Ares CDR DMG Health

This guide is just something that works well for me while using Ares in a 3v3. It would be my guess that this build would work rather well for arena or conquest as well though. High health while being able to deal ok damage and have a good cdr to avoid beads and aegis.

Start the game with building Breastplate of Valor, this offers great defense and eventually some cool down reduction and mana which you will blow through with Ares. If playing 3v3 you start at lvl 3 so go ahead and upgrade to the second tier. After the purchase of BpV go ahead and grab Blink.

Start with the first tier for now so that when you reach lvl 5 you have a great entrance into the fight with your ultimate. Slowly upgrade Blink when you can but not necessary to do right away. Next grab Gauntlet of Thebes.

GofT is a great item to get early on so that you have time to build the minion kill stacks and slowly get that 8 hp per stack. If you're not getting the kills needed don't be afraid to work with your team so that you may get the kills or go ahead and do some jungle killing. If you need a little extra defense before your finish Thebes go and grab the first tier of Bulwark of Hope.

Now with the BofH you may need to grab the first tier before you are able to complete GofT just so you have that protection but early on it shouldn't matter to much if you and your team are working well together. this will give you a good balance of the magical protection while boosting your HP significantly. Following up we have Sovereignty.

Sovereignty gives you added health and a large amount of physical protection. Building the tank still. The aura will also be a +30 magical power with Ares and his passive ability. Next go ahead and grab Ethereal Staff.

This item will convert some of your max HP into Dmg which at this point health should be around 3k so now you should be able to deal quite a large portion of damage.

From here you still have on item slot left in which case you can use that to build either the extra magical protection you might need or the extra physical protection that you might need. A personal favorite of mine would be to add Mystical Mark. This gives you 300 health and additional physical defense which I usually find important. On top of this that extra health that was just added also gets converted to magical power as well because of Etheral Staff.

People usually say that greaves are a must for a tank but with Ares if you are deadest on getting a pair it should be shoes. Right side shoes build gives you added cool down which when combined with BpV can get your ultimate down to a measly 54 seconds in which point they would need both aegis and pur beads to combat the cool down time. Other then that any secondary active is fine of your choice, sprint is usually nice seeing as how Ares is a little slower with shoes of a kind with my normal build.

Running this build I have had over 4k health while taking very little damage and even if I was it wasn't significant enough for me to run. With the high magical power and say two physical teammates you can open with ultimate into flames and deal massive damage over time and while running away nail them with your chains. This build has not really failed me yet against most teams which makes it rather solid.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!