Zeus - Are you ready for 21 thousand gigawatts!?

Hello guys, this is my first guide and i hope you will like it. As you all know it's about Zeus. Zeus is very strong mage god and he is very deadly if you know how to play him. Also if you are kill stealer he is god for you! So let's start.

Ok so you have probably seen the build i made now let's explain it a bit.

Description Lost Artifact is first item you buy when you spawn, it will give you small amout of magical power and MP5. Zeus is very mana hungry especially at start, later you shouldn't have problem with mana.

Description Mana Potion is second thing you buy after spawn. Because Zeus is mana hungry, you will need it.

Description Healing Potion is next. You should have money enough to buy this 3 things when you spawn. But there is no need to buy like 5 potions when you spawn because if those 2 potions don't save your life, 5 won't either!

Description Upgrade Lost Artifact to Chronos Pendant. It will give you bigger amout of magical power, 25% of cooldown reduction, and nice MP5.

Description Next item is Demonic Grip. It has useful +60 magical power. Zeus is mage so his attack speed isn't so important because of strong attacks, but it can be very useful and save you, or give you a kill. Lastly, passive is physical penetration, 7% of your target's magical protection is reduced and an additional 5 points for 3 seconds (max. 3 stacks).

Description Now Rod of Tahuti. +125 magical power and increases magical power by 25%. That's all i'm going to say!

Description So next item is Shoes of the Magi. They give you nice amout of Magical Power, 250 mana, which is helpful because, like I said in Introduction, Zeus is mana hungry, and 18% of movement speed.

Description Ethereal Staff is next on the list. It gives you small amout of magical power, 600 health, 300 mana, and 2% of your maximum health is converted to magical power. With all your items and level 20 you will get around 48 magical power with passive + 30 magical power item gives you. So that is 78 magical power which is good.

Description Next one is Bancroft's Talon. It gives you +100 magical power, which is good, 12% of lifesteal, not too much but it can be helpful, and you gain 1 of your magical power for 1% of your missing health. I advice you not to try get +99 magical power from that passive.

Description Greater Sprint gives you great advance when chasing an enemy or running from one, you can use Aegis Shield but most of the time you won't succed to escape.

Description Combat Blink] is good for evade or for chasing too, but it's good for evading from abilities like Hades's ultimate or Poseidon's Whirlpool and ultimate. However if there is Hades in enemy team I suggest to buy Combat Blink much sooner.

Build 2 - Protection build

Description Brestolate armor gives you +75 physical protection and 550 mana. It also gives you 25% cooldown reduction but you already got 25% and you can max. have 40%. So 10% are neglected. But not important. What is important is great physical protection.

Description Void Stone gives you +40 magical power, which is good, but i mostly took it because of +50 magical protection, which is great also. Passive is very helpful because it reduces enemies magical protection.

Zeus have very good and strong abilities and they are great for kill stealing. So almost everyone who plays Zeus first upgrade every ability once than upgrades Detonate charge to level 5 than Chain Lightning while uprgading ultimate when possible and then Aegis shield. I suggest to upgrade Detonate Charge and Chain Lightning at same time because those are both great and very powerful attacks. Offcourse uprgading ultimate when possible.

Overcharge

Description

This is Zeus's passive ability. It puts charges with every basic attack and debuffs enemies + increases damage per charge for 30% (max. 3 charges).

Chain Lightning

Description

Zeus fires a bolt of lightning that arcs between enemies, doing damage and applying a charge on each hit. If there is only one enemy it will hit him and stop, if there is 2 it will hit both of them 2 times but they've got to be close to each other. This ability is great when enemy god is trying to hide behind enemy minions. It will hit both minions and god. Applying charge on enemy can be very useful when enemy is trying to flee and you hit him with Detonate Charge, but I will talk more about it in combat chapter. The damage it deals depends on level. 45/85/125/165/205 + 40% of your magical power.

Aegis Shield

Description

This ability can be used to chase/attack enemies or to flee from them. Zeus harnesses his lightning defensively, granting himself additional protections and increasing his movement speed. While the shield is active, basic attacks from enemy players have a 10% of the damage reflected back as magical damage and have a charge applied. So movement speed and protections buff depends on level of ability. Protection you get is 10/20/30/40/50 and movement speed is 10/15/20/25/30%. With lifetime of 6 seconds can save your life, or it can give you player kill.

