Nemesis Solo [WIP]

*I don't currently have the time to add all of the bbcode so this build is still under construction*

Hello! I'm Greytower. I main solo lane (yay rhyming) and honestly Nem is one of the most versatile gods I've ever taken to the solo lane. Her play style is much more tactical than most other bruisers so you'll have to watch your cooldowns and observe what skills your opponent has exhausted. She's all about counter attacking essentially.

Pros
Great damage
Great attack speed
Great mitigation
Great mana consumption
Great 1v1 (and even 1v2)
Shreds tanky solos like Hercules
Great single target damage


Cons
Poor wave clear
Squishy
Long cooldowns
Trouble with early sustain
Single target damage


Proof of ConceptI'm not one to brag but I just want to show you that I'm not wasting your time.

*As stated earlier, bb code is coming soon*

Passive: Scales of Fate
Gives Nem a very strong early and late game advantage, as you'll reduce damage taken and your damage will ramp up. I'd say it gives more of advantage against physical gods than magical, as the scaling is reduced for magical gods. Most magical gods, however, don't rely as much on basic attacks.

1: Swift Vengeance
Gives Nem tons of mobility, aiding her kill secure, escape, and dodge capabilities. You can dash twice so it's ideal for dodging skills and then getting up in their faces.

Example: Than throws his sickle. Dash left, dash forward. His highest damaging ability is on cooldown, and his silence will do nothing against your basic attacks.

Keep in mind that you have to cancel your second dash to basic attack or use other skills.

2: Slice and Dice
Main damaging ability. The damage is very good, but only if your target is in the center of the cone. Also conveys a really hard slow. The problem with this ability is that it's not great for clear. You'll be able to hit the front melee minions fairly well, but the archer minions are out of it's range. Furthermore, you still deal damage in the rest of the cone area, so you have a high chance to hit your laning opponent and get his minions to aggro on you. Early game, minions will really screw you over so be careful with the targeting.

You will have to use HoG on the back minions against most gods early-mid game. I balance the cons out with HoG and Golden Bow

3: Retribution
Great mitigation and counter attack ability. At max level, ff someone hits you for 500 damage, you take no damage, heal for 250 damage, and deal 250 to them. It only stays up for 2 second and any hard cc (stuns, fears, silences) remove it immediately. This ability is really good for negating damage from DoTs (damage over time abilities like Poseidon's whirlpool ), burst damage (like Fenrir's Brutalize) and basic attacks from hunters, and magical basic attackers. You can even use it to kill gods that are attacking you at really low health.

When attacking the support or the adc, wait until the support has expended his or her hard cc ability before using your shield.

4: Divine Judgement
One of the strongest ults in the game imho. At max level you'll take a full health god to 50%. Even the tank. You'll also remove 50% of their prots and take them for yourself. You also slow them and get movement speed. The buff for you lasts for 8 seconds but the debuff for them only lasts for 5 seconds, so the first 5 seconds are crucial in terms of how much damage you can deal to them. Keep in mind that it's a single target so choose your target carefully. Get your basics in and you'll steal 9% of their power so you can really shred people and stay alive while doing so.

I recommend using it on supports or tanky gods like herc, and from there attack who you want. Using it against squishy gods like merc can be effective but you're not going to get a lot of protections. Also be aware that this will give mages with bancrofts talon a sudden huge power buff at max level, which means more power for you to steal. Keep in mind that they'll have more power too, though.

Essentials for Nem in order are:

1.Attack Speed
2.Crits
2.Lifesteal
3.Power
4.CDR
5.Protections

Don't take this too literally...I always build at least one prot item on Nem solo, and I build it earlier than later, but it won't sync up with her abilities as much as the others. Crits and lifesteal are both second because building crits is up to you. Why is power third? Only two of Nem's abilities scale with your physical power, so unless you want to build power and CDR (jotuun's wrath, which is totally viable) then I wouldn't prioritize it. Always build one power item though.

