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Watcher's Gift
Shoes
Healing Potion
Mana Potion
Traveler's Shoes
Winged Blade
Hide of the Urchin
Void Stone
Magi's Cloak
Mystical Mail
Ethereal Staff
Spirit Robe
Mail of Renewal
Mantle of Discord
Breastplate of Valor
Hide of the Nemean Lion
Bulwark of Hope
Pestilence
Sovereignty
Heartward Amulet
Blink Rune
Cursed Ankh
Cloak of Meditation
Magic Shell
Heavenly Wings
Shoes of Focus
Hide of the Urchin
Winged Blade
Spirit Robe
Pestilence
Magi's Cloak
Y
B
A
X
Athena remains my favorite guardian along with my most played, which is why I've provided a guide for her.
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Pros:
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Cons:
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skills
Watcher's Gift is my preferred choice for Starting item on all supports I use. Not only does it give an extra 4 gold per creep that you don't secure (which why would you?) but it also restores mana and health per creep killed. +100 Health and +5 MPS and HPS are just a huge bonus that make this the go-to starting item for all supports
ALTERNATIVE
Mark of the Vanguard is a very niche item. It can also be bought for an immediate impact after your boots if you want to go to a double starting item build. The base stats of the item are +150 health and +10 physical protection. Early on the protection can be huge. The reason this is a niche item is due to its passive, it subtracts five damage from all moves. The use of this is pretty limited to characters that apply dots. This item can be useful against 
Ares, 
Terra, and 
Fafnir .
JUNGLE/ALTERNATIVE Shoes of Focus is my preferred choice of boots on the jungler, along with the second best choice on support. Athena is completely burst damage, so giving her CDR allows her to do damage more often, plus with the semi-recent buff to its stats, it is only missing five points off of 
Shoes of the Magi which brings it good clear viability.
Snowball Shoes of the Magi is a snowballing choice in the jungle. I don't find the boots to be viable to Athena at the support position, but if you get ahead early jungling, this item provides more "one-shot" damage to continue the snowball. It also provides penetration to continue effectiveness on the early "tanky" targets such as the solo laner or support.
FROM BEHIND
Reinforced Shoes is another niche item. The shoes provide +75 health, +20% CC reduction, +20 power, and they provide 18 protections a piece at max stacks, giving an early tankiness that is really only needed if you are getting to be further behind, if you run these in the jungle, you may want to switch to a utility build for Athena, more so than the aggressive one.
Hide of the Urchin is a value item that provides you with an initial 35 of each protection with a maximum of 50 a piece due to its passive. It also provides 250 health and mana, all for 2400 gold! It's the essential piece to get early, along with our next item.
Winged Blade is another value item that can provide you early tankiness. It gives you 300 health, +20% CCR,+10% movement speed, plus every 20 seconds, you get the anti slow buff of a lifetime. Oh and did I mention this item is 1850?! Early on, the extra health provides a great deal of tankiness considering damage usually isn't stacked by then. The only time this item isn't recommended as a possible firzst buy item is when the opposing ADC does a transcendence start, in that case it's probably best to start with Hide.
Mantle of Discord is a late game item that provides a TON of protections, 15% CDR and has a potentially lifesaving passive that stuns everyone around you when you reach a certain threshold of health. It is 3100 gold, but worth it end game.
Heartward Amulet is a more selfless choice. If the enemy team has a 3-2 split on magical damage, or if you just prefer to go full selfless tank build this item can save the team. It's an aura item that provides to you +200 health and +45 magical protection. To everyone else (including you) it gives +20 Mana Per Second and +20 Magical Protections.
Sovereignty is the physical version of Heartward. It provides +200 health +30 Physical Protection, but also provides an additional +30 Physical protection and +25 Health Per Second.
Mail of Renewal is THE teamfight item. It provides 400 health, 10% Cooldown Reduction, +10 health per second. The passive of this item is what carries it. For every kill on an enemy god or objective, this item restores 15% of your health and mana over the next 5 seconds. NOTE: Consecutive kills do not make the passive stack, it just refreshes it.
