Dragon-Gladiator Ao Kuang (Arena)

Ah, Ao Kuang. Poor guy's got it rough across both Smite lore and real world mythology.

Luckily, he doesn't have it so rough in-game! In the right hands, Ao Kuang is a good god to play. In the right hands with a good build, Ao Kuang can be absolutely devastating.

I'll be taking you through your ability usage, your item build, and a few other things that were worth noting.

Let's move on, shall we?

If you like assassins, you'll probably love this build. This is basically an Ao Kuang assassin build, focusing around magical power stacking and your 2. You won't notice anything really early game, but that's to be expected.

Water Illusion
Your 1's purpose in this build is to act as a minion clean-up and minor getaway. You'll put your first point in it during the first three levels you initially get, then you won't be building it again until 14.

Dragon Call
Your most important ability is your 2, which is why it's fully built at level 9. Because Ao Kuang basics so fast, it makes his 2 his highest damaging ability once the build is complete or near-complete.

Wild Storm
Your 3 is a sort of quick burst damage to lead up to your ultimate. If you aren't going to be able to get off enough dragons from your 2 to get your enemy in execute range, you'll be using this to try and secure a safe ultimate.

King of the Eastern Seas
Your ultimate's actual damage isn't really going to mean anything in this build. You'll build it once at 5 so you have the execute, but after that you won't be building it anymore until 17 to 20.

Shoes of the Magi
You'll be taking this for the penetration and higher magical power. You might wonder why you'd be taking this over Shoes of Focus if you're going to be building Book of Thoth later on, but the reason is because the CD reduction from Shoes of Focus is extremely weak on it's own, and you get more magical power from Shoes of the Magi + Rod of Tahuti than you do from Shoes of Focus + Book of Thoth. That, and you get an initial +10 penetration.

Book of Thoth
You'll be taking Book of Thoth for obvious reasons: High base magical power, and the mana to magical power passive. This isn't your most important item, but it does help a good bit if you focus yourself on minions early game to build your stacks. At level 20 with full stacks and full item build, it'll give you an extra 70 or so magical power just from the passive, which is quite valuable.

Polynomicon
Sometimes I catch myself thinking, "Polynomicon, sheesh am I really going to basic enough on this mage to want this?" Well, with Ao Kuang the answer is YES. Your main damage will come from your 2, which affects your basic attacks. The neat bit is that just activating your 2 and getting your dragons around you counts as the ability needed for Polynomicon to give you your basic attack buff. It also provides a good bit of magical from base and mana. Lifesteal isn't really a big thing here, though.

Rod of Tahuti
This is your most important item, hands-down. This item even without it's passive gives you a staggering 125 magical power, but the passive is what gives you your insanely high bonus to magical power. Once you have this, your damage will skyrocket.

Obsidian Shard
This is a very important item in your build, as it provides you with the bulk of your penetration. The 70 magical power is a nice bonus as well, especially when affected by Rod of Tahuti.

Soul Reaver
Ah, the final item of the build. If you're getting KS'd a lot and losing out on a lot of gold, there's a decent chance you won't get to build this fully before you lose or win. However, if you end up with a good amount of kills and build this, your ascension to total Dragon Godhood is complete. Not only does it give 100 magical power before even adding in the bonus from Rod of Tahuti, it gives you 300 mana to add to your Book of Thoth's passive as well! At this point in the match, the passive isn't going to matter too much, but it does make your first basic attack after using your 2 even stronger* (Especially when combined with Polynomicon.)

*To the best of my knowledge, your basic attack buffed by your 2 procs Soul Reaver because of the 2's dragon damaging the opponent. I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that's how it works.

Your early game effectiveness is going to largely depend on whether your target is grouped up or alone, and whether most of the enemy team is melee or ranged (Hunter+Mage). If it's a lone target in a team made up mostly of melee, you'll probably do pretty well early-game, and the rest of the game most likely.

However, if it's a ranged-heavy team, your effectiveness not only early game but the whole game as well isn't going to be the best. You're a melee mage, and this build essentially makes you a melee assassin instead of your typical mage. You're going to suffer from the same weaknesses most assassins face, which is ranged and groups of enemies.

Your passive is really easy to manage. You hold three charges max, and using an ability both uses up a charges and increases your ability's damage. It's recharge is 5s, which gives you plenty of time to refill it before you use your next ability, since you're not focusing on cooldown reduction. Early-game this is going to be important, because the damage boost will help you secure more kills. Mid to late game, it's not as important because of the insane amount of damage you'll be pushing out anyways.

Your 2 is your most powerful ability regardless of any problems that might affect it, but there are possible problems regarding your 2 + Soul Reaver and your Passive.

See, your cast on your 2 is getting your dragons around you, not doing damage. This raises the question of whether or not your basic attacks buffed by your 2 are affected by your passive, and if they trigger Soul Reaver.

The reason they may not for Soul Reaver is that the enemy isn't taking damage directly from a cast ability, they're taking damage from an ability-buffed basic attack.

For your Passive, the reason is that your passive says you get a damage buff to the ability when it's cast. Your damage doesn't come from the cast, it comes from the buff given by the cast applied to your basic attack.

I've not been able to figure out yet the answer to these two potential problems, but regardless this build still performs excellently.

The thing to remember about Ao Kuang is, regardless of build, he's honestly a lot more like an assassin than a mage. He melees with his basic attack, half of his 2 is focused around his basic attack, and his 3 and ultimate both have to be in melee range to use.

If you like regular mages, you may not want to be Ao Kuang. That, and if you don't like assassins.

If you do like assassins, you'll probably love Ao Kuang. He's got decent movement speed, he's got a minor getaway ability, easy minion cleanup, fast attack speed, basic attack buffs, a burst ability, and even an execute.

If you like the build, feel free to upvote it! If you have any questions or want to point out anything, let me know in a comment! Thank you for reading!