Ares ~ A Tortured Soul [Conquest]

Ares is a fairly simple god to understand. His bread and butter are his skill shots, which play a major role throughout the entire game. It doesn't take a large amount of time for you to become familiar with landing them, and once you do, the results are incredibly rewarding. There is plenty room for error due to his natural bulkiness and can suit newer players who are having difficulty avoiding death with squishier gods. Ares forces a five thousand gold advantage over the enemies and is a very valuable asset to any team.

Choosing abilities is very difficult. You have to balance the current situation of the game and what will benefit you the most. Your ability choices are affected drastically by what the other team consists of, their playstyle and their level of experience.

Heavenly Agility

Heavenly Agility

No Escape

Girdle of Might

Aegis Amulet

Pillar of Agony

No Escape

Creeping Curse

Heavenly Agility

Shackles

Shackles

This skill is Ares main source of damage. Landing this will allow you to chase the enemy more efficiently, potentially leading up to an ultimate once you manage to catch up to them. Besides your ultimate, this is your most damaging skill. Searing Flesh simply does not compare in damage when you consider you can land three fold damage for the same mana cost.

• Previously, there was a bug with this skill wherein attempting to fire second or third shackles would cost mana. This has recently been fixed in the latest Smite patch.
  
  
• Instead of wasting mana farming creeps with Searing Flesh in the early game, use Shackles to harass enemy gods and keep them at bay. This works particularly well against melee opponents who decide to farm, as this passes through creeps, damaging them in addition to shackling your target.
  
  
• Use this to shackle enemies after you have used your ultimate. Your ultimate will stun them enough for you to land two shackles at the bare minimum, which is absolutely perfect considering they are all stunned in the same place. Landing this skill is a piece of cake once you have fired off your ultimate.

Bolster Defenses

• Use this skill when pushing towers or tanking team buffs! Using this skill on your minions while pushing towers will give them extra livability, which is important considering you don't take down towers too quickly, so you need the maximum amount of time to take down the tower with your laning partner. This is also useful if you need to tank a tower or tank a buff like the fire giant or gold fury. If you were late to the party, you can use the buff anyway and give some extra protection to the person who is currently taking the buff.
  
  
• Use this skill before you or an ally are being ulted on! This skill will greatly reduce the amount of damage an opponent's ultimate will do, potentially saving your partners life!
  
  
• Use this skill when your partner is low on health and is trying to flee from an enemy! The extra defense can often save their life and deny your opponent an opportunity to get fed.

Searing Flesh

This skill is your farming tool and damage filler for the late game. During the early game, it isn't too powerful, and you're far better off conserving your mana for an opportunity to assist in a kill. Late game however, you can tear through an opponent's HP and kill the lesser creeps in jungle buff camps with this. Although there is less of an emphasis on farming in the late game, the damage you can do by landing your Shackles three times and then using this to burn them down while you chase them is devastating.

• Use this while you're chasing an enemy and have used Shackles on them three times. The damage of these skills combined is ridiculous!
  
  
• Use this to defend towers, the Minotaur and phoenixes by clearing either the archers or melee creeps. You can also use this ability to clear jungle camps.
  
  
• Use this to peel an enemy god from a fleeing teammate. Peeling is the practise of hindering a chasing opponent, as peeling an orange is to remove the skin from the core. The damage from searing flesh will make an opponent reconsider whether or not he wants to continue chasing your ally.
  
  
• Use this to weaken an enemy god and put them into kill range for your partner. Sometimes, a lack of mana for your partner hinders them from getting the kill, despite the opponent's relatively low health. By using Searing Flesh to reduce an opponent's health, you can then put them into auto-attacking range for your partner.
  
  
• Use this skill right! When you're trying to reduce an enemy's health for your partner, you aren't there to kill the opponent! Pressing right click will terminate Searing Flesh early, so right click before you kill the opponent so as not to take your partner's kill! Alternatively, turning your view away from the opponent will also do the job.

No Escape

Ares is infamous for this ultimate. It's lovely to grab an entire team, run back into a tower or closer to your team and just let your team chomp away at their life. However, if the other players have purchased Aegis Amulet, they will not be pulled back. Regardless, you will have forced a three and a half thousand gold advantage if each individual player has purchased an Aegis Amulet. The extra one thousand gold advantage post patch makes up for the fact aegis now also blocks the damage dealt to the opposing team. An ability slot and 700 gold per player is highly disruptive. Add this gold advantage to the fact you have a free level three item, and that's a six thousand theoretical gold advantage.

• Use this to pull an overextending enemy into your tower. The tower damage will assist in picking up the kill for your partner and will make for a long trek home if they manage to escape.
  
  
• Use this to pull enemies into ultimates they may have previously escaped from, like Hades' Pillar of Agony. Pulling an enemy into a missed ultimate is devastating.
  
  
• This is a play I love to use with a majority of people who purchase Aegis Amulet. First of all, familiarize yourself with the TAB key. You'll need to constantly be checking which players have purchased Aegis Amulet and which have not. A lot of players make the mistake of staying still while being ulted on to press the keybind for Aegis. By exploiting this, you can ult TOWARDS a person who is standing still using Aegis, which once you land, their Aegis Amulet will have worn off and they will have lost precious time that could have been used retreating.

