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Darkness Falls

0 1 11,238
by quantumphyzx updated November 9, 2014

Smite God: Nox

Build Guide Discussion 2 More Guides
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Nox Build

Starting

Build Item Vampiric Shroud Vampiric Shroud
Build Item Boots Boots
Build Item Healing Potion Healing Potion
Build Item Ward Ward

Core/Mid Game

Build Item Boots of the Magi Boots of the Magi
Build Item Warlock's Staff Warlock's Staff
Build Item Gem of Isolation Gem of Isolation
Build Item Magi's Cloak Magi's Cloak
Build Item Combat Blink Combat Blink

Late Game/Final Build

Build Item Boots of the Magi Boots of the Magi
Build Item Warlock's Staff Warlock's Staff
Build Item Gem of Isolation Gem of Isolation
Build Item Magi's Cloak Magi's Cloak
Build Item Polynomicon Polynomicon
Build Item Rod of Tahuti Rod of Tahuti

Nox's Skill Order

Shadow Lock

1 X Y
Shadow Lock
3 15 16 18 19

Siphon Darkness

2 A B
Siphon Darkness
2 7 11 12 14

Shadow Step

3 B A
Shadow Step
1 4 6 8 10

Night Terror

4 Y X
Night Terror
5 9 13 17 20
Shadow Lock
3 15 16 18 19

Shadow Lock

1 X
Nox extends her shadow, rooting and crippling a single enemy god in place and dealing damage over time. Nox must channel and stay within range to maintain hold on the target, but may cancel this ability early. Nox will continue to channel this ability even if she is hit by Crowd Control effects. While channeling this ability Nox suffers no directional movement penalty.

Ability Type: Line
Damage: 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 (+20% of your Magical Power) every 0.5s
Damage (Minions): 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+50% of your Magical Power)
Duration: 2s
Range: 65
Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70
Cooldown: 10s
Siphon Darkness
2 7 11 12 14

Siphon Darkness

2 A
Nox creates a void of darkness that silences all enemies within. After 2s it explodes, dealing damage.

Ability Type: Ground Target
Damage: 90 / 160 / 230 / 300 / 370 (+100% of your Magical Power)
Radius: 20
Cost: 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90
Cooldown: 13s
Shadow Step
1 4 6 8 10

Shadow Step

3 B
Nox dashes forward, dealing damage to all enemies. If she hits an allied god, she leaps into their shadow, traveling with them. When Nox exits a shadow, she deals damage again in a radius around her. Nox may cancel this ability early to exit shadows.

Ability Type: Dash
Damage: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+70% of your Magical Power)
Range: 55
Cost: 90
Cooldown: 15s
Night Terror
5 9 13 17 20

Night Terror

4 Y
Nox unleashes a vortex of dark energy that explodes on contact with an enemy god, dealing damage to all enemies in range 20 and applying damage over time. Enemies hit are also weakened, dealing less damage for the duration.

Ability Type: Line
Initial Damage: 200 / 250 / 300 / 350 / 400 (+75% of your Magical Power)
Damage: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+5% of your Magical Power) every 1s for 5s
Damage Reduction: 30% for 5s
Range: 120
Cost: 100
Cooldown: 90 / 85 / 80 / 75 / 70s

Introduction

Nox is an incredible god with a lot of potential capable of filling many roles (mid, solo, adc). Her skills are capable of ignoring line of sight, making corner sniping and ambushing easy. Unfortunately, Nox's dearth of health, absence of mobility and lack of any sort of defense makes her a very easy kill. Nox is a difficult God to master--however, I find her to be one of the most exciting mages in the game to play. Her low health, high burst output can make for some incredibly clutch plays, as well as getting the adrenaline pumping and the palms sweating. Let's move forward; allow me to convey some of my own personal insights.

Hopefully you can get as much out of this build as I have thus far.

Items

Let's look at what I feel are core items for Nox. The order in which they are listed in this chapter is also the order in which they are purchased throughout the course of a match. Rarely have I found it necessary to get the Magi Blessing before the Iso Gem--but do keep this possibility in mind if you find yourself constantly at the mercy of hard cc ganks.

