Ra - The Bird Who Roasts YOU

Welcome to my guide on how to play The Master of Irony, The Vengeance of Thanksgiving Turkeys, The Ra!

Why Pick Ra?

Excellent question, let's take a looksie shall we?

Ra is considered to be a pusher/support/mage by many, and this has a degree of truth to it. However this role does not stop just because you are entering the mid/end game! It just evolves. Early game you push by one shotting the creep wave with your (1), late game you push by using both Celestial Beam and Pillar of Light to kill the creep wave and heal your own + your teammates, this combination will overwhelm the enemy, harassing them to low health while you keep your's topped off on health.

Pros
-Can push extremely well
-Can sustain both team members and ogre minions with pillar of light, outhealing phoenix even.
-Very mobile, with nearly constant 30% speed boost, and a powerful slow
-Light beam can hit twice or even 3 times in circumstances, HUGE damage

Cons
-Requires aiming and timing to hit with skills
-Squishy late game without defensive items
-Low spell coefficients compared to other mages
-One of the few mages without stuns

I'm going to treat you like a smart adult and assume you can read tooltips and see skills outside this guide, lets go into the simple tips and tricks

Celestial Beam
-HARD to hit with on it's own, my advice is to try and slow your enemy first with either the gem of isolation or your (2), also the closer you are generally the better.
-Despite closeness being good, you are much more likely to get 2 hits from this on the enemy if you hit them with it at around midway through it's path, or near the end.
-Goes through walls, jungle ain't stoppin this flaming turkey.

Divine Light
-Use this to stop enemies from running, making your other skills easier to land, or combined with your passive, kite a pesky melee champion humping your leg
-Requires you to be close to the enemy so best to avoid running into the middle of a teamfight or into any dangerous situation to try and get this off, you are not a suicide bomber.
-The blinding at the end of the effect will often trigger, as enemies don't consider it a threat, but the blindness lasts a good second or 2, if you are being chased by someone, use this timespace to juke them, turn around and start running another way, by the time they can see you again you will be out of their reach.

Solar Blessing
-Used for healing and for standing toe to toe with enemies, inside this pillar melee suffer greatly as you outheal their damage due to the debuff, while they die themselves.
-Good to get that slow with a gem of isolation on a runner, but be cautious of the cooldown in case you need it after.
-I recommend using it to heal minions attacking an enemy tower, but ONLY on the ogre minions, as it will more often than not keep an ogre immortal against a tower/phoenix damage due to them taking significantly less damage from towers, DO NOT use it to keep up simple normal minions, they will still get 1-2 shot by the tower.

Searing Light
- The skill used to cook enemies into a crispy snack
- Hard to aim due to the thin targetting range and the buildup charge, recommended to cast on either a stunned enemy, a vastly slowed enemy, or an enemy half way through returning to base thinking they are safe.
-Ranged autoattackers are also good targets, due to autoattacks slowing them by half, then moving to the side instead of forward slowing them by another good chunk, making it very hard to dodge if they are mid way through an attack

Ra's Rolex, 2/3 early game gives you 30 magic power and +15mp5, this great amount of mana regen will allow you to use your celestial beam every time it is off cooldown barely losing mana, because ra is a pusher you need to have the mana to keep your lane forced to your enemy tower. I have experimented with plenty of starting items and this is my favorite.

Also finishing this grants 20% CD reduction, knocking precious seconds off your long cooldowns to keep you active and speedy in fights and chases.


Doom orb, mana regen, max mana and a whopping +160 magic power when stacked to 60. Because you are the Sun Turkey of Death you will be one shotting minion waves ALL GAME, meaning even if you die once or twice, this item will still give you immense benefit and stack very quickly. The reason I get it after 2/3 chronos pendant but before 3/3 chronos pendant is because a full orb costs only 1900 gold, which you should have enough of by around level 6-8 depending on lane. And you will also be able to one shot a wave with celestial beam at this time, stacking it just as fast as if you got it first.
The only time I would NOT take this item is if you are already 0/3/0 in the first 10 minutes, this item hates you for buying it and you should feel ashamed


Ra = Mage Bird, These = Mage Boots. Derp
Although with Ra's weak spellpower coefficients on his spells, you could always go for reinforced boots if you want more tankiness and CC resist
The reason I only get 1/3 or 2/3 boots first and max them later is because ra is fast enough with his passive to outrun every enemy even with 3/3 boots with his passive stacked alone, put that money towards killing power first!


