Basic Heimdallr Guide: Classic ADC/Ability/Crit

Today, we are talking about Heimdallr, and this is a basic Heimdallr guide. This guide will have a brief introduction, then we'll talk about Heimdallr's abilities, then his leveling order, especially in different roles as well. We'll then look at his comboes and his items. Let's get started.

Now so far it looks like Heimdallr was released in a very strong state, so you could technically get away with a lot of awkward builds on him, and maybe with a non-ideal leveling order as well. So with this guide I will try to make it in a way that also still holds up at later points, when he potentially gets some nerfs.

Due to his strength, Heimdallr is currently relatively easy to play. You don't really need to utilize a lot of his mechanics in order to make him effective. But at the same time, his kit can be relatively complex and has a lot of interesting and unique interactions. I will not be able to cover all of those here because this is going to be a basic guide. I will make a more advanced mechanics video and at some point, when things have settled a little more, an advanced guide version as well for Heimdallr. So this should help you play Heimdallr right now but it can't go into all the intricacies that this character has without being too long. If you're interested in those more detailed mechanics, subscribe to my YouTube channel so you will be updated when those come out.

If you'd like to watch a video version of my guide, you can click the video below. Be sure to check out my channel and subscribe for more Smite guides as well.

The Vigilant

Now let's go into Heimdallr's abilities. His passive is The Vigilant. It allows you to see enemies a little bit longer when they are revealed, so pay attention to the minimap. It also increases your physical power for the amount of enemy gods that you have vision of. So this is up to 15% extra power for you, meaning you should try and have as much vision of enemies as possible and encourage your team to ward whenever you can.

He also deals a little less damage with crit, meaning his burst and DPS is slightly lower than that of other hunters, but this is not to a problematic degree in my opinion.

Piercing Sight

His first ability is Piercing Sight. First you throw your sword into the air and it reveals enemies in a 120 unit radius around it. This is good if you're expecting ganks anywhere and it also helps you locate enemies in a team fight.

Additionally, the ability can be re-fired to make the sword crash down to the ground. At that point, it no longer provides vision, but it deals AoE damage. This can be used for clearing, but primarily it is your main poke tool, and it has quite a long radius. You can easily get enemies under their towers with this as well, and it can deal relatively high damage with 320 base damage and 95% scaling.

Something worth noting about the usage of this ability is that no matter which casting form you use, if you're using the ability to get vision and you don't want to throw the sword down right away, then press the button for the ability twice. If you press it once, then the targeter will show up immediately, and your next basic attack "click," so to speak, would activate the sword and make it crash down. If you press the button twice, the sword will stay in the air, and the targeter will go back to normal basic attacks, and then if you press the button again depending on your casting mode, you will either instantly fire the sword to the ground, or you will have the targeter to fire the sword to the ground again.

The Gjallarhorn

His second ability, The Gjallarhorn, is a massive cone in front of him that deals tick damage (40 + 35% scaling), 5 ticks maximum over 2.5 seconds. Enemies hit by it are slowed by 15-25% depending on the rank of the ability, and the slow affects both their movement and attack speed. The slow duration is 1.5 seconds after the enemy leaves this cone effect, either through canceling this ability, the enemy walking out, or the ability finishing.

The fact that this lasts on means you can use this for boxing another hunter as well. You can throw in a basic attack, then use your 2 and cancel your 2 right away, and the enemy will still be slowed in both their movement speed and attack speed, making it easier for you to hit them, and making them hit slower.

But that's just one part of the ability. Additionally, the ability will stop channeling after two seconds and knock back enemies close to Heimdallr, dealing relatively high damage to them as well. This can be used as a good deterrent to keep enemies away that are trying to get close to you, and it will set up basic attacks very well as well, but it can also be used more aggressively to set up your own ultimate, or to set up a basic attack by going in with Blink Rune, for example.

The Gjallarhorn also has massive waveclearing potential, and is probably going to be your main clear along with your basic attacks. While channeling the 2, your protections are also increased by 16-40 depending on the rank. This immediately when you cancel the ability or the ability ends.

An interesting thing to note is that this ability works in tandem with his 3, so if you go into your 3's teleport while using The Gjallarhorn, then Heimdallr keeps channeling the ability and you can teleport somewhere behind an enemy and knock them back right away, if your crystals are placed that way.

The Bifrost

That brings us to the 3, The Bifrost. This ability allows you to place two crystals on the map, between which you can teleport. You can put them very close together for a quick teleport, or at a further distance. The further the distance, the longer the teleport warmup time until you actually move. This can vary from 0.5 - 3.5 seconds. There is a short internal cooldown for placing crystals on the ground of 1.25 seconds. This can be reduced by cooldown reduction, and this can be used to reset your basic attack chain as well. It does not proc Hydra's Lament anymore though.

The cooldown of the teleport between the crystals varies. It is unaffected by cooldown reduction, only by leveling the ability. The base cooldown is always 14 seconds for the shortest distances. The further the distance is of your teleport, the longer the cooldown is. It can scale up to 210 seconds at the first rank, and 90 seconds at the highest rank. So if you want to you can use this as a teleport to your lane from base, but then you will have it on a very long cooldown and can't use it as an escape in the meantime.