CORE
1. Boots of the Magi -- While almost every Nox player ops for CDR boots [including myself in an earlier Nox guide I wrote], I believe that penetration is far more effective. Nox's most important ability is Siphon Darkness, which has an extremely low CD of only 3 seconds (suck it He Bo). While Nightfall Raven and Night Terror have particularly long cooldowns (compared to other mages), the only time these 2 skills become critical are when ganking or being ganked (not so important in team fights, except for Nightfall Raven which is a good way to silence nukers/Loki). The loss of damage from the CDR boots is enough of a handicap to stifle Nox's push during the laning phase, so do yourself a favor and grab dat penetraytray.

2. Warlock's Sash -- Probably the most critical item in Nox's build. Her lack of health and low base power make Nox a very easy, early/mid game target. The sash at full stacks nearly double's Nox's base health and power. Plus, the scaling easily will carry you to level ~15 with little effort.

3. Gem of Isolation -- After acquiring Gem of Iso, Nox really begins to shine. Getting an Iso Gem allows setting up a 3-2-3 combo with ease. Initiating with a Siphon Darkness lets the Iso Gem slow the enemy (thanks to SD's massive AoE, it's hard to miss), making Nightfall Raven far easier to land (the narrow fov for Nightfall Terror makes it difficult to connect). By the time you cast Nightfall Terror, Siphon Darkness should be off cool down and ready for another cast. Gem of Isolation is also a great way to empower your Ult--the cripple will often cause enemy god's to frenetically ability cast in an effort to escape..unfortunately for them, every time they cast an ability, your cooldown's reset and they take more damage. Poor, poor victims :D

4. Magi's Blessing -- Magi's Blessing is a great way to really beef up Nox's defenses, despite it's relatively low protection stats. The hard crowd control reduction/immunity stacks amazingly well with Shadow Barrier, making Nox highly viable in 1v1 situations with assassins. Having a Magi's Blessing allows you to mitigate hard CC while Shadow Barrier allows you defense against soft CC. Putting this item in your core build increase your odds of survival exponentially (especially once combined with combat blink).

5. Combat Blink: Lack of mobility is easily Nox's second biggest weakness. Combat blink remedies this, although its 3 minute cooldown forces you to choose your engagements wisely. A good way to help stifle the 3 minute cooldown is to accompany it with an Aegis (to help you gain more mitigation while offsetting the long cooldown of combat blink), although I prefer to have teleport as my 2nd active. I'm a ward ***** and having teleport3 allows me to be ALL OVER the map. It's great for stealing buffs, flanking enemies for ganks and pushing towers/backdooring.

Skills

Shadow Barrier: Definitely Nox's trickiest ability to master. The miniscule lifetime of the shield and relatively long cooldown suggest using this ability strictly as an escape mechanism, or ult mitigation. Shadow Barrier is great for removing roots, slows and preventing ults from sniping you (time it before Nu Wa's global hits you, or Vulcan's/Scylla's ults 1 shot you).

I've also found Shadow Barrier to be a great way to combat ADC's. It applies the mitigation from a single incoming ability, to all incoming auto attacks, meaning you can take 2-3 ADC hits with ease. This is important because in those 2-3 hits, Nox's burst (assuming you are throwing out the full combo, including ult) is enough to completely drain an enemy god's health at full core build.

Nightfall Raven: This is a great ability, although relatively hard to land when prediction-shooting/prefiring. The most important aspect of this ability is it's silence, which although only 1 second in duration, is often the most important factor in determining whether or not Nox wins a 1v1. As soon as you land Nightfall Raven, immediately cast your Siphon Darkness to reap the 150% damage bonus from a successful Raven connection (think of it as landing Agni's 4-1 stun combo). If you fail to chain Siphon Darkness immediately after Nightfall Raven, landing SD becomes slightly more problematic.

