Chronos - Uncatchable, Unkillable, Unbeatable

Greetings! I'm DecimusBrutalis, and have been a MOBA player (namely League of Legends) for quite some time. I've found a nice fit in with Smite, a purely skillshot based game, which I find more fun and skill-requiring to play. With a past in these kinds of games, and a guide (Glass Cannon Ra) on the homepage for quite some time (with many views but few votes >:c) I seek to construct the perfect guide on Chronos. He's an amazing mage, albeit he can't 100-0 people as easily as mages like He Bo, Poseidon, or Ao Kuang, he has arguable the best instant burst in the game. His second ability also yields an interesting auto-attack style mage, especially with the time clock on IV, yielding a freya-type mage. This guide will build his burst, take advantage of his basic attacks, and minimize his cooldowns while maxing his magical lifesteal.

Pros
High instant burst
Very fast with 2 ranked up
Ultimate is a free life if used correctly
3 is an incredibly easy to hit stun at close range, yielding a good escape
3 yields amazing utility in team fights
Amazing laner due to ability to trade and run circles around enemies
Auto-attacks with 2 allow bypassing through magic defense, making it hard to itemize around
Versatile with Passive
Cons
Very very squishy early game
Mana hungry until mid game
Loki, Fenrir, and Bakasura will have no problem diving you early on with nearly no way to avoid it
Ultimate is incredibly hard to position in mobile teamfighting comps
Ultimate is hard to remember 8 seconds ago - can put you in a worse position than the current one (similar to using aegis while trying to escape and them just waiting it out with fresh CD's)
No 100-0 instant burst may make him hard to place in some comps - you need a team that can mop up kills
Passive is annoying to handle the timing of
1 takes a bit to actually activate after casted, making it hard to aim sometimes

As you can see, there ARE more cons than pros. BUT DO NOT FRET. If you paid attention, most of these are simply skill or patience type of things. You can easily learn how to handle the passive, the 1, the burst, the ultimate placement. The only REAL cons in here are the squishiness and the mana issues. However, if you are not good at placement in team fights, DO NOT PLAY THIS GOD. His ultimate will not be a good fit for you, and you will end up in a bad position with your 2. Use this god if you are not a beginner, but you do not have to be that good past that. He's just not a good starting champ.

Wheel of Time
So this is your passive. Mousing over, you can see it buffs your Accelerate to have an additional buff when activated. This is what makes Chronos so versatile. Do you want health regen? (Yes if early game, no if full build!) Is your meditation on CD and you're trying to conserve mana? Do you want to just trade and burst a bit then get out? Or are you going all in and you want your auto attacks to wreck people with Polynomicon/Demonic Grip after your abilities are on CD? This passive lets you do ANYTHING. Sustain, Farm, Trade, or Fight. AND REMEMBER. Magic-power enhanced attacks now benefit from magical lifesteal Note that as of the most recent patch, section I is 1.5% health per second of acceleration.

Time Rift
I max this skill first because it is your most damaging ability. A giant 85% magic power scaling on a basic abiliy, plus 45 base per rank. I'll go more in depth as to why I max this over Stop Time in that ability's section, but for now I'll describe this. The downside is, After placing it, it takes about a half second to a second to actually 'trigger'. You'll see the ring on the ground, THEN it will activate, so it's a tad hard to land on a moving target. The CD is really short though, so this is what you use to trade after landing your stun. And the bonus: when it kills minions it launches them like 30 feet in the air. :D

Accelerate
This ability is honestly the best I've ever seen for supporters of Polynomicon. It gives Movement Speed (To catch or run), Attack Speed, and removes the movement speed penalty for auto attacking. Note, however, that this does not remove the backpeddling movement speed penalty. Finally, this is what activates your passive. My suggestion with full build is this: go through your 3-1 combo, with autoattacks, then activate accelerate in IV section of Wheel of Time. You now move at 150% speed, with no movement speed penalty for autoattacking, while they proc Polynomicon, and gain 35% magic power. You can do what every ranged physical power carry wants to do: run fast while shooting. Finally, this is how you can escape: stun them with Stop Time, and then pop this and run away. Don't underestimate this ability, the ability to move so fast with autoattacks is ridiculous, especially with auto attack enhancing items. I stagger this ability's leveling with stop time, because while burst is necessary, the movement speed buff becomes increasingly important to chase someone down once your abilities start to set up kills when items are gained. Note that as of the most recent patch, it now gives a flat 20% speed (equal to rank 2 previously) and slowly ramps up in movement speed, so it literally Accelerates you instead of giving a flat amount. (Smitefire, as of 7/13/2013, has not updated, so ignore the tooltips if it conflicts with this info).

