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Generally with Horus I find an even mix of health and mana potions to be the best. You have health potions up until the point that you geth your 3, where mana potions can take the lead in keeeping you alive. With this philosopy it is key that you level your 3 for the second time once you hit level 4.
I don't like saying that you have 4 core items, but unless you've got a team with practically 0 basic attack damage Shogun's Kusari is a valuable asset. As a support, I often find that these are my most common items.
I don't know how many times I've been playing guardians and not been able to buy Ancile against a Bacchus, Cerberus, etc. As for runic and void shield, they do have magical counterparts, but I find these ones to be better for whatever reason.
While they are nerfing Hide of the Nemean Lion's passive for season 7, it will still be a powerhouse for physical defense, and the passive will still be more useful than the 20% CDR on Breastplate of Valor.
Genji's Guard and Pestilence serve as great full tank items while Ancile and runic shield are great bruiser items with equally great passives.
So glad I can Finally get a healing item on Horus. Other than that you have your split defense items and utility items.
This is set up in a way that you would sell Warrior Tabi for Void Shield at the end of the game. Aside from that this is generally a build that will do ya well. Good protections all around, great healing with Cad Shield, and respectable damage.
Tap each threat level to view Horus’s threats
My goal with this guide is to educate people not one what to build, but on how to build. It is my firm belief that rising smite players need to know how to build if they want to see any progress in their abilities.
To this end, it helps knowing how protections work. Its through a relatively simple mathematical formula: 100/(100+X) where X is your protections. If you have 100 protections it reads 100/(100+100) or 1/2. You take 1/2 damage from attacks. 200 protections yields 1/3 damage taken. 300 protections yields 1/4 damage taken. This being said, come season 7 with percentage pen taking place of nearly all magical flat pen, it may not be worth building any more than 200 protections when you can instead build damage to just retaliate better. We shall see in a couple of days. Information about protections and many other mechanics in the game can be found in The Word of Thoth. Very useful if you are looking to get better at the game fundamentally.
Pros:
Fantastic single target Crowd Control
Respectable damage without power
Insane damage with full power
High mobility
Provides team mobility with ultimate ability
Is bird-man
Cons:
Extremely susceptible to cripples
Main escape requires an ally or minion to be nearby
Can be killed while targeting ultimate
Ultimate can be hard to use without good communication
Low area Crowd Control
There is always the possibility that a good item has slipped under my radar, if you think I've missed anything crucial, please let me know!
Core Items |
Reasons it's great to be a warrior |
Physical Defense |
Magical Defense |
Other items |
Caduceus Shield |
As a support, you're going to be staring danger in the face all the time. As such, it is important to know what to build so you don't just get beaten down before you can even think about initiating a fight.
Starting out
The first few minutes of the game can be crucial. You don't have your any items yet, and minions do a LOT of damage if they target you. Enter Guardian's Blessing. There are 2 key purposes for getting Guardian's Blessing. Number 1: Hp5. The Hp5 you get from this blessing is invaluable early game. It allows you to take extra fire from gods and minions. That being said, 7 Hp5 really isn't anything to write home about so you still can't go all in taking all the aggro from the minions early on, so you still have to watch yourself. Number 2: Gold. As a support, you have a predisposition to sharing farm that means you get less money. Less money is less than bueno as somebody who knows a very limited amount of Spanish might say. Guardian's Blessing helps counter this by giving you an extra 4 gold every 5 seconds. Basically, in conquest, you gain 3 gold every time your gold increases passively. With Guardian's Blessing you will get 4 gold every time, thus increasing your passive gold gain by 33%, its a nice boost, and you really need it.
Guardian's Blessing isn't the only thing that you are going to take out of the fountain with you for the first time. Personally, I like to get your tier 1 boots. Realistically, as a tier 1 item, they don't do anything for you, but they are relatively cheap and allow you to get a plethora of potions. It also allows fro some flexibility in what your first item is going to be. Some games go better than others and you can stay in lane until you get 2300-2400 gold, allowing you to get your full Gauntlet of Thebes all at once. Other games, you only get to take 1100 gold back home to get Warrior Tabi online, either way, it sets you up pretty good going into lane after that
Second item
Your second item a relatively simple choice, basically its either gonna be finish boots or finish Guantlet of Thebes. It's real, real simple.
