Grandmaster Apollo ADC GUIDE

Hey, this guide is brought to you by TottiGR! I started playing Smite on PC in February 2014. I have been playing competitive since 2016 and I have been a professional Smite player between March 2020 to July 2023. I have played in different teams like JustF6, Gilded Gladiators or Tartarus Titans this last year. I have peaked 3500 MMR GM/Masters in Ranked Conquest on PC every season since 2017. I also made Smite Masters (LAN) 4 times in 2022 so I really think I have the knowledge about guiding about the ADC role. I hope you find this guide as a useful learning resource for playing Apollo as an ADC.


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Passive - Audacity This passive helps you cap your attack speed even before the late game which allows you to make more use of items that have on-hit effects such as Qin's Sais or Odysseus' Bow as you start to cap your attack speed limits. Remember that the more enemies you hit with your damaging abilities, the more stacks you get for the activating Audacity.

Ability 1 - So Beautiful This ability is Apollo's one and only wave clear ability. You should be leveling up this ability first and maxing it out first. This ability is often underestimated by most of the Smite players but it does so much unexpected damage. I do recommend using this skill for securing buffs or kills, but it can also be used to steal objectives like Gold Fury, Fire Gigant or Pyromancer, jungle camps. - Remember it goes through walls -

Ability 2 - Serenade This ability can be used both aggressively and defensively depending on the situation. It has a short range around Apollo. You should use this ability to cancel the channeling abilities from the enemy gods. For example: Guan Yu uses his Taolu Assault on you, You can stop him with this ability. Channelling ability examples: Nike's Rend or Cabrakan's Tremors. You should always try to maintain this ability available as long as you can and not waste it early. In case enemies try to collapse on you or the jungler does a usual early duo gank. It also provides you of physical protections, this are really important when you are doing a 1vs1 against the enemy ADC because having extra protections will make you difficult target to kill.

Ability 3 - The Moves The Moves can be used both aggressively and defensively as well. It is a dash that deals damage to enemies also slows them. It also increases your and your allies' movement speed. Remember that hitting minions or gods with this skill will stack your passive Audacity. Try not to use this ability aggressively when you can't make sure whether it's safe or not. You should be always aware of possible ganks, that's why you should always place wards around duo lane. Do your best to hit as many enemies as possible with this ability as it increases your Audacity for each enemy hit.

Ultimate - Across The Sky His ultimate ability can be used in so many different situations: for chasing the enemies down, ganking other lanes, going back to your lane, rotating, escaping, avoiding enemies ultimates ( Ares, Cerberus, Yemoya, etc.), objective stealing, objective defending (Fire Gigant, Gold Fury, etc.), split pushing towers, phoenixes or even enemies titan. Remember to not dive in multiple gods even when you guarantee a kill it would most likely not be worth it in most of the situations. When you are about to land your ultimate on an enemy god, do not hurry! Wait for them to use their dashes, leaps then land your ultimate. You should always use this skill to to distract enemies while they are doing objectives such as fire giant or try to steal it! And finally but not less important, be aware about your mana before ulting, your ultimate costs mana every second and you are forced to land when you run out of mana and possibly find yourself surrounded by enemies depending on where you will be touching the ground.

Main Combo:

So Beautiful > The Moves > Serenade > Basic Attacks -> If needed because you haven't killed the enemy, you can use as last skill Across The Sky for chasing the enemies and securing kills.

Other combo:

Serenade > So Beautiful > The Moves > Basic Attacks > Across The Sky
The Moves > Serenade > Basic Attacks > So Beautiful > Across The Sky
Across The Sky > Serenade > So Beautiful > The Moves this last skill can be used for escaping or chasing the enemy depending on the situation.

• Start at the Gold Fury side Green buff. When it spawns, hit it with an auto attack to leash/aggro the camp and pull it towards the exp camp, meanwhile the support deals damage to the camp, after doing both things, you two will go to the purple buff, do it and then come to lane to push the minions.
  
