Generic ADC Guide Feat. Apollo

This guide is still a work in progress, and is not nearly close to being finished. If you have any suggestions to help make this guide better please post a comment and i will get back to you ASAP. Thanks!

Hello, my name is KaKaKarrotKake, and i started playing Smite about a month ago. I started playing Smite because i wanted a new experience as League of Legends was getting quite stale. I have picked up the role of ADC as my favorite, as its quite alot different from ADC in League, and its definitely a fun role. As I have stated, I am a relatively new player to Smite, so if you are looking for a super high elo (I don't even know if that is the rating system in this game) ranked ADC guide then i would look somewhere else, I am just making this guide because I feel that most other ADC guides on here are unsatisfactory. But enough about me, let's get to the guide.

First, I figured i should explain the role of ADC and ADCs in general, since this is a general ADC guide for new ADCs. Most ADCs are relatively similar, once you learn how to play one ADC most others should be pretty easy to pick up, and the reason I picked Apollo to feature in this guide is because, quite frankly, he is my best ADC, but i digress. Your role as an ADC is said right in the name: You are supposed to be the one who carries the team. Basically the main points of an ADC are as follows:

Deal tons of single target damage in team fights and in 1v1s, small skirmishes in lane, etc.

Focus squishy damage dealers on the enemy team

CARRY THE GAME

The role of an ADC is quite a simple one, to be honest, just destroy the enemy team before they destroy you. Late in the game everyone is going to depend on YOU and your fellow carries to win the game for your team. But, to be able to do this kind of damage and carry your team to victory, you will need the right build

When you are making a build for your ADC of choice, it is important that you keep in mind what you will need in order to get the most potential out of your ADC. Some of the key things that you will need in your build include:

Raw physical damage - This should be pretty obvious

Attack speed - For getting off as many basic attacks on your enemy as possible

Survivability/Sustain - This includes lifesteal and mana sustain, among others, to allow you to stay in lane for long periods of time in the early laning phase

Critical strike chance - late game crits can make or break your ADC, as a crit centered build can put out way more raw basic attack damage than a build that focuses on something else

Physical penetration - late game the enemy is sure to build some armor, and just in general armor increases as enemy gods level up. if you want to do damage to some of the tankier enemies later on, be sure to include some sort of physical pen.

Some things to AVOID in your build include:

Magic power - Again, should be pretty obvious

An abundance of defensive stats - Your laning partner should be peeling for you which would make too many defensive stats a waste of gold, if you are buying any defensive stats make sure there's something beneficial in there as well (AD, attack speed, etc.) if you are laning as a mid ADC then most likely your opponent will also be a squishy damage dealer (AP or AD carry), so you wont need many defensive stats there either, unless you are getting countered hard. you SHOULD NOT be laning solo on a side lane because there is a jungler on your team, as ADCs dont work very well alone on a side lane

Other things to consider when building an ADC is item passives - two items may have comparable stats but one may have a more useful passive than the other.

Now let me explain the item build that i have provided, as it skips a few popular ADC items. I feel that this is a balanced ADC build, mainly focusing on early game sustain and late game damage. The most important thing about this build though is CRITS. i have learned in my short time that be you an ADC or an AD assassin, the way to purely dominate late game is crits. This lets you do high amounts of single target damage and late game will let you kill any squishy on the enemy team in about 4 or 5 basic attacks. Anyway, on to the item explanations.

When you spawn I would suggest getting 2 levels into your Tabi and a few HP and MP pots for early sustain. It should be pretty obvious that boots are important in any build, because they allow you to outrun your enemy and chase to get a kill. with the introduction of the split path boots in Smite i have determined that Warrior Tabi are superior to Ninja Tabi, because a sure +15 PP is much better than a measly 7% crit chance. i know i said crits are the basis of this build, but you will get much more out of the penetration, and you will have enough crit chance later on that 7% wont make any difference

Next - Devourer's Gloves. This item is a core part of your early game build because it gives you great in-lane sustain, as well as some AD and even more AD/lifesteal if you farm up your stacks.

