Mr. Castle's Achilles Jungle Build

A little bit about Achilles Jungle Viability

(for people who dont know Achilles or want to know about his viability in the jungle)

So Achilles, my favorite god right now, is a god that is very simple in his kit but also has potential for a high skill ceiling. Through practice of AA cancels, proper positioning and team fighting, Achilles can become a seriously deadly god on the field of battle. Let me just walk through his kit for the people who don't know about Achilles.

Achilles' first ability is a large cone of damage that up close stuns a target, and the damage radiates to targets in the cone. This ability deals a ton of burst damage and at max level deals 320 damage + 90% scaling. This is just insane scaling for a warrior, the only warrior to trump this damage is Hercules on his first ability but that one is much harder to hit.

Achilles' second ability might be what is the most insane self buff in the entire game. When Active, you gain a % increase in your protections and power, and if you use abilities it heals you. What might be the most insane about this ability is how it flat out offers 20% CCR, on top of everything else. I mean, this is like a Hero's axe mixed in with a protector of the jungle. It gives you sustain, added power and protections and CCR so you are less affected by stuns and taunts; What more could you ask for as a player diving the enemy backline?

Achilles' third ability is a directional dash that also follows up with a small burst of damage, and has two charges on the condition you hit the first charge on an enemy god. This ability offers amazing mobility and damage, allowing you to sidestep certain ability and act as a parry of damage. With great positioning, timing and reaction rate, you can dodge almost any ability from any god. This ability also offers insane chase potential as it allows you to keep up with enemies, even if they have dashes or leaps. A short dash can make a world of a difference if it can help you close the distance on the player you are trying to chase, especially if you can do it twice.

And for what I believe to be one of the most absurdly busted abilities in the game, on top of everything Achilles already has, is an ult that not only deals a TON of base damage + 100% in scaling, but ALSO has the potential to execute enemies below 30% health. And that isn't the most ridiculous part of this ability, YOU CAN RESET THIS EXECUTE UP TO 5 TIMES. Meaning, given the opportunity, you can full out execute the entire enemy team in a conquest match, with the only consequence being you take 5% more damage the more you execute. Imagine if Ao Kuang or Thanatos executes were reusable if an enemy was executed on hit, then give it to a warrior. This ability is absurd, and is perfect for someone looking to dive the backline and take them out. This is very possible from the solo lane but the damage isn't as present as what you could achieve from the jungle.

The last little tidbit about Achilles is his passive, where you can choose to gain protections and health, or power and movement speed. And I call this the tidbit of his kit even though this is also one of the most broken passives in the game. You can either have Fafnir passive or Sun Wukong passive, and even those two passives don't cover the extra movement speed or health Achilles can gain. Achilles' protection passive is like a shifters shield that is active all the time, and you can choose which you want instead of it being on a condition of your HP.

If I haven't yet convinced you about Achilles' Jungle Viability then I hope that these builds will give you a better experience of trying to play him in the Jungle. I have seen a lot of success with him from the jungle in my Plat 2+ games and the build has consistently proven to be reliable.

I have tested many items to finally arrive at this build I present to you, tried different items in each slot to see what best fits Achilles, and feel that this build is one that makes up for power loss in the defense items it has and manages to keep you relevant and active throughout the game. This build is exactly chronologized, meaning it will have you moving at the right times of power spikes for Achilles.

Early game will mostly consist of farming, getting to level 8-12 and working towards half stacking or fully stacking your transcendence for the power spike. Around early to mid game is where you start roaming, gaining gold to earn your hide of Urchin and stack that. You might or might not immediately finish stacking this item, but this is perfectly fine, your best game is late game where your stacks will come very quickly. It is very easy to gain a lead after a stacked transcendence and buying hide of urchin since around this time you gain your second active and fully level your 1 and 3, allowing maximum base damage from your abilities. Stay active in team fights and start doing objectives with your group. You as Achilles can zone really well but make sure to not fall for any bait, and always keep your ultimate as a quick escape in a bad situation. Late game is where those AA cancels will really come into play, as you gain double sustain, first from hitting abilities with your two active and second from hitting autos in between abilities. You can gain your full health back from creeps with the combo. Before diving the back line, make sure your hide of urchin shield is stacked, and you buy upgraded blink as both will help mitigate any initial burst damage you take, and from there on when you dive hit your abilities and basics and the back line will be gone within seconds.

From here on ill be going into various starts and build variations, hope you gain something from these as it helps for not only your achilles play but other gods as well.

