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Hi, I'm FemFatalis, I've been playing Smite since the Agni remodel patch, and this is the first guide in a series of solo lane guides. I enjoy playing solo in conquest, and today, I'm writing about an underrated yet powerful solo laner: Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.
In the start of Smite's competitive scene, Aphrodite was a powerful player in the support role, alongside Sun Wukong, Guan Yu, and Geb. Shadowq, currently of Denial and formerly of Team Dignitas, displayed the potential of Aphrodite support in a famed series of jukes and heals that led to a free double kill for his ADC. However, since the start of Season 1, Aphrodite has transitioned to a powerful solo laner, played most elegantly by Confrey of Titan. While she became a support, Aphrodite was designed to be a solo laner, with serious sustain, gank survivability, and late game teamfight potential.
The starting build is Vampiric Shroud, Lost Artifact, a Healing Potion, and a Mana Potion. Vampiric Shroud is self-explanatory - really the only viable and safe starting item for mages. Lost Artifact will build into Chronos Pendant second. The potions are for worst-case scenarios.
As Aphrodite, you don't really have to back at any time. I've stayed in lane until after my second blue buff wears out, then backed and bought the first two items. If you're forced back before you can start Chronos' Pendant, just buy Shoes of the Magi. I never buy Shoes of Focus on Aphrodite, since with Chronos' Pendant and Winged Blade, you have close to max CDR, and the blue buff will still have an effect on CDR.
Gold numbers at which you should back are:
Matchups in the solo lane are vitally important. Good thing Aphrodite crushes the majority of the meta right now! (long list warning)
EASY
ANUBIS |
| | | It's almost like they made this god for Aphrodite to counter. Undying Love is a combined Aegis Pendant Greater Purification that can be used under cc (think Mummify), so Anubis has no effective ult. Aphrodite can Kiss him out of his Plague of Locusts. Winged Blade will negate some of the slows from Grasping Hands, and Love Birds will heal up his poke. I've been seeing a lot of Anubis solo recently, and Aphrodite destroys that lane. You'll never die unless you're ganked or you totally misplay. |
AO KUANG |
| | | This matchup is fun. Ao Kuang will try to teleport to you with his Water Illusion and burst you down, but if you can pop Undying Love at the right moment, you can fall back to tower and heal back all that damage. Ao Kuang will transition into a hyper carry if he gets fed, but he won't have the support that you will provide your hyper carry, so hopefully in the late game you'll do more work. |
BASTET |
| | | Bastet is all about that burst, from Pounce to Cat Call. Undying Love plus Love Birds or Back Off will usually counter the cats, Love Birds can heal back the poke from a Declaw or Razor Whip, and Winged Blade will stop the two slows Bastet has. Bastet doesn't scale as well as you, so you can crush her late game. Be careful around level 5, however, as you won't have a lot of healing, Bastet's cats can kill you if you overextend even a bit. |
CHAAC |
| | | Chaac kinda sucks right now in general. As warriors go, he doesn't bring much to teamfights or laning phase, so you won't see much of him. Thunder Strike is easy to avoid, Improved Sprint and Winged Blade stop his Rain Dance from sticking to you, and Storm Call's silence is disruptive, sure, but not much. Don't expect to get kills in this lane, but don't expect to lose either. You will most likely take tower before he does. |
FENRIR |
| | | Easy. Buy Greater Purification and you outright win. You can Kiss his main form of clear and poke: Brutalize, and with that, Unchained becomes nearly useless. Undying Love counters Ragnarok. Plus you have presence late game. Fenrir loses this lane hard. |
GUAN YU |
| | | Also easy, for similar reasons. Taolu Assault is very vulnerable to a nicely aimed Kiss, and loses all clear until it comes back up. Cavalry Charge still does some damage, but you can Undying Love the stun to prevent gankability. Kill Guan Yu early during teamfights and the enemy team loses a potent frontliner. |
HUN BATZ |
| | | All about timing. Counter Sacred Monkey's teleport with a Back Off! before he can land a crit, heal up from Overhand Smash, Kiss him if he jumps at you with Somersault, and Undying Love out of Fear No Evil. You will definitely have more push than him, but both of you bring enormous teamfight presence, so be careful late game. |
LOKI |
| | | Kill him. It's easy, since Love Birds applies a tick, so even under Vanish you'll see the damage numbers. Assassinate can be countered by Undying Love. If you land a kill on Loki while he's stacking Heartseeker, he'll fall behind and you can win lane with ease. However, once you start rotating, he'll backdoor your towers, so just be careful and don't lose your phoenix. |
OSIRIS |
| | | Aphrodite with Winged Blade has nothing to fear from Osiris. If he wants to dive, Lord of the Afterlife will stop your healing, but Kiss will give you distance from his Judgement Tether. Osiris is bad right now, so don't expect to see him much, but Aphrodite is a respectable counter. |
SWK |
| | | Love Birds heals back the poke from The Magic Cudgel. Back Off or Kiss stops 72 Transformations from hitting you, and Undying Love stops ganks. |
|
The most important part of the first 30 seconds is to tell your jungler to save their Hand of the Gods for your blue buff. Here is a step-by-step way to clear the two camps.
