Feed Him His Mana! Ao Kuang Arena/Joust Build (Joust still in testing)

"I suppose it's a fine day for a battle. I am feeling hungry..."

Hello, readers, and welcome to my initial Smitefire guide for Ao Kuang, Dragon King of the Eastern Seas!

My name is PhoenixDark89, and I play Smite under the same handle. I've only been playing since the beginning of the summer, but over the last few months, I have gotten more experienced day-to-day, playing enough to have seventeen gods at Mastery I and being very proficient with Neith, Bellona, and Ares. However, I do enjoy Ao Kuang and the unique "magical assassin" playstyle he brings to the table, and since he was on rotation recently, I figured I'd offer a bit of theorycrafting that I came up with to try to counter one of his major Cons: early-game mana hunger.

This theory came from my recent experience playing Loki with the very powerful build that YouTuber FrostFangs uses typically with the Trickster God. He typically builds Transcendence early, which provides a ton of mana as it stacks, and also attributes to his Physical Power. So I thought, "Why can't we apply this to Ao Kuang and make this happen?" That led to the build I'm about to present below. Notice that the main core most Ao players have ( Demonic Grip, Telkhines Ring, and Hastened Fatalis) is still intact; I was not trying to alter Ao into a different playstyle, just counter a Con while letting him still do his stabby thing. For players looking to experiment with a build like this, please feel free to use this as a base and leave comments with any suggestions on how to make this build more effective for the future.

Without further adieu, let us begin, yeah?

PROS:

• Very bursty, much like Loki
• Ult is an execute that also lets you re-position and recharges your passive
• Very mobile with a 1 that grants Stealth, especially combined with Blink and Sprint
• Very hard to race mid-to-late game if you let him get in your face

• Very mana-hungry in the early game (which we are trying to counter today)
• Doesn't clear minions too quickly early (not much of a problem mid-to-late game)
• As per typical of mages, very squishy
• Not much range to abilities

While Ao Kuang used to play like Kukulkan does now, Hi-Rez decided that the game needed something different, and so we have the current rendition of Ao, which is that of a magical assassin. Granted, while his 1 and his 2 do have the ability to deal damage to enemies when he's a small distance away, it's still not much of a range; most of his damage would be dealt when within melee range with the first mode of his 2.

Keep this in mind when playing with Ao Kuang, and build accordingly! Using your 1 and building Combat Blink can be your best friends if you get into a tight spot (such as a team fight that you really didn't want to get into). Otherwise, again, play him similar to Loki: sneak up on people, activate your 2, and go to town (and if that doesn't kill them, they should be low enough that you can execute them with your ult or shoot a 3 to finish them off).

Ao Kuang has a very unique kit that slides him into the magical assassin playstyle that we discussed earlier. Let's take a look at what's going on:

KING'S SWORD (Passive): Ao Kuang's passive stores three Energy Charges and can regen while out of combat. These charges expend when you use an ability and add 5% damage to the damage output of that ability. When you get to the mid-to-late game, that can add up to be a lot of damage! The charges can also come in handy early game, as you can use them to cast spells when you run out of mana (but hopefully, with my theory, that won't be a common thing...)

WATER ILLUSION (1): This ability is Ao Kuang's sneak/escape ability. He teleports into Stealth for 5s or until he attacks or is damaged, but other important part of this ability is that he leaves behind a watery mockup of himself that you can explode by pressing 1 again, dealing damage to any enemies nearby. This can be helpful to clear a wave of minions that were ganging up on you. Once you have your first point in this ability, though, you don't have to really worry about leveling it until later on, so don't prioritize this ability right off the bat.

DRAGON CALL (2): This is Ao Kuang's bread and butter ability that you will use to slice and dice enemies down in no time flat, so prioritize this ability first (unless you can level your ult). Ao summons six dragons to his side, and whenever you hit an enemy with a basic attack, a dragon will fly at the target and inflict more Magical damage. The dragons only last for about 10s if you don't use them all up, but Dragon Call has a secondary ability that allows you to shoot any leftover dragons at a target up to 55 units away, inflicting damage according to the number of dragons that were left over, and slowing the target for a short amount of time. This secondary ability can help you catch up to finish them off, so keep it handy!

WILD STORM (3): A MIGHTY SWORD! This ability is the main ability you'll use to finish off enemies that are turning to escape you, or to clear waves of minions. Ao Kuang fires out a cone of lightning in front of him to deal a pretty nice amount of damage. The cool thing about this ability is that it counts as a basic attack, so if you have any items that proc off of a basic attack hitting, Wild Storm will trigger those items, as well as let you use any dragons you have floating around from Dragon Call. Focus on this ability second once you have Dragon Call finished.