Stop Time
This ability is amazing! I had a major internal conflict over which ability to max first: stop time, or time rift. Basically it came down to this: Time rift is 85% magic power, +45 base per level. Stop time, counting its double hits, is 80% magic power, +40 base per level, -1 second CD per level. But, considering it's already at a 16 second CD, the CD reduction won't work in a trade compared to the 5 second CD on time rift, so that's my ideology. You may get Time Rift twice in a trade, but whether it's 16 seconds or 12 seconds, you're only getting one Stop Time.
ANYWAY. I get this ability first because this is your only CC. It's your exceptionally easy to hit stun, so it's the best way to trade at level 1. It's also amazing at clearing minion waves. This means I suggest in conquest you push just a tad, despite being more squishy than most, so you hit level 2 first. The level 2 3-1 combo will wreck anyone still level 1. Stop Time is your bread and butter in teamfights too, going through any walls, going for a helluva long distance, a really big hit radius, that will slow then stun anyone it touches. A teamfight in the jungle should be an instant win with Chronos. This should also be what you use to escape a gank.

Rewind
This ability is a double edged sword. I love it and I hate it. Teamfight where they focus you and you drop to 10% health in a second? BAM, full health. But at the same time, you're running in a line and a teamfight breaks out, where will you end up? 8 seconds back the other way. It's incredibly hard to position, but at the same time, it makes their efforts wasted. It's what makes chronos the squishiest, yet most survivable mage in the game. You have 150% speed steroid, a second life, probably an aegis, so much time will be wasted on you, that if your team hasn't killed anyone yet, the game was over before it began. You will be the target all the time just because of how much this ability will royally piss off the other team.

I'll go into depth what you should do in teamfights in the Team Work section, but for a trade, this is your rotation
Early Game - Accelerate during III (Magic Power Bonus), Stop time, and Rift under where they stop. Back off - successful trade. Only pursue in a certain kill, as you don't have much left to offer.
Mid Game - Land a Stop Time, and Time Rift under where they stop. Activate 2 on the IV section, and autoattack them down as much as possible.
Late game - Same as mid game, but stagger autoattacks in between for Polynomicon bonuses. Realize that in late game you'll very rarely find a sole target anymore; laning phase is over.

Before I start items, let me summarize: The boots are for cooldown, the rod, talon, and book are for mana, high magic power (for III passive), and lifesteal. The Polynomicon and Demonic Grip are to utilize his no penalty, increased speed, fast attacking 2 to it's fullest while still utilizing his magic power. (And yes, a good bit of text is copied from the Ra guide)

Shoes of Focus

Shoes of Focus are the perfect fit here, unless they have a lot of magic protection, as you want quick cooldowns to finish off the enemy. The magic power and mana are perfect, and the CD reduction is amazing, as you would otherwise find yourself waiting that crucial extra second for your stun, and seeing them get away. My preference has always been these boots on people with high utility. Damage is damage, but if you are CCing their team more, that is GAMEBREAKING. I wouldn't swap these out for the other boots if their building protections, I'd switch out Book of Thoth for an Obsidian Shard, but if it's that extreme, you can swap these out too.

Reinforced Greaves

(Note this is for the safe build)
This is here, because chronos pre-5 is the squishiest person you can find. He's basically as bad as He Bo, and one jungler will absolutely end you. This helps with that initial sustain as you won't be taking as much poke, and let you last long enough until your ult (since no one really will absolutely wipe you before their ult either). This should hold you over, with ample potion stacking, until your staff.

Bancroft's Talon

Bancroft's Talon. Magic Life-Steal, a ridiculous amount of Magic Power, a fully upgraded bonus that makes you more terrifying as small AoE's hurt you, and a very cheap level 1 buy. This is a very essential item that, unless you pick up Pythagorem's Piece in an assault, will be your only sustain until you back. With a very low cost of 540, I suggest this item as a level 1 buy in arena mode, along with the boots. This leaves 360 gold leftover to buy an active if desired (namely Meditation to spam spells early on in arena) or potions to sustain. And finally, remember, with the recent patches, any magical-enhanced basic attacks now apply 100% of your magical lifesteal. So if you activate your 2 at IV, your basic attacks heal you!

