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Aegis Amulet and 
Purification Beads are interchangeable depending on who you're facing in mid-lane.
Aegis Amulet and Purification Beads are interchangeable depending on who you're facing in mid-lane.
Mage's Blessing
Lost Artifact
Mana Potion
Multi Potion
Aegis Amulet
Mage's Blessing
Shoes of Focus
Chronos' Pendant
Doom Orb
Spear of the Magus
Rod of Asclepius
Aegis Amulet
Purification Beads
Elixir of Speed
Breastplate of Regrowth
Soul Gem
Chronos' Pendant
Doom Orb
Spear of the Magus
Rod of Asclepius
Aegis Amulet
Purification Beads
Divine Ruin
Rod of Tahuti
Charon's Coin
Soul Reaver
Gem of Isolation
Winged Blade
Staff of Myrddin
Y
B
A
X
Tap each threat level to view Aphrodite’s threats
Aphrodite has two shining qualities going into mid-lane that no other mage can bring:
1. Effective, safe, and simultaneous wave clear + healing
2. A knockback on approaching junglers
On top of that, Aphrodite is great at confirming combo damage against a majority of her mid-lane counterparts, and she can assist her jungler with sustain whenever they drop by for a gank.
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The primary factors to properly playing this magnificent goddess are to prioritize wave clear, minimize poke damage taken, and out-sustain your opponent.
Before assisting your jungler with speed buff, place your free ward on the mirrored side of the jungle to stay wary of a potential early game gank.
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Aphrodite's wave clear is just a bit slower than most other mages' for the first 3-5 levels. To combat this, she needs to stay behind her minions or close to tower to keep safe. The provided build also reflects the need to maximize Aphrodite's wave clear and damage potential, this way she can gradually put more pressure against the enemy mid-laner.
As a mage, Aphrodite needs cooldown reduction, damage, health, mana, and movement speed.
Misconceptions of Building Defense
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Mage's Blessing fills in the last 10% CDR at full stacks), enough starting MP5, and sufficient damage. Lost Artifact as your first item, purchase Shoes of Focus before upgrading to Chronos' Pendant.|
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Doom Orb immensely bolsters Aphrodite's magical damage and buffs her for doing what she loves - clearing the wave. The extra movement speed helps her maneuver around the the opposing mid-laner's abilities, while also giving her the opportunity to push up and get kills. Spear of the Magus improves Aphrodite's overall damage output, thereby increasing her healing. Plus, after a good Kiss and Love Birds / Back Off! combo, this makes the enemies more vulnerable during mid-late game team fights and ganks. Rod of Asclepius gives Aphrodite much needed health and movement speed, strengthens all sorts of healing [that will come in handy for mid-late game team fights while also empowering your next purchases of Shield of Regrowth and Soul Gem] and supports the damage she's built up thus far.| Shield of Regrowth |
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Mage's Blessing. It covers for the 10% CDR, and the movement buff it gives from healing helps Aphrodite out of any precarious situations. Soul Gem also covers for the 10% CDR that Shoes of Focus provide. The best part about this item, though, isn't that it adds on to Aphrodite's health (which allows Shield of Regrowth's passive to activate more often with missing health), gives her lifesteal, or boosts her damage; the best part is the team healing from the item's passive that Aphrodite wouldn't otherwise have and desperately needs for late-game team fights.|
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Divine Ruin should be purchased in place of Doom Orb if the opposing mid-laner is a healer. Rod of Tahuti can replace Spear of the Magus if you're looking for more base damage, which would be useful if you needed to purchase Divine Ruin over Doom Orb. Charon's Coin can be bought instead of Spear of the Magus and before Doom Orb (since it takes time to build Charon's Coin stacks) if you have a preference for more long-term sustain. Soul Reaver is a great option to replace Spear of the Magus if you need to deal more % based damage. Gem of Isolation makes for a great replacement to Rod of Asclepius if the other team has built various anti-heal items. It'll give the same magical power and health, and it can momentarily cripple enemies; this will be useful during team fights or in tandem with Shield of Regrowth and Winged Blade to make Aphrodite dodgy during retreats. Winged Blade should be your 6th item if anti-heal has become an issue in the late-game. It further boosts Shield of Regrowth's passive for having any missing health and gives you a better possibility of escape on its own, should the team fights turn sour. If you do purchase Winged Blade, snagging a 
Potion of Power will also be extra important for more damage and filling in the last 10% CDR. Staff of Myrddin works wonders as a 6th item if you can afford to spend 3000 Gold. It still provides the needed 10% CDR and is a perfect tool to bring extra sustain to the tank when they initiate late-game team fights.
