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Death's Toll
Potion of Power
Hand Of The Gods (Old)
Ninja Tabi
Devourer's Gauntlet
Jotunn's Wrath
Rage
Deathbringer
Hydra's Demise
Qin's Sais
Titan's Bane
Asi
Y
B
A
X
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Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to this guide for the Greek god of death,  Thanatos.In Smite, Thanatos' primary role is described as an assassin or, as it is more commonly known, a jungler. For those of you new to Smite or new to the concept of the assassin class, your primary job is to aid your teammates through out the game while balancing that with the farm you need from the jungle; this means that you will not be spending a lot of time in lane and will get all of your gold and experience from the jungle camps and from ganking the enemy team. This guide will cover the basics of Thanatos as a jungler using what I feel is one of the best builds for him. Everything that is stated in this guide is not set in stone or law, so you, as a player, are welcome to make changes to the leveling order and items as you see fit or depending on what you're up against in your game. Thanatos can be described as a glass cannon as he puts out a massive amount of damage but is easily defeated should he miss an ability or become outnumbered. In addition to being a glass cannon, he, like all other gods, relies on some degree of teamwork and setups to become the most effective jungle he can be. |
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Pros:-  Harvester of Souls allows for easy jungling and gives him a huge amount of sustain provided that he kills jungle camps and gods regularly.-Not mana dependent; like the above point, this gives him a lot of sustain provided he is regularly getting jungle camps and god kills. - Hovering Death decimates enemies and allows for an escape. |
Cons:-Abilities use health as opposed to mana - Hovering Death is easy to land, but easy to counter with a jump or an  Aegis Amulet; allies can easily secure the kills under the conditions for Hovering Death's insta-kill thus making you waste his ult.-No "gap closer" ( Scent of Death provides a movement speed bonus but is negated by basic attacking) or jump; his only escape is Hovering Death. |
Harvester of Souls
Death Scythe
Scent of Death
Soul Reap
Hovering Death
Soul Reap because it hits in a cone and deals large amounts of damage. This is why I recommend that this ability be your focus in the early game because you clear camps much quicker because the cone from Soul Reap couple with the final, AoE strike of his basic attack chain will clear a camp quickly. Scent of Death can also help when clearing camps because of the added penetration which will deal more damage to the camp minions. Death Scythe, while being extremely powerful is not nearly as effective against minion camps as it is against gods but it can be used to help damage the larger mob of the buff/gold camp if you're waiting for Soul Reap to get off cooldown or are low on health but close to killing the mob. Hovering Death, is wasted if used on smaller buff camps (it can be useful in securing Fire Giant* or Gold Fury*) as it is a guaranteed killed provided he lands on a target below the insta-kill threshold. Scent of Death is extremely valuable when initiating or cleaning up a gank and it can be used to do either one of the two. It can be used to initiate the gank (something I commonly do) because it allows you to maneuver the lane with ease and use your abilities to drop the god low as possible so you can secure the kill with Hovering Death if it is up; transversely, if Hovering Death is on cooldown, you may want to save Scent of Death to chase and secure the kill. If you chose to do the latter, activate it as they start to run, regardless of them being below the threshold because you should, provided you dropped them low enough a few basics should bring them below the threshold thus increasing your movement speed to secure the kill. Death Scythe, perhaps his strongest non-ultimate ability, is extremely powerful but easy to miss. You have to lead this ability if you want it to be effective. Much like Scent of Death, Death Scythe can be used in the early gank or to clean it up as it has a slow and deals a massive amount of damage. If used in the early gank, the enemy's health will drop quickly and cause them to retreat. You can follow this up with a Soul Reap to drop them lower. To close in on the kill, Scent of Death will speed you up and give you more penetration and thus aid you in sealing the deal on death. Of course it can be used when chasing to slow them and allow you to basic attack them to death. Death Scythe at any point in the encounter, there is a large chance that you will have to fall back or rely on your enemy to lay the hurt on the enemy. That being said, if you miss, play it safe as you wasted a large portion of your health for nothing and thus are more susceptible to dying. Soul Reap can be used in the early gank to silence the enemy, stopping them from using any escapes or abilities to help them live. This allows you to wail on them for the duration of the silence. If the enemy is in a position in which you can hit the enemy minions, it serves to purposes: to silence and damage the enemy god and to clear the wave so that your minions and ally can join in the smacking around of the enemy god. Hovering Death is perhaps the most powerful ability in the death-bringer's toolkit because if its insta-kill potential. In most cases, you'll want to save this for the clean up of a gank as it is usually effective in such; however, Hovering Death can certainly be used to initiate a gank because of the 1s stun it gives to gods not below the threshold. Furthermore, it can be used to insta-kill your target if your ally has already dropped them low enough for it; this saves you time, health, and effort and allows your ally and you to push the lane and possibly the tower. It is possible to get more than one kill with this ability if multiple targets are both below the threshold and in the radius of the dunk. Hovering Death can be countered by an Aegis Amulet, 
Chang'e's ability 
Moonlit Waltz makes her immune to the insta-kill ability, any well-timed dash or jump can easily make you waste your ultimate, so, if you're 1v1ing any god with a dash or jump and try to use Hovering Death to secure the kill, don't use it immediately as they will expect you to do it; thus making you waste your ultimate and your health making it easier to kill you.
