XBlinkque - Arena Assassin/ADC hybrid

Hi all, I'm DodgeNDive and this is my Assassin/ADC hybrid Xbalanque. A little background about myself; I'm an avid fan of Arena game mode, because it's a short and sweet play time packed full of combat goodness.

NOTE: This guide is most effective in ARENA, I have not tested it for Conquest.

Xbalanque is my go-to God when I ADC (Attack Damage Carry) for my team because of his excellent Area of Effect (AoE) skills.

First, we'll get the obvious questions out of the way;

-"What kind of ADC build is this? What's an Assassin/ADC hybrid?"

I'll be the first to admit that I've made up the name, but from it you can get an idea of how this build will play out overall. You jump in, get a kill with your abilities and get out like an Assassin would, but you can also stick around and auto-attack people into submission like an ADC would.

-"What made you come up with this build?"

Xbalanque's 3rd ability is best used as a chain from his 2, and his 2 is best used at (as close as possible to) point blank. So my initial reaction is "hey, I'll blink over instead of running over". And thus "XBlinkque" was born (a play on words with Xbalanque+Blink, the bread and butter of the build, get it? aha).

-"What's with the weird ability set up?"

Well, that will be answered in the skills discussion.

And so without further ado, let's discuss how "XBlinkque" works! (Feel free to be the first to come up with how to pronounce it properly)

Any constructive criticism are always welcome, words of encouragement and appreciation will always be encouraged and appreciated too of course! And as always, thank you for your time.

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PROS

• High early to mid game scaling; thanks to the way we allocate abilities and Xbalanque's passive Dead of Night
  
• Powerful initiation; Blink+ Poison Darts+ Rising Jaguar can easily take more than half of your victim's hp before you even throw a bola.
  
• Global Ultimate; to aid in offense and defense alike, vision obstruction is especially powerful in Arena.
  
• Strategic Flanking ability; when the enemy team initiates, you can use Blink to teleport past their guardian to focus down key damagers, saving the rest of your team from a lot of pain.
  
• Great reach; Blink+ Rising Jaguar means you can quickly get back into the fight from respawn.

CONS

• Squishy; part Assassin, part ADC means you're half squishy, and half squishy.
  
• Blink being a must only leaves you with 1 optional Active slot.
  
• When your Rising Jaguar is on cooldown, you are vulnerable from counter attack (this is especially true if your teammates does not commit with you).
  
• No hard CC; okay your ult can stun but any good player will always do the one step pause to avoid it.

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Hint: Set Rising Jaguar to instant trigger instead of default trigger.

Below are the skill by skill breakdown, listed by relevance. A paragraph at the end of this section will explain why we allocate into the skills the way we do as "XBlinkque".

Poison Darts

The reason we pick up Blink. It deals a highly respectable damage, especially when you hit your target with three darts (which you will at point blank - or should I say, point XBlanque? hehe).

The slow it applies means you'll have an easier time landing your auto attacks. You can also use this as an AoE slow to help your teammates get away during a disengagement.

Rising Jaguar

It's a dash! It's an AoE! It's CC immunity! sort of makes you wish that Xbalanque's abilities are 1: Rising Jaguar 2: Rising Jaguar 3: Rising Jaguar 4: Rising Jaguar.

In all seriousness, this skill lets you chase your target if they dash away after you blink at them. It cleans up a good chunk of their hp when used after Poison Darts, and hits your target as well as every enemy around you.

The dash allows you to get out of many sticky situations, all it needs is your skilful timing.

You are also CC immune while in the air, so time it right and you can even laugh at Ares' No Escape, and shrug off Artemis' Tusky Calydonian Boar with no problem (as soon as the croaking starts, press your dash and you'll be in the air the moment Tusky hits you, ignoring its stun).

Branching Bola

This ability eats at Xbalanque's mana like a gold-digger. You get all the perks it can offer, but you pay out like it's nobody's business.

The extra damage is real though, and unlike Bakasura's ability Butcher Blades, this extra damage is multiplied when you land crits.

The "branching" part comes in handy when your target is down to 2-digits hp, with their goodie-two-shoes guardian standing between you and them.

Darkest of Nights

The only benefit you get from levelling this ability is that 3 seconds of extra movement speed.

Base cooldown of 90s is fixed, 3s ult duration is fixed, 40ft extra basic attack range to Xbalanque is fixed, stun duration and ability cost are also fixed.

So by sacrificing "faster movement for 3s", we get to scale ahead of everyone else on our bread and butter abilities, and ultimately our consistently high damage output.

Some suggestions on when to use your ult;
-To help your team initiate attacks successfully.
-To isolate a low hp target from the rest of their team.
-To help your allies escape from pursuing foes.
-To help you escape from pursuing foes.
-To prevent the rest of the enemy team from successfully following up their tank's initiation.

