Let's Build: Poseidon

In Let’s Build, we’ll examine a god, and give an overview of what common items and builds for that god are, and the reasoning behind them. We start this week with Poseidon.

Poseidon is a classic burst Mage with considerable upside. In addition to his big AoE (area of effect) damage, he’s got very strong CC for a Mage; Tidal Surge and particularly Whirlpool provide some fairly aggravating soft CC, and the Kraken, of course, is a very nasty popup when hit dead center. Furthermore, Trident gives him great cross-map mobility as well as some of the best boxing potential for any Mage, putting him behind only Freya, Chronos, and Sol. To summarize: Poseidon’s strengths are very high burst damage, good soft area CC, and good long term DPS potential post-burst using Trident. His weaknesses are his lack of an escape ability, and the necessity of concentrating his burst very narrowly in time, as his primary combination to guarantee damage involves using Whirlpool to guarantee a Kraken, which in turn rapidly guarantees a Tidal Surge. This very short period in which the damage is being dealt renders his kit very vulnerable to the use of the Sanctuary Relic and strips him of most, but not all, his damage once his kit has been cast, a common problem for burst mages.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some (non-starter, non-relic) items or item groupings that work particularly well with Poseidon.


1 – Gem of Isolation
Always a popular item on Poseidon, the Iso Gem provides fairly strong utility in the form of its 25% slow, which stacks with the suction effect of Whirlpool to make it truly annoying to escape. It also provides a bit of mana and a significant chunk of health, improving Poseidon’s survivability and sustain, although by the time you’re likely to complete an Iso Gem, mana sustain is probably no longer a worry for you.
The primary problem with building the Gem is that it is not the best burst item. To be sure, 70 magical power is fairly good, but for 2850 gold, that’s not much, and the Gem is outperformed by many items, even at lesser costs, in terms of pure burst. Book of Thoth provides significantly more power at zero stacks at 200 less gold, for instance, and many players prefer to take other, cheaper utility damage items for Poseidon, such as Polynomicon for the lifesteal and an even harsher Trident (Polynomicon also outperforms Gem of Iso on pure burst), Warlock’s Sash for more health (and more power when fully stacked).
Still, any player who’s faced a Gem of Isolation Poseidon knows that an Isolation-powered whirlpool is incredibly frustrating and difficult to escape without eating a nasty amount of damage, and it makes the Kraken, already a rather easy-to-hit ultimate, even more guaranteeable.

2 – “The Mage Standard”
Items which are good on burst mages generally should do fine on Poseidon. This means such staples as Shoes of the Magi, Book of Thoth, Chronos’ Pendant, Rod of Tahuti, and Spear of Desolation will all very much be at home in a Poseidon build. Chronos’ Pendant is a particularly good choice; Poseidon has some fairly long cooldowns, so you get quite a few seconds worth of cooldown savings by investing in cooldown reduction. With Sanctuary being no longer quite so powerful as it once was, it’s more forcefully true than ever that the more often Poseidon can drop Krakens, the stronger he will be.


3 – Penetration
Prior to recent changes to Spear of the Magus, Poseidon was about as strongly on the Spear side of the Spear vs. Shard division as any Mage this side of Anubis. Now it’s not quite so clear-cut, but Poseidon certainly still prefers Spear of the Magus to Obsidian Shard in the vast majority of cases; Whirlpool does a tolerably good job fully stacking the spear, managing it in a moderately-long 1.5 seconds by itself. Combined with a late-game Spear of Desolation, which provides a nice additional flat pen bonus, Spear of the Magus does a fine job with penetration unless Poseidon needs to knock down towers and phoenixes quickly, as in Joust, or unless he’s constantly facing targets with very high magical defense, in which case Obsidian Shard becomes the better choice.