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Aegis Assault
Chain Lightning
Detonate Charge
Fenrir
Breastplate of Valor
Genji's Guard
Spirit Robe
As far as Mantle of Discord, Spirit Robe, and Breastplate of Valor go, I do have a spoiler under the Build chapter that explains why I wouldn't recommend most defense items. They all provide CDR, but purchasing them also negatively impacts Aphrodite's wave clear and healing since they're taking up the slots of damage items that she needs early game. Plus, giving Aphrodite defense items insinuates that she has the base def stats of a guardian when she needs to be in the backline of action, avoiding damage to keep her teammates alive.
There's a number of reasons why Asclepius isn't generally beneficial for Aphrodite:
1. Its passive only affects allies, which isn't useful early game
2. She requires items that provide more damage than Asclepius does during the mid-game since mid-lane roles are meant to be dealing the most magical damage on the team
3. Soul Gem is a better option in the late-game because it provides Aphrodite with team healing that she wouldn't otherwise have
4. It would really only be beneficial in the mid-late game if one of your teammates is also a healer, but that gives the other team an opportunity to counter such a dynamic by building multiple anti-heal items
5. Mages with AOE healing abilities are better off using this item over Aphrodite
Spear of Desolation is another item I wouldn't recommend because:
1. The combination of Mage's Blessing, Shoes of Focus, and Chronos' Pendant already provide 40% CDR
2. The item's passive is only useful when you get a kill or assist, which you're more likely to get with items that give a higher damage output
Thank you for the feedback!
There's a number of reasons why Asclepius isn't generally beneficial for Aphrodite:
1. Its passive only affects allies, which isn't a useful early game
I don't know why people always think that aura items only affect the other gods. Probably because of the word ally but let me clear something up.
Aura items that consider allied gods affect all allied gods including thyself (you should see yourself as an allied god to the item anyway). meaning that in the case of sovereignity,
you can easily test this by going into jungle practice. for sov and heartward just check your prot they will go up by what the item provides + what the aura divides.
same for
with no rod (used [[gem of isolation}} to negate the power gain): 19
with Asclepius: 24 or 21 (after 5 seconds).
There's a number of reasons why Asclepius isn't generally beneficial for Aphrodite:
1. Its passive only affects allies, which isn't useful early game
2. She requires items that provide more damage than Asclepius does during the mid-game since mid-lane roles are meant to be dealing the most magical damage on the team
3. Soul Gem is a better option in the late-game because it provides Aphrodite with team healing that she wouldn't otherwise have
4. It would really only be beneficial in the mid-late game if one of your teammates is also a healer, but that gives the other team an opportunity to counter such a dynamic by building multiple anti-heal items
5. Mages with AOE healing abilities are better off using this item over Aphrodite
2. Aphro also has her Jealousy buff from her 1 to her soul mate, usually the jungler. Also you list options like Regrowth and Void Stone which provide little damage.
3. Soul Gem isn't awful but there are much better mage users of Soul Gem than Aphro. I'd have to test which abilities can stack it out of combat though. Also if you can list Soul Gem then surely Deso is also an option.
4. I think you should take a look at this: https://www.smitegame.com/news/tmnt-7-11-update-notes/
"Healing % Effects
All abilities and items that apply healing % changes – for increasing or decreasing healing – will now affect all forms of healing:
lifesteal, ability healing, item heals, relic heals, potions, HP5, jungle buffs"
5. That's partially true, similar to Lotus Crown but Asclepius will / can also buff other forms of sustain (especially looking at Fire Giant buff regen). Also look at 4.
