Sol the Rising Phoenix

Ok so this is my first guild but I have been playing Sol for a while now and I seem to beat every other Sol I come into contact with. I didn't see anything close to my build on the guides so I thought I would put mine up here and explain how it works.

General
Health: 400 (+75)
Mana: 300 (+57)

Speed: 370 (+0)
Range: 55 (+0)
Attack/Sec: 1 (+1.8%)
Regen
HP5: 6 (+0.45)
MP5: 5 (+0.4)

Protection
Magical: 30 (+0)
Physical: 9 (+2.6)
Basic Attack
Damage: 34 + 1.45 (+ 20% of Magical Power)
Progression: None

So these Items are a little unconventional compared to every other guide on here but I will explain how and why they work. Shoes of Focus Most people go for the higher damage shoes but trust me the lower cool down reduction and higher mana is better especially with this build.
Next is Book of Thoth you want to build this asap. Getting stacks on this early on is important plus once this is build you usually never have to worry about mana again. This will also convert 3% of your mana into magical power which makes each new mana item that much stronger. This makes the shoes we bought earlier now have an additional 7.5 magic damage. So you now have 37.5 magic atk from your shoes of focus, only 7.5 less than Shoes of the Magi but you still get to keep the 15% Cool down reduction and 250 mana.
Next I get the Polynomicon to start getting some Life steal. Polynomicon also increases our mana giving us additional damage from our book of thoth but the passive is also great for Sol. Every 3 seconds 60% of her magic power will be in her basic attack after using an ability. So after you use Stellar Burst on someone and slow them you follow it up with your basic and hurt them pretty bad.
I usually build Chronos' Pendant next mainly because it is cheaper than Rod of Tahuti and on the same item tree. This will max out your Cooldown reduction, allowing you to use your skills all the time, and with all the mana we built up we never have a problem. But if you have the money you can go with the Rod here if you would rather have the higher damage earlier.
Next is Rod of Tahuti All mages build this an additional 25% of your magic power is pretty awesome.
Last if get around to it because usually they are giving up or have lost by now, I build Soul Reaver 100 more magic plus 300 more mana that helps out our over all magic power from Book of Thoth and additionally it takes 15% of the max health from whoever it hits, this allows you to burst damage a lot more.
This Active will save your life, you do not need to build it max and you make the judgement yourself but having the extra movement speed to escape will keep you alive and frustrate the enemy team. Plus if you use it right before she goes into corporeal she will maintain the movement speed while also invincible.
I rarely even have to use this one because your corporeal escape saves you from all effects and damage but if they have a lot of stuns this will also save your life.

My skill tree is different from most but I am all about survival, the more you are able to survive the more exp you gain and less money you give the enemy team.

Passive: Sol gains heat as she uses abilities and hits with basic attacks. She gains +1% Magical Power and 1% Attack Speed for every 3% Heat. At 100% Heat, Sol's basic attacks gain +35% damage. Heat Decreases over time. Basic attack: 5% Heat
Learning to manage Sol's heat separates a good Sol player from a great one, You want to keep heat up as much as you can for fights you do a lot more damage a lot faster when your at 100% heat.
Stellar Burst is Sol's main damage dealer. It has a good area of effect and can reach further than her normal attack. Only problem is that if you miss or if someone or a minion walks in the path of the attack it will burst early potentially missing your intended target.

This is the first skill you want to put a point into. Dealing the damage and slowing the enemy is very important and this will be the first skill we max.
When you first activate this skill Sol's movement speed will increase and she will leave a trail of fire behind her. After 3 seconds she will switch into Corporeal form making her immune to both Damage but also make her not able to be healed by an ally or your base. When she switches to Corporeal form the trail of fire she left behind will explode stunning anyone in the path for 1.5 sec. You can cancel out of Corporeal form by pressing the Right mouse button on the PC or Right Thumstick on the Xbox one. Learning how to and when to cancel out of the form can make or break you.

This is where I differ from most guides. Most build Radiance second but I am more about surviving early game, if you die you will start to fall behind the enemy players and you will be killed easier from then on in the lane. So I chose to make the escape my second skill upgrade. Having an escape is very important for sol she is all about rushing in doing damage and getting out in one piece. But it takes her 3 seconds to switch to her corporeal form so make sure you judge your enemy on how fast you can escape. If you see them suddenly start to charge you when they have been staying back most of the game it probably means they are about to use a stun or you are about to get ganked. If you use it then you will make a trail of fire they will not want to follow through and be invincible when the gank does come. Her escape has a 15 second cool down normally but with all our cd reduction items this becomes significantly faster allowing us to use it to engage or retreat several times in the same fight. I also bring this skill up to level 2 by player level 8. This increases your movement speed to 25% which it stays till it maxes at 30% at skill level 5. But this will be the last point we put into this ability for a while after level 8.

