A + 3C + 4C + 2B + 1C + 3B + 6B + 6C |
Talent Picks
Warden of the Temple (5A) is core to this build. By significantly buffing your Palm combos, it makes them even more rewarding to press other than just maintaining your buff. Serenity stacks will come online as you get more talent points and the extra dodge + damage from Vortex is powerful.
Guardian’s Fluidity (3C) simply gives you more Stone Shields. This functions defensively, but also offensively as well as Stone Shield does very solid damage to groups of enemies.
Unwavering Spirit (4C) has great value for a single point. Refunds generate extra Stone Shields for free, and it even gives a flat additive 3% Spirit bonus to help it along.
Harsh Winds (2B) is taken because early game this will boost your AOE damage quite a bit, and the bonus dodge helps against boss auto-attacks.
Conclusive Strikes (6C) is more of a DPS boost than Winds, but is mostly purely offensive other than the extra healing.
At 9 points, Earthwell (1C) further boosts your tankiness when doing single-target / boss pulls, and gives you a very effective dump for your Serenity stacks.
Debilitating Vortex (3B) applies effectively a 100% uptime 20% auto-attack slow to every enemy you encounter, which will be useful later game as pulls start doing way more damage.
Stone Guard (6B) restores your shield’s health gradually when fighting and in a burst when using Serenity. By late game, this will restore a shield to full and then you can even proc Unwavering Spirit to go from 1-2 Stones back to 3 during Earthwell’s invulnerability period.
Other Noteworthy Talents
Resonance of Earth (1A) is a solid defensive talent, great for tank-busters and periods of high damage, or if you have a lot of excess Stone Shield casts.
Rumbling Stone (2C) is an offensive pick for dealing more damage with your Earth abilities, in particular Shatter Earth and Stone Shield.
Forbidden Technique (5C) is playable, but it feels very bad to play alongside Warden of the Temple.
Remember to change out any offensive or defensive talents as needed if you feel like you’re having trouble surviving. When it comes to tanking, if being more defensive lets you get through a dungeon with one less overall pull, it’s better than doing more damage.
Remember to not take talent trees as is and adjust for any legendary or weapon trees you get, or content you are doing.
How to Tank as Meiko — Warden of the Temple Build
Warden of the Temple
Warden of the Temple changes the way you’ll play Meiko completely. Instead of just maintaining your buffs, you’ll be setting up 3 stacks with Kick / Fist combos and then using a Palm combo. It’s more difficult to handle than playing normally, but rewarding when executed well.
When initiating, your first priority is to get buffs up, ignoring Warden. Start with Vortex to assist with damage and aggro, then setup Strikes.
Next, work through your other combos (Kicks for 3+ targets, and punches for smaller groups or survivability) until you have 3 stacks, and then alternate between both starting with reapplying Vortex.
Generally, you’ll alternate between Vortex and Strikes, but Spirit Refunds have a unique interaction with Warden in that one refund will allow you to get three stacks without setting up Stormfall / Earthfall again. If this happens and Vortex isn’t falling off soon, you can sometimes fit two sets of Strikes in.
Ultimately, do not stress about over-lapping buffs when playing Warden. Uptime and consuming stacks is more important.
Before performing the Palm Strikes combo, check your Serenity and use it’s close to cap. Every Strikes hit will give you an extra 25 serenity stacks. When combined with Earthwell, Stone Guard, and Unwavering Spirit, Serenity will constantly be pumping your Stone Shield uptime.
One last optimization you can do with Warden is if you get a Spirit Refund and get to 3 stacks with your last Stormfall / Earthfall, you can reapply the buff before you use a Palm combo to get a few more seconds out of your existing buffs.
Tanking as Meiko
To effectively tank as Meiko, you want to spread your defensive abilities out as much as possible from pull to pull. Earlier in the game, you will be able to tank large packs easily but in later dungeons your Stone Shield will break much faster. With the above talent choices, by keeping the GCD rolling you can help maintain your shields.
