Arachne: Queen of Sustain

This is my first ever guide on this website, so bare with me a bit. I joined smite during the ps4 beta and ever since i tried her in free rotation, Arachne has been my #1 favorite character in the entirety of smite. I have yet to see a build like mine, and i have used it to absolutely ravage most any other god in the game, including other Arachnes. My PSN is ZOMBIE_KILLR2598 if you want to ask about the build personally, or just want to hang out and play. Now, let's finally get to why you're here and explain my method to this madness!

Some people may ask "why wouldn't you build boots first, especially on an assassin?". Well, the reasoning behind it is quite simple; Arachne's power comes from her ridiculous sustain and chase potential during fights. With her 1 being a DOT/self heal, she is really good at poking in the early game, and late game it can make her seem nearly invincible. By building devourer's gauntlets first, she can compound on this powerful self heal by allowing all of her attacks to have 25% lifesteal at full stacks, and layering her healing ability while she's in the middle of battle. Reinforced greaves are up next because arachne can be heavily crippled if her combos do not connect due to enemy slows, stuns, freezes, or other kinds of CC. Reinforced greaves come with a 30% CC reduction, one of the most powerful available in a single item, as well as being her necessary movement speed item. Up next is transcendence, the pinnacle of mana and damage stacking for physical gods. It's a fairly self explanatory buy, Arachne will be chaining abilities on all of her attacks, and to do that she needs mana. You're already building stacks, so why not get more bang for your murderous buck? After that is the main thing i never see mentioned by others, and that's the frostbound hammer. Why this is not used more baffles me. It gives Arachne 200 HP, which is very helpful due to how frail ahe is, and causes her basic attacks to slow enemies movement by 30%, and their attack speed by 15%, for 1.25 seconds, which is very powerful for how she plays as an assassin. The next item is the stonecutting sword, and normal standby for her. Her basic attacks will steal up to 30 enemy physical protections and grant them to Arachne, making her hit harder and take less damage in the process. The final item is the greatest of armor shreds, the executioner. Along with a hefty basic attack speed boost, for every one of those attacks the enemy will lose 12% of their physical defense, up to 3 times for 3 seconds. This, combined with her passive and the protection stealing from stonecutting sword, causes any guardian to do a double take the second Arachne shows up.

Arachne's passve is predator, whic causes enemies to take 1.5% more damage for every 5% of their missing health. This doesn't help much in the early game, but late game, when combined with her protections shredding, becomes very powerful

Her 1 is venomous bite, which gives arachnes next basic attack a damage buff, and poisons the target, dealing ticks of damage every .5 seconds for 3 seconds (6 ticks in total), and ticks of healing for Arachne at th same rate. This is a very crucial ability for arachne, as it is her primary means of dealing damage and staying alive, and requires precision once activated to strike the inteded target, because it will activate on any enemy, whether it be a minion, forest minion, titan, or god, so be careful. It is also worth noting the healing ticks will last the full 3 seconds, even if the target does not.

Her 2 is cocoon, which grants her next 3 connecting basic attacks an attack speed buff, and if all 3 hits land on the same enemy, that enemy is stunned for 1-1.4 seconds, depending on the level. This should always be paired with her 1, and is very powerful for interrupting enmies acter they started fighting and have already activated their abilites.

Her 3 is web, where Arachne will shoot a web forward, leaving a trail of webs which increase her movement speed, and slowing the enemy hit by 40%, causing them to also leave a trail of webs to help you follow them, and spawns 2 broodling minions to attack the slowed enemy. If the attacks doesnt hit an enemy, or collides with a wall or some other obstacle, it will leave the web as a trap if enemies walk through it later. This is an extremely powerful chase, slow, and distraction ability, and should usually be used when charging towards the enemy you intend to eleminate, or to help lane against minions while having the broodlings make it easier to get credit for the minion kills and build up your stacks.

Her 4, or ultimate, is night crawler, which causes arachne to walk on the roof essentially, with 40% increased movement speed for up to 5 seconds, and land with a powerful AOE attack. Personally, i find this ability much more useful for escaping a fight rather than starting one, as there is a short period after landing that arachne cant activate her abilities. It makes for an effective chase, but dont forget that she cant crawl over walls, but her actual attack will cause her to dive over walls.