Zhong Kui, The Warrior Mage (S3)

Hello fellow Smite players and welcome to my first god guide! Zhong Kui is my main man, I've got him twice to rank X and with over 1,700 confirmed kills between PC and XBox. In all the time I've played with him I feel that I've got his build down to a fine art. I'll start out with just a build and strategy for mid lane, but I feel Zhong Qui can comfortably be placed in just about any role in the game; so look out for an update to this guide for solo lane, support and potentially even ADC builds as well.

If you want a god who is tanky, has high sustain and can still put out a punishing amount of both burst damage and sustain damage, then Zhong Kui is for you. In the main build for this guide you will end up with 3,150 health and close to a whopping 700 magic power to go with that. Now with that much health and power you're going to be able to dish out a lot of damage, and couple that with Zhong Kui's sustain you'll be able to stay in a fight longer to punish and bully the enemy team even more.

Also note that this is a very long, descriptive guide, so be prepared to do allot of reading if you want to get everything out from it. I hope you will be a much better Zhong Kui player afterward, however.

Pros

• High Sustain
  
• High Bust damage
  
• One of the best laners in the game
  
• Levels well with lots of health and protections added per level
  
• Great Poke
  
• Great wave clear, especially in mid-late game
  
• Strong Ultimate is particularly useful in team fights
  
• Stun is great for peeling pesky melee gods away from yourself in a gank
  
• Decent crowd control
  

Cons

• Low get away potential in a bad team fight
  
• Relies on stacks from passive for maximum damage mitigation
  
• Combo for sustain can be difficult to pull off in a fast moving team fight
  
• Protections stacks from passive reset on each ultimate use
  
• Difficult to build up passive stacks in late game

This is the build I use most of the time for Zhong Kui, as it's really a jack of all trades build that plays very well to the god's strengths. For reference it's the first build listed at the top of the page.