Siphon Darkness: I feel that Siphon Darkness is one of the best abilities in Smite. It has a very low cooldown and low mana cost akin to He-Bo's Water Cannon, except with a much farther range and the innate capability of going around corners/walls. Siphon Darkness is a great way to poke and peel, often outpushing opposing god's and keeping them at bay. If you're midding, having corner wards at harpy camps is a great way for preventing jungle ganks--often you can land one or two Siphon Darkness line-of-sight shots against a jungler from the safety of your own lane. Vampiric Shroud gives just enough MP5 and +10 mana/kill to make spamming Siphon Darkness viable throughout the early laning phase. Also, be sure to take advantage of SD's range and keep yourself tucked nicely behind your creep wave.

Night Terror: Night Terror is a bit of a gamble. Sometimes, opening with Night Terror can secure a quick kill (example: in the midst of a Loki gank, landing an NT can cause loki to kill himself if he is unfortunate enough to receive Night Terror during the middle of his combo). Conversely, it can be a disaster if you cast Night Terror and it misses, or the enemy god has slow immunity/escape. I generally try to save Night Terror as a way to secure a kill by casting it as the Death Blow. It's also great for keeping mages/bruisers in check during a team fight--have the mage/bruiser linked with Night Terror to prevent their casting, while you kite them and nuke their assassin/hunter friends.

Summary

Nox is best played mid. However, her passive, silence from nightfall raven, and poke with siphon darkness make it possible for her to support as well.

Make use of Nox's ability to bypass line of sight. A good example is mid harpy ganking. The range on SD and Nightfall Raven can reach the boundary rim of the mid harpy camps, making behind-the-wall kills a possibility. Try to surprise your enemy by initiating with a 2-3 combo from behind the wall and into midlane after killing a harpy camp. Scenario example: You're mid-camping harpies and your opponent dawdles into mid lane; thanks to your wards and minion field of view, you see your opponent headed towards the midcamp you just cleared. You wait patiently, and as soon as your opponent enters the jungle, initiate with 4-2-3 combo from behind the wall. This will generally kill the enemy, because they almost always attempt escape using an ability after being hit by your combo--unfortunately the Night Terror link just caused them to commit suicide<3.

The thing I can't stress enough is recognizing Nox as a glass cannon. It is vital that you keep your distance and peel as much with Siphon Darkness as possible before committing to a gank or kill. Once you begin stacking your Warlock's Sash, engaging more aggressively is much safer. After acquiring Magi's Blessing and Combat Blink, your survivability/mobility sky rocket and can easily begin securing kills without worry of death. Lastly, It is imperative you get all the last hits, as it can mean the difference between getting your core build complete by mid game and dominating, or being completely nonviable due to lack of proper scaling. Don't let the tower/minions steal last hits from you (and this applies to any carry or semicarry, not just Nox)!

Remember to ward your corners -constantly-. The 100g is invaluable in preventing you from certain death by jungle ganks. It is also helpful to carry wards with you at all times because you never know when they can become handy (example: getting a deicide in a team fight with all T1 towers down--ward fg and secure the buff without worrying about enemy respawns sniping it!). Whether it's DOTA, League, Prime World or Smite...wards are without a doubt the single most important item in a MOBA game. Let them become your best friends. Lack of vision will get your team killed and will make defeat inevitable.

I'll update this guide as time permits. I'll include pros/cons, laning phase tips and teamfight tactics a bit later. For now, the general knowledge contained within this guide should help you in your quest for a viable Nox build.

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1
quantumphyzx | November 12, 2014 10:57am
Hey Xoxor! I'm pleased that you were able to improve your game by reading my guide, that means alot. Thanks for the comment!

Let me know how your experimenting goes. :)
1
Xoxor (1) | November 11, 2014 8:38am
Hi, nice guide for Conquest Nox, thanks!
I've been experimenting with Nox in other modes (not brave enough for conquest yet, she is really hard to master!) and for Arena I found that when going CDR and full power glass canon I was dealing the most damage consistently early on, but I depended on my teammates to secure kills and ended up being out-carried. Your build based on survivability makes a lot of sense for lane play and might be just what I needed to up my play to conquest level.
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League of Legends Build Guide Author quantumphyzx
Darkness Falls
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