"So what's with the weird skill set up?"

In general, when you can put a point towards your Ultimate ability, you do so. But let's look at Xbalanque's ultimate, Darkest of Nights. As mentioned above, the only thing that changes from levelling it up is that Xbalanque will run faster for that 3 seconds duration of the ult. This build sacrifices that in order to maximise our damage output from Poison Darts and Rising Jaguar; The two abilities that allows us to be Semi-Assassin.

To start, we grab a rank of Poison Darts and two ranks of Rising Jaguar because we start Arena at level 3. We skip level 4 allocation and wait until we level up to 5. This allows us to allocate a point to Darkest of Nights and another level on Rising Jaguar at level 5.

From here on, we focus on Rising Jaguar to get the burst AoE damage we want.

At level 9, your Rising Jaguar is at max level. Dealing close to 400 damage to a poisoned god.

At level 11, your Poison Darts will be at max level too which could deal over 400 damage depending on your physical power. That is our semi-Assassin ability, any god sticking around with less than 3/4 of hp can be taken down quite quickly.

Beyond this level, your Auto hits are getting pretty serious too and with the kills you've gained from the match so far, you'd have some bonus phys power from your passive. At this point Branching Bola can be permanently turned on, as the mana consumption is manageable at a comfortable level.

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For items, I will go through the picks I usually do when I play first - followed by additional options discussions afterwards.

Warrior Tabi

The standard ADC boots, the 15 penetration and 30 physical power is a good place to start a build.

Cumulative stats: 9% Aspd, 30 Phys Pow, 15 Phys Pen.
Cumulative cost: 2150g

Jotunn's Wrath

The 25% cooldown we get from Jotunn's is vital. Besides the C/D, we also pick up a massive 40 physical power, 11 penetration, and 150 mana. Mana that sustains us through our reduced cooldown.

Cumulative stats: 9% Aspd, 70 Phys Pow, 26 Phys Pen.
Cumulative cost: 4590g

The Executioner

We finally pick up attack speed, and boosting our auto hits with 8% phys def debuff and an extra 6 points debuff per hit (up to three). This effect can be incorporated into our attack chain. Do an auto hit between your Poison Darts and Rising Jaguar to maximise your poison and jaguar hit.

Cumulative stats: 29% Aspd, 100 Phys Pow, 26 Phys Pen.
Cumulative cost: 6790g

Rage

Rage comes in to iron out our crit chance, this is when we can add our crit-ability when we decide whether or not we can square up to our opponent.

Cumulative stats: 29% Aspd, 130 Phys Pow, 26 Phys Pen, 20% Crit Chance.
Cumulative cost: 9545g

Deathbringer

Deathbringer can be picked up as a 4th pick, an extra 400g above Rage means you pay 400g for +20 Physical Power (the cost and phys pow difference between Rage and Deathbringer). This maximises your early/mid game power. However, its true power will only kick in as soon as you start to build towards Rage, and as such it is advisory to pick up Rage prior to Deathbringer.

Cumulative stats: 29% Aspd, 150 Phys Pow, 26 Phys Pen, 40% Crit Chance.
Cumulative cost: 12695

Hastened Fatalis

Attack speed and attack movement penalty removal. However, this is because I don't tend to play with Greater Sprint, as I prefer Heavenly Agility. If you play using Greater Sprint, then you'll be able to pick your last item more freely. With the attack speed from Fatalis, you are very much ADC-like. Fast and Punishing.

Cumulative stats: 59% Aspd, 180 Phys Pow, 26 Phys Pen, 40% Crit Chance.
Cumulative cost: 14835g

On Hit Effects

8% and an extra 6 points of phys def debuff per hit (up to 3).
10% additional crit chance per hit (up to 5).
50% more critical damage.
Attack speed debuff removal per hit.

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Qin's Sais

There is about 800 gold difference between Qin's Sais and The Executioner. The difference between the two is its passive ability.

Picking up Qin's will no doubt make you stronger late game, when you'll be playing more ADC-style than the blink Assassin. I pick The Executioner over Qin's because finishing an item 800 gold earlier means I can pick up Hidden Dagger, the +10 Phys Pow and 5% crit chance may not seem much, but going from no crit-ability to 5% crit-ability is huge.

So early game badassery or late game badassery is the question here.
I personally find it important to feed Dead of Night early, hence my leniency towards Executioner.

Hydra's Lament

Picking up Hydra's Lament means your Branching Bola can be online much earlier, which is great because Hydra's Lament's passive ability is abusable by turning Branching Bola off and back on every 4 seconds - if your fight do last longer than 4 seconds.

Having Hydra's Lament instead of Deathbringer means you're committed more to the Assassin style gameplay of "XBlinkque".

