Kali - Destroying The Jungle

Introduction

Hello, I am Jordenito

Hello there fellas, my name is Jordenito, and I've been playing SMITE ever since Chang'e was introduced. I have written plenty of guides already, but only one of them for jungling. This time, we're taking a look at Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Destruction.




And This is Kali

If you weren't around for the last months, you wouldn't recognize Kali. She got a rework, both visually and to her kit. Now she is a hyper carry with a very unique kit - one that grants the ability to become invincible for a few seconds. Kali is known for her terrible early game, her stupidly strong late game, but the first thing people think of when they hear 'Kali', is her dueling potential. Kali is the strongest god in SMITE in terms of 1v1.

ADVANTAGES Insane Late Game The Best Duelist Immense Sustain

_____________ _________

DRAWBACKS Terrible Early Game Mediocre Clear Speed Auto Attack Reliant

Skills

Overview

Marked For Destruction: The only thing in game which I can resemble this passive to is I'm a Monster. It just allows you to completely rofl-stomp enemies and deny their efforts of shutting you down and killing you. As a pure single-target damage Assassin, this will teach you how to choose your target wisely and commit to it. This also allows you to tower dive your targets.

Nimble Strike: The fastest leap in the game, animaiton wise. Use it to chase, initiate ganks & fights, escape and bait enemies into traps. Do not underestimate the heal. You can utilize it to either heal yourself while in the jungle by jumping on creeps with low health or healing yourself during skirmishes and fights.

Lash: Your main source for destroying jungle camps, clearing waves and bursting enemies. Do not underestimate the lifesteal, and while the damage on it doesn't really compare to that of Death Scythe, those 3 blades do mean something. It's a bit tricky to aim, so it is highly recommended to use it in conjunction with your stun.

Incense: When maxed, this ability is the longest duration active steroids in the game. Use the stun to set up Lash and other abilities with team mates, initiate, interrupt abilities like Taolu Assault and stall to escape. You can also use the physical power buff for increasing your damage dealt to objectives.

Destruction: Relentless destruction in its purest form. This allows you to tower dive 24/7, overcommit (especially to your marked target), bait enemies into dumping all of their abilities to kill you, survive. Bottom line, go insane with this. Never hesitate to use this ability defensively for escapism.

Skill Sequence

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Lash is your most damaging ability, so it's the first you pick up and first you max.

At level 2 you can decide whether you want to get the aggressiveness and interruption Incense or the safety of Nimble Strike. At level 3 get Lash again, and level 4 get whichever you didn't get at level 2.

Now, some say that you should put a point in your ultimate whenever you can. While it does increase the duration of the invincibility, I'd rather have more damage on my Lash and Nimble Strike and more physical power for a longer duration from Incense rather than 1 more second of invincibility. Kill faster instead of being invincible longer.

After maxing Lash, it's time to get your steroids going on. Not only does the power itself increase, but the duration too. At max rank, you get 50 physical power for 8 seconds. I think it's better than having a little bit more damage on your leap.

Skill Combos


Gank Combo






Chase Combo

All-In Combo

Stats

Core Stats

Power: As a carry, you must have power on your top priority so that you could hurt people and destroy them.

Attack Speed: Kali is an auto-attack centered god. Not only this, but because your swing chain is 1/.5/.5, attack speed is even more helpful.

Penetration: Even enemies without any physical protection items will still have around 50 physical protection at level 20. You must be able to shred through their armor.

Crit Chance: Again, Kali is a basic-attack based carry. Crit chance is pretty much self explanatory, as you want to have as much damage from your auto attacks as possible.

Profitable Stats

Lifesteal: Sometimes, your innate sustains won't be enough to keep up your health in boxing skirmishes and team fights.

Movement Speed: You are only dangerous when at melee range. Therefore, you must be quick and agile to get there as fast as possible.

Useless Stats

Cooldown Reduction: Screw utility! Your abilities aren't as important as your autos. Dealing more damage is better than having more ults!

Health: You are not a tank! If you want survivability, get lifesteal!

