Athena Jungle

Hi
First of all let me point out that this is work in progress. I have
started on alot of guides that i never published so this time I tried to
publish even though im not completly finished.

You might wonder why someone would want to do a guide for Athena as a jungler
and the simple answer is that i couldnt find any.

My name is Linkanr and im a casual player.
I mostly play unranked conquest and this is my first guide.
I recently changed to this build and I find it very funny with the high damage
output compared to most Athena builds.
So far i have not deared to play this build ranked so its a bit of a stretch to say that
its tested but in unranked conquest it works pretty well.

Athena jungle can cause you some problems with your teammates mostly since its not part of the current meta. Somepeople like having her as jungle while others hate it. In my view the jungle is a support build that shall help out wherever needed for that Athena is one of the best possible choices. There are however alot of people that just look at kill stats and they wont always be very happy with you as an Athena jungler. You will have more assists and less kills than most junglers and that will make people complain from time to time.

It is important that you make sure that people acctually knows you are jungler when you pick goods and it might be a good idea to point that out a couple of extra times.

If you want to see Athena jungle in competetive gaming you can check out game 4 in the 2015 WC where Titan goes with Athena as jungle athough with a much more tanky build: Play Video

PROS
- Good sustain for a jungler
- Global ulitmate
- Can confuse the enenemy that just see you as a guardian
- Really good endgame
- Awesome russian voicepack

CONS
- Not very high damage
- With stacking you are weak early game
- Clearance is slower than other junglers
- Autoattack really weak

My build is a little bit diffrent from most Athena jungle builds. The biggest diffrence is that i go for two stacking items Warlock's Sash and Book of Thoth and that i generally go without Polynomicion

STARTER
For starter items i go lvl 2 Hand of the Gods Bumba's Mask Ward and either a mana och helth potion. The lvl 2 Hand of the Gods will make clearance alot faster and Bumba's Mask
helps out with camp damage early on as well as a way of staying out longer since you get some healt from camps.

ITEM 1
Shoes of the Magi is a good way of getting som penteration early on and will help you alot in fights. If you feel that you need cooldown Shoes of Focus is also vieble. I tend to go Magi when the game so far has gone me teams way and the extra penetration can give me some pontential ganks and Focus if we allready are behind.


ITEM 3
The second item is Warlock's Sash
This gives you alot of health and power. Fully stacked you will have 110 magical power (with Book of Thoth, Etheral Staff and Rod of Thahuti 167,5) and 600 health.
Since it has 100 stacks i recomend going with this before Book of Thoth


ITEM 2
Third item is Book of Thoth this takes care of any mana problems and will eventually give you around 200 magical power when combined with Rod of Thahuti




ITEM 4
For the fourth item i useally go for a bit of defense and these items are ofcourse
situational. Useally I try to go for physical defense to be able to stand up the the opponent jungler a bit better. If both the opponent jungler and solo is physical i think that Breastplate of Valor is the best option.
If however the jungler is magical such as Freya or Au Kunang or the team has 2 or more hard hitting magical players such as Chronos, Scylla etc then it might be a better to go Hide of the Urchin If they have a team with both magical jungler as well
as solo, guardian and mid magical you can go futher with magic protection and choose Bulwark of Hope but then you have to be carefull and stay far away from the adc beceuse he will kill you fast without any physical protection.

ITEM 5
If you dont go Breastplate of Valor as your 4th item i recomend going Chronos' Pendant for the cooldown. If not there are alot of options and I will not cover them all here its all situational and you need to analys you opponent in order to make the right choice. Here are some few input on the items

Void Stone is a good option with alot of opponents with a small amount of procetion.
Obsidian Shard is a good option if there are alot of opponents with high magic defence.
Ethereal Staff is a good option against Bakasura since he does true damage and health is the only way to counter that since procetion doesnt help. It also has nice synergies with the rest of your items and the fact that you are a guardian.


ITEM 6
The last item is of course Rod of Tahuti that gives you a massive boost to your damage output

Variations to the core and situationals.
You will never be able to cut down tanks with high magic defence so there is really no reason to build for that but if there are alot of people building ok magic def it might be a good idea to go both Obsidian Shard and Spear of the Magus or Void Stone (dependant on the number of magic users) then you will have to remove one of the core items that you need the least.

This is ofcourse very situational. Hand of the Gods is ofcourse needed in order to clear well in early game and Fist of the Gods gives you a stun for endgame.

