Predecessor: Beginner-to-Advanced Guide

A guide to Predecessor, Omeda Studios' third-person 5v5 MOBA: roles, map objectives, Crests and Eternals, itemization principles, the modes added in the 1.16 and 1.17 updates, and how to climb. It's written for players coming from other MOBAs as well as complete newcomers.

Researched September 2026 — current as of Update 1.17 "Bloodtide" (Sept 22, 2026) and Hotfix 1.17.1 (Sept 24, 2026). Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

It's a MOBA played over the shoulder. You aim skillshots and basic attacks yourself, and you can jump, so height and walls matter far more than in top-down MOBAs.
Pick a role before you pick a hero. The five positions are Offlane, Jungle, Midlane, Support, and Carry. Carry and Support share the duo lane.
Choose a Crest every match. Crests are your starter item. They evolve twice as you play and end as one of three final items with an active ability.
Pick an Eternal in the draft. Eternals are twelve-plus deities that each give a Major Blessing and a choice of Minor Blessings. The game remembers your choice per hero and per role.
Farm minions properly. Last-hitting is where most gold and XP come from. Don't auto-push waves without a reason.
Ward and track the jungler. Stealth Wards give vision, Sentries detect, and Supports get Solstone wards that do both.
Objectives win games. Fangtooth (duo side) gives permanent team buffs. Orb Prime (offlane side) becomes a team-wide power spike after 20 minutes.
Play the new modes to learn heroes. Brawl (back in 1.16) and Crucible 3v3 (new in 1.17) are fast ways to practice a kit before taking it into Ranked.

Controls and Settings

Controls are fully rebindable, and the game has full cross-play plus controller support on PC. Out of the box you basic attack with the mouse and cast abilities from the mouse and nearby keys. Each hero has a passive, Primary, Secondary, and Alternate abilities, plus an Ultimate, and you can jump. Check Settings > Controls for the exact binds before your first match.

Settings worth changing early:

Setting	Why
Camera lag	Update 1.16.4 disabled default camera lag for snappier aiming. If you set it manually, consider turning it off.
Sensitivity	Lower sensitivity helps skillshot and basic-attack consistency, especially on Carry heroes
Minimap size / scale	Bigger is easier to read for jungle and support tracking
Quick cast vs. indicator cast	Quick cast is faster. Indicators help while you learn ranges.
Voice chat	Cross-play voice runs through Discord-powered comms. Mute toxic players freely.

Air control note (1.16.4): most heroes' in-air control was cut from 90% to 75%, so jump-spamming to dodge is less effective than it used to be.

Roles Explained

Role	Lane / area	Job	Starter crest direction
Offlane	Solo lane (Orb Prime side)	Durable bruiser or tank. Holds a lane alone, teleports to fights, fronts teamfights.	Guardian, Titan, Warrior families
Jungle	Jungle camps between lanes	Farms camps, ganks lanes, secures Fangtooth and Orb Prime	Rogue, Warrior, Titan families
Midlane	Middle lane	Mage or assassin damage. Roams to side lanes.	Magician, Occult families
Carry	Duo lane with Support	Ranged physical DPS that scales into late game	Marksman family
Support	Duo lane, then roams	Vision, peel, engage, sustain. Uses Solstone wards.	Consort family

Newer heroes by role (from recent patch notes): Scarlett (1.16) is a melee Offlaner who uses Energy instead of Mana. Baron Valmont (1.17) is a ranged magical damage dealer built around his summoned sword Lilith.

The Map and Objectives

The main 5v5 map has three lanes and a jungle split into Dawn and Dusk sides.

Jungle camps

White camps (commonly called by their camp sizes, 2-camp through 5-camp) give gold and XP.
Buff camps: Red buff, Cyan (blue) buff, and Gold buff each give a temporary personal buff. Junglers typically plan a full clear around them.
Monsters reset if you drag them out of their leash circle.

Major objectives

Objective	Where	Reward
Fangtooth	Duo-lane side	Permanent team buffs that stack as your team takes more. After three kills, Primal Fangtooth spawns and applies a temporary true-damage burn.
Orb Prime	Offlane side	Before 20 minutes, a temporary individual buff. After 20 minutes, team-wide buffs to damage and regen.
Towers, inhibitors, Core	Every lane	Destroy the enemy Core to win

System changes to know (1.16):

Teleporters unlock at the start of the game instead of after 8 minutes.
Tower platings now last the whole match instead of disappearing at 13 minutes.
Damage-over-time effects no longer interrupt recall.

