The Definitive Athena Supp/JG Guide

Overview

Athena in her current state is one of the strongest junglers in the game. With the ability to kill gods faster than even a full build Loki or Thanatos, while having the ability to gank and rotate faster than any god in the game with her new aspect, Athena makes for a dazzling jungler.

A big reason for this is her passive, Reach. This makes it so your next auto after an ability does 125% Str and 70% int scaling, as opposed to the standard 100/20 for standard autos. Reach when used in quick succession with her combos and well timed auto attack cancels can allow you, late game with the build provided in the build sheet, to deal well over 3000 damage to squishies. In some stances, with a single elixir, you can kill a single mage or carry with one ability and 2 autos.

Athena's aspect turns her teleport from an ally nuke, to an enemy teleport, allowing you to teleport to any enemy that currently is visible on the map, similar to Neith's ult. During the channeling of the ult, enemies take 20% more damage, making it so that person you teleport to will start to lose the fight with the person they're currently engaged with. Upon landing, you will have a Reach already primed, giving you one more auto for your devastating damage output.

Abilities

Athena's 1 is her Dash, a solid engagement and disengagement tool. Somewhat quick, with an okay distance, the ability seems bog standard at first, if it wasn't for the incredibly strong slow on the dash. this 20%-30% slow (level 1 - level 5 respectively) allows you to not only lock someone down and prevent them from escaping, it also allows you to much more easily line up your Reaches. What will also be covered in the support guide is how this dash into an enemy chasing one of your allies will allow you to slow them and prevent your ally from being caught in a chase. This abilities skill ceiling comes from being able to thread the needle, as the dash's hitbox is VERY wide, and stops on the first enemy hit. People keen to this will attempt to body block her from all sides, and finding an opening when in a bad situation to barely escape makes for a very slippery Athena to kill. This dash will be your secondary tool when clearing jungle camps, as it is quite slow with the wait of the travel time of the dash, and having to position yourself so you are not sent outside of the camp's radius.

Athena's 2 is her signature Taunt, Lasting 1.35 seconds at max level, this ability essentially turns off your opponent, allowing you to pull anywhere from 1 to all 5 of your opponents into a bad situation, pull your single target into your full combo of reaches for an insta-kill, or save your teammate during a gank from being turned into liquid by the solo Ra that has been ahead all game. This ability is your bread and butter, and knowing when and what to taunt is key. While taunted, whatever or whoever you pull will start to auto attack you, so when low, taunting the hunter who deals 300 damage per auto may not be the safest bet, as the two autos they can pull off while in the taunt may kill you before your reach does. Using this ability for jungle clear should only be done if a gank is not in your plans for 15 seconds, or it doesn't look like any of your teammates are in trouble at the current moment.

Athena's 3 is her Shield Wall, which will make for a majority of your jungle clear and damage at the start of an engagement. This ability does damage in 2 steps, once on use, and again for more damage after a slight delay. This circle ability also slows enemies hit by it, but nowhere near as much as her dash. This ability has a big tradeoff, in that upon use and firing your reach, your enemy may escape from the second hit. Taunting your enemy and then using your 3 can ensure the first hit of the 3 always connects, but the second hit may go to waste. While using your 3 first and taunting them into it will make it so the second, higher damaging hit always connects, but the initial first it may be out of range before you taunt. The order of use here is situation dependent and also hinges on your confidence in maximizing damage output in the fight. For clearing camps, it's the lower cooldown of your abilities and should be used as your main tool for camps. When contesting camps, it's a safe tool that can be used around 50% of the camps health, with the initial hit doing a chunk, and the final hit being able to easily secure it while the camp is contested.

Finally, Athena's ultimate, with the Aspect of War, as explained before, allows you to teleport to an enemy of your choosing that is visible on the map, either by your teammates, by your minions, or by wards. You do no damage on landing, but do have the upper hand, as catching someone after they use their escape or ult/are on cooldowns can make it so you are able to have a safe fight the opponent cannot counter if timed right. In addition, late game, once your build is at a spot where you can comfortably 100-0 people, teleporting on a stray mid or carry that are clearing lanes, or pass by a ward left behind on their side of the jungle, can allow you to get a cheeky kill, putting the next teamfight in your favor, around 25-40 minutes in the game. Being extraordinarily annoying this this Aspect is encouraged, as I have been able to remove important damage dealers like Medusa or Poseidon, by simply punishing them for clearing waves off cooldown, and making a sprint with my team to fire giant. The downside to this is gods like Poseidon, Izanami, or Danza can easily counter your landing on them with an ult or hard CC that lingers, so pick your targets wisely.

