Rama, Lord of Virtue (3.23 Update)

December 8, 2016: Guide Published
December 9, 2016: Aesthetic changes, added Wind Demon

Rama is one of the best hunters in Smite. His combination of moves allow him to clear efficiently and move throughout the Jungle swiftly and safely. The combination of a strong lane clear, a buff for basic attacks, a roll for chasing/escaping, and a semi-global ultimate to confirm kills, makes for an incredibly solid and reliable ADC. While Rama's ultimate requires a decent amount of skill to execute effectively, his basic kit is generally more than enough to annihilate an enemy god.

The way a hunter is designed, especially in Conquest, is to be an entity that farms lane for roughly a quarter to a third of the game, and then, with sufficient power and attack speed, the ADC becomes a threat that can dominate towers, lanes, and players if given the chance, making them truly an Attack Damage Carry. With the items above, an ADC is more able to compliment their early game inferiority, and exponentially grow more powerful over time.

So when playing a hunter, keep in mind that they were not designed to control the early game, but rather the late. With Rama, and proper execution, the late game is very surely yours.

Standard Build

Warrior Tabi
All hunters need a form of movement speed to allow them to keep up with the flow of the game. If you are behind, it is possible to pick up Ninja Tabi instead of Warrior Tabi, mostly because it costs less, and on Rama, both work with equal strength.

Devourer's Gauntlet
As with boots, it is advised to build life-steal items on a hunter. If you are lane-based in the early game, it is advised to build a stacking life-steal item, as you will be in the lane anyway, and there is no deficit to building stacks. If you are more inclined to build towards Penetration, you can substitute Devourer's Gauntlet for Asi.

Ichaival
Hunters deal most of their damage through basic attacks. In order to maximize damage, it is beneficial to build an attack speed item. Ichaival is cheap, powerful, and perfect for hunters who choose to pursue Crit Chance, Penetration, and hybrid builds. In the late game, Ichaival falls off. If you choose, you can trade this item for another attack speed item of greater cost. The main point of building Ichaival is to slingshot an ADC into building crit or pen, but also keeping them afloat in the process.

The Executioner
The Executioner yields attack speed and power, which are key components in the eyes of a hunter. The Executioner also gives a character the ability to strip protections, which can prove beneficial when facing off against Solo, Support, or even tank-based Jungle builds. The Executioner gives Rama, or any hunter, an edge on defensive characters, allowing them to further pursue the goal of late game domination.

Critical Strike Chance

Deathbringer
Deathbringer is one of the best crit items in the game. It gives an enormous amount of power, and combined with attack speed, can increase critical strike chance by a margin of 20%, and critical damage by 40%.

Rage
Rage yields 30 power and 20% critical strike chance. If you combine Rama's second ability (Pick Me Up) with the passive on Rage, you are left with an enormous crit chance as well as the base attack speed buff from activating the move.

Wind Demon
Wind Demon gives a player 40 power and a 20% Critical Strike Chance. This item has a passive which gives the player an attack speed buff every time they crit, and it also grants a movement speed buff for 5 seconds. Wind Demon is good for characters who do not have attack speed buffs like Ullr and Rama. It is a matter of personal preference, but building Wind Demon on gods with this buff is essentially over-capping. I recommend building the other crit items listed above for Rama so you can maximize your damage output.

Penetration

Titan's Bane
If you choose to pursue the Penetration path, say you are losing regions of the map due to heavily defensive characters; you can always build Titan's Bane. This item yields power and a 33% Penetration buff to help shred armored gods.

Qin's Sais
Qin's Sais gives an ADC power, attack speed, and its passive gives an ability the bonus of stripping 4% of a god's health, proportional to their maximum health. This item is good if you want attack speed, power, and penetration in the form of health percentage reduction.

Ability I: Astral Strike

Astral Strike is Rama's main form of lane clear. It is important to constantly generate his passive, while also conserving mana (luckily each arrow only takes 20 mana). If faced with a 1v1 situation, it can be beneficial to use Astral Strike once to slow the god, but if used more than once, you begin to compensate damage for a slow that stacks. The slow only stacks three times max, so using 4+ arrows is really only detrimental to the player.

Ability II: Pick Me Up

If you look at the level order I put on Rama's moves, you will notice that Pick Me Up is not focused on until the later portion of the game. This ability grants attack speed, and an increased percent chance for receiving an Astral Strike drop. This move should be saved for shredding objectives such as Fire Giant and Gold Fury, and for fighting enemy gods.

Ability III: Rolling Assault

This ability can be a game changer. If Rama is in trouble, it allows for an easy and unpredictable escape, as it can be actuated in any compass direction. If Rama has one or more charges in his passive, he will use one of his arrows from Astral Strike that cripples gods, if he shoots within 5 seconds of rolling. This can secure damage on an enemy god by preventing them from using escape-style abilities. When shooting the crippling arrow, Rama incurs no movement penalty, allowing him to catch up to his target. Rolling Assault also grants bonus damage if one of the arrows of Astral Strike can be drawn from Rama's passive.

Ability IV: Astral Barrage

If you are good at hitting your shots with Astral Barrage, you are a force to be reckoned with. Successive shots increase damage from 50% to 75% to 100%. The secret to hitting Rama's ultimate is to shoot all three shots quickly, but not blindly. After the first shot from Astral Barrage hits, unaware enemies become wary of Rama's shots almost immediately. Your probability of killing a god with Rama's ultimate increases drastically if the enemy has little time to react. Try, after hitting your first shot, to predict where the enemy will run next and fire two rapid shots in close proximity. If you are accurate, you are likely to hit 2-3 shots per ultimate, which can deal 1000+ damage in the late game.

Pros

- High Mobility
- Good kill secure potential
- Good mid - late game clear
- Good boxing potential
- Devastating Crit Chance with Pick Me Up
- Fast cooldown on Rolling Assault

Cons

- Can set up enemy abilities while in ultimate (due to the star below his position)
- Weaker early game clear
- If his escape is burned, Rama can be caught out easily