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I honestly prefer Mage's Blessing over Warrior's Blessing here on Cthulhu, especially after the recent nerfs. If you still want to dedicate yourself to Warrior's Blessing, feel free.
Breastplate of Valor is a fantastic first item on Cthulhu, especially for his solo laning.
Stone of Binding is a great tool to shred enemy protections and help yourself with boxing; this couples very well with Cthulhu's Torment stacks.
Bulwark of Hope then adds to the survivability of Cthulhu during Descend Into Madness, which is otherwise a dangerous ultimate as it lacks no escape and makes you a large target.
Gem of Isolation helps to ensure you can confirm the root and extra damage of The Mire whilst also adding even more utility to the remainder of Cthulhu's kit. I sometimes consider building this earlier in the build if I feel the extra aggression is warranted and enough to compensate for the higher price.
Ethereal Staff boosts Cthulhu's already massive health pool while decreasing that of the enemies. This is a huge tool for Cthulhu, and is often considered core to his builds in my experience.
Mantle of Discord helps on top of Bulwark of Hope to ensure that extra bit of survivability so that you can continue CC'ing and causing chaos in the enemy team without dying.
Bulwark of Hope, much like the explanation provided in the example build, is simply an excellent tool to allow Cthulhu the time he needs to transform out of his ultimate and escape using Rushing Terror after being bursted down. This extra layer of safety is absolutely worth the 2,300 gold.
Genji's Guard is an alternative for Breastplate of Valor if you are laning up against a magical solo such as Cthulhu, Baron Samedi, Aphrodite, etc.
Hide of the Urchin helps apply a constant shield to Cthulhu which helps because of the enemy adc's high likelihood of running maximum-health based damage such as Qin's Sais or other players building Heartseeker/ Soul Reaver.
Void Stone adds a bit more bruiser capabilities to Cthulhu's build. This reduces the enemy magical protections in an area, and helps ensure you deal more damage to enemies whilst taking less yourself.
Oni Hunter's Garb is an interesting choice to build on Cthulhu. If you find that you constantly dive the enemy team using your ultimate and are in the middle of fights, the damage mitigation can be very good to help keep you alive. Keep in mind for this item, however, that you are capable of reaching up to 30% damage mitigation already through the use of Sanity Break.
Pridwen is a choice I see a lot of people favor on Cthulhu. This targets the same issue as Bulwark of Hope, but I feel as if it is simply less effective. Where Bulwark of Hope provides a shield at a time indicated by a percentage of your maximum health (which is high) and provides time to transform out of your ultimate, Pridwen serves the purpose of buying time to escape AFTER transforming out of [[Descend into Madness].
Breastplate of Valor is my go-to starting item on Cthulhu. The cooldown reduction is incredible and allows his ultimate to be up every 70 seconds, whilst also remedying his problematic long ability cooldowns. Additionally, the item brings along nice physical protections to help in the solo lane and couples with the blue buff to resolve his mana problems entirely.
Jade Emperor's Crown is an obvious bruiser tool to help lessen the damage output of enemies. This can help if you are being out damaged in your lane or the enemies have a lot of physical damage in their composition.
Lotus Crown is entirely up to you and your playstyle to determine whether or not you wish to pick it up. Cthulhu's only healing ability is in the form of Transfuse during his ultimate. However, that ability has the potential to reach and affect your entire team; this can result in an immediate boost of protections during a teamfight to your entire team, potentially swaying the course of battle.
Mystical Mail provides some passive damage over time to enemies around you. This is not one of my first choices for a physical defensive item, but can be used to add a bit more of a passive bruising option during teamfights.
Tyrannical Plate Helm is a fantastic item to pick up early game if you aren't winning lane as much as you would like. This item will help you out-clear the enemy solo laner and use minion damage to your advantage during boxing.
[{Spectral Armor]] should absolutely replace Hide of the Nemean Lion if the enemy ADC has opted to build more critical chance/strike damage than standard basic attack damage. If you deem it necessary however, it is not necessarily bad to build both.
Pestilence and Contagion are both anti-heal tools. If the enemy team has any healing which has caused problems for your team, these are excellent items that come with no drawbacks. If the enemy team has more physical damage, you would typically want to build Contagion here. Similarly, if they have more magical damage, Pestilence would be the better option.
Stone of Gaia is a very underrated item right now, and is increasingly seeing use and play competitively. If the enemy team has any of the CC which will proc this effect (knock-ups, pulls, knockbacks, and grabs) then this could be a fantastic choice. Consider that the healing is all based off of maximum health, which is convenient provided Cthulhu's naturally high base health (especially in Descend Into Madness)and likelihood of further increasing it using items. Examples of gods that may motivate this purchase are Bacchus, Sobek, Ganesha, Awilix, and of course many others.
I feel it necessary to mention here that upgraded Cursed Ankh is probably one of the best relics right now, and it ALSO can mesh super well with Descend Into Madness.
Tap each threat level to view Cthulhu’s threats
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...... Cons ......
- High health can result in heavy damage from items such as Qin's Sais - Ultimate makes Cthulhu a very large target |
Let me know if there are any tips you have, or any recommendations you have for my guide! I'll be working on adding a general tips section within the next day or too as well.
Thank you!
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This is a very, very solid writeup and evaluation. I really like all of your explanations and considerations.
As we discussed to the side, I don't personally like the choice of Gem of Isolation. I do like your reasoning behind the option, but since he doesn't have tick or DoT damage, I think he doesn't get maximum use out of it. Other items might serve him better. I also don't like Ethereal in an earlier slot. I feel it's always a later-game item...5th/6th/7th slotting in most cases.
And as we also discussed, a different presentation of item choices might be better. It reads as very limiting for those that are checking this out just to see the build and don't read anything else.
But again, overall a great effort.