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Manikin Scepter
Katana
Hand of the Gods
Blink Rune
Manikin Mace
Hastened Katana
Golden Blade
Stone Cutting Sword
Serrated Edge
Qin's Sais
Blink Rune
Purification Beads
Manikin Scepter
Golden Blade
Hastened Katana
Stone Cutting Sword
Serrated Edge
Blink Rune
Purification Beads
Manikin Hidden Blade
Jotunn's Wrath
The Crusher
Serrated Edge
The Executioner
Titan's Bane
Y
B
A
X
Tap each threat level to view Arachne’s threats
Tap each synergy level to view Arachne’s synergies
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ARACHNE |
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Passive - Predator
Predator is one of Arachne's multiple ways of doing bonus damage:
Arachne and clearly shows us that she's highly based on using this passive, along with her abilities and items, to buff her Auto Attacks to be able to mow down enemy Gods.
1 - Venomous Bite Venomous Bite is Arachne's bread and butter ability:
Venomous Bite gives Arachne the damage she needs to sustain herself in the early game before she truly starts building items, it lets her kill enemy Gods quickly and lets her stay healthy whilst doing so and lets her her heal even more while clearing camps, something Arachne excels at.
2 - Cocoon Cocoon is Arachne's main form of Crowd Control,
Arachne's third to stun the enemy hit and lets her deal high damage whilst stunned. Think of it as 
Anubis' 
Mummify combo. This ability also gives her a great amount of attack speed, which is perfect for dealing damage quickly to Objectives and Towers, but it's main focus is to give Arachne enough crowd control to assassinate enemy Gods quickly and efficiently.
3 - Web Web is where Arachne becomes incredibly interesting:
Arachne gets to summon two spiders to fight for her, along with giving herself movement speed and slowing the enemy hit. Web can be used in any way possible; clearling camps with the Broodlings, slowing enemy gods and assassinating them, holding a wave for a laner, or even helping allies clear their camps from the other side of the map. Arachne's Broodlings Web can no longer take aggro from camps and objectives, so she can no longer force them to tank hits for her or her teammates, making these strategies a lot weaker.
4 - Night Crawler Night Crawler is Arachne's only form of escape tool:
Arachne's Web an escape tool, as it gives her movement speed?" but you're going to be using Web a lot more for engages and clearing camps, without it, Arachne has no way of catching up to, and securing kills, as enemy Gods can just out-run her, or dash away. Night Crawler can be used defensively if a dive doesn't plan out very well, or you're in a lot of trouble, as it makes you crowd control immune upon activation, and you're invulnerable in it's entire duration. Night Crawler can be used as an escape option, but it can also be used as an engage option. Night Crawler as a final effort to secure a kill, as the ability itself does deal damage, and you get a large amount of uncontested area to run around in, making it a guaranteed kill if you're able to catch up and hit the ability. Web, activate your Cocoon and your Venomous Bite to deal massive amounts of damage whilst applying a crowd control, then escape with Night Crawler if you're in trouble, Simple.
Manikin Scepter is such a strong item on Arachne, that I'm surprised nobody has been talking about it. Manikins Scepter grants Arachne even more additional damage, on top of what she already has in Predator and Venomous Bite to inflict HUGE amounts of damage early, making only 4 or 5 Auto Attacks kill an enemy God in the first 5 levels. Manikin Scepter also helps Arachne clear early as it can proc off Golden Blade, to deal more damage to all minions in a camp, and with the buff Manikin Scepter received in the Ceaseless Whirlpool update, it makes her early game clear a lot healthier, meaning she can gank lanes a lot more efficiently with the additional health she lacked prior along with benefitting greatly from the +10 Basic Attack Damage.
Arachne's clear in the 8.8 bonus update, removing the ability for Broodlings Web to tank camps, Golden Blade lets Arachne have even more of an early power spike in her farm than previously. Golden Blade lets her sustain a lead she can get after a first blood by letting her clear as fast as ability based assassins, if not faster along with the additional procs of Manikin Scepter using Golden Blade.
