Bellona, why are you invading my personal space?(Arena 8.7)

Hello everyone, my name is silentshell.



I am pretty much strictly an arena player but will play joust on occasion. This is my first Smitefire guide and it is for any of you out there wanting to try out Bellona and/or needing help figuring out what direction you want to go with her. Before you get started, remember to check the tab at the top right corner of this guide to cycle through the different build concepts. Also be sure to check each build example for a notes tab because there is information for subbing out items if needed.

This has been my favored build so far to in what limited playtime I have had on smite since the 8.7 update.

The Sledge This item starts off the build with a nice chunk of power, a nice boost to health to start the match, the added situational protections and evven half of your potential CCR.

[berserker's shield]] This is a nice all purpose item that does well on Bellona supplying her with some physical protections, early power, attack speed and some early penetration.
The passive works well with her kit also.

Serrated Edge This item is a good one to pick up here because it has a lot of utility. The added movement, % penetration and power from it paired with Berserker's Shield can really allow her to be more aggressive early with the ability to do some significant damage quickly and increase her chances to escape successfully when needed. The lifesteal can be useful for her as well with her standard basic attacks and after shield bash or scourge is activated and she maintains those abilities in combat. The effects of the passive the extra bonuses to lifesteal and power are nice as well.

Shogun's Kusari is a nice item for Bellona because of the bonus to attack speed that she gets from it and it can potentially be a lot more helpful if your party composition lends itself more to relying on basic attacks. It is also your lone magical protection unless you choose to go for more magical protection with your 6th item.

Frostbound Hammer This is a nice way to cap off the build by adding to the power built to this point and giving Bellona additional sustain. The passive is also really useful since this build gives her some decent attack speed so she can really do some damage to enemies while they are slowed by her attacks.

Offensive Options

Qin's Sais
With Berserker's Shield and Serrated Edge Bellona is at 30% penetration. This should be enough for you to do some good damage to anyone with heavy protections on the other team. Qin's is a really good item to get that can whittle down squishies pretty well with it's passive and when you have enough penetration can do the same thing to the tanky types as well. In a lot of cases 30% penetration should help you keep those enemy tanks more honest about trying to roam around on your side of the map or in the middle of your party.

The Executioner
If you are still having problems with the tanky types on the other team then executioner can give you the additional shred needed for you and your team to put the hurt on them.

Brawler's Beat Stick
For this particular build I run it as is whenever I play it but if healing does become a problem through the course of the match then I will get this as my last item(if I absolutely have to I will modify an item early for anti heal, but try to keep the rest of the build as is whenever possible)

Deffense/Sustain/Utility

Mantle of Discord
nice physical and magical protections, a bit of cooldown and the passive is very useful when you get locked down by the other party.

Oni Hunter's Garb
a bit of extra sustain, a nice chunk of magical protections, the rest of your CCR started by The Sledge and the passive is pretty useful with the extra damage mitigation. It is typically built earlier to help mitigate more damage through the course of a match but it can still be useful here.


Winged Blade
This item is very useful against slows, it gives you a nice chunk of health, a bit of ccr, extra movement and a bit more magical protections. It provides a lot of utility when you have an opportunity to round out the build with it.

Witchblade This item is useful when the other team is relying heavily on basic attacks. It also gives extra physical protections, a nice chunk of health, some extra movement speed and a bit of cooldown.

shield of regrowth
This can be really helpful in helping you with escaping. The nice boost to movement speed upon the passive activating builds upon the extra movement speed already provided by Serrated Edge and should allow you to escape cleanly in most situations. It also is another option for giving you needed sustain at the end of matches and a bit of cooldown.

Magi's Cloak
This is a nice little item to provide you extra sustain, a bit of magical and physical protection and with the passive, the ability to ignore 1 hard cc/root effect every 70 seconds, which can be extremely useful in some situations.

So, under the standard build I have the alternate builds. These are Anti-heal, Sentinel's Embrace and War Banner builds. They are all set up with the same format of the standard build. You have your first 5 items standard and then you choose your 6th item from those provided to round out your build in whatever you need to in each match you use it for.

The anti-heal build is to counter healing teams.

The Sentinel's Embrace build is a more tanky take on using Bellona that can be fun as well.

the War Banner build focuses on offense as well but focuses on boosting the movement and attack speed of your whole team when in combat.

Make sure that you look through all of the 6th item choices for alternate build so you can pick the right items to round out those builds when you use them.

The skill order is a bit scattered because bludgeon provides good damage in the early game, so I level it up a bit more and then go back to a more standard leveling scheme. You can level up Scourge before Shield Bash if you like. Either way will work fine.

Scourge can be used to initiate combat and disarm an opponent. As you are fighting you can decide to Shield Bash if enemy tries to retreat or if you want to retreat so that you can slow them in either situation. If combat lasts long enough and your cooldown refreshes you can also reapply Scourge to disarm again whether attempting to escape or chase with Shield Bash

You can also initiate combat with Shield Bash to slow a fleeing opponent and secure a kill and be ready to hit any of their team that comes to assist with Scourge

when chasing opponents you can use Shield Bash and Bludgeon to close distance and/or secure kills.

when using Eagle's Rally try to place where the center target will land on multiple enemies. The more targets stunned, the less chance there is for counter attacks and more opportunities for your team to swoop in and get kills. You can also use Eagle's Rally to secure fleeing kills or stun to give yourself or other team members additional time to secure kills. Don't be afraid to use Eagle's Rally as an escape as well.

for escapes sometimes you will have to use Shield Bash Eagle's Rally and Bludgeon in succession to get away from bad situations. To further clarify, I am not saying that Bludgeon is an escape but in a pinch if your other abilities are not up it can give you a little bit of space when running/turning corners(it has actually saved me plenty of times by the narrowest of margins). Also, when escaping, make sure to never run in a straight line. Characters like Thor, Ra and so many others will be able to easily kill you when running if you do this