The Huntress' Guide to Kicking Ass (Incomplete, accidental click)

Artemis is a strange goddess in SMITE, one that I consider to be the only real "hyper carry" in the game (so far). Her damage potential is unmatched by any other god, but that potential comes with the downside of being really weak early game, and being squishy all the time.

If you play her right, she can be a (un?)holy terror to the enemy team, capable of near-instantly killing any god that goes off alone and forcing them to waste time trying to gank you. If you play her wrong, you will be worse than if you left that match at the start. You will be a dead weight on your team, constantly being ganked and told to uninstall your game, possibly by the admin or God.

Overall, she is a very risky but very rewarding goddess.

Pros

- God melter at late/mid game. - Versatile skills. - Powerful self-buffing skill. - Great poking skill and AoE slow. - Crits are reliable earlier compared to other gods.

Cons

- Squishiest God Ever. Of all time. - Possibly the worst early-game god. - Utility skills means less damage. - Lacks an escape.

This phase of the game is the worst for any carry, but especially hard on Artemis. Mainly, because her passive is bloody useless.

At most, you get a 15% chance of double damage. Statistically speaking, only about one in every seven hits is going to crit. These are not odds you want to rely on in a fight.

Play defensively. Use your range to your advantage. Place wards in jungle choke points and other key areas to avoid ganks. Be knowledgeable. Know your enemies' movesets and strategies. Think ahead. If Apollo is in your lane, be wary of his rush and ultimate. If Loki is in your lane, stay near your tower and place a trap. This may just sound like generic advice, but Artemis can deplete her entire HP bar in a few seconds. You must
be two steps ahead.

And above all else, stay alive. Use your mana-hungry abilities sparingly, and sustain with your lifesteal. You do not want to be underleveled, and being dead is usually the quickest way to achieve that.

If Everything Goes to Hell:

If you've died too often for your liking, try getting one of the specialized items. The Brawler's Beatstick is great if the enemy has lots of healing, and it also increases your crit chance. The Runic Shield provides decent defense against enemy mages, and I'd buy it instead of the Gloves and the Beatstick in place of Rage.

Don't get me wrong, none of these items will make you a bruiser or anything. But they will help in certain situations, especially in early game where people don't move a lot.

This is pretty simple. At early levels, the last hit bonus will offer a significant advantage, so I'd recommend working on the archers in the back while your mooks take out the guys in front.

Place wards. Don't be stupid. 'Nuff said.

There is a glaring flaw in my build: The lack of penetration, at least until the late game. My build has later penetration for earlier reliability. If you wish, you can swap the Rage for the Executioner if the enemy team has more bruisers or tanks than carries.

At last, Artemis has blossomed! By the time the laning phase is almost over, you should have at least a few stacks of Devourer's Gloves, and perhaps a stack of Rage. You will be critting far more reliably, and now you can gank squishies quite easily.

At this point, you are hopefully a priority target. If you are not, just continue to farm cautiously until you have Rage. It is a waste of a passive to have it as a slightly beneficial but ultimately negligible bonus.

By now, you know the drill. Use your speed to jump from lane to lane and gank people. If you are not a threat, make yourself a threat.

By the time you get the Deathbringer, you will start to melt people, regardless of role. It is now time to consider your finishing item.

If they have a lot of high-HP gods, try the Qin's Blades. If there is an annoying god who has built a lot of Physical Defense, get the Titan's Bane. Need Cooldown? Jotuun's Wrath. If they're just too fast for you or you need a generic finisher, the Fatalis or Frostbound Hammer will do fine.

Artemis is the best character at single target damage. It makes her near-unbeatable one-on-one, great in the side lane with a partner, but a bit lackluster in team fights. This means that no matter what happens, you must stick to your target.

Ahem. Please excuse the hyperbole there. Feel free to jab a nearby god with low health to finish them off. But for the most part, pick a target and stay on them like a bloodhound.

I've said this once, and I'll say it a thousand times: Artemis is squishy. Her main defense is attacking the enemy god with maximum speed, power, and accuracy, which can be trying in a one-on-one fight, let alone a team fight. If you spread your damage among multiple targets, that will keep enemy gods alive longer, which means Artemis will continue to receive damage.

Because of this, it is essential to know her defensive strategies. Her defense has three components: Power, Lifesteal, and Dodging.

The Lifesteal is simple enough. Do enough damage to mitigate some of the damage you are receiving. Simple, but there's one problem: If you don't do enough damage, even 50% Lifesteal won't matter.