Rod of Tahuti

Rod of Tahuti is basically Rabadon's Cap, for anyone from LoL that is new to Smite. It is the Deathbringer of Casters. It is basically what every single burst mage in this game needs. With a malicious 125 Magic Power, a relatively nice 15 mp5, and a solid 25% extra total MP, it is, hands down, required. I'd get at least level 1 for the mp5 it gives early on, plus the nice amount of magic power, but level 3 isn't necessarily required until you get a few items upgraded. Just do some simple math: is 25% magic power going to give you enough to ignore lifesteal, or health, or slow, etc. Will it be enough to impact you THAT HIGHLY?

ASSAULT BANNED

Book of Thoth

This item is a nice addition to the build as you clear waves in a single Stop Time. It gives mana, a surprising 100 magic power, and even more MP5 to ensure the only time you have to return to base is to heal, defend, or buy consumables. The bonus is 10 extra mana per minion kill, and 3% of mana becomes ability power. A nice addition to any mage, just compounding on top of the Rod of Tahuti's natural bonus.

Polynomicon

Ahhh, the Polynomicon. This is a very common pickup to a mage who builds a helluva lot of magic power with long cooldowns to do something while you're waiting for them. That means it's perfect for Chronos! After using 3, autoattack while they slow to a stop. Then place 1 under them while they can't move, and autoattack again! If they're still alive, use 2 to chase them down, and guess what? Super enhanced, through ability and item, third autoattack. This item basically pumps steroids into your magic power, lifesteal, and mana, and synergizes perfectly with the next item.

Demonic Grip

Demonic grip: The freya item! WRONG! Now with it's recent buff to make it magic power instead of physical power, ANY mage that autoattacks will benefit ridiculously. The only reason it wasn't picked up before is because she was the only true hybrid - with it being magic power, it's not even really a hybrid item anymore, it's for any mage that autoattacks. Since there's no magic penetration item in this build, except in assault or in the upcoming alternatives section, this item will be your main way to pierce through that magic protection. Just a few autoattacks and you're free to burst!

Ethereal Staff

If you're not certain of your ability to survive, the 600 health from this combined with the Reinforced Greaves will make you at least withstand an initial assault by an assassin, long enough to turn it around on them. If you lived long enough to activate your ult, you have won the fight against an assassin (unless they fully disengage and wait to do it again). This item is good if you're facing an all-in type comp, as you'll be able to plan a little bit longer.

POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES (And the assault replacement for Book of Thoth)
Obsidian Shard - are they realizing you're destroying their team? Replace the book with this. Pierce through that nasty defense. You'll practically do the same damage if they've got a lot of magic defense. This is the item to get if their tank is pumped up on magic protection steroids and your Demonic Grip just isn't cutting it. Get this in Assault, imo, instead of book.

Pythagorem's Piece gives 90 power, mana, and 25% lifesteal when accounting for the aura. Basically, since you're in assault, you can't go back to base, so you want as much mana and healthsteal as possible to be practically topped off in health after every trade or encounter, or when farming minions. The extra lifesteal helps make sure you stay high on health, with a decent amount of magic power anyway. If you are really not a big fan of the Book, you can swap it for this too, but the lifesteal is a tad wasted.

Magi's Blessing - getting one shot by an ult? Need to stop an initiate that is consistently one shotting you before you can do anything? Swap out the Book or Gem for this, and get resistances plus a nullify to a spell every 30 seconds. That's way more often than an ult.

Spear of the Magus - alternative to Obsidian Shard if you have a lot of other magic users on your team, and want to help them out.

Warlock's Sash - I wouldn't get it in Arena, because it's more about kills than farming there. But in other modes it may find its place. It's banned in assault though, remember.

Gem of Binding - You auto attack a helluva lot, so this item can be AMAZING with the slow. Run circles around your enemies. This item might seriously make it into the prime build after testing. This is one of my HIGHEST recommendations from the alternative items.

Chronos' Pendant - If you want more CD reduction to hit the cap. Nice MP5 too, so if you don't want that early rod, this would be an early item to get for the sustain and faster trades.

