Who is Bellona?

Bellona is the ‘Goddess of War’ of the Roman pantheon within Smite and falls under the warrior category of character. Bellona has been one of the strongest releases from the game for a while now, many players struggling to match against her no matter what role she was playing at first release. Bellona now typically plays in the roles of solo laner and jungler for her team with high damage and sustain whilst being able to create the defense of a tank.

Bellona’s Abilities

Passive - Master of War

Bellona’s passive is called ‘Master of War’ and this will give Bellona additional movement speed and protections when she is either hit by an enemy basic attacks or hits her own basic attacks. This allows Bellona to manipulate fights easily in her favour as when needed she is able to give chase to enemies or make a speedy escape or enable her to take far more damage than her enemies will be able to when building her protections.

The best way to avoid an enemy bellona using this to the full potential would be to rely on your own abilities and capability to position yourself as far away from her as possible, such a combination like Neith’s ‘Back Flip’ into ‘Spirit Arrow’ which allows her to position herself far away from Bellona and deal damage to her at the same time.

1st Ability - Shield Bash

With the use of her 1st ability - Shield Bash - Bellona will dash forward and deal damage in a cone radius to enemies, enemies hit will take damage and become slowed. For the enemies hit she will gain a block stack (the max amount of stacks being 3) and when Bellona is next meant to be hit by a basic attack she will absorb the damage and reflect a portion of it to enemies around her. Bellona will switch to her sword and shield at this point and for every 3 successful hits on enemies whilst using these, she will gain another block stack.

Bellona will generally use this for the mobility but it can also sway the tide of a fight and it is important to make her lose her weapon kit as quickly as possible in this case as she will lose her weapon kit and therefore use her ability to block. To stop Bellona using her sword and shield you must aim to keep her out of combat though this will be difficult as Bellona will implement more pressure than most other characters so retreat would be the best option. In terms of countering her mobility where she will be able to use her transport and slow to keep up with others, it would be best to use a mobility ability of your own before she does this as she will then be stuck at roughly the same distance away from you but with a wasted ability that she could have then made a better use of elsewhere.

2nd Ability - Bludgeon

Bellona’s 2nd ability is called ‘Bludgeon’ and when using this Bellona will spin her hammer around and slam down, damaging enemies on the swing and even more on the slam in a full area in front of her. For every enemy caught in the spin attack her damage of slamming is increased and she is then able to use her hammer which will allow her to attack all enemies within a melee range of her.

This ability is where the majority of Bellona’s damage comes from and can take out mass amounts of health against unsuspecting targets however this ability is very susceptible to cancellation methods. The ability can be entirely stopped by a variety of crowd controls and will just leave Bellona with her hammer, completely cancelling the ability, such crowd controls would include stuns and abilities that knock her back and can then leave her confused as to what she is to do next, a huge source of damage she uses is gone!

3rd Ability - Scourge

Scourge is Bellona’s 3rd ability and when used Bellona will whip her Scourge forward, dealing damage to all enemies hit in the line style area of effect, she will then be able to use her scourge in combat which will give Bellona additional melee range and on every third basic attack she will be healed. Enemies hit by the initial ability have a disarm effect applied to them, a new type of control to Smite that will disable the use of basic attacks, therefore impacting greatly on any character that is heavily focused on their basic attacks.

It is important to counter the use of this as the ability can give Bellona a huge amount of sustain and keep her a huge contender in nearly any fight. It is best to do so by not allowing her to hit her basic attacks on to a target, whether it be a minion or yourself as she will then be unable to heal and this means that use of mobility is great to counter this ability. It is important to remember her scourge will not disappear until she is considered out of combat so in this time a player facing her should aim to apply as much pressure on her as possible so she faces no opportunity to engage in combat, or rely on the rotations of teammates to increase pressure against her further.

Ultimate Ability - Eagle’s Rally

Eagle’s Rally, the ultimate ability of Bellona’s kit allows her to jump to a target location, planting her flag in the ground, giving physical power and protections to her teammates in the target radius and stunning enemies hit directly under the flag when it is planted. This has a notably low cooldown and can allow Bellona to constantly make great escapes or great engagements and can very easily sway the flow of any fight in her favour.

Countering will rely on your ability to make yourself mobile as it will be very difficult to make any direct counter to this ability except for running from it to make it pointless and the use of items and actives that remove or reduce crowd control are also useful for this as Bellona will not be able to land her stun on to you which can remove major set up to what would probably be a dreadful fight for you.

Counter Picking Bellona

Countering Bellona in terms of characters is much more simple that most people think, the best option for counter picking Bellona being any character that has the potential to interrupt an ability or has high mobility.

One of my personal favourites to play against the character is Aphrodite as she is able to cancel Bellona’s 2nd ability easily with ‘Back Off!” and she can easily take Bellona out of combat when her ‘Kiss’ is used to stun Bellona away from entering futher content and can allow an engagement on to Bellona or a much easier escape from her, making up for the lack of mobility against her. Though Bellona also counters the majority of the hunters most players forget to utilise the control that some provide such as the mobility and crowd control from hunters like Anhur, Apollo and Neith who can all work to great effect against the Goddess when used appropriately.

A now great contender is Ullr as of 'The Sly Messenger' patch he can now remove her disarm by switching stances, making the coltrol completely useless against him, being the only hunter directly able to cancel her disarm.

Counter Building Bellona - Items

When countering Bellona by using items it would be best to focus on cooldown reduction, physical defense and passive abilities to counter her (some focus points may not be appropriate depending on the rest of the enemy Bellona’s team).

Cooldown reduction will allow you to take down Bellona without having to worry about her disarm control as you won’t be focusing on your basic attacks at this point if you had specifically tried to counter her in such a way. Physical defense does what the name suggests and will reduce the damage Bellona does to you and in some cases make her completely insignificant to you. Building items that have passive abilties can function to benefit you or have a negative impact on Bellona, a benefit to you would be using such an item like ‘Magi’s blessing’ as this will make you immune to the stun from her ultimate whilst an item like ‘Midgardian Mail’ will hinder Bellona’s ability to keep up in combat against you.

Counter Building Bellona - Actives

The best actives to focus on if you want to counter Bellona would be actives that reduce the effectiveness of anything she does. The first great investment for you would be ‘Greater Purification’ as this will be able to cleanse the stun Bellona would apply with her ultimate for the majority of her uses of it and will make the ability a complete waste of time for her. Another great active I would suggest using is ‘Greater Sprint’ as this will nullify the slow applied by Bellona’s 1st ability and provide mobility to escape her when required.

Though these two are primarily the best to counter her there are other possible actives depending on your situation and the play style of the enemy Bellona such as the ‘Curse’ actives or the other sprint active that can apply to your whole team, ‘Heavenly Agility’.

All the best in taking down the Goddess and follow me here on Twitter to keep up with further content!