Gameplay

Your clear early game from levels 1-5 is pretty standard, but Susano and Loki specifically can out clear you pretty reliably, as well as move throughout the jungle quicker. You're about on par with clear and speed against Mordred in jungle, and once level 7 hits, you'll be getting out cleared until you finish Transcendence around level 14-16.

Early ganks can be rough, as your damage doesn't pick up until you have finished your third item, early ganks rely heavily on strong communication, when the carry uses their dash, you need your carry to call that for the ult to kill. A lot of solo laners lack a consistent escape or blink, so making sure you're confident in a kill on a Ra or Mulan can be a big help. Most midlaners are going to avoid you like the plague, and all of them are easy to handle besides Agni, as his dash is fast, long, and damaging. Agni is the hardest midlaner to deal with in the early/mid game, and can only be dealt with when playing overaggressive against your own midlaner.

Lategame is where Athena feels wonderful, as you're a walking nuke, after testing numbers and fight activity with about 16 varieties of build, this build makes for the most optimal in that you can remove 2 people entirely within the span of 20 seconds. Your fight consistency isn't the goal here, you should be playing an In-and-Out style. Positioning quick kills against squishies, and hanging on the outskirts while your cooldowns come back. Self-Sacrificing yourself to pull a quick +2 in fight is also viable, as if the fight continues past your death, ulting right back in can give you the finishing blow on a long-lasting fight at an objective.

Warding and advising your team to ward for more ult opportunities is major. Being able to ult FG and Gold Fury for a sneaky steal has one me many games, as it can be the defining factor to give your team the edge they need. When being targeted by 2 or 3 people, being able to Ult out, while not as reliable as a tanky build's ability to, is still nice. Your common instance of this is being harassed during a gank attempt by the Solo/Mid/Support, and teleporting to the enemy carry can allow you to quickly get out of jail free, while also possibly setting up for a kill in carry. Map awareness is huge in this role for this character.

Overview

Athena as a support has been somewhat outclassed lately with the introduction of Geb, and omnipresence of Sobek. However, she's a fantastic tank still, and can be a competent threat with the combination of a lot of gods. 2 slows and a taunt means you can basically invalidate 2-3 people at a time on average. Her early game with AOE equipped hunters can make for aggressive lane pressure early.

Her ultimate allows you to be anywhere you want, quick ganks at opportune times can give your mid and solo the upper hand, making it so Athena can make a lane that would be behind, keep up. This is something your enemy team has to account for, and can make it so your opponents are less likely to try to overextend in their respective lanes.

Unlike Sobek or Yemoja, only being able to pull one person away from your teammates in a pinch, Athena can pull an entire team off of your teammate. Saving people from inopportune ganks quickly and getting away with your dash can make Athena a particularly annoying form of peel.

Abilities

Athena's 1 is her Dash, a solid engagement and disengagement tool. Somewhat quick, with an okay distance, the ability seems bog standard at first, if it wasn't for the incredibly strong slow on the dash. this 20%-30% slow (level 1 - level 5 respectively) allows you to not only lock someone down and prevent them from escaping or chasing a teammate. Dash-Taunt is your go-to play, and the dash is an important part of this.

Athena's 2 is her signature Taunt, Lasting 1.35 seconds at max level, this ability essentially turns off your opponent, allowing you to pull anywhere from 1 to all 5 of your opponents into a bad situation, pull your single target out of position into an untimely death, or save your teammate during a gank. This ability is your bread and butter, and knowing when and what to taunt is key. While taunted, whatever or whoever you pull will start to auto attack you, so when low, taunting the hunter who deals 300 damage per auto may not be the safest bet, as the two autos they can pull off while in the taunt may kill you before your team can get to you for a follow up. The taunt increases in duration by 0.2 seconds for every 120 protections you have, meaning you should have a 2.1 second taunt by the end of the game. Pulling people into a kraken, back into a hades ult after escaping, into a medusa ult with no way to turn around, and more! Athena's taunt is something most players won't mess with, making Athena at any point in a match something most play safely around and is a great deterrent against aggressive laners in mid and carry.

Athena's 3 is her Shield Wall. This ability does damage in 2 steps, once on use, and again for more damage after a slight delay. This circle ability also slows enemies hit by it, but nowhere near as much as her dash. Unlike in jungle, this ability is just a natural follow up to your taunt. Doing a bit of damage and keeping enemies slowed and easier to attack.