CORE

Death's Toll (early)
Nemesis, unlike other bruisers like Herc, Chaac, and Osiris, has very little trouble with mana in the solo lane, or at least in my experience. You won't need bluestone, as your blue buff carries you through your first 3 or 4 levels, and later through your 7-9 levels.

Ninja Tabi:
Your 3 has great damage but long cooldown, so building up your basic attack speed alongside it will help you more than building power. It'll also help you with lifesteal and crits if you go that route.

Golden Bow:
Power, crits, and movement speed. But the passive why I get this item. Because her clear is bad, to keep up with your opponents you're gonna need this item. Your attack speed combined with this item will help you clear waves with your basics, and let you save your abilities for your laning opponent. The crit chance has also saved me in some early fights. If you really feel like you don't want it late game, feel free to sell it.

Shifter's Shield:
Protections and power. You'll be able to withstand more poke and hit harder when you need to and stay alive when you need to. The power also gets behind your basics making you hit harder, which is always nice. This item is great because you don't sacrifice damage output for protections as much as other protection items.

You can switch this item out for Runic shield or Void shield if you wish, but that makes you more specialized against magical or physical gods. I prefer to be more versatile.

Asi:
Great early-mid item. Unfortunately since the patch it's a tier 2 item so it's harder to pick up early, which is why I get it fourth. The early pen combined with the power and attack speed from shifter's and ninja tabi make you hit super hard. Lifesteal on Nem is essential for sustain, because the healing from your 3 will go towards mitigating damage rather than healing you. Attack speed is obvious. And the passive can help you out of a hairy situation or help you heal off of minions or camps at low health.

Situationals
Because there are so many, I'm going to categorize them for you.

VERSUS A TEAM WITH A LOT OF PROTECTIONS
The Executioner
Titan's Bane
Void Shield
Jotunn's Wrath

VERSUS A TEAM WITH A MAGICAL HEALER
Brawler's Beatstick
Runic Shield (Less power=less healing)
Qin's Sais (If they build a lot of health)
Rage and Deathbringer (Bursting them down before they can heal)
The Executioner (Lotus crown gives extra prots)

VERSUS A TEAM WITH PHYSICAL SUSTAIN
Brawler's Beatstick
Bloodforge (You have to keep up in health too!)
Witchblade (less power=less healing)
Executioner (cut through prots)

VERSUS HIGH DAMAGE MAGICAL GODS
Runic Shield
Hydra's Lament
Qin's Sais
Bloodforge (If they hit you hard you can still catch up w/ double lifesteal)

VERSUS HUNTERS AND ASSASSINS (Against hunters, get in close and run around them, versus assassins keep distance and poke them until you can move in and secure the kill)
Witchblade
Jotunn's Wrath
Brawler's Beatstick (Shuts down Hunter healing from devos)
Void Shield
Frostbound Hammer

VERSUS A TEAM WITH BUCKETS OF CC/IF YOU DON'T HAVE BEADS
Magi's Blessing
Spirit Robe

There are some gods that I've learned to deal with fairly well.

Versus Chronos

Difficulty: Medium

Chronos will outclear you early game. Don' try to attack him early unless your jungle is there to help. Use HoG on the back minions and use Slice and Dice on the front minions and Chronos if he's in the center of it, but don't angle to hit him if he's not in the center.

He'll go in for pokes with his Time Rift. Luckily, this ability has a slow proc time so you should be able to get your shield up before it procs. If your shield is down and you're at low health, dash away.

His Stop Time is what to look out for. He'll send it down the minion line, so make sure not to get caught in it. Once he uses it, he's out of cc so if the enemy minions are more or less gone you can rush him. If he tags you with it, there is a small window of time in which you can use your shield, which will be removed by the second time it procs and stuns you. If you want to save your shield for his Time Rift, then you can usually get at least one dash off to get you away from him before you get stunned.

