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Hey! Welcome to my first Smite build guide! Janus, God of Portals and Transitions!
Janus is a brand new God in Smite and today i'm here to show you how to play him for the first time and look like a pro!As I will be creating guides now, I would love it if this amazing community could point out things I could improve or fix in my guide etc.
Now how about we get started!
I bet you really, really, really wanna see Janus. WELL your wish is my command!Many fear change. Venturing into the unknown. Deviating from a path of safety and certainty into something unexpected. But life is change; a journey through doorways both physical and emotional, with every moment a passage to something new, and it is Janus, God of Portals and Transitions that governs this.
Bearing two faces, Janus is ever looking to the future and to the past, knowing both but controlling neither. He is only the in-between, found in the changing of seasons, at the birth of a child, at the entrances to the temple and the tavern. For this reason the Romans named the first month after him: January a portal between the old year and the new.
Yet the Roman emperors also attribute a strange tradition to Janus. At each end of his temple stand massive doors. In times of peace, these doors are closed, but in times of war, flung open. As Rome rose to power, rarely were these doors shut, but almost four hundred years of peace have clothed Rome since then and the temple has grown dusty with absence. These days, however, the doors are open once more. It seems war has returned, and the greatest of changes are upon us.
Make sure to watch this video, created by me, explaining the combo, showing examples of it etc. MAKE SURE TO WATCH THIS SO YOU UNDERSTAND THE COMBO xD
Now let's discuss why this build does so much burst damage!
Shoes of the Magi
Of course we are going to start off with shoes, as always. These shoes are very useful for Janus Damage because of the +50 Magic Power, and +15 Magical Penetration giving off more damage from the very start. The +250 Mana also takes care of Janus being so Mana hungry early off. Also +18% Movement Speed for some quick movement!
Bancroft's Talon
Bancroft's Talon is an awesome choice for Janus and any other caster because of it's +1 Magic Power per 1% of health missing, +100 Magic Power, and +12% life steal. Which means, since Janus is squishy, the more damage you take the more powerful you become. While dealing high damage with low health you will also be getting healed from life steal! Double win?!
Gem of Isolation
Gem of Isolation has a passive giving a 25% Slow to enemies for 2 sec. when hit by your damaging abilities, and giving a cool +70 Magic Power along with a +250 Mana and Health bonus making Gem of Isolation an awesome add-on for killing escape artists while giving even more damage!
Soul Reaver
Soul Reaver has an awesome +100 Magic Power matched with +300 mana along with an awesome passive.
Rod of Tahuti
Rod of Tahuti is very important due to it's high +125 Magic Power and passive increasing Magic Power by 25%!
Spear of the Magus
Spear of the Magus is known for it's add-on of bonus +40 Magic Power, +15 Magical Penetration, and passive of reducing enemy Magic Protection, allowing you to push aside that armor and hit em where it hurts!
Passages
Janus' passive passages gives him 25% more magic scaling for the next cast when going through a portal or a threshold, although we will be using our portals for the skill combos, so we will use thresholds mainly for this passive bonus.
Portal
We will be using portal with our combo attack mainly, unless needed to escape at certain times.
Unstable Vortex
This is Janus' most damaging ability, which is why it's important to get a guaranteed hit with it, which is why it's used along with portal for the combo attack explained later, or in the video.
Through space and time
This ability can be used two ways: support with portals or to damage enemies, although if used for damage, it can be extremely risky as it has a very long delay.
First off, Janus has amazing high damage guaranteed combo hits if used correctly.
Here's the order!
Threshold
Threshold comes first in this combo since it adds addition scaling when placed on the ground as an enemy steps over it and you use damaging abilities.
Portal(once smitefire updates the picture)
Portal is going to be used by placing it under the enemy as they step over the threshold causing them to be sucked up by the portal causing a delay in movement.
Unstable Vortex
Here's where the real damage comes in, once the player is sucked into the portal you want to use this to hit them right after they are dropped from the portal in the sky.If timed just right this combo is a guaranteed hit, dealing TONS of damage.
Welp that's it for this build, hope you enjoy dealing TONS of damage with Janus!
Please give feedback and rate the guide according to it's performance!
Thanks for checking me out!
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Portal will root somebody basically for 1-2 seconds, while stresshold only slows them, both give more dmg when you pass through it towards you. So that point is moot.
With portal other gods can line up there ults or other damage / cc with stresshold not so much as they know you are there and they will just escape from you.
Think about ra for example, he can ult the moment he sees a portal hit a enemy and he will hit it for 100%.
About the run speed which is nice on tresshold, it still is way worse then what portal gives you. You can jump through walls = massive survival, you can help other team mates jump through walls, and you can just push it on the ground to make yourself imuum for upcoming burst that you can't dodge but gives you time for your team to react.
