Moths and Bees: A Guide To Ah Muzen Cab (Carry, 8.3 - SMITEFire Contest Winner!)

Hello, people of SmiteFire! My name is MightyGarchomp (Garch for short); I'm a casual player of Smite, with around 800 hours put into it at the time of writing this guide. I don't claim to be the best player - far from it - but after Season 8 released, I found that my main Hunter went from a fairly weak choice to much stronger than people tend to give him credit for. Introducing... Ah Muzen Cab!

I fell in love with Ah Muzen Cab as soon as I first tried him, and though he wasn't the best pick at the time, Season 8 has given him a lot of subtle buffs that add up to him being a dangerous opponent. Yet, no one really seems to look at him the way I do. Well, how about we change that? If you're interested in swarming everyone with Bees!, then this guide is for you! This is my first SmiteFire guide, so any suggestions and feedback are appreciated!

This guide will primarily focus on how he's played in the Duo lane, but as an ability-heavy Hunter he can flex into the Mid lane.

Changelog

8.3 - Talons of Tyranny update:
- Ah Muzen Cab got some big buffs, being able to place one more Hive and having a ramping slow in his Honey. Guide adjusted accordingly.

Pros:
- Fantastic clear. Ah Muzen Cab's Swarm is amazing at clearing minion waves and can add a lot of pressure, especially with the right support.
- Insane mobility. Ah Muzen Cab's Hive increases his speed a lot at later levels; it's a whopping 30% increase. That's more than Heavenly Wings! Coupled with Honey, you can create a lot of distance between yourself and enemies if they don't have the tools to chase you down.
- Extremely high power. Ah Muzen Cab's damage gets really high later on; with Bees! and consistently hitting auto attacks you can shred people in seconds. This also makes him a solid duelist when he's alone in lane once he gets his core items online.
- Fantastic Ultimate. While hard to land, Stinger is what turns Ah Muzen Cab into a formidable opponent. It not only deals a massive chunk of damage, but applies a long cripple, which lets you hit your helpless target with all of your abilities and finish them off with some auto attacks. Not only that, but if you use it correctly, it has a very short cooldown, making it usable as both an initiation tool or for securing a kill.
- Works well with many supports. Do you have a stun, a root, or even a slow? You're a great partner for Ah Muzen Cab.
- Awesome skins. Solid Hornet and Mothman are great and nobody will convince me otherwise.

Cons:
- Weak early. This is Ah Muzen Cab's biggest weakness. You are most likely not going to get an early kill and can easily be outpressured until you get your Swarm online. Coupled with some of the other things listed below, he can struggle to get an advantage against high-pressure Hunters.
- No escape. Ah Muzen Cab may be fast, but he has nowhere to run if he gets jumped. This also makes him vulnerable to ganks. You need to play very wisely with him and consider the situations you enter appropriately or you can be locked down and killed pretty easily.
- No hard CC. Ah Muzen Cab only has a cripple and a slow in terms of crowd control, which can make it difficult for him to fight a lot of Hunters who do have those options. Oftentimes he'll need a gank from someone with a stun to get an edge over the opponent and box appropriately with them.
- Hives are easily destroyed. Ah Muzen Cab's Hive is a defining part of his kit, but unfortunately, they're destroyed with a single auto attack. They require strategic placement to be used most effectively.
- Ultimate is hard to land. Tying into his lack of hard CC, Ah Muzen Cab's Stinger is a great ability... but its range is extremely narrow and it requires either good aim or a stun from another source. And if you miss it, its cooldown isn't the best, so you'll have to time it at just the right moment to make the best use of it.

Passive: Bees!
"We're going to have so much fun. Or at least I will."

What good would the god of bees be without them? This is a very simple passive; whenever enemies are hit by your Swarm, your Honey while hitting an enemy in range of your Hive or who was hit by Swarm, and of course your Stinger, they will take a small damage over time effect that scales with your physical power.

The damage over time is small, but it's helpful nonetheless; it's usually something you don't have to worry about. They have a lot of small add-ons like revealing afflicted enemies and spreading to other enemies nearby, but typically it's not something you should concern yourself with. The important part here is that hitting auto attacks extends how long an opponent is afflicted by Bees! This is most applicable after hitting them with Swarm or Stinger; smack them with your auto attacks to make them take even more damage over time!


Ability #1: Hive
"My home away from home."

Bees need a hive to come from, and that's where this ability comes in! Ah Muzen Cab puts down a hive at the target location that buffs his attack speed and movement speed, gives him some slight healing, and even doubles as a very tiny Ward. You can place up to seven hives at a time. You will usually want to level this second.