His ultimate (Rewind) is the most frustrating part of fighting him. Not just because of what it does, but specifically how long it lasts. 8 seconds. Your ult (Divine Judgement) buffs you for 8 seconds. Unfortunately, unless his ult is down, your ult is going to bait his ult out, meaning that it will rarely be used to actively secure a kill against him.

The most important thing to consider when fighting Chronos is timing. Early game, he suffers from fairly brutal cooldowns aside from time rift.

Time Rift: 5 seconds
Retribution is on an 18s cooldown, so don't try to reflect every single Time Rift.

Stop Time: 18 seconds at lvl 1, -1 second per rank. Just to be safe I count to 16 when he uses this ability early game if I'm about to attack him.

Rewind: 120 second cooldown at lvl 5! The most important thing when countering this ult is memorizing where Chronos has been. I've developed a trick for countering it, but it takes a lot of practice and can distract you. If you're going to ult him, count down from 8 first, and memorize where he was at 8 Although his reaction time might be a little rough, if he ults he'll be more or less where he was when you started counting.

Versus Hercules

Difficulty: Easy (Oh my god it's easy to fight herc now? Yeah, yeah it is.)

Herc also has better clear than you. Don't engage him until you have your ult up and can steal his prots, otherwise the minions will shred you. Fortunately, your passive and your ult work together to significantly weaken Hercules.

To beat Herc, you need the skills but also the right item combination. Brawler's Beatstick is a must unless you somehow manage to stomp him really hard early. Executioner is also really good. If you really want to, build Executioner instead of Asi and stock up on Health potions. I always pick up Aegis Pendant too. Now for his skills

Driving Strike: Herc's main damage ability. Generally pretty avoidable unless you're right in his face. He'll expend it on clearing early so don't be too afraid of it. You can use Retribution to mitigate the damage if you wish, but I recommend doing this only if his ultimate Excavate is down, just as it's more of a threat. This ability is also the second half of his pull+bash combo, so I keep aegis handy if he managed to pull and bash me into his tower. You generally want to use aegis right as you land so he doesn't bash you in the first place. Cooldown 14 seconds so keep that in mind when attacking him.

Earthbreaker: Never dash in a straight line away from Herc is he has this up, because if he's good he'll pull you right back. Luckily it's pretty predicable, so if you keep just the right amount of distance from him you should be fine. Your dash can get you away if he's advancing and your shield will absorb the cc, but once again, don't let him bait our your shield so he can ult you. Cooldown 15 seconds, so expect it at the same time as Driving Strike.

Bring the Pain: Unless you can kill Hercules in 4 seconds, don't ult him when this is up. As mentioned earlier, Diving Judgement only debuffs for 4 seconds, so if he heals all of the damage received for 4 seconds over 10 seconds and you can't kill him, he's going to heal up a lot. If you have Brawler's Beatstick, you can try it, but even then I wouldn't recommend it. Cooldown is 17 seconds so you have a large window to attack once he's used Bring the Pain.

Excavate: Dodgable at with your 1. Also why I buy Aegis. At level 13 this ability's base damage out damages your Retribution at max rank so don't think you can tank it. If he's smart, he'll use it at low health, so keep your finger on your 1 if it's up and you're attacking him. I recommend dashing forward past him, but make sure not to dash into him, or he'll bodyblock you and you'll get hit. Cooldown is only 90 seconds so make sure to count.

I know I'm making Hercules sound hard to fight, but really the tips I'm giving you aren't to keep you alive, they're to make you kill him faster and more efficiently. Proper usage of your ult combined with brawler's and aegis will help you outkit and box him. Yet again, don't get cocky as Nemesis would say.

If you have any questions add me in game, my ign is Greytower.

Feedback is appreciated, just please make sure it's constructive.

Thanks for reading and good luck with Nemesis in the solo lane!

2/21/15 Guide published-need to add bbcode and more colors/formatting

2/22/15 Added basic bbcode links for items