Ratatoskr Arena [4.15 Patch]

Introduction

Since new patch update (4.15), Arena gold spooling has been increased from 8 to 10, which permit more complex and more costly builds to be viable. Also, Heartseeker has been buffed and its cost reduced. Thus, Rat becomes better than ever in Arena (he has never been the greatest assassin in this game mode for obvious reasons but now he can be decent in my opinion).

With some trial and error and some tweaking, I came with this build.

Items

Early Adventurer's Blade / Winged Blade provides cheap health and movement speed, which is a most on Rat since he's so squishy. Winged Blade is often overlooked, but think about it ; the 300 health it provides for such a cheap price makes it an excellent defensive item. Also, on full Acorn of Yggdrasil, you get 20% movement speed instead of 18% that other gods get from boots. Thus, idealize that with many movement speed items will provide a total of 40% movement speed in early-mid game (once Heartseeker is completed) allowing good escape for Rat. This is important to keep you alive early and it is why I choose Winged Blade instead of any other health or early defense item, for the cheap cost and movement speed. Also, once Winged Blade is completed, you also get attack speed that helps stacking Heartseeker.

Once completed, provides some heal when you successfully hit any targets with an ability. It actually can save you sometimes and it's great.

By the way, it doesn't proc Shield of Regrowth though (which is logic, because it's the passive of the item that provides heal and not the ability itself. If it would proc it, Shield of Regrowth would have been a core item for Rat. Anyway, it is build sometimes in Conquest though for the health, HP5 and cooldown (though Mail of Renewal would make more sense in my opinion). Any comments about that are welcomed and would be appreciated).

This item has always been a standard and probably one of the greatest early game item you can build on Rat. And it has been buffed recently so, there isn't no point not building it ; simply, it's just a must. Be sure though to stack it with auto-attacks on minions before engaging combat to use it properly.

Physical power, penetration, mana but most importantly cooldown. A great core item for this build.

In some scenarios, you could dismiss it and build Spirit Robe and Mantle of Discord to provide equivalent cooldown for much more defense and then build Brawler's Beatstick or Titan's Bane for the penetration, though that would be a completely different build. I tried it a few times, early defense on Rat is good in Arena if you're not used to play him and want to just have fun and mess around. It's not that bad actually but doesn't come close to this build here. So, it's for you to try if you want.

A very good defense item that is sometimes underestimated. The 10% cooldown and the 15% damage mitigation passive (available to proc every 15s, which is very good) makes it the perfect defense item for this build. It's also 400 gold cheaper than Mantle of Discord and because Mantle of Discord can only proc every 90s for a passive that has very limited utility (it's only a 20 units stun radius, so useless a lot of the times), Spirit Robe is simply far better in my opinion.

The Crusher is a good core item here. The passive works well with Rat's passive (in order to decreasing cooldown on Dart) and thus, it's a must in every Rat builds. It's a little plus with the good stats and all.

Sell Heartseeker for Stone Cutting Sword late game for more power and penetration without you loosing any movement speed. You don't get the Heartseeker passive anymore but it's not a problem at all, at that point in the game that passive wouldn't help you secure kills like it does in early game. So the better stats and penetration of Stone Cutting Sword is the way to go.

At last, sell Winged Blade for Masamune. Again, as for Heartseeker, Winged Blade is not needed anymore and Masamune is just better than Winged Blade at that point. Again, you don't loose any movement speed (which is, I repeat, very important). You do get only 100 hp instead of 300, but the power and defense provided with its passive makes it better at that point than Winged Blade, obviously, and it's the way to go. Also the Winged Blade passive in very late game won't be really needed.

Play style

There are few minor build variations possible but as explained earlier, Spirit Robe is definitively my choice instead of Mantle of Discord even though you might prefer the later and that's alright. Try different things and have some fun.

So, with Rat you want to idealize his passive to reduce Dart's cooldown (that's why you put a point also in 2 at game start). I max Acorn Blast first because if three acorns hits, it does more damage than Dart. But, slow scales on Dart so you obviously max it second.

The idea with Rat is that you engage with Dart on a lonesome enemy God, slowing him, than at very close range you throw your Acorns to stun him. Some auto-attacks and Flurry, some auto-attacks. Then you either secure the kill with Dart again if needed or escape with it if you can't secure it and enemies are coming to help their teammate. Be sure to have Heartseeker stacks if possible before engaging so that your first Dart or your Acorn does 100% more physical power damage to the target. Other way to get kills is with him ultimate of course, for some low health enemy God trying to get back to their fountain, or to engage in your teammates Hard CC ultimates and secure kills.

Rat auto-attack progression goes like this : 1/0.5/0.5/1.5 AoE

So there is a way to maximize your damage with some auto attacks cancelling. For example, if Heartseeker has 2 stacks and you're at the beginning of your AA progression, you do 3 AA on minions before Dart on a enemy God (Heartseeker procs) and you AA once (Dart doesn't cancel auto-attack progression), thus providing 1.5 dmg there. After that, 1 AA, than Acorn Blast, than 1 AA, than Flurry, than 1 AA, than Dart again :

3AA + 1 + 1AA + 3 + 1AA + 2 + 1AA + 1

There are other combos possible, of course, has Dart doesn't cancel it, so you could do :

3 + 3AA + 1 + 1AA + 2 + 1AA

To maximize your AA damage from progression. Watch some YouTube videos about AA cancelling and learn about it if you want. Most of the times though I most admit I don't really care about AA cancelling that much, especially since I'm designing this build for Arena, it's just to have fun playing the game without going in details and further technicalities of the game. If you're going for the try hard mode or Ranked playing, it's a good idea to practice AA cancelling on your favorite gods.

Conclusion

Hope you like this build and short guide. Let me know what you think in comments and don't hesitate to critic it, make suggestions, share your thoughts about all that. We must help keeping the Smite community alive and wealthy. And of course I don't pretend to be a good smite player at all, I enjoy Arena because it's fast and provides good practice for many Gods I don't usually play and all, but don't worry I play all modes of the game of course ;). Be kind with other players and have fun y'all.

By the way, I really enjoy designing builds for Arena because there's a lot of space for experiments and theoretical building and obviously some items can shine more than they usually would. Please go see my other builds and let me know what you think guys. Thanks for reading !