Hide of the Nemean Lion Is an Item that can be used to hard counter a carry or jungler that puts crit on too many items. Other than that Breastplate of Valor is the go-to for a 4-1 physical team composition. This is due to the 20% cooldown, along with 75 physical protection and +200 mana.
Athenais one of the strongest supports to lane with. With her Confound for a taunt and her Preemptive Strike for chase down, if there is ever a low god in lane, Athena can do her best to help finalize the kill.
mageswarriorsAssassinsHuntersGuardian
Witchblade is not a good option for Athena or as good as other options are +50 Physical protection is far less, and Attack speed is an average at best stat for her, so I'll be excluding it from this list, bar a change in the item.
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Reach
Chronos
Freya
Hel
Sun Wukong
Hercules
Erlang Shen
Pin
Odin
Raven Shout
Lunge
Apollo
Ring of Spears
Guan Yu
Taolu Assault
Aphrodite
Nemesis
Mercury
Made You Look
Special Delivery
Maximum Velocity
Sonic Boom
Artemis
Xbalanque
Ah Muzen Cab
Chiron
Giddyup!
Medusa
Lacerate
Petrify
Izanami
Fade Away
Skadi
Neith
Spirit Arrow
Unravel
World Weaver
Serenade
The Moves
Across The Sky
Rama
Ullr
Anhur
Impale
Shifting Sands
Disperse
Desert Fury
Cupid
Hou Yi
Ricochet
Mark of the Golden Crow
Sunbreaker
Jing Wei
Persistent Gust
Agility
Air Strike
Cabrakan
Tremors
Geb
Stone Shield
Shock Wave
Cataclysm
Roll Out
Shackles
Searing Flesh
No Escape
Xing Tian
Khepri
Scarab's Blessing
Rising Dawn
Solar Flare
Abduct
Fortitude
Ymir
Glacial Strike
Frost Breath
Bacchus
Belly Flop
Belch of the Gods
Intoxicate
Sobek
Sickening Strike
Charge Prey
Tail Whip
Draconic Corruption
Coerce
Kumbhakarna
Epic Uppercut
Throw Back
Sylvanus
Verdant Growth
Nature's Grasp
Wisps
Wrath of Terra
Monolith
Force of Nature
Terra's Blessing
Nice start on your first guide!
Will comment first on items, then skill leveling.
For Support:
If you don't want Focus, then yeah,
As with Anthrax, probably wouldn't suggest Magi's Blessing for her.
Anthrax does mention
Witchblade is great for the aura and good physical protection. Good against an ADC and a basic attacking Warrior or Jungler (e.g. someone like 
Erlang Shen).
Hide of the Nemean Lion would be a good situational item if you're dealing with two enemies building crits (say a hunter + 
Ne Zha), or one extremely dominant ADC with crits.
Midgardian Mail is a great choice if facing multiple basic attackers including someone like 
Freya, and you haven't built a lot of health items (tank builds should try to balance protections and health for maximum benefit).
On some gods, I would say@Anthrax, you say you don't know why you wouldn't go 4x health/mana potions. Not sure that would be a direct reason the enemy Duo would focus you, but that's my opinion. Idea could be because it's something reasonable to use up in a set amount of time, freeing up a space when you back to start getting wards (rather than sometimes being left with extra potions that you have to sell at a minor loss). Just thinking of when that might work.
Regarding relics, I would also not suggest Blink.
So those are my thoughts on the items.
Regarding skill leveling, firstly you will need to correct the order. You won't be able to max your first skill by level 8...earliest you can do that, I believe, is level 9.
For most gods, I can understand concentrating on one specific skill above all others...but with some of these Guardians, I can see getting one skill up to a certain point, and then focusing on another.
For
That said, you have
If your ADC has a strong early game and can out-clear their lane opponent, you might even start putting more points into
3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 2, 4, 3 (through level 10)...at which point, you have 4 in
See, it's a balance of measuring usefulness. Anthrax said level taunt over all else, and the issue I see with that statement is that there's an issue of diminishing returns of a kind...as you level
And that really reduces the effect of
Anyway, TL;DR my personal preference when leveling
As for Jungle builds, HERE is where I would say that
Regarding your description for
Regarding your description for
Like I said, good start, and look forward to seeing this guide finished and maintained!
