A Lovers Guide to Aphrodite

Aphrodite in my opinion is one of the best gods in the game...If played right. she has an easy as pie mechanic but depending on the items you build she can easily solo a lane by out poking her opponent and playing smart or be less effective as time goes on. but she also thrives when she has a team to follow up with. In this guide i'll do my best to go over the items that best help her as well as some good gods that pair with her and some strategies to help your team to victory.

Kiss
Aphrodite blows a kiss to an allied god, making them her soul mate and giving them both increased movement speed. If it hits an ally, it has a reduced 3s cooldown. If the kiss hits an enemy god, they are Stunned and Aphrodite's soul mate gets jealous, increasing their damage. Also, 70% of all Mana regenerated by Aphrodite is restored to her soul mate.

Back Off!
Agitated by all the attention, Aphrodite commands enemies to get away from her, doing damage around her and knocking them back to 25 units from her. If Aphrodite has a soul mate, an explosion originates on them in addition, dealing the same damage and slowing by 25% for 2s. If an enemy would be hit by both blasts, they will only be affected by the one originating from Aphrodite.

Love Birds
Aphrodite calls forth a flock of beautiful doves that fly forward in the area in front of her. The doves circle around all enemies in the path, damaging enemies every .5s for 3s. Aphrodite and her soul mate also receive healing when cast.

Undying Love
Aphrodite pledges undying love to herself and her soul mate. While this is active, her and her soulmate are invulnerable to all damage for a short duration. All Crowd Control effects are also removed when activated.

when leveling her abilities i always start with love birds. its her main form of healing and wave clear. the next ability depends if your with your team or solo. if solo go for back off, if with a teammate then kiss. the third ability you level up though is birds again then whatever skill you didn't pick and then your ultimate at level five. from their you max birds first then back off and then kiss, make sure you level your ultimate when given the chance.

Before you start the game and build any of these items you have to decide how you want to get your max cooldown. With the items in this guide you can reach max easily, its just how you get to it.
so first is chronos pendant and breastplate of valor. they both offer 20% cooldown each so for two items you already have max. I would recommend this if the enemy team is "balanced"(mage,hunter,assassin,warrior and a guardian) because they're going to have more physical damage on their side. this also lets you run shoes of the magi for the pen and power.
Then if you want to play a more supportive role there are four items for 10% cooldown each that also help. they are shoes of focus, the new soul gem, mail of renewal and spear of desolation. these items are all about hanging in the back row and healing your team. Spear lets you get cooldowns own assists and mail gives you back health and mana on them which is great because they let you stay with your team longer. soul gem is fantastic because it lets you provide an a.o.e heal around to the people who aren't connected to you.

Damage
After deciding that the enemy team is full of potential glass cannons and that damage would be your best option you need to know what items to get. starting the game you get mage's blessing for the extra damage and mp5. this will increase your poke potential and early game healing. then you have to decide on what stack cooldown item to get first. I would start with boots of focus then chronos pendant before stacks. with the 10% cooldown from evolved mage, the 10% from boots and the 20% from chronos your already at max cool down. plus the 100 magical power add to your heal/poke potential. after you obtain max cooldown i would start building into book of thoth. this will give you more mana and power to be more aggressive. At this point you have to decide into either warlock's staff or breast plate, this depends again on the enemy team and where they stand at. When you eventually do get breast plate swap out the shoes from focus to magi for the extra power/pen. for the last item it's up to you for either the shaman's ring, gem of isolation or rod of tahuti. personally i usually go for shamans because late game with your damage it's easy to get it evolved with a few engagements and they take increased damage from you. if you want to be more helpful to your team then gem of isolation will slow the enemy while your teammate fights them. Rod of tahuti just seals the deal giving you more power towards lower healthed enemies. If the enemy has some tanks though you can always just build some penetration items instead.

Support
Easy to build. start with specialists blessing. each time you use your birds because of the stacked healing you will get 3 stacks. and it already gives the 10% cooldown. go into the four previously mentioned cooldown items, do any order as you see fit. for the last two items go into lotus crown and gauntlet. lotus crown will provide a shield to any teammate you heal and gauntlet provides an a.o,e of both physical and magical protection.

There are in total about eight or so forms of anti-healing between gods and items. your one and only saving grace is Rod of Asclepius. if at any point in either your damage or support build any enemy builds an anti healing item you get the Rod. not only does it increase your health and regen but if your in combat it increases the healing you give as well, which is your best response to anti healing because they mostly counter each other out.

Winged blade also helps because although it's not a go too for anti healing you tend to be the focus of most fights. A good portion of team fights start with a form of CC so to not only be immune to slows but also increase your move speed so you can get back to safety is critical.

No matter what you have to remember that you are a support, you help your team. in every engagement make sure your in the back and hard to reach. I find that sticking to a warrior is best. they are tanky and love to fight though that could be said about anybody your attached to seeing as how you just mitigate the damage they would take.