Hand of the Gods or HOG is a vital component to any Jungler's starting items, it allows the fastest and the most efficient clear in season 8 by using abilities on the Speed Camp then using HOG on the large back camp to the fight over the mid camps. Arachne is no different to this rule, in fact, she has been taking HOG before this meta even existed, as Arachne wants as much map pressure as she can take, and having a fast clear provides that for her. Hand of the Gods also lets Arachne gank solo lane faster, though not advised, she can give either mid or solo an easy first blood gold lead by using blink to engage and winning a 2v1.
Hastened Katana is Arachne's first power spike item. Hastened Katana's Passive provides an insane boost to Arachne's kill potential, allowing her to easily out pace any God as long as their main forms of escape and crowd control options are down. Hastened Katana ensures that Arachne will stick to any enemy God she wishes, allowing her to kite abilities, along with jungle camps and objectives without a second thought. Katana offers is the main focus on any Arachne build: Having fast legs and arms. If your item doesn't give you attack speed, movement speed, or both, then there are a lot better options for Arachne.
Stone Cutting Sword received a decent nerf in the recent 8.8 bonus update, though these changes didn't affect how the item would interact with Arachne. Arachne already deals damage based on the enemy God's health, so what else would she need? Penetration. Stone Cutting Sword allows Arachne to, not only shred protections, but to buff her own, allowing her to deal extremely consistent damage to those she can combo. Stone Cutting Sword isn't as extreme of a power spike as Arachne's other options, what it does to her damage is a must-have on most builds.
Arachne, Serrated Edge. Serrated Edge is an insane item by itself, even with Gods that it doesn't synergise with, it's still, arguably, the best life steal item for assassins. Serrated Edge insane, it's even better on Arachne. Serrated Edge gives Arachne not only an insane power spike in it's passive, but +10% Physical Lifesteal AND +20% Penetration. Serrated Edge will still be a fantastic buy on Arachne.
Arachne has; she gains movement speed and attack speed with all of the Katana variants, along with penetration from Stone Cutting Sword, lifesteal from Serrated Edge and utility from Golden Blade and Hastened Katana whilst dealing huge damage with Manikins Scepter, what else do we need? Arachne, the build is already perfect and doesn't really need anything else, so here, I will justify multiple items, the first being Qin's Sais. Arachne's Passive, Predator? Predator if it scaled with bonus health. Qin's Sais has always been a good item on ADC's as it provides the tank shred that a lot of Hunters need, Arachne is no exception to this. It allows her to deal even more health based damage meaning even tanks won't get shredded without a second thought.
Magi's Cloak is a solid defensive pick on any God, the ability to nullify any crowd control gives many options to escape if caught off guard. Having Magi's Cloak proc a hard crowd control allows you to immediately ult and escape any situation you're in. Arachne already has a great amount in her kit to deal consistently high damage even with a defensive last item.
Dominance is a great penetration for auto attack heavy Gods, if you're fighting against a composition that has a large amount of tanks, then taking this item will definitely help. Dominance over Qin's Sais?" It depends; Qin's Sais. Dominance.
Toxic Blade deals with Healing. That's it. Usually, it wouldn't be your job to apply anti-heal as you're mainly going to run people down faster than it to apply and be useful, so you aren't likely to build this unless you're really struggling, or your team is really struggling to not flame you for not taking anti-heal.
Arachne players that aren't quite there with her yet is, Arachne is really good." Arachne is not good. Arachne can already shred anything with her standard Katana build, she doesn't need crit damage to deal more damage in a build that can already kill anything.
Rage and 
Deathbringer also don't give her the necessary stats of movement speed or attack speed that she relies on, so she won't be activating her passive, or stacking Manikin Scepter fast enough, or getting the stun of Cocoon fast enough.
