First off, let’s review the changes that have been made in the ‘Alien Attacks’ patch:

- Decreased bounce delay from 0.4 → 0.2s

Previously, Chain Lightning was a slightly sluggish ability. With this change you will now be able to predict who will get hit by the ability. Enemies also have much less time to get far enough to not get affected by this ability.

- Reduced damage from 45/85/125/165/205 → 40/70/100/130/160

A small damage reduction that is noticeable while using higher ranks of this ability. The magical scaling is still the same at 40% and Zeus also got another damaging ability which means that it’s not a big factor.

- Increased cooldown 8s → 10s

This cooldown increase is not as bad as it looks. Zeus still manages to do a lot of damage - instead of doing medium amounts of consistent damage, he now cripples his foes with high damage over a short period of time.

- Now applies a 30% slow to targets for 2s

The slow has been moved from his Detonate Charge over to Chain Lightning. A very small change that actually makes the slow more useful and easier to apply.

 New - Aegis Assault

- Zeus throws his shield forward, dealing 80/125/170/215/260 +50% Magical Power as damage to nearby enemies and applying a charge. The shield remains for 3s, and Zeus may hit it with Basic Attacks or Chain Lightning to deal an additional 10/20/30/40/50 +Basic Attack damage.

- Cost: 60/65/70/75/80. Cooldown: 10s.

This new original ability really brought out Zeus’ strength - huge bursts of damage - but it also got rid of his old shield that provided him with protection and movement speed - his only form of defense.

It cannot be thrown through walls and the damage increase only applies to basic attacks hitting the shield, not to Chain Lightning bounces.

It can be used as a powerful poking tool by extending the reach of your Chain Lightning considerably. It can also be used as a very efficient way to clear buff camps and waves - you can quickly stack 3 charges and Detonate for fast wave clear. And last but not least - it can be utilised as a potent zoning tool.

The introduction of this new damaging ability also has another effect on Zeus' competitive viability - it makes Spear of the Magus much more potent on him. The ability itself can do damage but you can also get Spear of the Magus stacks by hitting Chain Lightning next to an enemy. In turn, your other abilities will do more damage thanks to the applied stacks of the item's penetration debuff.

- No longer slows if you have 3 stacks on a target.

There is no need to slow someone who is dead. The damage coming from your abilities is large enough to kill a squishy target in the blink of an eye.

- Zeus is no longer rooted while casting this ability.

This change is much more important than it looks. With this change, Zeus can now move freely while deploying this ability. That means he can deploy all of his abilities in a much shorter time frame which increases Zeus’ burst damage.

Thanks to Aegis Assault, Zeus can now distance himself from a teamfight and do massive AoE damage. Another thing Zeus excels at is his ability to duel people with ease - especially if there are no minions around. A single combo of Aegis Assault combined with Chain Lightning and Detonate can get you a kill in certain cases. If you think the damage won’t be enough to kill your enemy, use your Lightning Storm to add death to injury. Thankfully, he still retains the spot of one of the most dangerous gods you can face while contesting mid harpies.

At the start, the ability upgrade order should be: Chain Lightning > Detonate Charge > Aegis Assault > Detonate Charge > Lightning Storm After that, the priorities should be: Detonate Charge > Chain Lightning > Aegis Assault > Lightning Storm

The reason for Lightning Storm being upgraded last is that it only gets 20 damage increase per tick. Enemies get usually affected by 1-3 ticks of damage from this ability (unless they are affected by heavy CC) and that only results in 60 extra damage. Detonate Charge and Chain Lightning are Zeus' bread and butter and while Aegis Assault offers good damage increase, it usually won't be utilised very often because it's very easy to dodge.

Let’s summarise the pros and cons of this god:

+ Huge amounts of burst damage
+ Ability to contest and kill jungle camps with ease
+ Good at 1v1 fights as well as big teamfights
+ 2 Powerful zoning abilities

- No escape abilities - very easy to kill
- Slow at rotating
- Very small amount of crowd control

Ultimately, Zeus is now a mage with extremely high burst damage and one big weakness - no escape tools. This is why Zeus players need to use careful positioning in order to deliver deadly electrifying damage to their enemies.

We are definitely going to see more Zeus picks in the SPL, although teams will have to build their compositions around him. Gods like Geb or Aphrodite could keep Zeus alive in sticky situations while Zeus is pumping out damage left and right. We’ll just have to wait and see until professional players are comfortable with him. Until then, I definitely recommend playing Zeus in casual or ranked games - his rework was truly well done and he is an incredibly fun god to play.

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[VER]: You're electric!