The laning phase constitutes the mid game. By level 9, you'll have full clear with Love Birds apart from the brute minions. With given clear, Aphrodite becomes a poke monster, especially after near-max CDR is reached with Chronos Pendant and Winged Blade. You can clear the wave, Kiss the enemy solo laner, Back Off! them, and lead them with Love Birds again for enormous levels of poke. Blue buff allows an infinite number of these pokes. Unless you die once or twice during this phase, you are guaranteed to win lane and get the tower first. In addition, when other solo laners rotate, it is not as safe for you to do so. Instead, push the tier 2 tower, take jungle buffs, et cetera. Take advantage of farming the lane alone.
Ganks will most likely happen during the mid game. During an allied gank on the enemy solo laner, you will want to Kiss the jungler immediately and use Back Off! to slow the enemy. Love Birds will serve as poke and extra damage, but mostly, you'll be playing assist. Kissing the solo laner will increase your jungler's damage, so land those Kisses!
As soon as Aphrodite enters teamfights, the game changes. You'll have close to max CDR, so heal your allies whenever possible. You can even spam Love Birds into walls or camps instead of hitting enemies, since the heal is extremely valuable. Don't waste Undying Love - use it only if your soul mate is about to die or if a burst/cc-heavy ultimate ( Release The Kraken!, Pillar of Agony, Searing Pain, Waxing Moon, etc) is used on you and/or your soul mate. Kiss targets that your soul mate is focusing for the increased damage. Use Back Off! to stop enemy aggression. Aphrodite is the mistress of sustain, so use her healing and CC to your advantage. Always stay linked to your jungler or ADC, linking to others only for temporary amounts of time and only if they are low health.
Well, that's it! I hope you've enjoyed my guide to Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love (and the solo lane). I fully expect to see Aphrodite make a resurgence in the meta game, especially when players learn how to win the Bakasura/ Bellona matchups that are so prevalent right now. There is no credible counter pick to Aphrodite right now, especially since there are so few proficient Chang'e players. Have fun winning lane!
Thank you so much for reading my second guide! ^^ Aphrodite is amazing in solo lane, and while I have given myself to the dark side and played Apollo exclusively for the last few weeks, Aphrodite will always have a place in my heart. If you enjoyed, please upvote! Constructive criticism is also appreciated!
6/1/15: Published
6/10/15: Updated BBcoding in Matchup section
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I've never tried Aphrodite rather than in Assault like once, This guide made me start thinking of soloing her.
Great job! keep going!
#MVG Fem's Guide, of course !
300 health gives you extra sustain, 10% cdr allows you to buy the stronger boots so you have lane clear around level 6 or 7, the attack speed may seem trivial, but I have gotten so many basic attack kills I don't want to hear it! The movement speed may be the main reason behind why most people think of using it with the passive, but I know from experience that Solo lane Aphro is nothing without the Winged Blade. Plus its cheap!