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NOTE: Protections is an "on and off" kind of stat. The only protection items I get on Kali are Witchblade and magi's blessing, and both are also really, really rare. Explanations on it below in the items section.

Items

Starting Items

potion of physical might

Potion of Physical Might: This comes in handy in the beginning as it boosts your early game damage & clear which allow you to have more time for ganks and better farm.

Hand of the Gods: In order to keep up with the jungle clear, this active is a must for ever jungler, and Kali is no differnet. Late game you should opt it for Fist of the Gods and have the twin stuns.

Bumba's Mask: For beginner junglers, I'd recommend taking this. It grants you good sustain in the jungle removes your gold loss when a team mate leeches a camp.

Death's Toll: If you can control your mana usage and health, this pays out way more than Bumba's Mask. The early game damage allows you to clear much faster, and since you already have some innate sustain, you can do just fine. It also syngerizes well with your 1/.5/.5 swing chain.

Purchase Order


As Kali, you must understand the general idea of when to purchase items. Your first two should always be Warrior Tabi and Qin's Sais. From there on, going for a penetration item is highly recommended, and lifesteal is a good choice as well. But, if you can't seem to really need either, you don't need to wait for late game to get your crits.




Core Items

Warrior Tabi: This will allow you to gank and rotate faster as well as clear better and deal more damage, mainly thanks to the penetration. Get this item first, or else...

Qin's Sais: The perfect item for you. As soon as you get this, it's game on. It fits your swing chain so well that it nearly doubles your auto attack damage. It is the core of Kali, and so you must get it second, after your shoes!

Rage: Crits all day every day! It suits your swing chain really well and will allow you to auto attack for much more damage.

Penetration

The Executioner: As mentioned before, Kali fares really well with on-hit items because of her fast swing chain. This means that you can stack this item's passive in an instant.

Titan's Bane: If you seek to deal immediate, instant burst to enemies and vaporize them in a second, than this is the item for you. If you take this in addition to The Executioner it'll lose its effectiveness.

Brawler's Beat Stick: Works really well against sustain-based gods like Hercules or Hel, and the flat penetration is also quite useful.

Lifesteal

Devourer's Gauntlet: If you don't need the penetration after finishing your first two items, and think you need some survivability, this is both stats and cost efficient.

Bloodforge: If you are in late game and don't have the time to stack Devourer's Gauntlet, this does pretty much the same thing, but at a higher cost.

Mobility

Greater Sprint: Get this if you are opting for a build that is centered around bursting enemies as fast as possible.

Hastened Fatalis: If you don't want to rely on an active to help you chase, or if you want to save your last active slot for a more defensive active item, this is your item of choice.

Defense

Witchblade: Comes in handy against physical enemies that rely on basic attacks like Mercury or Bakasura.

magi's blessing

Magi's Blessing: If you went for Greater Sprint and still need some help against CC, this will truly make you an unstoppable force of Destruction.

Crits Crits Crits...

Deathbringer: It might seem that this should be a core item, but sometimes, you want the lifesteal for the survivability and sustain rather than the damage. Nevertheless, you know how effective and good this item is.

Malice: Not exactly my cup of tea, but if you seek more damage and have nothing else to buy, coupled with Rage and Deathbringer, it'll make you crit almost every time.

Active Items

Greater Purification: You are still vulnerable to CC when ulting, and since you can't use your ult while under the effect of hard CC, you might end up dying with it available.

Greater Aegis: If you need more invincibility against heavy burst teams, this is a life saver, as well as a counter to CC from time to time.

Mistakes that Destroy You

Asi: Doesn't grant any power and there are better lifesteal items, better penetration items and better attack speed items. You get more, better stats from getting items from each kind rather than a hybrid item of all stats.

Heartseeker: Since this item is only good early game, it delays you from getting Qin's Sais, which you want to get ASAP. If you wanna stack, get Devourer's Gauntlet.

Jungling

Now, the jungler has quite a few roles. Here's a summary of them and their priority:
Bottom Line: The Jungler Helps.




