Wrecking Ball

Athena is a very supportive god, with her ultimate ability being able to teleport to any teammate while giving them damage mitigation for the duration of the ability. Although a guardian, Athena can be built and used many different ways. This build will allow you to take a considerable amount of damage while also being able to secure kills. I normally use this build in joust, but I have successfully used it in conquest as well.

Purchasing the voidstone as your first item provides an advantage over the enemy team in the beginning of the game. The early damage bonus allows you to either kill or drive players back.


The Shoes of Focus are recommended early as well due to Athena being extremely mana-hungry in the early game and they offer mana as well as power.


The Warlock's Sash is another great item. It builds health and mana and has a good passive, where gaining a stack grants +3 health and +.6 magical power. A god kill grants 5 stacks and minion kills grant 1. The stacks persist through death. Max 100 stacks.


The Ethereal Staff is another health and mana based item, but it does offer some magical power and converts 2.5% of your maximum health to magical power.


Gem of Isolation builds a good balance of power, health, and mana. It's passive reduces enemy god movement speed by 25% for 2 seconds when they are hit by one of you damaging abilities.


The final item of this build, Soul Reaver, builds magical power and mana, giving you a damage boost end-game.

Lets talk about skills. Athena has very effective skills if you know how to use them. Athena's first skill is Preemptive Strike. It is good for initiating/escaping battles. This, with her other two abilities, is a very good combo. Initiate an attack with preemptive strike then immediately follow with shield wall. The enemy will be slowed and take damage from the shield wall. you then want to quickly but carefully hit them with confound. Depending on your health you can either stand in the shield wall or get the hell out of dodge. Regardless, the enemy will have been pulled into the shield wall for a second time, taking the second wave of damage, and being slain or hurt enough to retreat. Due to Athena essentially flying in like a "wrecking ball", this guide is appropriately named.

Pros:
You deal a considerable amount of damage end game and still have the health to tank effectively.

Cons:
You are easily killed if not careful early game and can run out of mana easily early game, crippling your combo.

As an experienced guardian, I find Athena very fun to play as. This build allows you to get a decent amount of kills while also being able to tank damage effectively. I hope this guide helps. Stay classy San Diego.