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Vampiric Shroud
Shoes
Healing Potion
Mana Potion
Shoes
Shoes of the Magi
Breastplate of Valor
Ward
Focused Void Stone
Gem of Isolation
Polynomicon
Rod of Tahuti
Spear of the Magus
Obsidian Shard
Soul Reaver
Purification Beads (Old)
Aegis Amulet (Old)
Aegis Pendant
Y
B
A
X
Starting Items
Vampiric Shroud - Survivability and Mana Regeneration
Shoes - Survivability and Early Damage
Core
Shoes of the Magi - Early Penetration against Enemy's defence
Breastplate of Valor - More chance to use tornados to be able to quickly secure mid camps and push tower without taking tower damage or lose gold. Also gives sustainability against junglers.
Situational Items - Defence
Void Stone - Sustainability against opponent mid laner's poke damage
Gem of Isolation - More chances for successful ganks, easier to poke and provides some sustainability.
Situational Items - Offense
Polynomicon - More kill secures and burst damage 1v1
Rod of Tahuti - More team fight potential
Spear of the Magus - Good penetration item if your solo laner does magical damage
Obsidian Shards - Shred through magical defence items like Bulwark of Hope
Soul Reaver - Extra Item for more potential in team fights and 1v1
Passive: Ao Kuang's mana at level 20 is 1165. With the Core and all the Offensive Items (except spear of magus), the amount of mana Ao would have is 2565. This means his damage output just from the extra mana is 128.25. Combining this with the damage from his items, he has 548.25 damage. With the Rod of Tahuti damage, he has in total 685.3125 magical damage. This is an insane amount of magical damage, and the polynomicon/soul reaver Damage can pretty much kill any god that doesn't build full magic protection.
TLDR: It adds a lot of damage to ao's damage (more supportive of mana boosting items)
Squall: The slow ensures that the enemy will take full damage from you other abilities. Do not use this to poke in early game as it requires too much mana. You want to use this ability to punish the opponent for going out of position or to set up your team for a kill. Level this 3rd due to the massive ganking potential mid game
Slither: At first this main seem like a poor kiting ability, but the slow immunity and the 40% movement speed in late game helps with positioning when caught out.In the whole game, the two purposes of slither is to get to places faster and to escape from enemy ganks. Use it to get out of your base, grab jungle buffs and to rush to potential ganks/counter ganks. Its more obvious purpose is to escape or get out of bad positions fast. Do not use the offensively because of the high cool down and mana cost can lead to a bad situation. Level this last as the mana cost won't be as high and the chance of them killing you is higher late game.
Tornados: If used after a successful squall, it can dish out over 2000 damage if the enemy stays in the tornado for the 4 second duration. Used for pushing, clearing camps, kill securing, zoning and escaping. Be careful as the tornado takes 1 second for it to place, so when trying to kill an enemy place it a few feet ahead of their predicted path. If they are squalled, try to place the tornado, with them in the middle of it. If the god either has aegis, blink or a leap place the tornado where they will be of after the invulnerability has passed. Level this second. Skip putting skill points into skills at level 4 and 8 so that at those levels you can get tornadoes and your ultimate at the same time, getting you tornadoes ability maxed out at level 9 rather than level 12
Spirit's Tempest: One of the easy to dodge ultimates in the game. Use this when you get caught out, when the enemy is a melee try to chase you in the jungle, chances are they wont notice your ultimate come from behind them. When you get caught, use your ultimate, run, wait for them to get hit, squall then auto attack from the polynomicon damage. Other usages for the ultimate is during team fight or objective fights, where the ultimate can deal tons of damage to the enemy team or guarantee an objective. Level this ability first.
Skill combination
Squall -> tornado
This allows the enemy to stay in the tornado longer, allowing more damage to be done.
Squall -> Spirit's Tempest
Because Spirit Tempest is easy to dodge, Squall insures that the Spirit Tempest will hit.
