King of the Arena

As you may know, Ares was called the king of the arena back in season 1 and 2 as well. This title comes from his ultimate's extreme effectiveness paired up with a few AOE burst damage gods, whitch can easily kill the whole enemy team at once. This build focuses on Ares being able to stay on the field, being tanky as much as possible, while gaining power from his passive. So far this build worked for me, and brought me the arena wins one after the other.
I hope you'll enjoy playing him too, he's one of the most avesome guardians I've ever tried, and believe me, I tried most of them.

Pro's
extremely high deffense, and good amount of health pool
good cc, both with his 1's slow, and his ultimate, whitch is top tier
unkillable as f*ck
gives ****ton of boosts to the party in teamfights, due to aura's

Con's
slow movement speed
low damage output compared to non tank gods
if played offensively, a bit manahungry early game

Passive - Blessed Presence: bonus 30 power for every complete aura item
in this build, this means +90-120 power, pretty much takes the place of a 7th urchaseable item that would go for offense; this is your main source of power/damage.

1 - Shackles: slow + dot
an enemy is trying to escape? I don't think so. with shackes's double stack, you can slow them by 30%, 55% if we have gem of isolation's passive off cd as well. a good setup for any teammate to gank him, or for you to start burning him with Searing Flesh.

2 - Bolster Deffences: Aura = AOE buff
this little something has 2 reasons.
1: gives you and your party a huge advantage in a teamfight.
2: when you have it activated, the opponent is less likely to attack/gank you and your teammates nearby, they'll probably wait for it to expire, whitch gives a pretty deccent chance for your party to regroup.

3 - Searing Flesh: your damage skill
this pillar of flames is what you use primarily to "kill ****", inclueding either slowed enemy gods cought by your shackles, or the minionvawe. When it's leveled up, it works well as a sscaretoy too, to make your opponents fear you more.

4 - ultimate - No Escape: your introduction skill.
This is why you buy blink. With this beast, you can pull your opponents to yourself from a wide area, but to make it most efficient, you should blink between them first. Many will try to run away uselessly, this ability pulls in anyone who got a shackle from it, except if they have cc immunity for some reason (purification is usually the most common one, but some other skills, like Hel's 2, or Hou Yi's 3 can also work, not to mention Ravana's 2, whitch makes him pretty much immune to most cc based utimates, or the exceptionally many ultimates that give cc immunity when used, like another Ares's ult for example.
This skill is not meant for killing your opponents, this was meant to get them together, and get about 5 ***its for their team in less than 5 seconds. This is the perfect setup for any AOE ability, such as Zeus's ultimate, Kukulkan's ultimate/3, or my personal favourite, Vulcan's ultimate (I like this one better only because it's flashier, the ones mentined before him are actually more effective, but Vucan's range enables him to ult around you even from half an arena away, so it's easy to coordinate)
while you're in the air, you can also move, just to make the opponents fall directly in your team's aoe's, in case someone misplaced his a little bit.

It may look weird, that I put up a 5 item core build, but let me explain.

Shoes of focus - aka cdr boots are more effective than any other, since your ace in the hole is your ultimate, that has a pretty long cd if it's not decreased.

Heartward amulett - gives manaregen. priceless in early game, not to mention it's a decent magical protection/hp item. in late game however, you can switch it out to another item from the situational row. But take care when you do so, since you'll lose 30 power as well, because you sacrifice an aura item, so your passive will have 1 less stacks.

Mysttical mail - ever tought of dealing damage simply by being there? well, now you can.
this item gives a reasonable amount of maxhp, and phisical protection beside a good aura, to give a stack for your passive as well while at it. pretty much a must have. If your team is really bad, you can just switch it out to sovereignity to give them a hp5 bonus instead of the damage you'd deal.

Void stone - gives magical power, magical protection, and decreases enemy magical protection. there's not much more we can want from 1 item. Might I add, most AOE gods are magical, meaning those ults that land after yours will find a target with reduced deffenses.

