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Death's Toll
Heartseeker
Ninja Tabi
Jotunn's Wrath
Magi's Cloak
Titan's Bane
Witchblade
Death's Toll
Warrior Tabi
Jotunn's Wrath
Qin's Sais
Magi's Cloak
Witchblade
Titan's Bane
Fist of the Gods
Aegis Amulet (Old)
Purification Beads (Old)
Heavenly Wings
Hide of the Urchin
Voidblade
Devourer's Gauntlet
Y
B
A
X
Hello and welcome to my Guide for 
Thanatos Hand of Death.
Thanatos is a magnificent Jungler with high damage potential and a constant threat to every lane. He may also be played in Solo/Mid but competitively you only see him in the jungle.
I occasionaly play Thanatos in the Jungle but mainly I created this guide because a friend of mine asked me to do one so this one's for you Necidia. Still I have an overall solid knowledge of the game and can provide you with info's you may not have had and help you in being a better Thanatos player.
Be aware: This is no Guide for Jungling, but for a Jungler! If you are looking for an In-Depth Guide for Jungling you will find enough of those here on Smitefire.com.
"Mine will be the last Guide, you'll ever see!" - Thanatos
Items
I have created two possibilities for Jungling with Thanatos which differ in damage output and tankiness. The first is focusing on damage and requires patience and care to be successful. The Standard Jungler keeps a balance between damage and protection and you will be able to stay in fights longer but do significantly less damage.
In the following I will explain the Items; but not twice for each build.
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I know usually Jungler's start with  Bumba's Mask, nonetheless on Thanatos you will be better off with Death's Toll simply because your Passive  Harvester of Souls will provide you with enough sustain in the Jungle and you will also gain more damage with Death's Toll. So please if you're jungling with Thanatos Get Death's Toll!
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I would reccommend to get the Ninja Tabi instead of Warrior Tabi because the cooldown reductions you get from it are usefull in spamming you Nuke Death Scythe and the rest of your Abilities. This is crucial because your main damage comes from your Abilities not your basic attacks. And also being able to use your ultimate as often as possible is brilliant for getting kills and therefore Health. But if you won't get that much Penetration in the Rest of your Build you will want to buy the Warrior Tabi to be able to touch the tankier Gods.
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Heartseeker is an Item which at the start will set you behind in damage a little bit but as soon as you get close to the 50 Stacks you will be very strong and have a ton more damage output. Another option instead of Heartseeker are the Devourer's Gloves which will also get you Lifesteal and permanent Stacks, so you don't have to farm these Stacks back up again after every death.
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The Cooldowns this item provides you with are precious for the same reason why I reccommended the Ninja Tabi and after getting Jotunn's Wrath you will have enough CD-Reduction throughout the game.
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| Magi's Blessing |
You may have noticed that Thanatos isn't on of the Gods who can take a lot of damage but it is a fear of every Thanatos Jungler to get CC'd (stunned, slowed etc.) in the midst of a fight. And you will most likely die if that happens. So getting Magi's Blessing will give you low protections but giving you the Bubble through it's passive to stay alive and be CC-Immune for the first CC-ing ability that hits you, giving you a chance to flee the scene.
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Now you will need Penetration to keep up the high damage you do against the protections your enemies will have most likely bought against you. To do that Titan's Bane is a good method because it gives you exactly this and more damage. If you're looking for Penetration and some Physical Protection yourself you can exchange this item with the optional Focused Voidblade.
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| Witch Stone |
For last item you will need some protections yourself, since Thanatos falls off a bit in late game. Now this is a bit tricky and you don't want to buy Witch Stone against a magical based enemy team for example.But if the enemy carries are physical damage based and deal their damage through basic attack Witch Stone is the perfect choice because it gives you physical protections yet it also reduced the opponents attack speed in an aura around you and reduce their damage output by a lot. If you're looking for more protections tho, you might also get the second optional Item Hide of the Urchin, because (even without the stacks) it is the best protection Item in the game giving you both kinds of protections.
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If you are looking for some more Basic Attack damage you will want to buy Qin's Sais. But keep in mind that you do more damage the less Health your Opponent's have so you will want to get in the teamfight late and deal a devastating amount of damage to everyone. The passive applies only on your Basic Attacks tho.
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Mandatory for every Jungler to keep up the early Camp clear and for the additional Stun. Get this every game you are Jungling. |
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If your enemies have a high burst damage focused team. |
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If the enemy team has high CC output and you can't dogde it easily. Very viable option for Thanatos since he is really weak if it gets to getting focused. |
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If you think the Magi's Blessing Passive is enough to shield you from most of the stuns but you are getting slowed a lot by  Nemesis for example.
