One of Smite’s top guardians is Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom. You know her from her unique, tangy voice pack, telling everyone that “they is rockstar!” You see her banned in tournaments and ranked games for her capability to initiate, peel, and her global presence. Not only do you see her in the dual lane, but she can also be used in the jungle, as Team Digntas’ own Drew ‘Lassiz’ Boyd does quite often.

Lassiz, the captain and jungler for Team Dignitas, is known for his ability to initiate and set up kills for his teammates, no matter which jungler he plays. Looking at his most played junglers: Freya, Ne Zha, Loki, Athena, Fenrir, and Mercury, his Athena has the least amount of kills but the greatest amount of assists, ranging from 1.10 – 2.36 more assists over the assassins. Part of this statistic is Lassiz’s play style, part of it is the way he builds Athena, and lastly, part of the high amount of assists is Athena’s kit.

BUILD

The blue glow around Athena signals that Lassiz has activated his Potion of Magical Might.

Lassiz starts jungle Athena with Bumba’s Mask, Hand of the Gods, and a Potion of Magical Might. He builds into Shoes of Focus for the cooldown passive, and then Void Stone for the magical power and protection. After Void Stone, he builds Polynomicon or Gem of Isolation, depending on the situation. Polynomicon is a slightly cheaper option for more damage, offering 300 extra mana and 75 magical power. The Gem of Isolation is a tankier, more expensive item, which gives 250 extra health and mana, as well as a 25% slow for 2 seconds on all damaging abilities. Increasing Athena’s mana pool is essential to her character, and meshes well with the cooldown offered by Shoes of Focus.

Since Athena already has a 25% slow on her Preemptive Strike, the Gem of Isolation will work well that ability, as well as Shield Wall. Because this item offers more tankiness and crowd control, Lassiz will often build this after Polynomicon or vice versa. If the game continues on, he will pick up Rod of Tahuti to increase his magical power even more, as well as Obsidian Shard for the extra penetration for a good price.

Polynomicon works well with Athena’s passive, called Reach. After using an ability, her next auto attack will become a ranged attack, with around 25% extra damage. This ranged auto attack will be the auto attack with the extra damage from Polynomicon, which makes the effect of Polynomican even greater, as her attack will be able to reach enemies better than her melee attacks. While 25% may not seem very significant, pair the 25% extra damage with Polynomicon’s passive, and her ranged spear can be devastating. Hitting the enemy with her spear will do [35 + 1.5/(level) + 20% of magical damage]*1.05 + 100% of her magical power. You don’t need to run the numbers to see that that is a hefty amount of damage. However, one important aspect of Athena to remember is that her passive spear passes through all enemies it hits, including minions. The effect of Polynomicon will only proc on the first enemy that the spear hits, so minions can body block that extra damage. All enemies behind the first enemy will take the normal amount of damage of her passive spear. Thus, the way an enemy god can avoid the effects of Polynomicon is simply by running behind their minions, or juking her spear, as she has no other ranked attacks to follow up.

SITUATIONAL ITEMS

If you find that you are being focused down too quickly to the enemy jungler, then you can pick up Breastplate of Valor, which offers mana, cooldown reduction to escape faster, and physical protection, as typical junglers are physical. I would recommend this over Hide of the Neamean Lion, as the Breastplate of Valor offers similar physical protections, but additional mana and cooldown reduction. Nevertheless, Hide of the Neamean Lion will offer 300 health: a statistic that is very important early game. So when built early, Hide of the Nemean Lion will help you become more tanky, but offers no magical power: a tradeoff that you have to consider.

Take note that after building both Shoes of Focus and Breastplate of Valor, you will have reached the cooldown cap (40%), so building other items with cooldown reduction is not necessary. Rod of Tahuti, while expensive, will give you a good amount of power, 100 Magical Power and 25% extra on top of your entire Magical Power. On the flip side, if you are falling behind, Bancroft’s Talon is a good item that will help you play from behind. This item is relatively cheap, offers 100 magical power, 12% magical lifesteal, as well as additional 1 magical power per 1% of your missing health, which will help you sustain yourself against a more powerful enemy.

Stereotypically, jungle Athena will be built with one protection item (Void Stone) and health statistic items (Gem of Isolation). Usually, with her passive protection gains, these items will be enough. Depending on the situation, you should accordingly build more protections or damage.

ROLE

But Lassiz has the least amount of kills with Athena, you ask. As with all tank junglers, (Ymir, Odin, Guan Yu, Tyr, etc) Athena is built a little more like a Warrior or a bruiser than pure damage like traditional assassin type junglers. Tank junglers are more suited to initiating and chunking for the lane that they are ganking. That is part of the reason why Lassiz has 1.5 – 2.5 more assists on Athena than any other of his junglers.