If you want to use it as an escape in lane, it's recommended to already put down one crystal at a bit of a distance so that you don't have to put down 2 crystals in the heat of the moment, because by the time that happens, you're already dead. I personally find that using it for a variety of purposes makes this most useful. Sometimes you use it as an escape, sometimes you use it to corner an enemy and to surprise them while chasing them, and sometimes you use it as a teleport from base if the situation requires it.

Through the Realms

Heimdallr's ultimate is Through The Realms. He charges at an enemy, similar to Ne Zha, is CC-immune for quite a while during that, and then swings his axe to launch an enemy into the air. After that, the enemy takes various hits of damage (the details aren't important to us). What we need to know though is that he takes 3 ticks of Muspelheim damage, and 2 ticks of wall hit damage if we want to know the total damage of the ability.

The enemy is in the air for 4 seconds, and during that time you will see a targeting area on the ground where this enemy will land. When the enemy lands, they're also still affected by a 25% slow for a brief duration. The duration is labeled as 2.5 seconds, but I was unable to find out if this starts while they're still in the air or exactly when they hit the ground. This ability deals massive damage to squishies, but it's also relatively good at keeping away targets that try to bother you in a team fight.

Basic Attack Chain

Last but not least, Heimdallr has a very unique basic attack chain. His first two attacks will have 1.3 times the normal swing time and deal 1.3 times the normal damage. Additionally, both of these will cleave targets around the enemy that you hit for 33% of the damage. The third attack which is not cleave, deals 1.5 times the normal damage with 1.5 times the normal swing time.

Now let's talk about the leveling order. Heimdallr is relatively flexible when it comes to the leveling order, depending on what playstyle you prefer. Leveling the ultimate will increase its base damage from 295 to 1095. At the same time, the ultimate is a very risky ability to use, and not necessarily always the most effective one, so there are situations where you could definitely argue that leveling the ult is not worth it, especially if you're playing a very squishy ADC build. I will however, for the sake of this guide, assume that we want this easily confirmable high damage of the ultimate, and we will max the ultimate first whenever we can. For more advanced players, this may not always be the case.

I will however say that there are some situations where you may want to level The Bifrost early, but I think those are relatively limited. I think this is something that can be considered for junglers or solo laners under specific circumstances, and with specific playstyles, but for most builds I would say that this is the ability you're going to level last.

And this is where is gets complicated. By leveling the 1, we're increasing the damage of the ability by 60 per rank. By leveling the 2, we're increasing the damage of the ability by 80 per rank. However, we only get this 80 damage if we get close enough for the knockback, otherwise we increase the damage by 40 per rank. In addition, leveling the 2 also increases the slow by 2.5% per rank, which is really not that much, and it increases the protections that we get from it by 6 per rank.

So generally speaking, it should be favorable to level the 2, especially looking at clearing, but at the same time the 1 is an absolutely vile poking tool and bullying tool in the early game if you level it up, because the base damage does so much already. Also keep in mind that whenever you're using the 2, you're not using basic attacks, so you kind of lose out on some damage that way as well.

So you have the following factors to consider:

• How many enemies am I fighting against?
• Can they easily interrupt my 2 or punish me for getting close enough to the wave to use it properly?
• How good is my clear against the enemy's clear?

If your clear is good, then you benefit more from getting some more poke, and in that regard it makes more sense to level the 1, or use the 2 for direct fighting, but if your clear is not that good, then leveling the 2 makes a lot more sense. In modes outside of Conquest, like Arena or Clash, leveling the 2 should be a lot more effective in the early game because of the large radius of it.

These considerations come even more into play depending on the lanes. If you're playing ADC in middle, then you may have to have a bit more of a clearing competition with the enemy, while in solo you may need the increased slow more, whereas in jungle you would maybe value the 1 a little bit more just because it's a little bit more convenient for clearing at later stages.

At level 1 specifically, I would recommend leveling the 2 in most situations, and at level 2, probably the 1 unless you need your escape already. Then at level 3 you can put another point into the 2, or you can level your escape at that point. I would recommend having a point in the escape at level 4 at least. Afterwards you want to go into the ultimate and then prioritize the 2, and then the 1, and then the 3. Or again, depending on the situation, you may prefer the 1 and max that first.

And that brings us to combos for Heimdallr (again, just the most basic ones). First of all when it comes to your 2, use a basic attack right beforehand. This will give you the extra damage of that basic attack, and you will remove the basic attack movement penalty from yourself right away through using the 2. Also, by the end of your 2, hold your basic attack button down. This will make it so that right after the ability ends, or you cancel it, you will throw a basic attack immediately.


Also, if an enemy is close, you can chain your 2 into your ultimate. This works especially well with Blink Rune, but can also work in other situations. So what you want to do is use your 2 and cancel it when an enemy is close, and then use your ultimate while they're still knocked up, giving them a lot less options to react. If you have sufficient attack speed, then you can even weave a basic attack in between while they're still in the air.


