Difficulty:
Medium
Laning phase will be a nightmare, but provided you don't die it can get fairly easier after that. She heals, can cancel your damage, slow you in minion damage, and deals a decent amount of damage herself. Most Artios will spam everything at once so keep and eye and look to aggress when they are on cooldown. Your focus is to wear down her potions and simply keep you ADC alive. Look to chains the bear dash, which isn't that hard, to keep her from going to hard on you, but overall kill potential is pretty low.
You're going to take more damage because of her passive protection shred so keep that in mind when fighting into minions. However, many artio players are fairly easy to catch out of position as they tend to want to go in at all times. She can't prevent her ult so try to bait her out and reel her in for the kill.
Bolster Defenses shines in this match up thanks to the CCR so you'll probably want to level it second. Overall though if your team can't work together then you're going to have a rough time.
Difficulty: Medium
If she attempts to dash the wave in lane at low levels then you kill her. Come mid to late game she has greater map pressure with her ult and better overall set up with taunt. You have to pay attention to player habits in these cases. If the player seems to taunt immediately after the dash stops moving you can probably bait it out by chaining her at the start of her dash and after taunting she just kinda sits for a while. You also want to try to force her to ult away from engagements so that you can keep up in rotations. By ulting her frequently in mid, especially if she is alone,
you can force her to ult away from the action and look to force an objective play or gank with plenty of time to spare. She will be looking to stop your damage and her ult mitigation can be a huge detriment to your ult set up. This match-up can go either way and entirely depends on what happens early on.
Difficulty:
Easy
You stop his primary initiate/escape with chains. While he can mitigate a lot of damage with
Chug you should be able to lock him down for long enough for your team to kill. A lack of CC immunity makes him even easier to kill and a great target early.
Remember you can
Searing Flesh to avoid the knockup if you hear the audio or see it go off, and if he attempts to stun you out of chains just throw them quickly and use your two to mitigate the duration. Your biggest risk is his extra damage from intoxicate and the drunkeness causing you to miss chains, if he goes in just use
Bolster Defenses right away to super decrease the duration for your whole team.
Difficulty: Hard
This match-up stays fairly annoying through the entire game. In lane is your best chance to get ahead and you do this by positioning. You're going to want to stay out of the wave so that he has to choose to hammer you or it. If you take the normal approach and flame the enemy minions in the wave he'll just cancel it out before you can do anything. You'll be keeping most of your laning phase god focused as a result which means you'll be taking much more damage than usual so keep that in mind. He has four ways to cancel you out of your damage come level 5, and he buffs his whole team to erase you if you go for the big ults. Overall, you have to be super careful with your timings being sure to bait out abilities before engaging.
Difficulty: Hard
In lane he'll outclear you most of the time and can very easily stop your damage.
If you try to chains he'll simply start the silence and eat the cooldown while mitigating the damage the DoT does by giving his ally protections so long as they are close enough. On the bright side you can pull him pretty much every time you try.
If you commit to ulting him though he can simply drop his ult on you while you're in the air and you'll take a ton of damage and lose a ton of protections in the process.
This is a scenario where ulting second will often be in your favor and you may even be able to do it from the safety of the center of his ultimate. These problems will continue through the whole game so getting the Ganesha behind early so he's easy for your team to kill will be a huge benefit later on.
Difficulty:
Medium
You can pretty easily stop rollout with chains and ulting Geb to force the ultimate are probably your biggest plays through the game. Again
Searing Flesh prevents knock ups and you should use that to your advantage. He'll be looking to cleanse your ult's stun after the pull so be careful when ulting single targets while he's around.
You win lane early pretty hard provided you hit chains and if you can hit level 5 first he should pretty much be a guaranteed kill. Generally so long as you make sure to ult Geb or wait until the shield is down you should do ok. This match-up does get harder as the game does on and you want to make sure he doesn't hit late game before you.