Finally, Athena's ultimate, which when playing support is used without the Aspect. This allows you to target a teammate, giving them a shield and teleporting to their location, exploding on landing. This ultimate is what makes Athena much more effective than other supports in the midgame of a match. Having a grand time with the one-up over your solo laner or mid is great, until your opponent gets an instant shield, and brings a tank with a strong CC directly onto you. During the lull that often happens in mid where the midlaner and support have an advanced staring contest, Athena is able to quickly help out carry or solo, either punishing pressure or securing a kill. Additionally, having your solo invade fire giant, a well timed Athena ult can allow an easy steal or pressure to take your opponents off of the objective. Athena ulting a teammate who is trying to escape from a bad situation can give them a shield and ward off the people chasing, allowing you to prevent the opponents from getting an advantage for an impending team fight.

Gameplay

Most of what she does is explained with her kit, but she does what a support does. Peeling for your teammates, setting up your enemies for your team to dive in and get kills, or catch that one guy who went out of position. Your main focus is sticking by your Carry early, or Mid during the midgame, and leading your team in the late game. Athena is great for diving objectives and going for a fire giant steal. Tower dives and pulling people hanging around the middle of a tower or phoenix-line are also easy for Athena.

Ulting mid fight in order to provide a burst of damage and keep your aggressive jungler or solo in the fight, bringing down a large explosion and giving them the ability to soak up another ability or two.

Athena's lane damage and solo jungle clear aren't particularly impressive when building as a tank, so solo farm from levels 1-15 aren't going to be clear or convenient for netting a small amount of xp and gold.

Since Athena's build isn't as straightforward, here's the breakdown of the tank items.


This is your main selection of items. Depending on a more physically or magically oriented team, how and what you build will change. The things that stay the same are your initial starting 3 items. Stampede, Gargoyle, and Circe's Hexstone:

Stampede - Extremely strong, a 60% burst sprint that widdles down to 20%, get your team into the fight, out of the fight, all while having great protections and health to boot. The lack of CDR is the only real downside of the item.

Screeching Gargoyle: An item already strong, made even stronger by the open Beta update. Magical protections, 20% CDR, and an Active ability which allows you to Silence enemy gods for 2 seconds, while also slashing their protections by 20%. A taunt into Gargoyle essentially shuts down whoever you're targeting. They might as well turn off their screens when this combo comes out.

Circe's Hexstone: While not as strong as it was with the inclusion of CC buffering, still a ridiculously good item. High health and CDR, while providing an Active Dash that makes you CC immune, and knocks up whoever you hit with it. A great escape, a stellar unstoppable initiation, while also interrupting whoever you hit. Along your combo, clever use of Hexstone can lead to devious kills that normally wouldn't be possible without that small knock-up.

Ankh is recommended fourth where healing is an issue for that ever important antiheal.

Yogi's necklace can give a strong amount of survivability, while also providing a solid amount of regend during interim between fights and engagements, saving you from having to back as frequently. This item has always been underutilized, and with the buff turning it into Yogi's Necklace 2, it's stronger than ever though possible before, while being incredibly cheap.\

Valor and Spectral are purchased for physical tank busters and ADC threats respectively. Valor's CDR is great, while it's passive can give you that extra dash or taunt in a pinch. Spectral can halt Auto attacking threats, and as crit makes a semi comeback, being strewn across Jing and Cern builds, makes it that much more useful.

Genjis and Oni Hunters are the staples for fighting mages. Genji is the magical version of Valor, allowing you to get your cooldowns back mid fights, and Oni-Hunters makes it so your staying power against a team of 3 or more mages is increased drastically. With how strong raw mitigation is in this game, the difference it makes lategame is huge.

Pros:

○ Has a dash! The ability to initiate and escape is important for both jungler and support alike.

○ That taunt though, one of the few gods that can CC all 5 gods at a time. Nobody wants to be near the Athena, one of the strongest CC's in the game that's hard to counter.

○ Impossible to out-rotate. Her ultimate makes her presence known, if you die during the fight and the fight is still going by the time you come back up, you can jump right back into the fight before your opponents get time to reset.

Cons:

○ Long cooldowns, CDR in your build is a necessity, 30% item CDR on the low end, 60% item CDR on the high end. The more you can taunt, the better your life will be. This makes your early game very position and timing dependent.

○ Easy to read, While blink is great and makes you less predictable, Sunder as a tool to widdle down kills, steal buffs, and secure objectives is great. The downside being your initiations for your taunt are way easier to read and get out of the way of. Your dashes need to be charged before entering lane, or else everyone is going to know and stop your setup for the team.

○ Requires a lot of communication, communicating ults, taunts during a team fight, and especially dives is very very important. Where a Sobek can get a quick pull and the team can respond to the Zeus flying at them, the dash and taunt needs to be very premeditated, so a lack of communication before you initiate can lead to you taunting 4 people with no follow up, and an embarrassing death.