Athena, Defender of Olympus, Savior of Gods

Introduction

Athena is known throughout SMITE for her utility in her kit. Reach, Confound, and Defender of Olympus make her a threat in the jungle when built with damage in mind. And of course as a guardian Athena is a strong choice for the support role of the duo lane. However more than being a strong choice Athena can excel in the support role, and that is mainly because she has the ability to be an unstopped force of protection, and this guide is going to show you how to become The Savior, Athena.

Athena's ability to save her allies is insurmountable, her ability set is perfectly designed to put her in front of her allies and soak up damage. In this guide we're going to focus on the use of Preemptive Strike, Confound, and Defender of Olympus as ways to protect your allies and to protect yourself while protecting others. This guide focuses on putting Athena in the duo lane with your Hunter, and taking a strong amount of poke damage while being aggressive against your enemies.

To start out this build you're going to want to open with Mark of the Vanguard, Hand of the Gods (Rank One), Eye of Providence (Rank One) and one of each potion. The reason for this opening is that it offers you with a very strong defensive start. While Eye of Providence isn't a common active item, it can allow you to get a free sentry ward every 60 seconds, and allows you to get up to four wards should you have a need for them. More importantly, Eye of Providence allows you to wards your Mana Camp, or the Enemy Mid Fury Camp, to protect against invades/get the mid timer for your jungle (depending on which side you're on). Furthermore, Eye of Providence allows you to get a Health Potion and a Mana Potion, which you'll need to defend against the early poke you'll likely be taking. More than likely your first ability will be Shield Wall, this will allow you to put some Area of Affect (AoE) damage on the starting Jungle Camps, and allow you to take the camp with Hand of the Gods (HoG).

From here you're going to want to put levels into Confound, including waiting until level 9 to put rank five into Confound and rank two into Defender of Olympus. This way you can to start pulling your enemies into the creeps and punishing any early poke the opposing Hunter or Support try to lay down on you, if your health or mana get too low, remember you got those potions. Now once you hit level three you're going to want to pick up Preemptive Strike, the protection bonuses of Block are going to allow you to take much more poke, and generally if you dash through some creeps (which do count for the bonus), but won't take the last hit gold from your Hunter, remember the focus is on them. Generally about the time you hit level five and have 900 gold you're going to want to go back and pick up Guard Boots. With this item the goal is to get Midas Boots before the ten minute mark.

From this point on you're going to want to start building towards Breastplate of Valor, this will allow you to use your abilities more often, which means more poke and more control of your enemies with your Confound. The caveat here is that you're going to want to pick up Wrath of the Gods (HoG Rank Three) by around the fifteen minute mark, should a Gold Fury fight begin to break out. Once you've completed Breastplate of Valor and your actives magical protection is going to be your next focus. If the enemy team has a healer (or two) you're definitely going to want to pick up Pestilence, other than that the regeneration and health of Stone of Gaia is much more preferable. In terms of abilities you should start leveling Shield Wall, to get extra poke and damage in.

Once you completed your active items, gotten Breastplate of Valor and your magical defense, the rest of the items are up to personal play style and preference. Personally if my team is under farmed, and the enemy team is hurting I will pick up more defenses and skip the damage all together. However if we're ahead I will generally grab Polynomicon before building into some more defenses. If you're finding yourself with an enemy team that has a lot of crowd control Magi's Blessing is going to be an awesome item in your build. Especially since Athena now loses her charge up on her dash when hit by any CC.

Final Notes

Your ultimate is exactly what it sounds like. It is the ultimate tool in your arsenal to save your allies on the battlefield. That being said, it's not something you want to waste. Generally a good rule of thumb to use with your ultimate is if they're at 25 percent or above on health it's a good idea to use Defender of Olympus and save your ally, however any less than that the likelihood of you just landing back where you started is significantly higher. This is a heavy support build with a focus on ensuring that your Hunter survives at all costs, by controlling your enemies with confound, putting yourself in the way by Preemptive Striking your way to the front line, and using Defender of Olympus to buff your allies and put yourself on the scene. In order to be most successful with this build, you have to be prepared to put your life on the line to save your carry.

Larry Clark