question for pc users and store menu

I am setting up my store loadout and was just putting a feeler out to see how everyone else does it. Usually I just fill all the space with, I think it will fit 4 full builds, because it is easier to get relics and items from the store without taking much time. On my secondary account I am filling it completely with different items to fill needs of builds but to allow more practice situationally building.


I just finished on Bellona's and I know each character store loadout will look a lot or a little different from the one hers will look. I was trying to fit 4 items in from the groups I was putting in but it ate space up quickly. Some items fit multiple categories so that helped me out a bit in how I laid it out and it makes sense, at least to me. lol.


So this is for, as I said, Bellona(may be some items might make your eyes roll back into the back of your head but still learning what works on her and a lot of other characters). If there are items some of you believe I should have for her that I don't have available in the actual list, I can pretty much get to about any of them I believe from the purchase trees of what I have on my list.


Movement
Ninja Tabi Warrior Tabi Witchblade

magical and physical protection
Gauntlet of Thebes Hide of the Urchin Mantle of Discord

physical protection
Void Shield Midgardian Mail Hide of the Nemean Lion

magical protection
Runic Shield Bulwark of Hope Pestilence

cdr
Breastplate of Valor Genji's Guard Ancile Shogun's Kusari

health
Stone of Gaia Bulwark of Hope Blackthorn Hammer Runeforged Hammer

possible offensive items
Masamune Jotunn's Wrath Bloodforge The Executioner

You don't really need to list items from the same tree, only 1 item for that tree for fast access to it, as long as you remember what items you're going for is the important part. Also not really too fond of that Jotunns choice.

Dunno about runic shield either. Also, add in Breastplate of Valor as a defense item.

Yeah, on some of those I don't know all the tree tie in's yet. There are items like Bulwark and Nemean and others that I haven't used a lot as a couple of examples and also how I have it broke down in my head for different things is helpful, at least for now, until I get more of the trees down and a better recall of everything particular items do. There are some items that I have already listed for that purpose.


Executioner I am very familiar with, qin's sais and asi so that is really 3 options in one.

A couple of other items I have separated that are similar are pestilence with the 80 magical protect and 200 health and bulwark with 60 protect and 200 health, but then they do two completely different things. Keeping pestilence in defensive options due to it's effect on heals and about the highest rated magic protection add i've seen keeps me more zoned in on it as a situational where I feel like even though bulwark's is magic defense I feel more like it is a luxury for extra health and shield and why I put it in health items.


It's more set up the way it is to help me separate in some way what makes certain items more useful than others for certain things and what the differences are between them.


I couldn't remember if i'd heard anyone give negative information on Jotunn's as a good choice for Bellona and it has 20% cooldown, so in my head it gave another option trying to juggle cooldowns and fill other needs. That is one I could look at. speaking of which, what are thoughts on Ichaival as a late game option for arena on her or Devourer's Gauntlet(if viable on her was thinking would really need to put a mag/phy protect item at the 3 to make up for not having any protect at the 2 spot)

I do things differently depending on god. Kriega's suggestion is a good one, as it gives you quick access to a bunch of different trees. For me, I mostly just pick the most commonly used items I get for that god, and do a manual type if I need something not in the list or in the same tree as one of those items.

In almost all cases, when I set it up (which I haven't done for all gods), my first row will be Conquest-based starter items. It just makes it convenient, and it's adaptable in most situations to any other mode as well.

So, my first row (Starter) for Bellona would look like this:




And of course, if you're playing Arena, for example, and wanted to go aggressive early, you could click Warrior Blessing once and then just choose Attacker's Blessing, for example.

In terms of core, depends how you typically build. Since I almost always am considering general / meta use first and foremost, for Bell, it'll be items most commonly used. Probably something like this:





I'll focus a bit on damage/hybrid items in the Damage category usually. For you, you might consider stuff like Hastened Katana / Katana tree, and other things like Brawler's Beat Stick or things in the mace tree. For this example, I'll put in things you might consider:





For Defensive, this is where I put items not in core and/or situationals.





Relics are self-explanatory.





And these are quick access to other consumables, especially/usually for Conq.

Don't even have them set up. Too much work when HR set-up in most cases offers most of the trees you want otherwise quick search.

Pretty much the same for LoL, however I tend to go via components if it's quicker (because search doesn't have all the abbreviations in it only the most used ones)

Thanks for the input, I did a couple of matches and might have time to do a couple more this morning before I take my kids to school(don't worry I am not going to list every match I do and expect feedback. lol. just want to get some initial input if possible). I know on a low level account.(my secondary is lvl 3 or 4) There are going to be a lot of bad players because they don't know what they are doing and their builds will be crazy a lot of times, but my focus for now is to just build what I think would be good against the basic types of the opposing team, ie how many magical or how many physical. Unless I just happen to notice there is someone or multiple members of the other team that are just getting blown up constantly and not doing much my goal is to just pretty much stick to the situational builds I make each match unless they don't happen to be working.

as examples (both wins--which I know doesn't mean a lot at low levels)
I still have a lot of work to recognize some of the specifics of a lot of the gods, but that will get better with time.
first match I played yesterday was against Artemis, Horus, Ao Kuang, Set, and Nemisis.


since 4 physical and 1 magical(and horus has healing) this was my build
Ninja Tabi Hide of the Nemean Lion Void Shield Pestilence Runeforged Hammer Bloodforge


went 4/4/22, damage 27k, mitigated 37k, took 28k damage.


