Darkness Falls

Nox is an incredible god with a lot of potential capable of filling many roles (mid, solo, adc). Her skills are capable of ignoring line of sight, making corner sniping and ambushing easy. Unfortunately, Nox's dearth of health, absence of mobility and lack of any sort of defense makes her a very easy kill. Nox is a difficult God to master--however, I find her to be one of the most exciting mages in the game to play. Her low health, high burst output can make for some incredibly clutch plays, as well as getting the adrenaline pumping and the palms sweating. Let's move forward; allow me to convey some of my own personal insights.

Hopefully you can get as much out of this build as I have thus far.

Let's look at what I feel are core items for Nox. The order in which they are listed in this chapter is also the order in which they are purchased throughout the course of a match. Rarely have I found it necessary to get the Magi Blessing before the Iso Gem--but do keep this possibility in mind if you find yourself constantly at the mercy of hard cc ganks.

CORE
1. Boots of the Magi -- While almost every Nox player ops for CDR boots [including myself in an earlier Nox guide I wrote], I believe that penetration is far more effective. Nox's most important ability is Siphon Darkness, which has an extremely low CD of only 3 seconds (suck it He Bo). While Nightfall Raven and Night Terror have particularly long cooldowns (compared to other mages), the only time these 2 skills become critical are when ganking or being ganked (not so important in team fights, except for Nightfall Raven which is a good way to silence nukers/Loki). The loss of damage from the CDR boots is enough of a handicap to stifle Nox's push during the laning phase, so do yourself a favor and grab dat penetraytray.

2. Warlock's Sash -- Probably the most critical item in Nox's build. Her lack of health and low base power make Nox a very easy, early/mid game target. The sash at full stacks nearly double's Nox's base health and power. Plus, the scaling easily will carry you to level ~15 with little effort.

3. Gem of Isolation -- After acquiring Gem of Iso, Nox really begins to shine. Getting an Iso Gem allows setting up a 3-2-3 combo with ease. Initiating with a Siphon Darkness lets the Iso Gem slow the enemy (thanks to SD's massive AoE, it's hard to miss), making Nightfall Raven far easier to land (the narrow fov for Nightfall Terror makes it difficult to connect). By the time you cast Nightfall Terror, Siphon Darkness should be off cool down and ready for another cast. Gem of Isolation is also a great way to empower your Ult--the cripple will often cause enemy god's to frenetically ability cast in an effort to escape..unfortunately for them, every time they cast an ability, your cooldown's reset and they take more damage. Poor, poor victims :D

4. Magi's Blessing -- Magi's Blessing is a great way to really beef up Nox's defenses, despite it's relatively low protection stats. The hard crowd control reduction/immunity stacks amazingly well with Shadow Barrier, making Nox highly viable in 1v1 situations with assassins. Having a Magi's Blessing allows you to mitigate hard CC while Shadow Barrier allows you defense against soft CC. Putting this item in your core build increase your odds of survival exponentially (especially once combined with combat blink).

5. Combat Blink: Lack of mobility is easily Nox's second biggest weakness. Combat blink remedies this, although its 3 minute cooldown forces you to choose your engagements wisely. A good way to help stifle the 3 minute cooldown is to accompany it with an Aegis (to help you gain more mitigation while offsetting the long cooldown of combat blink), although I prefer to have teleport as my 2nd active. I'm a ward ***** and having teleport3 allows me to be ALL OVER the map. It's great for stealing buffs, flanking enemies for ganks and pushing towers/backdooring.

Shadow Barrier: Definitely Nox's trickiest ability to master. The miniscule lifetime of the shield and relatively long cooldown suggest using this ability strictly as an escape mechanism, or ult mitigation. Shadow Barrier is great for removing roots, slows and preventing ults from sniping you (time it before Nu Wa's global hits you, or Vulcan's/Scylla's ults 1 shot you).

I've also found Shadow Barrier to be a great way to combat ADC's. It applies the mitigation from a single incoming ability, to all incoming auto attacks, meaning you can take 2-3 ADC hits with ease. This is important because in those 2-3 hits, Nox's burst (assuming you are throwing out the full combo, including ult) is enough to completely drain an enemy god's health at full core build.

