Arachne, Skitter Through the Jungle

I've played quite a bit of League of Legends, and one of my favorite roles is the Jungler, because you put pressure on 3 lanes, and if fed, the enemy team is in constant fear and paranoia of where you'll strike next.

So when I jumped into Smite for the first time, I wanted that same feeling, and with recent changes to the jungle, Arachne has found a new, comfy home to spread fear.

Arachne brings a LOT of power almost made specifically for jungling. She can take nearly any camp by herself early with just her Broodlings. Even if a camp is going bad (somehow), she can Drain the big monster while her babies beat on him.

Her gank -no words. If you can get behind your target and drop a webbing +broodlings, it's almost a secured kill (providing your laner is competent). Say they jump past you, after level 5 you can just pull them back for a second dose of pain. Say they burned their escape, well they can only run as you, your broodlings, and your laner deliver a truckload of death. You can even silence them to prevent any slick moves! She has everything a jungler would want, an AoE slow, a silence/major lifesteal, a ranged stun/pull, and free wards that attack nearby enemies.

That's why I choose to crawl through the jungle with the Weaver.

As a Jungler, you want to put your very first point in Broodlings to help you solo buff camps.

Afterwards, we'll go Coccoon>Drain>Broodlings>Slow. Drain is going to be your "OH ****" move when you're taking far more damage than you'd like during a gank. Jump on the target to silence, prevent them from doing any more damage to you, and deal a large amount of damage while healing. This will allow your laner to dish out some hurt while you're on the opponent's face.

Between your poisons and your Drain, your targets will either walk out of lane with low health, or in a bodybag. Next, your Broodlings will provide a great fire & forget slow for ganks since the spiderlings target Gods over Minions. During a gank, web, drop eggs, and then start attacking.

Since Web doesn't do any additional damage, I max it last. It does make for a nice slow, and even works as a deterrent to anyone chasing you if you lay it beneath you and keep running.

The Cocoon is pretty self-explanatory. This is a short CD, long-range stun and pull. This insures that even those who get away from your initial gank are going to meet a second instance of arachnaphobia.

A very important thing to remember: Cocoon goes THROUGH minions. It will only pull a God to you, which is why this pull is so incredibly dangerous. They either have to out-range you, or dodge it, which can be hard if you're good at landing it because of the fast projectile speed. It also does damage, but unfortunately does NOT go through walls or obstacles.

Passive: Poison Claws

Arachne applies poison on every physical attack that hits. The poison ticks every .5s for 3s.

This passive is by far one of my favorite in all of Smite. This is one of few passives that actually scales with your Physical Damage, allowing you to crank up its damage as you build items. More often than not, I've had this passive score me a kill on a retreating target.

Broodlings

Arachne lays spider eggs that act as wards, seeing enemies in the area around them. Enemies getting too close to the eggs cause them to hatch 2 spiders that attack the nearby enemy, slowing them and doing damage every second.
If the eggs are broken by damage, 1 spiderling is spawned instead of 2.
The spiderlings will now attack enemy that caused the eggs to burst.

I cannot tell you how important these little creeps are. These are free wards that grant plenty of vision, last until destroyed/activated, do damage to champs who walk near them, and slow. You can even have five of them up at any one time. These are also important for soloing Gold Fury and any jungle camp as they'll tank a good amount of damage.

Drain Life

Arachne pounces on her melee target, silencing and damaging them while healing every .5s. Right clicking or being disabled (stun, fear or silence) will knock Arachne off.

This ability has a huge number of uses. You can jump on someone to prevent them from using any abilities to escape a gank or trade in general. This also acts as a great heal or evasion of a directional ability. The healing it provides is also very substantial. Unfortunately, Drain doesn't add stacks of poison to the target.

Tangled Web

Arachne spins an entangling web at her ground location, slowing and crippling her enemies within the radius.

This ability has a very wide area of effect, so it can be used for area denial, and can cover half a lane. So for ganks it would be best to place it right in the middle so the target would have to walk around it to avoid the slow. The range and speed of this ability also make it great for outrunning would-be killers.

Ultimate: Cocoon

Arachne fires a web projectile towards her enemies. If the web hits an enemy god, it wraps them tightly doing damage and stunning them as Arachne pulls them to her.

This ultimate only has a CD of 30 seconds without CDR. This ability alone can isolate a high priority target, or remove someone from a fight completely. In lane it's invaluable for ganks when they use an escape. At max rank, it deals 300 (+50% AD), making it even a good bit of damage from afar.

