Smite Da Ji Build Guide: Stop Sucking At Da Ji Jungle (S9 "update")

MFN

God Build Guides for Smite Play

MFN

Join or Log In

To Top

Join the leading SMITE community.
Create and share God Guides and Builds.

Account Login

Create an MFN Account

Social Login

Social Register

MOBAFire WildRiftFire CounterStats DOTAFire HeroesFire VaingloryFire RuneterraFire FarmFriends ForzaFire LostArkFire

Create Guides
- Create a New Guide
Guides & Builds
Gods & Database
Community
- Forums
- Blogs
- IRONMAN
- God Concepts
- Videos
- Streams
- Social Channels
  - Discord
  - Twitter
  - Facebook

Not Updated For Current Season

This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page

Vote Vote

by updated

Smite God: Da Ji

Tap Mouse over an item or ability icon for detailed info

Build Summary

Starting Build

Bumba's Dagger

Mace

Healing Potion

Multi Potion

Cookie Cutter Build

Jotunn's Wrath

The Crusher

Hydra's Lament

Serrated Edge

Heartseeker

Bumba's Spear

Jotunn's Ferocity

Da Ji's Skill Order Notes AKA: Level 2 to rank 3 then prioritise 1>4>3>2

Notes

AKA: Level 2 to rank 3 then prioritise 1>4>3>2

Horrible Burns

1 X

2 7 8 9 10

One Thousand Cuts

2 A

1 4 6 18 19

Trickster Spirit

3 B

3 12 14 15 16

Paolao

4 Y

5 11 13 17 20

Da Ji Threats

Tap each threat level to view Da Ji’s threats

Max

Major

Even

Minor

Tiny

Da Ji Synergies

Tap each synergy level to view Da Ji’s synergies

Ideal

Strong

Low

None

Extended Build

Alternate Items

Brawler's Beat Stick

Mantle of Discord

Magi's Cloak

Bloodforge

Shifter's Shield

Notes I'm sorry, these are the only real options.

Temporal Beads

Scorching Blink Rune

Introduction

Welcome to my guide for Da Ji, The Nine-Tailed Fox

This guide is intended to stay correct and relevant indefinitely, ability reworks permitting.

Written for the Official Smite Discord mentor guides collection.

A little about me: I am a PC masters jungle main, I have around 200 games of in masters+ ranked with around a 3kda and 65% win rate on her.

While this guide does contain a specific item build at the top, it is designed to be as cookie-cutter as possible in the hopes that it will stay as an at least viable build path for as long as possible (item reworks are hard to account for).

Strengths & Weaknesses

..... Strengths .....

+ High single target burst damage.

+ Free kills on enemies without beads.

+ Surprisingly good mobility.

.. Weaknesses ..

- Low area damage.
.

- No sustain.
.

- Very squishy.

Abilities

Passive - Torture Blades

Adds a small bleed damage tick for every tick of damage that Da Ji deals with her auto attacks, One Thousand Cuts, or Trickster Spirit.

1 - Horrible Burns

Activating this ability will make your next hit auto-attack deal bonus damage, plus a damage tick and a slow.

2 - One Thousand Cuts

Four hits in a semi-circle AOE that do a small amount of damage each, and apply Torture Blades. Da Ji also gains movement speed and, for some reason, damage mitigation for all damage taken from behind her.

PUT THIS ABILITY ON INSTANT CAST

3 - Trickster Spirit

Da Ji teleports onto the targeted enemy, god or minion, doing damage, and applying Torture Blades.

PUT THIS ABILITY ON INSTANT CAST

4 / Ultimate - Paolao

Go up on a big ol pillar, shoot three chains that hit in an AOE, and then jump off the pillar, pulling in every enemy god that was hit with a chain and did not use any kind of cc immunity. The chains do damage when they hit (even if the enemy is cc immune when they hit), and the pull does some tick damage to every enemy pulled. Enemies hit by multiple chains will only take one instance of pull damage.

PUT THIS ABILITY ON INSTANT CAST

How To Play

This part of the guide will provide you with information needed to play throughout the different stages of the game.

Early Game

Go farm. Come back at level 5. Once you have Paolao, you can target any enemies who either did not buy, or do not currently have, their beads. In between Paolao cooldowns, keep farming! Da Ji is not a good character from behind.

Other than that, keep an eye out for any free buff invades or free ganks on enemies pushed up to towers or at low hp. Yknow, normal jungle stuff.

Mid Game

This is the point where Da Ji is the strongest. At this point you have two to three items online, Horrible Burns fully leveled, and you can start one comboing people.

Find an enemy on their own (preferably the mid or adc), onto them, throw one auto attack, use , use another auto attack. At this point, if they are not already dead, either use to finish them off if they are low, or if they used their escape or their teammates have collapsed on you.

Late Game

Most of this stage is the same as the last. The playstyle and combos are the same, except you have to pick your targets smarter, as the enemy support is more likely to be sitting somewhere between inside their squishes, to about five feet away from them. This makes things harder for you.

Use smart target decision making, don't be scared to use as either an engagement or escape tool if you need to. Focus enemies without relics, and try and find any exposed or separated targets that may be hanging around the edges of fights at objectives.

Tips and Tricks

All of Da Ji's abilities make great AA cancels. See the next section for a full AA cancelling combo guide.
One Thousand Cuts can be cancelled at any time during its cast. You can even cast and instantly cancel it for an instant AA cancel.
The way the camera is oriented when you teleport with Trickster Spirit will affect where you teleport relative to the targeted enemy (face away from them and you will teleport to their far side from you).
Trickster Spirit will follow enemy dashes during their animations, but will be interrupted by jumps, teleports, or teammates' pulls, banishes, and some knockups.

Auto Attack Cancelling

Auto Attack Cancels are at least 50% of Da Ji's Damage. You need to learn how to do them.

Every one of Da Ji's abilities can be, and should be, AA Cancelled to have proper effect.
See below for bad vs good AA cancelling in a normal Da Ji combo.

Bad AA Cancelling

Good AA Cancelling

(laggy gif? open it in a new tab)

Note that the good aa cancelling combo took less time, but got an extra auto attack in.

This is because of a few neat aa cancelling tricks that are unique to Da Ji.

Pre requisites: set One Thousand Cuts, Trickster Spirit, and Paolao to instant cast!

Full combo guide: Hold left click, do not let go until you have to shoot your chains. Use , wait for an auto attack to hit, immediately activate , wait for another auto attack.
Then use , and then instead of waiting for it to finish, right click to cancel the ability immediately after the fourth hit. This will allow you to auto attack much sooner as otherwise this ability has a long post-fire animation.
After this auto attack hits, press 4 to activate . If you are still holding the left mouse button, and the ability is on instant cast, you will do an additional auto attack on the way up onto the pillar (thanks dmbrandon).
Shoot your three chains, or just shoot 1 if you are trying to catch the enemy by surprise, and then again immediately double right click, and then hold left click, while looking down at the floor, as soon as the chain hits. This will get you off of the pillar as fast as possible, and you will auto attack again as soon as you hit the floor.

Do this all correctly and it should look exactly like the good AA cancelling gif above. Practice it on a jungle practice bot a little, it shouldn't be too hard to master.

Conclusion

Hopefully this guide has given you at least a decent understanding of how to play Da Ji, as well as providing a build that will hold up for as long as possible into the future. If you have more questions, click the discord link in the intro and find the ask a mentor channel, where someone should be able to answer any questions.

Stop Sucking At Da Ji Jungle (S9 "update")

Smite God: Da Ji

Build Summary

Starting Build

Cookie Cutter Build