Chaac and Awe!

Welcome to my in depth guide to Chaac, God of Rain!

Now I've played Smite for a long time, just before Posiden was introduced; I'm level 30 with Maxed out god mastery at this point(47 at the time of writing this guide). Needless to say I play alot. Now I've come across only a few Gods in this game that it makes me feel empowered and godlike to play them..... Chaac is one of them.

Since Chaac has come out I've been plying him exclusively. Currently I have him at Mastery rank 8. I've played Solo, Mid, Jungle, and Duo with him. He fits well and works well in most slots and with most gods as partners, with practice. Even after his nerfing on 01/07/2014 he's a beast of a god and can make or break teamfights still.

Pros:
Great poke
Great early damage
Good initiation
OMG sustain



Cons:
Very high mana consumption
Thunder Strike is really slow and can be dodged easily
Storm Call is medium to low damage for an Ult

Lets Break down the build I've been running with and have refined. Now don't get me wrong, the items I have here is for a High Risk, High Reward play style. If you prefer to play more passively or conservative, then by all means buy defense items and build much like Odin or Herc.

Break Down of the Starting buyout:

Hand of the Gods Pretty standard. Helps kill minion waves fast to push your lane, and highly damages Jungle creep to help farm faster.

Death's Toll At frist you may ask why not Bumba's or Mark of Van for your first item? Well it's simple. Chaac's passive rules out Bumba's quickly. I've tried it while jungling and yes I'm always full life and mana... it just seems a waste of a starter item on Chaac. As far as Mark or Van, well while the damage mitigation is nice it is however quickly out paced by enemy gods. I choose Death's Toll because the stats are nice and carry well until mid/late game when you finally replace it with Deathbringer

Mana Potion Standard in line as long as possible juice. Why three? Well Chaac is very mana hungry when played as High Risk, High Reward. You can easily burn through your whole mana bar when using all the your abilities in rapid fire. Remember the goal with this build is to be aggressive AND stay in lane as long as possible.



Break Down of the Early to Mid game Buyout:

When to get out of lane and buy items? Well as stated before you want to get a level advantage over you enemy god(s) by staying in lane long enough to be 1 to 3 levels over them. Not hard to do with Chaac's survivability and damage out put to push enemies from your lane to heal. Sooooo when do you hop out of lane for items? I stick in lane until I have 3800 gold for both my Winged Wand and Heartseeker The next round of buying happens when I've built up 50 stacks on the HS or 2000 gold for the Asi and so on and so forth with the rest of the Mid game items, saving up to buy them straight out, while being in lane or jungle for exp. Note that all the first few items are cheap cheap cheap... allowing you to also get an item advantage over you enemies too.

Winged Wand You might say "what are you thinking?" Hey I did too until I ran into a Thanatos that kicked my butt with it in his items. I since then have given it a shot with other builds with other gods. I have to say that this items is really under used. Health, movement, and CD reduction... plus the passive can save your butt in group fights or against gods that use slows like Ao or Hel.

Heartseeker THE High Risk High Reward item in the game. Kill things to kills things faster. Now if you're having issues with solo, getting ganked, or you are playing silly with a lot of deaths. Consider swapping out HS for Transcendence which on average gives 50 to 55 physical power when maxed, which is just shy of a maxed out HS.

Asi This little gem of an item hides at the top of the item list. It doesn't look like much but when running with all the other items and Chaac's heal over time. It can save your life and keep pushing your High Risk High Reward play to the next level by being able to survive 2v1 3v1 or even 4v1.

Qin's Sais Ever since these items have come out, they're on almost every one of my physical power build gods. On average they add an additional 30 to 200 damage... depending at what stage the game is at... or what you're attacking.

Witch Stone This is a new item for me personally. I just never used it. It has gained some sort of popularity in the last few weeks, and I've broken down to try it. Much to my surprise, it's a very good item that works hand in hand with the rest of this build. The aura effect is just nice while fighting other melee. As well as the stats help this build shift into high gear when bought late game.


Break Down of End Game Build:

With most of this builds items costing under 2200 except Qins. This build snowballs very quickly. However if the game lasts until your enemies are starting to finish out their builds... there needs to be some item exchanging or you'll get out matched quick. First item on the chopping block is Death's Toll sell this and start building a Deathbringer. Next is Heartseeker *gasp!* No! not the HS!! Yes the HS. Here's why. Yes the HS is THE High Risk High Reward item and it is still great end game. BUT! I found that the Bloodforge is a much better end game item to help you survive during end game team fights and to continue 2v1 and 3v1 without getting yourself killed.

Deathbringer Not much to say about either why we swap out Death's Toll or why this build needs it. This item is a corner stone to all physical power builds for warriors, hunters, and assassins. Enough said.

Bloodforge Swapping out your HS for this item may seem silly but the physical power is very close to the HS when maxed, plus it has a stacking passive that pushes this item from good to great end game. End game can get hairy. You can get CCed to death, insta killed by having whole teams jump on you. Face it... this build along with the aggressive play style can make you a focus target end game. The Bloodforge help with not getting killed every few minutes.

Play Video


Skill Break Down and When I use them:

Passive: Overflow

After 5 successful basic attacks, the next ability Chaac uses costs no mana.

This is a great passive for a mana hungry god, and sustains you while you are still out of mana, but requires you to get close to the enemy and minions. Training yourself to count Chaacs hits or glancing at the counter often will allow you to make mana not an issue.


