This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page
Vote received! Would you like to let the author know their guide helped you and leave them a message?
One-Shot Assassin Solo
Death's Toll for HP/Mana sustain in lane. The upgrade is nice.
Gilded Arrow for crit and more consistent damage.
Manikin's if you're jungling, or if you want slightly more damage in the early game. Faster clear, especially on camps.
Quick info on this build:
Pros:
It's the trial-and-tested highest damage burst build on her. No matter what others say.
It's got cheap powerspikes that are VERY strong on every item.
It's always an effective build, and it's what I'd normally play in any role.
It doubles as an assassin-hunter.
It has lifesteal, 95% crit, 1.7 AS, and 55% pen on basic attacks.
Cons:
It's less effective if the enemy groups up on top of each other.
There're better alternatives for specific matchups and playstyles.
The build falls apart if you change any item other than the starter.
If you buy Death's Toll as your starter, you can delay your Soul Eater until after Deathbringer. This'll give you your biggest powerspike 2k gold earlier(Hydra, Fail, DB).
You can choose to max your 1 before your 3, if you're playing in a bad matchup where you won't be able to utilise your 3 to harass and clear the wave.
As ADC(Hunter) you will almost always max your 1. It's much safer at any point. You will only max your 3 if you are abusing your opponent, and able to utilise the extra damage during your burst.
As jungle you will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS max your 3. It's good to use when starting to clear a camp(charge through it then start shooting), or when leaving a camp. It's the most burst damage, and as jungle you're a burst assassin.
Tap each threat level to view Ishtar’s threats
Tap each synergy level to view Ishtar’s synergies
One-Shot Assassin Jungle
Same info as on the "Solo" page. Only difference in roles is skill order(see notes on skill sequence) and item order(slightly).
You will almost always buy manikin's(feel free to buy eye), and you will usually delay your Soul Eater until 5th. This is because you want your one-shot powerspikes as soon as possible, and Soul Eater sets you back 2000 gold.
Also, don't upgrade Deathbringer until you have Soul Eater completed.
One-Shot Assassin Hunter
Same info as on the "Solo" page. Only difference in roles is skill order and item order(slightly).
Buy Gilded if you want to be an ADC, deal more damage early, and have more consistent damage lategame.
Buy Death's Toll if you need early sustain
Buy Soul Eater instead of Hydra's if you're playing a matchup that you can't possibly win early. Soul-Fail-DB-Hydra's.
As always, wait with DB Glyph until 5th item is completed.
Hello, I've no idea how to make these build guides but I'll attempt to make it as coherent as I can. Please only follow the One-Shot Assassin build if you're unwilling to skim through tons and tons of unnecessary text, for some bits of good information, as this guide is an absolute mess.
This is a build on the new Goddess, Ishtar, which I'm writing because I got upset over everyone building her and playing her incorrectly.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this very poorly made guide, that contains good builds at least. The rest of the introduction page are some notes explaining why the guide might appear very strange(I've no idea how it'll look when published). Most comes down to me not knowing how to use this site.
I'm just making a note to highlight the bottom-most chapter. It contains information on the ins and outs of the character, things you need to know if you want to ever master her, so check it out
The names of the Purchase Orders are completely bugged, at least for me.
Don't get confused by the names at the top, instead read the notes for information on the items and builds, as well as what role you'd use the build order for.
I omitted a bunch of stuff but if I keep making guides they'll show up at one point or another, so I don't really care. It's mostly matchup specific itemization in general, and matchup/team comp archetypes that you'd itemize a certain way against, but for Ishtar, and generally speaking most hunters, it's not really the case.
Oh yeah, Smitefire is a bit totalitarian which resulted in my work being skewered several times, for different reasons. While attempting to figure it out and solve it I had to dismantle several parts, resulting in a lot of inconsistency in the guide's structure, and it'll remain until I can fix it. If I continue making guides I'll do it at some point once I understand the systems.
I'm writing this page on the off-chance that things don't appear the way I somewhat want them to. Ignore if you've already read this, in the different build notes.
Your starter items are matchup dependent in all cases except for the jungle role- where you will always play Manikin's.
Your builds are not going to change depending on your starter item choice- other than you replacing an item with a crit chance equivalent item, if you choose not to go Gilded Arrow for some of the builds(the standard ADC builds).
Buy Death's Toll if you require HP sustain in lane.
Buy Gilded Arrow if you want to deal more consistent damage, and earn a bit more gold.
Buy Manikin's in lane, if you want higher damage early game(clearspeed, mainly) but a weaker lategame. It's generally speaking better than Gilded Arrow only in the Jungle. Also better in some matchups in Solo.
I'm sorry for including a lot of stuff about your starter items in the notes as well. Feel free to skip it whenever it appears. I might fix it later.
SMITEFire is the place to find the perfect build guide to take your game to the next level. Learn how to play a new god, or fine tune your favorite SMITE gods’s build and strategy.