Radiance is the main way to increase your heat, and it will also leave a circle of fire on your location. This is the 3 skill you will get but the second one you will max. But as far as an area of effect it is not that great, you have to be right on someone for it to hurt them, I have found it as a good escape tool, if you put this on the ground they are sometimes afraid to run through it. Maxing this out will allow us to build to our max heat after only a few hits of our basic attack. Radiance does have a heal to it as well but it only raises 5% per level so you will actually have better luck healing from your life steal item than trying to rely on every 15 seconds or so being able to heal yourself for 5/10/15/20/25% of you missing health for 5 seconds.

Finally Sol's Ultimate. Sol can paint the ground and make a path where she wants this to hit, the hit causes knock up but does less damage with each additional hit. Unfortunately this ultimate is pretty lousy compared to a lot of other mage ultimates. It only has a starting range of 55 which is the same as her basic attack so if you cannot reach them with her basic attack you might not reach them with this, which makes it annoying when your trying to finish off a fleeing enemy. She can paint further from the 55 range but it comes down so slowly that unless they are completely not paying attention standing under tower then they will just side step it or out run it. The other problem is that when you are painting the ground the enemy can see where the shots will hit, and the area of effect is only about the size of a player so it is pretty easy for the enemy to avoid. It is also not very powerful so even if you manage to hit an enemy with it unless they would have died from almost any attack they will probably survive this. The knock back can be good thou, and I have used this as an escape several times. By paining the path you are running they will start to get caught in it and I have killed a few pursuers that way.

I have been asked, why no Demonic Grip or Telkhines Ring.
What would you suggest switching out? The items build on each other.

I have tried Demonic Grip and Telkhines Ring as alternate items but without much success compared to this build. The thing is she looses over all magic power for Attack speed so people try to play her in more of a hunter role because she can no longer do the damage with her Stellar Burst. The problem with her trying to play hunter is that her life steal is for her magic attacks not her physical ones like most hunters. So in strait up exchanges she will die because she doesn't have critical hits or life steal from her basics. I have fought the other Sol's many a times and team comps being equal I have beat them every time. It is just too easy to avoid the basic attacks. Even when we both hit each other with Stellar Bursts, all my skills do more damage and come up again faster than theirs so I am able to avoid a few basic attacks hit with another stellar and finish them before their Corporeal form triggers.

Here is the other issue if you put the items in at the beginning so she can have the increased attack speed to build her heat faster than you have to get in rather close all the time when you don't have much health to attack and kill minions to keep your heat up, which is dangerous for her. If you buy it late game to build heat there isn't much of a point. Mid to late game she can get 100% heat with 1 Radiance, and 4 basic attacks or 1 Radiance 1 Stellar Burst and 2 basic. The last reason is that Sol's basic attacks already do 20% of her magic as damage so if you build magic over attack speed you are making your individual attacks hurt more along with your skills hurting more.

Over all they way I play with this build is to rush in do a lot of surprise damage and if they start to do damage on you get out of there. Not that you have to run back to base, after she builds the Polynomicon and has Radiance maxed she can heal up pretty fast in lane and keep the pressure up. Sol naturally has high movement speed so with her shoes she should be faster than most characters. If your constantly moving you are a hard target to hit, and can avoid most of their attacks.

Comparing this Sol build to others: When I examined my build to the others theirs usually had better magic penetration but mine had over all a lot more magic power and damage.

The currently top rated build on here only has 420 magic power at full build. (It bumps up to 525 after Rod of Tahuti is factored in.)

But my build at max gives you 598.24 magic power at full build which jumps up to 747.8 after Rod of Tahuti. Plus you have full Cool Down Reduction (40%) and you have 3108 Mana so you never run out of your skills. You don't have as much Magic penetration but you do a lot more damage over all to make up for it. Also being that your life steal is based off of her magic damage and your basic attacks gain 20% of your magic she heals up as she dishes out massive damage to the opponents. I have yet to come across a better build for Sol but I will change this guide if I find one.