{ARENA} Cupid ~ Kill Them With Kindness

Hi and welcome to the first of many Arena specific guides I will be making!

Today we are looking at Cupid and the reason for this is besides being a God with a balanced kit, when I myself looked for some guidance on him, I found only two guides and they were both geared more towards Conquest.

I imagine that if you are here reading this, then you are already aware of the major differences in gameplay and builds between Arena and other game modes, so lets get started!

PROS:

Built in damage buff
Self/Team heal
Personal MP recovery
Can initiate or escape easily
Decent crowd control
Can finish low enemies fleeing into base with a well timed Heart Bomb


CONS:

Super Squishy
Small damage output early game due to only having one damaging ability
Slightly long cooldowns
Relies heavily on CC from Heart Bomb and Fields of Love
Requires a good amount of attack speed and physical power

Lovestruck gives Cupid a stack for each successful auto attack you land up to 10. These stacks will increase his damage and healing while you maintain them. It also adds a 1s stun to Heart Bomb and Fields Of Love.


Heart Bomb fires an arrow which then plants a heart on the target. It does initial damage on contact as well as slows and then secondary AOE damage after a moment as the heart explodes.


Share The Love throws three hearts out which endure for 8s. These hearts will heal yourself or allies and each one collected will return you 30mp.



Flutter quickly dashes you forward leaving behind a trail for 6s which will increase allies movement speed. After fluttering you gain an attack speed increase for a short time.



Fields Of Love Shoots a circular area of arrows down on your target. Enemies are slowed within the circle as well as unable to use movement abilities. Enemies are also mezmerized during this time but any damage will break that effect.



NOTE: There are two important things to keep in mind when it comes to leveling your abilities for any God, not just Cupid.

1. Although we may like to level our abilities in a certain order, battle does not always allow us to do so. Make your choices tactical. Your team might benefit more from you putting some points into Share The Love as opposed to Flutter. On the flipside, putting more points into Flutter can allow you more chances to escape as the cooldown decreases with each point. Choose wisely. This concept should be transferred to any God you play.

2. If you aren't using the auto level feature (and you shouldn't) there is an exploit you can take advantage of. Technically, you can max your first ability at lv10. By not leveling any abilities at lv4 and again at lv8 you can shorten this by one level and have something maxed out at lv9 while still having two points in your fourth ability.

STARTING OUT


Starting with 1500g I prefer to purchase two ranks of Asi and then one rank of Combat Boots plus two Healing Potion as opposed to the commonplace purchase of rank two boots.

This gives you 6% MOV SPD, 10% Lifesteal, 20% ATK SPD, and 10 Penetration.
Starting with just rank two boots only gives you 12% MOV SPD, 10 Power, and 6% ATK SPD

NOTE:If going against an Ares I will always start by buying rank 1 in place of the boots.


EVERY BUY AFTER THE FIRST

I like to finish off my Asi and then work on my Warrior Tabi.




This item is so amazing. While some people prefer the old Fatalis, I think Hastened Fatalis is worlds better. With the old Fatalis, although you get an ATK SPD increase plus the loss of backpedal penalty, you still have the penalty for attacking. I've experimented with both and for me, it's Hastened Fatalis all the way.





This synergizes well with the Hastened Fatalis. Getting 3 attacks on a target should be no problem and the stats are a steal for 2200.



or

People will probably always debate which of the two is better. Personally I switch between them depending on how good my enemies are at juking as well as how good I'm aiming that game. If I'm getting good jukes and missing I'll go with Malice. If I'm on point or they can't juke me, I go with Rage. Decide for yourself.





At this point in my build I'm usually wreaking havoc on the enemy line, easily securing double and triple kills. I like this item to round out my damage and give me some lifesteal in hopes of extending those triple's into quadra's or penta's.



ITEM VARIANTS

NOTE:Let me start this section by saying that by no means is my build "perfect' at all. It's what works well for me based on my play style. That being said, this is a list of other items that I think can replace some of the items I've chosen based on play style or situational needs. Some of these are merely thoughts and others are items that I rotate into my build under certain circumstances.





I use these if the enemy team isn't going to be tanky.





If you are having trouble with another Physical God who has a lot of lifesteal, this will ruin their day. Has great stats as a bonus! I would sub these in place of The Executioner.





You can grab this if you need more lifesteal in your build. Works well on teams with 3 Physical Gods due to the passive aura. Again is would swap this with The Executioner.





I take this item a lot lately for two reasons. One is Geb. His crit resistance is really annoying so I will swap Rage or Malice out for this item. The second reason is teams that are running two tanks. I've been seeing a lot of Geb/Ymir combos and its a pain. Forget your crit and work on penetration instead.

NOTE:We should all know that our true job is to ignore the tanks and penetrate into the carries behind them but lets all agree that in Arena you won't always have the chance to do that or other times when there is only the tank/s around to fight with.





I don't think I need to say much about this item. If you are good with the amount of lifesteal you have, replace Bloodforge with this for more crits with bigger damage.

Again these purchases should be situational.

I will usually wait until part way through the match before buying these unless there's an Ares like I said before. The reason for this is because unlike every other kind of items, these can't be sold and replaced.

Choose wisely.

and are two I like to purchase for extra damage and chase potential.

Lets keep this section short. I don't feel like I need to state the obvious and if its not obvious to you well... read some more guides.

Keep your teammates healthy with Share The Love every chance you get. Try to keep the hearts behind them so they don't have to go into the enemy to retrieve them.

You can help a teammate escape by creating a path with Flutter to increase their MOV SPD. You can further help by sticking their pursuer with a Heart Bomb to slow them as well.

Fields Of Love synergizes well with a number of other gods fourth abilities.
Odin
Zeus
Poseidon
Hades
Ares
Nu Wa
Agni
Ymir

Thanks for taking the time to read my guide!

I hope that at the very least, I inspired you to have a new idea about your own build. Like I said before, there is no perfect build. Find something that suits your play style and go from there. That being said, remember to stay open minded. Lots of people will have other ideas that you never thought of that might work better for certain situations.

I'm open to all comments, both positive and negative so please feel free to comment so we can all learn and grow as players together.

True knowledge comes from our failures, not our victories.