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Get whatever relics you prefer, I like beads and aegis because they are almost always great.
Ninja Tabi
Bloodforge
The Crusher
Demon Blade
Poisoned Star
Deathbringer
This build works pretty well, especially now that it takes under 10 mins to stack his passive, I don't suggest this build in conquest. It is ok in assault you just have to rearrange items. Joust is decent. I haven't tested it in clash or siege. This is a slightly solo build so you don't have to rely on your team to help you get kills except very early game when your passive isn't stacked. If this build doesn't work for you, just move on to another build, you obviously don't play the same as me... (as a diamond with pretty decent stats...)
For the Xbal noobs or the more experienced who want a new strat to try. My personal strategy for the beginning of the game is to wait for someone squishy (like a mage, assassins, or another hunter, someone lower level than you, or an overly aggressive warrior), wait for them to themselves seperated from their team then WALK in, use your poisons bolts and make sure your #1 is on the whole time, do NOT use your #3 unless you're sure you can get the kill AND get out safely after, it has cc immunity on it so it is extremely effective in escaping. Don't use your #1 on minions unless they need to be killed quickly and even then, use your poison bolts because your #1 uses a lot of mana early game and you don't want to get attacked without mana or fall behind in level and your passive because you have to go back to base all the time, I personally pretty much only use it in combat. The main thing about Xbal is to rack up the damage as fast as possible, if you can stack his passive entirely before 5 mins in the game, you'll dominate. If you can get it before 10 mins (which you should because it's easy) you'll keep up, but the devs gave him a chance to be OP as heck if you can stack it fast. If you have it stacked fast, you'll be 5 shotting the squishies for the rest of the time your build isn't finished. Once end game has come around, you'll be 3 shotting the mages, hunters, and assassins easily unless they have a mitigation item or also built lifesteal. But my main thing is always start your fight with your poison bolts, because Xbal's fights are extremely short if he's 1v1ing, your poison will last the whole thing unless you're sitting there trying to kill a tank. Use your ult as a panic maker, if you need a push, use your ult and run to their weakest player, most likely the entire other team will know how to counter your ult (not very hard) but if you go for the squishy and have them at half health by the time your ult is over, they might panic and keep moving so you'll get the stun. And usually the squishy ones are the strongest damagers so if you can kill their main asset, you'll have a good strong push. Hopefully this is helpful for the new people the Xbal, I tried to make it easy to understand, it works for me and I always use this build so it works with the build. Just remember if you're doing well, don't get cocky, I've done it too many times, you'll get over confident run into a battle you can't get out of and lose your streak. So try not to be the over confident idiot on your team :P
-DarkHorse :)
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Here's a suggestion:
Crit build:
P.S. How u paste items in post so fast?
It's pretty easy to do if you add the brackets while you're writing.
1) you do not situationally consider the executioner over the crusher against a tanky composition. A guardian/support can build gauntlet of thebes and sovereignty. The crusher will not provide effective penetration against squishy targets at that point.
2) i can see the crusher being more useful than the executioner for maybe the first two hits. If your squishy target is two hits away from dying, yes crusher's penetration will probably be more useful at that point because you need 3 hits to stack executioner. But this is a very unique scenario, and you dont explain this.
3) as pointed out by branmuffin, you spread false information in the guide. Your crits wont be doing as much damage as you claim, especially against tanks.
4) instead of trying to defend your points, you threaten to report kriega when all he did was offer you suggestions (initially).
The rare occasions that I see a player that knows what they're doing in arena I can say that they don't build anything like this, building
While I can't deny Kriega is very acknowledged with the game, I do agree with you that the attittude is ridiculous, and has even put me off of even thinking about attempting to contribute much here anymore, expecting a heated lecture following afterwards.
I understand your concern regarding this matter.
I'll add to this: there's plenty of knowledge to be gained here without being ridiculed. Additionally, this site is, or at least was when I got here, a free source for anyone to contribute, so (as controversial as this may sound considering what I said above about myself), don't let no attittude push you away from creating your content.
However, I would like to ask, and this goes for everyone, not just you, to put in the effort in the guide for the site that it deserves. Builds aren't necessarily good because they "work". As it has been made clear, against bad players, any build goes, most of the time. I don't think it's too much to ask for one to at least get a reasonable amount of time in the game, before they post their builds. Again, controversial as F*, but I feel that that's reasonable.
That said, building non-meta (say, high AS/high MS hunter to benefit from Medusa's sidewinder, for example) and building with lack of build knowledge (triple crit without Exe) are different things.
Hence, I tried to explain this while being reasonable in my comments earlier on this build.
@xZero: DarkHorse said he's around level 80. I think that's plenty of time to have experience with the game. Not like it's level 20.
Theres definitely plenty of feedback to be had here... But Kriega's "harsh" comments aside, he still should be more open about listening to feedback.
Also, I personally did not read through the guide, just added my €0.02 about:
Is all.