Clearing Camps

While not her strongest aspect, Kali's clear and farm are the most important elements in her game. That is because of her poor early game and outstanding late game. You want to get to the point where you become unstoppable as fast as you can. In order to do so:

Lash: To clear the most effectively, start by auto attacking the middle creep in the camp, and then when all 3 creeps are stacked up as close as possible, use Lash. This way, all 3 blades will hit all 3 creeps. From there just keep auto attacking. When clearing waves, go right in front of the melee minions and throw the blades so they'll all hit the melee and converge at the archers.

Your fastest way of clearing camps and waves is Lash. In fact, in the jungle, this ability should be the only one you should use to clear. While Kali isn't exactly mana hungry, if you constantly use both Lash and Nimble Strike to clear camps, you'll deplete your mana really quickly. Only if you need to clear/get somewhere quickly, you should use both abilities. Nimble Strike also comes in handy when you need a quick heal. When used a low-health middle creep in a buff camp, you can easily heal for 50% of your health.




Counter Jungling

Now that you know how to clear jungle camps, it's time learn how to steal them from your enemies! Counter jungling both helps you by increasing your overall farm and granting you and your team more buffs while denying the farm and buffs from the enemy jungler. It's risky, but pays off if you can execute it.

There are 3 key elements in counter jungling.

Vision: You must know where the enemy team is, specifically the enemy jungler. This can be achieved by proper usage of team communication, wards and sentry wards to make sure you are not spotted out by enemy wards. Also if you see that the enemy jungler is on low health but went to the jungle to clear, feel free to pay him a surprise visit.

Fast Clear: Kali doesn't really excel at this, but it isn't a major drawback for her either. You must be able to clear the camp as fast as possible before enemies will realize you are invading their jungle. This could be heavily assisted with the use of Hand of the Gods. To utilize it to its best, use it only when you know it'll kill the camp. If you use it right off the bat and get caught, you'll need to retreat and eventually lose time, money and get a cooldown on your HoG.

Escape Route: You must plan ahead an escape route so you could immediately retreat as soon as you say danger incoming. Granted, Kali is pretty good at the safety of counter jungling, as you have an incredibly fast leap, a stun and few seconds of invincibility, so you shouldn't really die if you have all of those available. Nonetheless, it's better that you instantly jump over the wall instead of waiting and having to blow off your ult to try and save yourself from a 3-men collapse on you.

Also, there is a great Counter Jungling Guide written by BestMinionEver Which really explains counter jungling in depth and how to do it. Check it out and don't forget to upvote it if it helped you.




Ganking

Early game, ganking must involve team work and cooperation in order to yield results. As Kali's early game damage is mere, unless enemies are overextending, you will have a hard time killing them on your own. This is where your strongest ganking tool comes to work.

Incense: This ability is nearly impossible to miss and locks down enemies with ease. It can easily set up a guaranteed Searing Pain or Release The Kraken! to help you execute the gank.

Now, don't just jump into the lane thinking you can stun them and it's GG. Some enemies are more evasive than you are. Sometimes you need to flank the enemies and save your leap to chase them, as they'll have a quick escape. It is best to flank from behind, initiate with Incense and save Nimble Strike on enemies with high mobility like Apollo or Tyr.


What is to follow is up to you. If you have your ult and/or you are ganking your kill target, you can tower dive them, but be careful doing so. If you can't do the job well and get stuck inside the tower, even your ultimate won't save you, especially not when other enemies are incoming. Needless to say, sprint will always help you to stick to enemies running away from you.




Showing Presence

Showing Presence: What it is basically is going to a certain lane and not gank it necessarily but just show your presence to the enemy laner. This will cause them to think twice before pushing and overextending the lane and put some pressure on them. It's good to do so if a lane is being outpushed but you can't quite gank the lane. It's a small thing but can really help your team mates.

Game Phases

Starting The Match

There are two ways of starting the match, depending on which side you are.

If solo lane is on the left:
If solo lane is on the right:



Early Game


The early game is the most crucial period for Kali. Because of her lack of utility and low damage, if you fall off behind, you can contribute nothing to a team fight and almost cannot gank. For example, losing your red potion will drastically delay your late game.

eat minions

Farm: Your main focus here should be on farm. Your early game is bad, so your goal is try to pass it as fast as possible. Clear as many camps as you can as fast as possible and try not to die. This doesn't mean you are restricted from ganking, but you must pick your actions very carefully.