Arachne is one of the most hated Gods, next to Anubis, 
King Arthur and 
Tiamat, but why is that? Arachne has a clear gimmick; Anubis has his Lifesteal and 
Death Gaze, King Arthur has his spiinnss and Tiamat has her 
Grounding Dive stances, however, Arachne's isn't so straight forward. Arachne's main priority is to be everywhere at once, there should be no lane or any inch of the Jungle that isn't scared that an Arachne will jump out at any second.
Web give her the perfect advantage when taking people off-guard and easily assassinating someone. Nobody does it better.
Web to ambush laners or Gods going through the jungle and get both Vision, and maybe a free kill on them: Web and are exceptionally good for blocking off corridors that Gods will want to talk through to get to lane, take buffs, or rotate around the map. If you're not using your Broodlings Web to clear camps or gank (which you should definitely prioritise), you should use them like this.
Arachne is her ability to, not only have an incredibly fast clear speed, but to help others clear camps without being there. Web can aid in taking camps and splitting the Gold and XP from them in order to clear them faster and allow your laner to get to the lane faster. Web at buffs to "leash" your laners, this meaning you help them clear their buff, at the cost of Gold and XP being split between you, to help them get to lane faster, and for you go gain a Gold and XP lead over the enemy Jungler. Web at Green Buff. Web at Blue Buff. Web at Red Buff. - Support & ADC Start Purple. Web at Blue Buff. Web at Green Buff. Web at Blue Buff. Web INFRONT of Purple Buff. Web INFRONT of Red Buff. Web at Blue Buff. Arachne. Arachne isn't for you. Arachne's entire identity is that she catches people off guard and steals their leads to create her own. You're not playing Arachne to pop off in a huge team fight, you're playing her to sap away their attempts at a team fight by picking them off one-by-one.
Loki and 
Ne Zha do her job but better. Arachne's irrelevance her fault? Arachne main, even though I love the devious nature of her character, I do believe she isn't well designed, and should be reworked. Akin to Loki being reworked, her popularity will most likely spike as she's already pretty underplayed. Arachne in the current meta, but these are some rough concepts we thought of: Arachne temporarily gains an AoE bonus to her auto attacks and a small burst of attack speed that diminishes over time. Deals bonus damage to jungle camps. Arachne fires a web sling shot (Akin to Nox 1) that she can recast, if she hits a wall she throws the enemy into it and stuns them. If she hits another enemy, they collide and both get stunned. Arachne places a next of spiders on a wall, if an enemy enters it's line of sight, a group of Broodlings Web will jump out and attack them. These Broodlings Web slow them and grant vision to Arachne of the target being attacked if she is nearby. Web but keeps it interesting) Arachne attatches to a wall and can wall jump whilst in this state. Fires 3 weebs that banish Gods hit for x amounts of seconds. After the duration, Arachne jumps down at the target location, deals damage and slows. Night Crawler but the ability to cling on walls and jump between them is more creepy and spider-like)
That's it!
If you've made it this far, a huge, warm, thank you for reading this guide!
It took me a day of on-and-off working to make it all by myself.
Arachne's concept is really fun to me, and after getting her to Diamond with a positive win-rate all throughout, I felt confident enough to publish my own guide teaching everyone how to play this sneaking little spider.
As of 06/10/2021, this is the only professionally made guide I have on my profile, the others being very niche and not well put together guides on Tiamat and Cernnunos Support, but if you're interested in that, go check them out or hang out with me in the Official SMITE Discord Server @ Vinonim👥#8578.
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Hope this helped.
"Why would you take beads?"
Beads hives Arachne a way to immediatedly cleanse crowd control and ult in order to escape, it's a lot safer to burn both resources than to pre-ult a crowd control and play a guessing game. Beads is also so common in SMITE in general as every character has either a form of hard CC, or soft, so taking beads on any God is always worth it.
"Can she take other relics?"Technically? Yes. You can run Aegis, Beads, Sundering Spear, Horrific Emblem, etc. Should you take them? Well, it depends on your situation; if you're playing in an even game against Gods that you know will be able to shut you down, I'd much rather take Beads as a safe option in case I get shut down. If you're confident against the enemy composition, you can really take anything if you're so sure about it.
