Vulcan - Shaking Mid Lane

Hey SmiteFire, GeouZu here, with my 3rd guide that is about Vulcan. He is very fun god to play , and in right hands he is very strong. I usually build Vulcan full damage, and sometimes magi's , warlocks sash or ethereal staff for a bit of defence.

Heavy Shot

Nature's Protection PROS Great Damage Long Range Ultimate Good wave clear Nature's Protection CONS Bad Passive Backfire is the only "escape" ability Tricky to use your magma bomb Ultimate is hard to hit from far away

Heavy Shot

Heavy Shot

Your passive. Let's say that the passive is really bad. Vulcan is not auto-attack based god, so the passive is worthless, and it is hard to benefit from it.

Your main clear ability. It has great damage and is on low cooldown. Also when used it pulls you to the opposite direction of the shot, so it can be used as a short dash, although it is pretty short and won't help against gods with dashes/jumps (any gap closers ). Although you can avoid some abilities if you use backfire quickly.

Your "pet". It has good damage late game. You put 1 skill point at the start of the game, just to help you out clearing jungle camp ( additional damage + tanking creep damage), although you will want to max this skill last.

Your only CC. It has good damage, and knocks your opponent to the opposite direction where the bomb hits. So if you throw the bomb in the back of your enemy, it will knock him forward. This can be used to do some combos, like your main combo that will be explained in the appropriate section.

Your ultimate. It has high damage and a big area of damage. Also its distance is great. It is great to gank lanes, or to use when you are ganked. You will want to use this skill from jungle , or the point from which your enemy won't see you using this skill. Also you can use this skill when you are ganked, and enemy is close to you. You just ult at your ground location. This might turn around the fight if you are 1v1 or 1v2, although if there are more enemies, it will probably not save you, unless they are very low on health. It is also great for stealing objectives.

Backfire is your main damage/clear skill that is on low cooldown. Because of that we max it first.

Inferno Cannon - We mostly put a skill point into this skill at first level. We do this because the turret will help you clear the jungle camp, and it will take the damage ( tank it), although we will max it last, because it is easily destroyed and we need damage from our 1 and 3 first.

Magma Bomb We max it 2nd. It has good damage, and combined with your Backfire it does pretty good damage.Also it is great for initiations and combos.

Earthshaker Out ultimate. It has great damage and we level it up whenever it is possible (level 5,9,13,17,20).

So now lets get into items and their explanation. We need magical power, magical penetration and cooldown reduction.

Starter item for every mage. It gives us magical power, health and mp 5. We will need those during our early game. Also the passive that gives us 10 health and mana is pretty useful.

Useful item that will give you 20 magical power and 4% lifesteal early on, and then we will build/update this item to Bancroft's Talon

A must on any god. It gives you magical power and mana, but most importantly it gives you movement speed. Vulcan has no escapes except a small dash on his Backfire, so movement speed is very especially important on Vulcan.

Talon is a great item for mages. It gives you good amount of magical power, but most importantly it gives you passive 12% lifesteal and additional magical power for your missing health.

I love this item. It is great item on every mage because of it's magical power and cooldown reduction. And cooldown reduction is pretty important not only for Vulcan but for every other mage.

One of the items that gives you the most magical power. It is good as a 5th or 6th item because of it's passive. You need as much magical power as possible to be able to use the passive of this item at it's max.

In my opinion it is a very efficient item. It gives you 131 magical power just without any other items, so if you want max. damage - then get book of thoth.

70 magical power. not bad, but it is not the most important stat of this item. It is 33% penetration. Penetration is important stat for us, not just because we will shred tanks better with it, but it will make us deal more damage to the gods without any protections too.

Magi's Blessing

I buy this item rarely, but sometimes you really need it. When you are behind and enemy has much CC. Coupled with beads it will really help out.

Warlock's Sash

Another stacking item. It gives you big amount of health, mana and some magical power. Although the biggest downside of this item is that you need 100 stacks to use this item on it's max. And 100 stacks is a big amount.

This item is like warlocks sash described above, although it gives you less hp and mana, but you don't need to stack it. So it is great if you need tankiness in mid-late game when you are rotating and can't sit in lane to farm 100 stacks.

I am not the biggest fan of this item and I use it rarely, but it can work on Vulcan. It has good magical power and it's passive is useful with Earthshaker or Magma Bomb

You need them. Every time you go to base try to get 2 wards with you, so you can ward mid lane, it will keep you safer, but even with wards don't overextend for too much.

Your main objectives in early game are - Farming and poking your enemy to make him farm harder or even make him go to base. You should place the ward on the side of Solo lane, because enemy jungler can gank you from that side. After level 5 you can rotate to mid or solo lanes if you see that enemies are overextended and you can gank and kill them or make them go to base.

Remember: Don't lose farm. Rotate only when you clear the wave , this is very important because you want to be fed as possible.


Here the fun begins. You will be able to clear the wave with just your Backfire, meaning that you will clear faster, easier and be able to rotate more. You will mostly want to rotate with your support or jungler, or alone if you see that it is an easy prey.

When you try to gank an enemy you should go from back, and use your Magma Bomb to knock your enemy up, and then put your Inferno Cannon and use your Backfire. If you are confident then you can go to lane and use your ult on low-health enemy and finish him.

When the teamfights start you want to be in the back lines and spam your abilities from there. In teamfights your main objective is to pick off one single enemy and deal maximum damage to them.

Backfire is great to reposition yourself and can be used as a small dash.

Magma Bomb is good escape skill if enemy is close-ranged. Imagine that Mercury is attacking you, you keep running and throw Magma Bomb at your feet. It will knock up Merc and coupled with backfire will help you escape.

Earthshaker is great for stealing Gold Fury/Fire Giant and unexpectedly ganking enemy lane from jungle.

So here the guide ends. I tried something new for me (writing a guide about mid lane) and i tried my best to provide information but don't make the guide too long and like a wall of text. I hope you liked the guide and most important - got some new information here.

If you have any advice, criticism, or you found a mistake feel free to post in the comments and I will fix it.

Thanks for reading.

Here I want to thank everybody who helped me make this guide.

Jordenito and TormentedTurnip for their Code Blue: BBCoding for Beginners . I used BB codes from there cause so check it out if you want to create your guide.

Subzero I used his template for pros. and cons.

And big thanks and shotout for people who are on SmiteFire and who make this community good ;) Love ya guys <3

11/11/2014