A. You're the freaking man for giving such a detailed review, even some things I personally didn't hit on, or actually missed on, having close to 200 hours on the God.
B. Now I'll try to answer one by one, there are some that you completely nailed and got me on, but there are some things that I should add to the guide that will help the understanding of what I have on there.
A. The boots. CDR boots ftw, well sort of. The main reason that I have shoes of the traveler on the core item list is two fold. A. Quicker Rotations to the inevitable mid-fights that happen in the current meta (thanks SPL) and two, Gold collection is essential for a rotating support. Essentially in a perfect world, if there is constant team fighting with all members involved, every 90 seconds, you collect an extra 150 gold, of course this never happens, but the quicker rotation + gold collection makes this the starting no-brainer in my opinion, of course as gold matters less later, sell the travelers and get the cooldown boots!
Magi's blessing is a VERY niche item, considering, and is not listed below (one more thing I aim to do is add every single item I have listed, but considering the amount of time I have, I'm only doing incremental work here and there and maintenance to fix, which will happen after this amazing comment by you btw). Essentially the single use I've found on Magi is a 4-1 split, which is pretty uncommon. What I mean by 4-1, is that there are damage dealers and you're the only tank. This happens when you have an assassin or mage in the solo lane, and a less utility jungler. Regarding current meta, a 3-2 split seems to be the preference, but you have to be ready to adapt. I attempt to keep this as literal in-depth as possible this is why I added it.
Witchblade in my opinion has always been more solo focused, considering Bakasura isn't quite as prevalent as he once was, your main focus for this will be the AA warriors such as Erlang, Osiris, sometimes Bellona, but usually there's more value to be found elsewhere. This also goes for pestilence as well; however, not every solo laner counter builds correctly, so this is worth noting. Midguardian is something I never thought of, to be honest, I thought it's cost outweighed its usefulness, but considering the example, and maybe even going further to your magical hunters in general, it may be worth investing into, I'm going to test this item as soon as possible for some possible results.
As in my item review below regarding winged blade (which I do need to fix the movement speed issue) the stats for the price is absolutely ludicrous, and the passive is just a bonus, in all positions, you have to look for value over all else early game, that's why it's included in core, along with the other insane value item, Hide of the Urchin, coupled with the fact that you get these items online generally before carries get pen, you become a mid-game unkillable menace.
Potions, easy choice. The reason to not go 4/4 is that with all of the sustain in lane in current meta, ie. Sylvanus and Terra, which is a decent chunk of who you will go against, there's no point in out-sustaining these Gods, so may as well have a gold advantage somehow, this way at level five, if you're in a super rush, you can ult in for ward coverage, and possibly set up an early gank on the duo lane.
Blink. This goes back to the niche mentioned above this is for a SUPER aggressive comp on your side, that needs an immediate initiation, or going for a sneak initiation from the jungle with a Zeus or Poseidon.
Leveling abilities, here is where you're both correct and wrong. This is the greediest thing I do on Athena, and to a degree, it actually works. I don't auto-level my abilities, instead, I manually do it for this reason. At level 8 I generally choose nothing, and wait until level 9 to choose my abilities, why? Because I want that 5 second cool down, and I want that shield wall maxed. So yes you technically cannot, but you also can, and that's how I do it, and that NEEDS to be mentioned in the guide, so thank you for pointing that out!
As for shield wall, this is actually a valid point, and I may change the complete direction of the moves overall due to this. The reason I initially did it was for the clear. The general supports that are shown favor are high clear supports such as Athena, Sylvanus, Bacchus, Ymir, ***bha, and Terra (three 3-1 combo can auto-clear at level 2 D:)
Overall, your move ideas provide quite a bit of insight, and I'll personally test it out, so if you don't see an immediate change, don't kill me D:.
Winged Blade actually is super useful, although it no longer provides CDR due to the insane value it already has D:.
Shield wall, consider that fixed, you are absolutely correct, that wording is gross, I also worked on this several times at four in the morning, and tried to proof read, but you know how that goes.
