An Unfinished Solo Guide From Another Age...

Hello everyone, my name is theangrytoast and my favorite role is solo. In this guide I hope to give you an idea on how to build, lane, rotate, and play effectively with a wide variety of gods, as well as shine light on different gods you can bring to the solo lane. Whether you enjoy Ra or are a hardcore Tyr player, this guide is for you!

Secondly, I would like to warn you that although the solo laner does rotate, the nickname, "Solo Island," holds true. This guide should help guide you through you solitary life in the solo lane.

In this section, I will summarize the job of the solo laner, including position, wards, and basic laning. Also, I will group which gods I think can solo into an easy to read passage for all those of you who like to skim.

Where Do I Go?


Enter the classic conquest map. Your position on this glorious battlefield is always in the short lane, next to the fire giant, as highlighted. Other close objectives (although minor) are the blue buffs, and depending on which side you start from, either the red or orange buff.

Different Starts

There are two possible sides to start on in conquest. The light side (lower half of your map) has an attack buff closer to the solo lane where as the chaos side (upper half of the map) has a speed buff closer to the solo lane.

The jungler always gets the speed buff and you get the mana buff, meaning that if you start on the chaos side, you are at an advantage.

If you happen to be on the light side, you start at the mid camps and move immediately to the mana buff.

Early Game



The early game can be either advantageous or deadly, depending on what god you are playing. It really all depends on your relative clear. The less minions there are, the less the amount of damage you are going to take. This brings us to rule #1 in the early game DO NOT FIGHT INTO A MINION WAVE!

Your main objective in the first 7-9 levels is too clear as fast as possible, then apply poke. If you plan on being aggressive early, save you Hand of the Gods for the wave, that way you can immediately eliminate half of the minions (preferably the archers) before you start fighting.



NOTE: The Hammer Advantage

Some bruisers (as stated previously) do not require Death's Toll, for this example we are going to use Chaac.

Chaac has great healing prowess from Rain Dance and mana sustain from Overflow, meaning that a Death's Toll is redundant. In Chaacs case, he can settle for Smithy's Hammer and Hand of the Gods (preferably if he is fighting a physical character).

This build allows Chaac to be aggressive early, something that would be harder to do with Death's Toll.

Also note, since the recent nerf of Heavy Hammer, I no longer recommend this item, as it is too expensive to allow you to buy Hand of the Gods, which makes laning difficult with some characters such as Bakasura and Vamana early game.



Early Game Objectives

---

This buff is critical to most solo laners; since the lane is so solitary, you tend to clear a lot more then you would in other lanes, meaning you are mana hungry. This buff is on a 4 minute cooldown and provides you with 5 MP5 and 10% cooldown reductions. You ALWAYS need this buff.

---

---

Although destroying an enemy tower in the first 10 minutes of the game is impressive, it does not usually happen that early. Each tower has 2000 health, 200 physical defense and 100 magical defense. You will deal significantly less damage to a tower if none of your minions are near by. Also, stacking items such as The Executioner stack with the tower. Destroying a tower will grant your team gold. Once the solo laner has destroyed his/her tower, he/she begins to roam, usually to counter jungle and gank the other lanes. Always make sure to defend your lane though, free farm for the enemy is never a good thing.

---

The Mid Game

Unlike the early game, the mid game focuses more on rotating and split pushing, and less on solitary laning. The usual indicators that it is time to rotate are as follows:

1. You have destroyed the enemy tower and have the wave pushed up.

NOTE: It is never a bad idea to push up even more, but you have to be more careful the farther you move up the lane. The more you advance, the better the chance of you getting ganked.

2. You have bullied the enemy out of the lane and have established a considerable lead on your adversary.

NOTE: A considerable lead is being an item ahead of the person, not a just a kill. Just because you enemy is weaker then you does not mean he/she cannot destroy your tower.

3. Your adversary is missing and you think there may be a teamfight.

NOTE: In the early game, the solo laner usually only rotates to fight around the mid camp closest to him; no further. Once the laning phase is done, contesting gold fury with your team is a good idea.

Also NOTE: If you believe your team will win the teamfight without you, split push. Winning a fight and taking down a tower is always a good plan.



Where To Rotate

Alright. Consider this, what is it that the solo laner does except for complaining about how lonely he is. Well, to answer that, you must first grasp how the solo laner fits into the team composition.

To start off, the solo lane player is not restricted to any one class; he/she can pick a wide variety of gods that are tailored to be most beneficial to the team comp itself. For example:

The gods layed out in front of us are very diverse; Osiris is a high attack speed tank, where as Janus is a squishy burst mage. Loki is a melee burst character, and Ares is a high damage guardian. These four characters are very different, but can all solo lane.

Why is this?

UTILITY. That's why. Each of these characters can picked to compensate for a lack of something else within a team composition, such as portals, or an anti-heal, or even possibly a literal backstab move. Literally. Lets go in depth with this.

Main Utility: Portals! Janus has the ability to portal through walls, whether it be with Portal or Through Space and Time.This can be crucial when rotating, especially if one of your teammates is caught out. Lane Style: Watch your step. When laning with or against a Janus, both people in lane are farming extremely carefully, one wrong step and you fall through a Portal and are looking straight at an Unstable Vortex. Ouch. Overall Consensus: Janus can survive in lane, and offers good utility to the team. Ergo, Janus can solo.

Main Utility: Invisibility! Loki is one of the few gods in the game who can go completely invisible. Also, Vanish allows him to be extremely mobile, which in turn allows him to effectively split push. Lane Style: Now you see me... Loki generally uses his Decoy to clear, and then either can poke (via Vanish and Aimed Strike) or slink back under tower. Loki although not the best in lane, compensates with his scary bleeds and invisibility. Overall Consensus: Loki is squishy, but compensates heavily with his burst damage and split push potential. Definitely a decent solo lane pitch.

Main Utility: The anti healer. Osiris Is a really scary god. High attack speed, a tanky kit, and an ult that completely shuts down any healing, pretty much nullifying Sylvanus and Ras attempts to keep their team alive. Lane Style: I'm a bully. Osiris, paired with Hand of the Gods, Sickle Strike, and Flail can completely push most gods out of lane (maybe with the exception of Ares). Furthermore, Osiris can clear with Hand of the Gods/ Auto Attacks, and poke with Sickle Strike and Spirit Flail, making him scary and effective. Overall Consensus: Osiris is strong all game, possesses good utility, and can make for a good secondary front liner. A definite solo lane pick.

Main Utility: 2Chainz 3Chainz. Ares in my opinion has one of the more interesting ults in the game. He can literally divide the teamfight, pulling away all those unfortunate enough to buy beads into an area where his teammates can quickly crush them. Lane Style: Multitasking. Ares can majorly lay on the hurt with Shackles and clear the wave with Searing Flesh. Once he builds into Mystical Mail, he is literally impossible to lane against (if you happen to be a melee character). Overall Consensus: Ares has teamfight potential, good damage, and great zone control. Although it takes some skill to make him work, Ares is still viable in the solo lane.

Continuing on with the idea that picking a god to fit your teams weakness, lets analyze this imaginary 'team'




To conclude, although other roles are restricted to only certain types of gods, the solo lane favors those with large god pools, not those with very small margins of expertise.