Starter
Lost Artifact gives you lots of mana sustain and some power which allows you to use
Siphon Darkness to force the other mid laner out of lane and can later be upgraded to
Chronos' Pendant. Alternatively,
Tiny Trinket doesn't give you the same mp5, but gives you lifesteal for sustain.
Vampiric Shroud is my go to starter item for most mages. I personally like the early game stat boosts it provides that help me put the other solo laner under tower, but if you're confident in your early game you can start building your other items immediately.
Active 1
sprint
Sprint is always my starter active with Nox because as well as providing some escape functionality it also allows you to get to lane faster. I prefer to upgrade to
Heavenly Agility since
Nox cannot take advantage of
Greater Sprint's passive and because
Heavenly Agility benefits the whole team.
Movement
Shoes of the Magi are my preferred pick on
Nox since provide great early stats with their bonus power, penetration and mana. This helps keep both the early game pressure on. However if you're more focused on late game,
Shoes of Focus' 15% CDR has a bigger impact late game.
Stacking/Power
ALTERNATIVE
Book of Thoth allows you to build an insane amount of mana to help you use your abilities consistently as well as a huge base of power that is granted rather instantly. This will allow you to more easily one shot enemies with your combo + ultimate and give you a longer time out of base with its mana. I prefer to build this 2nd or 3rd item so that I can stack it during the laning phase.
Warlock's Sash
Warlock's Sash is my other personal choice for this build because
Nox can quickly fill up its stacks compared to most mages and because it provides an immense amount of power and health which
Nox needs greatly in order to both have sustain in her lane and to poke effectively.
ALTERNATIVE
Stacking items are powerful, but can put you behind your opponent both in power and utility during the early game. If you're struggling early you may want to skip buying a stacking item and move on with your build. If this is the case,
Soul Reaver can make an excellent replacement as your 6th item, providing solid power as well as a strong late-game passive.
Cooldown Reduction
Providing both power and CDR, the
Chronos' Pendant is perfect for allowing Nox to pester the enemy with
Siphon Darkness and
Shadow Lock as fast as possible. This will greatly enhance your ability to dominate the lane for a relatively cheap price. If behind, it may be preferable to grab this before your stacking item.
ALTERNATIVE
Breastplate of Valor is an excellent item to give additional CDR as well as shut down ganks by assassins. Unless ganks are a real problem, this item isn't really necessary and will cripple your attack power to a degree.
ALTERNATIVE
Void Stone is a vastly underrated item that gives you a huge advantage against the other mid laner. If you're having difficulty in lane against the opposing mid laner,
Void Stone will give you a quick one-up on them, either securing victory for you during the laning phase or at least allowing you to compete if you're really behind.
Penetration
Spear of the Magus is my preferred penetration on
Nox. Her
Shadow Lock will chip at enemies health activating
Spear of the Magus' passive until her
Siphon Darkness activates giving you a huge penetration bonus for your combo.
Night Terror can also utilize
Spear of the Magus' passive with its tick damage as well, making this a very good pick for
Nox.
Health or Lifesteal
Gem of Isolation is an interesting pick on
Nox that gives you a nice alternative way to lock enemies into your
Siphon Darkness by damaging them with your 3 or your ult, as well as giving you a lot more control, utility and survivability on
Nox. As of late, I've found it more influential than lifesteal late game, albeit lifesteal helps more if you're having long drawn out fights.
ALTERNATIVE
Relatively inexpensive, massively powerful and providing ample lifesteal,
Bancroft's Talon will give you better sustain and damage in teamfights in a simple, cost effective package.
ALTERNATIVE
Healers got you down? If you're laning against a
Ra or
Hel, you might want to consider reordering this build and grabbing
Divine Ruin early. It's definitively the best way to counter healers as a mage and is very cost effective to boot.
ALTERNATIVE
If you have a lot of mages on your team and you need additional CDR since you decided not to buy either
Shoes of Focus or
Chronos' Pendant,
Pythagorem's Piece is a niche item that can help you out. Not only does it provide a nice benefit to teammates but it provides substantial power, CDR and lifesteal for yourself as well.
Power
Rod of Tahuti is a massive power buff, but it is expensive. However, waiting to buy this as your last item is a waste. Games will often finish before you've even gotten to complete your 6th item, and bringing
Rod of Tahuti online a bit earlier just gives you too much of an advantage to ignore.
Second Actives
Purification Beads are by far my preferred active on
Nox. They'll allow you to escape most situations when paired with
Shadow Step and sprint and are by far the most reliable second active choice for survivability.
ALTERNATIVE[/color]
The
Aegis Pendant or
Greater Aegis is my preferred active for Nox if I am countering sustained basic attack users, or if I'm having trouble against quick nukers like
Anubis or
Poseidon. Often however, this item is best when paired with
Greater Purification rather than
Greater Sprint since you will typically need to remove CC prior to using this active.
ALTERNATIVE
Combat Blink can be an effective escape, but sprint is better for returning to lane and it has a massive cooldown time. Only use situationally.
Warlock's Staff
Y
skills
Flame of the Night
Polynomicon
Winged Blade
Sun Wukong
Ares
Hades
Thanks for pointing it out the silly mistakes I make though, they must be eradicated! <3
Anyway, problems that I found on the guide :
At your level-up abilities, you can't get
... and, not surprisingly, that's about it. If this guide still doesn't have a +1 from me, now it has !
This is a great
Have you considered getting
I didn't actually know about that change, thanks for pointing it out!. I think that's actually smart,
Have you considered getting
Pleasing to the eye
Accurate and well delivered information.
Great guide! I'll be looking at this when I play nox
Thanks! This is probably my most aesthetically pleasing guide. I can't say I'd recommend
Accurate and well delivered information.
Great guide! I'll be looking at this when I play nox
Heya again, thought I'd come out and check out another one of your guides and I have to say this is probably the best of the bunch. Good info, most of the build makes sense and the gameplay sections are pretty good as well, however I do have a thing or two to complain about the build.
The first part being
Not much else to mention really, I mean you could also talk about building a stacking item early in the place of another item such as
Otherwise a solid guide, gets a +1 from me
Thanks for the feedback, this was my first build so it is a bit less developed than some of my newer ones. I will add some other forms of protection (eg Magi's Blessing) to replace
However, if you think that you will be or want to be the main source of magical power on your team, you should definitely think of building Warlock's Sash early to use that for the health and huge magical power it provides, or
Will make sure to update the guide with these new items and ideas.
The first part being
Not much else to mention really, I mean you could also talk about building a stacking item early in the place of another item such as
Otherwise a solid guide, gets a +1 from me
Thanks! After playing her for a few matches, I thought it would be nice to put up a guide, as most people don't seem to know how to approach her. Using this build, I typically go positive with her, simply because her early game push is so strong.
Yeah, I learned that trick from a Scylla guide for her
Thanks! Your guide was great too, being that it addressed joust and arena more, I thought I'd put up a conquest oriented guide ^^