Cupid The Heartbreaker

Cupid - the Roman Deity of desire - erotic love - attraction and affection. The puffy cheeked cherub fires his arrow - piercing his unsuspecting target's heart - filling him or her with an uncontrollable and insatiable lust. The lust distracts the target - drawing them into the painful void left when the love is gone. His smile may be wide - his eyes soft - his wings flaring to deliver a peaceful breeze... but don't underestimate the sting this little guy delivers.

Omnia vincit Amor: et nos cedamus Amori. - Love conquers all, and so let us surrender ourselves to Love.

Cupid is a very underrated deity in the world of Smite and I am not really sure why. He is one of only a handful of deities who can provide direct healing to his partners. He can deliver damage to a wide swath of other deities and minions at the same time. He can jungle. He can hold lanes. He can solo lanes. He can push lanes. Lastly, he can provide a ton of damage support with slows, stuns, AOEs and huge crits. Is he the best deity hunter in the game? Probably not - but he can be built with a well-balanced build that, with a little practice, can be used to achieve high survivability and damage together - a combination that will keep him in the lane and boost your confidence in this little dynamo.

The item build looks like it would feel like a slow build, but the build is sped up a bit by the advancement of the skills and your ability to farm and jungle. Also, if you are laning with someone like Poseidon, who can wash out a wave of creeps in one fell swoop, it can slow you down a bit - but normally, you would run Cupid with a guardian class like Sobek or Ymir, so it's all good.

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This is a must have for Hunters. Cupid's basic attack damage is enhance by his Physical Power. The formula used is 35 + 2.3/Level + 100% of Physical Power - so it only stands to reason that Cupid should be built to exploit this to increase his baisc attack damage. The increased attack speed also ensures you are putting more basic attack arrows down range. The unique modifier gives +18% Movement Speed (which helps you move about the map pretty fast). The passive skill for Warrior's Tabi gives +15 Physical Penetration. The passive for Ninja's Tabi gives +25% reduction on cooldown. For me, this is a toss up, but since i use my basic attacks so much, I'm not pressed to fire off abilities as fast as some people may want - so I go with WT. Either is a good choice.
+30 Physical power/+9% Attack Speed


Again, it's all aobut Physical Power with Cupid - in order to maximize your damage. In addition to the boost in Physical Power, the Crit Strike Chance is boosted. As you build and play out, you'll see this combination of elevated stats is just devestating - particularly to underfed opponents, minions, and when jungling. In addition to the increased Crit Chance, the Crit Damage is boosted by 50%. Pew Pew.
+50 Physical Power/+20% Crit Strike Chance

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This is where you start building in your survivability. These gloves provide a nice base boost to Physical Power and Lifesteal. You permanently gain +.5 Physical Power and +.35% Physical Lifesteal per stack. You get 5 Stacks for each Deity kill and 1 stack per minion. The stacks max at 60, and you will be able to build the stacks very fast. These are banned in Assault Matches, so as an alternate build, go with Bloodforge here.

Alternate: Bloodforge - +40 Physical power/+20% Lifesteal. THe difference here is that hits on enemnies grant you a +5 Physical Power and +2% Physical Lifesteal for 4 seconds. This stacks at 5, so it's a good boost - just not a permanent boost.


+30 Physical Power and+20% Attack Speed - The passive reduces your target's Physical Protection by 8% on basic attacks and an added 6 points for 3 seconds. When you hit a deity with a full heart stack, you are doing some crazy damage (3 stacks max). Are you starting to see the big picture here? Physical Power and Speed combination means you are in, you hit hard, and you get out.


+40 Physical Power/+150 Mana/+11 Physical Penetration. Again, adding more Physical Power to increase base damage. The added Mana will help keep you in lane longer to fire off more skills and kills. It is offset by the temptation of skills with a 25% reduction in cooldown (and if you went with Ninja's Tabi, you are poised to fire off skills quick) - but just remember to carry pots and encourage your teammates to take your healing hearts (even if they don't need them) since their healing feeds your mana.