Difficulty:
Medium
You want to avoid getting hit with the
Rising Dawn before using flames on the minions so you get your damage off. If you manage that and both ADCs have similar clear the clear difference really isn't that bad. You both have advantages in and out of laning. He wants to pluck you out of flames, but if you chain him during his pull he takes a lot of guaranteed damage. If he plucks your ADC with your minions still up and chains off cooldown he probably dies. On the other hand if you chain another target he can pull you out of chains so you have to be quick on the draw. Using your ult for kill damage is also generally worse as it's a basically guaranteed revive if the Khepri is paying attention. He can't escape your ult though so that's a positive.
Difficulty:
Easy
He actually can't truly stop you in lane until level 3. At level 1 you stop his clear by blocking or chainsing the belly bump, and you have much greater kill potential in most cases if he takes the two. At level 2 if he takes the root then he can't stop your wave pressure or chains damage unless he gets you at max range which you shouldn't let him do. If he takes the mez it'll likely be broken immediately due to enemy clear if you position correctly and they completely lack any real kill potential outside of a gank 99% of the time. Going into late game your match-up gets even better as all his CC when combined with his teams will cause a lot of diminishing returns and
Bolster Defenses will only make that even worse, his CC will last an extremely short amount of time. Often you'll be able to still chains after a mez in these cases if you're fast enough. If he ults you he isn't truly removing serious damage from a fight and 9/10 times the enemy team isn't going to try to burst you. You'll want to adjust to more team centered fighting instead of diving like you normally would, but you'll completely ruin Khumba players days.
Difficulty: Medium
All you have going for you here really is that you can chains the pluck and if he misses the pluck you either force his ultimate or can kill him. However, he has high kill potential at level one if he takes pluck and you have to be sure not to get plucked into the wave early on as it could easily get you killed and at minimum ruin your laning phase. He has another knock up you can avoid with your three. Whichever one of you gets caught out of position first will lose so play into minion waves so that he has to aim through them.
Difficulty:
Medium
Unless something crazy happens or his adc doesn't clear you are going to lose lane 99%
of the time. He's going to heal through your damage and can pull you out of position if you're not paying attention. However, he is extremely immobile and if you can catch him with his ult down you can probably kill him. However, if you ult him into your team while his ult is up you're likely to have a bad time. One particularly good ult timing against Sylvanuses is when he's ulting. Use
Searing Flesh to immune the knock up,
you'll still take damage, and while the enemy team is focused on getting their own damage off they'll often be too distracted to notice your ult right away. You control the midgame in this match up and you need to play aggressively and that midgame is often enough to lock a Sylvanus out of the game entirely. If you fall far behind early he will block most things you can do. Allowing yourself to be pulled into the enemy team can be a strategic play at times so make sure to keep that in mind if the Sylvanus is playing aggressively.
Difficulty:
Hard
She punishes your lack of mobility hard and can deal similar levels of damage early on if she maxes
Crushing Earth first. You'll likely be down in experience due to her ability to manipulate the first wave of minions and she's going to try to use her two any time you aggress. Look to chain her when she throws down her three to dash through it. However, don't aim at her directly, aim through the monolith as you're much more likely to catch the dash that way. Your dots pretty much guarantee her ult heals her team during the fight, but there isn't a whole lot you can do about that and you need to still do what you can. She'll look to ult anytime you do and the CDR is gives her teammates makes it that much more likely they'll be willing to burn CC immune ults to kill you/prevent the pull during the channel time. She's going to have an extreme amount of control at any fight she's at and if her ult is up her presence will be there even if she isn't physically present. You'll have to play very smart or you'll find yourself falling behind very quickly.
Difficulty: Medium
You can counter his mobility, but he has an excellent counter initiation against your ultimate. Who wins lane is pretty much up to which ADC clears harder as both your primary wave clears are mediocre at best. Both of you are displacement gods so you can often think about what you'd try to do and predict what he'll be doing during fights.
You do more damage, but he's much safer and has a bit more set up. Your ults will be key to winning this match up for your team as you need to keep him from negating yours.
His goal will be to either go to your team and throw a zoning ult to prevent follow up damage or to walk under you and ult so that he negates the pull and can throw you into his team for the kill instead.