Tips for this ability:
- Always have a hive nearby. Ah Muzen Cab gets huge buffs from a Hive at later levels; there's pretty much no reason not to have one. It's effectively a stim, except you don't have to keep refreshing it if you use it right! Note that the Fire Giant can actually destroy a Hive, so place them outside of its range when taking it.
- Put down hives to escape. If you're being chased, remember that a Hive buffs your movement speed; set one down in front of yourself and run for the hills! The enemy may even be distracted by it and attack it, buying you precious time.
- Place hives in hard to reach spots. Since a Hive can be destroyed very easily, place it in hard to reach nooks and crannies or places where enemies would have to go out of their way to destroy them. One of the best spots is behind your tower - it'll cover the whole radius of the tower and the enemy will have a lot of trouble getting it. This is key to surviving safely in the early game; the sustain a Hive provides is invaluable when you don't have any lifesteal.
- Keep an eye on your hives on the map. They grant a very tiny vision radius, but you don't need that to trigger to get information from them. If a Hive is destroyed, you know an enemy was around that area and can react accordingly or warn allies.
- Set up hives around the jungle. This is what separates Ah Muzen Cab players (besides landing their Stinger): use of Hives. While normally the carry does very little rotating, Ah Muzen Cab can pull it off very well with a combination of Leather Cowl and the movement speed a Hive gives. To make it work, you'll want to set up a couple on the left side of the jungle for easy rotations.


Ability #2: Swarm
"Open wide!"

This is Ah Muzen Cab's main waveclear ability, where he sends out a bunch of his friends in a straight line. The projectile of bees does damage, has a modest travel time, and applies Bees! to all targets. You will usually want to level this first.

Tips for this ability:
- Use this for wave clear. The ability has decent base damage and also applies damage over time from Bees!; this is unquestionably your wave clear ability. If you're using Honey for wave clear, you might wanna rethink your life.
- Combine this with basic attacks. Your main combo, covered later, will usually be this ability, Honey, and then a flurry of basic attacks to keep Bees! refreshed. Of course, this ability also serves as great poke if you're playing at a slower pace!


Ability #3: Honey
"Stick around. I haven't even started."

Everyone knows bees and honey go together! With this ability, Ah Muzen Cab paints a trail of honey on the ground that you can control. It applies a slow that increases with each point put into this ability, and if an enemy is in range of a Hive or was hit by Swarm, they will be afflicted by Bees! and take tick damage! You should level this last.

Tips for this ability:
- Use this to escape chasing enemies. The slow this applies is the closest thing you have to an escape. While fleeing, aim down at your feet and just paint the Honey beneath you.
- This is a great poke ability. If you want to quickly harass someone and they're in range of a Hive (or you can put one down), just hit them with this ability to whittle them down.
- Combine this with your other two damaging abilities. You will generally use this right after your Swarm so they take even more damage, and if you have your Stinger, you can hit an enemy with it and use the Honey to slow them down while the cripple is active, which makes it easy to finish them off.


Ability #4: Stinger
"This might sting a bit."

Ah Muzen Cab's Ultimate, which thankfully doesn't kill him immediately after use like a real bee stinger would. Ah Muzen Cab fires a stinger projectile in a thin line that deals huge damage and applies Bees! and a hefty cripple. If the enemy dies or the cripple wears off, the stinger will drop to the ground, which lets Ah Muzen Cab pick it back up to reduce its cooldown by 80%! You should level this whenever possible.

Tips for this ability:
- Make it count. You should do this with every Ultimate, sure, but landing a Stinger is huge for Ah Muzen Cab. Besides the huge damage and the cripple, you can get it again and use it in short order. Stinger has a whopping 90 second cooldown normally, so be sure to land it! That said...
- Retrieving your Stinger isn't the most important thing ever. While the reduced cooldown is insane, sometimes you just need to let it go. If your Stinger is dropped in the middle of three enemies or at a phoenix, just leave it alone. The longer cooldown is better than dying trying to get it.
- Watch for stuns, roots, and other things that make an enemy easy to hit. This is especially important in the mid game, before you've started team fighting. What's your first instinct if you get stunned and a fight suddenly turns into a 2v1? To run away and use your escape, right? Can't do that if you're crippled! If a teammate with hard CC ganks someone you're fighting, hit them with Stinger immediately and it's a free kill half the time or a forced relic/Ultimate the other half.
- Remember the Ultimate drops upon killing someone. If you see someone on low health in range and your Swarm is on cooldown (or you just want to show off), you can chance a Stinger because you'll be able to pick it up as soon as they die. Both Swarm and Stinger have a range of 70 units, but Stinger travels much faster and is more precise, which makes it a great kill securing tool. Just be sure you can land it!

