Bran's Newbie Adventures in ConquestLand - Episode Athenine

Hmmm, not sure what happened with SmiteGuru, but the site is only showing games as long as 4 days ago, so I don't have links to the games themselves right now.

Summary based on memory...played a couple of matches with clanmates... Khepri Support for one or two games with Zilby, Ferrum, and Stuke, (and then added GGF), then we had a nice custom 3v3 match where we got to hear God (aka Ducks) tell his teammates not to suck/die (with a lot of swearing from Stuke, like usual), and finally another Conquest match where Ducks replaced Ferrum.

And that's where I get to talk a bit about my newest experience with Athena.

I've tried playing Athena support a few times in the past, mostly because she's always considered one of the strongest guardians, and I need all the help I can get. Historically, I've royally sucked with her...wasn't good at timing with my ult, was too aggressive early and died multiple times, etc.

This one was played after getting generally comfortable with the support role...knowing the general concepts, recognizing when I can rotate, having enough awareness that some things are starting to come more naturally (e.g. without thinking too hard or focusing so much on one thing that I completely block out other things, including teammates' communications). This last part is actually difficult to quantify, but is a huge aspect to being able to open up your game.

Another thing I'm thinking about more is the matchup between supports. Against Sobek, I need to be a bit less aggressive, which is something I never even thought about when I tried Bacchus in a previous game against Sobek.

Highlight of the game is 26:30. I guess my ult was overkill, because it seems that Serqet just gave up on life. I'm glad it gave my teammates a good laugh.

One other thing...I've always relied heavily on CDR in my builds...it's absolutely nice, but I've been branching out on that end too...instead of Shoes of Focus, I'm often getting Reinforced Shoes or Travelers Shoes, depending on the god I'm playing. And other than Breastplate of Valor for CDR (which I used to get right after shoes), I haven't been getting other CDR items (like Spirit Robe or Mantle of Discord) as much. Also, I'm delaying CDR for more well-rounded protections from Hide of the Urchin, which seems to help my survivability as well. Seems to be working, but I need a larger sample size to see what's working best. I'm still under 90 conquest games, and only in the last 20 or so have I been more comfortable.

Final score: 8-3-15. Gonna start using Athena more.