Start One

This start is for a player that might not be comfortable with aggression in the early game, especially in the first mid 2v2. You will start with bumbas dagger, tier 1 boots, 2 health potions and a hand of the gods. Your clear will not suffer initially that much, but you will need to work harder to get full boots than your enemy jungler which limits your options for early oracle and mid-harp clear. This is still possible if you and your mid establish an early lead by first blooding (and this is super possible with an aggressive chase god like Achilles).

The relic/active choice is entirely up to what you are feeling or what the comp you are going against is like. My recommendations are first getting beads since early game can be sketchy for an Achilles and then going to a blink at level 12.

Start Two

This start is for players who are comfortable with early aggression and better early clear and power. This is the classic bumbas dagger tier two boots start. This start, which works for almost all junglers, is very fast to get a power boost, as you can get warrior tabi right after the mid 2v2. But this start also requires that you are much more careful with the mid 2v2 as you'll have no sustain. Leveling the 2 at level 3 here is acceptable, and you make for the damage loss from leveling your damaging abilities with full boots.

Full Build Ver. 1

NOTE: With this build you will not be activating achilles passive (meaning armor stays off for the full duration of the game to mitigate power loss from defense items in this build).

There are 8 items here as you will sell boots for dominance, heartseeker, or spectral.

This is the main build. This build works off an emphasis on power conversion from mana as Achilles throughout the game suffers from mana problems (when in extended fights and being active around the map ganking lane to lane). With this build, it is very, very easy to gain a lead and stack your items quickly, and creates the necessity for you to be active around the map rather than just farming. Achilles' kit is perfect for chase and back line destroying, and this build will help you to delete back lines in one full combo of abilities and AA cancels. If you notice in this build, each of these items have mana stats on them, which altogether contribute towards the transcendence passive. At the end of this build, Achilles will have approx. 3055 mana, contributing 91.65 power on top of the 35 power that transcendence already provides, making it a singular item* (in combination with other items) that gives you a total of 126.65 PHYSICAL power. Emphasis on physical since this power rivals the amount of power that some of the highest magical power items offer. This amount of power will provide a ton of burst damage on your abilities and basic attack cancels.

Variation 2 dives into building spectral armor as your 5th, 6th, or sell boots item. Crit has become a large part of the season 8 meta and to make sure that we can properly dive the backline without getting deleted, we need to drop some power to pick up a spectral armor. Now keep in mind this is not at all a bad thing, thanks to this build you will still gain power from building spectral armor. Spectral comes in clutch by giving you an extra 300 mana in compensation for power loss, but this is worth it in the long run as power is worth nothing if you can't stay alive long enough to apply it. Here you will sell boots for heart seeker or dominance, that choice should be based on enemy mobility; Does the enemy backline have a ton of mobility or next to none at all? If they have mobility pick up heart seeker as your ability damage will make up for missed AA cancels. If they do not have mobility pick up dominance as you will gain tons of value from your basic attacks. Achilles' basics hit as hard, and sometimes even harder than his abilities, so dominance will be a good item when you have gained its value properly.

S8 Pre-Crit Pre-Hybrid Nerf Full Build

I will keep this one short as this build is no longer useful in this meta. Since bumbas and hybrid items have been nerfed this build no longer provides full CDR, but still provides tons of damage and sustainability. Ancile is still a good item to build since it is good into mages that require a full combo to get their damage off (and need to be close to do it: ex. Anubis, Zhong Kui, etc.) Shifters is still a great item, but I do not use it as I find the other two builds to be more reliable in sustain. Shifters is active on a condition where hide is always active and I can go without armor when I wear hide where I needed armor with shifters. This is an effect that is only seen the more you play Achilles and test these builds.

Achilles Solo Build

Now this Solo build is time tested to be super reliable, make you super tanky and allows you to dive the backline and create chaos without issues. This build offers capped CDR (which can be overcapped to 60% with upgraded blue buff) and capped MP5 so that you will not run out mana. Keep in mind that there are TON of options for sololaners in their builds, but this has proven to be very good. You can fit an Ancile, Caduceus Shield, Runic Shield against heavy magical power and a shifters for general power increases. You can also get away with building some anti healing like a tainted breastplate or brawlers beat stick. Achilles in the solo lane suffers against pretty much every god in the early to mid game, as it is not his clear that presents an issue (thanks to bluestone) but his ability to box early game on top of clearing wave. Gods like King Arthur, Tyr, Osiris, Chaac have a wide range of abilties and/or relatively low cooldowns, so it is hard for Achilles to properly box them. There is also the early level 2 gank ( which I am strongly against as a jungle main ) which you have to be careful about. As Achilles, you should start at your blue buff and set up an early ward to see level 2 gank after clearing first wave, then have patience for the first 6 levels, after the first two completed items you will have a better chance to box your oponenent.

Hope you found this guide useful, please rate and test it out for yourselves! Give me suggestions and feedback!