The Better Birdman! - Thoth guide for mid laners (S8, 8.2)

• Activate the three charges on hieroglyphic asault as soon as you spawn in the fountain. Remember to do this every time you return to the fountain.
• Head to the speed buff and use Hieroglyphic Assault on the camp through the left wall, but do not take the buff. As soon as you finish all your 3 shots move to the mid lane.
• You are VERY WEAK and an easy target until level 3/4 and 5, SO AVOID FIGHT. I'm not kidding, Thoth's early game is pure trash so avoid unnecessary early fights.
• Try to clear the wave as soon as possible, and try to don't take damage from the wave. If the enemy cleared his wave first, retreat to your tower.
• High recommend you take the damage buff. If you see that there is a chance of the enemy take your buff, then do it even before your jungler comes. If this chance is not possible, wait for him.
• In teamfights try to participate from some distance and run for your life using Evade and Punish if someone focuses you (combined with Glyph of Pain).
• PUT WARDS ON THE MAP to avoid be Ganked!!
• Poke your enemy as soon as possible (See the "poking combo" on Combos Section) and be careful doing it, he might call for help and put you in serious trouble.
• FOCUS ON FARMING, you need to get big as soon as possible so every farm you see, do it if possible (camps or minions waves), especially the camps on the right and left side of mid lane.
• Be careful to don't die. IF THE ENEMY GETS BIGGER THAN YOU, YOU WILL SUFFER SO MUCH.
• Ask for help every time you need it, and don't do anything that can compromise yourself.
• Remember that you have a low health pool and 0 defenses early game so "be smart"

• Now you do decent damage, probably you are killing a minions wave without problems using 1 and 3.
• Now it's time to become a little aggressive. Your damage scales very well now (mainly with the build I did). Time to shine.
• REMEMBER THAT OBJECTIVES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN KILLS, so it's time to start do rotate, taking down towers (don't forget to use Glyph of Pain to increase your and teammates damage) and kill with your team jungle bosses such as gold fury and fire giant.
• ALWAYS try to participate in teamfights now, 'cause your skills ARE VERY USEFUL to the team and do a VERY GOOD amount of damage.
• Now it's a nice moment to start rotating to surprise enemies and UUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHH BOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!

• Time to group up.
• Now you are stronger than ever so, time to keep shining.
• Use wisely your skills now 'cause they are powerful and can change the games' destiny.
• Stay with your team helping them and now, more than ever, participate in the team fights combining your skills with theirs.
• Unfortunately, you are very squishy, so YOU DIE VERY FAST at late game, BUT, you can counter it by playing safe behind your teammates. So, as long as you don't try to be a front line and stay together with your team you will still be a killing machine.
• As you should notice, a single cast of your 1 and your 3 + 2 or ulti is more than enough to take 3/4 or kill squishies targets.

Now I will talk about how you should build birdman properly, what your build must have to be decent and viable.

how to build

What a Thoth build must have?

• Power: as any other mage, Thoth has decent scalings so power is essential on his build to make him a big threat. Avoid build less than 400 power or you may not have a decent performance.
  
  
• Penetration: Dead Reckoning + some flat pen and % pen if needed and you will be doing almost true damage on the targets, especially early/mid game and as you all know, the closer to the true damage you are the better is.

What a Thoth build may have?

• % Penetration: If you are facing multiple tanks then consider buy Obsidian Shard. The more protection the target has, the more pen you will have and for squishes you still have Dead Reckoning + flat pen items.
  
  
• Mana: Thoth casts a lot of skills that make him mana hungry and if you are not careful enough, will see yourself out of mana a lot of times. Book of Thoth or any other mana items can be a good choice most of the time.
  
  
• HP: If you need to counter one-shot gods then why not build some HP items as Warlock's Staff, Soul Gem...
  
  
• Anti-heal: Some enemies will require anti-heals if you want to beat them and ability based anti-heals like Divine Ruin can be decent options for you if you want to fight in a 1 vs 1 against an enemy with healing or lifesteal.
  
  
• Ability Lifesteal: Soul Gem can be a decent option if you are looking for lifesteal. You may get other LS occasionally too.
  
  
• CDR: As a total ability-dependent mage, you will need to spam your skills to have a good performance and CDR will help you do it.
  
  
• Utility Items: Generically, items with some utilities for your match like Ethereal Staff, Magi's Cloak to absorve a hard cc...

What a Thoth build mustn't have?

• Attack Speed (AS): Thoth's 1 does not proc AS and you will not fire basic without this skill so avoid the rings (except Shaman's Ring).
  
  
• Tank Items: like Stone of Gaia, Mystical Mail, defenses in general...

In this section I tell you the pros and cons of each build and for each situation, each build was made for.

Please don't forget to read the notes of each build, they have important comments ;)

builds

Standard Build
(No Stacks)

If you follow this build, you will have a lot of power, MP5, pen (flat and %) and will hurt HARD when you finish your build. However, you will have to pay a price for it: your early game will be bad. Since Thoth is dependent on his items to be a threat you probably will see yourself doing nothing or almost nothing early-game. So, this build offers HIGH DAMAGE and HIGH PEN but will take a reasonable time to get online.

Standard Stacking Build Example

If you follow this build, you will get online a bit later but will land more powerful attacks. If you feel your game is nice and slow and you will reach a late-game you can go with this build for more burst power than the traditional one.

Anti-heal build example

This build offers the anti-healing you may need if facing a god dependent on healing, since you will be poking him every 5 secs or less, you will be applying anti-healing all the time. Recommended when you want to bully your enemy (a healer) at lane so you can annoy poking him every 5 secs or less from a long-distance applying healing debuff on every hit.

My final considerations are: UUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Spoiler: Click to view

Kidding, Thoth can be a funny god to play with and brings a lot of satisfaction when you have a good match with him. Plus he has the most iconic ulti sound that makes everyone fear him just by listening to it ;)

• Tlaloc1050 - The one who gave me his guide to continue his job after he went away.
• All the artists who made these amazing arts included on this guide: Zennore (as usual <3), CutiChan, Hedgieart, Whisky Wyrm, Stormed, demonicdisorder...
• All the nice guys that commented on this guide <3

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