Detonate Charge

Description

So when you hit enemy with your basic attack or some of your abilities you put a charge on him (lightning circle around enemy). With this ability you detonate that charge doing damage. Enemies can have up to 3 charges. If enemy have 3 charges on him in time of detonation he is slowed too. He is slowed 40% for 1.5 second. Now about damage. Amout of damage you deal depens on how many charges you ave putted on enemy. Damage with one charge is 55/75/95/115/135 +18% of your magical power. Damage with 2 charges is 110/150/190/230/270 +36% of your magical power. Damage with all 3 charges is 165/225/285/345/405 +54% of your magical power.

Lightning Storm

Description

Zeus's ultimate, by my opinion one of the strongest ultimates in game. Only thing bad is that it is easy to escape it if not combined with stun of some another god or at least slow. However, it deals massive amout of damage every second for 5 seconds and applies charge with every hit. It have big radius so if enemy god is in middle it will hit him at least once, if god have slower movement speed probably twice or even 3 times. Damage it deals every second is 100/120/140/160/180 +50% of your magical power. If it hits enemy god with all 5 hits it deals up to 500/600/700/800/900 +250% of your magical power.

With Zeus you can use lot of strategies. For example, first use your Chain Lightning and then Detonate Charge and you can finish him off with basic attacks or you use basic attack and repat this strategy after cooldown. Good thing about Zeus is that he is very hard to run from. If you put your charge before enemy flee, then he tryes to run and you use Detonate Charge, he will most likely die. When enemy attacks you, it's good thing to use Aegis shield so you reflect every his basic attack, then use your Chain Lightning or if he has low health just finish him off with Detonate Charge. Great thing about your ultimate is it put charges. So if 2 enemies attack you, especially if they are melee, good strategy is to use first your Aegis shield, so they get damage with their every hit, then use your ultimate Lightning Storm, after that use Chain Lightning, so while Chain Lightning hits everyone of them, Lightning Storm probably sticked at least 2 charges on them, and then just use Detonate Charge. You will probably die, but your ultimate will finish them after that and you will get double kill.

Pros

Cons

Zeus is very strong god but with low defenses, so it is best to play in team with tank/guardian. In arena that doesn't matter too much because you can easily run from enemies.

Arena

Description

I think Zeus is one of the best god, maybe even the best in the arena. You must have a really bad team if you lose in arena with Zeus (which happend to me 1-2 times) because he is great area damage dealer. You can easily kill minions or gods, and level up really fast. Just don't alove yourself to get caught in middle of battlefield. Remeber you are extremly strong range mage and there is no need to go in heart of battle. You can use Chain Lightning to hit as much enemies as you can, wait for a few second so allies heart them a bit more and then Detonate Charge. You get kill, double kill or so. I even got quadra kill once.

Conquest

Description

So i think Zeus is best in mid lane, but you can take him in duo lane too. But if you meet someone like Neith or similar god you'r done. While in mid lane someone like Anubis can be easy kill if you play it good. Zeus is weak against junglers/adcs because of they high movement and attack speed and good damage so it's hard to hit them if you'r not using your ultimate, you'r attack speed is low so that makes things even worse, and your defenses are low. And if you do use your ultimate they probably have escape ability so you will heart them but you'r easy and fast kill for them so you won't heart them much. Oh and don't take Zeus in solo lane. I did it once and i won't do it ever again. Trust me, you don't want to do that.

Joust and Siege

Description

In joust you're a killer. Your ultimate covers almost whole mid lane so it is good when chasing or being chased. You don't have too much space to move so Chain Lightning will probably hit every enemy. Just make sure enemies don't gank you and you'll do great.
In siege is almost same as joust, just there are 2 lanes and much more ways to be ganked. You can easily kill enemy siege juggernaut with your ultimate, Detonate Charge and than basic attacks.

So Zeus is good combined with lot of gods but i'll just mention few of them. I won't talk about gods he is bad agains. About that i will just say this. Don't let melee gods come near because you'r sqishy and don't enter combat with assasins or gods with good attack speed.

Odin

Description

Odin's ultimate Ring of Spears traps enemies inside circle, you can put your ultimate over it and make whole enemy team flee, or at least try to, don't forget about Detonate Charge!

Hades

Description

Hades]'s ultimate [[Pillar of Agony can be combined with your ultimate, or with your Chain Lightning and than Detonate Charge. Your enemies will hardly survive either way, almost impossible.

Ares

Description

Same as with Hades, Ares's ultimate can be combined with your ultimate, or Chain Lightning and Detonate Charge.

Well i really hope you like my first guide. If you think i should change/add/remove something post it in the comment! Please tell me what do you think in comment!

4/8/2015 - removed Polynomicon from build and added Demonic Grip, adviced by Diomedes232.

4/7/2015 - New design

4/6/2015 - Added build 2