Ares, The True God of War (Arena/Siege/3v3)

Hello all, I'm TheLoneWolf, and I main Ares. I've played this game on and off since beta and recently started playing with a controller. My main account is 26, but I had troubles learning to play at that level and was only feeding, so I began learning to play with a controller on a lvl 14 account. And I'm attempting to reach 30 playing only (Or as much as I can) Ares! With a controller! You're something else!

Currently level 19! (Will update)

Playing with a controller can be challenging, but it works well with Ares kit. Gods with circle target skills do not work as well with a controller, but Ares straight skills work well. Anyways, on to the build I've discovered on my journey. I will be updating regularly and hope to post on how it goes when I get into ranked!

Ares excels early game well due to his passive, which grants 30 magical power for every completed aura item. Due to this, you want to utilize this extra power as much as possible.

I typically start with Steel Mail, unless facing a team of 3 or more Magical gods. My typical rule is to count Minions as a physical and then add that to the amount of enemy physical gods.

An example would be: Facing a team of Agni, Chaac, Loki, and Ra in siege, it would be 2 physical and 2 magical. Counting the minions, It's 3 physical and 2 magical. This means that I would ALWAYS start with Steel mail.

If you are new at playing Ares you may want to start with Ward Stone when facing an all magical or mostly magical team. I personally like to start with Steel Mail regardless due to the amount of damage that minions can do early game.

After farming and hopefully hitting level 5 you should have enough to buy either Sovereignty or Mystical Mail. I personally prefer Mystical mail because it gives Ares decent wave clearing with Mystic + Searing flames, and also increases his early game kill potentional. After building Mystical mail I build Shoes of Focus for some CDR and Magical Power.

At this point I usually have some leftover gold and purchase Greater Blink, for an initiation for Ares ult. My third item is always Void Stone. This item benefits Ares in many ways and after building this item you should be a formidable bruiser able to 100%-0% Mages and assassins. It gives 40 Magical Power, 50 Magical protection, and has an aura that reduces enemies magical protection by 15 within 55 feet. The aura also gives Ares 30 magical power due to his passive, totaling the Magical Power gain at 70. The aura is also very beneficial because I buy CDR boots and not pen, and all of Ares attacks require him to be close to the enemy.

The fourth item is always Breastplate of Valor, to max your CDR, more physical reduction, and an increase in your mana pool increasing laning time. After this item it's rather situational. If you are facing a mostly physical team, Purchase Sovereignty. Or if it's mostly AA physical gods, maybe Hide of the Nemean Lion.

If you are facing a balanced team of Physical and Magical gods, or more Magical than Physical, my next go to is Pestilence. It gives 60 Magical protections, 300 health, and has an aura that reduces enemy healing and health regen by 20%. With Ares passive, it also grants an additional 30 Magical Power.

My last item is always one of 3.

1. Rod of Tahuti, for the extra damage and kill potential if you aren't dieing too quickly late game.

2. Hide of the Urchin, for the extra defense needed late game due to any fed enemies. I know, the protection stacks won't be up, but it is still the best item in my opinion when facing a well rounded team. It does help that you should be the top damage at this point.

3. Sovereignty, for the extra Physical Defense if the enemy team has an Assassin or Hunter that is fed and dishing out too much damage. Buying this item will put you at roughly 290 Physical Defense. It also gives 20 Magical Defense to yourself, and 20 Phys/mag Defense to allies nearby.

Purification Beads are my go to 2nd active simply because Ares can usually drop an enemy from 100-0, but sometimes whether you messed up or the enemy is stacking health/defense, it's nice to be able to get in another round of chains and flames for that kill potential!

Ares relies heavily on his Chains to kill enemies and provide cover for teammates to escape. Shackles is the strongest ability Ares has, and therefore you want to max it first.

Start with 2 points in Shackles, and 1 point in Searing Flesh. At level 4 you want to save your point, and spend it at level 5.

Once level 5 put 1 point in Shackles, and 1 point in No Escape. At level 6, put a point in to Bolster Defenses. After this put a point in Shackles at level 7, and then save the point at 8. Once you hit level 9, put a point in Shackles and Searing Flesh. After this max Searing Flesh, then Bolster Defenses, then No Escape.

Ares should be played as a magical bruiser. In order to secure kills, he often time has to take damage, but he also deals so much damage that it usually ends with the enemy running to there death. There is no escape.

Landing chains is essential to succeeding as Ares. With 3 items built, and at level 9, chains will be doing roughly 100 damage per tic. Landing every chain, and waiting to shoot the next chain until after the one before tics, deals around 700 damage. On top of Searing Flesh which deals damage plus a % of health.

So if there is anything to learn from this guide, it's that if you land chains you will be a nigh unstoppable force, but when you miss you either gotta put on the Juke Shoes or get your *** outta there.

Pros: High damage, High crowd control, Defense/cc reduc buff, and the ultimate pubstomp.

Cons: Heavily reliant on chains. If you miss, my advice is to run away unless your team is there. Can also be shut down by beads or any CC immunity abilities. No Escape shouldn't be mandatory to get kills though. Generally enemies will either forget or only have rank 1 beads early game, but late game most people will get beads and you won't be able to pull them every time till you get full CDR.

Ares lanes well with any god that has a stun, slow, aoe ultimate, single target ultimate, or any ult that could be used when Ares pulls enemies to him. Gods like Apollo, Neith, go well with Ares because any time of stun or slow helps Ares land his chain, and allows him to do insane amounts of damage.