Items I wouldn't buy
Divine Ruin - unless they have such a stupid amount of healing that this is really necessary, like a Hel with a Ra who is using his AoE for heals, and just...unless they heal to full near instantly, this is just not that important. Smite is a very very burst oriented game, to the point where in teamfights, your team will more likely insta-kill someone before healing takes a toll. I've seen many a Poseidon ult just eat everyone, where there is no chance to heal. Finally, remember in assault that most of the healing is when both teams separated and their ra falls back to heal while their team stands in it. You answer me this: Are you going to run up to them and cast a spell, and most likely get insta-killed, just to reduce their healing by that tad bit?
Doom Orb - You're a squishy mage. You will most likely die, but bring many more with you. I do not like items that completely wipe on death. But if you are THAT CONFIDENT, and they have no chasing power, go for it. One thor or ares or fenrir on their team though, and you're done. UPDATED!! It no longer resets on death, it loses half its stacks. If you die rarely, about a third as often as a kill, I'd go for it. You waveclear easily with 3, get two stacks on a player kill, and it can be worth it. Multiple deaths in a row will end you though, so be careful, and this item will snowball.

I'm going to update this in a little bit to make it more aesthetically pleasing, but let me break down the actives

Restoration Shard - GET THIS ITEM. It replaces Meditation, it heals 40%, mana 40%, same cooldown...it's perfect. It's now AMAZING sustain in assault, lane, anything.

Aegis Amulet - Get if they have someone like a Freya or Loki whose ult will burst you. Useful in any ult situation not solvable through beads

Beads of Purification - Useful with ults like Ares, Hades, or any ult that has a detonation time. It's better than amulet, even if you still take a tad bit of damage, in the sense that you become immune to CC after activation for a few seconds, and it has a shorter cooldown. Do NOT prioritize over aegis if they have someone like freya or loki. You can't cleanse death.

Meditation - Imo, now outclassed by shard of restoration. Just my personal opinion, but it's good for mana (no health sustain though). If you can rely on such little poke that your section I passive will sustain health, though, it may be better.

Sprint - good to chase, retreat, hit and run, anything. It's like Flash vs Ghost in League of Legends - longer, more distance, or instant blink? Which brings me to

Combat Blink - Useful for repositioning and getting out of a situation. It needs to be combat, because regular blink can't be used as an escape. Useful for getting out of Hades ult easily, or getting over walls.

Girdle of Might - If you're so fed that you don't need sustain, don't need to worry about a nuke, and just want to kill people easier, pick this up. If you are a team player and teamfights happen often, get the regular girdle. If you want to be a one-man show, get the Girdle of Inner Power. It's better stats, but only for you.

As a teamfighter, Chronos isn't like Poseidon or Ao Kuang. You aren't looking for your ultimate to oneshot their team. You're about doing your damage, but focusing on your utility. If a teamfight is stationary, your ult can allow for a second burst instantly, and THAT is how you 100-0. Otherwise, if it's mobile, focus on landing your Stop Time to keep them in place long enough for your assassin or bruiser to wail on them. Stop time is easily one of the most useful mage CCs in the game. It's like an anubis coccoon that slows them, then stops them, dealing ridiculous damage, but it hits everyone. If you land a good Stop Time on their mage and ranged, you should have won the teamfight. While everything is on cooldown, utilize your Demonic Grip to bring down magic resist and prepare your next Accelerate assault.

All in all, Chronos is an amazing, S tier mage (Going by the list of Titan/S/A/B/C/Trash)
He has the utility, the versatility, the survivability, and the damage...ility...to be a terror in a teamfight or in a lane. You can run circles around your enemies with your speed, and laugh as they try to kill you. He is straight up FUN to play. His only poor spot in the game is early, when Loki or Fenrir or such can gib you in an instant. Play safe, then absolutely dominate the rest of the game. His amazing scaling makes him one of the biggest late game threats, with no fall off.

As this is a very brand new god, PLEASE provide comments with any questions I can answer, suggestions, suggested videos, etc. I am NOT high and mighty and infallible. I want the community to rate, comment, anything at all, so I can provide reasonings and help this guide be the best it can be.

(Just want to add in something TydisCloud sent me using this guide)
"1st arena game using this build and just had to link it (solo queue). http://i.imgur.com/zW8VKmf.png

Just starting this, so going from the first update
7/13/2013: Updated for Chronos Patch on section I of Wheel of Time and Accelerate
7/14/2013: Updated builds to move Rod of Tahuti back. Also stretched Safe Build out to show the full on build order since rank 1 rod is recommended for mp5
7/18/2013: Updated for big rework. Included Gem of Binding, an actives section (with Restoration Shard), and more items to the alternatives section. Updated opinion on new Doom Orb