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Vampiric Shroud
Shoes of the Magi
Rod of Tahuti
Warlock's Staff
Book of Thoth
Breastplate of Valor
Chronos' Pendant
Obsidian Shard
Spear of the Magus
Bancroft's Talon
Divine Ruin
Polynomicon
Dynasty Plate Helm
Ethereal Staff
Hide of the Urchin
Magi's Cloak
Pestilence
Void Stone
Aegis Amulet (Old)
Shell of Absorption
Shielded Teleport
Purification Beads (Old)
Blink Rune
Warlock's Staff
Shoes of the Magi
Breastplate of Valor
Bancroft's Talon
Spear of the Magus
Rod of Tahuti
Shell of Absorption
Greater Aegis
Y
B
A
X
Welcome to my guide on 
Hades in the Solo Lane! In my mind, Hades does a much better job as a Mage in Solo or Mid than he does as a Guardian, purely because his skill set is better suited to causing a whole lot of death than supporting (fitting, since he's the god of the underworld). This guide will aim to show you the Pros and Cons of using Hades as a Solo Laner, the strategy behind using his skills, some items you will want to consider using, and how to handle the different phases of the game.
I have actually brought this guide back to "Work in Progress" phase - a lack of playing Hades Solo has made me out of touch with current solo matchup strategies. On the plus side, I got to expand my god pool a bit (beyond Hades, 
Eset, and 
Ra =P ).
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Pros
Pushes very hard High sustain All-around kit grants mobility, damage, and cc Has some natural bulk |
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Cons
Applying Blight can be tricky Ultimate is easy to escape from Needs to get up close and personal |
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Hades' passive is Blight, which works very similarly to  Zeus'  Overcharge. While Hades does not deal extra basic attack damage to blighted enemies like Zeus, he DOES get an additional effect on blighted enemies with ALL of his abilities. Overall, it is very important to get the Blight on enemies and follow up with skills that have the appropriate effects.
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Death from Below applies Blight, slows enemies that are already Blighted, and deals damage. This will be one of your methods of applying Blight to minion waves. Be careful, however, as it is your only escape and leaves you susceptible to ganks from the jungler. I suggest warding up and making sure either 1) the jungler isn't around or 2) you have eyes on him/her, and he or she is somewhere else before using Death from Below to Blight minions. Usage of the slow on this skill will be explored futher in the Gameplay section. |
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Shroud of Darkness is your second method for applying the Blight to minion waves. Like Death from Below, though, it also has useful applications for fighting enemy gods as it will silence them, or fear them if blighted. So be very careful when using this to Blight waves. Usually you will be able to escape a gank with either a fear or Death from Below, but still use caution using either of these skills to apply the Blight. This skill's utility is further explained in the Gameplay section. |
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So I've been talking a lot about applying Blight to minion waves, and people new to Hades might be asking - why? Here is the answer. Devour Souls is basically a minion nuker. On the surface, it just deals damage. But if the enemy is blighted, they will explode (eeeeeeew!) and deal damage to nearby enemies, and HEAL nearby allies. Two big things to note are that THERE IS NO LIMIT to the amount of explosion heals you and your allies can get (whereas other skills like  Tyr's Defense-Stance  Power Cleave has a limit of 3) and the heal scales with your magical power.
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Pillar of Agony is what Hades is known for - and for good reason! A damage-over-time pull that reduces protections of blighted enemies is a very handy thing for teamfights. Unfortunately, it can be easily jumped out of, dashed out of, or beads-ed out of (though if you're right on top of your enemy when you start, Tier 1 beads will not last long enough to allow an escape). |
HOLY SITUATIONAL BATMAN!
Okay, just had to get that out of my system.
You might have noticed that I have the situational items somewhat grouped by their "type" - stack item, cooldown reduction, penetration, lifesteal, and defense. Like I mentioned before, Hades is very versatile and his build can fairly easily morph to your desires. However, because it's a LOT to take in, I also tossed a sample build in there for viewing purposes. I'll also take the liberty of assessing the situational items by type instead of listing out their merits individually.
