Freya: Valkyric Destruction -UPDATED 9/9/2015-

Freya, the lady of ladies and the Queen of the Valkyries. Hers is a tragic tale, but not as tragic as what you'll do to your enemies! Freya is a versatile mage that's great at ganking, jungling, and destroying whoever her target is. She brings a lot of power and reasonably strong CC to the table, and in the right hands she's sure to devastate the enemy team.

Though she's fairly easy to learn, Freya becomes an incredible threat to the enemy team in the hands of a capable player. Freya's role as a nuke is unique, in that while she's a mage the majority of her damage comes from her basic attacks. Though this may seem weird to some, her power is undeniable and will definitely leave its mark on the enemy team.

Now that we know what Freya is, let's take a look at what makes her tick. In this guide you'll find a detailed list of skills and their uses, items, gameplay tips, and various other pieces of useful information that will help you become a top level threat as Queen of the Valkyries in any game mode.

Freya is an amazing goddess full of potential, and while she's not perfect, she's an incredible goddess with pros that vastly outweigh the cons.

Pros:

Cons:

Before you can do anything with her, you need to know what Freya's skills can do!

This provides 15% magical lifesteal, which is very useful for staying alive in the jungle or in the lane. It can also provide just enough health to survive an encounter with an enemy.

This is your power steroid, it gives your auto attack a huge boost in power in the form of a second attack. When this is activated your basic attack will do its usual damage + a magical hit from Irradiate

This makes your basic attacks ranged, adds damage in the form of a second hit, and grants your attacks area damage. The initial target will take both hits, while any other targets in the vicinity only take damage equal to that of a basic attack.

This is your initiation skill. If you manage to land this you're guaranteed two hits on your opponent in a 1v1 at mid-late game, which becomes extremely deadly after you've finished your build. It can also be used to take key targets out of team fights or to save you if you're being hunted down. It takes a fair amount of precision to use, and is very easy to waste.

This is your ultimate, and what an ultimate it is. You fly into the air becoming damage and CC immune, and can fire four shots of intense magical damage. You're on a timer and if you fail to use your shots, you'll land regardless. This can also be used as an escape in some cases, but you only have normal movement speed so it's best used as a nuke in most cases.

There are a few ways to build her skills, depending on the situation. My general approach for all game modes is as follows:

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Freya's CC is lackluster in comparison to most gods, and for the majority of the game the 1 second Banish is enough. Focusing on damage over CC allows Freya to become a larger threat much faster. It's rare that you'll need to prioritize Banish over your other skills.

Freya is a very versatile goddess, despite being fairly straightforward. She is viable in the ADC, Jungle, and Solo roles, though most commonly she will be in the ADC role. When playing Freya the builds you use will remain the same regardless of your role. With the changes in Season 2 and the return of penetration on Shoes of the Magi, the full damage build is ideal.

Keeping her versatility in mind, Freya is most comfortable in the ADC role. She has fairly strong clear and can outclear a large amount of hunters, and comes online much sooner. She enjoys the farm and possible matchups on duo lane, though can be successful in the jungle and on solo lane depending on the team compositions.

Though Freya utilizes basic attacks, she gains a great amount of utility from having cooldown reduction. This build favors that reduction over sheer power, reducing the cooldown on her main forms of damage, Pulse and Irradiate, to 6 seconds.

This allows Freya to launch powerful ranged AoE attacks, or even stronger single target ranged attacks via the Irradiate+ Pulse combination, with only a one second downtime instead of the usual 6. This prevents enemies from taking advantage of her lack of ranged attacks, allowing Freya to engage the enemy from a distance consistently instead of having to wait on cooldowns.

This build also gives Valkyrie's Discretion far more utility, allowing it to be used as an escape from enemy ultimates, such as Hades' Pillar of Agony, Cupid's Fields Of Love, Ares' No Escape, and other abilities with a delayed or soft CC effect while simultaneously nuking the enemy god.




During the early game you'll be hitting things much more slowly and for less damage than a damage oriented build, as you won't have as much attack speed. This is, however, rewarded with an early -40% cooldown reduction which will allow you to spam your Irradiate and Pulse.

Once you hit mid game you've gotten your Shoes of Focus and Chronos' Pendant, and should now be building Hastened Fatalis or Demonic Grip depending on how you've been doing. This is where you'll hit your stride as you're finally getting your attack speed up. With the newly found attack speed increase in combination with your reduced cooldowns, you will start to have a large impact in fights.

It's time for the late game, and your Polynomicon will be putting in a ton of work thanks to the large amount of power you gain from Rod of Tahuti. Now that you've reached this point anything without huge amounts of defense is going to go down within seconds as long as you manage to hit your mark.