Crests: Your Starter Item

Crests are chosen at the start of each match. Each one evolves through three tiers, and the final tier is one of three items with an active ability.

Tier 1 crest	Evolves toward	Typical user
Consort Crest	Support crests	Supports
Guardian Crest	Tank crests	Tank offlaners, tank supports
Magician Crest	Mage crests	Midlaners, mage supports
Marksman Crest	Sharpshooter line	Carries
Occult Crest	Caster/warlock line	Mages
Rogue Crest	Assassin line	Assassin junglers, mids
Titan Crest	Bruiser line	Bruisers
Warrior Crest	Melee fighter line	Fighters

Tier 2 crest names include Assassin, Champion, Goliath, Keeper, Sharpshooter, Warden, Warlock, and Wizard Crest. Tier 3 finals include items such as Abyssal Dart, Brutallax, Earth Spirit, Epoch, Eviscerator, Exodus, Fenix, and Florescence.

Rule: pick the crest family that matches what your hero does in this game, not just its label. A tanky support wants a Guardian-line crest, and an enchanter wants a Consort-line crest.

Eternals

Eternals are picked during the draft. Each gives one Major Blessing plus Minor Blessings from two categories. They're grouped by class. Some current examples:

Eternal	Major blessing (short)	Suits
Vermis	Every third consecutive basic attack on the same hero deals bonus max-health damage	Auto-attack fighters
Marrow	Omnivamp that grows with missing health	Bruisers
Knell	Hits apply Rust stacks that shred armor	Tanks and frontliners
Krix	More max health and size	Tanks
Idrisil	Bonus armor, then a big shield at low health	Tanks
Vesh	Ability damage adds a damage-over-time	Mages
Exarch	Heals and shields give allies attack speed and magic on-hit	Enchanter supports
Pilow	Casting weakens nearby enemies' damage	Supports
Demiurge	Bigger item stats and item-effect damage	Item-reliant builds
Satariel	Takedowns give Fearless stacks: less max health, more offense	Snowballing assassins
Weald	Projectiles fire when you hit low-health heroes	Ranged finishers

Version note: 1.16 "Aegis of Dawn" added four new Eternals. They were rebalanced in 1.16.1, 1.16.4, and again in 1.17 (for example, Weald's Forage XP per minion kill dropped from 4 to 3). Satariel's health penalty was raised twice because it snowballed too hard. Check current numbers in the patch notes before you theorycraft.

Itemization Principles

Predecessor uses gold to buy items in the shop between trips to lane. Instead of copying a fixed list, follow these rules:

Rush your core damage item for your role (physical power or attack speed for Carries, magical power for mages, health and armor for tanks).
Buy armor for what's hurting you. Physical Armor against physical carries and bruisers, Magical Armor against mages. Check the scoreboard.
Buy anti-heal when the enemy has heavy sustain (lifesteal bruisers, healers).
Watch patch notes for item nerfs. Recent examples:
- 1.17 nerfed Typhoon (lower attack-speed scaling, cooldown up from 35s to 45s) and cut the Heal & Shield Power on Hexbound Bracers and Transference to 8%.
- 1.16.4 halved Silentium's muzzle damage, made Brimstone cheaper but a bit weaker, gave Deathstalker, Demon Edge, and Tyranny more physical power, nerfed Cursed Scroll for health stacking, and buffed Fire Blossom's scaling.

Game Modes (1.17)

Mode	Format	Use it for
Standard / Ranked	5v5, three lanes	The real game. Draft, Eternals, full objectives.
Crucible (new in 1.17)	3v3 on a single-lane map with a jungle	Short games with lots of fighting. Destroy the enemy Core to win.
Brawl (returned in 1.16)	5v5 ticket-based	Teamfight practice. Reduce the enemy's tickets to zero.

Crucible details:

No Gold or Cyan buffs. The Orb Prime buff moved to an objective called the Shaper.
Fangtooth is replaced by a pack of three Raptors (Raptor Fangteeth) that spawns every three minutes and gives stacking stat bonuses.
The map has geysers, bounce pads, stealth bushes, health packs, and gold and speed plants.

Brawl details: Giant Buffs spawn every 2 minutes with random effects such as invisibility or doubled ultimates. A Primal Fangtooth spawns and creates lane minions when it's defeated.

