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Hou Yi is the newest addition to the Chinese pantheon in Smite. He has a solid mix of base stats and damage from skills, and is a solid fighter both 1v1 and in team fights. His selection of skills and abilities differs a bit from many of the other Hunters, though.
Pros:
Hou Yi has poor attack speed; therefore this build uses several items to boost his attack speed. Because he has good base damage, it focuses less on damage stack items.
Hastened Fatalis is a somewhat unusual item for a hunter, but it benefits Hou Yi by allowing him to keep debuffed enemies in range, and helps him escape from ganks and tough enemy guardians.
For build order, I like to completely build Warrior Tabi first, followed by The Executioner. This gives Hou Yi a good foundation in movement and attack speed. After that, I build Rage and Hastened Fatalis concurrently, continuing to increase his movement speed, attack speed and damage potential.
After that, if all is going well, I like Deathbringer to improve damage and crit potential. landing just one good crit to an enemy with Mark of the Golden Crow sets them at a big disadvantage due to the increasing damage they will take for every 10% of missing health. However, depending on the situation, other options may be desirable - Hou Yi's crit immunity helps him against physical damagers, but not magical ones, so a good item like Runic Shield can be useful for going toe-to-toe with them. I also favor Brawler's Beatstick for its strong flat penetration and usefulness against lifesteal builds and enemies healers like Hercules, Hel, and Chang'e (though it feels just wrong killing Chang'e).
Qin's Sai is a very strong item for Hou Yi. It can work well in conjunction with his items, or in the later game I often like to sell back The Executioner to get it. I choose not to build it earlier as it is expensive, and not as useful in the early game as in the later-game godfights.
For active items, Beads are a solid pick if the enemy has any strong CC abilities. Picking up either Weakening Curse or Enfeebling Curse is also a strong option to improve your ability to kill secure (or drop the debuff to run from a gank). Sprint helps if you are getting into bad situations frequently.
After unlocking each skill, I favor building an additional rank or two in Ricochet to begin with, as it helps with wave clear.
After that, Mark of the Golden Crow becomes the top priority as it offers him the strongest benefits - revealing invisible enemies, offering a penetration bonus, increasing the amount of damage injured enemies take.
Divebomb is a lower priority, as adding ranks in it does not increase in duration or decrease cooldown time, and in most cases you won't be using it for the damage.
Sunbreaker is solid for its teamfight potential, and worth investing in at every opportunity.
Hou Yi's strong 1v1 potential makes him strong in lane, and also in the jungle. His ability to knockback enemies with Divebomb lets him set up enemies in an ambush scenario. Sunbreaker is a powerful addition to any teamfight if launched at the right time - and timing is critical due to the slight delay before the suns start falling.
Like most hunters/ADCs, Hou Yi benefits strongly from good teamwork with a guardian in a shared lane; he particularly does well with gods with a strong CC pull like Ares or Hades since they synergize well with the DoT from his Sunbreaker ability. Wall/stun effects from guardians like Ymir and Cabrakan also work well.
Hou Yi is a very strong new addition to the Smite line-up. He takes some time and experimentation to use well; my choice reflected in this build guide is to compensate for his weaknesses (poor attack speed and escape ability) while optimizing his already strong single-target hunting abilities.
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Take those out, and your guide is solid.