Here, we finish off the balance of our build into late game. By now, you are blowing everything up and if you aren't getting the kills, you are still throwing a ton of damage down range in support. Time to position yourself to be able to stave off those attacks while drilling your foes with simple basic attacks and periodic heart bombs.
+15% Lifesteal/+10% Attack Speed/+300 health. The Soul Eater also has a 70 ft aura that grants +10 Physical Power and +10% Physical Lifesteal to those around in range.

ACTIVES:

Greater Sprint - Since Cupid is not exactly tanky, you may find yourself doing some deep dives on hurt opponents. These dives can be treacherous and since you may have used Flutter to do your dive, you may not be able to Flutter out since it will be on cooldown. Greater Sprint at least gives you a bit of getaway boost.


Heals Mana by 75% of Max Mana and gives added 45MPS for 60 seconds. It also heals you for 30% of your missing health. In dire times while escaping, it can be a nice oh **** item - and in good engaging attack times, it can keep your mana fed. It does have a 2 minute cooldown.

Pros:

• Mobility - able to run long lanes and jungle as needed rather quickly. Useful for escaping tight spots too.
• CC - Fields of Hearts and Heart Bomb slows and stuns gives you the ability to not only deal a lot of damage as FoD epires, but also while your enemies are sloughing through it trying to get out.
• Big Single Target Damage and very good collateral damage dealt.
• Good balanced build to deal damage and survive to stay on the map longer.
• Good jungler and Ganker when needed.
• It is a compatible biuld with all match types. No need to swap your build around much (except in some very rare circumstances).

• It requires a lot of early farming to build quickly. Cupid deals less damage and has lower survivability until you can get into the meat of the build and mid game on.
• You sometimes have to dive hard to get those kills. Depending on who you are playing with and against, you may find yourself being the Assist Monster. While this is not as "glorious" in the final tally, it is still important. So you have to check your ego at the door.
• The focus on this build is damage with some survivability. Remember you aren't a tank, so make sure you lane with a good Guardian and you should be able to work together to provide a strong push on your lane.
• Other people expect you to be their source of heals - not taking into consideration that your heals are a minor convenience and shouldn't be relied upon. You may get some pissed off people yeling at you for engaging in the fights and getting kills - they may even rage quit if you don't heal them enough or if they feel like like you are KSing them. They simply don't understand the power of Love - don't take it personally.
• Because people know Cupid is vulnerable to death when stunned, you may find yourself being ganked a lot in Arena matches. Some people feel like feeding off of you for that reason, and others simply recognize your vulnerability also means you are a damage machine. Either way, just keep your head on a swivel.
• This isn't a Pro/Tournament/League build. I mean, it might be - but I'm not a pro player, so I can't say for sure how effective it is against the elite players. What I can say is that against standard players and/or bots, this build is effective.

First and foremost, you have to farm it fast in order to keep up with the ones who are getting the first bloods and easy kills early. It's not that challenging - but it requires a lot of work and attention. It is easy to fall off behind the pack (with any Cupid build) if you don't farm him up fast.

Fire off Heart Bomb on the lead minion on the waves as they approach. Then use your basic auto attacks to drill them down quickly. Try to rotate your basic attacks to the surrounding minions as they bunch up so they all die together. As you level Heart Bomb, this process goes faster and faster. You will want to avoid taking Deity or minion damage as much as possible, so don't get greedy. Let your partner take the damage early on and make sure you Share the Love - Remember, when your partner heals on that skill, you recover mana.

Avoid using Flutter to Dive in - try to leverage it as an escape tool. Sometimes, you may find yourself in a 1v1 situation with a weakened deity trying to run. If you are running a long lane and won't dive into a minion wave or tower, then by all means, dive in an use Heart Bomb to ensure your enemy can't and won't escape - give them a fast trip back home.

As you get deeper in game, Fields of Love will be your framing skill - putting you into position to deal a ton of single target damage and assist your teammates with getting kills. You will want to time it around your partner's skills. For example, if you are running lane with YMir, when he puts up the wall to keep enemies from backing out, that's a great time to drop Fields of Love behind the enemy to overlap with the wall. As the wall clears and they backup, they will go right into the fields and you will get a great clear to continue your push.