A full 50 stack Serenity cast has the following effects on your Stone Shield:
- Significantly restores the current shield (Stone Guard)
- Shields don’t take damage for the next 5 seconds (Earthwell)
Within this 5 seconds, even if it wasn’t full your healing from finisher combos would top it up. Additionally, it gives a period where a spirit refund can generate an entire new shield, too.
Serenity only has a 10-second cooldown so with Earthfist Barrage + Earthwell + Warden’d Strikes it’s not unreasonable to be able to cast it every ~15 seconds with full stacks. This is extremely effective against bosses, or in a pinch in a large pull to be more defensive.
If you use Serenity with no shields and apply them after, the invulnerability will still apply.
With all of this extra maintenance, you’ll often end up with 2 charges of Stone Shield. These should be used for damage, unless you’re expecting something big in the next few seconds.
Depending on your gear, difficulty, and how aggressive you are at pulling, you may run into situations when you simply run out of everything. If this happens, it’s recommended to use Gust and start kiting the enemies while your Stone Shield recharges.
Finally, as the packs get close to dying, mentally plan ahead and reset your Palm buffs before heading to the next group, so they’re ready for the pull. It’s always better to keep your buffs up than to let them drop while you build Warden stacks.
Gearing and Stat Priority
Substats have the following effect for Meiko:
- Critical Strike – Chance for damage and healing effects to crit, doubling their effect.
- Expertise – Increases all damage, healing and absorption effects triggered by Meiko.
- Haste – Increases attack speed, channeling speed of Earthfist Barrage and the tick rate of damage and healing effects.
- Spirit – Increases the rate you charge your spirit ability. Spirit also increases the chance of refunding Earthfall and Stormfall charges spent. When a charge is refunded, Meiko gains Spirit Armor, increasing her Armor by 50% for 12 seconds.
The formula for Spirit effects is Spirit% / (1 + Spirit%). 20% Spirit = 0.2/1.2 = 16.667% chance.
Item level is king and will have the greatest effect on your damage and survivability. However, when choosing sub-stats, we need to consider the following.
Critical Strike increases Meiko’s damage, and in turn her healing.
Expertise also increases her damage and healing, making Serenity even more powerful.
Haste doesn’t do much for Meiko other than reduce Earthfist Barrage’s channel time and Stone Shield’s cooldown. But, due to the stone shield maintenance talents and Guardian’s Fluidity, these effects aren’t that useful compared to other stats.
Spirit increases the frequency of her ultimate slightly, offers refunds on combo charges, and most importantly Spirit Armor. Meiko’s ultimate is poor compared to other Heroes, but Spirit Armor increases tankiness significantly. At around 20% Spirit, the armor buff is practically permanent.
On top of that, spirit refunds give her extra stone shields through Unwavering Spirit, and makes Warden much more comfortable. Spirit should be pushed until the diminishing returns start getting heavy.
All substats increase the total health of Stone Shield by 2% per 1% of each stat.
Gearing Priority:
- Purple+ Weapon Tree
- Legendary Item
- Item Level on pieces that give Armor
- Completed Set Bonus
- Item level on other pieces
Substat Priorities
- Spirit (To ~25%)
- Expertise
- Crit
- Haste
It’s worth noting that secondary stats on gear have diminishing returns. Because Stone Shield scales with each % of substat, it’s worth going a little bit wide when it’s ‘cheap’.
Extra Tips for Meiko
Here is a collection of extra tips and tricks for Meiko for specific abilities and situations.
- Wind Kick and the relevant combo finishers all do their AoE around the target you hit. As such, ignore the animation and focus on the target most central in the pack.
- Finishers are off-global cooldown, and will be used ideally after every second combo. This means the best window to use other off-global cooldown abilities will be after your first combo every time, to avoid GCD clipping.
- Twin Souls: Bulwark summons a unit that takes damage, meaning you can use it to spread damage out even further with group stacking mechanics, or even solo them.
Changelog
For a full list of Open Beta -> Early Access updates, please see our post documenting all changes.