Use two basic attacks with a cleave and then use your 3 to reset your basic attack chain, getting more cleave attacks. You can actually do this over and over and over for additional cleave damage, which can help with clearing as well, as long as you have sufficient mana.


When just fighting a single enemy, after ulting the enemy, while waiting for them to land, use two basic attacks shortly before they land, so that you can hit them with your highest scaling basic attack immediately. For additional damage, you can also utilize your 1 and use the 1 while they're still in the air, so you have the sword dropped on them right as they come down.

Disclaimer for this method: this way, you lose the extra Hydra proc for the ult itself for a hypercharged proc with your 1. Not always worth it!

If you're using Hydra's Lament, throw two basic attacks, use your 1, briefly stop basic attacking, then throw the third basic attack at the same time as you drop down your 1 right on the enemy when they land for a massive amount of bonus damage.



Your 1 will follow you anywhere on the map, so what you can do is throw up your 1, then use your teleport to get somewhere else, then drop down your 1 on an enemy.

And that brings us to the items. He has a lot of different build paths that are possible the ones that you primarily see are ability builds or more traditional ADC builds and he can really utilize both.


Strong Items

A very strong item on him in general is Transcendence because he scales so well with the power, he utilizes the mana well especially if you use your 3 to reset your basic attacks as well, and it's just an overall good item also with the cooldown reduction.

In terms of boots, both Warrior Tabi and Ninja Tabi are viable. I personally prefer because of the higher DPS, and the bonus mana as well.

While you can of course also go Devourer's Gauntlet, I really value Transcendence on Heimdallr. As such, my primary source for lifesteal and sustain in general is Asi, which is just an overall very good item for him that adds a little bit of everything that he needs.

Another good item for him is most definitely The Crusher, which is also very versatile and brings a lot of good stats to him as an ADC. Also it's very easy to proc this on multiple targets with his 2.

The Executioner or Titan's Bane are both viable depending on the rest of the build. I personally prefer The Executioner, due to the overall mix of stats.

Ability-Focused Items

Hydra's Lament also works well on him if you're going for more of a ability-focused build, due to him having multiple abilities to proc it quite easily.

When going down a more ability-focused route, Brawler's Beat Stick and Jotunn's Wrath can absolutely be considered.

Runeforged Hammer is surprisingly good on him because it procs both his 2 and his ultimate, so this is an effect which you can utilize very well with the added benefit of having some more survivability that way, if that's what you're after.

Solo Only

For solo lanes specifically, Berserker's Shield can provide you with a lot of extra early game sustain. However, it doesn't provide similar sustain to lifesteal items at later stages of the game.

You can throw in bruiser items like Breastplate of Valor, Blackthorn Hammer, Runeforged Hammer as needed. You can even consider Frostbound Hammer after that if you want to combine it with the effect of Runeforged Hammer.

Void Shield doesn't work that well for him, because it doesn't work during his ultimate. Outside of that, it's still a very well-rounded item for him stat-wise.


Other Items

Other item mechanics that are very relevant for Heimdallr are Atalanta's Bow and Ichaival, which can both be instantly stacked if you hit three enemies with a cleave. I personally don't like these items that much in many situations, so it's not necessarily what I would recommend in any game, but it's worth knowing that you can quickly stack these on a wave specifically.

While he only has three damaging abilities, Heartseeker feels very effective on him due to the easy poke with the 1 and the wide poke area with the 2, again making it very easy to proc it on multiple targets.

Fail-Not works on him after the enemy lands from the ult, so if your ult doesn't destroy an enemy, that will have a lot of impact afterwards. In many situations, the ult is a more of a finisher so it kinda depends on how you play it.

Deathbringer can somewhat offset the reduction effect Heimdallr receives from his passive and should definitely be included at some point of the build IF you decide to go for crit. I will discuss the exact numbers for this in a future video.

Not Recommended

Items I would not recommend on him are Odysseus' Bow and Qin's Sais. Both of these don't scale with his basic attacks at all, so they just have their normal effects. Odysseus' Bow also doesn't stack faster, meaning you effectively proc them slower than anyone else for the same damage, or lower DPS overall. I do understand there are situations where you can't really get around Qin's Sais, but if you can get away with Heartseeker for percentage damage, it should usually be the better bet.

Starting Items

When it comes to item starts, there are a few I would recommend depending on the game mode as well.

In conquest in most situations I would start with Hunter's Blessing because it's very beneficial for him to get his attack speed up quickly and the basic attack damage factors in very nicely for the cleave as well.

Alternatively if you're going for a full ability style, then Charged Morningstar is absolutely an option as well, and in modes outside of conquest you can also of course consider Attacker's Blessing. For a full ability build you could also argue for Mage's Blessing.

Example Builds

Check out the cheatsheet at the top of the guide for some example builds for different roles and playstyles.

So that's it for this Heimdallr guide. I hope this was interesting / insightful / gave you an overview of Heimdallr. If you want to see more of my content, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel. See you in my next guide, DukeSloth out!