second was opposite comp 4 magical, 1 physical Anubis, Kukulkan, Ao Kuang, Ares and Neith so I built


Ninja Tabi Ancile Runic Shield Hide of the Urchin Genji's Guard Blackthorn Hammer

3/2/21, damage 21k, mitigated 40k, taken 29k


I know that this isn't even taking into account what builds the other team had but my emphasis right now is building the solid foundation to have solid numbers like the ones in these two examples as I get this account up to the higher levels while getting situational builds down. I also listed them so I could get some constructive feedback on how I counter built. Bran in case you actually wanted to see the metrics on smiteguru the name is myangel0901(not saying I expect you to or anything but you asked for my primary account name so you could take a look another time when I asked for help so just being pre-emptive if you felt so inclined). I will tell you in both matches it had us in the green on elo so I know not the best barometer but I know bad builds can still get you bad or ugly numbers even against bad opponents so I am looking at it from that perspective.

You haven't added in Breastplate! Reeee! By the way, that was aimed at Bran, and not you, Shell.

Okay, now that that nonsense is over, add in Breastplate of Valor. :P Also, I probably wouldn't go with hide against a team that has 4+ physical or magical gods, instead I would go with whatever items gave me the most protection against the 4 and get one protection item against the one. So, for 4 physicals: bov, nemean, void, midgardian, etc. For magical: genji's, shogun's, pestilence, ancile, etc. I would still get void against 4 magical because of its passive and the fact that minions and jungle camps do physical damage, same as the minotaur. Hide's good when the enemy team has a balanced comp of 3 of one and 2 of the other.

I think an early blackthorn after boots is better than having it at the end.

Bloodforge is a luxury item that you can usually skip due to your 3 already having healing on it. It can help if you're diving the back line a lot. I'd generally skip it and get Masamune instead.

Nemean is more of a mid-late game item that you should only get if an enemy is building crits and is targeting you. Midgardian Mail provides more utility against AA attackers. Add in shogun's and Witchblade and you can really ruin their day.

Runeforged is a nice item, but do many of Bell's abilities proc it? I'd drop it for something else like what I mentioned above.

Don't forget about Winged Blade against an enemy team that has heavy slows in their kits.

Ich is nice, but I'd leave it to the hunters and assassins because Bell makes better use of midgardian and witchblade than they do.

Thanks for your thoughts, Gulf. the 20% cooldown is nice and it is 70 protection, but I guess it is just really a pet peeve for me that it has no health. I mean it just really annoys the hell out of me. I don't know what it is. I mean I have built it early plenty of times, but it just annoys me to no end. I can get health later, I know, but I just think it is from getting blown up early so much when I started and if I'd just had that little bit extra health..lol. I probably haven't taken into account that I did not have very good strategy either and should probably get over it, but I am stubborn as hell. lol.

I kind of followed your guide for four of one type. I did the first and wasn't even really threatened by the one magical so when I had the second match with only one physical I was basically thinking of that match and just got that bit of physical protection from the urchin so I could add the extra magical. What you say makes sense though. The cool thing I like is that some of the items can be specifically to counter magical or physical but still counter the abilites of a god that is the opposite of what it provides protection from.


The blackthorn there makes sense and I have done it before. I am just trying to make sure that I work on situational builds that will work and kind of keep from doing my own flavor on things until I get that down. On a character like Bellona I've usually gotten feedback about getting defense up as soon as possible so I am trying to keep that in mind. As far as other health related items, what would you think of Stone of Gaia at the 2 for her? I know it offers no power or protection but I was testing it out the other day and way less trips back to base and able to make much more frequent jumps into the fights. I also was trying to get opinions on Talisman of Energy. It has magical protections with a nice chunk of health, but to me it's passive has always felt a bit lackluster whenever I try it out, and a lot if the kills and assists aren't coming.


I have come around a bit more on the Midgard. I have been using it more lately. On the bloodforge if I am getting gold easy I have liked the power and then there is the shield too. But as you said, a bit redundant with her heal. One of the things that I like is that when I make a build that is way low physical power just putting Bloodforged at the end puts me at what I have seemed to have as my minimum sweet spot to still wreck some carnage on the other team and not just be a meat shield. It feels like if I am at least 120/130-150/160 physical power that I can not only just take damage but I can make them have to disengage rather than just getting bored trying to kill me and trying to get another team member. Masamune is right next to Bloodforge on my store page, which I also like because I don't have to enter the search for Stone Cutting Sword either.

On the Nemean, normally assassins would be the only ones building crits right? so I guess I should probably make sure to check their build progression as I buy my items and also make sure no one else is making any kind of funky crit build on a character that normally wouldn't.

On the runeforged her slam has a slow and then there's the stun from the ult on whoever is in the middle circle. The slow is only for 2 secs when fully lvled and the stun from the ult is only 1 sec, but I also know a lot of kits have cc so I figured it'd be a way for me to take advantage of their cc as well, but I will take another look at that.


Trust me, I have not forgotten about Winged Blade that is one of those items that I am very familiar with so I just would use the witchblade to purchase it instead so I didn't have to go search for it.

The more I got to thinking about it, before I saw your reply, I was thinking more now that I would probably work the Ich into Bakasura, unless everyone is like NOOOO!!! why would you do that?!?!?! lol

Aa assassins and hunters tend to build crit, but I've seen warriors and ability hunters build it so you should always check what your opponents are building. Add me the next time you're on and I'll see if I can get you a match against more experienced players. My IGN is the same as it is here.