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Stack Items |
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warlock's sash |
Book of Thoth. If you do opt to build a stack item (and you don't necessarily have to), you will want to buy it early, alongside Vampiric Shroud, since the first tiers of both items cost 700g. Your choice will depend very heavily on the enemy team.|
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Cooldown Reduction Items |
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Hide of the Urchin, you might want to go with Pendant over Breastplate.|
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Penetration Items |
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Obsidian Shard. However, with a very teamfight-y channel-style ultimate, your team's magical gods (almost certainly the mid-laner) would also benefit from Spear of the Magus.|
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Lifesteal Items |
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Bancroft's Talon will give you more power as you get lower in health. This will come into play as you are ulting - if the enemy hits you, they will take more damage on the next tick of your ult! There is some discussion on the subject in the comments section, but overall I find Talon to be my primary choice in Lifesteal Items. Polynomicon's passive is pretty decent for Hades. He has to be close to the enemy to be effective, so landing a basic attack, especially after fearing them isn't too much of a problem. It also gives you some mana if you ended up building Thoth. Divine Ruin should only be built against teams with healers, since Bancroft's Talon and Polynomicon have passives that work much better with Hades.|
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Defense Items | Magi's Blessing |
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Dynasty Plate Helm is great for power, penetration, and protection. Pestilence is a good option if you're facing a magical healer such as 
Chang'e, Ra, or 
Aphrodite. Void Stone will help you with magical power, and your magical teammates with its passive! Consider again that Hades has a pulling, channel ultimate so Void Stone's range is not usually an issue. Hide of the Urchin gives you some health and mana (good if you got Thoth!) in addition to all around protections for use against balanced teams. Ethereal Staff's passive goes nicely with Hades, since he has very good base health and scaling.
Devour Souls is the key here. It can FULLY CLEAR a blighted wave in one shot, which is more than most solo laners can do. It can heal you once for all 6 of the minions in the wave, which will negate almost any poke the enemy solo hits you with. If you can hit your enemy with it, it deals them a decent chunk of damage as well (this works best with melee gods or first-time 
Vulcans who 
Backfire straight into their own wave instead of off to the side*). Essentially, Devour Souls turns your enemy's greatest asset - the minion wave, into a ticking time bomb that could seriously injure them if they're not playing smart. Vulcans.
Agni), but others do not (
Poseidon, Ra, 
Kukulkan, etc.) and that makes it very easy to tunnel in, pop your ult, get a kill/assist, and waltz back to lane like nothing happened. Hades often gets a bad rap for having subpar teamfight capability, and I can't say I wholly disagree. His long cooldowns and lack of basic attack presence make it difficult for him to be an enormous factor in the fight, although his general bulkiness can help alleviate some of the pressure from the tank. Shroud of Darkness opportunities. I'm talking about preventing the enemy team from initating with bad things like 
Fear No Evil or a 
Shining Metal stun. You might not always be able to react fast enough to do this, but if you can, your team will (hopefully) be ready to jump on the opportunity and shred the enemy while they're incapacitated. If you think you can go in with Death From Below and fear multiple burst-y enemies at once, do it. This will turn tricky-to-beat bursters into easy targets. Shroud of Darkness hits if someone else on your team ended up initiating. Look to prevent jumps, dashes, and heals specifically; especially if your team doesn't have a Weakening Curse handy. You should also use it to fear an enemy that's about to finish off one of your allies. 2s is ample time for them to make their getaway. Pillar of Agony should not be your go-to option for initiating a teamfight. Instead, wait for enemy Beads and escapes to go down, then strike with Death From Below and ult away. Use Devour Souls after an ult if the enemy didn't die. Death From Below instead. A 40% slow is nothing to scoff at, and the 2s duration will give your team a lot of time to capitalize on your efforts.
Unfortunately I haven't played a lot of solo Hades lately. Never fear though, this section will return!
Overall, Hades is a very versatile god able to handle many roles. In the solo lane, Hades can clear fast and easily outpush almost anyone, while being able to weather out blows from the hardest of hitters with his incredible sustain. His Devour Souls skill allows him to transform enemy minions into deadly time bombs to make a valuable enemy asset into a dangerous hazard. Pillar of Agony and Shroud of Darkness can help secure kills, and Death From Below gives him a bit of a slippery factor not always found in mages.
I hope this guide has been useful to aspiring Hades players. Enjoy dragging your enemies into the Underworld!
Chiulin for suggesting the addition of a Gameplay section.
Creationism and Sanguis for arguments regarding Polynomicon vs Bancroft's.
Sanguis for suggesting a matchups section (which WILL come back).
Jordenito's BBCode guide for multiple elements that improved the visual state of the guide.
Eriepo for his insightful comments about build choices.
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As a note on the polynnocron I'd say yes it's better if you use your basics to apply blight. But like you mentioned in your guide you will most likely be jumping in with 1 then nuking with 3. Your next hit will be powerful with poly but your enemy (again I play mid usually so this might be diffrent) will still have most of their health (unless they were kind enough to stand inside the minion wave) and all of their abilities which will probably hurt if you're hurt by them all. You will still have your 2 and ult up most likely but at full health most gods won't be killed by your ult even with the lowered protections of being blighted. Your 2 can delay that but 2 seconds doesn't give you enough time to kill them on your own if your 1->3 is down. So most likely you won't be basic attacking the enemy god after you use your abilities unless you are tryin to apply blight for something like your ult. But if your applying blight for your ult or even your 3 you will mostly be using your 1 or even your 2 (if you're stopping escapes) to do so.