Third item
At this point, you are kindly greeted with a few different paths you can take. Basically, the way I look at is based on what protections you need. You've either been getting beaten up by something in particular, or you've not really been in the situation where you've had to worry about it too much. Should you be taking a lot of damage, you need to pinpoint where it's coming from. Under most circumstances, you'll be looking at the enemy support or ADC for who is doing the most damage to you, but sometimes you will only ever be taking damage from their Jungler or mid-laner because they won't leave you alone. The point is, build against what is killing you If you need physical protections, grab Sovereignty. Should you need magical protections, Get Shogun's Kusari. Sometimes, you're just overall doing pretty well and you can buy Caduceus Shield and mess around with you new ability to be more aggressive with increased healing.
Fourth Item
Generally speaking by the time you get your fourth item, you either know what you need pretty good, or you are lacking in one type of protections. It hasn't been uncommon that I build Caduceus Shield as my third item recently. Should you follow in my footsteps there, you are at an even split with your protections. so you are given another branching path for items to grab.
If it's physical protections you're after, its never a bad idea to look towards Sovereignty for both its protections and the invaluable Hp5 aura in extended team-fights. In other cases, you may opt to protect your team by killing the enemy. If that were to be your choice, Void Shield wouldn't be a bad idea.
Perhaps it's more magical protections you need and your team would probably enjoy a 25% extra attack speed. Shogun's Kusari is a great pickup, especially with its extra 10% CDR. Maybe you're fighting against a Bacchus who has been having a blast burping on all of your friends? Say no more, Ancile has your back.
There are other times where CDR speaks louder than protections so you could grab Pridwen and have some drastic changes to your effectiveness that way.
Last items
At this point, you may be noticing a theme. That theme continues, but gets a slight twist. Continues thinking about the type of protections that will keep you alive, but also keep in mind that you may not need any more protections, but rather a little bit of damage is in order, should that be the case, Shifter's Shield would be a great pickup for you. Perhaps a Brawler's if you need that anti-heal
My last piece of advice as far as building is to play around with some items like Witchblade or Relic Dagger. They have more specific uses, but are very, very useful once you figure out what those applications are.
Most relics have their fair share of uses, While I vastly prefer some to others, I want to talk about them all, due to the nature of this guide being a support guide, but touching on jungling capabilities down further.
On support? no, absolutely not. If you choose to play Horus somewhere else, perhaps jungle, then maybe. Definitely not as a support. |
Bracer of Undoing | Absolutely not as a support, maybe as a jungler. I don't generally buy it over beads or Aegis |
Often times, I will opt for a Heavenly Wings before Horrific emblem, just do the the nature of a slow being able to be cleansed, Horrific certainly has its benefits, like the attack speed debuff. |
meditation cloak | One of the best things about Meditation Cloak over Magic Shell is the fact that you can use it whenever. Health is not a fleeting thing like a shield is. The crucial difference that sways magic shell as the better of the two is the block stacks when upgraded, which can be invaluable late game. The mana regen is also important to note from Med Cloak |
No. |
Teleport Glyph | Realistically you can play Horus solo, but I'm not here to talk about that. Other than that you generally have better options to help out your team more effectively |
Effects: Horus' passive grants stacks of 1.5 protections, 1.5% CCR and when the effect wears off, 2+0.75 per level healing. My Thoughts:Horus's passive is a jack of all trades, master of none type thing. Of the 3 things it does, none of them are anything to write home about, but together they can be fairly useful. Due to the nature of this passive stacking each time Horus takes damage, it helps more in battles with multiple enemies or against gods with damage over time. Now for what it actually gives you at a full 10 stacks. 15 protections: I mean, its nice to have around, but this won't be saving you much health in the grand scheme of things, especially since it has to get stacked before you get all 15. 15% CCR: This is actually fairly significant. It's no Unyielding but it is roughly an items worth of CCR. 20-170 Healing: While this heal is probably the thing that will notice most readily in game, it isn't going to be super helpful unless you are against a lot of small DoT damage from gods like Cernunnos, Ah Muzen Cab, or Khepri. It should be noted as well that the defensive bonuses from this passive cannot bring you over the limits you can get from items. All in all, pretty decent passive | |