With your 1500 starting gold there's two ways you can start off. The safest purchase with this allowance is Shoes for 300, Soul Stone for 800, five manna potions for 250 and one or two health pottions for 100. Anymore health pots than this is overkill since Zhong Kui has a pretty potent heal in his one-two combo, so unless you're new to the god and are going up against someone with high sustain like Hel or Aphrodite, one or two health pots is all you'll need.
Just don't ever get Vampiric Shroud. Whenever you're playing Zhong Kui, pretend that item doesn't even exist. Soul Stone is for men, and Zhong is the manliest of men. Jokes aside, Soul Stone is just such a good item for Zhong Kui because he can reach all five stacks with just three well placed basics with his Book of Demons active since it counts as two basic attacks, giving him that sweet burst damage from soulstone more often than anyone else in the mid lane. He'd also rather have the MP5 than just a little bit of health and manna regen.
The other start you can go with is to purchase golden sash and 2 mana pots and 1 health pot or just 3 mana pots. This is a high risk-high reward option should be the starting build you'll go for if you're confident that you can hold your own against the other team's match up until you can get enough gold to upgrade your golden sash to warlock's sash. It's a lot riskier since you won't do quite as much damage off the bat as you would if you bought soulstone and you won't have the mobility from Shoes to get out of a sticky situation, but it will allow you to start building stacks for warlock's sash very early which will help you to get ahead if you play well enough. If the odds are against you and the enemy team has a mid laner or jungler that counters you very well in the early game, then it's probably best to play it safe and go for the first start and buy soulstone and boots before your warlock's sash.
So which boots should you be going for? Generally it's a good idea to go for Shoes of the Magi, but there are some scenarios where Shoes of Focus will be a better pick up. A basic rule of thumb I use is to buy Shoes of the Magi when I'm ahead of or tied with the enemy mid laner and Shoes of Focus if I'm notably behind them in terms of levels and/or gold. The reason for this is that going for the power and penetration from Shoes of the Magi provides a great early game power spike to overpower the other team, but it will have diminishing returns against someone of a higher level who will likely overpower you regardless of which shoes you choose. In this case, you will won't be able to come out ahead in a fight based on pure power, so you'll need to outplay them, and the cooldown reduciton from Shoes of Focus will help you to win by using smart play in situations where you are not as powerful as your opponent.
After you grab the shoes of your choice, you'll always want to pick up warlock's sash to start building stacks for it (unless you went for the golden sash start in which case you'll be buying boots). warlock's sash is the perfect item for Zhong Kui since it will add to his already large health pool, which will be important later on in the build and will give him more effective health which he will make good use of with the protections from his passive.(quick 6 min video on effective health)
The next item you'll want to pick up at this point may seem rather odd. telknines ring is almost always the next item I pick up, but for good reason. If you recall Zhong Kui's third ability, Book of Demons, you might remember that when it is active (not on cooldown)) you essentially get a second basic attack that fires for 50% of the damage of your regular basic attacks. This "mini basic" will also apply all on hit effects of your regular basic attacks for their full value. This means that the passive effect of Telkhines Ring, where basic attacks hit for an additional 35 damage, will apply twice for each basic attack whenever Book of Demons is active. That makes this item twice as effective on Zhong Kui as it is on any other god at this point. With the 30% increase in attack speed meaning both this additional effect AND the extra 50% damage from your basic attacks can be applied that much faster in a fight, and it should be apparent why this item becomes such an enticing buy, especially at only 2150 gold. If we add these numbers up in the late game after you've reached max build, with your basic attacks hitting for roughly 220 magic power, your Book of Demons basic hitting at half of that for 110, and Telkhines Ring hitting with 35 twice for 70 flat damage that cannot be negated by protections, then you have basic attacks hitting with 330 magic damage plus a flat 70 damage on top of that at +30% attack speed thanks to Telkhines Ring
This one item actually opens up allot more kill potential for Zhong Kui and unlocks a side to him that most other mages to not have, and that is the ability to put out a punishing amount of sustained damage on top of the burst damage you've already put out after you've used your abilities. Whereas most mages can just use their kit and will have to fall back until their cooldowns are up, Zhong Kui can stay in the fight, pelting the enemy team with his hard hitting basic attacks and staying in the front lines soaking up damage. This play style works quite well in Zhong Kui's kit since you should only be using Book of Demons as a peel in order to escape while you have your first two abilities, your ultimate, and your basic attacks to use as you please.
Zhong Kui will really start to come online at this point, and you should be able to fight just about anybody and everybody else in the game with a few exceptions. But we still need the rest of his build to really flesh him out and make him a more potent beast. Next up you have the choice to build more power and health or penetration, it's pretty situational and comes down to whether you need more immediate survivability or damage against tankier targets.
If you decide to build health and power, then Ethereal Staff is going to be the next item to pick up. This is an invaluable item and is the peanut butter to warlock's sash's jelly on Zhong Kui's bread. On top of all the health you have, Ethereal Staff will give you yet 400 more plus 30 magic power and, most importantly, will convert 2.5% of your maximum health to magic power. At rank 20 with all these items and full stacks on warlock's sash, you'll be sitting pretty at 3,150 health, and with 2.5% of that being converted to power that means ethereal rod will give you an extra 78 magic power for a total of 400 health, 300 mana, and 108 magic power all from one item without having to build any stacks for it. Pretty nice.
For penetration you'll be choosing from either Obsidian Shard or Spear of the Magus at this point. If you'd like you can switch one of these items out for Spear of Desolation in the late game, but that item is too expensive for our purposes right now.
Both of these items are quite good and have their own pros and cons, so ultimately it's all situational as to which one you'll pick up in any given game. Spear of the Magus works really well on Zhong Kui because of the damage over time from his Expose Evil, meaning you can quickly and easily decrease your targets magical protection with one ability. Meanwhile Obsidian Shard has more magic power and the flat 33% magic penetration means you can deal more immediate damage without having to wait for your target's protections to be removed.
Purchase Spear of the Magus if the game you are in has more of these factors in play:

