D.O.G. (Destroyer of Gods) Kukulkan

Kukulkan is a mage that can deal more damage than most other mages. This is primarily due to Kukulkan's passive which allows you to build extra magical power with items that provide mana. However, Kukulkan falls short on mobility. He is one of the slowest mages in the game and doesn't have a direct escape in his kit. With this information, we can acknowledge that Kulkulkan will have to fight instead of fleeing fights. Luckily, this guide will provide suggestions to increase health and sustainability, increase damage to reduce the chance of fleeing fights, and strategies to maximize efficiency when playing Kukulkan as the Mid role.

Vampiric Shroud

Vampiric Shroud is the best starter item for sustainability. This item allows you to reduce the amount you recall by providing health and mana per minion kill. While you do have to be the one to finish a minion to get the health and mana, the D.O.T. from Whirlwind helps to ensure minion kills.

Soul Stone

Soul Stone is the best starter item for damage. The provided magical power and mana maximize potential damage early in the game by building your passive. This item allows you to play aggressive, but it will be harder to stay in lane if you take damage.

Shoes of Focus

All mages should have shoes since they are naturally slower gods. Shoes of Focus are the best shoes for Kukulkan as these shoes maximize your damage by building your passive better than other shoes and give you cooldown reduction to clear your lane more efficiently. Although I have Shoes of Focus as the first item to purchase, I recommend you purchase Shoes and Book of Thoth before buying Shoes of Focus so you can gain stacks for Book of Thoth while you are farming.

Book of Thoth

To not build mana is to waste Kukulkan's passive, Kukulkan's passive is used most effectively with items that provide both magical power and mana so the item provides additional magical power. The Book of Thoth is an example of such an item. While this item is more mana-based than other items, this item allows you to cast more abilities in a fight as your cooldown reduction will require more mana to use abilities more often.

Ethereal Staff

In order to survive fights, Kukulkan requires health. This item gives a great amount of health to survive fights, mana to build your passive, and magical power three ways: provided magical power, converted magical power from health, and converted magical power from mana. This makes Ethereal Staff the best item to gain the most amount of health while maximizing magical power.

Gem of Isolation

This item is like Ethereal Staff, but provides less magical power, health, and mana. The important part of the item is the slow from basic attacks. This allows you to aim your ultimate when combined with the slow from Zephyr.

Rod of Tahuti

There is not much to be said about this item as it has one main purpose: provide a great amount of magical power. This item provides the most magical power out of all the other items in this build. Building this item prevents your abilities, primarily your ultimate, from becoming obsolete in fights. Your ultimate should be a high risk due to the accuracy it requires, but it should yield a high reward when it attacks instead of a low reward.

Soul Reaver

Just like Rod of Tahuti, this item's main purpose is to provide magical power. It also provides mana to build your passive, but the extra damage from the item's passive is why this item is in this build. The damage from Rod of Tahuti and Soul Reaver should insure that any enemy who is hit dies if not a few attacks away from dying.

Divine Ruin

If you wanted to use this item, you could replace Gem of Isolation with it if you wanted to insure enemies will not recover from abilities. However, you are sacrificing the health, which can allow you to stay in fights longer, and the slow to aim your abilities. This item should only be used if you want to build damage over sustainability.

Greater Purification

With a slow god like Kukulkan, it is important to have crowd control immunity to escape deadly situations as enemies will try to take advantage of your weak mobility by using crowd control that will keep you in place. It is easier to use this active over Greater Aegis as Kukulkan has more health than other classes and this item requires less preparation to use.

Greater Meditation

Early in the game, having this item, or at least Meditation, will help you clear your lane more efficiently by having mana ready to use for abilities. Late in the game, this item provides sustainability in fights as you can escape from fights with Greater Purification, and then using Greater Meditation to prevent deadly damage from killing you.

Weakening Curse

This active doesn't provide as much sustainability as the other actives, but it allows you to aim your abilities easier and punish enemies further. If you want to sacrifice sustainability for potential damage, replace Greater Meditation with this active.

Zephyr

This ability is primarily meant to slow an enemy and can b e used multiple ways. Zephyr can be used to ease the aim of your abilities, to catch up to a fleeing enemy, and to slow an enemy to escape from fights.

Slipstream

There is not much to be said about this ability. It can be used offensively and defensively. The ability excels being used offensively as you can initiate fights and catch up to fleeing enemies. However, using this ability defensively is less effective as you are more vulnerable to damage and slows than a god with a direct escape.

Whirlwind

Kukulkan relies on this ability early in the game to clear the lane he is in. Upgrading this ability early in the game allows Kukulkan to level up faster as minions die faster. In fact, a max rank Whirlwind can clear a wave of minions by itself. Otherwise, Kukulkan can use this ability to an enemy with low health to have the D.O.T. kill them.

Serpent of the Nine Winds

This ability is what Rod of Tahuti and Soul Reaver are in the build for. Using this ability in the middle of a fight. where enemies are confused, can turn that fight into your favor. With this build, this ability has the potential to kill most gods regardless of health.

Fighting Directly

When fighting directly, you should use Slipstream to approach a fight and attack an enemy with Zephyr. This allows you to aim Serpent of the Nine Winds, and if the god lives or you miss your ultimate, aim Whirlwind to add D.O.T. to help finish an enemy.

Ganking

When attacking from the jungle, you should save Slipstream as you are coming in unnoticed. Instead, initiate the fight with Whirlwind as it will be hard to aim Zephyr or Serpent of the Nine Winds with the enemies moving. Follow up with Zephyr to keep the enemy in Whirlwind longer and to help aim your ultimate. If the enemy lives or you miss your ultimate, attack with basic attacks or any abilities off cooldown and use Slipstream if you need to catch up to fleeing enemies and finish them.