"What about Meditation?"NO!
"Your synergies and threats only cover mages and assassins, is there anything else?"Of course. The reason I primarily included this is that you're going to be going through midlane a lot and trying to synergise kills with your mage. The fact that Arachne is primarily 1v1 based focuses more on your matchup against the enemy jungler so those are the two I covered. Basically, if a God has a good amount of crowd control to shut you down, good enough movement options to downright ignore you, or the ability to prolong a fight for their teammates to join in, then it's best to avoid them.
I had been thinking about writing up a quick tips and build guide for Arachne, but I already have too much on my plate so I'm glad someone else did.
That said, hope you're willing to make some adjustments or at least some alternatives. Will provide some points, discussion appreciated.
- Starter: you say
Manikin Scepter isn't talked about, but it's been OP for some gods for some time. When it gained its sustain, even with some nerfs to balance, it's been a good, well-rounded aggressive item. I think it's in a good spot now, but this item has been popular for her for a while (the most popular starter by far for her I believe).
Eye Of The Jungle is a viable starter and it would be nice to see it somewhere as a listed option. While you won't get as much early aggression from the burn damage, the attack speed in general is nice and you'll get what I'd consider to be more consistent health and mana sustain (at least while you're in the jungle). The added vision is also nice especially if you're able to steal enemy camps. Also, it costs 100 gold less, which can allow you to get HoG + potions rather than just HoG.
Hand of the Gods isn't necessarily needed. It's nice to help you get to mid-lane more quickly and for a potential early mid-gank attempt at the beginning of the match, but having no potions at the start is likely to see you have to back a lot quicker. There should be an option or at least a writeup on viable alternative starts.
- Agree w/
Golden Blade as first main item in most cases. Her clear is atrocious. However, I believe 
Ichaival may still be a viable 1st item. The crazy attack speed and high power (even if nerfed) is still very strong for her early aggression. I don't think you need to list Ich as a 1st item option if you don't want to though.
- Your next item is
Hastened Katana. I believe 
Stone Cutting Sword is the more viable item at this point. It's a bit cheaper and the protection reduction is going to be nice for your damage potential against the squishies. It's not that 
Hastened Katana isn't a nice item, but typically at the earlier stages, you'll rely on your 
Webs and / or 
Blink Rune to keep enemies close. If all enemies have high mobility and can counter slows, okay maybe. But otherwise, I would consider this a later-game situational option, and not a "core" item.
- If we're looking at your core items then, I would replace Katana w/
Qin's Sais...I would consider that more core due to her quick attack progression.
- If it gets to late game, you would probably consider replacing
Golden Blade with another item. You can keep it if you want (helpful for pushing waves and whatnot), but other items will do better for your PvP damage.
- No offense, but I don't like your "Power Arachne" build at all. If you're really looking to offer a power/pen ability-type build, okay, but Exe doesn't fit there that well, and BBS should probably be an alternative to Crusher, which probably isn't that strong of an item on her to start.
- For skill leveling, you can optionally point-skip at 8, maxing your 1 and putting a point into your ult at 9.
- You should be leveling your
Web before 
Cocoon. The AS in Cocoon is nice and yes the stun increases a bit (a very little bit), but the slow duration on Web and the slightly additional damage is probably going to be more helpful.
- I'm confused under your
Web writeup what you mean by 8.9 not having your broodlings take aggro from camps. They still do. If you're talking about 8.10, here's the change I think you're talking about:
- Some additional ability tips:
Venomous Bite when you're attacking an enemy. Since it provides a heal aspect, you may look to hold it for when you start taking damage to get more use out of the heal.
Cocoon provides a stun, if you're not targeting a squishy specifically, you may want to use the ability on a god that channels a troublesome ability, as it will interrupt the channel.
Web can be great to shake enemies chasing you. If you're retreating, you can turn and quickly throw it behind you, or you can throw it in front of you in a narrow jungle corridor to give yourself a short MS boost, drop any slows that are applied, and still make the broodlings provide an additional slow when the enemy moves through the web.