Nightfall Raven: This is a great ability, although relatively hard to land when prediction-shooting/prefiring. The most important aspect of this ability is it's silence, which although only 1 second in duration, is often the most important factor in determining whether or not Nox wins a 1v1. As soon as you land Nightfall Raven, immediately cast your Siphon Darkness to reap the 150% damage bonus from a successful Raven connection (think of it as landing Agni's 4-1 stun combo). If you fail to chain Siphon Darkness immediately after Nightfall Raven, landing SD becomes slightly more problematic.

Siphon Darkness: I feel that Siphon Darkness is one of the best abilities in Smite. It has a very low cooldown and low mana cost akin to He-Bo's Water Cannon, except with a much farther range and the innate capability of going around corners/walls. Siphon Darkness is a great way to poke and peel, often outpushing opposing god's and keeping them at bay. If you're midding, having corner wards at harpy camps is a great way for preventing jungle ganks--often you can land one or two Siphon Darkness line-of-sight shots against a jungler from the safety of your own lane. Vampiric Shroud gives just enough MP5 and +10 mana/kill to make spamming Siphon Darkness viable throughout the early laning phase. Also, be sure to take advantage of SD's range and keep yourself tucked nicely behind your creep wave.

Night Terror: Night Terror is a bit of a gamble. Sometimes, opening with Night Terror can secure a quick kill (example: in the midst of a Loki gank, landing an NT can cause loki to kill himself if he is unfortunate enough to receive Night Terror during the middle of his combo). Conversely, it can be a disaster if you cast Night Terror and it misses, or the enemy god has slow immunity/escape. I generally try to save Night Terror as a way to secure a kill by casting it as the Death Blow. It's also great for keeping mages/bruisers in check during a team fight--have the mage/bruiser linked with Night Terror to prevent their casting, while you kite them and nuke their assassin/hunter friends.

Nox is best played mid. However, her passive, silence from nightfall raven, and poke with siphon darkness make it possible for her to support as well.

Make use of Nox's ability to bypass line of sight. A good example is mid harpy ganking. The range on SD and Nightfall Raven can reach the boundary rim of the mid harpy camps, making behind-the-wall kills a possibility. Try to surprise your enemy by initiating with a 2-3 combo from behind the wall and into midlane after killing a harpy camp. Scenario example: You're mid-camping harpies and your opponent dawdles into mid lane; thanks to your wards and minion field of view, you see your opponent headed towards the midcamp you just cleared. You wait patiently, and as soon as your opponent enters the jungle, initiate with 4-2-3 combo from behind the wall. This will generally kill the enemy, because they almost always attempt escape using an ability after being hit by your combo--unfortunately the Night Terror link just caused them to commit suicide<3.

The thing I can't stress enough is recognizing Nox as a glass cannon. It is vital that you keep your distance and peel as much with Siphon Darkness as possible before committing to a gank or kill. Once you begin stacking your Warlock's Sash, engaging more aggressively is much safer. After acquiring Magi's Blessing and Combat Blink, your survivability/mobility sky rocket and can easily begin securing kills without worry of death. Lastly, It is imperative you get all the last hits, as it can mean the difference between getting your core build complete by mid game and dominating, or being completely nonviable due to lack of proper scaling. Don't let the tower/minions steal last hits from you (and this applies to any carry or semicarry, not just Nox)!

Remember to ward your corners -constantly-. The 100g is invaluable in preventing you from certain death by jungle ganks. It is also helpful to carry wards with you at all times because you never know when they can become handy (example: getting a deicide in a team fight with all T1 towers down--ward fg and secure the buff without worrying about enemy respawns sniping it!). Whether it's DOTA, League, Prime World or Smite...wards are without a doubt the single most important item in a MOBA game. Let them become your best friends. Lack of vision will get your team killed and will make defeat inevitable.

I'll update this guide as time permits. I'll include pros/cons, laning phase tips and teamfight tactics a bit later. For now, the general knowledge contained within this guide should help you in your quest for a viable Nox build.