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Ninja Tabi
Asi
Shifter's Shield
Titan's Bane
Hastened Fatalis
The Crusher
Ninja Tabi
Asi
Demon Blade
Rage
Titan's Bane
Deathbringer
Bracer of Radiance
Heavenly Wings
Purification Beads
Horrific Emblem
Aegis Amulet
Y
B
A
X
Hey all, the name's ShoulderCliff66 and this is my first guide. I'm a console player, pretty new to Smite, but have been playing often enough to get the game and how to build.
I'm not going to go into jungle stuffs, or how to play in a group - just a build with a small guide to test the waters. I may do more, depends on how this one goes. Please forgive formatting and whatnot, and feel free to comment with suggestions and kudos. Thanks!
Bottom line up front: Hou Yi is a ton of fun with a diverse kit, and capable of so much damage.
Check out my Erlang Shen guide here: Erlang Shen
There's two build sets here with just enough items to fit both into one Item Builder in the game. I like having both options available to me depending on my team mates as well as the opposition. They both focus on attack speed, but one is pure penetration and super cheap to get online. The other is a bit more expensive but will melt the enemy like butter.
Build 1 - Attack Speed and Penetration.
There are some pretty straight forward items in this set up. I go with Ninja Tabi for the attack speed and mana buff early game. I usually buy this straight out the fountain as it gives me the mobility, speed, and a bit of power to start hitting minions and poking the bad guys.
Asi is great because it adds to your speed, starts your penetration, and gives you some life steal of sustain. It's passive keeps you going late game too, so it's a solid keeper unless you want to switch out for anything else you think would be beneficial (Quin Sais come to mind).
Ichaival is great for more speed and more penetration. It also gives you a boost in power, and reduces your enemies' power from their items. If you find yourself against more magic types, take Ichaval's counterpart instead - it has the same get up, but focuses on debuffing magic items power.
Jotunn's Wrath is an obvious choice for penetration and some cooldown %. This just adds to the damage you're going to do with your AA, as well as letting you pop your abilities more often.
Hastened Fatalis. Boy, this thing is fun. I consider this my defensive item in the build because of the health boost, not to mention the speed buff it gives on a basic attack hit. If my team is ahead, I'll sometimes get this 4th, Jotunn's wrath 3rd, and skip out on Ichaival altogether. Once this thing is built, you'll really feel yourself coming online and melting bad guys faces.
The Crusher is an item I normally never even get too because we've won by this point and this is a cheap build! I like this though because it adds to penetration and attack speed, and it's passive helps keep your abilities on the ready. If I have the gold and there's time to the end of the match, I'll sometimes swap this out for Wind Demon for a touch of critical into the build.
Build 2 - Attack Speed and Critical
This is pretty much a meta-build for [ranged] hunters, I think. You start off the same as Build 1 with Ninja Tabi and Asi (the latter can be switched out for The Executioner if you'd prefer). But then we go straight into critical with Wind Demon, Malice (for extra oomph), Deathbringer (an obvious pick in a crit build), followed with Jotunn's Wrath for some extra penetration and some cooldown%.
Relics
Pretty much, in order of precedence, Meditation Cloak for sustain/quick heal, Heavenly Wings for when Divebomb is on cooldown, and Horrific Emblem for when you want to make Sunbringer really hurt. - - - On that last one, my favorite set of kills with Hou Yi has been when I knew I was going to die in a team fight, I used my relic, popped off my ult, died, then laughed as they all melted under the fury of the Sun unable to escape.
This is pretty straight forward on Hou Yi. Honestly, rank them up in their respective order - Ricochet, Mark of the Golden Crow (MoGC), Dive Bomb, and Sunbreaker. His passive is amazing in the current meta of crit burst. When he's hit with a crit, he can't be hit by another one for 3 seconds.
I use all of his abilities pretty freely. I normally start off with MoGC then stun them with Ricochet and let them have my fast, penetrating pokey pokes until death do us part. If I need to block off part of the battlefield, if the enemies or too grouped up, or if there's some low health guys not frantically running for the fountain, then I use MoGC and drop Sunbreaker on them. A note on Hou Yi's Ult - don't rely on it for your damage. For Divebomb I typically save it for my escape. It's great for getting over Ymir's wall, out of Odin's cage, back into your fountain on a minion push by the opponents, or just general escape. Sometimes I use it for chase, but it's super situationally dependent - you gotta know you're going to kill the jerk, and that they don't have back up nearby.
I consider all of his abilities to be a nice supplement to his AA - much like many hunters. The difference between Hou Yi and everybody else is his kit has a balance of damage, CC, escape, chase down, and area control; whereas a lot of other hunters (at least that I've played) seem to have niche uses for one or two abilities. Hou Yi has a nice rounded kit that can support and devastate.
Lengthy with words, I know. As I figure out the formatting I'll be sure to update this and make it prettier. Hope it helps you guys out with Hou Yi and please drop some comments with suggestions or letting me know what you like about it.