Night Crawler is awkward. I don't think most people think of 
Web as an escape tool as its first and foremost function. I would honestly drop that portion of the discussion.
- Under your "Map Presence" chapter, you mention that
Arachne is one of the most hated gods, and your reason is due to her clear gimmick. I don't think it's that at all. Rather, she's a pubstomp god. At lower levels when people are more easily caught 1v1 and don't know how to counter her / get away from her, she can steamroll early. But as skill level increases, she will rely more and more on getting a good matchup to do well or needing to pick her engage times more carefully. The other aspect is, she's not a good teamfighter. She's pretty much just a 1v1 god. She brings very little to a bigger fight late-game unless she's able to catch enemies in the backline.
- Good added topic on using webs in the jungle to interrupt enemy movement / flow and provide vision. That said, and this may feel a bit nitpicky, but I think some of your locations aren't optimal. I know you probably meant these locations as general examples, but I've marked up really quickly to give a few slightly different locations. As an added suggestion, rather than a circle (which might be a good shape for something like wards), I think a line, which simulates the placed shape of the web, will be more functional to show readers the direction of the web placement.
- Leashing camps: I think your start suggestions could be improved. I really don't think you should be recommending placing early webs on your Solo's Mana buff or your Mid's Damage buff. Mana buff can typically be handled just fine by the Solo, and the Damaqe buff is covered by both ADC and Mid, and you taking (stealing) some of that farm hurts their early leveling and will not endear you to them. If the Solo has **** early clear, than fine, you can place one over there if they're cool with it, but otherwise I'd just worry about your own camps.
Manikin Scepter as your starter, is that you can get 3 webs out, quickly back and fill up your mana (which if you drop 3 webs will be right around 1/2 mana), and get back to the Jungle camp right before it spawns. (FYI if you get 
Eye Of The Jungle instead, then you'll find yourself with almost full mana even after throwing your webs.) You want to purchase your items quickly at the start (< 5 sec from the start of the match), then start running out. You should always get your first one down on the Jungle camp. Then if you're dropping elsewhere, you can move there while your Web is on CD.
Would like to hear your feedback on all of this.That said, I do still feel
Jungle Bosses that move will no longer be bodyblocked by god pets (like Arachne’s spiders or Bastet’s cats).
That's bodyblocking, not aggro.
- Don't always use
- Since
- Probably obvious for most, but
- Your intro to
You should never drop a Web on the Support buff. You're not going to be there to help clear it, your 2 broodlings won't clear it on their own, and it spawns at like 0:35 which is way late.
One other thing I'd mention, especially if you get
Here are the 2 main starts I would suggest:
1) If you get HoG: 3x on Speed to clear ASAP, HoG and clear large harpies, run to mid.
2) If you don't get HoG: 1x Web on Speed, 1x on large harpies, 1x on Speed (then back for mana if you got Manikin).
- The first of all being
I do feel like
I don't disagree that
- Secondly, the options of Leashing I showed.
I do want to note that I showed all of those starts in the perspective of only benefitting the
I do think this segment of the guide was the most controversial as there's a lot of point of views where you can criticise it from, but I feel like it's a simple understanding of what
- Thirdly, the itemisation.
You suggested replacing Hastened Katana with alternatives, and I did say that in the guide, but I find Hastened to be a justifiable item to take. Yes, it may not be the absolute best, but
- Fourthly, the ability usage.
I find what you've said to be fair, but like I said, I'm not exactly a high-skilled player, so doing things like skipping abilities to upgrade others isn't something I really do, merely out of the habit of wanting to press the big shiny button.
As for what you've said about particular abilities, I find a lot of it to be a bit redundant, suggesting to use a heal when needing it is self explanatory, along with stunning people who are channelling, but the fact that I haven't involved it is primarily my fault, so I will take the blame for that.
