Smite Item: Pestilence
Item Details
Pestilence
Cost: 1000 (2250) 
+80 Magical Protection
+200 Health
AURA - Enemy gods within 55 units have their healing reduced by 25%. This does not stack with the aura from another Pestilence or a Contagion.
Item Discussion
Yes, bulwark's health shield passive and CCR are clutch AF, but pestilence has 20 more defense than bulwark (that cancels out a flat pen item) and is cheaper too.
So why don't you like pestilence outside of countering healing?
Differences:
- Pest has 20 higher magical protection.
- Pest has anti-heal.
- Pest is 150 gold cheaper.
- Bulwark likely has 250-350 health more, when the passive kicks in (you're likely going to have this no sooner than level 10, and likely later than that).
- Bulwark has 20% CCR, which you might not have gotten from other sources...likeliest other contributors to CCR are probably
Spirit Robe, 
Shogun's Kusari, 
Oni Hunter's Garb, or 
Reinforced Greaves / Shoes. (Cap is 30%, so if you get 2 CCR items you'll overcap, but that's fine)
- More protection is more important when you're only getting one or two protection items of that type. The higher your prots go, the less effective/efficient they are, per point, and the more contribution health will provide relatively speaking. So, as a first magical protection item, as long as anti-heal is helpful, Pest is probably the best to get. If you've gotten other magical protection before, like Spirit, Urchin, Void Stone, Genji, Pest, etc., then Bulwark will give you a huge survivability boost, and is a good choice if you don't need utility from other items.
But the conversation shouldn't be aboutThe main topic for this discussion: Forget about healing. Why is