Da Ji - The Trickster Fox Spirit (All Modes) - Season 6

Da Ji is the Trickster Fox Spirit and extremely deadly in most circumstances. She'll make being a god with low mobility hell on the Battlegrounds of Olympus and across the world. I'll give some of my tips, tricks and leveling idea's I've come across with my time playing as this very mobile Goddess. I'll also go through some of the Pro's and Con's of using Da Ji. I'll touch on what to expect to encounter and what can happen if things go wrong for you.

Note: In my Level Up Skill guide, you'll notice nothing is programmed for level 8. I take advantage of point skipping on nearly every god I play with a few exceptions. If you skip assigning a point at level 8, you'll have two points instead to apply at level 9 (duh). This allows you to max out a specific ability faster along with putting more oomph into your ultimate at a faster pace as well. Scylla makes the best use of this process because of her passive, Quick Learner. This focuses your damage into a single ability along with gaining more ultimate stats, and in the process, usually making you far more stronger in a single, quick strike, then your opponent will be.

I prefer to build Da Ji with extremely high power and pen with max CDR for the best effect and utility that you can't find with other assassins. To achieve this I build Transcendence, Warrior Tabi, The Crusher, Hydra's Lament, Soul Eater, Heartseeker and swapping out my Tabi late game for an Elixir of Speed and Arondight. As I indicated in the Notes pop up by the items, this particular build gives you a large amount of sustain, and max CDR while keeping your damage output and setup potential high. Because this is such a High Power build, The Crusher will tick for a deceptively high amount of damage.

If I need to swap out items for something more situational, the first item to go in my core build is The Crusher. That is usually replaced by Brawler's Beat Stick for Anti Healing that has stats that are still valuable to Da Ji, such as the Penetration and Power.

If you find you need some more health, the first item I'll look at is Runeforged Hammer. With 50 power and 200 health, along with a passive that works well with the slow on Horrible Burns and the stun on Paolao, this item is nothing to shake a finger or sneeze at. Blackthorn Hammer is also decent for health with it sitting at 350 health and 200 extra mana, but it's passive, if you manage to build the other items, is useless since you already have a high MP5 rate and full CDR.

If you find the enemy team has a high set of protections, Titan's Bane will always be effective in combination with Heartseeker against guardians and warriors.

Other possible items include utility and defensive items like Winged Blade, Relic Dagger, Mantle of Discord, Magi's Cloak and Bloodforge for post kill survivability.

Da Ji has a variety of Relics that can be useful to her. Mainly, you're always going to get Blink Rune and Purification Beads. In some cases, you may want Aegis Amulet over one of those two relics I mention first. Or if you're extremely cocky and confident, Bracer of Undoing is nothing to shake a fist at either, and neither is an upgraded Sundering Spear allowing you to absolutely melt a target with ease.

Passive: Torture Blades - A simple, yet effective passive in dishing out the damage numbers, every hit of every basic attack and ability applies a stack of Torture Blades (except Paolao). This has no stack cap. Each stack applies two ticks of damage at 7 + 7% scaling making a high power build like this quite effective. Each stack is treated as an individual source and applies and executes the damage immediately. This is not a 'Refresh' type passive.

Ability 1: Horrible Burns - An effective source of damage in combination with Hydra's Lament with a scaling slow from 10% to 30%. This in combination with her 3rd ability is why people call her a better Loki. Since this is applied with a basic attack, Torture Blades is applied.

Ability 2: One Thousand Cuts - A great source of damage, however it's easily interrupted. Each swipe of the ability applies a stack of Torture Blades providing up to 4 stacks. 120% scaling opportunity from just the ability alone excluding the damage from Torture Blades, the utility this ability provides is what makes Da Ji an impressive and dangerous foe. Using this ability while facing away from a source of damage (like a God or Jungle Boss), will mitigate some of the damage while channeling. This makes surviving mage ultimate's far more likely (I'm looking at you Scylla and Nu Wa). This mitigation does not have a max range and works across the map. As long as the source of the damage (IE, the God or Goddess) is behind you, whether or not the visual effects are in front of you or all around you, you will mitigate the damage if channeling this ability. This also contains a knockup and slow immunity, 40% increased movement speed, and no backpedal penalty when moving backwards or sideways.

Ability 3: Trickster Spirit - Da Ji is also widely compared to Loki, but quite a bit better due to her team fight potential. This comparison is made because of her 3rd ability, Trickster Spirit. This is your best engage and disengage tool allowing you to teleport instantly after a half second channel time to any targeted ally or enemy of your choice. This ability, despite it's small landing zone, is also AoE and will hit anything in the vicinity of the landing zone. Making this a great tool to use to heal if you have bought, and subsequently stacked, Soul Eater, by quickly jumping into a camp on the buff holder landing a hit on both the smaller monsters next to it as well. This ability also makes a great tool to clear camps in combination with Horrible Burns if One Thousand Cuts is on cooldown. Something to note here is that if a god leaps during that half second of channel time, this ability will fizzle and go on cooldown. Since this ability is applied visually with her claws, this applies a stack of Torture Blades to everything hit.