On top of that, portal also does a ton of damage on it's own. It also makes it far easier to line your main burst ability up with stresshold not so much.
also portal activates your passive which gives 25% scaling, so if you want to snipe people with your ult push it before launching it = more dmg, also goes for the build up standard combo portal + 2.
Portal is far far superior to go for.
Your skill build is questionable, I can see more use in focusing Threshold over Portal for both the scaling bonus (resulting in some crazy damage) and the slow/ speed buff than in the already low damage from portal. This is my personal opinion, maybe the low damage from the portal helps you more.
As for the actives... picking Meditation has already been pointed as not the best choice, so I won't go into that. The lack of defensive actives such as sprint, beads and aegis is also questionable. Janus may be able to escape through his portals, but he won't get a chance to do so if he is stunned or killed before he can even target a portal.
Lore should have no place in a "guide" it's a guide, not an encyclopedia. Just saying.
The items section is eye-hurting, no offense man. I appreciate you briefly explaining the items, not only that, but it's way too short and not that helpful to the reader. But I can get past that since it's your 1st guide and I suppose your bb coding knowledge is poor at this moment.
"Soul Reaver has an awesome +100 Magic Power matched with +300 mana along with an awesome passive."
See what I mean? explaining why and in which situation to pick "x" item would be a great addition as well as adding and explaining situational/ secondary choice items, consumables and actives.
Same goes for skills. I think you really underestimate the power (addition) of Threshold as you prefer not to focus and leveling it up over portal as well as not listing it up in "skills" section. Of course, each player has its own style, so it's up to you in the end.
Adding a gameplay section would also be great, explaining in detail how to play him, when to use and what to use on each enemy, his role in a teamfight etc.
"Please give feedback and rate the guide according to its performance!" - grammar Nazi :P
As for pros:
I like the suggested Bancroft's Talon as 2nd item, it's great for Janus.
Adding a video also helps, I just surfed through it because I'm listening to music right now so I can't rate it, but I'm pretty sure it's helpful.
The pros and cons helps with understanding where Janus is standing generally.
I think the guide's rating is fine for how it looks/ how much info it provides so I can't up/ downvote it. Improve it and I'll certainly upvote it.
Yeah I kinda fixed the spear since it kinda seemed not needed as other items could be more useful, so I had changed that, and yeah on placing threshold in the video is where I go into more detail about the combos, and how threshold is only if you can/want to chance missing the kill.
(though I don't know if Spear adds pen during hit or after hit).
the spear has 15 flat pen and after a hit the magic protect goes down with a flat 10 and 10% (max stacks 20 & 20%) for the duration
I tend to build Bancroft's first, for the amazing sustain and instant damage output. I can usually kill or severely pressure my laner with Shroud, T1 Bancroft and a health pot (the other 100 is 2 Wards, for safety). I don't see the need for boots so early on Janus, he has great mobility as is and if caught pushing early with a gank he is almost assured to die regardless of having boots or not, so the additional damage may come in handy.
Pretty much everything else is identical. One major difference would be your choice to not nab a Polynomicon. I find that Portal => Unstable => Basic attack kills most non-Warrior/Guardians pretty much instantly with it. My build tends to be Bancroft => Magi => Polynomicon in this regard. If I'm ahead, I'll go with either Soul Reaver, Gem, or Chronos Pendant depending on my matchup. If I'm struggling or am beginning to become a primary target of strong melee damagers I'll pick up the Breastplate.
I haven't tried Spear of the Magus yet though, if I wanted pen I'd usually go for Shard. Mind explaining Spear > Shard? I think that having the pen already there when you use your Portal and Unstable late game as opposed to after using them would be more damaging (though I don't know if Spear adds pen during hit or after hit).
Ah didn't realize I had placed it there lawl. Fixed it now, also the meditation active I placed since as you said before, it's a more aggressive build i'm going for. Thanks for the feedback!
Meditation is never a good active on any god in Conquest.
other than that, it looks good.
Well on some gods it is a good item (like Xbalanque because he is really mana hungry all game (because of his combo (2+3) and his Branching Bola ability (1)) sometimes having a blue is not enough (then again that's when you play really aggressive). But then you will need to make a Salvation out of it for team fights (healing). but still taking other actives is better most of the time)
And in your less squishy build why would you do a warlock's stash as last item. you need to stack that item so I would build it right after the 2nd or 3th item
Also no gameplay or teamwork.
And damn what an annoying line do you use
other than that, it looks good.
Haha I know, I played him for awhile to master him and decided to share my build ^-^
Thanks for the feedback!