Alycia Fear's Scylla God Builder [ADVANCED]

The Scylla Build Generator has been a long-term passion project of mine that I've wanted to make but never got around to making until recently.

For those who do not know me, I have been a vehement Scylla main since late 2015 (so approaching five years now). At the time of writing this, I have 48,992 Worshipers on her. For those who want a feel for my performance on her, I have a 60% Winrate and 2.81 KDR. I won't claim to be the best, but I like to think that I have at least some experience with her.

It was initially just going to be something that I used personally as a sort of Min-Max optimizer for my existing Scylla builds. I also wanted it to be something that I could use to open the doors to other potentially non-meta builds as well as those that I may not run often enough to know how to construct them well (such as a more tanky Scylla). I also do enjoy trying the more crazy Scylla builds such as ADC Scylla, but since I have little experience in the field of Attack Speed and would just opt to maximize that one stat. I figured this Generator could help me to optimize those more strange builds I run on occasion.

The other goal was to help me adjust to future updates more smoothly. Especially when items are inevitably updated, added, or removed. The main inspiration was when Percent Magical Pen was recently reworked, which took me some time to adapt. Instead of me spending potentially dozens of matches just trying out builds, I could use this Generator to provide me with a strong Base Line from which I could start when major updates occurred.

I do not treat these builds as law or perfect, but instead, use them as strong baselines where I can then branch off of and tweak to fit the practical applications in-game. I ultimately decided to share these results with the Smite community and so that I could receive feedback and possibly suggestions to push this Generator to its limits.

For those of you who are curious as to how this Generator works, I will do my best to explain how it functions, and how it determines build results.

Disclaimer
The build generator is still under development and, as such, may contain bugs or miscalculations, though I have done my best to ensure it is as accurate as possible. I will make sure to update this guide as I make continued progress with the build generator. If you find any errors with the posted calculations or builds, please feel free to let me know, and I will correct them as soon as I can.

General Overview


The build generator will first start by generating every possible (valid) build combination of the enabled items (items can be disabled to speed up the program if they are known to be ineffective. IE: Disabling Defensive items when you only want to build for maximum damage. Once generated, the program will then compile the stats for each build, and confirm that they meet the minimum requirements set by the user. It will then compute the exact damage output that the build will yield against a target with a set amount of Protections (and can compute them across an array of protection values). The Generator will then compare each build to find which one has the highest damage output.

Configuration
The Generator allows for many different configurations to enable the program to find builds that can fit various situations. I will detail out below each of the configuration options and what they do.

* Protection Range & Increment: This option allows you to define what range of protections to compute. For example, a value of 0 - 300 in increments of 50 will calculate the damage dealt against enemies whose protections are 0, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300. The more protections it has to compute for, the longer the program will take to run.

* Build Mode: The program currently supports 2 Build Modes:
Ability Combo and Basic DPS. Ability Combo allows the user to specify an ability order (i.e., Sic 'Em -> Crush Passive -> Basic -> Crush Detonate). This setting allows the program to compute certain variables such as Crush's 25% Protection Reduction or what ability gets Obsidian Shards 10% extra Pen.
Basic DPS: This version will optimize for maximum Basic Attack damage in a 5 second period. The Generator will factor in variables such as Attack Speed, which would enable Scylla to unleash more Basic Attacks within that 5 second period. This setting is mostly for my entertainment as Scylla is not an ADC character.

* Require Boots: This option toggles whether or not the builds should have boots built or not.

* Minimum Requirements: This option contains a sub-list of options that can give the Build Generator a list of requirements each build must meet. These include CDR, Health, and Magical/Physical Protections. I will likely add more options in the future, such as CCR and Movement Speed.

* Ability Order: This option allows the user to specify an order of abilities for the "Ability Combo" Build Mode setting. It allows the user to specify the following: Sic 'Em, Crush Passive, Crush Damage, I'm a Monster, and Basic Attack in any given order.

* Item Passives: This option contains a sub-list of options to determine the behaviors of various item passives and how the Build Generator should treat them. For example, should it include Rod of Tahuti's passive for all builds with the item, or should it count Book of the Dead's Health Shield as a part of the provided Health? I will add other item passives in the future, and I will update the guide accordingly as the program is updated.