One thing I did want to make mention of though is your focus on supporting. I don't understand the objective of focusing so heavily on supporting items. I figure if you're able to play and juke effectively half of the items listed are usless. I personally start exactly the same with my first three items, but then if I am against a physical in solo lane will get Lotus first, then Asclepius for extra power/health/speed/team healing, and try to end it with Rod of Tahuti. If the team is more magic heavy/the solo laner is Chang'e or something then I will get Rod of Asclepius before lotus crown, but the fact that the crown gives 60 power, mp5, and extra protections in the passive ontop of base ones I think are essential. I would almost always get the Lotus.
Edit: If I don't get Lotus Crown I'll typically buy Spear of Magus or something cheap/efficient, if super fed with excess gold I'll occasionally buy Soul Reaver. I hope this can help in some way, it's just my little flare for my favorite god. Don't be turned away from her because she seems weak, she is under-rated and excels in mid-late game. Excellent guide Fem, glad to see it! :) -Vero
Great guide Fem! I like all its sections, very in depth (especially the matchups like dayum), however I'm going to have to argue against Winged Blade. Winged Blade was more efficient in S1 when CDR boots were definitively inferior to Shoes of the Magi due to their lack of penetration. Now that neither have penetration, you need a really good reason to be using Shoes of the Magi. Aphro neither needs the mana in solo lane since she has the buff nor the minimal extra power since she's not really an early game god.
Winged Blade is only at its maximum cost effectiveness when everything it provides is needed. Aphro has immunity to slows with Heavenly Agility when she needs it (since that item is pretty much a staple on her) and can easily obtain the max CDR from Shoes of Focus. Currently, just consider all the stats that you're paying for that are going unused. There's the 250 mana on Shoes of the Magi which is nullified by blue buff and the mp5 from Chronos' Pendant, there's the 10% attack speed on Winged Blade which will RARELY if at all be utilized and Winged Blade's passive which is really only going to be helpful if you're being slowed constantly (eg: if you're laning against Ah Puch or someone similar).
All in all, while Winged Blade can be used, I don't believe it should be a core item. All else aside though, this is still a great guide :P +1 from me
Since I can see what Fem was aiming with this guide, I MAYBE able to describe why she got Winged Blade+ Shoes of the Magi, instead of a normal CD build ( Like I do most of the times) :
Shoes of the Magi are good on Aphrodite since you don't have the potential to clear the buff for youself and you get tier 3 Back Off!, resulting in being a target for counter-jungling. Also, until Aphrodite get's her second item ( whatever is it ) her lane clear is pretty bad, due to the inferior damage on Shoes of Focus.
Personally, I like Shoes of Focus and Chronos' Pendant on Aphrodite, being a core item on ANY role I play her with ( Even in support. ( Yes this is a shameless warning that I'm building a aphro support guide ) ). I've enjoyed those cores so much I never thought about the item Fem pointed out, and I'm just really surprised on how well they bond with Aphrodite, giving her a edge on what she lacks : Solo-Lane Mobility.
Winged Blade is only at its maximum cost effectiveness when everything it provides is needed. Aphro has immunity to slows with Heavenly Agility when she needs it (since that item is pretty much a staple on her) and can easily obtain the max CDR from Shoes of Focus. Currently, just consider all the stats that you're paying for that are going unused. There's the 250 mana on Shoes of the Magi which is nullified by blue buff and the mp5 from Chronos' Pendant, there's the 10% attack speed on Winged Blade which will RARELY if at all be utilized and Winged Blade's passive which is really only going to be helpful if you're being slowed constantly (eg: if you're laning against Ah Puch or someone similar).
All in all, while Winged Blade can be used, I don't believe it should be a core item. All else aside though, this is still a great guide :P +1 from me
The idea came from hearing from Adanas that Winged Blade was the most cost efficient item in the game. I thought about gods it could be used on, did the math, and figured out that you could build Shoes of the Magi and still retain close to max CDR. It's all theorycrafting.
Some things I think it's worth including :
Kiss has a movement speed buff. This can help you and your team-mate to escape or chase a enemy if paired up with the slow on Back Off! and a offensive Kiss.
Aphrodite can out-heal ANY god in the game with her healing. Rod of Asclepius is a great counter-pick to a Chang'e or Sobek solo lane, since it'll give you that extra healing.
Heavenly Agility is the best counter pick to Weakening Curse for actives, since it let's you heal and denies the 40% ground speed "nerf".
+1 from me ! ^_^