Lassiz uses Confound on the enemy Bacchus, ensuring that the kill goes to his team.

DAMAGE COMPARISON

Another part of the reason why Athena has more assists is because of her kit. Compared to Freya, Fenrir, and other assassins, she does significantly less damage and has an unreliable ultimate. For base damage only, Freya does 100 damage per shot when her Irradiate is activated. The Irradiate buff is active for 5 seconds, and assuming (possibly incorrectly) that Freya hits one auto attack per second, she is already dealing 500 damage to her target. At level 20, that alone will remove a squishy character’s health by a third or even half. This dwarfs Athena’s first ability, Preemptive Strike. Her charge only does a base damage of 280, which will remove only around one fourth of a squishy enemy’s health. When taking the scaling into account, Freya’s damage skyrockets, as she does not build defensive items like Athena does.

Activating Freya’s Pulse buff will give her 60 base damage per shot, and assuming the same circumstances as before, will deal 300 damage to her target. Athena’s Shield Wall will do 200 for the initial damage, and 360 for the secondary damage. When Freya activates both Irradiate and Pulse together, she can deal 800 damage to her target, and with the scaling on those buffs, she can eliminate her target with ease, without the use of her ultimate. While it is possible to hit both initial and secondary damage of Shield Wall onto a target (with the help of Fist of the Gods), even then Athena’s ability only does 560 damage.

Another distinguishing factor between Athena and the other junglers is her ultimate, Defender of Olympus. While devastating if it hits an enemy, dealing 750 + 90% of her magical power, her ultimate is unreliable. If Athena is able to hit an enemy with her ultimate, the damage dealt is on par with Freya’s ultimate, which deals 960 (if all 4 shots hit) + 35% of her magical power. Still, Athena’s ultimate is often used to counter gank and to gank, as it is quite difficult to quickly lock onto an ally who is close to her position. So there is some potential wasted in her ultimate, and as such, Lassiz is often seen putting one point into her ultimate and then focusing more on her Shield Wall, Preemptive Strike, then Defender of Olympus, and finally, Confound.

Athena needs buffs in order to keep up with Freya's damage.

GANKING

Another aspect of jungle Athena is knowing when to use Defender of Olympus. You should be checking your allies’ health every so often, either via your ultimate or looking up in the upper left hand corner. If you notice that an ally is losing health fast, or that the enemy jungler has ganked a lane, your ultimate will take you to your ally after 4.2 seconds, and will mitigate 20% of damage during that time, potentially saving your ally and earning you a kill. If your ally dies while you are ulting them, then you will return to your same spot, and deal damage in the area where you land.

Athena’s ultimate is also used to gank a lane, but the surprise factor is a little lost, as the enemy will usually see the circle around your ally, signaling Defender of Olympus. However, there are ways to successfully land Athena’s ultimate. With good coordination, using Defender of Olympus on an invisible Loki who is attacking the enemy will secure your allies the kill. When Loki is in Stealth, the disc around him will also be invisible, leaving the target unaware of the incoming gank. Other successful combinations include Arachne’s Drain Life and Cacoon, Zhong Kui’s Exorcism, and Hades’ Pillar of Agony. The play rests on your ally’s shoulders, as they should recognize the disc around them and attack the enemy with a stun, mesmerize, or root to help you land the ultimate.

Lassiz notices that his ally, Hel, is almost out of mana and is losing life. Using Defender of Olympus, Lassiz comes to the rescue.

CONCLUSION

Athena is definitely a viable jungler. Her kit fits well with Lassiz’s play style, and even if you don’t play like Lassiz, her kit is suitable for setting up kills for the lanes. Polynomicon boosts her damage output and makes her even more viable. Getting Bancroft’s Talon and Gem of Isolation early on can make her more tanky, and buying Obsidian Shard can help with her damage output. She is quite unlike the traditional assassin jungler, however, and should not be played like one. By playing her a little less selfishly, supporting your ally for the kill, building her right, and knowing when to use her ultimate to save your ally, gank or countergank, your Athena jungle will be fun, successful, and a breath of fresh air.

Due to Athena's natural tankiness, Lassiz is able to help his ally, Sobek, tank the Fire Giant, something a traditional jungler is not able to do.

Want to see the infamous Athena jungle? Lassiz does it best on Smitegame (1 – 4 PM EST) as well on his personal channel.

As always, feel free to leave me comments or suggestions below or on Twitter @SunniZepha on what you think the best Athena jungle strategies are! Want to improve your gameplay and win from behind? I also have a 3v3 guide! Thanks for reading!