While farming should be your top priority in the early game, you can still gank and can still fight enemies. But, because of Kali's weak early game, each of her fights must be very calculated. You must know which enemy you are fighting and what are their main source of damage in order to stand an even chance.

Technical Edge: Because of your low ability damage and reliance on auto attacks, you cannot withstand straight up fights. You must have a technical advantage that in theory grants you an edge over your opponent. What this means, basically, is that you should fight only when the odds are in your favor.

The above is achieved in many ways. The element of surprise always works, as well as outnumbering your enemies and coordinating with your team. Also, engaging when your enemies' main source of damage / effectiveness and abilities are on cooldown or cannot be used will give you the edge you seek.

Ability Centered Gods: If you are fighting an enemy Thanatos, you know that his abilities are his greatest source of damage. Dodge his Death Scythe and Soul Reap and you can easily outbox him, as your steroids and lifesteal provide greater auto attack damage and potential.

Auto Attack Based Gods: This is more of a skill game and match up between the gods. Positioning is key, as well as correct evaluation of the enemies' build as opposed to yours. I'd also advise to try and bait the enemy into using their steroids, then disengage when they do, and turn on them and fight when they're steroids are down. Also, being the first to successfully attack gives you a great advantage.

Mid-Late Game


By this point, you've gotten Qin's Sais already, which means, that by this point, your damage is just ridiculous.

You no longer rely on enemies to be with low health, overextend or rely on teamwork to execute ganks. You can kill anyone in the blink of an eye, including tanks.

But, this doesn't mean you're invincible. You are still squishy and can die.


Always keep an eye on your farm. If you try to gank too much and fail, you'll lose far too much gold & experience and fall behind.


If you have gotten a lifesteal item, you can easily solo the gold fury. Just make sure you have proper vision and map awareness of your enemies.

Split Pushing: Split pushing with Kali is a bit tricky. On one hand, your auto attack damage is insane, so you can melt towers in an instant. On the other hand, your wave clear is poor, so you'll waste a lot of time doing so instead of smacking towers. My advice? Only if it's really needed and possible to do, than do it. Otherwise, you're better off fighting with your team.

The Roles of Destruction

Carrying

aimed strike

Dealing Damage: Your most efficient way of dealing damage is to initiate with Incense, follow up with a quick point-blank Lash and just auto attack until the end of times. If you can't kill the target before it runs away, sprint comes in handy, as well as Nimble Strike or Hastened Fatalis - you name it. Just be careful not going into a 5-men ambush by doing so.

Kali is one of the most single-target damaging gods in the game. I can easily compare her to Mercury or Artemis. Now, because Kali is an auto-attack based god, her only real form of damage is single-target. Therefore, you mustn't spread your damage, otherwise you'll lose effectiveness and eventually get yourself killed. You must have:

Commitment: You have the unique ability to go invincible and completely heal and grant yourself a second chance by slaying your kill target. Use those abilities wisely. You must choose your target and try to attack it and only it. Of course, if you have started attacking Geb, there is no reason to continue doing so if Freya is right near him, but you must set your mind to attack one target and commit to it all the way. Most of the times, it'll be your kill target.

Granted, that doesn't mean you should be chasing your target all the way to their base when enemies are still fighting your team.

Commitment doesn't mean getting what's called "tunnel vision", where you don't care about anything aside from your goal. Commitment is choosing your target wisely and focusing purely on it, if possible.


As mentioned before, you can go invincible for a few seconds and heal yourself completely. This means that you have the ability to pick off targets that are behind the defense lines.

Killing The Back Line: You cannot be killed while under the effect of Destruction, and you can fully heal yourself by slaying your kill target. This allows Kali to jump behind the mighty Ymir and Odin to slay the slither Ao Kuang standing behind them and blowing wind at your team. The best way of doing so is with your All-in Combo.

Dueling


Kali's dueling potential in the mid-late game is unstoppable. With her endless dueling tools, and the most powerful ones being her sustain, burst and invincibility, you almost always have the upper hand in a straight up 1v1 fight.