• You have one or more other team members who are going to be dealing allot of magic damage during the coarse of the game. Situations like this would be where you have an aggressive guardian like Ymir or Ares, a mage ADC like Sol or Freya, a mage jungler like Ao Kuang, or magic god in the solo lane like Aphrodite or Cabrakan. In cases like this where you will not be the only magic power god in the game looking to deal allot of damage, then Spear of the Magus will be more beneficial to your team since they also can benefit from the protection debuff from this item to deal more damage to targets on which it has been applied.
• Engagements move slower, enemy characters are less mobile or you are able to stay in the fight longer. In cases where team fights and engagements last for very long, then you will be able to make more use out of Spear of the Magus since it does take a little bit of time for it's effect to stack and reach maximum effectiveness. If you are able to stay in the fight and make use of the extra damage on debuffed enemies, then you will find this item to help tremendously.
• You're having more trouble with squishier targets. If we're looking at just the passive of Spear of the Magus versus Obsidian Shard, then spear becomes more effective against targets with less than 120 magical protections. Hunters, assassins and mid laners will not build any magical protections most of the time and if they do it will be only a small amount, so usually these targets will fall below the 120 protections threshold for spear to be more effective. To check the enemy team's protections, hit the tab button and hover your mouse cursor over the little blue shield icon on the right side of each player tab to bring up their defensive stats. If you need more damage against those with less than 90 protections, then Spear of the Magus might be a good idea.

On the other hand, look to pick up Obsidian Shard if:

• Engagements happen quickly or you are against more mobile characters. In some cases, team fights will happen very quickly, where both sides will exchange a few blows and the fight will be over, either with one side beating the other or both teams deciding to fall back. Other times you might be up against a team composition who is very mobile who can easily retreat once they've noticed they have received a debuf from Spear of the Magus and will try to get away before you can make use of it. In cases like this, obsidan shard might be the better buy due to it's more immediate damage.
• You are the only magic damage dealer on your team. If you have a more passive support like Khepri or Geb, and no one else on your team is a mage, then any penetration item you pick up will only benefit you for the most part, meaning you can be a bit more selfish on your penetration item choice. Situations like these are fine for buying Obsidian Shard.
• You're having trouble taking out tankier targets. If you find yourself doing well in the damage department against hunters, assassins and mages but find yourself struggling against warriors and guardians, then Obsidian Shard might help you more in this scenario. In cases where your target has more than 90 protections, shard will give you more penetration from its passive than Spear of the Magus will. Again, hit tab and hover over the shield icon to find out each player's protections. If the gods you're having trouble with are those with 120 protections or more, then consider buying Obsidian Shard