During the early stages of the game, you should play defensively and stay within range of your tower when the enemy decides to push. Start with three health potions and two mana potions, this will give you enough sustain to gain maximum levels and provide full support for your laning partner. Occasionally try to land your shackles on enemy gods and harass them in addition to softening them up for an eventual kill. Do not waste your abilities on the minions, instead, when it is safe to do so, you may auto attack the minions. It is favorable to lane with a ranged carry god who needs to be fed, as they can help clear out the minion wave more efficiently. Do not attempt to jungle at this stage unless you are doing so with your laning partner to help him take your team's mana or health buff, as you will lose a lot of life and likely not be able to clear the camp if you do so individually. Ares lacks the damage output and sustain to be able to jungle efficiently in the early game. Once you feel as though the enemy team is susceptible enough, go in and use your No Escape to pull them in, shackling them three times, buffing your partner with Bolster Defenses and using Searing Flesh to burn them down. Remember to right click once they're down to a sliver of health so as not to take your partner's well deserved food.

At this point in the game, it is likely your enemy would have purchased Aegis Amulet. Remember to make smart and efficient plays to work around this. You and your laning partner should have pushed and destroyed the first tower in your lane at this point, or be especially close to taking it down. Remember to keep your eyes on the map at all times and listen for gank requests, missing in action and help requests. If you feel confident you will not lose too much experience, feel free to head there with your partner and gank the enemy team. It will earn your teammates some pushing power and some extra experience. Towards the end of this level bracket, you should stay on your toes and ward Gold Fury and Fire Giant buffs. L14 is a typical level bracket for your opponent to get into a teamfight and take down Fire Giant thereafter. Pay attention to what level your teammates are; as a tank, Ares generally levels up much slower. The reason you must pay attention is because the level brackets I have advised are for your teammates, so while you may be only L13, your partner might be L16 already. Take note of this.

Feel free to jungle to your heart's content, you should be at an appropriate level to take buffs now.

Ideally, you would have taken the final tower out in your lane and be pushing for the phoenix occasionally, putting pressure on your opponent. Be sure to pay attention to ganks and teamfights, Ares is incredibly strong in both of these aspects and is necessary asset for your team to have in one. Be sure to continually ward Fire Giant and Gold Fury buffs and continue to call MIA. Hug your teammates and provide them constant protection, a minute while you're not around is a minute they could be dying in a teamfight or such. After killing a few gods, go to Fire Giant to tank the damage he does while your teammates kill him off. Spam your skill number two while there and make sure to make it clear you're going for it. Unless you get a deicide however, I recommend having one or two teammates distract the enemy team while you take it, or they will realize something is up and gank you, potentially stealing your buff.

The results are tremendously rewarding once you do get the buff though, following the build I have outlined you are likely to have upwards of 700 magical power, 850 if at L20 and fully completed. For the sake of large numbers, get the red buff and watch as you dominate the other team.

Check with the TAB key to monitor your carry's progress. If your carry has both completed their build and is at L20, feel free to get all the kills you liked now. The Shackles have been unbound now and you are free to collect as much gold as you need to complete your build as well as achieve that golden 16-0-999 K/D ratio. Killing off the other team aids in your team pushing phoenixes, so kill them and take the golden opportunity to attack the Minotaur while they are dead. Polynomicon will take out towers extremely quickly now, so abuse that to the fullest.

You should try to avoid jungling until the mid game, where you can clear jungle buff camps to your hearts content. During the early game, however, I recommend you stay in your lane to farm. Jungle buffs that are particularly useful for Ares include the speed buff, which allows you to get in and ultimate quickly, or the cooldown buff, which provides a larger window for you to use your ult while their Aegis Amulet is on cooldown.

I cannot stress this point enough however, buy wards and place them on the entrances to your lane from the jungle, on the entrance to Fire Giant, and on the entrance to Gold Fury. Map awareness is SO important in this game, stay on the ball and avoid ganks and gank teams that decide they want to take Fire Giant and Gold Gury for themselves.

You are the tank. You are a beefy support character that is there to debuff the enemy team, buff your allies, take damage on behalf of your team and weaken their team to a point where your team can take a kill. The main ramification of playing with this build is that you will do upwards of 800 magical power towards the late game, making it very difficult to avoid stealing your team's kills.

You have amazing synergy with all gods in a lane. If they have a slow, that's decent, although it won't compare to yours. If they have a stun, that's a godsend, that means you can land all of your Shackles with plenty time to finish them off. If they have a lot of burst damage, weaken them to a point where their burst damage alone can kill them off. You are very versatile and have to adapt to many different situations.

As a tank, you go in there, mess with their set up, disrupt them, deal damage, pull them and put them in awkward situations. If you die; that's a shame, and you likely could have avoided that, but your team still got two kills because of YOU. YOU are the star of your team and the most favored player. Everyone will love you, who doesn't love a machine who gets them kills?

In conclusion, Ares is a very powerful magical bruiser that can completely change the tides of teamfights. He takes a decent amount of skill to use, though once you can use him effectively, the rewards are infinite. I highly recommend giving Ares a try whenever possible.

Please feel free to message me through SmiteFire or on my Skype if you have any additional questions. I do my best to respond to each and every message I receive within reasonable time. My Skype is "machipz" without the quotation marks.