ALSO, the power build and comment about her gimmicks were primarily comedic and not to really be taken seriously. I hope you understand that about her gimmicks, but I can understand how people will take the power build seriously, but obviously it's not the core build so it won't be the thing dragging people's attention to when learning the God.
I hope I've covered most of the things you've said, if there's anything I've missed or things you desperately want me to add, then I most likely will.
I wanted the guide to have a primary focus on people who are entirely new to
THAT ALL BEING SAID, I have made some changes based on what you've said, and I'm glad to see someone willing to give a hand. :)
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Some further comments:
Eye Of The Jungle + Upgrade: I agree that Manikin is a solid starter and her standard option right now. As an FYI, if you take Manikin and do the same start, it will clear the Speed buff about 2-3 seconds quicker than Eye. Quicker clear = faster rotations, more farm, more gank opportunities.
Arachne). The vision is in fact helpful (though situationally perhaps), but the early consistent HP5/MP5 is also useful, especially early game. And while it's not a huge difference, Manikin's application of power is basic attack damage, while Eye is power, so there's a slight difference in ability damage...admittedly very slight, but still.
Arachne with that in mind. Sure, the AS boost when using 
Cocoon is huge, but it's NOT how you should determine when to stop building AS. It's extremely temporary (3 hits), and most of the rest of your damage is going to be from basics when Cocoon is NOT active. When you've got a build that incorporates 
Qin's Sais, it's extremely beneficial to have a build that will get as much out of that passive as possible, and the way you do that is with high pen and high BASE attack speed.
Protector Of The Jungle (which has its own benefits), if you notice enemies are dropping wards often, you could opt into 
Seer Of The Jungle and get some really nice anti-ward function.
- I will counter your start/leashing options by saying...while it's nice to have people understand what she's capable of...you really, REALLY don't want to teach them these options. The understanding and math behind these starts is going to be interesting to very few, and you just shouldn't start this way. Better not to give examples of something that shouldn't be done. I know you put a lot of work into it, but IMO I'd just straight delete all but the starts that she SHOULD do.
Hastened Katana: Again, your build, your choice, and while I like HK, itemizing into it is a slight bit of an Arachne noob crutch (not nearly as bad as Med Cloak, but still). I don't think there are times where she'll NEVER want it, but IMO it shouldn't be "core." It should be a later-game option. If you watch higher-level players playing Arachne (when they ever do), you don't see HK being built that often. And while you might counter by saying you're not a pro-level player (and that would be a valid point), it's still an item that if you can learn not to build it, you'll learn how to become a BETTER Arachne player and learn how to better pick your spots. My suggestion here: play more Arachne, and try NOT building the item and figure out how to still be effective. But again, if you really want it in your build, okay.
- Noted on itemization and your explanations are fine. With regard to Qin's, yes, you have it in your build, but my point here was that I feel Qin's is more core than HK, that's all. If HK is core, I feel Qin's should also be listed there, but again I actually feel Qin's is more core than HK.
- Ability usage: so the biggest point I can say is that the people reading your guide and not just looking at the build are those that are likely to be newer and learning how to play her, and that's the audience around which I provide my tips. If you don't remember your days just starting SMITE, I will say that many (probably most) people will start out spamming abilities. Reading as a reminder that you don't always need to spam all 3, and instead hold your 1 just a bit until you're starting to take damage, is not IMO redundant for a newer player.
Anyway, I think you've done a good job overall, and I appreciate the effort you've put into it. This is your build and guide, and so don't read that I'm saying you HAVE to make the changes or additions I suggest. I'm only giving suggestions that I feel can improve it, and you don't have to make any changes you don't want to.That said, a couple of your points are ones where I have a different perspective. 1) the attack speed ISN'T the only reason you take it, but it IS nice for gods that use attack speed well (like
As for attack speed capping, I wouldn't suggest building
However, it's your build, and if you don't want Eye there, that's fine, because just opting for Manikin still gives you a good suggestion for people reading your guide. I would just say that you should maybe try experimenting just a bit more with it. And while the typical upgrade is
I should really try