Bastet Arena Guide - Most kills, least deaths.

Introducing Bastet, probably to most underrated god in the arena, who is hardly ever used, yet brings so much to a team. Most people probably don't want to spend the time to get to know this great cat since the learning curve may scare them, since she isn't as straight forward as some more "ground n pound" arena favorites. But trust me when i say you wont regret it when you are gracefully flying around the map, killing everything in sight like a steamroller with wings, boasting a ratio of 17-0.

Just before we move on, I'd like to say that anything in this guide is all based off my personal opinion and experience, so don't take everything i say to be concrete information. As you know, this is merely a guide to provide you insightful information.

What Bastet brings to the arena

High early game pressure

Amazing ability to check most squishies and prevent them from getting fed ("most" means it's difficult to check some squishies with gimpy escapes like Chronos's Ult or Freya's Ult)

Amazing potential to clean up after a team fight

An initiator for the team (especially good for when there's no tank, or a bad one)

A distraction to the enemy them that causes them to waste Cooldowns.

Low deaths ( Hopefully :) )

Bastet's downfalls in the arena

Well I'll just note the most important things or i could be here all day saying things like "doesn't do magic damage".

Not a god who stays in the for a team fight, it's literally pounce > cooldowns > gtfo.

No hard CC (e.g stun) abilities

Squishy

Mana hungry, but this usually doesn't matter and can be made up for with recalls, and in the end, more efficient use of all the skills.

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Nine Lives

As far as I'm aware, this passive is completely obsolete since it doesn't seem to bypass the arena mechanic of spawning in "Waves". Even if it did, if you were ever considering becoming pro at Bastet, the passive would still be useless on most occasions as you would never be dying if you were playing to your best.

Pounce

This move is your main initiator, as well as being your main escape mechanism at the same time.
This move can waste enemy cooldowns, create opportunities for team mates
But before you even use pounce to begin with, you will need to consider your position in relation to a few things: Enemies, team mates and available tools to LoS (pillars, walls, etc.).
On most occasions, if you can position yourself at a safe pounce back distance away from opponents, and even have the pounce back location near or at a point of LoS, you wont need to worry about team mate positions. However, you do get those cheeky Lokis' who pop vanish after you have pounced, and are eagerly anticipating your return in the hopes they can score an easy kill.
The situation in which you find a Loki is targeting you, is the one you may want to be more concerned about positioning yourself nearer your team mates before you pounce.

Offensive Use

Pillar pounce:

This is where you pounce from or near a pillar. You will be hidden assuming there are no minions near you, and from this, you can get the jump on your enemies, literally, which can give you those few vital seconds you need to get your moves off while they are still staining their pants, giving you the advantage and hopefully the kill.


Pounce and charge:

This is where you pounce towards an enemy, while still leaving some running distance between you and the enemy. You would want to do this in situations where perhaps there's an enemy on low HP, and you know you can secure it with Razor Claws > Summon Cats, but you know if you went any closer to initiate the 1v5, you would get killed before you could attempt to kill the low HP guy. So you would Pounce > run for a bit (don't forget there is a 25% run speed boost after pounce) > Razor Claws > Summon Cats > Pounce straight back, the cats will do the rest.


Side pounce:

This is an angle you should take when team fights occur and the enemy is pushing you towards your base. Because if you pounce towards their base as you are getting pushed, then if you do feel like pouncing to safety it will end up being a few yards away from the action, rather than miles. So what you will want to do in that situation is pounce from the side of the map, preferably near a pillar or a wall (you will probably end up doing "Pounce and Run" if you want to be safest), then once you have initiated and attempted to get your kill, if the whole team does turn and focus you, then it will all be for nothing as you will be able to pounce back to safety.


Defensive Use

Base hugging:

This is a useful way to use your pounce if you are fully pushed into your base. What you do is you pounce from inside your base and use it as your point of return in-case things get hairy (they usually do with Bastet). This is especially effective, since your enemies wont be expecting a cat to fly through the base walls and kill them, and the surprise factor may land you an easy kill on the right target.
You need to be wary that for some reason there is a little area in the base that doesn't heal, which is where 2 parts of the base dips out and there's metal barred windows. The tiny extra dips wont heal you, so if you are worried about returning with a DoT or Zeus' charges on you, then it's best not to pounce from right up against those windows.