* Item List: This is the list of the 58 items currently included in the Build Generator. At the top are three options to Bulk Disable/Enable items by their type (as I define them). Each item can be disabled, at which point the Generator will exclude them from the calculations (usually done to speed up processing time). Users may also mark items as "Require," in which case the Generator will only return builds that contain them.

Due to the inherent complexity of Smite, none of these builds are "Universal" or "Perfect." They serve only as a good baseline on where you should start with your builds, but not necessarily what build you have to use. Experience is your best teacher. This Generator will only be able to give the top builds on paper but not necessarily in practice.

The build Generator only finds the best builds for Level 20 Scylla with all items stacked. With that said, it will not factor in how difficult it is to get the build entirely online. This limitation includes Build Cost, Build Order, and Build Difficulty (such as Stacking Items).

The build Generator does not consider certain variables such as the passives for Mask items (Reduced Damage Dealt vs. Taken) or stats such as Damage Reduction. It currently only calculates the damage dealt with targets based purely on the target gods' Protection amount.

It also does not factor in potentially game-changing passives and stats such as MP5, HP5, Movement Speed, CCR, Magi's Cloak bubble, etc... This is where in-game knowledge and experience will come into play. Maximum Damage DOES NOT guarantee victory.

I will provide my notes with each provided built and how effective I think each build is in practice.

"Standard Combo": Referes to the Scylla Ability Combo that I use the most, which are: Sic 'Em -> Place Crush -> Basic Attack -> Detonate Crush.

"Bruiser Scylla": Refers to builds that have a minimum of 60 Protections and 400 Health. Everyone will likely have a different definition of "Bruiser," but I will use this reference name just for the sake of simplicity.

"Tank Scylla": Refers to builds that have a minimum of 120 Protections and 800 Health. Everyone will likely have a different definition of "Tank," but I will use this reference name just for the sake of simplicity.

I have computed all builds against targets with a Protection Range of 48 - 298, in increments of 25. This setting allows for easy damage verification against the Level 20 Odin Bots in Jungle Practice. The Bot starts at 48 Base Magical Protections and can be increased by 25 on the + Protection Pad.

FINAL NOTES:
* While the Base Magical Protections for gods in Smite is 48, be aware that gods (especially squishy's) can exceed this number, even without building Defense. Keep in mind that gods and items can have Protection Aura that can affect these values. I use 48 Protections as the baseline, but it is common for enemy gods to have more than this value.

* Due to the nature of certain items passives, they will not be factored in the calculations. For Example, Bancroft's Talon. Just because this item does not appear, does not necessarily mean it's bad since it can be a potent item thanks to its sustain in modes like Conquest. But, the passive will rarely impact PvP fights (however, I still factor in the items base stats for the computations). Another example is Rod of Tahuti since it will be highly unlikely that the passive will apply to all hits of the "Standard Combo," and most targets below half health will die from the "Standard Combo" anyway.

Build #1
Versus Gods with 48 Magical Protections.

Build #2
Versus Gods with 73, 98 Magical Protections.

Build #3
Versus Gods with 123 - 298 Magical Protections.

All Builds Compared:

MY COMMENTS FOR BUILD GENERATION #1:
Build #1. This build, I feel, is overall excellent against Squishy targets. I would not have thought to build Divine Ruin unless I was up against enemies with healing, but Flat Pen appears to be extremely potent at these Protection levels. Another item in this build that surprised me was Typhon's Fang. However, it becomes clear why this item comes up after some investigation. In this build, Typhon's Fang provides you with a total of 150 Power, and 10% Magical Pen on top of that. I will note, however, that there appears to be a potential bug with its stats. The base stats list that it gives +70 Magical Power; however, when running tests in Jungle Practice, I found that Typhon's Fang gives +80 Magical Power. I discovered this inconsistency when my generator showed lower damage values than what was showing up in the game. Add to that the +70 Power you get from its passive in this build, and it becomes clear why this item showed up in the generator.