Before we get into how our bee friend works at the different stages of the game, let's go over some combos you may find useful for him!

Combo #1:
Swarm -> Honey -> Auto Attacks

This is your basic combo that you'll be using a lot of the time when you fight someone. Hit them with Swarm, drop Honey on them to slow them down and make them take extra damage, then auto attack them repeatedly to finish them off and keep Bees! active. If this doesn't kill someone, it'll force a retreat more often than not. Obviously, this works much better if you're in the presence of a Hive. You can also use this for wave clear, but it uses a lot of mana and isn't really efficient that way unless Sylvanus is your partner.

Combo #2:
Hive -> Honey

Need to run? This is your best shot. Put down a Hive as far in front of you as possible and drop Honey directly beneath you without turning around. More often than not, your pursuing opponent will run right into it, which will apply the slow and, if they're in range of the Hive, will do some extra poke damage on top of that. This works better at later levels, as the slow increases later on - so be sure to play safe, so you don't have to use this that often!

Combo #3:
Stinger -> Honey -> Swarm -> Auto Attacks

Want someone dead, no questions asked? Use this combo - again, preferably with a Hive active. Nail your foe with Stinger, use Honey to slow them down while they're crippled, hit them with Swarm for good measure, and finish them off with your auto attacks. If you built something like, say, The Executioner, you can hit them with a few auto attacks first to reduce their protections and make the Stinger hurt so much more.

Ah Muzen Cab plays a little differently than other carries. Keep in mind your primary objective as an ADC is to farm, but due to unique tools like his Hive he can pull off some interesting things that other Hunters would normally struggle with or not be bothered to do. Any advice that applies universally (for example, place wards) will not be covered in this guide.

The Early Game
This is Ah Muzen Cab's worst stage by far. Most Hunters are lategame characters, sure, but Ah Muzen Cab stands out because he will be unable to hold his own against most duo lanes unless you play just right. Here are some tips to get through the early game hell.

- Play safe. A universal rule, but this should be emphasized. Ah Muzen Cab is more vulnerable than most due to his lack of escapes. If you're getting outpressured, don't play more aggressively; it's a fight you won't win. Just hug that tower!
- Put a Hive directly behind your tower. Unless you're in the uncommon situation where you can actually afford to be aggressive, as soon as you get Hive, dump one right behind your tower. It'll grant you some sustain and better wave clearing potential, making you very safe against your foes... usually.
- Use Honey for poke. This is the stage of the game before anyone really has any significant lifesteal online, so you can use Hive-buffed Honey to poke enemies and wear them down if they're really aggressive. You may not be able to kill them, but if your jungler's hanging around the area and can pull off an early gank while they're at half health...
- Know your support. Before your support starts rotating, if you want any opportunity to maintain even footing with your opponent, you need to know what your partner does. To be specific, Ah Muzen Cab greatly appreciates people with hard CC, and they can actually get him an early kill to make him have a much easier time keeping up. The Synergies section above covers three fantastic partners for him, but anyone with movement related CC is a great partner... which is pretty much all of them.

The Mid Game
Once you've bought your first few items (for me, this starts around when I complete Warrior Tabi or Asi), the game becomes much easier for Ah Muzen Cab, but you still need to be wary of what to do.

- Don't be afraid to fight. By this point, your support has likely left, and so has the enemy's, leaving you in a perpetual 1v1 against the other ADC. Your waveclear is also online by this point, and it's strong enough that you can start applying your own pressure. You shouldn't be too aggressive, of course, but you're at the point where you deal damage; make use of that! If you see an opportunity to land that Stinger, go for it. Just be mindful of where everyone else is so you don't get surprised by a gank.
- Call for assistance if needed. If you're behind and you have someone who can gank your lane with hard CC, ask for them. When they land their stun/root/what have you, hit them with your ultimate combo and they'll more than likely be dead. One kill may be all you need to catch up at this stage.
- Surprise your foes with rotations. This is one of the hardest parts of Ah Muzen Cab to get right. As mentioned in the abilities section, Hive plus the movement speed bonus from Leather Cowl make you better at rotating than other ADCs. Your first priority as a carry is farming, but if there's no wave or camps for you to take and you're not super far behind, you can consider rotating briefly to steal enemy farm, get a surprise gank on mid lane, or even just set up a Hive network around the jungle to make future rotations easier.

The Late Game
This is where Ah Muzen Cab is strongest. You'll be with your team most of the time by this point, so your lack of hard CC isn't so much of a problem anymore, and you're deadlier than ever. Use it to your advantage.