The final item you will pick up for this build is Rod of Tahuti, which is a pretty standard last item to pick up for any mage. It's expensive, so it'll be the last item you should buy unless you're really far ahead, but the power spike you get from it is incredible. You will have to sell Soul Stone if you bought that at the beginning, but I would not recommend selling that item until you can buy at least afford Restored Artifact, the item before Rod of Tahuti, since Soul Stone is a superior item to have over just Lost Artifact.
Finally, if you want even more power, then you may want sell your penetration item for Spear of Desolation. If you picked up Obsidian Shard then this could definitely a good trade, but if either you or your team would make more use of the protection reduction on Spear of the Magus, then it might be a good idea in some situations to just stick with what you have. Also, the small amount of magic power and penetration that Shoes of the Magi have over Shoes of Focus will have more diminishing returns at the stage of the game where you've reached full build, so if you need an extra 10% cooldown reduction then selling Shoes of the Magi to pick up Shoes of Focus instead may be a good idea in some, but not all, cases.
If you manage to build all of this, then congratulations, you now have almost 700 magic power, 3150 health, good penetration, all the protections from your passive and hard hitting basic attacks at 1.29 attack speed! So you know how to build Zhong Kui like a bad-*** man, now it's time to learn how to play him like a bad-*** man. Relic choice is going to be entirely situational and dependent primarily against the enemy team composition. If you are confident in the matchup then you can afford to go start with a more offensive relic like curse to confirm kills, but with how immobile Zhong Kui is it's usually a good idea to pick up a more defensive relic. If you are worried about more hard crowd control then purification is never a bad pick, but sprint might be more beneficial if the enemy jungler is very mobile and good at sticking to targets. sprint is also usually a good pick to avoid more sustain damage whereas purification can be better to avoid setup for high burst damage.
sanctuary is also a good relic if you feel like you'll need it, but this should usually be your second relic after either beads or sprint. Meditation is another good relic that can help save you when your sustain combo can not, and it can help you stay in your lane for longer to be even more of a bully. This is a good relic if you go straight for warlock sash as your first item, that way you can ensure that you'll be able to buy the full item on your fist back to base.
Relics that work really well on Zhong Kui are thorns and shell. Since you will usually be a potent force in the front line, the extra protection from shell can help you be even more tanky (especially while ulting) while thorns can help to punish the enemy team for trying to focus you down.
Just like relics, your overall build should be situational as well. Although the build I've already given is a really solid overall good build, there are some situations where you may need to swap one item out for another. Again, this is dependent on how each game plays out, so it will be up to you to decide where to deviate from the standard build.
If you need more utility and want to have REALLY nasty slow, then Gem of Isolation is a really good item for Zhong. It used to be a must buy item on my builds for a long time as it works really good with his ult and especially with his Expose Evil, it sadly just doesn't offer quite as much as the other items in the build. Switch Gem of Isolation out with Ethereal Staff if you're willing to sacrifice health and power, switch with your penetration item if you want to sacrifice penetration, and swap it out with Telkhines Ring if you want to sacrifice your sustain damage. If the enemy team isn't very tanky but very mobile, then it might be worth it to switch out your penetration item with Gem of Isolation.
Chronos' Pendant is another great item as it gives you a fair bit of power and a really good 20% cooldown reduction. If you really need the extra CDR, then I would swap this out with either your penetration or telhines ring although I wouldn't recomend this in most cases since this decreases your overall damage or your sustain damage which I personally don't find to be worth the extra cooldown reduction.
Finally, Hide of the Urchin is a really solid item as well. I would mostly recommend this item for use in the solo lane where it's expected for you to be more tanky, as it's mostly expected for the midlaner to put out more damage than to take it. If you do go this route, then it's may also be a good idea to go with more of a utility build with Gem of Isolation and/or chronos' pendant, being sure to keep your boots, warlock sash, ethereal rod and/or Rod of Tahuti.