Difficulty: Medium
With Ymir you're always starting the fight with less HP unless he's somehow taken a lot of poke on the way to lane, almost 40 hp and level one and expanding the base defecit by 14 per level. He'll look to freeze flames so be careful when you use them. Ymir is another high level damage guardian and can potentially kill you and your adc if you aren't smart about what you're doing. His wall can be annoying, but you can still chains through it so all isn't lost. If you get your ult off on him with anyone else around you probably kill him though. Do your best to bait out the freezes and walls before going in and all will be fine.
Difficulty: Easy
All you have to do to shut Odin down early is chain him as soon as he uses Raven Shield. This will significantly reduce the damage he does as well as keep him from escaping as you can keep him chained beyond the duration of the shield. If you play your corridors correctly then most of the cage's will have to be zoning/defensive ults which will allow your team to pressure to victory.
Difficulty: Hard
The only real thing you have going against a Hel is early kill potential. You're going to have a roughly 200 base health differential going into lane, and you can abuse this by attacking through minions and enemy clear. However, Hel's clear makes it much more likely for you too take damage. Going into lategame one of Hel's primary objectives is going to be to cleanse your ult so enemy characters may have up to three ways to avoid your set up. I wouldn't recommend picking into Hel unless you counter the enemy team extremely well.
Also keep an eye out for my next little project I've managed to rope Bran into coming in the next couple days ;)
Also doesn't help that I never picked to counter another's pick before, so I'm just not in that mindset. I've always just had to deal with whatever I was facing, due to blind picks in casual. I think the whole ranked thing is going to be a personal disaster XD
The item selection is great, with good descriptions on when to build each item.
You briefly touch on different in-game scenarios and provide little tips and tricks here and there, which I really like as well.
All in all, great quality, well done.
I think the relic can have great effect when used correctly, was wondering about your thoughts on this.
At the top you just have Travelers, and in the Travelers writeup, you don't talk about late-game replacement. You sort of indicate indirectly w/ Focus, as you mention his best end-game boots, but if this would be your normal substitution, a bit clearer instruction would be good.
Question though...I'm pretty sure this is because of high level play, but your normal build (e.g. your example) doesn't have any pen...any reason for that? I'd think it would be a strong option 3rd to get Void Stone, now that it has a bit of health on it. I know the reasons for Shogun's Kusari, and I know it's a strong option.
That said, if you didn't get Void, and your team has a very strong, tanky solo, would you never consider Spear of the Magus?
Voidstone is good at most points the general build is just one you can go most games and be ok with. Supports all about the counter build and should be taken on a game by game basis.
Not really. Having two strong tanky characters is currently more valuable as you can stop a lot more damage from hitting the carries. If I were to get a squish item I'd probably get Pythags to help the whole team instead of one that just helps the mage generally. But in conquest thatd only be if I had like a 2 level lead on everyone on the opposing team
For one, it's not an Aura item, which makes him lose his bonus power from his passive.
If you can hit Shackles, the enemy is crippled, meaning that the only way they can escape from you is through movement.
On top of that, Shackles already slows the enemies hit by it, and increases Ares's movement speed. The only way the enemy could get away from you is Purification Beads or Heavenly Wings, which both counter Gem of Isolation anyway.
The only time you should get Gem of Isolation on an Ares is if you can't hit your Shackles, at which point you should probably get better at it or play another god, missing those cripples your damage by a ton.
If you really want a power item, get Rod of Tahuti instead. That combined with all the power you get from your passive and your defenses (aura defense items you've bought), can turn you into a nearly unstoppable force. Ymir goes pale when he sees that Ares strolling by.
For one, it's not an Aura item, which makes him lose his bonus power from his passive.
1. The fact that it's not an Aura item doesn't hurt at all. You focus on Aura items only because you want the 30 Power from Blessed Presence, and Gem of Isolation is worth as 3 Aura items from this point of view, while still giving decent Health and utility.
If you can hit Shackles, the enemy is crippled, meaning that the only way they can escape from you is through movement.
On top of that, Shackles already slows the enemies hit by it, and increases Ares's movement speed. The only way the enemy could get away from you is Purification Beads or Heavenly Wings, which both counter Gem of Isolation anyway.