Pros

AoE ranged slow
Silence/major lifesteal
Free wards that attack enemies
Stacking Poison damage on AA's
Ranged stun/pull
Fast/easy minion clear with Broodlings

Squishy early game
No escapes
Reliant on decent feed to snowball hard
Susceptible to CC

As soon as you enter the match, grab a Bumbaa's Mask, Boots, and some pots. This grants you a little more much needed sustain, and plenty of movement speed/MP5 while in the jungle, thus letting you give Blue Buff to your laner. You'll want to grab the Attack/Movement Speed buff or Damage buff to give you more of an edge during ganks.

Be sure to get a couple camps in since you have a fast clear before you decide to make your first gank. By level 4, you should have all three abilities.

How to start a gank with Arachne:

Remember, communication is KEY. The best situation you can be in is if your teammate(s) are pushed against their tower, and they've already baited out the target(s) escapes. Run into lane behind them (between minion waves), and drop a web/eggs. Make sure you've already communicated with your laners which enemy to focus. From here, land a few quick AA's to place your poisons, and Drain them. This forces the enemy to either run without escapes, or stay to fight and likely lose.

Worst case scenario in this situation, is the enemy's lane partner uses a stun to get you off his/her teammate, even this isn't a bad gank, continue your auto attacks to keep your poisons ticking and drop your focus. Unless you have a Cocoon to pull in the other laner, just run back into jungle and get back to farming. You want to run in, get a kill for you or your laner, and exit lane as quickly as possible.

By now, you should have your Level 3 Devourer's Gloves. Aside from ganks, farming these are going to be your first priority, as they provide a large amount of Lifesteal/Damage, which increases the ratios on your poison passive. Once you get your Qin's Blades, even tanks will start to fear your torrent of damage.

Always keep an eye on your lanes, watch for counter-gank opportunities, and use your eggs to give your laners an early warning system for ganks. Just drop them on your way out of lane after a gank to provide some quality of life improvements for your team.

Hell, sometimes they even get you kills on an escaping low-health God. You should also have your Fist of the Gods active. I personally LOVE this branch of the active, as I don't use it for minion camps as most would think. This active is amazing for ganks, especially with a pull. Imagine pulling someone in, landing an AA or two, drop your stun, a couple more AA's, and then Drain. If you have a decent feed going, they are done.

Arachne's late game is mind-numbingly strong if you had a great early-mid. By now Gloves should be at 40 stacks, and you should have a full build. Grab Combat Blink to give you a huge escape when things aren't going your way. With a full build, there's no one -not even a tank -who can put up with your true damage, poisons, and huge crits. Squishies will get turned into stains.

During these late game team fights, you want to focus on high-priority targets. As Arachne, you can completely isolate carries and cripple if not kill with your pull/stun/Drain combo. Once their carries are gone, start climbing the food chain by taking out the next most important team members. With Cocoon on such a low CD, you're free to pick your intended target and remove them from the fight, even peel for your carry with ease!

Just be careful as even a fed Arachne can be shut down with enough CC/burst. And if you're 12/2 or more, chances are they'll be watching for you. A bonus of being Arachne is that you can easily solo Gold Fury for your team simply by setting a number of eggs, and Draining the Gold Fury between poisons/Broodlings. Plenty of gold for your team with an Arachne on the roster.

One thing I love about Arachne is her ability to absolutely deny the ultimates of some champions. For example, if you're ganking Anubis and he decides to turn his Death Gaze on the Weaver, you can Drain him and leave you absolutely unmarred from his devastating beam. This can also be done to Bakasura.

Show caution when Draining someone close to Tower, as they could easily walk you into Tower range and get themselves an easy kill. Remember you can right-click to cancel Drain and hop off your target, saving you from getting slammed by Tower.

Your ultimate does damage, so feel free to try to snipe a running low health target, because either you'll kill them, or pull them close enough to finish them off. A great combination is ganking for anyone with a stun. Ymir is one of my favorites. He'll breathe, I'll pull, drop a stun. Drop Eggs/Web, Ymir ults and I Drain. Game over bro.


Arachne is by far one of the better junglers, with a kit made with health-shredding ganks in mind. She is personally my favorite Goddess, and despite her ace jungling kit, she can even be played as a laner with only a few changes to her item set (Death's Toll instead of Mask). I would still take Fist of the Gods for the stun.

I hope this guide inspires you to rip it up in the jungle as the Weaver. Be sure to thumb up this guide, and in case you vote it down, please leave a reason why so I can better the guide. Have fun, and skitter along.