And I'm also all for non-meta builds... as long as they work. Take this
A
A
An
Here's another
And the icing on the cake? A
My point is is that it's perfectly fine to try out new builds, but you had better damned well know what your god's particular strengths and weaknesses are because, just like what you said about players, a build for one god doesn't necessarily work on another god. The meta is the meta because it's what works the majority of the time. If you want to experiment, you would probably be best to try it out in a bot match in arena first because bots aren't pushovers and they will gang up on you.
Also I would love to see your reasoning as to why you pick up
That said, the comment you are threatening to report is not deemed report-worthy. FYI I handle the reports
When you write a guide, you are opening yourself up and accepting that people will comment and provide their feedback. If you are not okay with criticism, you may not want to create builds.
I know that kriega in fact watches a lot of pro play and usually suggests builds that would be considered mostly meta.
Finally, your claim of higher crits is 100% not accurate. The alternate build proposed has higher power and more significant penetration function. In a single hit, it will out damage your build, at least once stacks of executioner are built.
Understand that this is not meant as an attack on you. However I feel it is very important to state things accurately.
I think your idea of providing a suggestion is much narrower in vision than the general concept.
But you want reasons?
- Suggestion: Don't get
Bloodforge 2nd.
The Executioner being a very functional item, not including the fact that it's a meta item (for a good reason).
- Suggestion: Get
Transcendence instead.
Bloodforge, AND provide a high amount of mana that will allow you to almost infinitely use your Branching Bolas, if you so choose.
- Alternate suggestion: Consider
Soul Eater.
- Suggestion: Consider moving away from
The Crusher. You REALLY should get 
The Executioner instead.
The Executioner, it honestly shows a lack of understanding on how power and pen work together to deal more damage.
- Suggestion: Consider
Rage instead of one of the Shuriken items.
Rage at full stacks gives a huge boost to your DPS specifically with regard to % chance. 
Poisoned Star is fine, but it's more of a 1v1 boxing tool to help you reduce incoming damage vs. that target and get the better of that exchange. You'll have plenty of AS from Ninja + WD + Exe, with sometimes adding the AS buff.
Agni with 0 added protections (63 inherent). DPS is 770, averaged out with your crit %. I have no clue where you get the idea that you're hitting for 900 damage crits.
Poisoned Star with 
Rage, a single crit against that 
Agni (with full Exe stacks) does 508 damage, with DPS at 940.
Just suggestions (I do define these as suggestions), and I don't know if my reasons even matter to you, but there it is.Reason: It has a high cost. Yes, the power is very high, and the damage shield is nice. But as you say, "he has an OP dash"...which acts as an escape as well. You also have a blind in your ult. If you need that damage shield early to prevent yourself from dying, you're likely out of position due to lack of awareness or over-aggressiveness. My Items Guide has a section that talks about build order.
Power curve is a thing. It's about building X item at Y price, and what that does for you at Z time. BF's cost is
Also, this post on balancing attack speed and power might be of service in some ways, if you're actually open to learning/reading/whatever. It also talks about
Reason: It costs a bit less. You can argue that the cost really isn't that different, and I'll accept that. But you'll have to accept that it won't take long to build Trans stacks, and once fully stacked, it'll provide almost 30 higher power than
Reason: It costs less than both other items. It solves your issue of wanting lifesteal early, and even provides lifesteal from your abilities. It has a lower base power, and lower fully-stacked power, but only 10 less than BF in the end...and you should stack that quickly. Also gives you the CDR as Trans does but BF does not...so you can use your OP abilities more often.
Reason: "I picked up crusher because I wanted a pen item that had a passive that would complement Xbal, and bleed sounded pretty good to me, more overtime damage on top of his poison was good." This isn't a bad item by any means. But building something because it "sounded pretty good" seems to show a lack of full build consideration, or perhaps in other words, very brief consideration. The passive falls off late, too...15% scaling from power is somewhat low. At least it has some pen, but the pen won't compare on a general level to Exe. When building crit and NOT including
Reason: Getting 3 crit items doesn't increase your damage per individual hit, per se, other than the power contribution (or DB's passive).
SOooo...a single crit hit with your build at level 20 does 459 damage to a level 20
Replacing BF with Trans (full stacks), Crusher w/ Exe, and
If you want that lifesteal, replace BF with Soul, and you should still deal more damage, at least with consideration to DPS, while also having better lifesteal and some CDR compared to BF.
Your alternate builds are very good suggestions, which I think DarkHorse should be taking into consideration.
"Xbal can buff his basic attacks with his #1 forever until he runs out of mana" - Except you will need to carefully manage it if you don't have
Also the whole point of the comments section is so builds like these that need a bit more thought into them can be criticised.
Also Titan's Bane and Obsidian Shard still have their uses, they are just more situational now.
I will conclude with this statement: we have given you our feedback. Its your guide, do whatever you want. I cannot, in good faith, recommend this guide to anyone though.
Not enough attack speed and penetration from the crusher. Use the executioner instead.
Tips on how to play xbal look ok.