Freya remains squishy throughout the entire game, but once the mid-late game starts she begins to excel. Even with less damage than the usual Freya builds, you'll be able to cause huge amounts to damage once you've hit your late game stride. You'll need to be cautious against teams with heavy crowd control, Greater Purification is a must.



As the name of the build implies, it's all about destroying your enemies. This build focuses purely on damage with the only utility item being one that allows you to stick to your target. Once you get your third item you'll notice a huge power spike, and once you've finished your core you'll be putting out some very good damage.

In the early game you'll want to farm farm farm. You won't be able to secure kills yet, unless your opponent just lets you hit them. Freya's early game isn't too strong so you'll want to get through it as quickly as possible. Once you've gotten your Shoes of the Magi and Hastened Fatalis you'll start being able to severely damage people and possibly get kills. Once you hit level 5 and have these two items your fighting potential becomes fairly strong.

Once you've reached mid game and finished your Demonic Grip you'll be a force to be reckoned with. With good coordination between you and your team, and skillful use of your abilities you'll be able to seriously damage or even kill enemies with your Pulse+ Irradiate combo. If you aren't able to secure kills with that combo alone, Valkyrie's Discretion will likely finish the job.

Now we enter the late game. You've finished your Spear of the Magus and Rod of Tahuti. This is where you shine. You'll have insane damage output with your ability combos and the protection shredding of Demonic Grip and Spear of the Magus, and be able to outbox a fair amount of gods in the game.

Freya lacks any form of anti crowd control outside of her ultimate, and against CC heavy teams she'll need to buy Greater Purification. You'll need to be able to land your skill shots with this build as well, as once your Pulse or Irradiate wear off they'll have a significant cool down which will make you vulnerable to attack.

Aegis Pendant is a great for absorbing burst damage from enemies, however it's extremely situational. This will mostly be used against teams with a lot of burst and low crowd control. It can also be used in situations when you don't quite know what to buy. This item has replaced Greater Aegis due to changes that made Greater Aegis un-usable while being stunned or silenced.

Weakening Curse is an amazing item against teams with strong heals, as well as good for team fights. All enemies in range are slowed by a huge amount making their escape extremely difficult and all of your attacks easier to land.

Heavenly Agility is a great item for escaping or chasing targets down, while it may lack the ability to slow multiple enemies it will allow you to catch any would have been out of Weakening Curse's range. High base movement speed from Shoes of the Magi or Shoes of Focus and Hastened Fatalis along with Heavenly Agility's boost makes you near uncatchable and inescapable. It will also give your team a movement speed boost, giving your whole team stronger chase or escape potential.

Greater Purification is invaluable against teams with large amounts of CC. It removes any cc effects while giving you immunity to new ones for three seconds. This is one of those items that can singlehandedly turn a fight from a defeat into a victory.

Due to the necessity of every item to make Freya builds work, it's very rare you'll ever replace an item. The exceptions to this rule are 1v1s or when facing certain types of teams. If they have a ton of CC and you're being locked down? Magi's Blessing. A lot of slows that are preventing you from escaping or chasing? Winged Blade. There are a variety of great items that can help you snag a kill or survive longer against certain opponents, and you'll definitely want to consider them when playing the game.

Magi's Blessing

Magi's Blessing is an item you will very rarely ever need, however against Arachne and Loki it's extremely useful. It will automatically cleanse their stuns and allow you to immediately counter attack or flee if need be.

Witchblade is great against physical basic attack gods. It lowers their attack speed by 15% and their power by 25. It also provides movement speed, which when combined with the slow from Pulse will allow you to keep an enemy at a distance or make it harder for them to escape from you.

Winged Blade is a very niche item, however when it's needed it can be very useful. This is great against an opponent or against teams that heavily rely on slows. It can be very useful against Nemesis, Loki, any other gods with abilities that slow you. It's also an option to consider when facing gods that like to build Frostbound Hammer such as Bakasura, or against gods that like to build Gem of Isolation such as Posiedon. Ironically, this item can be used against Freya as well.

Hide of the Nemean Lion is a great defensive item against basic attack gods like Mercury, Loki, and various Assassins that depend on this method of killing as it punishes their offense by reflecting damage. Large amounts of lifesteal render the damage this item deals nearly worthless, so be cautious of using this against hunters who almost always have lifesteal in their builds.

Obsidian Shard grants 70 magic power and 33% magic penetration, making it a great item to get through an opponent's defenses. If you aren't getting decent damage on enemies this is certainly a great item to consider. It will also allow you to kill objectives significantly faster, so be sure to pick it up of that's an issue for you or your team.

Spear of the Magus gives only 40 magic power and 15% penetration, but for every hit you'll reduce your target's magic defense by 10+10% for 5 seconds, up to 2 stacks for a total of 20+20%. Thanks to Irradiate and Pulse making your basic attacks count as abilities you can maintain this debuff throughout the entire fight with your target. This item won't allow you to kill objectives faster like Obsidian Shard will, however it's great against teams with multiple bruisers/tanks due to Freya's ability to keep its passive stacked on multiple targets throughout a fight.

