Ares Crafting Guide in SMITE: How to Build Ares in SMITE (2022)

The Best and Funniest Ares Builds in SMITE (2022)

Basically, in some game modes, simply having his Ultimate is enough to contribute to the team. However, Shackles are great for crippling enemies and chasing them down alone or with your teammates, Enhanced Defense is something that is often overlooked, but it’s a temporary aura that gives huge benefits to you and your team (Defense, Control Decrease, HP5) and Searing Flesh melts the flesh of enemy gods. Lastly, the passive grants 30 magical power for each aura element Ares has, which can stack up pretty well if you focus your build on auras.

As you might have guessed, a lot of the items we’ll be looking at are Aura items. While there are non-aura items that would be perfect for Ares, we are still a support character and our intention is to support our team as much as possible and lead them to victory.

Best Aura Items for Ares

Let’s go through the most important items you can take depending on the situation:

1. Heartward Amulet -> Amulet of Silence / Amulet of the Stronghold
   Used when the enemy team has a lot of magic damage and/or your team needs MP5. One of the main items that most Ares players use. This item is a must in Assault (if the other tank didn’t pick it up at the start) and does wonders for your resilience. Choose your upgrade depending on the situation on the board (Amulet of Silence is a more likely choice due to the value of Silence)
2. Sovereignty
   Used when the enemy team has a lot of physical damage and/or a strong need for HP5 on your team. Also one of the main items for Ares. This item is also a must in Assault (unless the other tank picks it up early) and does wonders for your resilience.
3. Infection / Pestilence
   Depending on what type of defense you lack, you will take one of these items, regardless of whether the enemy team has a healer or not. This breaks enemy healing from pickup, lifesteal, meditation, etc.
4. Imperial Armor
   Enemies spinning around the tower and refusing to let it fall? Armor of the Emperor BRB. No further comment, Your Honor.
5. Gauntlet of Thebes
   Great item, but takes time to develop. He has a great aura that works wonders with the Heart and Owls.
6. Shogun’s Kusari
   Do you have many Hunters on your team (and/or Chronos, Freya,…)? In general, take this item. The attack speed buff is too strong. Frankly. 10% CDR is the icing on the cake.
7. Mystic Mail
   More damage? Of course! But try to get him early so that his damage builds up during the match. You’re not going to buy it as the sixth item when the game ends, you know?
8. Jade Emperor’s Crown
   A great addition against a lot of physical damage gods. Reducing their power by 15% solves everything (1000 damage is no longer 1000, but for example 850, and this sometimes means the difference between life and death)
9. Witchblade
   Another brilliant item to weaken enemy physical damage gods with a -25% attack speed debuff. On top of that, it gives you a bit of movement speed to make it easier for you to chase down enemies, and the 10% CDR is pretty nasty as well.
10. Void Stone
    If you have a lot of mages on your team, take this as it reduces your enemies’ Magic Defense by 10%.
11. Sentinel’s Embrace
    Great item if you’re low on gold, gives an insane amount of protection
12. Upgrading Breastplate of Vigilance
    from Breastplate of Valor grants a temporary aura after you untap No Exit. This is good because it has 20% CDR and +65 physical defense built in.
13. Pythagorem’s Piece
    Decent CDR, decent magic damage and magic vampirism, great health bonus and sick aura that helps all attacking gods.
14. Rod of Asclepius
    We’re going into “weird item” territory, which is mostly sub-optimal unless you already have a big advantage over your enemies and want to make a deal with more aggression on your side. The Rod of Asclepius is the first item in this “row”. It gives a lot of magical power, a decent amount of health, some movement speed and a 20% bonus to healing!
15. Tyrannical Plate Helm
    Strange item, suboptimal for most uses. Good for trolling. Has decent stats, but other Aura items are a much better choice. The Tyrannical Plate Helm, of course, because of the aura that buffs your allied minions, is great for pushing and counter-pushing.
16. Compassion
    Don’t buy it on Ares or any other god that depends on Blink. This will disable your Blink most of the time.

Items without aura that can be used on Ares

1. Pridwen
   20% CDR and “Burst becomes BRRRR” moment after you pull your enemies in with Ulti.
2. Relic Dagger
   10% CDR and a massive cooldown reduction on your Blink, which is critical to winning games with Ares.

Ares Skill Leveling

It’s pretty simple. In most cases, prioritize No Escape > Shackles > Searing Flesh > Bolster Defenses.
In Assault, you can get Bolster Defenses earlier because of the insane HP5. In addition, reducing control helps, as fights happen quite often in this mode.

Relic for Ares

You buy this Blink whether you like it or not. Another situational, depending on the state of the board.

The beauty of Smite is that there are always ways to customize your build depending on the gods you’re playing with, the gods you’re up against, the game mode you’re in, and the situation on the board.

There is no one-size-fits-all build, but the most common build you’ll see is:

1. Sentinel’s Embrace (if late with gold)
2. Sovereignty
3. pestilence
4. Glove of Thebes
5. Piece of Pythagoras
6. prydwen

As mentioned, Ares is very flexible and you should scout the situation and discuss with your teammates on the fly about what you should build next if needed. Basically, if you have these items, another tank can go into Compassion, Invocation to the Heart, Mystic Mail, Witchblade, Shogun’s Kusari, and a random filler from the list above, and you’ll have everything you need for a good fight. This is just an example.

The good Ares makes a big difference with his presence, so try to let your team know via VGS when you’re going to charge forward with your Ult ( VVVR for “Ultimate is Ready” and VVVD for “Ultimate is Down” , which also shows the remaining cooldown and VVVF for “Follow me” ). Be aggressive, don’t let your enemies play your game, but don’t mindlessly engage in fights that you can’t win. Try to keep a cooldown on enemy Beads if possible, and practice positioning with Blink so you can capture as many gods as possible with the No Escape ability.

At the end of this article, we will provide you with a cool Arena fun build that will allow you to have fun with your friends if they are with you.

1. Gift of the Guardian (gaining gold!)
2. Pendant of Chronos (20% CDR and a passive that permanently reduces cooldown)
3. Spear of Desolation (10% CDR and a passive that further reduces the cooldown when you get kills and assist in a teamfight)
4. Pythagorean Piece (10% CDR and high damage passive)
5. Genji’s Guard (10% CDR and a passive that sometimes reduces the cooldown by a few seconds)
6. Relic Dagger (10% CDR and a passive that reduces your Blink’s cooldown so it can follow all those sweet cooldown reductions you use for your Ultimate)

Yes, we know the cooldown reduction cap is 40%, but the passives from these items are too good to pass.
Once you start the show, you will use your ult way too much and the pressure on the enemy team will be huge.
You will force them to save Purification Beads for you and any CC immune abilities they may have, making them unable to use them at will against other members of your team, which of course results in their sub-optimal performance during a match . If you keep catching at least 3 enemy gods with every No Escape, you should be fine with this build. Even if you get focused by enemies, you will still be able to survive long enough due to Guardians’ scaling. And once again, if they spent everything on you, there are fewer things they can use against your teammates, and you have already successfully used your ultimate, so it doesn’t matter if you live or die at that moment, they were unable to prevent your evil deeds.

That’s all for this guide!