Bellona Solo Build

I started playing Bellona not too long ago, but even though I personally feel that her laugh , taunts, jokes, wave, and clap are the worst in the game, I play her for her kit, because really, it's amazing. I've always never been able to stick with one god and get them all the way to mastery ten (my highest mastery would be 7 on Chaac). I've been playing Smite for a year and still no mastery ten god, because I would always get bored with the god that I was playing at the time and switch to a new one. Bellona is the first god that I don't get bored with, and I am currently on the road to making her my first mastery ten. My build, which I created myself from scratch, works like a charm in almost every situtation. Please enjoy and let me know if anything is wrong or you would like something to be added.

This build is based entirely upon one fact: you are a bruiser. Your one goal is to slow down, stun, and cc the **** out of the enemy until your allies can arrive and finish them off for you. Please do not mistake this build as an offensive build and correct me by changing my build to an assassin's. Indeed, there are many ways to build and play warriors such as Bellona. This is my way and what I think works the best for solo laning.

• Counters To and Against

Pros:
Somewhat tanky endgame

Deals a ton of damage with Bludgeon, especially in team fights when you hit 4 or 5 enemies with the inital spin.

Nice amount of cc (A natural slow with Shield Bash, a disarm from Scourge, a stun with Eagle's Rally, and then if you add on a Fist of the Gods and a Weakening Curse/Enfeebling Curse)

Amazing team fight presence with Eagle's Rally and Bludgeon.

Great chase potential/mobility

Great Passive

Counters hunters


Cons:
Long cooldowns before cdr

Not much mana (I believe under 1000 at level 20 full build)

Must use her escapes to initiate

Has to get in the middle of the solo lane and up close and personal with the enemy solo god to clear it

Once I enter the game, I always ask my jungle "Invade or no invade"? We then look at thier solo/jungle gods and decide. I'm not going to tell you which gods to invade or not invade, because that's not what I'm here to teach you about, but I will tell you how to prepare to invade.
First off, if you do decide to invade, pick up Heavy Hammer, two Healing Potions, and a Ward. Place the ward on either their speed or mana camp, depending on which one you have decided to invade. Also, instead of leveling Bludgeon first, level Shield Bash. My reasoning for this are the slows. Shield Bash gives a 30% slow, then add on Heavy Hammer's slow on your basic attacks, and you've got a 45% slow right out of base. Imagine getting hit with THAT, with your 350-375 movement speed and only one of your abilities leveled. It's lethal.

If you don't decide to invade, which is most of the time, pick up Death's Toll, Boots, Hand of the Gods (HOG 1), and two Healing Potions.

Death's Toll is absolutely AMAZING on Bellona, I can't stress it enough, since the passive doesn't just give you +6 health and +1 mana for each successful basic attack, it multiplies for each enemy hit. This combos amazingly well with Bellona's hammer after Bludgeon, since the hammer has an AOE that allows you to clear the lane in a few swings.

Grab Boots for the obvious movement speed that is needed if you want to be able to get away from the middle of the lane after clearing it and not die.

Hog 1 you get to use on the speed camp. You may ask why this is, but with the recent hog debuff, Hog 1 now only hits one enemy (pretty bad, right?). You're gonna want your jungle to get Hog 2 AKA Rage of The Gods so that they can use it on the mana camp in order to defend against mana buff invades better, as you will be able to clear the camp faster with Hog 2, which hits 2 enemies instead of 1 (That means Hog 3 would hit 3 enemies), and allow you to reach lane faster.

But why pick up two Healing Potions instead of one Healing Potion and a Mana Potion? I used to pick up one of each, until I found myself selling the mana potion the first time I went back to base. In doing this, I realized that the early mana from the mana buff was enough to keep me going till that first back to base.

Warrior Tabi vs Ninja Tabi: While attack speed is nice, Bellona is only semi-basic attack based and she needs the physical power more than the attack speed early game.

Spirit Robe: Love this item, put it on most of my warriors. Gives you 45 protections each, and 15% damage mitigation when hit by a hard cc effect, absolutely! But wait! There's more! It also brings 15% cdr to the table! What an item! Pick this up second.

Frostbound Hammer: Slows, slows, and more slows, that's what this build is based off of. Who needs a ton of burst damage when you can just latch on to them and slowly drain them? The slow also helps the keep the enemy away from their tower/reinforcements until your allies can arrive and finish them off - that is, if you already haven't finished them yourself :D. Pick up the second tier of this (Heavy Hammer) while you are still in the laning phase in order to punish those overextended solo laners. Get Heavy Hammer third, then get the second tier of The Executioner, then go back and finish Frostbound Hammer.

The Executioner: This is where your late-game attack speed comes from. Bellona already gains attack spped fairly rapidly as she levels, and that's why this is the only attack speed item in this build. It also gives the enemy protection reduction, and, combined with Frostbound Hammer, it makes the enemy extremely vulnerable to your allies' damage. Pick this up after Heavy Hammer.