If Anubis or any other bursty CC god is on the opponent team you need to get Greater Purification This is the case in most games but there can be opponent compositions that favors other actives.

If there are alot of CC enemies such as Ymir Sylvanus and worst of all Ares you might need to go magi's blessing and beads in order to stay alive.
Aegis Pendant is a good idea if you need to counter high burst damage or Nu Wa or Rama ultimate.

Greater Sprint is a good option if you feel that you dont need either beads or aegis

Passive: Reach
After using an ability Her next basic attack is a ranged, goes through tagets and deal
additional 20% of your magic power.
The damage is not very high but it definitly helps you clear minions a bit faster and
can give you the edge you need for a kill.

Preemptive Strike
A dash forward that slows enemy that you hit 20%.
Good for reteting, chasing and initiating combat.
I tend to level this up after shield wall and when confound
hit lvl 2-3.


Confound
A really funny ability, you force your opponent towards you for a
short while. I upgrade this after shield wall. Each uppgrade gives
you .25s of confound starting at one second. Since it scales a bit worse
than preemptive strike that gives you both damage, slow lenght and cdr on
each level I useally take this to level 2-3 where you get enought time for your
combos and then start leveling Preemptive Strike insteed.


Shield Wall
This is your main clearance and damage ability.
You form a shield wall around you that does damage when formed
as well as when it goes away. It works really well in combination with
Confound


Defender of Olympus
Her global really awsome ult. This lets you teleport to any teamate doing area damage to
everyone close to her/him. This is what makes Athena special and really fun to play.
I do however level this last beceuse it is mainly not used for the damage and thats the only thing that scales when you level it.

Preemptive Strike >> Shield Wall >> Confound
This is the most common used combo. You use your Preemptive Strike to engage and slow you enemies. Try to get a basic attack in straight afterwards especially if you have Polynomicion After this you put up a shield wall damageing your enemy as the try to run away use Confound hit them with one our to basic attacks and force them to stay in the shield wall as it damages them the second time.
This can ofcourse be used without the Preemptive Strike and that gives you a better option if you need to escape or chase

Start of with either speed or damage depending on the position of the solo lane. From there you continue to the solo lane where you stay until you reach mid lvl 4.
Then go back and clear the small harpies, this will get you to level 5 then recall to get your mana and healt back up and buy wards. By now you should have a little bit of time until the mid harpies comes back up. If they are really close use your ult to get to the mid lane and clear them if you have more time save your ult and pick up the other small harpies on your way back to the mid lane

After you hopefully cleared the 2nd mid harpies try to rotate and help out alot. Use you ultimate to help gank or prevent ganks. Always make sure that you are where you are needed most, there is no point in clearing a blue buff if you are better needed elsewhere.
Try to also help out in lanes when your teammates have to recall and always make sure that your teammates knows when your ultimate is up. Communication is really key here, make sure that your teammates have a call for getting your help (preferbly "help")
Your ultimate takes a bit of time so having teamates that knows this helps alot.

Here is where I think the Athena jungler really shines.
You can splitpush in a simmilar manner as Apollo where you switch lanes with your ult if
your opponets attack you. You can also tank towers decently and having your ult up makes sure that you really fast can travel to teamfights.

In lanes
Her your Preemptive Strike is really usefull.
Use it to go through all the minons and then turn around and use your passive
to damage them all again. If there are no minons around and they aggro on you then use Shield Wall to damage them all.

In jungle
You really need your HOG in order to clear fast and getting it to lvl 2 from start will help you alot. For clearance your Shield Wall is pretty good and you will have a decent clearance rate.
Your Preemptive Strike gives you the option of traveling faster between camps.

Like i mentioned before teamwork is really key for Athena.
Your ultimate can be one of the best if you are in sync with your teamates and be pretty useless if you are not.

You can easily intiate with with your Preemptive Strike and the amount of combos possible with Confound are endless. Some example are

- Players with high burst can ofcourse very easily benefit from getting 2 seconds of confound
- With a little bit of skill you can lure enemies into Artemis trap or Janus slow
- You can also help Hades, Cupid, Ymir and other goods with AOE ultimate to keep multiple enemies within the effect.
- With Apollo you can do a lategame split push on each side and easily switch sides or escape with you ultimates. This can give you team a really annoying presence all over the map.

If you can stand people calling you awfull things and are ok with getting more assists than kills then Athena can be a really fun jungler.

01-16 - First version
01-18 - Updated buying order
01-20 - updated team work
01-25 - updated actives
01-26 - Added WC video