Mystical Mail is good to use against teams that use ability based physical damage. This will allow you to get free damage from simply being on the battlefield. This item has limited use, as Freya gets more benefit from Midgardian Mail or Hide of the Nemean Lion when 1v1ing Assassins or Hunters, and will rarely build any of these items outside of 1v1s. That being said, this item is still worth mentioning.

Midgardian Mail is strong against Assassins and Hunters, it allows you to slow their basic attacks and movement speed making it easier to box them or escape from them. It provides a very fair amount of health and physical protection as well, though it does come with the downside of only having a chance of working instead of working on demand.

Freya is an excellent addition to any team fight, bringing in massive damage as well as CC to take a key target out just long enough to let your team set up a combo or to save them from a massive threat just long enough to re-position themselves.

When in a team fight recognizing when to use your Irradiate+ Pulse combo, or when to only use Pulse is important. Your combo can be bodyblocked, whereas Pulse by itself is trickier and requires the enemy gods to have distance between them to block it. A general rule of thumb is to use your burst combo if on a target if they're spread out, and to only use Pulse if they're grouped up. This will also slow all of the targets in range of the area of effect, making escape more difficult for the enemy team.

Banish is tricky to use in a team fight, you can ruin your team's burst combos just as easily as you can save them from certain death with it. A Freya who uses Banish well is a huge asset to their team, while one that can't make good use of it will do nothing but hinder them. Banish can be used as a great initiation skill, or as a way to secure a kill by keeping them airborn long enough for your team to catch up and end them.

Valkyrie's Discretion brings a huge nuke to any teamfight, and if you manage to catch the enemy team grouped up they're in for a world of hurt. It's also a great way to ensure anything under half HP won't escape, or at the very least can't turn their situation around.

Pulse makes dealing with minion waves or jungle camps much easier early game, and allows you to plow through them in seconds by mid game. Freya's ability to hit hard with constant AoE makes her an excellent jungler.

Jungle Starting Items:

You'll purchase Bumba's Mask, Potion of Magical Might, and three Healing Potions and sit in base until the countdown reaches 15 seconds until creature spawns. Once this happens you'll activate your Potion of Magical Might then purchase two Mana Potions and head into the jungle. This is the normal start for Freya, however there are other options depending on whether or not you want to invade.

Remember to focus on your farm early game, Freya isn't an early game goddess. You'll need to farm levels and gold, then once you've gotten 3-4 items you're ready to destroy people. You should be ganking when the opportunity presents itself, but if you aren't 100% sure you can save a teammate or secure a kill by ganking, keep to the jungle and focus on your farm.

Warding is EXTREMELY important. Everytime you return to base you should buy wards, and every time you get back to jungling you should be placing them.

Freya vs Bakasura 1v1

• Banish works on Loki's Decoy, and can be used to disrupt his lane clear.
• Irradiate and Pulse can be used in unison for a larger increase in damage, however the attack becomes single target.
• Valkyrie's Discretion is useful as an escape, though you don't get a speed boost while in it.
• Irradiate and Pulse will make your basic attacks count as both basic attacks and abilities, allowing them to be used in conjuction with Spear of the Magus or be affected by items like Hide of the Nemean Lion and Midgardian Mail.

8/14/2014 -
Updated situational items.
Added situational items to purchase order list.
Fixed grammatical errors.

1/25/2015 -
Added Valkyric Destruction build (traditional Freya build).
Edited Introduction slightly.
Updated Situational Items.
Updated Jungling Items.
Updated Jungling guide.
Edited the name of Hades' ultimate to be correct.
Edited various parts of the guide to be more visually appealing.

1/29/2015 -
Switched the Notes and Changelog sections.
Added a 1v1 video of Freya vs Bakasura to the Videos section.


2/6/2015 -
Corrected various grammar mistakes.

7/25/2015 -
Added a Viable Roles section.

8/14/2015 -
Edited Jungle section and corrected typos.
Removed old Replays from Videos section.
Updated Builds (Specifically Actives).

9/9/2015 -
Removed Video section description since I have a video up.
Removed Fist of the Gods as an optional active item. (Due to the ineffectiveness of HoG)
Replaced Greater Aegis with Aegis Pendant

This guide is a work in progress, things may be changed or added.
Suggestions are always welcome, feel free to suggest any improvements you can think of.

-2/6/2015-

We have exciting new conquest changes ahead of us, unfortunately I'm unsure if I'll be able to invest a lot of time with Freya on the new map. Even if I can it will take a while to incorporate the new items and actives into the builds/playstyles, however if I can find time I will certainly try.