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This item is simply amazing on mages early game. And to be honest, I like to pretend it was made just for
Zhong Kui since it provides defense and mana regen. The sustain you get from this item while farming minions is invaluable.
Shoes, in my opinion, are a given here. You can afford it in the beginning, and when you consider the importance of
Vampiric Shroud, it's hard to justify not grabbing these with your active, and pots. You're also that much closer to another damage item later, i.e,
Shoes of the Magi. And hey, movement speed early game? Sure.
BLINK I wouldn't say this should strictly be your first active. In fact, I used to grab
Hand of the Gods first, but when I realized the potential for early kills that
Zhong Kui has once he hits level 3, this can mean the difference between killing a level 2
Agni and letting him get away with 14 HP.
When you have purchased your first three items, you are left with 100 gold. Sustain!
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The foundation of most defensive mages,
Ethereal Staff is a great item. Huge health advantage, great for mana sustain, and its passive, by the time you would be able to finish the item, will likely provide you with another 40 Magic Power or so. Your first back should get you a GOLDEN SASH and you'll be well on your way.
I get these because you eventually get tanky enough to not need
Midas Boots (M). The extra magic pen from
Shoes of the Magi is awesome, but if you really want some CDR, which I don't think
Zhong Kui necessarily needs, you can totally use
Shoes of Focus instead.
Assuming everything is going according to plan and you aren't getting completely decimated in fights, this should be your next item. It's passive will already proc off your first two items, and you'll never have any more mana issues. Oh, and 100 MAGIC POWER plus its passive?? Yes please. And stacking is no problem because you have to stack your passive anyway. Get ready to kill people.
At this point, you are pretty well defended, and capable of unleashing serious pain. Farming
Demon Bag is no problem, as you can clear waves with your 1>2 combo.
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IDEAL FINISHING ITEMS
WARLOCK'S SASH
The three items discussed before this section set you up for adding big damage, and big defense for the rest of the game.
WARLOCK'S SASH Again, if you're in a good spot - your passive is providing enough protection, you feel confident in fights - get a freakin' WARLOCK'S SASH and watch your Magic Power spike, as well as gaining even more sustain. As previously mentioned, a stacking item here is fine since farming your
Demon Bag is an ongoing activity, and you are definitely killing entire waves every time you do that.
So I mentioned this item earlier without much explanation. To be honest, this is sort of what I based this build on. With this item, and a full
Demon Bag you are insanely hard to kill. Therefore, you can absolutely grab this after you've picked up an
Ethereal Staff and
Shoes of the Magi if needed. Basically, get this whenever you think you need to. It will benefit you at any point, and it will even give you Magic Power because of
Ethereal Staff and
Book of Thoth. And as long as you are getting assists or kills, once you hit ten stacks on this item, you have +20 more protections.
So let's do some math:
Full
Demon Bag:
+40 to BOTH protections.
Hide of the Urchin:
+45 to BOTH protections.
Fully stacked
Hide of the Urchin:
+20 more to BOTH protections.
40+45+20 = 105 to each protection, plus your base protections. Yeah.
For a final damage item, I think
Rod of Tahuti is great. This will bump you above 600 Magic Power, no problem. And you will already have over 3000 HP alongside the aforementioned protection bonuses. There are, however, other options to consider depending on the situation, which I will discuss next.
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Basically, if you are up against a lot of tanks who are building against Magic Power, this can replace
Rod of Tahuti really well. You still get a lot of raw Magic Power, but you might be able to cut through defenses better.
If you keep dying, or need to be THE TANK, this item will help. It synergizes perfectly well with
Ethereal Staff and
Book of Thoth, and the passive, while great offensively, will help you escape from situations with
Book of Demons.
I honestly don't think I'd ever build it with this build's theory in mind, but if you want CDR instead of extra damage, go for it. Mostly a play-style thing I suppose.
Another stacking item that can simply work here, but really has no reason to be here. It will help your mana sustain, but the original build should already handle that. If you stack it, you get +100 Magic Power though.
Thanks. I mostly play Zhong Kui in Joust, so my opinions are probably a tad biased towards that type of gameplay (i.e. using Gem of Isolation earlier in a game for the synergy with Recall Demons). The past few games I've been experimenting with some of the items you use and it's been going pretty well. It's hard to hit that perfect spot of defense and power, but once you get there Zhong Kui is the most fun mage in Smite.
Thanks for giving the build a try. Like I mention in the guide, I'm fairly new to the game, but I've had the most success so far with Zhong Kui. And I generally run him in conquest - he's also a ton of fun in arena. I'll have to try out Gem of Isolation more in game. I can see how it'd help.
Thanks again for your input.
Oh, and as Minscinno said, really consider buying beads in most games. Aegis can kind of cover that depending on your playstyle, but like all mages getting cc'd usually means getting killed.
BEADS, 99,9% you bead, beads are life!! Do you even beads bro!!?
Jokes a part that's so true, now, I've remembered what more you could do for this, matchup sections, they are so sweet and helpful, matchups plea :c
Leveling Expose Evil first will of course give you more damage from removing the card, but not as much as your guide suggests. If you're planning on playing him as a sustain mage I'd suggest leveling Exorcism first for the higher heal. It's a trade-off in damage, but you're still dealing that 40% from Expose Evil every time you heal.
I would not really suggest Blink on Zhong Kui unless you are very confident in your abilities. You don't really post a coordinated "combo" to go with Blink, but I assume the ideal situation is Blink -> Expose Evil -> Book of Demons (bonus on the stun duration) -> Recall Demons -> Exorcism. I find Zhong Kui benefits from either Aegis, as you can activate his ultimate in the middle of the enemy team and then use Aegis (his ultimate will continue to run while you are immune to damage). Both Aegis have their own niche when combined with how you're playing Zhong Kui and how you want to use his ultimate.
Also, Gem of Isolation has really good synergy with "trapping" people within your Recall Demons range.
Oh, and as Minscinno said, really consider buying beads in most games. Aegis can kind of cover that depending on your playstyle, but like all mages getting cc'd usually means getting killed.
You have some flexibility in your build and some good explanations concerning items and skills.
You have gameplay section and etc.
Now, i suggest:
Combos sections; Some gameplay videos; Consider buying more tanky items when needed and definitely, DEFINITELY consider buying beads in, dunno, almost every game? seriously, too much cc is too much and will probably get you killed since Zhong Kui is a sort of close combat mage (i guess? correct me please, if i'm wrong).
About bb coding, take out those "SPACE", they are visible... a lot visible. Pressing enter works, i guess. (though the code to do that in html is
, but i think it don't work here, pressing enter will do the work perfectly or actually using letter in full black, which the code i am not sure about).
Keep improving aaand, i guess thats a +1
Ps.: I was unsure about many things concerning my grammar while writing this since i am not a native English speaker, just ignore any kind of mistake, please.