So in most scenarios I would personally I for talon. But it sounds like some gods you're facing lead to a more basic attacking style game play in which case you so benifit from poly.
Is also like to throw in the suggestion of book of Thoth. It's another stacking item but instead of Health. You're getting power and mana. Now I agree that the health portion of warlocks sash is awesome but this is more of the other option for when your opponents either aren't bothering you too much where the sash is necessary or when the gods are narrowly escaping death because you ran out of mana or just didn't quite do enough damage.
Another alternate situational item would be spear of magus. Obsidian shard is great against tanks. 33% pen is sweet. But if your opponent is only building mild protections obsidian loses a lot of its effectiveness. If they have say 100 protection shard gives you 33 pen. Spear gives to 15 pen but applies a stack when to hit with an ability. Max two stacks. (Hmm I wonder if hades has any good two move combos). The stacks reduce their protections by 10 each and an adoration all 5 or 10 percent. Can't Remember which. (On my phone so it's hard to check.) so of you hot them twice their protections are reduced by 20 and a minimum of ten percent. Along with your original 15 flat pen it gives you you now have effectively put their protections down to 59. (100- 15 from pen. Stacks reduce 10 each. 2 stacks. 20 protection reduction total. 85-20=65.10 percent reduction on top of that. 10% of 65 is 6.5. 65-6.5= 59.5. If the percentage happens to be 10 per stack the total percent would be 20 meaning we would take another 6.5 off bringing it down to 53 but I can't garuntee it's ten so we I'll use 5 just to be safe.) so in total you have reduced their protections by 41 as opposed to 33 from shard. Plus other than the 15 pen this is a protection reduction. Meaning all of your allies can use it to their advantage as well which can really help on team fights. The downside is that the stacks apply on the hit so your 1 will gain no advantage from this item (you don really use your 1 as damage anyways.) your 3 will only get half of this because it applies the second staff when it hits. (That is a real downside) but this leaves them completely open to be finished off with an ult which will lower their protections even further (assuming you blight them.)
I hope my suggestions help. I also hope I didn't ramble too much.
Hrm...all excellent points. To be truthful, I don't normally build Polynomicon on gods that aren't basic-heavy so it was probably a bad call to put up a suggestion where I hadn't fully tested everything.
I'll definitely work on the way it looks, I agree that it's a bit much to take in in the current format. I'm not entirely sure how much time I can devote to this due to college & other life obligations, but I'll do what I can.
Re. Credits...thanks for the reminder! I've seen credits sections in guides but it totally slipped my mind to add one here.
Personally, due to the fact
I have to say I agree with Creationism.
I think this guide is decent, but you need to brush up on some BBCode. The guide is a wall of text. Use pictures and videos/.gifs to spruce up your guide. Also, I recommend adding a section for God match-ups. I mostly play mid or duo lane. Rarely do I find myself soloing. I know the meta for solo Gods, but I'm not 100% sure how to square off against them, especially early game since most times I'm fighting enemies from solo lane at the end game in team fights. You probably have the in-sight on how to counter some solo gods using
If you ever have any questions regarding BBCode, hit me up! Here are my credentials: click here!
Sincerely,
Sanguis
P.S. I don't totally agree with your ability leveling, but if it works for, then kudos!
Hrm...all excellent points. To be truthful, I don't normally build Polynomicon on gods that aren't basic-heavy so it was probably a bad call to put up a suggestion where I hadn't fully tested everything.
I'll definitely work on the way it looks, I agree that it's a bit much to take in in the current format. I'm not entirely sure how much time I can devote to this due to college & other life obligations, but I'll do what I can.
Re. Credits...thanks for the reminder! I've seen credits sections in guides but it totally slipped my mind to add one here.
I think this guide is decent, but you need to brush up on some BBCode. The guide is a wall of text. Use pictures and videos/.gifs to spruce up your guide. Also, I recommend adding a section for God match-ups. I mostly play mid or duo lane. Rarely do I find myself soloing. I know the meta for solo Gods, but I'm not 100% sure how to square off against them, especially early game since most times I'm fighting enemies from solo lane at the end game in team fights. You probably have the in-sight on how to counter some solo gods using
If you ever have any questions regarding BBCode, hit me up! Here are my credentials: click here!
Sincerely,
Sanguis
P.S. I don't totally agree with your ability leveling, but if it works for, then kudos!
If you finished the gameplay section then press publish so we can see it.
Ooooh...didn't realize you had to hit publish again (1st guide ever =P ) . Thanks for the heads up!
All this really lacks is a gameplay section. A section all about the phases of the match and how to play and keep leveled. How to initiate. So on and so forth. Then it would be wonderful. I'll upvote. Hope you update.
Done, thank you for the suggestion! I'd be happy to hear anything that could improve the guide, I mainly put it up because I enjoy playing Hades and most of the Hades material here isn't fully up to date.