  
• After these camps are cleared you will be level 1 so will need to take 1 minion of the first wave to get level 2 and level up your The Moves so you will have an skill that can be used for escaping or for starting a duo lane fight, dashing offensively and stacking your passive will increase your chances of killing the enemies in the first waves.
  
  
• After pushing 3 wave, shield buff will spawn so your support and you will go for it depending of the pressure wave; if you have no wave pressure you will need to ask your jungler for coming to fight it or just leave it, but if you have hardly won the push of the wave you should use your attack speed shard to do it as quick as possible, for securing the buff you should always maintain your So Beautiful available. If someone comes to contest, you should always try to fight them if you have your passive stacked instead of securing the buff because you have a good early fighting god but in case you don't, just do minis and go back to lane for winning pressure.
  
  
• After picking it up make your way back to the centre of the lane. If you think it's going to be hardly difficult to secure the buff, just run back into the lane and pressure the enemies by pushing the wave quickly.
  
  
• From here you will usually fight the enemy ADC and support during wave pushes in lane with your own support. Most of the fights you should take are around shield buff and depending on yours and their early pressure/clear around your own purple buff or theirs (remember you can pull the Purple buff wherever you want so if you have no pressure / you are low hp ask your support to be in the pit before it spawns and tell him to leash it as far as needed to not get invaded by the other duo lane)
  
  
• An important advice as an ADC main is to be active in communication, always try to tell all the information you can to your team like your own purple, shield and their purple timer (if possible), if there is any one spotted in the wards you placed, if someone is trying to dive you, if they are doing Gold Fury... This type of information will make your jungler and support pathing to gank your lane easier and make you having bigger chances of getting a lead over the other hunter.
  
  
• REMEMBER to always buy wards, warding correctly with aggressive Sentry Wards will determine half of the game around the Gold Fury objective and warding defensively will make you be more aware about possible ganks so you will be safer in lane.

• As the match goes towards the MID GAME, other than the usual farm opportunities you'll be looking to rotate over the Stygian Beacon for your team and try attempt, contest and steal (if the enemy is attempting to kill them) the Gold Fury.
  
  
• After having at least 4 or 5 items completed, you can start thinking about doing some rotations with your ultimate over the midlane if your team needs you for securing Stygian Beacon or winning a team fight (DO NOT ROTATE TO SOLO LANE IF IT'S NOT LATEGAME).
  
  
• Remember to rotate when there is no duo jungle remain like purple or shield buff and to have the wave pushed before rotating because you will fall much behind in farm compared to your enemy ADC. (DO NOT ROTATE IF YOU ARE 2 OR MORE LEVELS BEHIND THE OTHER HUNTER!)
  
  
• When the Stygian Beacon spawns often both teams will try rotate over to control it, especially the mid, support and jungle. You will need to think about who is more likely to have their teammates to rotate over first to impact your decision if contesting the beacon will be worth it and if there is any kill potential around the objective.
  
  
• As for Gold Fury opportunity they will vary on factors such as: your team's overall objective shred, your ADC's current objective shred / build, your team's map pressure, how strong each team's teamfight is, where on the map everyone is (i.e. if one team is doing Gold, the other may decide to do Pyro as a smaller trade), if any members of the enemy team are on a respawn timer, etc...
  
  
• It is so important to have warded (with Sentry Wards if possible) the Gold Fury during the Mid Game because it is the principal objective between minute 10 to 20 with the Pyromancer.
  
  
• Stay aware of rotations (jungle and support) during this minutes because your death as a hunter can be a really good reason for the enemies over pulling Gold Fury or even burst it. So your team won't have any chance of contesting it up.
  
