Playstyle Overview
Meiko revolves around combos and finishers. Her palm strike, kick and fist attack unlock various finishers that change depending on the order you press her abilities in.
There are 2 finishers associated with each of her core abilities for a total of 6. The first ability used determines which type of finisher you’ll gain access to, and the second ability chooses which of the 2 finishers to use. Below I’ll list all of the combos possible:
- Spirit Palm + Wind Kick = Double Palm Strike
- Spirit Palm + Earth Fist = Spirited Vortex
- Wind Kick + Spirit Palm = Rising Storm
- Wind Kick + Earth Fist = Lashing Stormkick
- Earth Fist + Spirit Palm = Rising Earth
- Earth Fist + Wind Kick = Earthfist Barrage
It might seem like a lot, but to dull it down you can think of like this:
- Spirit Palm first = Defensive Buff
- Wind Kick first = Damage combo for 5+ Targets
- Earth Fist first = Damage combo for 1-4 Targets
This changes depending on Talents and Legendaries but as a baseline you can take this and roll with it.
Your goal on Meiko is to benefit as much as possible from her defensive buffs whilst also dealing as much damage as you can to heal. To achieve this we follow a couple simple rules:
- Maintain Defensive Buffs: Your Spirit Palm buffs and Stone Shield are important to keep up at all times to reduce your damage intake.
- Use Offensive Buffs: Using Rising Storm or Rising Earth grants you 2 stacks of an empowered version of Lashing Stormkick or Earthfist Barrage respectively. You’ll deal much more damage and heal much more if you’re utilizing these buffs.
Rotation
Assuming you’re using the recommended talent set-ups, Meiko has a fairly simple rotation that revolves around using buffs to deal more damage and heal. Because her gameplay revolves around buff maintenance, she has less of a strict rotation and more of a priority of when to press certain things.
This rotation priority is as follows:
1-4 Target Rotation:
- Shatter Earth
- Stone Shield with no buff
- Spirit Palm + Wind Kick -> Double Palm Strike to consume Warden Of The Temple Stacks OR >5 seconds remaining on Spirited Strikes buff
- Spirit Palm + Earth Fist -> Spirited Vortex with >5 seconds remaining on Spirited Vortex buff
- Earth Fist + Spirit Palm -> Rising Earth Finisher with no stacks
- Earth Fist + Wind Kick -> Earthfist Barrage to spend Rising Earth
5+ Target Rotation:
- Shatter Earth
- Stone Shield with no buff
- Spirit Palm + Wind Kick -> Double Palm Strike to consume Warden Of The Temple Stacks OR >5 seconds remaining on Spirited Strikes buff
- Spirit Palm + Earth Fist -> Spirited Vortex with >5 seconds remaining on Spirited Vortex buff
- Wind Kick + Spirit Palm -> Rising Storm Finisher with no stacks
- Wind Kick + Earth Fist -> Lashing Stormkick to spend Rising Storm
If you’ve managed to get yourself the Tectonic Barrage Legendary then you’ll always use Earth finishers regardless of target count.
Defensives
Stone Shield is your main defensive ability and has no duration. Your goal is to always have at least 1 stack of this buff at any given time, and avoid overcapping charges. In combination with the Resonance Of Earth Talent you can use this proactively to reduce the damage of tank busters by 20% if you know you won’t need the charges for longevity.
Serenity is an interesting stacking instant heal. It stacks up to 50, and the more stacks, the more healing this does. You generate stacks from your auto attacks, or with the Earthwell talent, each tick of your earth barrage. It’s quite a powerful heal so use it sparingly.
Shatter Earth is not only a movement ability but one of Meiko’s strongest damaging abilities. When talenting Will Of Stone it also makes your Shatter Earth apply Meiko’s Spirit buffs, making it much easier to open pulls and maintain them. It allows us to do more damage, healing and overall be more durable.
Twin Souls: Bulwark effectively stops you from taking any damage for 20 seconds or until the totem dies. You’ll take a mere 20% of the damage the totem does, making this an extremely powerful defensive cooldown. It’s on a fairly lengthy cooldown baseline so use it sparingly.
Cyclone and Stone Stomp are our crowd control buttons. Cyclone is a mass grip that can be used to move stubborn mobs or as an AoE interrupt, and Stone Stomp is a frontal cone AoE stun for 3 seconds.
And last but not least, we have Meiko’s ultimate ability: Twin Souls: Army Of One. Activating your ultimate will do a large amount of damage, grant you 30% haste for 20 seconds, and 20% damage done, and then also reduce all damage you take by 40%. Do not use this at the same time as Twin Souls: Bulwark as it wastes the effectiveness of each since they don’t stack, but it’s definitely a super strong cooldown.