Usage: Close range CC, your only real AoE CC, and lots of damage. My Thoughts:While this ability does serve as your main source of damage, it is very useful to remember that not only is it a knock up, its a big one. Knock ups are, in my opinion, the best form of CC in the game for 1 reason in particular. They aren't effected by CCR or diminishing returns and unlike banishes, which function the same way, the enemy remains targetable during most of the knock up. Some of the bigger ones like Charge Prey may not work with this, but Horus will. There are a few things that are of key importance to note with this ability. First, the gust hits 50% harder to enemies that are knocked up. Fortunately, Horus does that himself with the first hit from the ability so unless you don't fire it immediately or you get CC'ed out of it, you are pretty much always going to do the bonus damage unless you are out of range. Second, the gust counts as a basic attack and item effects apply, save for crits. That means, though it isn't really that effective, you can stack Frostbound Hammer with the innate slow on the ability. Lastly, and perhaps more importantly is this fair warning... WARNING: The single most annoying thing about playing Horus is that sometimes this ability will glitch, it has gotten drastically better but I still see it occasionally. What happens sometimes is that the first part will go off and the gust will cancel. I've dropped many kills from this glitch before and it is painful every time. | |
Usage: This ability is your main initiation and set up ability and a functioning escape in a pinch. My Thoughts:I would be wrong to undersell the damage on this ability just because it doesn't get as crazy high as Updraft. That said a total of 360+80% is pretty darn good. Damage numbers aside this is a fairly simple ability that has a stun one it, but requires a bit of finess to use. This ability has a sort of windup on it, and if you have ever dashed into another CC dealing dash, you will know that certain ones take precedence over others, this one is at the bottom of that list and will be cancelled by any, even remotely hard CC. If you are having issues with this ability, I recommend you try him out in a jungle practice or custom games and try to hit moving targets where you have nothing to lose and no people to get mad at you. | |
Usage: Healing yourself and your allies as well as getting in or out of a fight. My Thoughts:Personally, this is my favorite of Horus's abilities. It allows you to have some high sustain in lane and even into late game. Should you heal all 5 of your team members at once you will be healing for 1250 once it is at max level, and that is assuming you have no power and haven't bought Caduceus Shield. As a healer, Horus cannot be underestimated. This is also the best escape you have in a rough situation, especially since it is considered a jump and can therefore go over walls. One thing that you absolutely need to keep in mind with this ability is that you cannot dash without an allied god or minion. One of those is more reliable than the other, especially when they realize that they are like 1 foot too far away from you and can get back. If you are having issues, it may be worth trying to party up with some people are just use the in game chat to get your allies closer to you. | |
Usage: Initiation from a distance with your team, getting your team out of sticky wickets, or backdooring objectives with your allies. My Thoughts:Of all the gods I have played and taken a linking to, Horus probably has the most difficult ultimate to figure out how to use effectively. Seemingly, the most obvious is a full team dropship onto an objective of sorts. Maybe a backdoor on titan or a fight over the fire giant. In reality, this is unlikely. As someone who has also played as the teammate of a Horus, a stray Horus ulting near you is a sketchy prospect if you don't know where its going. As such, there are two decent ways to use your horus ult. I'll go in depth on this ability below. To the Skies!, In-depth advice
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Unfortunately, I don't have a map (Or honestly, the know how of how to make one) so I'll do my best to describe the locations
[spoiler= A brief guide to a full damage horus0
Naturally, the game is different when playing Jungle vs support. I play a much simpler rendition of Horus when I play Jungle. Its simple really: Do whatever the normal start for junglers is, hit level 2, blink on the mid-laner and look for a kill. If you can get an early kill out of this you should be set to go take your camps and just keep farming. If you do it right, you should snowball out of control and be able to practically one shot anybody you come across save for the support or solo. Just, uhh.. be careful and try not to get behind and you should be all set. Also know that your major power spikes will come when you get Crusher, Transcendence, and Hydras Lament. From there you just get more power and its all nice, but nothing huge.
