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The Largest of Zhong Dongers (Updated) (Zhong Kui S2 Guide)

2 0 36,881
by Sparky911 updated January 6, 2016

Smite God: Zhong Kui

Build Guide Discussion 10 More Guides
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Zhong Kui Build

Starter

Build Item Vampiric Shroud Vampiric Shroud
Build Item Healing Potion Healing Potion
Build Item Mana Potion Mana Potion

Final Build

Build Item Chronos' Pendant Chronos' Pendant
Build Item Shoes of Focus Shoes of Focus
Build Item Shoes of the Magi Shoes of the Magi
Build Item Warlock's Staff Warlock's Staff
Build Item Gem of Isolation Gem of Isolation
Build Item Spear of the Magus Spear of the Magus
Build Item Rod of Tahuti Rod of Tahuti

Defense!

Build Item Breastplate of Valor Breastplate of Valor
Build Item Hide of the Urchin Hide of the Urchin
Build Item Bulwark of Hope Bulwark of Hope
Build Item Warlock's Staff Warlock's Staff
Build Item Ethereal Staff Ethereal Staff

Actives

Build Item Greater Purification Greater Purification
Build Item Aegis Pendant Aegis Pendant
Build Item Greater Blink Greater Blink

Against healers substitute an item for Divine.

Build Item Divine Ruin Divine Ruin

Zhong Kui's Skill Order

Expose Evil

1 X Y
Expose Evil
1 8 11 12 14

Exorcism

2 A B
Exorcism
2 4 6 7 10

Book of Demons

3 B A
Book of Demons
3 15 16 18 19

Recall Demons

4 Y X
Recall Demons
5 9 13 17 20
Expose Evil
1 8 11 12 14

Expose Evil

1 X
Zhong Kui pastes a card on all enemies in front of him, marking them as a demon, Slowing and damaging them each second while they are marked. If the card is removed, 75% of the remaining damage is done instantly.

Ability Type: Line, Slow, Damage
Damage Per Tick: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 (+20% of your Magical Power)
Slow: 20%
Card Lifetime: 5s
Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80
Cooldown: 12s
Exorcism
2 4 6 7 10

Exorcism

2 A
Zhong Kui drives out the demons of his enemies, dealing damage as they leave the body. Demons exorcised from Enemies marked by Expose Evil will be absorbed by Zhong Kui, healing him per demon (up to 3), and will remove the card.

Ability Type: Cone
Damage: 75 / 125 / 175 / 225 / 275 (+50% of your Magical Power)
Heal: 15 / 40 / 65 / 90 / 115
Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80
Cooldown: 10s
Book of Demons
3 15 16 18 19

Book of Demons

3 B
When fired, the Book of Demons deals damage and Stuns enemies, stunning marked enemies for 2x the duration and removing the card. Once this ability has been ranked, the Book of Demons flies nearby Zhong Kui, firing for 50% of Zhong Kui's basic damage.

Ability Type: Circle, Stun, Damage
Damage: 80 / 135 / 190 / 245 / 300 (+50% of your Magical Power)
Stun: 1s (2x for marked targets)
Radius: 20
Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80
Cooldown: 13s
Recall Demons
5 9 13 17 20

Recall Demons

4 Y
Upon activation, demons pulse out from his bag at nearby players every second for 5s. They chase and accelerate over time, doing damage to enemies as they enter the body. Zhong Kui is immune to Knockback and Slows for the duration.

Ability Type: Circle, Buff, Damage
Damage: 80 / 95 / 110 / 125 / 140 (+25% of your Magical Power)
Radius: 40
Cost: 100
Cooldown: 90s

Why Zhong?

Zhong has tons of damage, utility, and he's a huge value in a teamfight. Zhong Kui is one of my favourite gods, hence my Smite name being "ZhongQueefer". I've nearly got him diamond now, and I understand the works of his kit, and what to build. (Please note that the builds above doesn't specify what I normally build in any order, but it's a good idea to build these items, in my opinion. Let's check out Zhong's abilities.

UPDATE: After playing a lot more Zhong, and after his buff, he has become more potent in the meta and a much stronger mage. Now there's something different for leveling skills.
Max your 2 if you want to do a little less damage, but want sustain over all else.
Max your 1 if you want to snowball and/or playing aggressively, or already winning lane. Your 1 is your strongest ability asides from the ult, and it should be used for nearly everything you do.