Ultimate: Paolao - Da Ji has one of the most versatile kits compared to most other assassins. Her Ultimate , Paolao is great in chaotic situations and team fights and makes great setup for your mage and hunter. I actually suggest leveling this ability up as you go cause the damage from shooting a change is nothing to sneeze at. A single chain has 60% scaling giving a potential of 180% to a single target if you land all 3. Each chain can also hit multiple targets, not just one, allowing you to potentially pull an entire team if you land your chains in a lucky way. The downside to this ultimate over Ares, is that any time CC immunity or a cleansing effect is applied while someone is chained, instantly breaks the chain and makes them immune to being pulled, but NOT the damage from other chains. Because of this, you'll want to be extremely quick in firing those chains, and possibly cancelling the ability early if you want to pull them sooner. Enemies are pulled when you land.

Da Ji is an impressive Foe to be sure, however she has her counters and threats as well (See the threats list above). Only pick Da Ji during the second pick phase and only as a last pick for your team. Gods that have CC immunity in their basic kit, like Chang'e or Ravana, or those with it in their ultimate abilities as well (nearly the entire cast of Smite), make pulling them with Paolao hard to do if those abilities are up, along with Purification Beads.

Soul Eater is also one of those items not looked upon favorably in Ranked matches so just simply replace that with another item of your choice if you so desire, usually a defensive item like a cloak, or something giving you extra utility.

Pros
- High Single Target Damage
- Decent AoE Damage
- High Utility
- Decent Mobility
- Great Team Fight Capabilities

Cons
- Easily Interrupted
- Easily Broken Ultimate with a deceptively small range
- Very squishy compared to some other assassins

If CC'd, you'll likely be killed with ease. Her only escape is Trickster Spirit and it requires a target, either something from the jungle, an ally or an enemy. This makes Da Ji an All In Assassin, meaning she'll have to commit to get a kill and team fight, or wait and bide her time. More often then not, you'll trade in the process.

Da Ji can be played in Lane, or in the Jungle. Either way you are probably going to start with One Thousand Cuts as your first ability in Conquest. In every other mode, you'll start with at least 1 point into each of your basic abilities, and in assault, with one point in your ultimate and two into another.

If you're playing in Lane, the minions will sometimes stack oddly and not all be in range of your 2nd ability making it hard to lane against those with better clear then her.

With the jungle meta in constant flux currently, you're always going to start at the Speed Buff and either do Blue Buff or back Harpies next. That is usually up to your own preference.

However, be aware of invades as Da Ji. Her early level 1 and 2 damage is very low compared to a lot of other assassins, like Thanatos.

She can be played as a heavy bruiser or full utility and cooldown for beads burning and setup, but you lose out on a lot of potential damage by building her so.

As with any team fight, you have a few options as Da Ji considering her ultimate, Paolao. You can choose to engage and burn Purification Beads or CC immune abilities. Or you can wait for your team to do that for you giving you a free path to getting easy picks once your warrior scrambles the enemy team.

Da Ji's greatest strength is picking off the stragglers and players who are out of position.

These strategies applies to all modes.

You'll want to pair Da Ji with high AoE damage mages like the following:
- Kukulkan
- Scylla
- Thoth
- Ra
- Poseidon
- Merlin
- Eset
- Vulcan
- Zeus
- Persephone
- Hades
- Agni
All these mages can make great use of the setup from Paolao. Nox with Siphon Darkness can make for great anti escape on pulled enemies, however Shadow Lock can be blocked by the pillar portion of Paolao.

Hunters that pair well with Da Ji are as follows:
- Neith
- Cupid
- Izanami
- Skadi
- Chiron
- Artemis
- Cernunnos
- Anhur
These hunters have great team fight abilities and damage and can easily continue to CC pulled enemeis. Medusa has High AoE damage but isn't great in this situation since Paolao can block line of sight for her ultimate, Petrify, as well as the spray from Acid Spray.

Some guardians you might want to pair Da Ji with could be the following:
- Ares
- Ymir
- Bacchus
- Yemoja
- Cabrakan
- Ganesha
- Geb
- Sylvanus
These guardians all make great engage opportunities and have the potential to burn a lot of CC Immunity effects and items (Ares especially). Yemoja, Cabrakan, Ymir and Geb are more so better for keeping them in the area once they are pulled.

Warriors you might want to pair with Da Ji are:
- Horus
- Odin
- Amaterasu
- Chaac
Each of these warriors can provide additional CC to prevent them from escaping after being pulled and will likely cause enough confusion and relic usage allowing you to freely pick off a carry or mage. Horus' ultimate, To The Skies!, can easily put you into prime position to pull a large portion of the enemy team.