I. Ares Itemization: Building a Tanky Juggernaut
When playing Ares in Smite, itemization generally falls into a standard guardian blueprint. A balanced and effective build typically includes: Boots, 2 Physical Defense items, 2 Magical Defense Items, and 1 Situational item. The goal is to achieve around 180 protections for both physical and magical, ensuring that after penetration is applied by enemies, you maintain a robust defense of approximately 100-150 armor in each category. This level of defense allows you to effectively soak up damage and disrupt enemy formations, living up to Ares’s role as a formidable guardian.
II. Starter Items: Kicking Off Conquest Mode
Starter items are crucial in Conquest mode, setting the tone for your early game and lane presence. For Ares, several starter items can be viable depending on your play style and the enemy team composition.
Mark of the Vanguard: This is arguably the best starter item for Ares, especially if you are fulfilling the Support role or facing a damage-over-time (DOT) focused god like Anubis in the lane. Mark of the Vanguard provides crucial early game survivability and sustain, allowing you to be more aggressive and pressure enemies.
Watcher’s Gift: While Watcher’s Gift used to be a staple for supports due to its Gold Per 5 (GP5), it’s less potent now. With the GP5 nerf, it might be more beneficial to adopt a passive playstyle for the initial levels and instead rush directly into your core items for a quicker power spike.
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Iron Mail/Steel Mail: This starter item line is excellent for players looking to play aggressively from the early game. While you will take slightly increased damage from archers, the accelerated progression towards Mystic Mail—a core item for Ares—can be a worthwhile trade-off for aggressive lane control and pressure.
Emerald Talisman: Emerald Talisman is a solid choice when facing a magical opponent in the solo lane or when anticipating heavy early aggression that will force you under tower. It provides sustain and magical protection, helping you weather magical damage effectively.
III. Core Build: The Essential Ares Arsenal
Ares is unique among guardians as he significantly benefits from establishing a core build. This core usually consists of 3 items that should be prioritized early in your build path, unless you are facing an entirely physical damage-based enemy team.
Shoes of Focus: For Ares, Shoes of Focus are almost always the optimal boot choice. While Ares doesn’t inherently require maximum Cooldown Reduction (CDR), these boots enhance his damage output and, crucially, reduce the cooldown of his ultimate ability, No Escape. This lower cooldown allows you to use your ultimate more frequently, making it more challenging for enemies to counter with beads and increasing your kill potential in lane.
Mystical Mail: Mystical Mail is a cornerstone item for Ares and is built first in approximately 90% of games. Its effectiveness is highest in the early game, diminishing in impact later. The aura damage synergizes perfectly with Ares’s passive, increasing his overall damage output. Mystical Mail also significantly aids in lane clearing. Given Ares’s playstyle, which involves prolonged engagements of 10 seconds or more, Mystical Mail guarantees a minimum of 400 damage output over the course of a fight. This consistent damage, combined with his chains and fire damage, effectively doubles his damage potential throughout the entire match.
Void Stone: Void Stone is exceptionally synergistic with Ares, providing both magical protection and an Aura-based magical penetration debuff to nearby enemies. This aura enhances the damage of your Mystical Mail, your own magical abilities, and any magical damage dealt by your allies to affected targets. Void Stone is a versatile item that amplifies Ares’s and his team’s magical damage output while bolstering his defenses.
IV. Defensive Items: Adapting to the Enemy
Defensive items for a tank like Ares are highly situational. The best choices depend on the specific threats posed by the enemy team composition. These are some of the most commonly and effectively used defensive items for Ares.
Hide of the Urchin: (Physical and Magical) Hide of the Urchin is a versatile and valuable item if you need a balanced increase in both physical and magical tankiness. It efficiently provides both types of protection, effectively acting as two defensive items in one slot. This versatility can free up an item slot for an additional situational item.
Spirit Robe: (Physical and Magical) Spirit Robe offers a mix of protections and a damage mitigation passive. While statistically decent, it is often overshadowed by other more impactful defense items. However, Spirit Robe can be a strong pick if you are frequently getting crowd-control locked, as its passive provides valuable damage reduction after being stunned or rooted.
Breastplate of Valor: (Physical) While Breastplate of Valor provides physical protection and cooldown reduction, full CDR is generally not considered essential for Ares. Despite this, if you are aiming for more frequent ability usage, Breastplate of Valor is the most effective physical defense item to achieve it.
Hide of the Nemean Lion: (Physical) Choose Hide of the Nemean Lion when facing enemy teams with multiple auto-attack reliant gods. Its passive reflects a portion of incoming basic attack damage back to the attacker, effectively countering lifesteal builds and punishing auto-attackers.
Mail of Renewal: (Physical) Mail of Renewal is a niche item that can be surprisingly effective on Ares. Given his need to remain engaged in fights for extended periods, the healing proc from Mail of Renewal can significantly enhance his sustain. It is particularly useful in game modes like Assault, where constant team fighting and sustain are highly valued, allowing for more aggressive plays.
Midgardian Mail: (Physical) Another niche but potent item, Midgardian Mail serves as a direct counter to gods who rely heavily on movement speed boosts, especially those using Fatalis-like effects. Gods like Bakasura, Kali, and Osiris, who depend on sticking to their targets, are significantly hampered by the movement speed slow aura of Midgardian Mail.
Sovereignty: (Physical) While Sovereignty provides physical protection and auras that benefit your team, it is not generally a preferred item choice for Ares. Ares typically benefits more from items that directly disrupt or weaken enemies rather than just providing team-wide buffs.