Jotuun's Wrath: This is a must-have for most brusiers. It gives a large amount of cdr, some physical power, mana, AND penetration. A good item all-around.

Shifter's Shield: This item seals your tankiness and gives you that extra bit of physical power that you've been needing. It gives initial power and protections, and the passive is just amazing on bruisers because the effect changes based upon what you need at that moment in time.



Frostbound Hammer vs. Hastened Fatalis: You may ask why I chose to put Frostbound Hammer in this build instead of Hastened Fatalis. I have a couple reasons for this:

• Frostbound Hammer gives health and physical power, where Hastened Fatalis does not
  
• Frostbound Hammer actually slows the enemy, allowing your teammates to get to the enemy and finish them off before they reach the tower. Hastened Fatalis only speeds you up, therefore putting yourself in a situation where you have to finish them off yourself, and you may not be able to do that, as you are only a bruiser.

Passive: Master of War: "Upon giving or receiving hits from Basic Attacks, Bellona gains Protections and movement speed for 4s. (max. 5 stacks)."

The first thing that I said when I read this passive for the first time was, "hold on, wait a second, you get more resistant to the enemy the more times they hit you with basic attacks?" and "the more times you hit them, the faster you get?" This passive is great on a bruiser Bellona, and that's why my build of semi-attack speed and tankyness works. This is also why Frostbound Hammer is such a good item on her.


Ability 1: Shield Bash: "Bellona dashes forward and bashes with her shield, dealing damage and Slowing enemies. Bellona gains 1 Stack of block for each enemy hit. Block absorbs all damage from a single Basic Attack and reflects a portion of the damage around her. Bellona then makes Basic Attacks with sword and shield until out of combat, and every 3 successful basic attacks she gains another Stack of block (max. 3)."

This is a great ability, putting a 30% slow on the enemy as well as granting yourself blocks that deflect basic attack damage. This ability is half this reason that Bellona is sometimes called "The Anti-Hunter".


Ability 2: Bludgeon: "Bellona summons a hammer and spins, hitting every enemy around her and then smashing forward in an overhand attack. Each enemy god hit in the spin increases the damage of the overhand attack. Bellona now makes Basic Attacks with her hammer until out of combat. Every hammer attack hits all enemies in melee range"

This is where Bellona's main damage comes from. At rank 5 the spin does 150 + the slam damage of 310. This scales at a total of 85% of your physical power. This gives her a great team fight presence, as hitting 5 gods with the spin will add 150% of 310 to the damage (an astounding total of 775 damage before protections!).


Ability 3: Scourge: "Bellona summons a scourge, dealing damage to all enemies in a line. Enemies hit are Disarmed, and cannot make Basic Attacks. Bellona now makes Basic Attacks with a scourge until out of combat, which has extended range (+4) and every third attack heals Bellona"

The second half of what makes Bellona "The Anti-Hunter". At level 5 the disarm is a whole 3 seconds, rendering most hunters completely useless during the time. The Scourge weapon itself also gives her some heal every 3 basic attacks, which is nice for the early laning phase.


Ability 4: Ultimate: Eagle's Rally: "Bellona plants a Roman flag, granting Protections and increased Physical Power to allied gods. Enemies directly under where the flag is placed take damage and are Stunned for 1s."

This ult provides a huge team fight presence, providing protections and physical power to all allies in the radius. It also can be used as a finisher, an escape, or even just used for the stun to slow down the enemy so that your allies can arrive and finish them off.

Shield Bash + Scourge: This combo is great for finishing off that running away enemy, if they're low enough for the scourge to kill them. Use this combo in a situation where you're sure that the scourge can kill them, they're aren't any other enemies around to abuse your used-up escape, and, probably most importantly, when you're sure that Shield Bash will take you close enough to the enemy that Scourge will actually hit the enemy.

Shield Bash + Eagle's Rally: This combo is great for extending the range of your ultimate; when the enemy is just out of range of your ultimate. If you initiate into team fights with this combo, be sure to use your Bludgeon after landing.

Scourge + Shield Bash: Your anti-hunter combo; disarm the hunter, then dash forward with Shield Bash, and, assuming you have enough attack speed at the moment, you should be able to build up some blocks with the sword and shield while the disarm wears off the hunter. You should then be able to finish them, or hurt them a lot more, with Bludgeon.

Personally, I like to be extremely aggressive in the lane. This is often very easy with a goddess like Bellona, as in the later-early game she can clear the lane fairly easily without using too many assets compared to other gods. For example, usually Hercules must use both his Earthbreaker and Driving Strike in order to effectively clear the lane. This leaves him with only his Mitigate Wounds and ultimate Excavate left to poke and be aggressive (which is basically nothing at all, as his ultimate is exceptionally easy to avoid). But with Bellona, you go ahead, use one ability to clear the lane, (Bludgeon), then you have your hammer left over to clear off any extra minions, then you can go ahead and harass the enemy solo laner.