Level up your 1, Expose Evil, buy your items, and pick up the red power buff from the jungle. Head straight to your lane where the minions should be just starting to duke it out. Hit the entire wave with Expose Evil, being careful not to be hit by the enemy mid's wave clear ability. A few basic attacks should be able to finish of enough minions to get to level 2, where you will now level up your 2, Exorcism. There should be 3 archer minions grouped up at the back at this point, and if your lucky the enemy mid will be next to them. Try to line up your Expose Evil to hit both the remaining minions and the enemy mid if you can, then quickly reposition yourself to hit your targets with Expose Evil, healing yourself up and building up early protection stacks for your passive. You may choose to hit the enemy mid with Exorcism if they've been marked, but you may also want to go for just the minions so the mark stays on them, slowing the enemy mid laner for some easy basic attack hits which can add up to do more damage than Exorcism would have done and removed the slow.
Allot of the nuance in playing Zhong Kui comes from the quick decision making you have to do in judging when or if to use Exorcism on marked targets, and most of this just comes from playing him, as there are far too many potential scenarios for me to go into in this guide to give a general idea of this kind of strategy. Starting off though, it's almost always a good idea to use Expose Evil on any target you wish to hit with Exorcism, although keep in mind that not all scenarios call for an immediate use of Exorcism after the target has been marked.
So after you've done got some good poke on the enemy mid, your jungler should be coming over to your lane. At this point you will either clear the next wave with them or go straight to the mid harpies on either side of your lane. If you go to mid harpies, then remember to save your 1,2 Expose Evil Exorcism combo for the minion wave if that's where you'll be going afterwards. You'll get far more stacks for your passive as well as 33% more healing if you need it from a minion wave, which has 6 units whereas mid harpy camps only have 2 units each.
After hitting level 3, put one point into your Book of Demons. From this point onward, power level your excorsism as well as your ult, leveling up your Expose Evil once your 2 is maxed out. Your Ultimate and your 3rd ability should be the last abilites that get maxed out.
At this point you will be clearing the wave by marking all the minions with your 1 and moving to the side of the wave to easily hit all of them with your 2, which should just about clear most of the wave and give you 6 stacks for your passive. After the wave is cleared, your priority should be to bully the enemy mid laner. Whenever you can afford to, hit them with Expose Evil and follow up with a few basic attacks and/or a quick use of Exorcism. The goal should be to eventually get them to low enough health to make them go back to their fountain or to put them in a situation where they can be easily killed. Zhong Kui can afford to be super aggresive to bully the enemy mid laner, since he will usually have allot more protections and sustain than anyone he will be up against, allowing him to trade damage in situations where it usually wouldn't be worth it.
Try to push the enemy mid into their tower, the only place where they will be safe in their lane against your barrage of bullying. Here, they will get both less XP and no gold from minions that are killed by the tower, giving you a lead in both gold and XP. In most cases you should also be able to start attacking the minion wave as soon as they reach basic attack range, causing them to cluster up in such a way that you can quickly mark them, turn just a little to the side and use your 2 to hit the whole wave without moving to the side of it. This can be done right in front of the enemy tower, full clearing the wave and denying the enemy mid a chance to get out of their tower behind the cover of their minions.
Once your minions are in their tower, you can either attack the tower or quickly poke their mid with Expose Evil and get out of tower range if you are able to. There is exactly one second before Expose Evil begins to do damage to its target, giving you enough time to quickly use the ability and get out of tower range before it targets you, giving you free poke.
If the enemy mid is at low enough health with no way to escape you, and you have enough stacks in your passive, it may be possible to get an early kill on them. Going into their tower with your minions, hit them with Expose Evil and quickly activate your ult. The tower will begin to attack you, but with Recall Demons doubling the protections from your passive, you should be able to safely take a few shots. Chase the enemy mid down, letting your ult do all the work for you. Once you feel like your ult has sent out enough projectiles to kill them (remember, the damage from Recall Demons isn't instant, so it will take some time and practice to get the feel for its eventual damage right), quickly use Exorcism to remove the mark and heal up a little bit. Be sure to exit the tower before it has the chance to kill you, and NEVER stay for longer than five seconds, the amount of time Recall Demons is active. After that, your protection stacks will be completely gone and the tower will start to do exponentially more damage to you.

If you did all this right, then you should still be alive and the enemy mid, caught off guard by your uncommon early aggression, will be dead; finished off by either your Exorcism or Recall Demons. At this point you should either go back to base if you are too low on health or heal up off the next minion wave. Then you can either get some extra gold and XP farm by hitting some XP camps or you can gank another lane, allowing the other lanes to get ahead as well.
This kind of strategy is how you will be successful with Zhong Kui. You need to bully the enemy mid laner into submission, forcing them into their tower and eventually a retreat or death. You will begin to outlevel them in this way, strengthening your lead on them and snowballing by becoming a constant presence on the map, able to continue to farm XP camps and ganking the other two lanes while the enemy mid is either dead or back at their base.


Zhong Kui loves getting ganked when he has his ult. If you get ganked, peel off their jungler with your Book of Demons, stunning them to get out of their basic attack range. Then, run toward your tower, hopefully baiting both their jungler and their mid laner to chase you. If they do, activate your ult and continue toward your tower. Alot of the time players will underestimate Zhong Kui's Recall Demons, so they will usually keep chasing you while staying in range of your ult, constantly taking damage from it. Try to dodge their attacks, and after about two seconds, quickly turn around and try to mark both of them with Expose Evil, slowing them and allowing you to more easily escape their damage. Once you've gotten near your tower, you may turn around to find that you are on even or greater terms with them in health. They may have just noticed this too and will begin to retreat. Alas, they are slowed by Expose Evil, making them easy targets for you to heal up off of them with Exorcism and chase them back to your tower, either killing them or leaving them with just enough health to think twice at ever challenging your manliness again. Proceed to use your laugh emote at them as they scurry off with their tales between their legs, and heal either go back to base yourself or heal up off of the next wave and continue to push up on your lane.