I will also comment that this build is a bit of overkill (though it can have its uses should you miss an ability). In total, the standard combo will deal a total of 2,675 damage while squishy targets in the game only have around 2,000 Health.

Build #2 & Build #3. While these builds are good on paper, they are TERRIBLE in practice, and I DO NOT recommend that you try and run them. Most Smite veterans can spot the immediate flaw with these builds, which are the double stacking items in Warlock's Staff and Book of Thoth. These two builds are a perfect testament to the differences between "Book Smart" and "Street Smart" and highlight the inherent limitations of this build generator. To correct these two builds, I reran the Build Generator two more times for these protections, once with Book of Thoth disabled, and once with Warlock's Staff disabled. Below are the new results.

No Minimum Requirements.
Defensive Items Disabled.
Warlock's Staff Disabled.
1,107,568 Unique Combinations Tested.

Versus Protections	Item	Item	Item	Item	Item	Item
73
98, 123
148 - 298

No Minimum Requirements.
Defensive Items Disabled.
Book of Thoth Disabled.
1,107,568 Unique Combinations Tested.

Versus Protections	Item	Item	Item	Item	Item	Item
73
98 - 298

For these two new generations, I will note that at the lower protection levels (73-148), the difference in these two builds is relatively small, but I wanted to highlight at least the Top builds for the highest protection values of each build.
Build_1 is the last Build Result with Book of Thoth disabled
Build_2 is the last Build Result with Warlock's Staff disabled


As you can see, these two builds are nearly neck-and-neck with their damage values. I would say if you want some extra Health to go for Warlocks. Otherwise, Book of Thoth is entirely acceptable.


One final build Generation I would like to run in this category, is with BOTH Warlock's Staff and Book of Thoth disabled for those who may prefer to avoid stacking items.

No Minimum Requirements.
Defensive Items Disabled.
Book of Thoth Disabled.
Warlock's Staff Disabled.
906,192 Unique Combinations Tested.

Versus Protections	Item	Item	Item	Item	Item	Item
48
73, 98, 123
148 - 298

Below are the damage values of these 3 No-Stacking Builds.
I think these three results exemplify what to build against what opponent type. Build #1 for Squishies, #2 for Bruisers, #3 for Tanks. In summary, practice is the best teacher, and these results should only serve as guidelines for your builds, not the rule.


One last comparison that I'll make is to show the Top builds at 48 Protections where Warlock's Staff is disabled, where Book of Thoth is disabled, and where both are disabled. I will then repeat for Protections at 198 (since most build results seem to level out at this value) so that you can get a feel for the difference in performance between the three.

Build_1 = Top Build Result @ 48 Protections where Warlock's Staff is DISABLED
Build_2 = Top Build Result @ 48 Protections where Book of Thoth is DISABLED
Build_3 = Top Build Result @ 48 Protections where BOTH are DISABLED

When you review the builds carefully, you can see that having at least one of these items is mathematically better throughout the entire graph. However, the damage difference is arguably negligible. Below is a zoomed image, only reviewing the first 25 Protections (48 - 73) since this is the range of optimization for the builds.
Build_1 = Top Build Result @ 198 Protections where Warlock's Staff is DISABLED
Build_2 = Top Build Result @ 198 Protections where Book of Thoth is DISABLED
Build_3 = Top Build Result @ 198 Protections where BOTH are DISABLED

And lastly, the same comparison, except with the builds for very high Protection enemies.
Again you will notice that the stacking items out-perform the top build that contains none but only by a small margin.

And again, I will zoom in on the results (this time zooming in on 178 - 193 since I generated these builds for this range.
At this point in the calculations, you will see that the builds have effectively stabilized, with the 80 - 130 range having some strong contention between the two stacking builds.

I will conclude by stating that mathematically speaking, having at least one stacking item will give you more power than a build without any. However, it's worth reiterating that Maximum Power DOES NOT equal a perfect build. Scylla already has a rough early game, and stacking items can make it significantly harder for her. In the end, it comes down to experience when it comes to deciding which build to choose, and what tweaks to make them when necessary.