Devourer's Gloves
Death's Toll, Tier 1 
Hand of the Gods, and Potion of Physical Might. You can substitute Death's Toll with 
Bumba's Mask for the MP5 and the health return upon killing a minion in the jungle but I prefer Death's Toll for the physical power boost and small amount of lifesteal and mana return. The Potion of Physical Might gives even more physical power, making clearing camps and living that much easier. Hand of the Gods also helps clearing camps quickly for the base, 480 damage it deals to minions. Ninja Tabi for the physical power and cooldown reduction, not to mention the movement speed increase which helps you navigate the jungle and lanes better. Following Ninja Tabi, Thanatos would greatly benefit from Devourer's Gloves. Since you're killing jungle camps already, gaining the 60 stack maximum for Devourer's Gloves will be easy and will provide Thanatos with a substantial lifesteal increase as well as large physical power increase. While it is not the primary focus of this build, penetration is still important when trying to kill enemy and Jotunn's Wrath provides both penetration and cooldown reduction meaning that your abilities hit harder and you can use your abilities frequently. Abilities, unfortunately, do have cooldowns and you need to accommodate for the time in which Thanatos' abilites are on cooldown by making his basic attacks just as strong as his basics. To do this, both Rage and Deathbringer will be extremely helpful as Rage not only gives a base increase to crit chance but it also give an attack speed boost and increases your crit chance for each basic attack that's not a crit up to a maximum of +50% crit chance. Deathbringer greatly increases the damage that your crits do by about 100% (double that of which they would be without it). Death's Toll to help build whatever item you need. However, you will be missing a sixth item once you finish the core build; luckily for you, there is a plethora of items that will help you:
Qin's Sais give both lifesteal and attack speed which will help him when his abilities are on cooldown. In addition to the lifesteal and attack speed, it does an additional 20 + 6% of the target's missing health on basic attacks. Because your abilities already do a large amount of damage, this will only increase your damage output.
As you can see on the map above, there are letters indicating different camps and the letters all correspond to their camp on the opposite color. The colors indicate which side you spawned on. Orange is the Invader spawn and teal/blue color indicates Olympian spawn. I will now explain what I do at each camp; this is up for interpretation and you can do this however you want.
Hand of the Gods on the camp ( Hand of the Gods can be used to secure the camp if invaded by the enemy team; however, it will throw off the time on which Hand of the Gods is available to use). Should you choose the second option, use you Potion of Physical Might and Hand of the Gods to quickly secure it so that you can quickly progress to Blue Buff. Whichever you choose, Mid should break off and start their farm while Solo follows you to B (provided you started at A) or follow you to C, or blue buff. After getting blue for your solo lane, it is almost imperative that you remain in lane with them as this is, I've noticed, a trend in Conquest League games as well as Public Conquest games. When you leave is up for debate be that you get yourself and your solo lane to level 3 or until you get a kill; whatever the case, you must accompany them for a brief period or it may cost them their lane. After helping your solo lane follow the route to E -> F -> G (H may be down as duo lane may have picked it up. If you spent enough time in solo lane, it may be up by the time you get there). Upon grabbing Orange Camp, the mid camps should have respawned. Try and grab at least one of the mid camps to compete with the enemy jungle in terms of farm and experience. Ganks are important as is the communication that allows for a successful gank. The commands for communicating which lane you're ganking will follow the Invader Spawn section. Hand of the Gods to kill Orange Camp so that you can quickly progress to Blue Camp. Be careful as it is not uncommon to get invaded by the enemy jungler and solo-er as you move to Blue Camp. Following the taking of both camps you, much like the jungler on the Olympian Spawn, must remain in Solo lane with your Solo-er until level 3 or until a kill is gotten. I cannot stress this enough as it will help both you and Solo in the long run. Following your assistance of Solo lane, you will then proceed along the route D -> E, this next part is where you have decisions to make. Depending on how long you spent in Solo lane, your Speed Buff may or may not have worn off by now. If it has worn off, proceed to Red Buff (F) and take that for yourself; however, if it has not, you may either: a) Gank duo lane or mid while you wait for it to wear off so that you can grab Red Buff. or b) attack and kill Red Buff but leave it for a member of duo lane or mid to grab. Following the decision you make about Red Buff, mid camps should be up. Just like the Olympian Spawn, try to grab at least one of the two mid camps to keep up with the enemy jungler. Now you're ready to gank. Communication is vital for a successful gank.There is not much that I can say on the topic of teamwork as that is what it takes to be successful in any match type. The most important thing remember is communication and rotation are what is required to do well. Always call out MIAs, enemy movements, and ganks.