It is important to know where your damage really comes from. That being said, fracture hurts pretty bad, but the true damage comes from updraft. On top of your basic attack damage it adds 50 extra damage and then increases that by 50%. You already have a lot of damage there, but it counts as a basic attack right? Unfortunately HiRez was smart enough to not enable critical hits with this ability, but you can still proc Hydra's Lament. All that said and done, I have seen the gust alone hit for 1000 damage. You may not be able to get there anymore due to the 10% nerf on Hyrda's passive, but damage will still be insane.
[/spoiler]
Thats about that for now, going into season 7, if I can find the time between classes, I'll keep this rolling with the updates as I can tell what's going on.
If y'all have anything to say, please do let me know, I would love to have some feedback.
Huge shoutout to Branmuffin17 for the coding used in the abilities table, I definitely would not have figured that out by myself. And thanks to all those in the comments as well, I appreciate all the feedback!
Maybe you're like me and like egyptian supports, not sure what it is, but they're all my favorites. Only one up to date is Geb. Feel free to check it out!
Thanks for checking out my Guide!
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I've gotta give credit where its due, right now the table I am using on the abilities tab is basically carbon copy from that of Branmuffin17, but with different colors and content. I'd like to edit it more so that it is more something of my own, but the entire section of code is lost when I go into the editor so that is not exactly possible. I don't dare edit the guide to try and figure out what is going on in lieu of the contest, I don't really want all the information in that section lost as I don't have time to redo the whole thing with College and whatnot.
If anyone passing through has seen this issue and knows what's up, please let me know.
The issue has been resolved thanks to the mods doing whatever it is that they had to do. Minor as the adjustments may be, I have been able to go back in and customize the table to be a bit more of my own creation
Edit: I should note that I haven't actually done too much Horus jungle since the Hydra's Nerf.
As for crusher, it is incredibly situational is is basically intended for pick up if and only if you are dominating the enemy and as a last item. When you don't need the protections in your game it does help out. I might take it off the main item builder, but still discuss it down below with the other items for that reason.
Getting Brawler's will only be if you feel you can get away with like selling boots for it, and your team needs that extra anti-heal.
Midgardian mail is a really good one, especially when combined with witchblade.
Regarding crusher, if you're dominating and want damage, just get something like brawler's beat stick. It has functionality for the whole team
There are 2 key reasons I like Crusher over brawlers in most situations. First, the attack speed on crusher is helpful for dishing out extra damage. Second, Horus isn't great at applying Brawlers so the anti-heal isn't utilized all that well. Generally speaking you would be lucky to hit 2 people with 1 ability. I can't rightfully say that people will never group up. That being said, situationally the anti-heal would still prove more useful. It would probably be worth talking about both.
Edit: Upon further review Brawlers has 10 more power than crusher which pretty evenly balances out the attack speed. I would say Brawlers is almost always better in that case. Effectively, this whole comment is my thought process leading to why everything you said is correct.
If you want dps/hybrid options on Horus (especially if you're ahead) you have:
Shifter's Shield, Masamune, Frostbound Hammer, Brawler's Beat Stick, Void Shield, Runic Shield, Ancile, Runeforged Hammer, Warrior Tabi.
https://smiteprobuilds.com/Builds?p_filters_page=1&p_filters_search=&p_filters_god=3611&p_filters_pro=~&p_filters_opponent=~&p_filters_role=Support&p_filters_league=~&p_filters_sort=~
No Crusher on that page as you can see.
I know that Midgardian is a situational item, which is why I was trying to sell Shifter's with its 50 physical protections as a defensive item, due to that. Granted both are situational and I've now moved to saying Shifter's is a good power item for you to grab, but the situational part of midgard is why I had moved away from it. That being said, I do generally believe I had been undervaluing it as a whole.
As for the whole crusher thing, I've moved on from that already. If you really want a full power item then you're probably better off getting Shifters unless you can afford the lack of defense and your team needs the anti-heal. I do like the idea of Frostbound and Runeforged though, so I'll probably take a look at those in game. Also, I'm looking at a Short Sword on KikiSoCheeky from 6/17/19. That page also reminds me that I haven't talked at all about shield of regrowth. Thank you for that.
That was probably a troll pickup.