The damage is something else. There are multiple ways to deal damage. You could try for raw physical power. You could try to manipulate some items' passives, like the Hydra's Lament or the Eye of Retaliation. However, the one I use, and the one supported by Artemis' passive, is a critical damage build.

In the end, the type of damage isn't too important. All that matters is inflicting as much damage as possible to an enemy god in the shortest period of time.

Dodging is not speed. Speed can help, but dodging is also about predicting your opponent's attacks. This is near-completely dependent on player skill, so I can't really give any advice other than saying it's important.

Dodging accomplishes a lot:

- Makes them waste time, and possibly mana and a cooldown
- Gives you an opportunity to strike back.
- Gives you some leeway to attack if it's an important skill that's on cooldown.

NOTE: This section assumes that your Artemis is at least mid level and has a critical hit chance of at least 40 percent with her passive running, as well as being in a one-on-one/two fight. It is not advisable to fight more than one targets at once, even if fed.

Against Melee

This applies to most bruisers and some carries. Loki is a whole other ball game, and he will be discussed in the "Problematic Gods" section.

Okay, melee gods. You have one enormous advantage that you must abuse: range.

You can sit back and unload arrows into their face, and they have no choice but to take it. When you have two or so seconds of uninterrupted damage, you can take down nearly anything.

Remember this: The Huntress must be patient. She does not always stalk prey, but wait for it to come to her. In less flowery words, do not start engagements melee gods unless you are supremely confident of victory, or it will end very, very badly for you.

This is the key factor in Artemis' tactics: She lacks an escape, while most of her enemies don't. Poke them and shoot them from a distance. Wait for them to use their pounce to come to you, so they can't use it later.

When they get close to you, abuse that fact by placing a vine trap beneath your feet. If they're in your face, they will get caught and will be stuck for 2 seconds. If not, force them to walk into the trap, since they have no choice but to get close to hit you. It take about a second to back off enough to avoid damage, which leaves you about a second to punish them for their transgression. Hell, if you're fast enough, you can even place it mid-leap!

At that point, ideally, the enemy god will be at low-mid health. You can chase them down if your Vengeful Assault is still up, or you can slow them down with her Suppress the Insolent. Then either they will die or escape to recall, and either way you can derive them of XP, gaining an advantage.

If Everything Goes to Hell:

If they managed to avoid the trap, if you're at low health, or if they're in your face with high health, summon your boar before tapping 2. Three seconds of CC immunity with +20% speed isn't a joke. The boar might stun them for a bit. Try running in a straight line and placing a trap right under your feet. The nice part about Artemis' moves is that they all can be used to achieve similar effects.

And if all else fails, then die fighting. Then call in a gank on your weakened opponent.

Against Ranged

For the purposes of this guide, a ranged character is any character that relies on rapid distanced basic attacks, such as Freya. This may overlap with certain, ah, (IMO overpowered) mages like He Bo.

Typically, at early levels, other ranged attackers will have an advantage. Artemis does not yet have her massive damage output, and their attacks will hurt. Stay near your tower, use potions, or recall. If you are lucky, you might catch them by surprise with a teleport, or have an ally gank them for you. But if you're reading this, you are not that lucky.

Use your ultimate as soon as you can hit with it. Then try to inflict as much damage as possible. Hopefully, they'll get spooked and recall, leaving you free to farm the last of the minion wave and push your minions to their doom against the enemy tower, where you should feel free to recall if needed. With your wards to stall them, you'll be aware of any gank attempts.

That tiny bit of XP deprivation may not seem like a lot, but it is the little things that count. You need to play passive when they're aggressive, and wait for them to make a mistake. Each time they overextend, or slip up, or waste some mana, they're slowly losing their advantage over you.

Then, when they're at low HP or mana, strike. Artemis has a unique advantage in that she doesn't not rely as much on mana to deal damage than any other god in the game. If you get a lucky root on them, try weaving side to side to avoid one or two shots.

At mid levels, you need to be even more vigilant. An ultimate like Freya's or Anhur's can easily end your no-death streak. As long as you are not ganked, at a reasonable level, and have an equal amount of players on both sides, you should be fine.

If Everything Goes to Hell:

Let's say you're having an off day and were missing all of your attacks while taking some. Let's say you barely survived a gank attempts, and you just know Xbalanque is going to tower dive.

