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Vampiric Shroud
Shoes
Mana Potion
Shoes of Focus
Doom Orb
Gem of Isolation
Rod of Tahuti
Spear of the Magus
Book of Thoth
Focused Void Stone
Wall of Absolution
Y
B
A
X
Vampiric Shroud
Shoes
Shoes of Focus Shoes of Focus over 
Shoes of the Magi as I do not build 
Chronos' Pendant on Ao Kuang, and as such the cooldown goes a long way, allowing you to place more tornadoes and use your ultimate more frequently, helping you to maintain control over team fights and deal more damage. A phrase I have long used is that cooldown is a Mage's attack speed.
Doom Orb Book of Thoth and proceeding to play much safer.
Gem of Isolation
Rod of Tahuti
Spear of the Magus
Obsidian Shard is a simple one for Ao Kuang, as this item, similarly to Gem of Isolation, is taken advantage of by tornadoes. Each tick of damage will apply the debuff of this item, and continue to re-apply it until the damage over time effect is gone. In addition, the 35 flat penetration that this item provides when both stacks are on the target helps much more greatly for killing enemies not building heavy defenses than the 33% of Obsidian Shard, and since you ought not to target tanks if other targets are available, the superior item for killing tanks is not ideal for us. Vampiric Shroud. Depending on the match you may wish to take pure power or a protection item.
Book of Thoth
Focused Void Stone Obsidian Shard if the whole enemy team is building tank, but this is an unlikely scenario. Primarily you should choose this item if you are taking a lot of damage from an enemy mage.
Wall of AbsolutionSquall
Gem of Isolation is applied on every tick from Tornadoes' DoT is simply the icing on the cake.
Ares' ultimate, 
No Escape, or 
Hades' 
Pillar of Agony. Another ideal combination is 
Fenrir's 
Ragnarok, as it will allow you to pick a specific enemy from amongst their team and destroy them with your ultimate. Using your ultimate in the jungle, rather than the lane, will generally yield better results as there is less space to move around, and you should always attempt to aim along the path, as it were, rather than across it, as this will force enemies to move to the sides, rather than forwards or backwards. When against a wall, this is impossible and will result in a guaranteed hit in the majority of situations.In your career as an Ao Kuang mid laner, you will no doubt encounter any and possibly all gods as your opponent in the lane. Here I am going to cover some of the more common opponents you will face, and give some advice on crushing them.
Combustion
Noxious Fumes
Flame Wave
Rain Fire
Changing Tides
Tidal Surge
Trident
Whirlpool
Release The Kraken!
Steady Flow
Water Cannon
Waterspout
Crushing Wave
Sorrow
Plague of Locusts
Mummify
Grasping Hands
Death Gaze Plague of Locusts from the side of your minion wave. This can push faster than your tornado, but it immobilizes him allowing you to land an easy tornado and squall follow up. A nice little trick you can try is to deliberately step into his spell for a second in order to force your minions to attack him, adding to the damage he'll receive. Mummify into Death Gaze combo can kill you with little chance of survival or warning. To avoid this, simply keep mobile and keep your distance, if he moves towards you and looks like he is going for a stun, try your best to juke and he will most likely back off and give up. If he does use his ult, counter it with your ult, drop a tornado on him and circle strafe until he dies. This match up is almost a joke, but you should be careful not to be caught out.
Ao Kuang is a very strong and very safe laner, allowing him to easily build up stacks and maximise his magic power, making him an incredibly powerful and dominant presence in late game team fights. While vulnerable to ganks and being caught out of position, the use of tornadoes and slither can help with Ao Kuang's otherwise lacking ability to escape, and good use of his Spirit's Tempest can win team fights, steal map objectives and win matches.
Now go forth and terrorize the imposter mid Gods with your scary face!
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Anyway Great guide ill remember to upvote it this time ( i guess the arguing made me lose track of that ) .
I feel that Doom Orb is an item that is down to pure personal preference. I prefer it to Book because it is cheap and allows me to pick up early boots which are integral to my play style, whilst still providing huge quantities of early magic power. It doesn't provide any utility, granted, but that is why I pick up Gem of Isolation immediately after.