Gem of isolation - your 1 is a good cc, but what if it were more effective, while boosting your hp/mp/power pools on the way? you find it useful? good, because it is. The only thing I regret in this item, is that it's passive is not an aura, but with such an effect, I'd gladly throw out 30 power from my passive in order to have this instead.



and now the situational item.
in some cases, it's worth switching out some of my previously mentioned core items, such as heartward amulett for example for some of these.



Petilence - magical protection -> high. maxhp bonus -> good. enemy healer -> f*cked. Mind if I add, it gives 30 magical power too, since it's an aura item.

Rod of Asclepius - magical power -> good. maxhp bonus -> good. healer in your party (if any) -> will love you for this. also +30 power from your passive due to aura item.

Magi's blessing - maxhp -> great. protections -> a little low, but at least has some. cc immunity in passive -> great as f*ck. However, it's only this awesome against a few gods, and some gods can rend it completely useless. if you enemy has an athene, she'll probably rend it useless with spamming her 2, same applies to some other gods, such as most support, or Nox, who is OP as f*ck this season. Also this doesn't give immunity from Odin ult, that thing can skill kill you
but all in all, it's a pretty cheap item for such a passive.

Mantle of Discord - high protections, 15% cdr OP, good passive for survival against meelee gods, and even against many ranged ones. preferred item in many situations, but expensive, not sure you can get the necessary gold if the match progresses too fast, or if you have to go back to the fountain too many times and miss out on gold from minions.

Oni hunter's garb / Genji's guard - high magical protection, whitch is good if the enemy has a mage who fed on the minions too much and has too big a burst for you to take comfortably. Genji's goard also gives cdr, whitch can be useful, like a lot.

Brestplate of valor - high phisical protection, good against assassins, and hunters, also gives high cdr, whitch is awesome so you can ult more often.

spectral armor - an Odin/Ymir counter item, only buy if the enemy has one of those in an extremely fed way. Especially good against Odin, since it gives phisical protection too.

Hide of the nemean lion - the opponent has a fed assassin/hunter that you can't kill? no problem, make it kill himself. with this item, your phisical protection skyrockets, you also gain a mana pool increase, but damn this passive is what really matters. 20% damage reflect is a lot, it'd be a waste to miss it if your opponents deals most of it's damage from basics.

Whitchblade - can be useful against high attackspeed assassins, or some hunters who come in close, like some Ullr players; also against warriors like Bellona. both the phisical protection, and the debuff on the opponents can be extremely useful, not to mention it's an aura item that gives you 30 power too due to your passive.

Rod of Tahuti - if the opponents aren't fed, and you don't need deffense, why not go on the offense? however, this is an expensive item, so care to chose it only if you feel like you can finish it while it's still useful.

Etheral staff - maxhp. that's it. 30 power, and ****ton of maxhp beside the mana pool increase.

pythagorem's piece - lifesteal? no need. cdr? awesome. 70 magic power? awesome. Aura that gives magic power and lifesteal? awesome. oh, you gain +30 power since it's an aura item? even better. (this is my most common 6th item choice)

Spear of the magus - you deal damage in dots? than why not reduce enmy protections on each hit while you're at it as well?

Solvereignity - as described at Mysttical mail.

If you have enough deffense, and power from your passive/items, you can rule the Arena like a king, that's what an Ares is supposed to do either way. He's a beast, you're the tamer. And a good tamer's pet gods can always keep their territory safe from some opponents.

I didn't add any gameplay chapter yet, I think it'd probably be useless, since I described at each item/skill when to/how to use it; and as a guardian you'd have to be the shield of your party either way.

I hope you enjoyed this little guide, good luck while you try out Ares with this build. He'll rock hard for sure ;) my usual endgame stats with this build are something like 6/2/25 or so, the main point is, you're not gonna kill much, but not dieing and getting ****ton of ***its isn't bad either.

until next time, see you
(flashy parts incoming once I get in the mood for them)