Pounce n' run:

This is as simple as it sounds: You pounce, then you run away. You would do this not only to put distance between you with the pounce, but also the 25% increase movement speed after. You will notice the 25% when enemies start getting angry you are getting away, and even when they chase valiantly, the gap still keeps getting bigger.


Anti-CC:

You should know just by reading the skill that pounce allows you to clear all CC during the "return pounce state" by pressing the button again, but lets talk about other uses.
Since pounce seems to put Bastet in another dimension during the leap, you can use this to your advantage by predicting or reacting to incoming CC and then using pounce to evade it. And just to make sure, I'm not talking about being in a pounced state then clearing CC, this is: Oh S*** incoming CC > Pounce over it > Laugh.
Now just to clear things up, you cant be targeted during the leap of pounce, so if you try to use the leap of the pounce to counter an Ares who already has his ult chain on you, it wont work and you will be pulled mid leap. Though pouncing isn't a bad thing to do to counter his ult, you just need to walk opposite to the direction he's moving when he goes up in the air, pounce anywhere quickly, then you will be pulled, and from there you can remove his stun and pounce back safely.

Razor Claws

There's not much to say about this skill, except it is usually the first move you open with after a pounce in order to provide your Summon Cats with a target to focus, it fires in a cone, and it has high damage over time. It is good in the way its your main source of DPS and doesn't restrict you to melee range, which can be helpful when chasing opponents a bit out of your reach. But to just expand on the cone a bit, yes you can hit more than one enemy with it, and if you can do this early game, you can have half or more of your enemies near or below 50% health before level 5.

Tail whip

This move is useful for a few different things. Firstly it can just be used as part of your damage rotation when you are up close and personal.
Secondly as a way to close the gap between you and escaping opponents, or if the risk of continuing the chase is too high and could become the death of you, then it can be your last move you throw out before you pounce back, in the hopes that your other sources of DPS will finish off the opponent. There is something satisfying about getting off a long ranged physical move to score a killing blow on an unsuspecting enemy who thinks being near their base is enough to save them.
Thirdly it can be used to peel enemies who are chasing down your team mates.

A word of caution, there is a delay on this move. This is good and bad. It's mostly good in the way that once you get used to it, you can actually just keep your camera central to an opponent who is running sideways and easily hit it, like a drag shot. Also if you get really used to it you will be able to strafe around opponents and hit it at the same time, while evading their moves. There is an example of this in my first video.
Bad is usually just the move not going off fast enough for opponents getting away or you make a bad prediction and the move goes nowhere.

Last tidbit of advice: Don't use this move to poke, it's a waste of mana, especially early game (if you are building like me you wont even be focusing on leveling it first), and it's an even bigger waste if you miss. On top of that, it usually means you have to put yourself out of what could be a more useful position, like behind a pillar. Enemies will end up seeing you and you will possibly lose a chance to get a good initiation.

Summon Cats

Summon Cats is always a finisher move, never an opener since most times it will go to waste that way. You will mainly use it in a situation where you would love to stick around to finish the kill, however other factors such as low HP or lots of enemies beginning to focus you are preventing you securing it. I will tell you the situations you can reliably summon your cats and pounce back to safety, knowing they will get the job done.

Squishies:

50-60% HP with a full Razor Claw

25% HP


Tanks (you shouldn't ever be focusing these, but some situations might occur):

25% with a full Razor Claw

< 10% HP

The reason i have given such small margins of HP % to rely on your cats is because: they can be killed, they have to chase the enemy and they only last 10 seconds. So factoring in all those things, i've given a rough estimate as to when they will be most effective.


Offensive uses

Part of your burst:

As simple as it sounds. Yet you still shouldn't summon cats as an opener as i mentioned before as it could be wasted. But once you have got your Razor Claws, Nine Tails and maybe even a few basic attacks if needed, then summon them to secure your kill.

Summon/ escape / kill:

As simple as it sounds as well. You see a weakened enemy, you pounce towards them, try get a Razor Claws if you can, just to guarantee that the cats will be targeting only that god, then summon the cats, pounce straight back, then wait for the player kill medal to light your screen.

