Skadi Tips

Hey everyone, I really enjoy Skadi but I'm looking for some tips on how to play her for joust and/or arena because I find it frustrating at times playing her. To me she has great potential and after playing her for a bit it seems that for her to shine she needs to have good teamwork with kaldr but getting in close enough to be of much help before kaldr dies is hard especially with no escape. It's not uncommon for me to go into the negatives and I usually just end up focusing on minions (in arena). Just looking for some tips/advice on how to play her and possibly build advice (stats to focus on not necessarily full builds). Any and all advice is appreciated :)

Can you describe some of your current build examples?

If I play her in teamfight modes, I like focusing on power/pen and possibly CDR, just so you can spam abilities more often since her CDs are awful.

• Transcendence
• Ninja Tabi
• Soul Eater
• The Executioner
• Jotunn's Wrath (CDR direction, you can skip if you want to go deeper into DPS)
• Qin's Sais
• If you skipped Jotunn's, consider Atalanta's Bow, Silverbranch Bow, or Odysseus' Bow in this position

My current build for her is Warrior Tabi Transcendence The Executioner Deathbringer The Crusher and Magi's Cloak for the CC protection. I'll have to try your build with the CDR. When making my build for her I mostly was working on AS since my knowledge of hunters isn't great and I assumed her basic attacks was her strong suit while her kit was more for harassment and setting someone up for your basic attacks. I have transcendence which obviously isn't AS but I had it there so I could spam abilities on minions more often without having to return to base.

Deathbringer is for gods with attack speed boosts in their kits like Artemis and Ah Muzen Cab, plus it should be the second crit item and rarely the first or only; hunters like Skadi don't have these boosts, so they focus more on doing ability damage instead of basic attack damage.

Oh okay, I didn't know that. I more often than not put just Deathbringer in an assassin or hunter build so I can have that little bit of crit without dedicating my build to it but I'll be sure to change that, thanks.

She has plenty of damage in her basics, and you can focus on that a decent amount. Trans is definitely her better path IMO (compared to Devourer's Gauntlet as many basic attacking hunters do).

But when you go Trans, doesn't mean you can't still focus a decent amount on basics. But the direction for builds in that case is typically different.

Consider some things:

• Trans provides high power and mana. Devo's provides lifesteal and power. Devo's then requires you to manage your mana, while Trans just doesn't have lifesteal. Lifesteal is one of the best stats for trading in 1v1 and keeping health up, or for sustaining in lane by healing up from minions. So when going Trans, you're missing a key basic attacker stat.
  
  
• Later lifesteal is helpful when going Trans. Asi in mid-game, or Bloodforge late are both good options. Situationally, Soul Eater works great, as it provides so-so basic attack lifesteal, along with some via ability damage.
  
  
• Lifesteal and Trans and Boots take 3 item slots. Crit items, for optimal function, require 2 items at minimum. 1 slot left means you're very limited, so Trans + Crit is often not best. It can work depending on the god, but you should be choosy. You still need pen.
  
  
  [*}With Trans then, Qin's Sais is very popular for added basic attack focus. But, because again Trans is very focused and limited on its stats, you want more attack speed to get the most from Qin's. This means Ninja over Warrior, Exe over Titan's, and a situational item with more AS...hence why I mentioned Atalanta's, Silver, and Odysseus. The Crusher would be another option.

I see, well that leaves me with lots of things to test. I think I'll end up going trans every time with some AS and CDR as most of my items but I'll have to see what works best for the last couple items (bloodforge for power and lifesteal, asi for AS and lifesteal, crusher for power pen and AS, etc). It'll be plenty of trial and error but as always I appreciate the suggestions/advice to get me going in the right direction.

So after some testing, the build I find that works for me (so far) is Transcendence Ninja Tabi Soul Eater The Executioner Jotunn's Wrath Qin's Sais When I first started testing this build I was looking for a replacement for Soul Eater and the choices I was looking at were Bloodforge Asi and The Crusher. I was finding that soul eater was the happy medium between the options. I originally tried Asi but found that while I enjoyed the extra AS and lifesteal the drop in 60 power seemed a bit much to me. Bloodforge was nice but I felt it wasn't really worth it especially for the higher cost. It has 15 more power and an extra 5% physical lifesteal and a shield but I found I was making more use of the ability lifesteal. On top of that I was missing the extra CDR. Crusher was good too but it didn't have the lifesteal that I'm starting to enjoy. It's passive makes up for the drop in power and pen is always good but no lifesteal was starting to hurt.

This isn't going to be my final build most likely but it's where things heading right now. Also note that this is only for arena, conquest and joust will be different and I haven't tested for those modes yet. I still have a lot to work on in terms of how to play her properly/well but the change in build has already made a noticeable difference.

Excellent. Neat to hear your personal observations.

One other thing to consider...if you want that earlier basic attack DPS, get Qin's Sais 5th, and then you can get Jotunn's 6th (or any of the other options you prefer).

If you want to concentrate much more on ability damage rather than basic attacks (and want to hurt tanks a lot), try getting The Crusher 4th, and Titan's Bane 5th, with perhaps Qin's Sais or Jotunn's 6th.

If you try her out in Mid in Conquest, you can probably get good use out of these build variants. I'd probably suggest starting with Mage's Blessing, getting Morningstar, and potions. You can alternatively start T2 Trans ( Charged Morningstar), but I think the 5.18 adjustments to the blessing will be nice for physical gods, and the 10% CDR at the end will give you extra ability use until you replace it late.

Yeah I think The Crusher and Titan's Bane are some items I need to have ready to use if the team is pretty tanky because I've noticed that guardians or warriors going full tank give me trouble and I usually need another person if I'm being targeted. If they're not focused on me and/or ignoring Kaldr I'm good but yeah.

Conquest is something I plan on trying soon but haven't quite worked up the nerve yet. Looks like a fun alternative to arena but hesitant to actually try one until I know more about it. I have no problem muting toxic players but it's still nice to reduce the reasons someone might have for being toxic. Currently reading your conquest guide to try and learn as much as I can so I can eventually give it a try. I know the basics but there's still some of the finer things to learn. Skadi is able to play Mid? I thought that was typically mages no? I know there's exceptions to the rule (like Sol can sometimes be ADC) but I didn't know Skadi was one of them.