Winged blade, already discussed, fixing after this comment ASAP.
Thank you so much for all of the help, this was the BEST possible comment I could receive, it provided insight, and seeing someone's perspective outside your own can really open your eyes and make an overall guide, so thank you so much!
So...understood about Travelers Shoes...I just almost never use them myself, and I would usually tend to get them on Supports that are lacking in mobility, or just have average mobility. I don't know how much gold is gathered from that over the course of a normal match, but I do have to say the extra mobility is nice. I should try it out more...just difficult for me to pass up Focus/CDR or perhaps Reinforced...and actually, I hadn't mentioned it, but with
Thanks for the explanation on Magi's Blessing. What is it about that item that you like for a 4-1 damage/tank split? I know the health is nice, but the protections are low. I think if I was in that position, I would definitely get more health, but I'd probably build it in with items that have higher protections...like, maybe getting Urchin, Sov, Heart or Bulwark, and maybe
Regarding
Makes sense with potions and Blink.
And ahhh...you're talking about point-skipping...I hadn't seen any explanations on that in the guide, so thought it was just an error. I wrote about that a bit in my Assault guide, but it never came to mind in this case.
I miss the old
Anyway, you rock, and look forward to seeing this guide grow!
Also FYI I'm not upset at all if anyone disagree, it forces me to view other opinions and opt to try them, along with making a stronger guide overall ^^
Overall, the effort you put into critiquing is amazing, and I can't wait to test some things out, Thorns, is another.
Also I think we all miss the old Winged Blade =(
Also don't know if I've said this enough but thank you for all the feed back, going to work on a little bit in the coming weeks, just getting over a sickness so I have time again to finish some stuff up and work on the guide :)
Also more itemization is coming last on list of updates so I have total information in the coming weeks trying items and relics out on her!
. You could also go reinforced shoes in order to play more aggressive early on. In the aggressive support items you shouldnt build Magis Blessing without other tankier items ethereal staff is also not worth it better items would be spirit robe and imperial plate helm. For your relics blink is not a great choice for athena because you already have a dash and an ult to initiate with. And instead of hide of the nemian lion i would build witchblade because its passive will becapplied more often and to more people as well. As for Mail of Renewal it is a very niche item its best when the opposing adc and mid are building more penetration than usual. A build i would suggest is Shoes of Focus, Hide of the Urchin, Genjis Garb, physical protection item to counter build, Mantle of Discord, Winged Blade. This is a more all purpose build but works very well. You can also swap the build order after Hide of the Urchin to fit the team comp.
For boots, you're thinking too much of the here and now, and laning phase, Travelers shoes have immense value throughout the game. Quicker rotations and gold collection make it the go to item for early that you sell late when gold matter less. Mail of renewal is less niche than you think. Mail of renewal's passive is pretty nifty in team fights, it's generally the last item I build, when one kill occurs, 15% of your health gets healed over 5 seconds. That may not seem like a lot, but that's an extra 450ish health to tank with, and if more kills happen, more healing occurs, overall, I think it's the most underrated item in tanking. Back to here and now for blink. You sometimes need an escape, and that's why blink is a good initiation tool, imo. I think the witchblade vs. lion argument would be more reliant on your personal team. Are they dealing damage? No, lion, yes, witch blade, but also mentioned above, I see witch blade more-so in solo lane at this time due to its effective stats on gods like Ravana, Erlang, and Osiris. My overall build I recommend as an over-arching is the selfish tank build from Incon, stats wise, it can't really be beat. Boots of choice (CD), Urchin, Winged blade, spirit robe, mantle, and mail of renewal. This overcaps your CDR by 5% (darn) but other than that provides the most possible stats for the build; however, it's your job as support to know the itemization for every situation, which is also a point of the guide, so hopefully with more itemization description, I can provide a more detailed use of everything! Oh one last quip, 2080 gold for a pseudo-third relic with a bit of protections can be a steal against a heavy CC team, I'll clarify some in building due to this!
Thanks for the comment though, the possible use of witch blade is something I'll explore.