26 Jun 17: Updated Builds based on Kriega1's suggestions, see comments
29 Jun 17: Added link to Erlang Shen guide
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Just stopped by to drop some comments. Also, welcome to the site.
Regarding your builds, I want to point out some things...also clarifying that I'm not denying that you might have good results with these builds...just that there are some mechanical points in these builds that could see improvement.
- Generally, if you're going for a pen build, you're also going to want as much power as possible. If you DO focus on attack speed with a pen build, you're missing the single, most critical item of all...
Qin's Sais. It's the item that will benefit most from attack speed and pen...the passive will increase your DPS significantly. So, in build 1, your DPS is being greatly hampered by a few things.
- 1)
Ichaival / 
Silverbranch Bow (which you mention as Ichaival's "counterpart" in the body, but you don't call out by name) is a great early item...but you never suggest replacing it late game. It's a bridge item meant to give you a temporary boxing advantage, due to nice early stats and a cheap price. It's outclassed by other items late-game once you have other items.
- 2) You've got a lot of attack speed, but very little power. In fact, 2 of your items have 0 power (
Asi and 
Hastened Fatalis), and a 3rd (
Ichaival only gives you power once you've begun hitting the opponent, and it's not enough. You need significantly more power.
- 3) You're focusing on attack speed...but then you build
Jotunn's Wrath. Yes, it has a bit of pen, and good power, but I think you're getting it very specifically for the CDR. So now you're making him a hybrid. Anytime you do that, you focus less on either your ability damage or your basic attack damage, and you become a jack of all trades rather than maxing your potential for one thing. I'm actually okay with 
Jotunn's Wrath for him if it's a teamfight mode like Joust or Clash...but the build would have to support his ability use. This means more traditional builds including things like 
Transcendence and 
Titan's Bane, neither of which are anywhere in this build...and as you talk Jungle, I think you're considering Conquest. Not the greatest item for Conquest for him.
- Speaking of pen...you honestly don't have enough to call it a pen build. Flat pen is fine early game, but later, you're probably going to want either
Titan's Bane or 
The Executioner. You can use these items as a replacement for 
Ichaival if you want, or you can build it early and replace Ich later with something else.
- Remember that
Hou Yi doesn't have any attack speed steroids. As such, he's usually looking to do ability damage. A better potential build here to maximize that effect would be 
Transcendence, 
Warrior Tabi, 
Asi, 
Qin's Sais, 
Titan's Bane, 
The Crusher or something...and switch Warrior to 
Ninja Tabi late game. If you wanted to skip 
Transcendence, you could consider 
Shifter's Shield, or skip those altogether and incorporate 
Brawler's Beat Stick or something.
- For your crit build, 3x crit is an option, sure...but it's also probably not optimal. Without an attack speed steroid (mentioned earlier), he's not the best candidate for that type of build. If you do insist on building that, though, you'll still need better pen than you have (
The Executioner as a late item is probably your best option). Also, with attack speed crit, you have an item there that's an odd man out...guess what it is? That's right, 
Jotunn's Wrath, which has neither attack speed nor crit (nor other components you need to max the potential of a crit build). You'll also want to consider other crit combos.
- Combo #1:
Rage + 
Deathbringer. This combo has a reasonable cost, and allows you to get 4 other items with different purposes...Boots, lifesteal, pen, and 1 more situational (like 
Hastened Fatalis) is usually how the rest of your build would work out. And by using 
Rage, once you get your 5 stacks, it's almost like having 3 20% crit items...you'll have 55%, which is more than enough.
- Combo #2: Wind Demon,
Deathbringer, 
Poisoned Star. This combo helps with your attack speed, and gives you nice 1 v 1 boxing potential via Star's passive. You'll need to choose the rest of your items more carefully though...anytime you go 3x crit, you only have 3 spots left for other things. Boots, pen, lifesteal.
- Finally, in your ability leveling...
Mark of the Golden Crow really needs to be leveled before 
Divebomb. You don't use Dive for damage...you use it mainly as an escape/chase tool,
Hope these comments help.and so you'll get more out of the slight damage boost from Mark.
1. Dont get fatalis and Ichaival in the same build (Unless your Bakasura who sells Ichaival lategame).
2. Both builds are lacking a high penetration item, I suggest replacing either Jotunns or Crusher for titans bane in your first build if you want high ability damage, and replace Jotunns with Exectioner in your second build.
3. A good Alternative to Jotunns Wrath/Crusher is the recently buffed Shifters Shield which has seen play in the SPL.
4. If you go triple crit in your second build it is a good idea to replace one of them e.g. Malice as your first crit item with Rage, as it can increase your crit chance by a lot if you get the passive filled.
Example of Builds with my suggestions:
1.
2.
Also, unless you are playing Assault never get Meditation Cloak on Hou Yi, he is a Hunter not a Support. Your priority relics should be