You're doomed. Really, your only hope is if their skills are on cooldown.

The ideal situation is that you can avoid being on low health against other ranged attackers at all.

Mages

I dunno if it's just me, but these guys are usually a living nightmare. They have the distinct advantage of being less squishy than you but having a higher DPS for a few seconds. He Bo, at level 4, with most of his abilities off cooldown, can take you down in a few seconds, and your DPS is so pitiful that all it can do is curl up in a corner and cry.

That's the tricky thing. Over a long period of time, their DPS isn't so high, but over a few seconds, it's insane. Especially if their ultimate is up. Most mage ultimates do an absurd amount of damage that can easily kill you at half or even two-thirds health.

There is no "If It All Goes to Hell" for this entry because it has already gone to hell. There is nothing more frustrating than stunning, trapping, and almost killing Poseidon when he Davy Jones your *** and kills you.

The best case scenario? You have a tank that could stun the mage, then you lay it on him. Copy the mage by bursting too. Maybe, just maybe, it might work. If not, request a lane switch and/or a gank.

Late-Mid Game? Squash them like flies, if you survived. If not, then you are the fly.

If you have no problems with killing burst-y mages, please contact me and tell me your secrets. I'm begging you.

Tanks

Tanks, by themselves, are pretty pathetic. Even Ares, with all his tick damage is easily defeated with enough damage and lifesteal. It's their CC that's the problem, along with the fact that tanks are almost never alone.

With all tanks, it's quite easy to kill them at early levels, where they haven't built all of their defenses yet. At later levels, they're the epitome of slow but steady; their ultimates can do a surprising amount of damage, and usually come with nasty side effects.

Tanks are some of the most varied classes in the game, so I will merely add the type of CC and some suggestions. And as always, Purification Beads are an universal answer.

Slows/Roots: Thankfully, most slows aren't too bad. They're near useless in the thick of an actual fight, and are mostly used to prevent or aid chases. Don't forget, you can effectively counter one slow with your own. Roots are more annoying, but they don't prevent you from attacking or calling your board, which is okay.

Stuns: These are usually the setup attacks that proceed a brutal murder attempt. Some, like Ymir's Listerine attack, have a surprising range.

Pulls/Taunt/Knockback: This is Nasty. Almost all of the time, they're pulling you to set you up for a huge series of ultimates or to set up a combo. Sobek is particularly dangerous, so try to keep your distance. And for God's sake, if you see a puller hang near their tower, stay back.

Banish: Banish can either be the most dangerous kind of CC, or the kind that will make you fall off your chair laughing. There's not much you can do other than try to dodge.

Fear: It sucks monkey balls, since they essentially have a few seconds to freely hit you. Not much you can do about that, I'm afraid, since every fear effect in this game has a huge radius and activates near-instantly.

Silence: This could prevent you from escaping, which is annoying, but it's not bad when you're at full health.

For all of these, the key is to remain calm. Don't panic and forget to use your active item that you hopefully bought, or your ultimate if you need to bail. Thankfully, most of the time your speed buff is unneeded, since most tanks have poor chasing skills.

And if you're against a tank and another type alone, either flee or kill the DPS guy first.

Ideal Targets:

You're going to want to hit someone who follows at least two of the below categories:

1. Is unaware of your presence.
2. Is at most one level higher.
3. Is some distance from his allies, whether by sight or mentality. For example, if Isis and Hun Batz are pushing a tower, and Isis is on the edges of the tower while Batz is inside, Batz is going to be distracted for a few seconds, possible enough for you to get the kill.

Artemis loses her potency in a two-on-one fight, so it is best to attack a clueless group one by one from behind, hopefully delaying/stopping them from noticing you and

The ideal ganking position is from behind. If they are laning, try to emerge from the jungle as quickly as you can.

Most of the time, you are pretty safe starting with your Transgressor's Fate. Since you are coming from behind while they are distracted by either a tower or an allied god, you should have little trouble placing the trap.

Then back off a little and start bashing them with your criticals. They should lose a decent chunk of health, and are often too disoriented to attack back, and might even panic and use their escape.

You could chase them down with your speed boost from Vengeful Assault or slow them with Suppress the Insolent, but you could also use your ultimate if fast killing is a priority.

Never forget, initiate with your boar only if you have to. Attacking a stunned opponent is basically free life for you and forced damage on them, which can only prolong your life and shorten theirs. However, if you get free health while being at full health, it will accomplish only half its full potential.