Disruption & Avoidance: Your stun and leap provide great tools for avoiding enemy attacks, dodging and interrupting them and their abilities, as well as locking down and chasing. Any channeling abilities like Taolu Assault could be counteracted by either of the above, and it's best to save your Incense for those kind of situations, while you can dodge certain abilities like Hovering Death or Circle of Protection with Nimble Strike.

You can also dodge enemy attacks offensively. Do you know that moment, when you see an enemy Anubis approaching you, and you can see the look in his eyes that he just wants to wrap you in mummy paper? Well, with good timing and intuitions, you can jump on him as soon as he casts Mummify and turn on to him.

If you are facing an enemy which hasn't got an immediate escape mechanism, for example, a leap or a dash, and you have gotten in melee range from them without using Incense, it's best to first attack them as long as you are within range, and when they start running away and thus getting out of your range, stun them, so you could catch up.

Boxing: First, you must evaluate your enemy and their capabilities. This is done by knowing the god and looking at their build. Even when you don't have any lifesteal items, the bleed from Lash is enough to keep up your health when fighting. Additionally, the timing on Destruction is key. Don't use it right away, otherwise you'll lose precious time of invincibility. Wait for the right moment when the enemy dumps their burst, and just before you die activate it.

Baiting


Kali has 3 key elements that are really helpful to bait enemies into wasting their abilities on you and focusing you while surviving.

Sustain: You can easily heal up any damage taken in fights. There are 2 main ways of sustaining yourself throughout fights. The first is with your passive. You can heal 80% of your total health by getting the killing blow on your kill target, which ultimately grants you a second chance. The second is via lifesteal, which is achieved with the bleed from Lash and lifesteal items.

Invincibility: Kali is one of only 3 gods in the game who have an innate ability to become invulnerable. You can completely negate any attempt of the enemy to burst you down and kill you. This means that you can bait out enemy ultimates: "Enemy He Bo uses Crushing Wave on you? Counteract with Destruction and proceed to murder him while being unable to die."

Mobility: This is Kali's weakest aspect out of the 3, but she doesn't lack in it either. You have a jump and high base movement speed. And if you have opted for Greater Sprint or any movement speed increasing items, you are very fast. This means that you can dodge incoming enemy attacks and abilities, as well as lure them far away from an objective like the Fire Giant while your team is taking it.

God Match Ups

hun batz ____________ _________ H A R D The monkey is a great jungle rival that you will face quite often. With high mobility that includes both a jump and a teleport, he is very hard to catch, meaning that he can escape from you quite easily when you ult. His burst damage is immense, and the slow from Somersault can be a real pain in your *** as you are a melee, auto-attack centered god. But, his biggest threat and his most knows and feared feature is his ultimate, which does affect you when you are ulting, and can easily determine the outcomes of a team fight. What Should I Do? His Overhand Smash is unmissable and does huge amounts of damage, but has a very long animation on it. This means that just before the animation ends and the ability hits, you can use Incense to stun him and stop the animation, or use Nimble Strike to jump above him and avoid it. Take note of who Sacred Monkey hit last. Chances are he'll teleport to that target and perhaps use his ult and initiate. Just group up next to that target and be ready to stun him and burst him down. Once he has used all of his abilities, his damage is significantly reduced. You can easily out box him without any of his abilities. His greatest tool though is his ultimate. With it, he has the upper hand. Without it, you are most likely to win 1v1. If you know you will if he ults you, use your ultimate just before he uses it to survive it. If you know you can survive it, it's better to save it for just when Fear No Evil wears off and then have 2 more seconds of invincibility. Be careful from his ultimate in the jungle. Being feared into a wall is not a pleasnet experience, and his abilities fare better in the jungle than yours. You are better fighting him out in the open rather than in the jungle, if possible. Obviously, Purification Beads or magi's blessing are great against his ultimate.

