Bacchus Arena Guide - Burp the Enemy away

Hello my fellow smiters,

first of all i want you to look over the several errors in spelling and grammer that will follow since english is not my main language.

Second, i play smite for fun. I'am no professional or real good player (i can't play hunter at all) but love Bacchus so i wanted to write an arena only guide for him (i play mostly arena).

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The god of wine

Why Bacchus in arena over any other tank? Beside the factor that he is the only one that can burp into the enemies face at a volume that the screen shake, Bacchus greates weakness (imho) is nearly erased in arena mode. I'am talking about the great thirst for mana. In conquest, siege or assault you will run out of mana real quick if you play agressive or try to fill your chug meter. Beside that bacchus has great damage reduction, good cc and moderate mobility and cooldowns.

Start items:

Golden Sash

I always start of with the Golden Sash and get the after the buffs. This gives us all we needs to start with. Mana + HP and some speed. We finish the Etheral Staff before Guard Boots(m). I tried a few times to fisnish boots 2 before etheral staff but it is way better to get the staff completed. The staff give us a huge boost in surviability. 600 hp are 2 abilities that can hit us more, even more with our chug on. The 300 mana is neccesary to permanently filling our passive and using our combo to annoy the enemy. To complete the synergie it gives us some nice power scaling throughout the game.

After that the tier 2 boots (defensive) are the way to go or we will be to slow to follow someone with our belch of gods.

If the enemy is not phyiscal heavy i generally follow up with the emerald talisman because of the great synergie with etheral staff and our kit. Magic protection should be focused on since the ramp up time of physical carries is longer than the one of magical caster. Furthermore the mp5 hp5 and the passive give us great sustain in extended teamfights.

The reinforced graves are finished next for the same reason we build the tier 2 boots. It gives us also some nice protections and cc-reduce.

Finish the stone of gaia to maximize the synergie and follow up with a hide of urchin.
The urchin gives us again a good boost in our tankiness and will be stacked within a few minutes (mostly of assists if you doing it right).

At this point your passive will be permanently be on wasted and you can spam your abillities without problems. Since your trips to spawn in arena mode are more frequently you will have your abilities always avaible.

If the game goes on and the money don't stop flowing in you should root for the spear of the magus. The belch of goods has enough ticks to stack up the passive in no time.

The last item (most of the time you won't get to this since its already over) should be another situational item. If the team is mixed a bulwark of hope suits you well, a void stone will make the caster cry (enemy in pain, team with joy) and physical opponents will not be happy with your midgardian mail.

As actives i go nearly always with combat blink. It saves you from some nasty ultimates (Kukulkan, Poseidon, Scylla, etc.) and is a get out of jail free card and should only be used as this. Do not try to get kills with this since you are the tank, most of the time you should absorb damage and set people up for your teammates.

The second active can be changed but i give you 3 good choices that i mostly use:

First of all heavinly agility. Use this if your team needs and edge, e.g. to get to minions that are about to pass the line or flee from an ambush or lost teamfight. It has a moderate cooldown and can change a decide to only a loss of 1 or 2 members.

Second is enfeebling curse to slow physical carries (mostly hunters) down and cripple their dmg output. There is not more to say, use it if you think the power of the enemy will overwhelm you or your teammates.

Third it is shell of absorption. Caster tend to burst a lot more than physical carries and a short time buff to the protection of you and your teammates will can give the teamfight a swing. Imagine a kukulkan ultimate mowing through your teammates with or without 45 more protections and -15% dmg on top. A barely alive teammate does more dmg than a dead one.

For the other item builds i swapped out a few items to adapt to the situation.
A sovereignity and magi's blessing for physical heavy teams and void stone for magical heavy teams. The magi's blessing for physical teams is to counter the one thing that will make you helpless against hunters, crowd controll. If you can juke a hunter you won't take full dmg, if you sitting in one place because you got stunned no protection will help you at all.

The skill order is based on my playstyle. I am the tank, not the dmg dealer.
It doesn't matter which rank you have in belch or belly flop the cc is the same. Chug otherwise will fill up your passive way better and give much more protection with every rank. The mana cost will increase greatly but you will cover this with your build.

I rank belch up second since i love this ability, burping in the enemy face so hard that the screen shakes is just awesome. Since you rank up your ultimate everytime it is avaible you can switch between belly flop or belch of the gods as you like.