  
• Not dying over rotations, map awareness and warding are highly important over the games. You will always need to position yourself beside de midlaner for peeling each other over team fights (call who is doing engage on you, relics and this type of stuff that is going to make an easier way to make your team win the team fight)

• As for LATE GAME teamfights, most often you will be positioned in the "backline" (behind your team's solo and support - who generally are the "frontline") and will play around your midlaner to deal with the enemy frontline and jungler, while making sure to put out as much damage as possible to the highest threats on the enemy team.
  
  
• Make sure you have upgraded Temporal Beads and Aegis of Judgement before going into the Fire Giant. I really good advice is to use actives as soon as the solo laner, support or jungler engages on you to try to avoid as much damage and crowd control as possible, if you stay safe as an ADC on a late game teamfight, your team will have enough DPS to do Fire Giant or if you kill all your enemies, you can even finish the game.
  
  
• When it comes to Fire Giant opportunities, often there can be stalemates where both teams will try to force a teamfight or look for lone picks in order to gain an advantage, sometimes involving one team going for a non fully committing attempt at doing the objective to bait the other team to step up.
  
  
• BE CONSTANTLY CALLING ALL THE INFORMATION: WHEN THEY ARE ENGAGING ON YOU, IF YOU ARE ULTING SOMEONE, OR IF SOMEONE USE HIS ACTIVES. THIS INFORMATION CAN MAKE YOU AND YOUR TEAM WIN EASILY A Fire Giant TEAMFIGHT.
  
  
• BE ALWAYS SURE ABOUT YOUR DECISION MAKING, IF YOU DOUBT YOURSELF OR EVEN YOUR TEAMMATES YOU WILL NEVER SUCCED!

Here are warding spots for ADCs if you are behind with gold or experience compared to the other hunter. If the enemy team has your purple timer you should always try to Sentry Wards your purple buff and make sure to call your teammates at least 1 minute before spawning.


In case you have low pressure god but none is invading purple you can also ward like in the photo below. You will always know when someone is coming and you won't have to outposition yourself to ward so you will be safe.



Over here is shown the ideal normal pressure warding spots around duo lane, you should always look to Sentry Wards defensively and use a normal ward on the offensive position. Enemies could Sentry Wards your normal ward so you should call your support for warding there.



In case you have a high pressure duo set up (hunter with good clear and fighting capability and a support with crowd control, push and mobility) you should look to invade purple buffs. This type of wards will make an easier way for you and your teammates to come over purple pit before spawning and being ready for stealing it [you will always know who is coming to gank you so you must be prepared for getting ganked over duo] .



When you start fighting around Fire Giant, you should always look to ward in the same places as a midlaner because you two (ADC and Mid) form what we call as "backliners" (the roles who are supposed to deal DPS and damage to enemies), you will be sharing the responsibility for this rather than handling it alone, especially when it's not safe for you to step up to place deeper wards. Any wards placed closer to the objective within the Fire Giant pit tend to get destroyed by Sentries more often than not, so they tend to not be reliable.

Remember, minions act as moving wards in the lanes, and are able to spot nearby gods. If your towers are down, keep your minions pushed up as much as possible to provide an extra set of eyes and pressure.

• White Circles: These are all offensive locations that allow you to spot enemies near to or approaching objectives, and are helpful in covering multiple approaches. The closer you get to the Fire Giant, the more contested those spots will be and the more likely enemies will try to counter-ward. The ones closest to the enemy base can give you very early notice.
  
  
• Red Circles: Fairly obvious, but it's always good to have vision on the main jungle objectives, especially the Fire Giant. Sentry Wards are key here, as they allow you to spot and remove enemy wards. You can place wards directly on top of the objectives, or put them slightly to one side to try to spot enemy wards or protect yours from being detected.

Counter-Warding: Enemies may drop wards on your defensive side in similar (opposite) spots to where you would place yours. If the Fire Giant is already covered and you have a spare Sentry Ward, place them in these spots to limit the enemy's vision on your team.

Defensive Warding: If you're pushed back to your phoenixes or inside your base, locate your wards in the nearby jungle and general approaches.