For Glory! Ullr Conquest S2 (updated 5/19/15)

Hi, I'm FemFatalis, I've been playing Smite since the Agni remodel patch, and this is my first guide. I main ADC in conquest, and I'm here to tell you about one of the best ADCs in the meta: Ullr, the Glorious One.

Ullr was released near Smite's release. He is the first hunter to have a stance change, and was initially recognized as a potent ADC. However, since his release, Ullr has been used in other roles, most recently by TSM's TheBoosh in mid lane during the Spring Split. Obviously, Ullr was made to be a carry, and I believe he works best in the duo lane.

Pros

• High early damage with skillshots
• Late game damage with Expose Weakness
• Utility with both stances
• Can escape with Glory Bound
• Transitions well from ability to auto-attack damage

Cons

• Some skillshots are hard to hit, e.g. Hail of Arrows and Thrown Axe
• Mana-hungry
• Not beginner-friendly
• Invigorate is a C-tier escape

Weapon Master

Spoiler: Click to view

When Ullr uses an ability in either stance his cooldowns in the opposite stance are reduced.

This passive basically exists to make the early game easier on clear and cooldowns. It is not very useful in the mid to late game.

Bladed Arrow / Thrown Axe

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Ranged: Ullr fires a bladed arrow in a line, dealing damage and passing through all targets it hits. Melee: Ullr throws an axe in a line, hitting a single target dealing damage and stunning it.

Bladed Arrow is Ullr's main form of clear in the laning phase. It does enough damage to rival Anhur's Impale, Medusa's Acid Spray, or Hou Yi's Ricochet in terms of ability-based wave clear. By max level, it will almost kill archer minions and allows Ullr to clean up the wave with auto attacks.

Thrown Axe is Ullr's only cc ability. It hits a single target and stuns the target for up to 1.4 seconds. This ability is obviously best used on gods, and can be hard to hit, since there is a slight wind-up time and the axe can be juked. Whiffing Thrown Axe can be very frustrating, especially when it hits a minion or pet.

Expose Weakness / Invigorate

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Ranged: Ullr gains bonus physical power for 5s. Melee: Ullr gains bonus move speed for 5s. These effects are lost if Ullr changes stances.

Expose Weakness is Ullr's attack steroid, in the same category as Rama's Pick Me Up or Artemis's Vengeful Assault. Not many ADCs have these kind of power steroid, and those who do often excel as a late game hyper-carry. Although Expose Weakness would ideally affect attack speed rather than power, it still increases Ullr's damage in the late game for a relatively low cost of a cooldown and mana. Use Expose Weakness for a temporary spike in damage during a teamfight or while attacking objectives.

Invigorate is...the least useful of Ullr's abilities, hands down. Movement speed? Not very helpful compared to extra damage, cc, or escape potential that the rest of his kit provides. Use it to get out of base faster, arrive at fights faster, or as a last resort to escape a teamfight gone bad. With this item build, Hastened Fatalis will increase your movement speed while firing auto attacks, so fighting will generally get you out of nasty situations with the added bonus of kill potential. Don't use this ability a lot - it's a waste of mana, especially since its effect ends when you switch into Bow Stance.

Hail of Arrows / Glory Bound

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Ranged: Ullr fires a volley at his target location, dealing damage. Melee: Ullr leaps to his target location, dealing damage in an AoE on arrival.

Hail of Arrows is Ullr's highest damaging ability. It is a hard skillshot to hit, since the targeting is small, but it can become easy with practice. Hail of Arrows also scales well into the late game, with 120% physical power scaling. I take this first because it does more damage to jungle camps. When doing red and purple in the beginning of the game, Ullr will get one creep away from level 2, so he need not take Bladed Arrow for lane clear. Hail of Arrows does extra damage to the jungle camps and increases early clear speed, and since jungle minions group on one target, the skillshot is easy to land.

Glory Bound is Ullr's escape. Having a fast leap which can leap over walls puts Ullr in a good place. Until now, Ullr has had nothing but damage, which all hunters have. A leap is what makes hunters like Anhur so effective, and Ullr is no different. You will have to switch to Axe Stance to use this ability, so most of the time you'll be pressing two keys instead of one, but this delay is minimal and does not affect the potency of Glory Bound.

Wield Axes / Wield Bow

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Ullr changes stance. Ranged: Ullr uses his yew bow, gaining additional attack speed. Melee: Ullr uses his axes, gaining additional physical lifesteal.

This is what makes Ullr so unique. He lacks an ultimate, but changing stances allows for a larger kit and overtuned abilities to "make up" for a bad power spike at level 5. Most people assume that this ability does nothing but switch stances; it is much more useful than that. When in Bow Stance, Ullr gains increased attack speed, which scales with the number of times this ability has been upgraded. Leveling this after your two damaging abilities are maxed will give you free attack speed, which is insane.

The ADC build for Season 2 has settled, especially with the advent of the Summer Smite Pro League. The agreed-upon build by most pro players, notwithstanding particular circumstances or matchups, is Heartseeker, Asi, Warrior Tabi, The Executioner, Rage, and Deathbringer. After Heartseeker's price decrease and base power increase, it beats out all other options for sheer cost efficiency and kill potential.

Start the game with Bluestone Pendant for mana regen, Morningstar for early power and a jumpstar on Heartseeker, and a Healing Potion to increase your survivability. Then build Heartseeker, Asi, and Warrior Tabi.

After the first three items are complete, the build becomes much more typical. The Executioner is just...perfect. Attack speed, power, and passive penetration are all a hunter needs. Then buy Rage, and Deathbringer for an effective crit package.