Now enjoy the guide C:!

Skills

Skills!


DEMON BAG

This is Zhong Kui's broken as hell passive! Simply by farming lane with your 1 and 2, you get free protections. It caps out at 20, and you get 2 protections a stack! That's 40 free protections just by laning. Though, when you ult you lose all your stacks, but at the same time it doubles your bonus protections to 80! During your ult, you're essentially unkillable with 20 stacks.


Expose Evil

The base of his kit, Zhong Kui relies on his first ability to activate additional effects within his kit. It's also a decent slow at 20% for 5 seconds. Meaning with max CDR and Gem of isolation, you have a permanent slow so long as you continue hitting them with your first ability.


Exorcism

This is your basic sustain and lane clearing ability. You want to always first put your on the entire wave, then use your to heal up to 100+ per soul collected at a max of 3 times, and do an extra 40% damage based on how much damage was left on the .


Book of Demons


A pretty interesting ability, giving Zhong Kui huge tower pushing skills and a ton of extra damage when his abilities on cooldown, also it's a decently long stun! Book of Demon's passive is that you'll get a floating book over your head, which fires auto attacks equal to 50% of your basic attack damage! If you activate this ability, it hits for an AOE stun around Zhong Kui, and if they have your Expose Evil on then, it'll double the stun. So at max rank your stun is 0.9 seconds, up to a total of 1.8 seconds!


Recall Demons


So, Recall demons is pretty straight forward, in a super large AOE around Zhong Kui it deals damage every 1 second for 5 seconds, and it's super op! It used to have so you heal for each enemy god hit, but they removed the heal all together. So it's just damage and your biggest AOE slow/damage/teamfight thing. This destroys everyone. I love it.

Items

||ITEMS||




Zhong Kui needs CDR, CDR Shoes is probably the best path. (Update: Depending on preference, purple shoes can be easily preferred over blue shoes. Purple does way more damage, but your abilities will be on a longer cooldown.



This maxes out your CDR for the most part. With these two core items, your 1 and 2 will be on a 5 second cooldown, and your ult on 40 second cooldown. If you want you can replace this with Breastplate of Valor


Warlock's Sash

This and Gem brings you to some silly amount of health like 3100/3000. First rush on Zhong, regardless.Warlock's Sash



I love this item, however Zhong already has a pretty potent slow in his kit, but the slow is amazing on Zhong. Whatever your preference, be sure to build either this or Etherreal. 100% core on Zhong Kui, don't forget it.



Essential for any mage.



You'll be doing nothing if you don't have enough pen.

Pros / Cons

Pros -
Tons of damage mid to late game.
Huge AOE ult that he can use abilities while using his ult!
Great Clear
Amazing Sustain
40 Free protections + another 40 when you're using your ult!
Epic Skins!


Cons -
His early game is meh.
No escape.

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1
Sparky911 | March 20, 2016 11:08am



Situational. If they are focusing you hard then Gem. If they have a lot of magic defense built then get spear early. If they have hunters/assassins or any trickster god that can easily escape get gem. Spear gives you a bit more damage but the slow ensures they won't get away. Most people misunderstand that the buying of items is dependent on what you are countering. Look at their gods/items and you will know your priority.

In arena I prefer not to build stacks, Warlocks is a waste. Normally I'll rush straight in CDR Boots, then into Gem, Obsidian Shard, Rod of Tahuti, Spear of Desolation, then Hide of the Urchin or Mantle of Discord (You can build these earlier, like third or fourth item.) You'll basically "ROFLSTOMP" everyone. CDR boots can be substituted for Pen boots
1
BoboTheBurner | January 27, 2016 10:27am
Branmuffin17 wrote:

Thinking of starting to play Zhong Kui. I mostly play Arena, and barely ever play Conquest, but I'm thinking this build would work well in both modes. Do you agree?

Guessing that the "Final Build" you have at the top isn't in order. Would you mind rearranging in the correct purchase order? Guessing it's Warlock's Sash, Shoes of Focus (or Magi if preferred), Chronos' Pendant...then Spear of the Magus, Gem of Isolation, and Rod of Tahuti last? If you meant for Gem to be before Spear, without direct experience myself, I'm thinking Spear might be the better earlier item? Significantly cheaper, you've already got significant survivability in the Sash, and already have a slow and stun in his kit, so that the extra slow, health/mana and power from Gem is a luxury you can afford to delay one more item...thoughts?