So it's up to you to balance out between your burst damage with your auto hits sustained damage.

Brawler's Beat Stick

I'll be honest I have not tested this item with "XBlinkque", but being the cheapest out of our 4th pick option while netting you 40 Physical Damage and another 20 Physical Penetration means your normal hits will hurt. They're guaranteed to feel every hit. The passive is why this item is here to consider, a healer tends to be what stands between a dead target and the one who got away with 2 digit hp.

However, the reason why I have not tested this item is because I think it's an item better suited to a warrior. And Divine Ruin or Pestilence on someone else will do the job better than you with a beat stick.

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Your ultimate Darkest of Nights is a true asset for your team when it comes to Engagements, both offensively and defensively. So be sure to learn when is best to use it. A few examples are as follows:

-If the enemy guardian blink/dash ahead too far from the rest of their team. Your ult will impede the follow up damage that comes with the initiation, giving your team time to react and counter-attack.

-When your guardian is initiating. Use your ult so your team can isolate a target or two before the real team fight begins.

-When an ally Assassin pulls off a gank. Use your ult to cover their escape.

Positioning

As "XBlinkque", you will take position on the rear or either flanks of your team. Against gods with deadly AoE ults such as Ares, Bakasura, and Odin, take the flank. Against gods with single target ganking capabilities such as Loki and Serqet, take the rear position. If both types are present in the opposing team, take note on which will make their move and take the corresponding position. Be ready to use your dash as a defensive action.

Early Game Engagements - Offensive

If you know your team will cover your escape, and you know you'll get the kill on your target, then you can initiate with your blink. You grab a quick kill and turn the fight into a 5v4 in your team's favour. This is not without risks, and your risk is heightened depending on how many opponents can pull off a quick hard CC (e.g. Anubis, Thor, Hercules) and how close they are to your target.

As always, it is safer to let your Guardian do the initiation. When your mage follows in, they will throw their abilities - they might hit, might miss, might secure a kill, etc. Depending on this result, you will either blink in and secure kills then create more kills with your AD power, or you will blink in, deal AoE slow and discourage counter attacks by punishing them with your Bola.

Early Game Engagements - Defensive

When the enemy team attacks, you will first retreat away from your team before using Blink to regroup with them. This way you will lose whoever was chasing you and can now concentrate attack on whoever is chasing your team, or help a member of the team escape a chase.

If no enemies chase you when you retreat away, use your blink to position yourself behind or to the flank of your enemy team, take note as best you can on the CC abilities that are still up on the enemy team while you do so. Use Poison Darts to slow as many of them as possible, then use Rising Jaguar as an escape. Pulling off this manoeuvre is difficult, at times the entire enemy team will turn to face you and kill you. The trade is quite safe, however if you are able to pull off a quick kill - so take note on any enemies that are low on hp to spot this chance.

Mid to Late Game - Offensive

You can rely on your Auto Hits more comfortably now, so you can follow the standard ADC rule of engagement. Follow your team, pick your target and create kills. If you didn't pick up Sprint, use your blink to come to the aid of one of your other teammates, creating a quick 2v1 kill so you can both move on to the next target.

The same rule of early game offensive applies, but you now have the option of following the engagement on foot without using your blink. This way you are able to use it for a chase and secure a kill or two that your team might've lost otherwise.

Mid to Late Game - Defensive

You now have the option to stick with your allies, using Poison Darts to slow the enemies' advance and saving your Rising Jaguar as a dash for escape while throwing Bolas at an enemy whose attention is 'tunnel vision' on one of your fleeing teammates. Your blink can also be used if their initial target of engagement includes you in its viscinity, if you're fast enough to do this then you will still have your dash to add even more distance if needed.

Alternatively, your mobility through blink and dash enables you to counter attack and disengage before your team can. If you're able to occupy one of the enemy main damage dealer ( Ao Kuang or He Bo for example) then you will again save your allies from a lot of pain.

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Overall, I wrote this guide because I've had much fun with a blinking Xbalanque, and wanted to share it with the community. I also think that with this style of playing, you will become a great asset for your team as you can gank, chase, and aid in offense as well as defense more effectively than most other pure ADC Gods in Arena. When I play using this build, my player damage stat at the end of the match consistently hit 30k. This is because this build has a high ability damage output during early game, transitioning to a high auto attack damage output during the late game.

I am in no way a build-making guru, and as such I apologise for any shortcomings in writing this build. If you have the time to spare, don't be shy to suggest improvements on the build and strategy, as well as the formatting of the guide itself. I will always consider constructive criticism in a positive light, and would appreciate any comments at all.

I hope you enjoyed the guide, I thank you for the time you took in reading it, and may the Gods favor you today!