An Almost Perfect Support Match (for me)
I was handed a rare treat, and got to play with not only my nephew, but Ducks and Stuke too, to make almost a full team. Only our
Susano was a solo queue.Okay, Ducks knows how to play as
Skadi. He dominated, 12/1/5. There was only one point where I wasn't able to save him as 
Athena, and it was a 10-15 second chase when my abilities were on cooldown, Ducks was juking, I was body-blocking, and the enemy 
Jing Wei was finally able to catch him. It felt like it went on forever, and he had gotten into the range of our tower, so it was a close call. No prob, said Ducks. Cool.In the opposite lane, Stuke was showing us that he doesn't need to be a Warrior to do well. 6/3/1 as
Zhong Kui.I think my biggest error of the match was not starting to rotate soon enough. I know I should be moving around the 5 minute mark, but I was mostly staying around Duo until 8 or 9 minutes. I think I was reasoning it out in my mind...either the enemy Support was also still there, or it was a backing thing where I was covering lane or whatever. I don't recall, but either way I should have rotated sooner.
I ended 4/0/8. Not too shabby. If only EVERY match could be like this, I would be the next Incon. LOL yeah, I threw up in my mouth just a little, too. But based on that score, you can imagine how confident I was feeling, that maybe I was turning a corner.
And Now To The Dirty Stuff
So, a new day, a new way...to teach me humility. A solid, solo Assault warm-up match should have foretold things. But in different ways, I guess.
I lost despite going 10/4/20 with
Bacchus (with 2nd highest damage on my team to 
Thor and 2nd highest to the enemy 
Artemis), all while tanking a ****load of damage. Well, see for yourself:
Yup
Conquest Game #1:
Athena SupportAfter that, I teamed up with my nephew, and I went Support (
Athena) with an Artemis ADC, while he went Mid with 
Scylla. Was way too aggressive, I think, and took too much damage from the start, more even from 
Ymir than from the Jing Wei, I think. I didn't die during the first flurry, but over the first few minutes, both Artemis and I died a couple of times. Art was obviously a bit annoyed with my noobish nature, and said "thanks!" a couple of times, but wasn't any meaner than that. As the game progressed, things started looking up. We held our own while my nephew and our solo 
Bellona started owning. Bell, in particular, went a perfect 10/0/4, and the enemy team eventually surrendered.I finished 2/2/11, but should have had a negative K/D ratio, as I ended up getting last hits.
Could have been worse, I guess.
Game #2:
Athena SupportYup. And the worse was here. This time, I did the same thing while my nephew went ADC (
Neith). He doesn't usually play ADC, as he prefers Mid and Jungle (and I think he might play Support even worse than me, if it's possible), but he was doing just fine. We were using Discord, and all I kept hearing was "what are you doing? Don't play so aggressively!" We were against a 
Sobek, see, and we were pushing too close to the enemy tower, making it easy for him to snag me. He was also body-blocking me after that, which really sucked. After the first time, you'd think I'd learn, but I just kept being aggressive. The biggest thing I was fighting, I think, was helping clear the wave. I couldn't even get close to the wave without major threat of damage. Felt like I wasn't doing anything (I wasn't), and needed to contribute. I have to figure out what to do in those situations.My nephew called it, though. At the damage buff, our Mid
Scylla missed connecting with her ability...and he knew she was going to be bad too. If you would believe it, in 10 minutes (when we surrendered), Scylla had only done 775 player damage!I ended up at 0/5/1. Bleh.
Game #3:
Aphrodite SoloOh, I can do worse than 0/5/1? Yup, I guess so. I went Aphro solo, and faced an enemy
Anhur. Okay, WTF do I do against that? I had the toughest time in the world. The only thing I felt like I could do was hope for a connect on the kiss, and throw my birds and hope it connected in time. Otherwise, it was a spear in the face, pinned up against his obelisk.I fed him so much that clear on the other side, my nephew as
Ullr ADC by the 10 minute mark was going "WTF Anhur why do you hurt so much??" We were also playing with a couple of his friends (the Susano and 
Janus). It didn't help, teaming up. At least I threw down a lot of wards!The icing on the cake was when we reached the 25 minute mark, and
Bakasura came in and destroyed at least 3 of us at once. It was horribly beautiful. We surrendered.I ended at 1/7/1.
I'm not sure
Aphrodite is the most balanced solo choice. I need to find a god that doesn't have too many glaring weaknesses and concentrate on getting better with them. Devampi suggested 
Chaac. I personally like Zhong Kui but he could have some weaknesses too (I don't know). I know Bellona can do well but I've never been comfortable with her. Any suggestions?Joust Blues (Sorry Zilby, Ferrum)
After that game, I teamed up with Zilby and Ferrum, and because we had the magic number 3 (and Zilby dislikes Arena), we went for Joust. This is another mode I hardly ever play, especially since the new map. I know how to counter build for Assault, but when it comes to stacking items, and counter-building against smaller teams, I have some problems. I trust I'll get better with practice.
We won the first 2, and lost the last 2. I didn't have a positive K/D the entire time. 1/2/4 as
Bacchus (win), 5/8/4 as 
Eset (win), 4/11/14 as Athena (loss), 3/5/12 as 
Freya (loss). I'm hoping this string of bad games for me was just me already being demoralized from games earlier that night, but I need more game time with friends that have strong backs.It's crazy to see how good Z is. He just plays differently. Aggressive when I'd back off. Hits all his abilities. How the hell does he get more kills than me when I'm the god I'm most comfortable with, and he's
Khepri???Hacks. Gotta be. Has nothing to do with my eternally noobish nature. Was hoping to see some progression, as I've now played 40 conquest matches (~10 in recent times) and not quite 50 in Joust (though 35-40 of those were on the old map).
So yeah, sorry again Z, Ferrum. Thanks for the games, even though I sucked!
"I personally like Zhong Kui but he could have some weaknesses too (I don't know)." Mostly his weaknesses are
Hope that was helpful.
So I do understand the range and damage thing, but his sustain and tankiness is really helpful for me. I guess I was meaning more of how he matches up against the majority of soloers. Does he match up well against a good amount of them so that when I do choose him, I can be generally confident that it won't be a terrible matchup? I know I owned a
And yeah, I reference your guide when I do play him. It's pretty much the general build that I saw being used by others and referenced in Reddit, etc. It's a solid build.
And he can do a decent amount of damage too if you have the right items (well you need qin's for that)
Also don't forget
It was good playing with you though bran, don't get too discouraged! ~improvement is happening all the time~
Also if you want to see me playing badly, just look at my
But yeah, playing with buddies is a nice change from solo queueing!