Situational. If they are focusing you hard then Gem. If they have a lot of magic defense built then get spear early. If they have hunters/assassins or any trickster god that can easily escape get gem. Spear gives you a bit more damage but the slow ensures they won't get away. Most people misunderstand that the buying of items is dependent on what you are countering. Look at their gods/items and you will know your priority.
1
Branmuffin17 (394) | January 19, 2016 1:48pm
Thinking of starting to play Zhong Kui. I mostly play Arena, and barely ever play Conquest, but I'm thinking this build would work well in both modes. Do you agree?

Guessing that the "Final Build" you have at the top isn't in order. Would you mind rearranging in the correct purchase order? Guessing it's Warlock's Sash, Shoes of Focus (or Magi if preferred), Chronos' Pendant...then Spear of the Magus, Gem of Isolation, and Rod of Tahuti last? If you meant for Gem to be before Spear, without direct experience myself, I'm thinking Spear might be the better earlier item? Significantly cheaper, you've already got significant survivability in the Sash, and already have a slow and stun in his kit, so that the extra slow, health/mana and power from Gem is a luxury you can afford to delay one more item...thoughts?
1
Sparky911 | December 30, 2015 2:38pm
McDoogles wrote:

I find Zhong Kui is best suited for the Solo Lane. A lot of mages either have long range pokes that remain difficult to get a hold of, making it difficult to heal off of them with your 1 & 2 combo...Or they have too good of mobility, making them a pain to deal with. Solo lane provides more opportunity to poke during the wave clear. Granted, some gods like Chaac can still have that long range poke, but at least he has to get close to do any closing damage. Otherwise, Solo is pretty mellow and you are usually a second choice for the Jungler to target, as they should be helping their mid lane for a good portion of the beginning of the match.

Plus, you get mana camp for the extra long sustain. Major plus with Zhong as his sustain is entirely mana dependent. So, if you were to ask me, avoid mid with Zhong at all times, as he counters many solo laners very easily and is countered rather easily in Mid by Gods like Zeus, Nu Wa, Au Puch and Isis.


I personally think he's not very intense when it comes to mana usage, at least in the way I can play him. Regardless, he's a potent pick in either lane. I find mid lane more favorable, because of the new scaling magic resist. But, you can play Zhong however you want! Go out there and experiment!
1
McDoogles (1) | December 15, 2015 10:58am
I find Zhong Kui is best suited for the Solo Lane. A lot of mages either have long range pokes that remain difficult to get a hold of, making it difficult to heal off of them with your 1 & 2 combo...Or they have too good of mobility, making them a pain to deal with. Solo lane provides more opportunity to poke during the wave clear. Granted, some gods like Chaac can still have that long range poke, but at least he has to get close to do any closing damage. Otherwise, Solo is pretty mellow and you are usually a second choice for the Jungler to target, as they should be helping their mid lane for a good portion of the beginning of the match.

Plus, you get mana camp for the extra long sustain. Major plus with Zhong as his sustain is entirely mana dependent. So, if you were to ask me, avoid mid with Zhong at all times, as he counters many solo laners very easily and is countered rather easily in Mid by Gods like Zeus, Nu Wa, Au Puch and Isis.
1
Choorpse | December 1, 2015 3:44am
This is a nice build, but you should update your guide and fill it with some extra information. :3
1
Sparky911 | October 24, 2015 7:15pm
NeccoZeinith wrote:

What role is this build for? I think the guide misses out on a lot of info, like actives, situational items, counters, different roles and such.


I didn't do too much, I just put up my core build. I've actually changed my normal build up since this, and I haven't updated it. It's mid obviously, it's his best role.
1
NeccoZeinith | October 23, 2015 11:19pm
What role is this build for? I think the guide misses out on a lot of info, like actives, situational items, counters, different roles and such.
1
Sparky911 | October 20, 2015 1:31pm

Great build I love it and when we are beating people with this build they won't think we're a troll anymore :)


You know it! Thanks for the feedback.
1
L3GIT C3LTICS | October 19, 2015 4:51pm
Great build I love it and when we are beating people with this build they won't think we're a troll anymore :)
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League of Legends Build Guide Author Sparky911
The Largest of Zhong Dongers (Updated) (Zhong Kui S2 Guide)
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