freya ____________ _________ A V E R A G E While she might be one of the best 1v1 gods in the game, she is not Kali. Freya has mediocre early game and a fantastic late game, as she becomes a hyper carry. Both of you are very similar. She is dangerous both from up close and in range, and her Banish can be devastating against you, as it can affect you while under the effect of your Destruction. What Should I Do? A big threat of her is the slow on Pulse. Since you must put yourself in point-blank range from her, she can easily kite you with it, especially when she has Hastened Fatalis. Greater Sprint can solve that problem. Freya relies heavily on Irradiate and Pulse. While they don't have exactly long cooldowns, there is a 5-seconds-window when she has used both of them and has no way of dealing damage. If you can bait off her cooldowns, she will lose most of her damage and be forced to disengage or use her ultimate. A massive bit of Kali Vs. Freya is the ultimates. Both ults counter each other in a way. If you ult, she can just go to the sky and wait for the invincibility to wear off and just blast you down. If she ults first, you can ult yourself and then survive, and decide whether you want to commit or disengage. It comes down to who ults first. Greater Aegis can come in handy against her burst and ultimate, to bait off her cooldowns or wait for allies to come help you.

loki ____________ decoy_________aimed strike E A S Y One of your easiest match ups in the game, the Trickster god doesnt' fool you. Because he is solely a burst-centered god, you can deny all of his efforts of trying to kill you and bait his abilities While his early game is better than yours, you still have a the upper hand in almost any match up after level 5. It's all about predicting his moves and countering them. What Should I Do? The first and most important thing against Loki is Incense. Loki relies on his burst and surprise element. As soon as he uses Vanish, counter it by stunning him with Incense. Also, If you hear the "WHOAAA!" sound of him using aimed strike, use Incense, as he will most likely be behind you trying to stab your back. Another way of dodging his surprise burst when hearing the aimed strike sound is by using Nimble Strike to jump in your place. You will dodge his burst and be able to easily stun and kill him. When he ults you, spam the '4' button so that as soon as the stun wears off you'll become invincible and be able to turn on him and kill him.

Summary

This has been quite the project. I'm really happy with the result.

If you need any help from me, regarding SMITE, guides, BBCoding, whatever - make sure to P.M me. I'll be happy to help.

If you want to see and use the BBCoding templates used in this guide, make sure to go to This Guide.

Please, leave feedback and comments if you want to. They are most welcome. Also, if you saw any flaws, downvoted or didn't like some things, make sure to comment why so I could improve it.

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed. Jordenito Out.

Credits

Subzero008 - One of the best guide crafters out there. A lot of my design and work are vastly inspired by his guides. And, he wrote The Jungler's Handbook.

Piederman - The author of the amazing guide of Ao Kuang - You'll Never Break My Wind. Lots of my designs are inspired by him.

TormentedTurnip - Dr. Paco is also a great guidecrafter and an arena specialist. Some of my designs are also inspired by him, specifically the Stats section.

Sanguis - Thanks for the skill-sequence BB code.

BestMinionEver - Marki wrote some great jungling guides and a counter-jungling guide. Check out his works!

jhoijohi - Without her "making a guide" guide, I wouldn't have been able to write this guide.

Change Log

June 17th, Tuesday, 2014

• Guide Published!

June 19th, Thursday, 2014

• Made some spelling corrections and fixed some icons in the 'God Match Ups' section. (Thanks for the comments)

June 21st, Staruday, 2014

• Furthermore spelling/punctuation/grammar corrections.
• Some minor visual improvements.
• Rephrased a few stats/items explanations.
• The 'Summary' section is now ordered before the 'Credits' section.

July 8th, Tuesday, 2014

• Made some visual improvements to the 'Advantages / Drawbacks' section.
• Expanded the 'Early Game' subsection under the main 'Game Phases' section. In it added parts about "Technical Edge" and how to fight certain types of gods - Ability focused and Auto Attack focused.
• Rephrased the explanation for the choice of Malice.
• Disbanded the "Picking Off Targets" subsection under the main "The Roles of Destruction" section.
  • The "Killing The Back Line" part has been moved to the "Carrying" subsection.
  • The "Dueling" part has been expanded. It now has a subsection of its own.
• Replaced the [rule] white divider that symbolizes different subsections with a red, custom divider.