After that is Rage - This item gives you some early game attack speed and AD with crit strike chance and a great passive that makes your late game basic attacks almost always crit - and if you don't crit you definitely will within your next few basics. I see many ADCs build this item, but not first, and instead opt for an Executioner as their second item. So you may be wondering - Why not Executioner? Heres a few good reasons

As i have stated earlier, the basis for this build is crits, and this item gives you a healthy amount of crits to dish out good early game damage

The passive for the Executioner, while nice, definitely is not as good as the passive for Rage, as the passive for Rage gives you consistent crits while the passive for the Executioner gives you some extra armor pen. if you feel like you need the Executioner in your item build, buy it last

The next item is Jotunn's Wrath. This item fills in a few holes that alot of ADCs have, but the main reason I buy it is because it gives me a little extra phys pen. while giving me 25% CDR. This is a very good passive as alot of the ADCs that i play tend to have somewhat long cooldowns. Now for another comparison with a popular ADC item that i usually tend to skip in my build - Titan's Bane. Here are my reasons for skipping this item:

Jotunn's Wrath gives you a good chunk of CDR, which works very well with ADC, because as i have previously stated, alot of them have long base CDs.

Titan's bane allows you to ignore 33% of your target's armor, which while significant, i believe that the combined +30 armor pen. from your boots and Jotunn's is enough because you do a significant amount of sheer damage from crits that building more armor pen. isn't necessary.

Jotunn's also gives you more raw AD and some extra mana to top it off.

If you feel that you don't need CDR and you want more armor pen, then you can replace Jotunn's with Titan's Bane

Next item, and probably the most important item, is Deathbringer. This item is what makes building crits so strong. It gives you +50 AD and 20% crit strike chance, but the passive is what makes this item shine. With this item your crit damage is increased by 50%. This is the item that, combined with Rage, lets you 4 shot enemy squishies. I strongly reccomend buying this on ALL ADCs.

Your last item is mainly situational, but I tend to buy another attack speed item. some viable last item choices are:

Qin's Blades for some extra health, AS, and AD with a decent passive

the Executioner for extra AS and phys pen.

Voidblade for extra armor and AD with a decent passive (more phys pen.)

These are only a few, as there are many viable choices for your last item. Just find a weak spot in your god and buy something to strengthen the weakness. The only thing I would reccommend is to buy something with at least some AD.

Now I would be an idiot if i said that you should depend purely on basic attacks as an ADC (and before you ask, yes i have seen that said in a guide before), as most of your early game damage (usually) will come from you abilities. Again, since this is a general ADC guide i figured i would quickly go over leveling up abilities.

First, determine which ability you use the most, or even spam during a typical game. Usually on ADCs it is some form of a ranged poke (Apollo's "So Beautiful", Neith's "Spirit Arrow", Xbalanque's "Poison Darts", etc.) This doesn't always have to be the ability you max, but I'd say a good 80% of the time it is.

Next, determine which abilities scale the best with your AD. sometimes the abilities with the best AD scaling you will want to max, while sometimes an ability will have good AD scaling but poor level scaling, while a different ability will have great level scaling but poor AD scaling. In this situation it is usually best to max the latter, unless of course you don't use it often.

Most of the time you will not want to max an ability that gives you cc but no damage (Apollo's "Serenade", Anhur's "Shifting Sands", etc.) as more damage for your abilities is much more useful than a few extra milliseconds on a stun or a stronger slow. This of course does not apply to abilities that give you damage AND CC (Neith's "Spirit Arrow", Xbalanque's "Poison Darts", etc.), as these are some of the best abilities for an ADC.

And most importantly, LEVEL UP YOUR ULT AT 5, 9, 13,17, AND 20!

In conclusion, ADC is a very important role. You are the god that keeps your team alive, so don't let them down.

This guide is still a WIP, and if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions please post them in the comment section below, and if you have anything that you would like to add to this guide please put it in the comments and i will consider adding it. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and have fun carrying!