Greater Sprint and Greater Purification should be your actives 99% of the time. Greater Sprint allows you to stick to low-health targets and escape dangerous situations with slow immunity. Greater Purification is arguably the best universal active in the game, since some characters like ADCs and mids should not get Hand of the Gods. If your opponents have extreme burst potential, such as a Loki and a Poseidon on the same comp, Aegis Pendant can save your life. Now comes the controversial active: Achilles' Spear. This active has been useless since its creation at the beginning of Season 2, but in the upcoming patch, it will be buffed. I don't recommend purchasing it right now, but I'm going to keep my eye on it after the buff.

I'm still in love with Que's Locomotive Build: Devourer's Gauntlet, Heartseeker, Hastened Fatalis, The Executioner, Rage, Deathbringer, but with the rise of Heartseeker, this build is too risky to perform in competitive Conquest. If fed, you can go for it, but otherwise, especially in ranked, stay away.

The hipster build for Ullr has always been Transcendence, Asi, Ninja Tabi, The Executioner, Rage, Deathbringer. Personally, I find this build strictly inferior to the new Heartseeker builds, since Transcendence comes online longer. If fed, you can buy Transcendence from your starting Morningstar, but even if you get a double kill in the first 2 minutes, there's no reason to not buy Heartseeker.

Start by clearing the red buff for your team's mid laner and clearing the purple buff for yourself. This is rather self-explanatory, and has been a part of ADC play since Season 2 began. Your abilities will have higher damage early game than most ADCs, so use them to pressure the enemy duo lane and push the wave. Ullr has no power spike at level 5, so be careful around ADCs with potent ultimates like Anhur's Desert Fury or Medusa's Petrify.

Once you have 1140 gold, back immediately to finish Heartseeker. This is the most efficient way to start building stacks, especially since building stacks on Heartseeker is risky. Then, at 1780 gold, back to buy Asi, and at 1550 gold, back to finish Warrior Tabi.

Mid game for Ullr begins when Warrior Tabi is finished and Bladed Arrow and Hail of Arrows are maxed. You'll want to farm your lane whenever possible; leave only to participate in teamfights and objectives like Gold Fury. Otherwise, farming your lane will get you to crit items quickly, which is what you want.

Late game starts when Rage is finished. Rage is your second power spike, when Ullr's auto attacks become more powerful and his kill potential increases. You're a carry now, make sure to hit your autos and you will kill people.

Easy

• Apollo sucks right now. His clear with So Beautiful is lackluster, so you can pressure the lane early. The only thing he excels at is rotations with his ult, but you can force him to stay in lane by pressuring the tower.
• Artemis is not hard for you. Her clear is also inefficient and she does not have lane pressure without an aggressive support. She turns into a hyper carry in the late game, but Greater Purification will counter her ultimate and Ullr can become as efficient of a hyper carry if played correctly.
• Medusa is not competitively viable after the recent patches. Her decreased range on Acid Spray and bad damage on Viper Shot leaves her lesser in early clear, Lacerate's weakness to bodyblocks leaves her unsafe, and her lack of late game scaling makes her inferior to other carries. As long as you never, ever, ever look at her, you'll be fine.

Average

• Ah Muzen Cab is good, but counterable. He relies strongly on his Hives which are easily destroyed. However, his damage and clear are both high, and his Stinger can kill you if you're not careful. Stun him with your Thrown Axe and punish him if he tries to attack you.
• Cupid is a good early-mid game ADC. Fields Of Love is an effective ultimate for zoning and damage, and Heart Bomb is good poke. However, if he uses Heart Bomb on you, his clear will suffer. You don't have much kill potential since he has a good escape with Flutter and unlimited healing with the combo of Bluestone Pendant and Share The Love. This lane should be played safe and careful so that neither ADC dies. Late game you'll dominate Cupid with your more powerful auto attacks and better cc. If his cooldowns are down, you can box him with ease.
• Hou Yi is an interesting matchup. His clear with Ricochet doubles as a cc-poke when shot correctly. However, not many ADC players play Hou Yi correctly. This matchup will evolve when ranked players work out the details of Hou Yi's kit, but for now, it's even.
• Neith's clear is effective is one-shot with a Spirit Arrow-Backflip combo, and her early game is helped drastically by the new Heartseeker meta. Stay safe, use your Bladed Arrow's increased range to clear the wave from near your tower, and try to survive the early game. Soon, your basic attacks will outdamage hers, and your actives will counter her cc package.
• Rama is an even matchup. He's an effective ADC, and goes even vs everyone in the current meta, directly countering only Xbalanque. You'll have a decent time against him if you play it well.
• Xbalanque is strangely even with you. He doesn't have the best clear, so Ullr should crush him, but he survives well and can poke you safely with Branching Bola. The best way to keep him even with you is to stay safe, freeze lane, and stop him from getting kills for his passive.

Hard

• Anhur is hard for you. You rely on outpushing the enemy ADC with your better clear, and Anhur is the Jungle King of the early game. His power spike at level 5 with Desert Fury is insane, and Impale is overtuned. Be careful around the lion; your only hope is to somehow get an early kill or keep him in lane so he can't rotate for kills.

Ullr is an effective, efficient, and underrated ADC. He will always have a spot in the meta, and I believe he is particularly powerful now.

Thanks so much for reading my first guide! ^^ Ullr is my favorite hunter, and I realized this site has a lack of full guides for him. If you enjoyed, please upvote! Constructive criticism is also appreciated!

May 19th:

Spoiler: Click to view

Changed builds due to SPL findings and commentary by professional ADCs such as [eGr]Zapman and [AFK]Allied, credited Que for the Locomotive build, changed item sections to reflect these meta shifts, moved Neith from easy to average in matchups section, moved Medusa from hard to easy in matchups section.