Slither -> Tornado -> Squall
One thing to note is that Ao's tornado covers the whole jungle path. So by using slither in the jungle and placing a tornado where you were, people chasing you will get damaged by the tornado they had to run through. Turn around to squall them if you have enough hp afterwards.
Slither -> Spirit's Tempest -> AA -> Squall -> AA
This is a sure kill strategy if the enemy falls for it. When running in the jungle, slither then use Spirit tempest in the direction you are going. The enemy won't know that the Ultimate is coming behind them, meaning that you can turn around and hit them for poly damage, squall them to slow them from escaping you and kill them with another poly damage.
Early game:
To push a lane place a tornado on the side where the opposing mid is, parallel next to the right jungle camp entrance. Place 2 wards near each mid camp after coming back to base, closer to the 4 way intersection on the enemy side. Help with mid camps every 1 minute and 50 seconds with you tornado. Use a squall and tornado to punish the enemy if they are out of position.
Mid Game:
Push your lane when you can, but prioritise losing lanes if you lane is winning or if you have killed the enemy mid. When ganking use your squall before you tornado, place the tornado where they will be if they can leap/blink. Place extra ward near GF if the support hasn't. Help with gf if the jungler has started it.
Late game:
Group up help with pushing of lanes, objectives and team fights. Use your ultimate after the opposing team has been slowed or stunned. Buy at least 2 wards every time you go back for map vision. Do not go too far from the team because of your kit. If you feel uncertain and do not know where you should be due to the lack of enemy presence, they are either going to an objective or pushing one of the lanes. If you get caught out, use the escape method in the skill section to run. To prevent being scared, ward the jungle areas up before acting on anything.
2/1/14-Created Guide
6/1/14-Edited Item, Skill and How to play section. Removed Skill usage, implemented it into the How to play section. Added Skill combinations into the skills section.
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In the item section, I do believe I only give the reasons of why one should pick an item and not what it does. By going over the item, people can read what an item does, so I believe that this isn't needed
The problem with this is that there is too much information is one paragraph. I want this guide to be a guide that people can read quickly in a middle of a match when they need. One problem I kept encountering if I use guides is that its got too many big blocks of text and flashy pictures. Yes that is cool and all of that, but during a match I have 30 seconds to read that is kind of hard. The only exception is the skill usage, where it does require a lot of technicality to each of his skills. I plan to make it more concise and simple to read as I work on the guide.
I teach people how to mid in the gameplay phase as I have explained really hwo to play ao in the skill usage. IMO this is my fault and I should instead mix the skill usage with the game play.
I don't use BB coding, because if you can see my Fenrir guide, it has a ton of bb coding, but when I see the finish product, I'm like is this a extensive guide that people will read or is it a guide that people want to just to skim and then get the gist of playing a god. When making this guide I tried to be minamalistic and to the point as much as possible or else people will have a hard time trying to find where I talk about something.
Build
A very weird build that could be better organized. I mean,
Items
Bad, you don't give specific reasons. For example, since it gives CDR and protection, by your logic, everyone should get Breastplate of Valor. But that's not true, which is why this section could use a lot of expansion.
Skills
Not bad. You explain a lot in those tiny paragraphs. The problem is that you lack the how. I think you should combine and condense the Skill and Skill Usage sections together for more overall cohesiveness.
Gameplay/Guiding
Zero help. The tiny blocks in the "early/mid/late game" are worthless. You need to teach how to play Ao Kuang, not "how to mid" or "how to play Smite." Stuff like poking the enemy lane, matchups, farming tips, reacting to enemy aggro, teamfight roles, etc.
Details
Lacks any and all coding*. Tons of walls of text. Info is also messy, the skills section is one example.
Summary
I have to downvote. The skills section gives solid info and is very helpful, but the rest of the guide is too inadequate for me to give a neutral vote. You should expand, expand, expand, in order for this guide to truly earn its name as "Ao Kuang 101."
*Feel free to ask me or someone else for help on that matter.
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