4 – Health and Defense
Warlock’s Sash goes rather well on Poseidon, as it gives a very nice chunk of magical power along with its massive HP bonus, and can work very well with a protections item or with Gem of Isolation. Though I personally prefer Poseidon to deal damage rather than to sustain it, builds focused on a good combination of survivability AND damage through the use of, for instance, Warlock’s Sash, Gem of Isolation, and Ethereal Staff are not unheard of. This makes Poseidon tough to kill, certainly, but it also makes it difficult for him to guarantee kills on any but the squishiest of targets. Still, a health item here or there doesn’t go amiss.
In terms of protections, Poseidon prefers to get away without building any, as with most burst mages, since being forced into protections (in Conquest, anyway) usually means the team is behind. In such games, though, or in non-Conquest game modes, protections can be very helpful. On the physical side, Dynasty Plate Helm is an item that provides some additional pen kick. Celestial Legion Helm, though very underrated, is very niche and usually outperformed by other items. As usual, Breastplate of Valor is often the best choice, as it provides a huge amount of physical protections while boosting CDR, a familiarly excellent combination for a Mage. On the magical side, Void Stone and Bulwark of Hope are good choices, but unless jousting or up against a very strange team composition, you usually won’t be getting good value out of building magical defense even if very far behind.


5 – Niche Picks
It is possible to build a very painful autoattack Poseidon through the use of Polynomicon and Demonic Grip. True believers may elect to include Fatalis, and the insanely devoted may even add on Telkhines’ Ring, but this is certainly very cheesy territory, though it does keep Poseidon cranking out more consistent damage over longer periods in the very long run.
Lifesteal, if it is desired, is usually best obtained via Polynomicon due to its extremely good synergy with Trident. Bancroft’s Talon is always an option, of course, due to its immense power boost, but the benefit of Poly-powered Trident blasts is a hard one to pass up.
Soul Reaver can be a very interesting choice on Poseidon, but it’s usually gratuitous – Poseidon doesn’t really need Soul Reaver to burst down targets, even tanky targets (and Soul Reaver is a very expensive luxury). As always, Soul Reaver should be considered stronger when built alongside Book of Thoth, as its 300 mana is very powerful fuel for the Book of Thoth mana-to-power Passive.

Doom Orb is possible if you outclass your competition, but it’s usually a poor choice on Poseidon who can be very easily focused in a fight. The speed on Trident, which, though excellent for macro-level mobility, is a poor way to get out of a sticky situation. Though his damaging abilities can all be used to gain distance on a pursuer, Doom Orb is normally reserved for gods with a bit more reliable survivability.


That’s Poseidon for you! In most situations you’ll want most, if not all, of the mage-standard items on him (Pen Shoes, certainly Chronos’ Pendant, Rod of Tahuti, Spear of Desolation, Book of Thoth) as well as a further pen item (usually Spear of the Magus); the interesting thing is what to do if you decide to include a utility item, where Gem of Isolation, Polynomicon, Warlock’s Sash, or even an autoattack item can shine. I personally prefer to use the mage-standard set minus Book of Thoth, plus Spear of the Magus and Gem of Isolation, as I really love the additional utility on Whirlpool Poseidon brings to a teamfight when armed with the Gem. A lot is possible on this very flexible god, however, so try your own experiments and see what you like best.


Source

I like this a lot, Dash! This should be a great new series!

Glad to see some good items analysis coming from Smitegame.com. I agree with everything said here, although I personally think that warlock's sash on Poseidon is underrated since he's so good at building stacks, making it a super efficient stacking item. My go-to with him is
Shoes of the Magi -> warlock's sash -> Chronos' Pendant -> Spear of the Magus -> Gem of Isolation -> Rod of Tahuti.
The extra health really helps you survive when being focused in a teamfight since you don't have any escapes, while at the same time warlock's sash still doesn't skimp on power. Of course, Book of Thoth, Spear of Desolation and Polynomicon are all good picks too in their own right.

Im also pretty sure Gem of Isolation is now 2700, unless it hasnt updated on SmiteFire?

GameGeek for me it shows Gem of Isolation as 2700

Thought so. They should really change what they said about Gem of Isolation being 2850, with Poseidon in the beginning.