2. That's exactly the point. The only way they can escape from you is through movement, so what's wrong with reducing it even more? With Gem of Isolation, Shackles
already slowsslows enemies even more in a way the can't ignore even by striving, and Searing Flesh slows too. You WANT them to use their Relics to counter the Slow, you want them to burn their Purification Beads only for Gem of Isolation, it means a free No Escape. And if they use Heavenly Wings instead of Purification Beads, just go on them again in 15 seconds or so, this time it's a choke point, they use it for the Slow and die by No Escape, or they decide not to ""waste"" it and die because they are too slow.If you really want a power item, get Rod of Tahuti instead. That combined with all the power you get from your passive and your defenses (aura defense items you've bought), can turn you into a nearly unstoppable force.
3. You don't want Gem of Isolation only because of the Power (I mean, 90 Power is not a joke), but for the effect that suits all of Ares' damage over time perfectly.
I'm not saying that Gem of Isolation is a staple item for Ares, I'm saying that it works.
Power items work on Guardians. Everything works on everything.
90 power isn't a joke, 125 +25% of your total even less so. An enemy most likely won't use their relics if they know they can get out alive. It's not "BROKEN ON ARES" either. When buying an item, you have to look at it as a whole, I'm aware of that, I'm not new to SMITE.
If a power item is what you're really looking for, Gem of Isolation is a good pick, but Rod of Tahuti does the job better. The enemy will die faster and if you want to use No Escape for its damage then Rod will outperform Gem. You also need to consider teammates. If your goal is to dispatch of an enemy you'll be looking to do it as fast as possible. Gem does slow but the lower power compared to Tahuti will have it take longer than Rod.
Only reason you should be getting Gem on a guardian imo is to help your teammates lock them down, not for power gain or your own benefit. Besides, chances are a mage on your team already picked Gem, as Gem is a very powerful item for Mages and a staple in some Mages' builds.
His comment on Gem and my comment on penetration (Spear) are both very specific in intent...trying to emphasize something strong in Ares' kit. And he's right... Gem of Isolation can lock enemies down like crazy. Since he doesn't have hard CC other than if enemies get fully caught by No Escape, Gem can be a powerful tool to emphasize the slow (and it can even work very nicely when using Searing Flesh).
His other point of talking about 90 power is just as a response to your aura comment...his argument for Gem is the slow, not the power/damage, at least the way I read between the lines.
My comment on Spear of the Magus is also an emphasis, this time on Ares inherent damage potential. And where you were talking about Rod of Tahuti being a better choice for power, again it's not about the power, it's about the damage. And Spear is, as far as I know, going to be a significantly more impactful choice on his damage output compared even to Tahuti.
In any case, it looks like Duo's argument is that in the end, it's not needed, and he finds more protection and counter-items to be more effective, and that answers my question. Keep in mind, he's likely talking about high-level play...in casuals/standard ranked, I'm sure Gem or Spear in their own ways work very well.
Only reason you should be getting Gem on a guardian imo is to help your teammates lock them down, not for power gain or your own benefit.
I 100% agree with you. If you get it in Support for example, it's only for the CC and to lock down enemies. Of course there are better choices in this case, but if my teammates don't already have Gem and my team is really ahead, I would prefer it over pure Power items like Spear of the Magus or Rod of Tahuti, especially since Ares lacks of CC aside from his Slow+Cripple and his ultimate
Basically what my entire statement comes down to is a combo of what Duotem and I have said. Ares' inherent slows would be enough to force enemies to burn their relics, and in terms of power there are better items. In that regard, Gem isn't a necessity, which is the idea I thought you meant with your original comment because of your all-caps "IT'S BROKEN ON ARES".
@Bran I didn't consider Spear of the Magus, no. Then again I'm not here to throw down a full damage-per-item comparison for every item in the game. Spear does more than Tahuti does, however, which makes your statement valid.
And yes, I know that that isn't what Lopix meant. But if you say "it works", you're making it really hard for me to not say that back to you, heh.
This is the type of informations I was searching for in a guide, and it has an awesome name too lol