Once the game starts moving out of the laning phase and into the teamfight stage, Zhong Kui should still remain a potent threat. At this point the most important thing is to keep an eye on your passive number. Consider this your manliness meter, the more full it is the more of a man you can afford to be without taking too much damage for it. At 5-10 stacks you shouldn't be too aggressive, just poke with your 1,2 combo when you can to build up more stacks. at 10-15 stacks you should be fairly tanky, able to mitigate enough damage to be able to fully heal up after an engagement with the enemy team. At full 20 stacks with 40 protections, a bunch of health and sustain on top of that, you should be able to frontline just about as well as any warrior would be able to. Take damage for your squishes whenever you can, and don't forget that you can put out some nasty damage yourself. After you've used your ult or you've respawned and you are at zero stacks, it's usually a good idea to try to build up stacks at XP camps and minion waves before you enter an engagement. At 0 stacks you will actually have less base protections than most other mages and will be far less useful to your team.
Once the rubber really hits the road in a fight, activate your ult and do your thing. Get up in the enemy teams face, be an annoying, tanky mother-f****r and let the damage over time from expell demons and Expose Evil continue to chomp away at the health bars of the entire enemy team, and try to line up at least 3 marked targets to get the maximum heal out of your Exorcism. Once your ult has run out, it should be apparent in which direction the team fight is going. If you're losing, peel off as many enemies as you can with Book of Demons and get out of there. If you're winning, chase the enemy team down, remembering to slow them with Expose Evil if you can.
The order of your abilities should be using Expose Evil to mark and slow your target to make them easy targets for your beefy basic attacks, finishing them off with Exorcism before the mark runs out. Continue to use your basic attacks until those two abilities come off cooldown, then rinse and repeat. Only use your Book of Demons as an escape, to set up or peel for your teammates, or if your sure that it's damage is the only way you'll be able to secure a kill. Exceptions to this are to counter-initiate an enemy god's ability. For instance it is usually a good idea to use the stun on Book of Demons to cancel out Bellona's Bludgeon, Bacchus' Belch of the Gods, Cabrakan's Tremors and Fenrir's Brutalize, among a few other abilites for other gods. Activate Recall Demons when you just feel like it will have maximum effectiveness or you need to get out of a sticky situation.

As far as allied gods Zhong Kui works well with, I honestly haven't found him to work particularly well with some gods more than others to his bennefit. Of course there are the standard picks like Aphrodite and Khepri, but those are more universally helpful gods and don't necessarily benefit Zhong more than anyone else.
There are, however, certain team compositions and gods who like having a Zhong Kui on their team. Picking Zhong for the mid lane means the solo lane has more leeway in the gods they can pick and don't necessarily have to pick up a warrior if that's not what the situation in that lane requires since Zhong is so tanky and can be a front liner instead of the solo laner. If they do pick a warrior, then your team now has three front liners with you, the solo laner and the support. This is really beneficial for late-game hyper carries like Kali, Artemis and He Bo who will have the team doing everything they can to kill them quickly. With an extra front liner, it becomes much easier for these hyper-carries to stay alive and do their job, which is to do insane amounts of damage to carry your team to victory.
Note that these enemy matchups mostly come from my personal experiences and are therefore subject to just that, so be sure to leave a comment if you take issue with the reasoning behind any of these matchups.

Belch of the Gods is a really important ability in Bacchus' kit, and being able to easily cancel it out with your Book of Demons to cancel his stun for both you and your teammates will make him much less effective against you.

bakasura
After he jumps in to initiate, it's easy to just use your Book of Demons to peel him off of you after which he has no way to hurt you. If he ults you, then activating your Recall Demons and/or sprint can usually ensure your saftey.