- Single out the squishies. This goes for any character, but it's worth noting anyway. Once someone engages, watch for an opportunity to hit a Stinger, whether that be a hard CC from an ally or just someone you can reliably hit, then shred them to bits! Don't be afraid of "wasting" the Stinger if someone else hits them with a strong attack immediately afterward - remember, it drops upon enemy death, which lets you use it again in no time.
- Split push. Assuming you bought Hunter's Cowl (which you SHOULD) your movement speed is huge when alone. This makes you a very good split pusher. If you see a safe opportunity, you can throw up a Hive, approach whatever you're trying to take, and mow it down in seconds, then regroup with your team with your speed.
- Keep your Stinger ready for backline dives. If someone tries to dive your backline with their Ultimate (e.g. Sun Wukong) and thinks they can get away with a movement ability, hit them with your Ultimate and they won't have a chance.
- Use your movement speed to your advantage. You might not have escapes, but by this point you're faster than ever, making it easy to juke foes. Dodging as Ah Muzen Cab is essential in this stage.

What good is a god without the right items? Ah Muzen Cab can build a variety of things and the options can feel a bit overwhelming for him, but I think I've settled on a good build. This build has won me games pretty consistently with him, and in the games I haven't won I've still performed pretty well. Note that all of these items are just suggestions; you can tinker with the order and situationals as you see fit. This is all just my personal preference.


Item #1: Hunter's Cowl

Leather Cowl is by far the best starting item for Ah Muzen Cab. It gives him everything he wants - movement speed and attack speed are always nice to have. The little bit of starting lifesteal helps too. For the upgrades, Hunter's Cowl is by far the superior one in this build, especially with Silverbranch Bow in the late game; the attack speed aura plus the attack speed already on the item makes him a deadly threat, especially with teammates like Erlang Shen, Bakasura, and what have you.


Item #2: Transcendence

This is a core item on Ah Muzen Cab that's too good to be passed up on any build; I would not substitute this for anything else. The stats on it are amazing for Ah Muzen Cab, giving him the mana he needs to use his abilities freely. It's not that hard to stack, too, clocking in at only 50 as opposed to the 70 of Devourer's Gauntlet. I always like to rush this - it is pretty expensive, requiring 2000 gold with the start listed, but it gives Ah Muzen Cab a power spike a lot sooner.


Item #3: Warrior Tabi

I know you're all thinking, "but Garch, why not Ninja Tabi? He's a Hunter!" Well, you'll get the attack speed you need elsewhere; the extra power is way better earlier. Not to mention, placed right, your Hive is pretty much a permanent stim. Trust me, this will serve you far better. If you really want, you can swap it out for Ninja Tabi, but I personally prefer this variant.


Item #4: Asi

Since you don't have Devourer's Gauntlet, you'll need some other form of significant lifesteal to keep up with your foes, and Asi does the job well. Not only does it give you plenty of lifesteal, especially at low health, but it gives you a bunch of other helpful stats that Ah Muzen Cab likes - power, attack speed, and penetration. What's not to love?


Item #5: Berserker's Shield

This may seem like a strange item, but Berserker's Shield got some tweaks recently that actually make it a great choice on a lot of Hunters. The power it gives is huge, it gives you just a little bit of physical bulk for boxing better, and its passive is a strong one that couples well with Asi. The percentage pen is nice, too. If you'd like to go even more bursty, a reasonable substitute for this is The Crusher, which makes your abilities hit harder and works well with Ah Muzen Cab.


Item #6: Dominance

This is a great item right now for hybrid hunters - which fits Ah Muzen Cab to a T. It gives even more mana, which works well with Transcendence's passive, gives even more power, and adds some more percent pen, including some onto your basic attacks! You could swap this out for Qin's Sais or The Executioner for similar purposes.


Item #7: Boots Replacement

This is honestly just up to personal preference. Any of the items covered before like Qin's Sais or The Executioner are good, so here's some minor information on the rest - if you don't have a preference, just go for Qin's Sais and call it good. Fail-Not, despite its nerfs, has some solid stats on it and some team support on top of that with marking an enemy. Mantle of Discord is the go-to choice if you keep getting targeted in fights; the stun can save your life. Odysseus' Bow synergizes extremely well with Bees! and gives a hefty burst of attack speed - though you'll usually want it a bit earlier in the build and it's tough to find a good item to replace it with. If you do build it earlier and/or have a Shogun's Kusari or a Fafnir on the team, you can consider Silverbranch Bow, which will give you a nice power spike while under a Hive.

That pretty much wraps it up for this guide to Ah Muzen Cab! If you have any further questions or feedback, please leave them in the comments! I'm always open to adjusting this guide appropriately and would appreciate the feedback, since this is my first guide.

Now get out there and bring the Swarm to your enemies!