Current Patch Snapshot (1.17 Bloodtide)

New hero Baron Valmont:
- Hemophagia (passive): his sword Lilith attacks the last damaged nearby enemy and restores mana on kills.
- Rupture: five blood blades.
- Bloodbound: throws Lilith to a location, dealing damage and slowing.
- Arterial Grip: a blood tether that steals attack speed and slows the target.
- Exsanguinate (ultimate): an empowered form that fires healing bat swarms.
- His basic attack (Crimson Sigil) deals physical damage, while his abilities deal magical damage.
- Hotfix 1.17.1 fixed an issue where his Sanguine Banquet augment regenerated mana incorrectly.
Nerfed in 1.17: Akeron (magical power scalings), Aurora, Gideon (ahead of the PCC Fall event), Greystone, Muriel (durability and utility), Phase, Serath, Wukong (offlane effectiveness), and Zinx.
Nerfed in 1.16.4: Kallari, Feng Mao, Maco, Phase, and Rampage (Tiny Titan augment).
Buffed in 1.16.4: Adele, Terra, Steel, Riktor, Legion, Narbash, Drongo, and Lt. Belica.

Meta read: heroes nerfed several patches in a row (Phase, Gideon, Greystone) were the overperformers of summer 2026. New heroes like Scarlett and Valmont usually get hotfix tuning within weeks, so expect their numbers to move.

Laning and Jungling Fundamentals

Laning

Last-hit minions. Only trade with the enemy laner when their minions aren't attacking you.
Ping and back off when the enemy jungler is missing.
Freeze the wave near your tower if you're behind. Push it into their tower before you recall or roam.
Carries: stay behind your minion wave. Most early deaths come from walking up without vision.

Jungling

Plan your first clear so you finish near a lane that can be ganked (enemy pushed up, your laner has crowd control).
Track the enemy jungler by watching which lanes get pressured.
Contest Fangtooth when your duo lane has priority, and Orb Prime when your offlaner does.
Securing objectives (and not losing them to an enemy steal) matters more than your KDA. Check the objective's health and the enemy jungler's position before you commit.

Support

Place Solstone wards in the river and near objectives about a minute before they spawn.
Use Sentries to clear enemy vision before objectives.
Peel for your Carry in teamfights instead of diving the enemy backline.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Ignoring vision. Most thrown games start with a face-check into an unwarded jungle.
Chasing kills past objectives. Take the tower, Fangtooth, or Orb Prime instead of the 10% HP enemy running away.
Building the same items every game. Adapt your armor type and anti-heal to the enemy draft.
Picking an Eternal that doesn't match your role. A tank with Satariel loses health it needs.
Jumping everywhere. Since 1.16.4 air control is lower, and jumping predictably makes you easier to hit.
Recalling without pushing the wave first. You lose the minions in lane to the tower.
Solo-queuing Ranked on a hero you've never played. Use Crucible, Brawl, or casual first.

Advanced Tips

Use verticality. Ledges and walls block skillshots, and high ground lets you aim over minion waves.
Spike timing. Fight when you complete a core item or hit an ultimate level. Avoid fighting right after the enemy does.
Teleporters from minute zero (since 1.16) mean offlaners and mids can join early fights. Watch the minimap for enemies teleporting in.
Tower platings stay all game (since 1.16). Hitting towers stays profitable later than it used to.
After 20 minutes, Orb Prime is the game. The team buff it gives decides most late fights. Ward it early and trade other objectives for it.
Primal Fangtooth after three Fangtooth kills adds a true-damage burn. It's a big late-game spike for whichever team is already ahead on Fangtooth.
Read balance patches. Omeda ships them every few weeks, and the patch notes list which heroes and Eternals were over-tuned.

FAQ

Is Predecessor free to play? Yes. It's free on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox with full cross-play. You spend money on cosmetics like skins and bundles.

Who is the newest hero? Baron Valmont, a ranged blood mage, released with Update 1.17 "Bloodtide" on September 22, 2026. Before him came Scarlett, a melee Offlaner, in 1.16 on August 11, 2026.

What's Crucible? A 3v3 mode added in 1.17. It plays on a single-lane map with a jungle, uses Raptor Fangteeth, and moves the Orb Prime buff to an objective called the Shaper.

What are Eternals? Deities you pick in the draft. Each gives a Major Blessing and selectable Minor Blessings, and your choice is saved per hero and per role.

Which role should a beginner play? Support or Offlane are the most forgiving. Carry teaches last-hitting and positioning. Jungle has the most to learn about map awareness.

Is it the same game as Paragon? Predecessor was built by the community using the assets Epic released from Paragon, and it has been redesigned heavily since. Treat Paragon guides as outdated.