As i have written in the skills section i am playing as tank. So you want to get targeted and soak up damage but not die. The only reason you should die is to save on of your teammates.

Bacchus has 2 main combos that are always usefull.

First combo is for initiation and setting up the enemy (one or the whole team) for our team.
Its belly flop -> belch of gods (-> intoxicate)
the other one is
Belch of gods -> belly flop (-> intoxicate) for punishing enemies that are out of place.

Always try to hold youre passive at max state, ALWAYS!. The kit of bacchus is way less usefull if not.

If you belly flop into the enemy team try to hit the gods with no or bad movement abilities (e.g. Artemis, Ra, Kukulkan, etc.) to follow up with your belch stun. Gods like Agni, Kali, Ao are out of reach the second they are on the ground. If you want to use intoxicate be sure that you have backup from your teammates. Nothin is sadder than a 1/3 hp Ra or Kukulkan that just walks calmly away.

This brings me to my second and most important point, WATCH THE MINIMAP. If your teammates are going back to fountain, getting a buff or generally low hp, dont intiate.
This is not always true, if you are full health and the enemy team has not only low health and/or there a only a few (1-2) gods near you go in and force them to back. If you do this constantnly the chance that they have all 5 gods fully packed in the middle is way less than without your actions.

Always try to be annoying. If they shot ultimates or hard cc at you, its a win. They won't be able to hit the squishy ones with it for a definied amout of time.

Never steal kills, you won't need it since you will get enough gold through assists to get your build rolling. Secure kills if needed but learn the difference, a game with flaming is mostly a lost game.

There are some god that work great with you and some don't. Also there are a few god that counter you pretty bad and some god are an easy matchup.

Gods that synergize with you pretty well:

Ares -> you belly flop alone into the enemy team (breaking magi's at best) and they will focus you, Ares will ult in and will mostly get 4-5 enemies stunned. Follow that with a belch and the teamfight is definitly over.

Anubis -> Anubis hates running enemies but loves cc, if you belly flop an enemy near him, he can mumify it and its most probably dead. If not follow up with a belch of gods and see them dropping.

Kukulkan -> If you stun the enemy a tornado right on their head will do great damage. But be aware to not belly flop enemies out of his ultimate.

Loki -> This is a tricky one since you helping him more with your presence than with abilities. People tend to split up if they see a Bacchus coming their way. Thats perfect for Loki to pick one god with getting killed instantly by the others. If Loki jumps on a target try to intoxicate it, this means a nearly 100% secured kill for him.


Gods that don't help you playing your role:

Hercules -> You want to belly flop and he dashes the enemy away, you want to stun them with your belch and he knocks them out of place. The pain is real, if you have a hercules in your team, try to avoid him or be a step ahead to help him for easy knockbacks.

Vamana -> The big baby blocks your view and makes good belly flops way harder.

Generally gods that want to initiate but shouldn't (Loki, Artemis, Ares, Hades) if you around.


Gods that counter you very hard:

Poseidon -> A whirlpool under your feet right as you want to belly flop in and the pain is real. Followed by a knockup and the kraken and you can't do **** for the longest period.

Agni -> If you belly flop in he dashes away. You just escaped with belly flop and low live, its raining pain from above.

Hercules -> You belly flop in for a great belch, he pushes you right back out of his team.

Freya -> A good Freya is a real nightmare, if you want to initate she banish you. You want to knock her up she flies away and shoots your teammates. You try to escape and she slows you constantly until you're death.

Serquet -> You wont hit her, way to much mobility.


Gods that are an easy matchup:

Anubis -> He has no escape, and if you belly flop onto him his ultimate is really easy to dodge. He maybe has great dmg, but you are the tank.

Ra -> No escape, really squishy and the blind is totally useless on you.

Hades -> His ult is just a belly flop away ;)

Pro:

+ Tanky, tanky, tanky
+ Annoying to the max
+ Great at setting up kills
+ Lots of fun to play

Cons:

- Nearly no wave clear
- Really low dmg
- You can't carry the team

You won't be the one with the most kills or the best stats at all. But you will most probably win if you play right.

Bacchus is a god that really shines in arena mode. His weaknesses are much lower than in conquest and his kit is really suited for massive teamfights. He is really fun to play and has a great feeling. (Burping people in the face!)

This is my first guide so please don't be to harsh. I admire constructive critism and want to update the guide with feedback.

I know that i don't have any colors links or images in my guide but i will update it with time.

Thanks for reading.