Copyright © 2019 SMITEFire | All Rights Reserved
The standard ADC build is more in line with how I'd likely build her of your various options, at least for ADC role (not mid or jungle of course). Asi as a first item is funky but when you need early lifesteal, what other option do you have? Don't think you'd go into Fail-Not first, and if you want more AS in the build and you've committed to Fail-Not and Deathbringer, then you need to build it where you can. One alternative option that likely isn't popular would be to go for Soul Eater like you do in some of your other builds...though I know the issues w/ SE. Anyway, grab that first (and it's cheap!), then go into Fail, Silver, DB, and finish up with another AS item instead of Dominance...maybe even non-glyphed The Executioner if you're really wanting more pen. But I think 40% pen is perfect, between SE, FN, and Silver.
Another thing that's always awkward IMO is Fail-Not. Ornate is the answer to get your crits up, but the big problem with that is it just feels so late-game. An alternate option would be to not get Ornate...grab DT instead, SE, FN, Silver, DB, and finish with another crit item (Ata / Shadow) just to get your AS and crit higher. Other orders exist, of course, depending on if you want CDR earlier or later.
As for a more dedicated non-ADC build, I think you should have some other items listed as options. You can consider adding Heartseeker (which I think fits better than Dominance in your initial build), Titan's Bane, The Crusher, etc.
If you're available to get on Discord, I can go over the god builder with you and help get some of this stuff cleaned up. Should be pretty easy. Let me know.
Instead, I'll discuss the only thing worth mentioning which is the value of TB and Heartseeker(Crusher would be great if I could fit it into the early game).
From my testing I found that while TB+Trans replacing Domi and Soul Eater resulted in slightly higher damage output during her burst, it was only around 300 damage post mitigations on a lvl 20 Odin bot(5.1k versus 4.8~). Adding crusher to it was not worth it, as the two crit items(DB+Fail) and Hydra's are simply invaluable during her burst window. At that point the damage became lower.
As for Heartseeker- while it looks great on paper, during my testing on this item specifically, both recently and at earlier occasions- it's never as good as I expect it to be. It's very expensive, has nice(but not necessarily amazing) stats, and it's passive I genuinely believe is bugged, as it always underperforms. It tends to not deal nearly as much damage as I feel it should, which during my recent testing resulted in Dominance out-damaging it by a lot(mainly because her 3 is her highest-damage dealing ability, using crit and hydra's).
I only tested Fail-not/DB builds, as I believe crit to be superior on her due to how Malicious DB functions with her split arrow- and how her 3 benefits from crit. Of course, in an ability focused build not utilizing Malicious Deathbringer, TB + Heartseeker combined with Transcendence, and probably Crusher included, will absolutely out-damage this version. I only looked at the burst damage in, primarily, single-target(small radius AoE). You could probably build and play her similarly to a mage with those items.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, now to respond to the main point- I'd love to get on Discord with you sometime in the future and have you go over the features you've got on here. I'd like to make some actual guides later, and this one was just way too messy. I think my best information is spread out across the many, long notes that I've put everywhere, so I can't really expect anyone to read it.
My discords Clap#3220, got a picture of a flower.
I'll be unavailable for the next couple of days as university's starting up again, but if you send me a friend request and let me know it's you, we can discuss it when we've got some time. I'm trying not to be on the PC too much as I'm recovering from a wrist injury, but I keep failing as my ADHD's stopping me from keeping things short, so I've really got to rest up over the weekend.
Honestly, I default on offensive ability to HS, but funny enough, I have the same feelings about it. Despite the high power, the pen, and the passive, I don't feel it has the effect I expect. Still, it's hard to argue with the base stats as a late-game item. I mentioned TB and Crusher since some pros have been using them.
If going ADC, the argument against crit right now for Ish, if you're also looking to have high AS, is that her only AS steroid is in Storm Shot, which isn't nearly as popular as the other 2 forms, and Strike Shot has reduced crit damage. Building up her AS in that respect to as high as you can get it in a Qin's / O-Bow type build isn't a bad thing.
That said, as of right now and with your point about Spread Shot's side hits triggering Malicious Deathbringer's passive, crit would also be my default.
This would be much appreciated, as resting is my biggest priority right now.
That being said, I absolutely agree that her 1 generally speaking promotes an on-hit build, so I understand why most people believe it to be better. If they change how Malicious DB functions with her split arrows I might have to make an on-hit variant utilizing executioner and Qin's, though I doubt I'd include Odysseus bow as it doesn't function particularly well with any of her 1 stances(no interaction).
For other players, who prefer playing her like a traditional ADC the hitscan build and Standard ADC build should work great.
Please don't rate it without trying it, I'd like to believe there's hope for smite players yet. Feel free to ask questions regarding the builds though and I'll explain the itemization choices in detail.
You love the stats of Soul Eater, and depending on how her 3's Arrow functions with it, you might love the effect just as much.
It doesn't hurt that it's one of the most cost-effective items, and you want to hit your next item powerspikes as often as possible on her.
Soul Eater the best lifesteal item on her, and you want a lifesteal item. It has the best stats, and gives the most healing. It's also the cheapest.
The only real alternative is Asi, and we don't buy that here because we need the % Pen.
I'm a 20 year old ex. Grandmaster who's spent tens of hours testing item effects and stats, I haven't got it wrong. I just ask that people try out the builds and hopefully learn what items should be bought, and what items shouldn't.
Play the Standard ADC variant if you're below diamond. I can almost guarantee more success with it, than nearly any other build.