Allot of Cabrakan's effectiveness comes from his ability to lock down gods with Tremors. Similarly as with Bacchus, you are able to use Book of Demons to completely cancel this ability out. And since Tremors is usually the last ability in his attack chain, you are free to walk away from Cabrakan with no danger of him being able to chase you, essentially making him useless agains Zhong Kui.

chronos
Zhong Kui matches well against just about any other mage, and Chronos is no exception. While Stop Time can certainly mess your day up, aside from that Zhong Kui can do just about anything Chronos can do with the build in this guide and more, which should make engagements between these two very one sided.

He bo
He Bo is a mage who counts heavily on his burst damage to bring the enemy mid laner from 100%-0% very quickly. The problem he has against Zhong Kui is that Zhong has enough health and protections built up so that by the time He Bo's damage starts to come online, you will be able to fight and bully or kill him even after he has used his combo on you.


With predictable and punishable wave clear and no real escape, Eset is an ideal target for Zhong Kui's bullying playstyle. Her ult is really good at countering yours, but other than that it's just about as ideal of a matchup as you could hope for.


A mage who has trouble bursting down Zhong Kui once you've built up enough health, you should be able to do much more to him than he can do to you. Plus Janus' escape ability relies on him not having any active crowd control effect on him, so your five second slow from Expose Evil is able to lock down and shut down this slippery god.


Kali is a late game beast who struggles from a weak early game. Usually her sure fire way to get out of her early game rut is by picking up some kills from squishy mid laners with no escape. Zhong Kui is anything but squishy, and Book of Demons can safely peel her away for you to escape her. Similarly to Bakasura, if Kali uses her ultimate on you then your ult and/or sprint can usually save you. Just don't let her get to late game, where players will usually build Hastened Fatalis and Qin's Sais and really begin to screw you up.


He'll be a huge annoyance early game, but once it gets to late game he'll be damn near useless against you thanks to your large health pool, solid protections and easy to confirm peel for melee gods like Loki.


Another god who relies on bursting his enemies down, Poseidon will also have trouble doing this against zhong qui, again because of his tankiness. He's likely to outclear you early game with basic attacks to match yours in strength, but once your waveclear and Telkhines Ring come online you should start to be able to bully him just like the rest of the mages. His ultimate will be the only thing you should be worried about from him at this point.


A Ra who really knows what their doing will be able to hold their own against you, clearing the wave with Celestial Beam and healing in the back of their tower and out of range of your poke to hold their lane against you, but seeing as how I've yet to play against anyone who has done this, I'll put Ra in this "good against" list. Most players will mistakenly try to poke you with Celestial Beam and let your minions into tower where you can easily poke him. Either way, Ra is a mage and Zhong Kui is the mage slayer.

ravana
If you position yourself just right during a fight with a Ravana, then he should have a very tough time fighting you, since all of your abilities have just a little bit longer range than his and your sustain is a bit more potent. Should he ever manage to get close enough to you to start dealing his damage, just peel him off with Book of Demons and walk away.


Scylla is indeed a very scary monster in the late game, but if you need a god who can shut her down early before she gets to that point, then Zhong Kui can often be a good pick. You'll be able to outclear her in the early game and your poke damage will really mess her up. If you can manage to bait out her escape ability, then she can easily be killed if you commit to it.


Your heal can really screw up his execution ultimate, and without any hard initiate or way to chase you down Thanatos will have a hard time trying to gank and kill you.


Thor's Berserker Barrage can easily be canceled with your stun, negating a huge portion of the damage he would be able to deal to you.


If you can manage to get past his abilities he would use to zone you off, then Zeus is a very easy kill. Your effectiveness against him will really begin to shine lategame, where your tankiness will allow you to walk all over him.

Hunters in general Zhong Kui can have a tough time against in some scenarios, but Anhur is probably the one he does worst against. You can easily be pinned down with Impale and Shifting Sands, and his built in penetration can allow him to really screw you up.

bastet
Without any hard escape, Zhong Kui is very susceptible to Bastet's cat call ultimate. Your Book of Demons will only delay the inevitable against her cats early game, but you will begin to do much better late game where the cats will actually be more of a help since they can be easily killed then and you can heal up off of them. Before that time, however, be very weary when fighting a Bastet.