Again, the idea of picking up a late game defensive item is not so that you can survive being focused down, but rather because later in the game it is more difficult to avoid damage simply by positioning yourself, as enemies become bolder and will take more risks to reach you. As such, having a small amount of defense can help you to survive long enough for your tank to peel enemies off of you, or for you to cast a defensive spell, such as Spirit's Tempest.
If the guide is really hard to read I may consider adding colour to the bold sections, i'll see how it looks. And as for Zhong's viability as a mid, it is not so much an issue of him being a poor mid, but rather the fact that he is much stronger when placed in the solo short lane, rather than mid, and as such it is relatively rare to encounter him in the middle lane, not the mention the fact that in the vast majority of league matches at the moment he is immediately banned.
You are perfectly correct that nobody should follow a guide word for word in all situations, and while I have provided some alternatives and changes that can be applied on the fly, such as replacing Doom Orb with Book of Thoth if you are dying frequently, and the final item options, I completely respect the alterations people will make themselves to suit their play styles, and I don't want to sound like i'm discouraging that. I think we both understand how important developing your own style and a build to suit that is.
As a side note, there's nothing wrong with wanting a good argument, arguing can be fun, friendly and constructive. I'd hardly see wanting to get your point across as a flaw, and I most certainly do not see your criticism and opinions as an attack.
But i would like to argue some of those points. While doom orb is effective it doesn't give you as much utility which you seem to favor ( i do to for the record ) while doom orb gives you damage, conditional at that. Book gives you alot more as well as mana, and Mp5 and puts you in the same situation as if you were to get doom orb which falls off late game. not getting the doom orb will allow for you to get better items like Soul Reaver ( more mana, a great passive and while lees damage it is not conditional). Getting book first also puts you in that farming state and in my opinion is way better. ( i do respect you opinions though i'm simply stating mine )
Wall of Absolution and Focused voidstone while having ok protections will do nothing against the crits off carries or the massvie burst of a mage it will mitigate some but especially late game will not do much. and the only other things they have to offer a done better by other items (eg. the pen from focused voidstone is really pointless if you have spear and the mp5 from wall is not necessary when you have the mana from the book )
I respect your choices with your guide i myself just find it hard to read ( i don't have the best eyesight though so this may just be on my end ). But i completely disagree with Zhong not being good mid, While yes you will not encounter him as much as you would have done before He is a scaling god and the experince mid will do wonders and the fact that you will 99% of the time be facing a mage it will be ghard to shut a good zhong down. but when it comes to anubis while i enjoy him mid you are right there are way better options i simply used him as another example to re-iterate my point.
I Respect your opinions, and love the guide i just felt there are better options then whats there ( again my opinions ).
Oh and one final thing i do not recommend following a guide 100% every bulid is Completely situational there is no 1 size fits all if you would. again my opinions but it is something i find new players doing often and they don't seem to realize that there is not 1 set in stone guide for every god ( i am not implying that you are new but new players may take this to heart which may not allow them to grow as players )
I do appreciate the fact that you have read and replied to my ramblings this is a great guide and i do respect it i just am the kind of person who argues and wants to get my point across ( one of my flaws ) so agin please do not take this as an attack.
-snip-
Getting Book of Thoth late game may not at first appear sensible, however you must consider that if a game has gone so late that you are buying a final item, it is unlikely that the game will end at any moment, giving you ample time to farm stacks before any game deciding team fights, particularly as at level 20 you will have no problems instantly killing minion waves and jungle camps alike. Similarly, I feel that Doom Orb provides more than enough magic power early game, whilst also being extremely cheap. Since Ao Kuang lacks escapes boots are extremely important to keep in position and avoid being killed in fights, and as such the earliest I would consider Book of Thoth would be 3rd. However, I feel that the utility items, such as Gem of Isolation, are more important than raw Magic Power, and if you do want magic power the ideal item is unquestionably Rod of Tahuti. Perhaps swapping the positions of Spear and Book could make sense if you have very low defense enemies, yet all in all I feel that the ideal build would be what I have listed above, particularly if you play as explained in the guide.
In terms of Doom Orb, I will not usually build this item on most Gods, but Ao Kuang is so safe and in my opinion difficult to die on, that you will almost never lose your stacks. He may lack reliable escapes, but as with many Gods, the key is simply to stay in position at all times. Play on the safe side and you will only find yourself dieing if your team wipes.