Witchblade: (Physical) Witchblade is an excellent item for Ares, particularly effective against enemy compositions that heavily rely on auto-attacks. It excels against Hunter gods and magical auto-attackers like Poseidon and Chronos by reducing their attack speed and movement speed, making them easier to lock down with Ares’s abilities.
Bulwark of Hope: (Magical) Bulwark of Hope is a strong magical defense item if you are frequently being burst down from high health. While not always a necessary pickup, it is an exceptionally valuable item when facing burst-heavy magical damage compositions, providing a shield when you drop to low health.
Heartward Amulet: (Magical) Heartward Amulet offers a substantial health boost and a beneficial aura of magical protection for your team. It is a consistently solid magical defense item to consider, providing both personal tankiness and team utility.
Pestilence: (Magical) If the enemy team includes any significant healers, Pestilence becomes a crucial item. Its anti-healing aura significantly reduces the effectiveness of enemy healers in team fights, making it easier to secure kills and control objectives.
Stone of Gaia: (Magical) Stone of Gaia is an excellent sustain item for tanks, particularly well-suited to Ares’s playstyle. Its health regeneration, especially when out of combat, provides significant sustain, allowing Ares to remain in fights longer and recover quickly between engagements. The health regeneration effectively increases your overall health pool by approximately 6% in each fight due to the sustained healing over time. Consider this item, especially in the early to mid game for enhanced durability.
V. Situational Items: Adapting Your Build
You will typically incorporate one situational item into your Ares build to address specific game scenarios or enemy team compositions.
Ethereal Staff: Ethereal Staff is a highly versatile item suitable for almost any support god, and it’s particularly valuable on Ares primarily due to the health it provides. With approximately 150 armor, Ethereal Staff effectively grants around 1400 extra health, significantly increasing your survivability. On a level 20 Ares without additional power items, Ethereal Staff also translates to roughly 90 magical power, providing a slight damage boost as well.
Winged Blade: Winged Blade is a fantastic all-around situational item. It is cost-effective and provides a valuable placeholder item early in the game. Its movement speed and slow immunity passive are incredibly useful for faster rotations and for staying close to enemies despite slows, enabling Ares to maintain pressure and control. You can consider selling it later in the game for a different situational item if needed.
Magi’s Blessing: If you are facing a team with a significant amount of crowd control and find yourself unable to effectively apply your damage due to constant CC, Magi’s Blessing is a wise choice. It provides a shield that blocks a single hard crowd control effect every 45 seconds. This forces enemies to expend multiple CC abilities to lock you down, making it safer for your team to engage and deal damage.
Gem of Isolation: Gem of Isolation is an ideal situational item for Ares, typically picked up as a 4th to 6th item. It enhances his control potential significantly by adding slows to his abilities. Your Shackles slow enemies, your Searing Flames also slow, and even your ultimate, No Escape, applies a slow for its entire duration. Gem of Isolation makes it incredibly difficult for enemies to escape once Ares engages, amplifying his crowd control and kill potential.
VI. Actives: Essential Support Abilities for Ares
Actives are crucial for enhancing Ares’s utility and team support capabilities. Prioritize actives from this list to maximize your effectiveness as a support guardian. Remember, your active choices should primarily benefit your team.
Wrath of the Gods: In Conquest mode, try to coordinate with your team so someone else can take Wrath of the Gods, freeing you up to take Shell of Absorption. If you are playing with a dedicated support partner like Athena or Ymir, encourage them to pick up Wrath of the Gods.
Shell of Absorption: Shell of Absorption is exceptionally effective on Ares. When combined with his Bolster Defenses ability, it provides significant protection to your entire team, making them pseudo-tanks. Together, these buffs can grant Ares and his allies a formidable combination of 85-106 additional protections (potentially more with aura items), 30% Crowd Control Reduction (CCR), and 15% damage absorption. This combination transforms your team into a remarkably durable and hard-to-kill unit. Think of massive, overwhelming tankiness.
Greater Blink: Greater Blink is one of the most common and practically essential actives for Ares. Due to his inherent slowness and lack of natural initiation tools, Blink is crucial for closing the gap and initiating engagements effectively. It allows Ares to quickly position himself to use his ultimate or chains, turning him into a potent initiator.
Combat Blink: Never, under any circumstances, should you choose Combat Blink for Ares. Greater Blink’s superior range and initiation potential are far more valuable for his playstyle.
Heavenly Agility: Heavenly Agility is a useful active if the enemy team composition is heavy on slows. It also serves as a secondary initiation tool, providing a team-wide movement speed buff to engage or disengage fights.
Salvation: The only game mode where Salvation might be considered is Assault, due to mana sustain issues in that mode. Generally, Ares is not particularly mana-hungry. You should be able to comfortably manage mana for 3-4 full ability rotations without mana-focused actives.
Weakening Curse: Weakening Curse is highly effective when facing healers like Aphrodite, Ra, or Hel. Engage with Blink, apply Weakening Curse, and watch as their healing becomes significantly less effective, setting up easy kills. The slow also helps keep enemies within range of your chains and Mystical Mail.
Enfeebling Curse: Enfeebling Curse is a situational active, best picked up when the enemy ADC or a basic attack-focused god is performing exceptionally well and carrying the enemy team. It reduces their damage output, making them less of a threat in team fights and skirmishes.