While you can use your Book of Demons to completely cancel out her Bludgeon, you will be left without your effective basic attacks if you do this, plus Bellona is able to disarm you, completely stopping you from using your basic attacks altogether. It's an ideal matchup for you if you find yourself in the solo lane, but you will be in the mid lane most of the time so you'll mostly be fighting Bellona in the teamfight stage. If the player builds her in a certain way, then a good Bellona will be able to completely stomp you.

erlang shen
Erlang is a very sticky god, able to pin down anyone without a hard escape and killing them without so much as a fight with a root, built in permanent fatalis, a dash-knockup and a huge taunt in his kit. Book of Demons is not usually enough to peel Erlang Shen away from you, making you easy pickings for this currently overpowered god. Some much needed nerfs will hopefully knock him off this list.


Guan Yu is very good early game against zhong kui where he can beat you at your own game, being aggressive to poke and healing up afterward. He can use his dash or his ultimate to re-initiate on you after you've used Book of Demons to peel him away. Fighting Guan Yu can be very frustrating until you build up health and passive stacks.


Possibly the most mobile of all hunters, Jing Wei can easily stick to you and kill you if she is played right. Her Explosive Bolts are especially potent against Zhong Kui who has such a large hitbox, so I would recommend not picking a fight with Jing Wei if you can unless you have some sort of advantage over her.


Mercury players will build allot of speed and usually crit chance as well, meaning they can chase you down even after you've stunned them and apply more sustain damage than you can do to them.

nox
If you're a god who likes to move or use abilities, then Nox is a counter to you. You can outclear her early game, but as soon as it gets to mid-late game, there will be literally nothing that you yourself can do to fight her without a large amount of team coordination.

Serqet
With different abilities at her disposal to engage with, Serqet is a difficult god to peel away from to be able to escape from her. Plus her ult completely negates healing, canceling out your sustain for a brief moment.

skadi
Zhong Kui would actually be a good counter pick against Skadi since his basic attacks can hit her dog twice, essentially killing it twice as fast. The only problem is that while Skadi is using her ultimate the dog is invincible and is just as fast as you even if you activate a sprint, meaning you can do literally nothing to save yourself outside of using a sanctuary to save yourself from 2 seconds of damage. It's like Kali's Destruction, times two, on steroids.


Susano excels at sticking to gods and keeping them in range of his basic attacks and damaging abilities. With a teleport, a dash, a pull and a knockup in his kit, your Book of Demons won't do much to peel this pesky god away from you.

tyr
With twice as much of a kit to work with as you do and just as much sustain, pray you never have to go into the solo lane against a decent Tyr player. Good luck trying to stun him while you're knocked up into the air by his Fearless combo. (spoilers: you can't)


Vulcan is a direct counter against Zhong Kui in the midlane. Vulcan can safely zone you out not just from himself but from the minion wave as well. His entire kit is centered around keeping aggressive gods like Zhong Kui away from himself, meaning you'll have a very tough time trying to play aggressively against Vulcan. In this matchup, you're better off taking a more passive approach, not letting him poke you too much and just calling it a draw at the end of the laning phase unless you coordinate well with a good jungler.

• "Too long don't want to read" breakout sections that paraphrase some of the more long winded sections of the guide, allowing for more easy digestion of the content. I also plan to rewrite and re-organize sections fo the guide to streamline it.
• Video content for a more polished and visual user experience
• Descriptions and strategies for the other builds listed in the guide
• Strategies for Support and possibly Solo lane as well, though most of the content for mid lane strategy can be applied to the solo lane.
• Spelling, grammar and formatting fixes.

Please be sure to comment with your thoughts on this guide. Try to provide constructive critisism, not just "Ur guide sux" but tell me why it sux and what I can do to make it better. Pointing out spelling, grammar and formatting errors is welcome as well. The guide is still in its very early stages, so right now I'm mostly looking for feedback on how to improve it before I add onto it.