You say that getting Voidstone or Wall of Absolution does not help, but I disagree entirely. It might not make you into a tank in one item, but that is not the goal. This guide leads you down to building and playing successfully as what is effectively a glass cannon. You are not supposed to tank damage, but rather to avoid it and deal it. By gaining a small amount of protections balanced off with extra damage and pen (in the case of voidstone) you will be able to avoid being instantly killed by spells such as Relese the Kraken! and crits from ADCs whilst continuing to maximise your damage.
As for the layout of the guide itself, I deliberately avoided highlighting important sections in colour as in my opinion it simply causes the guide to look tacky and garish, thus I used bold text instead. I have also considered expanding the opposition section at a later date, and I may do so, however Zhong and Anubis are not characters you will encounter in mid lane, as Zhong is almost exclusively a solo laner, and Anubis is a very weak God for mid. Hell, I might add him just to explain why he's bad.
Finally, I feel that while Poseidon can push, he cannot push as easily or as quickly as Ao Kuang, and while he possesses stronger abilities for 1v1 fights, I support what I have written above. With a little bit of finesse and good play, it is extremely possible and i'd go so far as to say, easy, to push Poseidon to his tower.
Second i do not like Doom orb
third Getting Focused VoidstoneFocused Voidstone or Wall of Absolution
And some additional Critism on your guide ( please do not take this or my itemization criticisms as attacks that is not what they are meant to be )
- Add a bit more Colour the blue and grey make it dull and may discourage courage people from reading
- Add more to your Opposition while they are common people will encounter Zhong Kui
Overall a nice guide ( yes i am aware if the fact that it was released yesterday ) solid info and in my opinion a great skill section ( because only a couple of people actually use pics )
Oh i almost forgot just to add to the Poseidon match up while you are able to push fast he can equally with his whirlpool and tidal surge.
I like the guide, however I prefer to get Book of Thothe, Warlock's Sash, and Ethereal Staff first. After that I usually get Boots and then Polynomicon.
I like Polynomicon because Ao is really a cast and wait kind of god, his basic attack is very weak making it pointless to even try. Pair Polynomicon with the 3 items I already listed and his basic attack will easily do 500-600 damage. You can usually nuke a god down by starting with Squall, basic attack, and finish them with Tornados. If the enemy god still survives, use Slither, which will activate Polynomicon again, and basic attack them dead.
I pretty strongly disagree with the idea of building Warlock's Sash and Ethereal Staff on Ao Kuang, especially before you build boots. You simply do not need that quantity of health, and will find that it is wasted late game as crits from physical gods can reach upwards of 1000 damage, burning through any quantity of health in a matter of moments.
If the idea is to build large amounts of mana to take advantage of Ao Kuang's passive, then again, it is wasted item space as with a full build using the items you suggested you will only gain a total of 84 additional magic power over the build I show here. However, you will have absolutely no magical penetration and no additional slow from Gem of Isolation. The damage from Polynomicon is not sufficient to cover for this lack of utility and the ability to damage players who have built protections. If you desperately want to build Polynomicon, I would recommend replacing Doom Orb with Book of Thoth and building Polynomicon as your final item.
The idea of trying to land Squall > Polynomicon > Tornado > Polynomicon is a pretty idealistic idea, and you will quickly find that attempting to fight in such a way will frequently result in being caught out and killed, or simply stunned and gibbed by an ADC or enemy mage. Since Ao Kuang lacks any form of hard CC, attempting to combo like this in a real fight will very often end badly. As such, you should focus on your utility and spells in order to set up situations where Spirit's Tempest can wreck entire teams in one go, or your team can engage while you put out large quantities of AoE damage and slows.
I like Polynomicon because Ao is really a cast and wait kind of god, his basic attack is very weak making it pointless to even try. Pair Polynomicon with the 3 items I already listed and his basic attack will easily do 500-600 damage. You can usually nuke a god down by starting with Squall, basic attack, and finish them with Tornados. If the enemy god still survives, use Slither, which will activate Polynomicon again, and basic attack them dead.