Xbalanque: The Deadly Jaguar

Hello everybody! This is my first guide ever, and I hope I do a good job and show a new way to play this new god.

Note: Due to the fact that SMITEFIRE still hasn't updated all the items, this build is not complete.

Note#2: This guide is published, but it is incomplete. Please keep your reviews thinking this guide is like SMITE: It is in BETA. I cannot finish it until SMITEFIRE has updated all the items and I myself have gotten more practice with Xbalanque and all the new items. I will however love CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, as this is my first guide. In fact, I would love it if somebody could temm me how to add in pictures for skills, items, and buffs? Thank you, and enjoy!

Pros:
- High damage potential.
- Good escapist.
- OK ganker.
- Very useful during team fights.
- Chase down enemies with ease.
- Good at taking down minions early game.

Cons:
- Squishy.
- NOT a strong initiator.
- Can manaburn if you're not careful.
- Can't jump over walls/obstacles.

Let's see...

Xbalanque is a ranged physical carry, if played well.

He should focus mainly on attack-speed, power, life-steal, and focus due for his slow and stun.

Since high damage is also high life-steal, one life-steal item should be enough.

Build Order:

Meditation: Xbalanque CAN be very mana hungry if not played properly early game; his BRANCHING BOLA (#1) can burn your blue bar down to nothing VERY fast, especially with high attack speed. This can also help secure kills and escape; no mana will never be an excuse to die or miss a kill.
It also now costs 250, so it works well with the next item.

The Executioner: Since meditation costs 250, I can buy up to tier 2 of this item, which provides a lot of useful attack-speed and power, giving you an upper-hand early game. Also, when the next two items have been completed, the last tier, tier 3 of this item provides a little penetration, by the time everybody builds a little protection against you.

Warrior's Tabi: Warriors Tabi is now very useful, as not only does it have power, attack-speed, and critical-chance, it now also has two modes of speed: 21% in combat, 33% out of it. Speed is very important, making this tabi the way to roll.

Devourers Gloves: This item is the best! It has power AND life-steal, also later added on to by stacks! This item has crazy life-steal by all 40 stacks, and a great power booster. Stacks are never lost, so all the better! This item can fulfill all life-steal needs, and none other are needed.

Xbalanque is a very cool god, but the thing is, I don't know which skill to max out first. Both his BRANCHING BOLA (#1) and RISING JAGUAR(#3) are so very useful skills, great for both initiating and chasing. I would balance them, and although that sounds stupid, it works well.

BRANCHING BOLA (#1):
This skill is quite useless early game, unless you land a few good hits, but it's still mana waste. A good idea is to make this your SECOND skill to get, as an escape is much more important. Anyway, you wont be using it until you initiate, because RISING JAGUAR (#3) is much more useful a skill for clearing minions. Middle and Late game though, this is whole another deal. If you have a lot of attack-speed by now, this will be more of a mana burn, but very nice for killing after an initiation, and this will be your primary skill to take out towers and jungle creeps.
Note: If you have this skill active, and you are targeting a tower, and there is an enemy god nearby, deactivate it, as the branching part might get you killed because the tower targets you.

POISON DARTS (#2):
This skill is also very useless early game, especially without high focus. But getting rank 1 of this skill and keeping it that way is very useful for RISING JAGUAR (#3), as it increases damage by 50% for little mana. This makes jungling and chasing much more effective. The best part about this skill is that with high focus, this can be a great skill to slow, anywhere and everywhere!

RISING JAGUAR (#3):
My favorite skill! This skill is useful in so many ways!
- It is a great escape, but it can't function like a godly leap, able to go through everything. (You can't go over walls or even Odin's spears. Circle around.)
- By level 10, if you have all 5 ranks, this is great minion clearance, especially with the HUGE AOE. It kills everything.
- This is great for jungling, especially when you are weak early game.
- This is a great skill for chasing, because if you can get the POISON DARTS (#2) in, a slow, and use this, if the victim had low health, he/she is dead, definitely with the huge AOE. And if not, a BRANCHING BOLA (#1) or two will finish it with the slow.
- With a high rank, it has a small cool-down, making it more functional as it has so many uses, and be able to spam more. All the more reason to rank this first.
I love this skill, and it might just be my favorite skill in the game!

DARKEST OF NIGHTS (#4):
This skill is plain CRAZY. But it is crazy useful. Ranking it though, is useless. The first rank is more than enough, and then making this skill your last priority is perfect, as neither the cool-down, nor mana usage changes, or even the stun time and focus by ranking. This makes it the last skill to rank, as even POISON DARTS (#2) increases with physical damage after ranking. Only the movement speed increases, but that is useless until late game, when enemy gods will be able to kill you more easily.
The best way to use this skill is during team fights, when enemies are initiating or running, giving you assists and helping out your team, even if you are not present, which should never be the case. You can also be selfish and use it when you are initiating, and you really want the kill.
A few useful tips are:
- Use this in team-fights, during initiations and chases.
- Use POISON DARTS (#2) right after using this skill, as the slow will be much more effective with the high focus increase.
- When the skill is used the first time, there is a huge lag, and it has made many (including me) die. So when you get the skill, first thing to do is to use it in base, no matter what.

Jungling:
Xbalanque is a very strong jungler, but should start at about level 9, when RISING JAGUAR (#3) is at rank 4, and BRANCHING BOLA (#1) is rank 3. POISON DARTS (#2) is recommended to be used only in buff camps, where the huge guys are. He should start out with the mana buff, hence take the left lane. When the left lane is tower-less, by around level 12 ideally, he should start jungling everywhere, and even invading into the enemy camps of exp, movement, attack and cool-down, only going into the enemy mana buff when pushing a tower or with the team, as it is a very risky buff. Mid Game, jungling should be cautious, but late game, you should hog all the camps from the enemy team, and live.

Ganking:
Ganking is generally a bad idea with Xbalanque unless the enemy is weak and squishy or you have a good team. Either way, Xbalanque is squishy, so be careful. The best sequence I think for ganking is: DARKEST OF NIGHTS (#4), POISON DARTS (#2), BRANCHING BOLA (#1), then when they start escaping, RISING JAGUAR (#3), and finish with BRANCHING BOLA (#1). This should secure the kill.

Xbalanque is a tricky god. Early game, he should lane with tanks so he doesn't feed, but even better a good damage dealer to secure kills and get fed. The best option would be to go with a god, who is a glass cannon, tank, who can heal. Guan Yu does that very well, and even Hades. This makes sure Xbalanque is fed, and is able to dominate his lane and team fights.

Mid game, team fights will break up, and although this is counter intuitive, I would say avoid your team. Follow them, keep close, but avoid. This way if enemies attack, you wont have to take their burst damage, after all you are ultra squishy, and secure some kills.

End game, stick with your team much more, and pop in for good damage. The key is to not die. If your team is losing, don't be a hero. Defend the towers, phoenixes, Minotaur, and watch out for ganks. Don't die in your own base.

Remember, you must carry your team, but be a cautious one.

Well then, that was long and colorful.
I hope you enjoyed the guide, I spent a lot of time and effort on this.
I hope it helps, thank you, and good luck!