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Ability Description
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Passive: Your Passive Harvester of Souls grants you Healing when you kill enemy minions or Gods so that you will have lifesteal in the early stages of the game and you won't need anymore for the rest of it. Also you might consider, despite being low health dealing the killing strike to enemies to get back some health and the kill.Ability 1: Your first ability with Thanatos is the Death Scythe. It is a strong single target Nuke that, if you hit it gives you 10% of the enemies maximum health, dealing a high amount of damage and also slowing the enemy down to be able to chase him down or safely getting some health back.Ability 2: The Scent of Death speeds you up, makes you immune to slows and gives you penetration. It therefore is an ability you want to use just before you engage in a fight, chasing an enemy or escaping slowing abilities.Ability 3: The Soul Reap is a cone ability that does a decent amount of damage while also silencing your enemies. You will want to pick this ability first due to the cone damage and minion clearing potential. If you are fighting enemies you will want to silence them before they jump out of your range or to strip mage's like  Ra from their damage potential against you to finish them off.Ultimate: Hovering Death is an execute. This ability enables you to instantly kill an enemy. Although no hard to hit ability you will have to use it with care and do not underestimate the difficulty to hit a target. If you miss your ultimate you will most likely end up dying, because it just consumed 10% of your health. Also keep in mind that your opponents will try to avoid getting hit by using their escaping abilites so you want to wait for them to activate those and kill them after. It is also a good Ability to Gank an opponent that is fighting one of your teammates on his own. You will stun him and you and your teammate can then quickly burst him down.
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Pros
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+ High Burst Damage + High Sustain through Passive + Natural Lifesteal in Abilites + Good Escape/Chasing through Ultimate |
Thanatos is a high burst get-in-get-out based god that doesn't stay long in fights and tries to put down enemies standing on their own. He can quickly Burst enemies down and get out again, or target the next victim that is on his own, because you get much health from a kill. You can also get free kills if your teammates damage enemies drastically but can't finish them off. You can just fly in with your ultimate and finish the job.
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Cons
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+ Very Squishy + Prone to Crowd Control + Damages himself by using Abilities + Reliant on a succesful hit from Death Scythe and Hovering Death |
The Problems while playing Thanatos are that if you can't burst down enemies quickly you will have a hard time trying to survive until your abilites come off Cooldown again. Also if you get caught out in a teamfight by some sort of Stun you will get focused and end up dead in 9/10 Scenarios. Also if you keep missing your abilites you will rip yourself the chance from helping engaging in a teamfight by damaging yourself. It is not much but can cost you your life.
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Early Game
Always start with your Solo Laner.
When the Solo Lane is on the left side of the map you will start at your Speed Buff use your [Hand of the Gods] and take that Buff, then help him take the Blue Buff and proceed by going into the lane with him and maybe contest the enemies after you have cleared the first wave of minions at their Blue Buff.
When the Solo Lane is on the right side of the map you will start by taking the Damage Buff on your own (using your 
Hand of the Gods while the Mid and Solo Laner are taking the right mid camp. Then you help the Solo Laner take his Mana Buff, but be careful since the enemy Jungler and Solo Laner might contest you there. Afterwards you'll go to lane with your Solo Laner.
You will then stay in Lane with your Solo Laner until the 1:30 - 1:40 Mark. Go then to your own defensive XP camp and then you will contest the Mid camp nearest to the solo lane and you will want your Hand of the Gods to be ready then because these Mid Camps are the most important XP-Camps you will want to obtain to get.
From now on I won't explain the Jungle Meta anymore!
Laning/Jungling Phase
Thanatos is not very different from usual Junglers in this state of the game but as soon as you hit Level 5 you will want to look out for kills. Also with your ultimate it is easy to gank in the Mid lane and Burst the enemy Mid Laner down if you're assisted by your allies Mid laner. The Ability usage then is either Hovering Death to stun him, then Soul Reap to slow and silence the enemies then get a few basic attack off, as soon as he's out of your basic attack range use your Death Scythe to deal high burst damage and then your Death Scent to chase him down. If you haven't used your ult by then you may activate it only if you can kill him too, otherwise you don't have your escape if you get attacked afterwards.
Rest of the time you will be taking your jungle and looking for kills to get fed, since a fed Thanatos is a threat to everyone in the enemy team.
Late Game/Teamfights
Your late Game differs only little from the earlier stage of the game. You don't want to be on the frontlines if a teamfight emerges, rather try to sit back try not to get focused and look for easy picks. Easy picks are enemies running around alone. If you get caught out in a teamfight against more than 1 enemy try to silence them with Soul Reapto get away or if you can't kill them try to fly away with your ult.
But you don't want to get caught out because your Utlimate Hovering Death is extremely useful to execute any unlucky survivors and may change the fate of battle and get a win out of a teamfight that seemed lost. Or you may also use your Ultimate for initiation to stun as many enemies as possible allowing your team to engage with the advantage of the first strike.
But in the End you are the face of Death and everyone facing you alone will most likely die apart from Gods like 
Arachne that you cannot face 1v1 Enemy Hunters/Mids/Solos are the ones you want to target. As mentioned before you should keep an eye out for CC and Stuns from enemies because these can be your own ironic death and can shut you down easily.
Your own burst damage is brutal tho and can finish off enemies really fast if you're not hopelessly underfed.
Thank you for taking the time in reading my Guide for The Hand of Death Thanatos
You May also want to check out the other Builds I made:
Solo Lane Ra
Support Sobek
Solo Lane Tyr
Have Fun and Smite on, greetings
Porz21
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You also might want to add that in lategame teamfights damage on both sides is so high , that using your ult to chain-cc a group of enemies with some other mass-cc like
Also I'll include the Devourer's Gloves as optional.
Thanks for the Feedback
That is only my preference, but 99% of the time I get devourer's gloves instead of
Secondly, and least important, just an annoying note, a glass cannon build shouldn't feature not a single defensive item. It's glass cannon. Pure damage. So I don't think that calling a build with magi's blessing and witch stone a glass cannon one.
As you can see these are all petty little tiny notes, this is a great guide.
An upvote from me.