Absolute last resort:

An enemy is getting away, all your moves are on cooldown except Summon Cats, if you wait any longer for your moves to come back the enemy will safely get away. This is when you use Summon Cats without any set up. Your cats will catch up to the enemy assuming they are within decent range, slow them, and kill them. There may even be some time for basic attacks if you can catch up, but if it's too risky, then don't worry about it.


Defensive uses

Meat shields + Kiting:

I put both of these into one, since your cats do both jobs at the same time and you don't have any control over which one they do better. But basically summon your cats defensively VS an opponent who has go you low and you need to get away. Usually for you to take this action your pounce will be on cooldown and you are waiting for it to come back. For example, a Loki catches me off-guard, at the same time he appears on my screen, my health is a 50%, staying in would be a fools errand, so to get away i would summon my cats and start running until my pounce had come off cooldown, then continue to run.
If however i was feeling a bit pro, i might stay in considering Loki's usually have popped most their cooldowns by the time they have hit you once. So i would run a little and maintain my range, using my Razor Claws to DPS from a distance, as well as Nine Tails to include an additional slow. If things were still going my way i might be able to go in and win a basic attack fight. With my cats still there, they might take a few hits for me and give me the edge to secure a kill.

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So there is something i like to call my base build, it consists of Jotunn's Wrath > Warrior Tabi > Focused Voidblade > Deathbringer, in that order. I call it the base build as it is the foundation of Bastet in the way the stats contribute, not a single item should be sacrificed, since every single stat provided is used (except for a slight overcap of 5 phys pen).

When it comes to playing Bastet the way i do, there are 4 very important factors that my base build covers.

High damage (items with high physical power)

Damage more often (cooldown from Jotunn's Wrath)

Damage that is close to true damage (possible since you wont be focusing tanks, all the physical pen on the items provides this)

Slight bulkyness (protecting from Focused Voidblade, though you are still slightly more susceptible to mages)

Once you have the base build, it's really up to you on what you want/need based on the match situation and enemies you are facing.

What the base items do for us indirectly

Jotunn's Wrath Lets us pounce more often due to it's CDR. This in turn allows us to initiate more often and do more overall damage during the game, meaning more pressure on the opposing team.

Warrior Tabi allows us to get around the map faster, which allows for faster positioning for setting up ganks or initiations.

Focused Voidblade provides us with that extra bit of survivability which will help keep the tickets down when it comes to facing enemy physical assassins who try and get a kill on you.

Deathbringer gives us that final boost of damage we need to keep the squishies afraid, making them less likely to step over that half way line without a tank going in first, keeping the enemy team pushed out of fear.

Additional items

+
Both these items can be used VS a full physical enemy team or just VS a Loki who's mad you killed his pet mouse.

If you do use these 2 items in the last 2 slots you will have (at LVL 20):

(Compared to base build + Hydra's Lament + Eye of Retaliation)

277 Physical power (-54)
1.79 Attack speed (+0.30)
25% Cooldown Reduction (-15%)
205 Physical Protection (+85)

Build cost: 14690 (-1550)

As you can see, if it really does come down to it and you need the physical bulkiness, you don't have to sacrifice that much to get the result you want. 2 very viable last 2 items.

I love this item, it still gives physical power, while providing a massive 60 magic protection, and then and extra 30 on activation from being hit by magic damage, which is usually up before every initiation. To me, it's an item and a half due to its passive, very good if you are having problems VS mages, But don't rely on it to make you a goliath, you will still die fast, just not as fast. Think of it like an upgrade from paper to card.

Main priority (Mainly squishies with no escapes)

Anubis
Ao Kuang
Arachne
Artemis
Bakasura
He Bo
Poseidon
Ra
Zeus


Second priority (Mainly squishies with some form of escape)

Agni
Anhur
Aphrodite
Apollo
Cupid
Thor

Focus if no better choice (Gods with silly get aways or heals who might waste your CDs)

Chang'e
Chronos
Fenrir
Freya
Hel

Don't bother (Basically, tanks, leave 'em alone)

Ares
Athena
Bacchus
Guan Yu
Hades
Odin
Sobek
Vamana
Vulcan
Ymir

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15-1 Win VS Chronos Anubis Anhur Thor Athena

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17-2 Loss VS Ares Hercules Odin Anubis Zeus

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