Number 1: Thunder Strike

Chaac throws his Ax forward, dealing damage to all enemies in the target area. The Ax remains idle in the ground for 5s or until another ability is used.

Ability: Ground Target
Affects: Enemies
Damage: Physical
Radius: 25 (nerfed)
Damage: 80 / 140 / 200 / 260 / 320 (60% of your physical power)
Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70
Cooldown: 10


Your bread and butter ability. Its a great poke and if you look into the ability per level break down, I rush this. Forgoing your 2, this added levels to this ability can catch most gods off guard. Yes this makes it even more mana intense but if you learn how to use the passive then its a moot point.


Number 2: Torrent

Chaac spins his axe around him, damaging all enemies, and gaining protections for each enemy hit (max 5). If his Ax is out from Thunder Strike, he will first dash to the Ax location, doing 50% base damage to enemies he passes through and then executing his spin attack.

Ability: Area
Affects: Enemies
Damage: Physical
Radius: 20
Damage: 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 / 300 (+70% of your physical power)
Protections: 4 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 20
Protection Duration: 4s
Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80
Cooldown: 15

This ability while tanked during leveling... is in reality an extremely good ability that helps with survivability and being able to kill running enemies or multiple enemy gods at once. I played a little around with Frostbound Amulet and this, but the impact to combat was too small and there are better items out there.


Number 3: Rain Dance

Chaac summons a rainstorm around his current location for 6s. While it rains, he regains health, and enemies are caught in the mud, slowed, and their attack speed reduced. If his Ax is out from Thunder Strike, a rainstorm will also spawn at that location.

Ability: Aura
Affects: Enemies and Self
Radius: 20
Attack Speed Debuff: 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25%
Slow: 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25%
Healing: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+15% of your physical power)every 0.5s
Cost: 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 / 95
Cooldown: 16s (nerfed)

This ability makes people angry... you regenerate 30% of your health in one use. It can also slow movement and attack speed in an area with your ax down. Which makes it great for throwing behind enemies so your jungle can have an easy gank. Also a great PBAOE tool to slow enemies for when gods are just out of melee range and running from you. A thing to note is that the healing scales with physical power.

Ultimate: Storm Call

Chaac charges his lighting ax and unleashes a blast, silencing and damaging all enemies around him. While in the air, Chaac is immune to damage and CC. If triggered within range of Chaac's Ax from Thunder Strike, Storm Call will super-charge, dealing additional damage and also knocking up enemies.

Ability: Ground
Affects: Enemies
Damage: Physical
Radius: 35
Damage: 150 / 200 / 250 / 300 / 350 (100% of your physical power)
Silence Duration: 3s
Additional Damage: 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (20% of your physical power)
Cost: 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 / 120
Cooldown: 90

This is a great PBAOE ult. The range is big, and has a silence on it which can swing fights in your favor fast. Note that you're immune to damage and CC while using it... so it can be a way to escape a root or slow. And if timed right you can avoid other gods ults. The knock up from having your ax out can interrupt enemy abilities and even save allied gods, by allowing them to get away if they're getting targeted and CCed.

Solo:

This is where Chaac shines as a star. With Rain Dance Chaac can really out sustain most gods out there currently. Along with his passive Overflow he can go the extra mile to ensure that Solo is one of the highest level gods in the match until end game. I generally push Solo lane until I'm level 5, then I rotate in on Mid every two or three minion waves to help push out mids enemy god and hopefully get a few kills or get a level advantage over the enemy team. After level 3 you can really solo blue and speed/red if you need or want. I prefer speed for the chase and the attack speed. Around level 12 or when you have Qins built you can solo Gold Fury easily. And around 14 to 16 you can main tank Fire Giant.


Jungle:

No need for Bumba's. Just be sure to watch your Overflow counter to maximize your mana/damage out put. Rotate through jungle as you would normally... once you have Heartseeker up and running I even start farming the enemies jungle. Again I follow the same timeline with Gold Fury and Fire Giant as I do with Solo lane. To gank lanes I'll start with Thunder Strike and flow up with Storm Call and then Rain Dance to slow enemies running away and kill secure. (Ha KS)


Mid:

I treat Mid just like Solo. However I've been finding Mid more fun lately because of the chance of more enemy ganks. Plus it inhibits the other Mid(most times a mage) as they have to build physical protection, derailing them from their normal build. Only change is I buy a ward or two to plant in the mid fury camps to rotate in when they pop up or try and push out enemy junglers. Again I follow the same timeline with Gold Fury and Fire Giant as I do with Solo lane.


Duo:

Working with a support, you here are pretending to be AD carry. Hard to do but fun with a few god partners such as Ymir, Anthena, Herc, and Ares. The main change is that you don't want to push too hard to cause enemy rotation into your lane. Just enough to zone enemy god to heal themselves. Again I buy one or two wards and place one at Gold Fury, the other at blue. As well as I follow the same timeline with Gold Fury and Fire Giant as I do with Solo lane.

Just a final word.

Chaac is a great god. My favorite so far. He's easy to play but hard to master. His ability placement and itemization count towards being an OK Chaac or an amazing Chaac. So hopefully this guide has helped in some way with either ideas on what to do or maybe even not what to do. This guide is from what I've played with. I've tried many different builds, and this is what works for me. Hopefully it'll work for you too.