If your opponent is a warrior that needs to get close to the lane to clear it effectively (for example, Hercules, Chaac, Tyr, Ravana, maybe an Osiris) then you can have an advantage. Go ahead, clear the lane, then harass the enemy with your basic attacks. If you have Frostbound Hammer or Heavy Hammer this will be a lot easier. (If the enemy is clearing the lane up close, I often like to initiate with Shield Bash to stack on that extra slow, which is always welcome, then start beating on them.) Keep in mind that while you're doing this, your minions are still attacking the enemy, so they're taking that damage as well. Once they pull back into the tower you should back off, as you don't want to take any tower hits.

The Disarm: Using it in the laning phase: Your disarm (Scourge)is a very useful ability, even against solo mages like Ra and Chang'e. Once you push the enemy back into their tower, they're most likely going to have used up their abilities to clear the lane effectively (for example, Ra's Celestial Beam) They'll start basic attacking the waves, most likely right in front of their tower. Once they start doing this, you'll want to step in just inside the tower, hit the with the scourge, and then back out. If you backed out fast enough, you should not have taken a hit from the tower. If you did, you went in too far. They may also just back up farther than the range of your Scourge. In that case, don't even try this maneuver. Otherwise, this is a great way to let their tower hit your minions, thus depriving your enemy of gold.

You can also use the Scourge to clear the lane, but it's not as effective. You only really want to do it if you have plenty of mana, and you need healing. If either of those things are not true, then don't clear the lane with Scourge, and here's why.

• If you strike the wave with your Scourge, you can then go ahead and start basic attacking the melee minions and get the healing.
• If your enemy has a better wave clear then your Scourge, then they'll go ahead and clear the lane and start attacking you, so you're gonna need some mana to use Bludgeon to finish off the wave and then possibly use Shield Bash to get away.

In this phase (startung probably somewhere in the 15-20 minute mark) you should have taken down your opponent's tower (or both of the first tier towers in the solo lane are down) and now you've started rotating.

Rotations: Listening to your team: Most of you reading this guide probably just play casually, on your own, or with only a few friends. I play on a team of 5 people, and we always talk to each other in-game about where help is needed when. You need to talk to your team (random people or your own premade team) about when you need help, or ask them who needs help. Once you've taken down the enemy solo laner's tower (hopefully not yours as well) you'll need to inform your team that you are going to start rotating and that your help will be open to anyone who needs it. Often the first place you will go is mid, maybe get a few ganks there, or join your mid and jungle for a team gank on the duo lane. You may participate in team fights, and when you do, make sure to hit as many enemies with your Eagle's Rally and Bludgeon Combo as possible. Make sure to remember your job: if you can't finish the enemy, slow them down so your teammates can get there and finish them off. If you're not playing with a premade team, then you must make sure that you notify your team with the VGS commands (maybe something like VVVC, which is "Chase the enemy".

Once everyone has left their lanes, and players are beginning to group up, then you have most likely entered the Late Game/Team Fight Phase.

Once you have entered the Late Game/Team Fight Phase, you're going to need to know a few things to help you not die, help your teamates not die, and get kills for your allies - and maybe a few for yourself as well :D.

PROTECTOR OF THE SQUISHIES: One of your roles is what my captain likes to call "Protector of the Squishies". This means that it is your job (and your support's) to protect your mid, adc, and possibly jungle, depending on how they are buidling. This means that one of your squishes is low on health and being chased by an enemy, SLOW DOWN THE ENEMY. Your ult is on a VERY short cooldown compared to the 90 second regular, so don't be afraid to use it. Combine this with Frostbound Hammer, Fist of the Gods(unless you wanted to be awesome and get Wrath of the Gods for those epic Fire Giant steals) and a Weakening Curse/Enfeebling Curse, and your ally will be clear. They'll thank you and be eternally grateful.

VVVC: Chase The Enemy: Another role is the chaser of enemies :D. I bet you're tired of hearing about this but I cannot stress it enough. That one lucky guy that gets away from the teamfight? Get him. He won't be expecting it, and you may just get a free kill, OR, if he's at low health, slow him down and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

Overall, Bellona is a very strong god right now and can be built in many different ways from assassin to bruiser to full tank. This is my way to build her, and I believe that, if you have enough team coordination, you will be a great asset for any team to have.

Please leave your questions/comments here, I'll get back to you ASAP. If you would like me to add anything just let me know. This is my first Smitefire guide so if I missed anything insanely huge just let me know. Thanks!

By AtomicPie525, my Support - http://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/geb-op-pls-nerf-ravana-update-7598