Spear of Desolation is another item I wouldn't recommend because:
1. The combination of Mage's Blessing, Shoes of Focus, and Chronos' Pendant already provide 40% CDR
2. The item's passive is only useful when you get a kill or assist, which you're more likely to get with items that give a higher damage output
2. Aphro's application of Magus isn't as good as other mages though it's still viable on her, which is where prioritisation of deso could come in.
2. Aphro also has her Jealousy buff from her 1 to her soul mate, usually the jungler. Also you list options like Regrowth and Void Stone which provide little damage.
3. Soul Gem isn't awful but there are much better mage users of Soul Gem than Aphro. I'd have to test which abilities can stack it out of combat though. Also if you can list Soul Gem then surely Deso is also an option.
4. I think you should take a look at this: https://www.smitegame.com/news/tmnt-7-11-update-notes/
"Healing % Effects
All abilities and items that apply healing % changes – for increasing or decreasing healing – will now affect all forms of healing:
lifesteal, ability healing, item heals, relic heals, potions, HP5, jungle buffs"
5. That's partially true, similar to Lotus Crown but Asclepius will / can also buff other forms of sustain (especially looking at Fire Giant buff regen). Also look at 4.
2. There is truth to that. In mid-late game, though, the timeframe in which we're discussing whether or not Asclepius ought to be purchased, Aphrodite's Kiss should be applied to the solo role; that's the player who should be the one initiating team fights close up since they're defensively built and benefit the most from constant healing. By this point in the game, junglers should have already built up enough damage to be able to jump into a fight, get a quick kill or two, and get out if they need to. Please refer to the second comment of the reply where I mention Void Stone, and then back to the Build chapter where I talk about Shield of Regrowth and how it fits into this particular build. In addition to those notes, the damage that Aphrodite needs is largely put together early-mid game, when those items are purchased mid-late game.
3. Outside of combat, Aphrodite can build stacks on Soul Gem by Kissing her allies (which reduces the cooldown of Kiss to a mere 1 second) and by using Love Birds, even she's at full health. I'll discuss Spear of Desolation more in the bottommost portion of this response.
4. That will be wonderful to test out Asclepius when the 7.11 patch is released then.
5. It sounds like this can be put to much better use in the next patch, especially with the Fire Giant buff, than the current one since it's only helping with ability heals in 7.10. And with the 7.11 patch coming up just within the next week, there isn't really much discussion left to be had about Asclepius until then. So thank you for giving me this info so I can look into Asclepius and improve this guide for 7.11.
2. Aphro's application of Magus isn't as good as other mages though it's still viable on her, which is where prioritisation of deso could come in.
1. If we're talking about purchasing Spear of Desolation late-game, then yes, it could be viable if you're looking to build up extra damage. Like you mentioned, though, there would be a bit of an overkill on CDR, and I recommend the healing buffs + health from Shield of Regrowth and Soul Gem for the late-game sustain. As for the "non-Chronos' Pendant builds," there's no reason to not purchase Chronos' Pendant as Aphrodite, ever. She absolutely needs the 20 MP5 for early-game sustain, 20% CDR (not to mention Chronos' Pendant's passive that GUARANTEES even more CDR), and sufficient damage vs Spear of Desolation's lack of sustain assistance and 10% CDR (with POTENTIAL for extra CDR from it's passive) despite the higher damage.
2. That's true to the extent that Aphrodite's combos are only foolproof if you can connect the Kiss first. It's also useful when connected to a teammate who's diving the enemy and you can get in a successful use of Back Off!. Spear of Desolation can have a spot in place of Spear of the Magus if that suits the player's playstyle; I simply recommend Spear of the Magus because it's better at suppressing the oppenents during team fights and ganks.
I meant, something like Cdr boots > Doom Orb > Deso early. You would have 30% cdr with mage's blessing stacked. Also Doom Orb has 5 more mp5 than Chronos'.
I usually only consider Doom Orb if I want Breastplate though. (Though of course you may prefer Chronos + Lotus early, Doom Orb + Breastplate is extra mobility + slight extra power).