Be aware of the map and where you're needed. If your solo and mid lanes are doing fine and pushing well but your duo is lacking, pay attention to that lane a bit more than others but don't let that be your primary focus as you may miss out on some easy kills. Just be aware of your surroundings and your teammates setting up kills and ganks for you as it will allow you to do your job which is get fed and terrorize the enemy while your allies push their lanes for great justice.
That being said, the actions that you want to capitalize on is stuns, slows, and roots. All three of the aforementioned actions on enemy gods make your job that much easier!
Just be aware!
Here is where I will post the results of games using the build(s) in this guide.
Build: Cooldown/Jungle
Game mode: Conquest League
Build: Cooldown/Jungle
Game mode: Conquest
Build: Cooldown/Jungle
Game mode: Conquest
Thanatos, while being very squishy, is a powerful god that is really fun to play! So here are some things to remember when jungling and ganking as Thanatos:
-Be aware. I cannot state the importance of that.
-Communicate with your team about ganks!
-Use your abilities when jungling and ganking wisely, especially since they use your health instead of your mana.
-Don't forget to farm in the jungle, it your best way to get gold.
-Ganks are just as important as camps, don't fall behind.
-Have fun, it's a game, why not enjoy it?
11/27/2013- Guide published
12/15/2013- Updated Jungling/Ganking section to be more accurate with the current jungle meta
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p.s. If you do update again, some of the info is out of date.
OP tell me your opinion about this.
Build
Seems okay, though I worry about the lack of pen and the lack of flexibility. Not to mention the odd reliance on crits. The combination of basic attacks and crit chance also does not allow for a lot of synergy.
Let's say you're Loki. If you build both Hydra's Lament, which is meant for maximum burst damage, and Qin's Blades, you are stuck between oneshotting people and staying around to basic attack, which is not very efficient.
I would also replace
Items
I already explained my problems with the build, but I suppose you decently explained the item choices, although that doesn't eliminate the problems I have stated. The walls of text are also a pain to read.
Skills
Awesome. Good level of detail, images are useful. I like the way you split ganking and jungling.
I feel that you rely too much on
Gameplay/Guiding
I'm happy to report that this section is A-okay. You do a great job of explaining how to jungle, farm, and use his kit. If I had to add one thing, it would be a counter-jungling section. If I had to add two things, it would a section on your role in teamfights/late game.
One more thing: You need to give a way to feed kills to your laners. If a lane falls behind, or if a carry is present, it is wise to give them the kill instead. (I've had some success by using my ultimate to stun, then silence on low health targets, giving my team the opportunity to get the kill. Not always smart to do that, obviously, but it is good to do in some situations.)
Here's a tip: Try playing really, really aggressive as Thanatos, especially in the early game. In ranked matches, I've killed the enemy jungler many times by stalking him as he clears a camp, then murdering him to death. I'm not sure how good you are as a jungler though.
Details
Remove the bloody "Results." We don't need that. Just clutters up the guide without being useful. The walls of text also do not help.
Remove the copy and pasted descriptions. We can already see that stuff, no need to fatten up this guide. There is also a useless section on what to do after a successful gank, which is not only dangerously unwise (invading after a gank is extremely dangerous since smart enemies will rotate) and the VGS commands are simply unnecessary.
Also, the sheer size and amount of images is somewhat annoying to read.
Summary
I feel that this guide is slightly overrated (A solid 7.5/10, if you ask me), so I won't vote, as it already has too many upvotes. But you do a good job, for the most part.
If you update and improve this guide, please PM me with the changes. I might upvote.
I feel like qin's sais are a must have on Thanatos just because of his large ability damage just my opinion tho I'll try your build.
Let me know how you like the build and if it was effective for you!
Thanks a lot for the post! It really helped me learn Thanatos, however I did have one question. Why would you not go Bloodforge on Thanatos since you are constantly hitting a single target in the jungle?
Thanks a lot,
Lamda
Like most of the non-core items in this build,
*
Thanks a lot,
Lamda