Even with the recent nerf to damage only, i still find this item a must on ra entering the late game, where slows are needed to catch enemies, successfully hit with your beams, and kite melee inside your own pillar of light, it also gives some survival with a health and mana boost.




Decisions decisions, rarely will you get to this point of a game, but if you have then a final item should be decided based on the enemy team,


-Problems with a fed physical? get.

-Constantly getting caught by frostbound hammer tanks and cant escape? Winged Wand + puri beads will keep you immune to slows for 4 seconds minimum.

-Enemy team stacking magic resist? Obsidian Shard or Void Stone work wonders depending on how much they have stacked.

The final item is up to your enemy setup, and how you should counter it.

FINAL WORD ON ITEM ORDER
Dont be a fool and wait until final item to buy void stone or obsidian shard if your enemy is heavily stacking magic resist (and I mean 3+ of them), you need to build to adapt, not blindly follow a build.

Common Sense dictates here, now that you only have 2 spaces. Purification Beads are a must vs gods like Artemis, Cupid, Anhur, Hades, Ymir, Ares, generally everyone...

Against a fed mage? Aegis!
Against hard CC and stuns? Beads!
Having mana issues? Meditation!
Want to initiate team fights by speeding up to your enemies? Heavenly agility!

I trust you will make sensible decisions with these 2 slots, and you should be getting them middish game, or even earlier. An early purification beads can completely shut down gods like hades, anubis, ymir and ares.

Just finished doom orb? level 8+?

Auto attack buff mob >>>>

You're welcome.

Simple enough, you want to overwhelm your enemy with your minions, just fire your Celestial Beam through all of them and autoattack if necessary, if you have no fear of being ganked by a jungler, then push and pressure their tower, it is what Ra excels at. If the enemy gets a little hasty in trying to kill you, simply slow him with (2) and/or stand in your pillar of light with him, if your minions outnumber his, chances are you will win the exchange.

Good laning with Ra includes pushing an enemy all the way to their tower, wearing it down little by little and denying the enemy their much loved gold, and Slowing attackers with (2) near to your minions so those little archers and romans beat the **** out of that fool daring enough to try and chase you through them.

Both of these paragraphs take effect in both a dual lane and the middle lane, Ra is in prime position in either of these scenarios.

Teamfights, the bane of most Ra players. The reason for this is because the majority of Ras I see cannot wait to use all their abilities ASAP to deal BIG NUMBAHS to the enemies.

I implore you, do NOT do this

Good Ras will assess the situation, and wait for a tactical time to use their beams.A good Ra:

-Uses his pillar on a grouped section of enemies AND allies, such as in a hades ult, where it will benefit the most people, it is NOT used for damaging that one Artemis standing on her lonesome. Your now tanned allies will silently acknowledge your help and love you for it.

-Saves his slowing (2) for when an enemy is focusing HIM, to kite the enemy and make him useless in the fight, or to stop a fleeing carry trying to save his skin.

-Darts around (BUT NOT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF) the teamfight, using his superior speed advantage to get close to enemies, hit them with a point blank beam hit, then backs off to plot his next move in the fight, he does not take potshots at max range with a slow moving beam.

-Saves his ulti for a prime position, such as a grouped bunch of enemies in a jungle path (Ra's wet dream) or to finish off a distant vital carry, he does NOT use it instantly on the enemy's ranged in hopes they will run away after being hit.

I will not lie, it is VERY rare to have a Ra carry a team, he is just not the best mage out there compared to the other gods, and is rarely seen in matches, seen played well is even more rare. At the end of matches I have carried with Ra, I hear this from players of both sides in the lobby, good Ras who can carry are few and far between.

But the satisfaction that will come from owning with a Ra more than an Artemis is something in itself, after all...

The greater the challenge, the greater the victory!


Thanks for reading beautiful people!