KING OF THE EASTERN SEAS (Ult): This, in my opinion, is one of the coolest ultimates in the game. When you use it, Ao Kuang will sink his sword into the target, dealing them damage, and then knock them up into the air. Wait... what's so impressive about that? Well, how about when you use his ult on an enemy at low health, he turns into a huge dragon and executes the target, restoring his health?!? Not only that, but you can also have Ao fly back down to the battleground after the execute, dealing damage to any enemies he lands near (possibly earning another kill), and recharge his passive? Again, I feel this is one of the coolest ultimates in the game, and it takes practice to learn, but all you have to look for is a glowing blue "X" on your target; if they have it, you can execute them. Prioritize this ability as soon as you can put points into it.

Now we get to the real fun part of this guide, which is breaking down the items I've selected for the main build up above! Let's break it down, shall we?

SHOES OF THE MAGI: I don't think I've ever seen a build on any god that doesn't use a set of shoes to this day, and Ao is no different. Naturally, we want to give him Shoes of the Magi because it gives him early-game mana to help offset things until we build the next item, as well as some Magic Pen to help break down some defenses, on top of power and movement speed. This guy is pretty much standard on any mage, so grab them up!

BOOK OF THOTH: This is really the only difference that you'll see in my build compared to most others, usually swapping for Gem of Isolation. As I mentioned, the theory behind this is derived from FrostFangs's build for Loki that usually picks Transcendence around the third slot; in this case, I want it to offset Ao Kuang's hunger for mana in the early to mid-game, and why not get some stacking Magical Power for it in the process? In this case, on top of the base stats that it provides, Book of Thoth also provides an extra 750 mana at full stacks, and 3% of your mana pool gets converted into Magical Power. Once at full level, that is a considerable chunk of power.

DEMONIC GRIP: Here lies the first bit of what allows Ao Kuang to tear through enemies. Demonic Grip grants a huge chunk of Attack Speed, a nice chunk of power, and allows each of your basic attacks and Wild Storm to put a stacking debuff on your target, lowering their Magical Protection for a short amount of time. Once you have all the speed you need, this debuff isn't going anywhere once you throw it on and you stick to your target, so hack away!

TELKHINES RING: The brother ring to Demonic Grip, this item provides another nice chunk of Magical Power, a little bit more Attack Speed, and 100 health to give you an extra chance to escape from tight jams. The main important part of this item, though, is that it gives your basic attacks and Wild Storm an extra 40 magical damage on each hit, which can help you tear through targets faster.

HASTENED FATALIS: Tired of your prey getting away? That's where this guy comes in. Hastened Fatalis grants 30% more attack speed (should have 65% at this point), another 10% movement speed, and it allows you to ignore the attack movement debuff when you hit an enemy with a basic attack. Don't EVER let them get away again!

ROD OF TAHUTI: The final piece of this build is the other staple item for any mage that you play. Rod of Tahuti gives you a whopping 125 Magical Power, a little bonus MP5, and... wait... it further increases your magical power by 25% as a passive?!? If you are ever able to get to a point where you have a full build, Ao should be able to tear through any single enemy you hand him. Not only that, you won't have to worry so much about your mana by this point, either, so if you do happen to take out buff camps, you can focus specifically on red buffs to further punish the opposition.

So those are the main items we're looking to build. How about some actives that can supplement this play style?

COMBAT BLINK: I HIGHLY recommend having this active if you're still having trouble keeping up with escaping tributes, or if you constantly are getting into rough situations and you need a backup plan in case Water Illusion is down. The cooldown on it (3 minutes!) is rough, but considering that you can use it in the middle of combat, I'd say that's enough of a trade-off to make sure you can escape from danger.

FIST OF THE GODS: If you want to jungle in Joust, or if you just don't want to waste time in the buff camps in Arena, definitely grab Hand of the Gods and build it up to this. Yeah, it's not quite as much damage to buff camp dudes, but if someone comes up and tries to mess with you in the middle of jungling, this can hit and stun them so you can turn the tables on them.

GREATER PURIFICATION: Facing a lot of CC, or worse, Ares or Hades? Grab them beads. Pretty standard procedure. Keep in mind, opponents may grab beads, and they CAN activate them in response to your ult, which means you can attempt to execute them, but poor Ao Kuang could be kept hungry. Wom wom...

GREATER SPRINT: Once again, another measure you can use to keep up with prey. Keep in mind that Greater Sprint also ignores soft CC, so don't be afraid to use them to get out of slowing ults.

Once again, thank you for reading this build guide to Ao Kuang! I do want to make a few notes before I let you all go: I am much more of a casual player, and have not dipped my toes into Ranked play as of yet, so please don't think I'm trying to break the meta for ranked play or something of that sort. This is mainly just an experiment to see if Book of Thoth is worth building for Ao, and I want to invite anyone who reads this guide to try the build out in either Arena or Joust, and come back with any suggestions they come up with in the comments.

With that said, I hope that this build leads to much success in your future games, and that hopefully, the Dragon King of the Eastern Seas doesn't go mana-hungry!