A written Hecate (mid lol sorry supp dreamers) Guide: First and foremost going through the abilities
The 1 is a straight line damaging ability which will swap between either mezing the enemys hit or applying a Mark for them to take bonus damage from all additional hits after being marked for a short time. In particular for the Mark ability text reads that “other friendly gods deal additional damage” but this does include yourself. This is usually the ability you max first, and is your standard wave clear. The most important to keep in mind when managing your 1 is making sure you know which effect is going to be with your next cast. The Mez in particular can help with pressure when being chased, allowing you to gain distance even without a Dash/Leap in your arsenal. It’s also great to use to disrupt channeling abilities, as currently none are Mez immune.
The 2 is a large circle damaging area which will start with you casting the ability (which will also show you a large area which plays into your Charges) then having the option to recast to lay out the damaging circle. This works similar to Heimdallr’s 1 from Smite 1 where you can recast the ability anywhere, not just based on the initial area your shown. Before you recast, the ability can gain Charges based on how many other abilities are used (including allies and emenies abulities) aforementioned area indicated when you first casted the 2. As a special synergy, using your 3 will gain 3 Charges (ha). Now all this said, the Charges honestly do not matter much. They give your 2 extra damage based on the amount you gained (with a max of 12 Charges). However due to the fact that it relies on ability casts, you yourself can only attribute 4 Charges normally thru your 1 and 3, and will have to charge the rest either by waiting for more of your own casts or the gods around you. Just off of that, you should tell this ability seldom reaches full charges especially in 1v1 situations, doing best in late game team fights to build charge, but then you have to balance the fact that your holding damage and waiting rather then sending out. Not sure if my own opinion should bleed into a guide, but I do feel like this part of Hecate’s kit should be improved, the Charges simply providing more damage is not good enough in opinion to let the ability build up rather then quick casting it. I think the trade off she currently has is that the area where abilities need to be cast to gain Charges never actually expires until you cast the 2. I would actually change it to have it maybe expire after a certain amount of time (and maybe change her Charge amount and scaling, ie instead of max dmg with 12, make it 8) but give one the following effects: Either the area of damage also increases with more Charges or gains a CC effect with enough Charges - either or would be great buffs for this aspect of the 2.
The 3 which was mentioned earlier is a HP Shield that Hecate can cast either onto herself or an ally near her. The shield only blocks Magical Damage, meaning if you are using it for the HP you’ll want to keep to keep in mind who’s attacking you. When cast, a Damage Burst will also occur around the shield. When you cast the 3, you’ll also gain movement speed, but this is tied to the cast and not the shield (You will gain the movement when you use your 3, wether you used it on an ally or yourself, and your ally won’t gain the movement)
The 4 is a massive area both around you and in front of you (with the area in front being able to be moved closer or further, the area around you is unchangeable). Once cast, enemies in each area take massive damage and teleport to the other area. A side aspect as well is that after cast, two smaller portals are left on the ground where your two larger areas went off, which you can interact with to teleport to the other portal. So there’s two prime ideas with the 4. Hit the enemy with the area you cast out to bring them closer to you, and then cast everything else on them (1, 2, and 3) and they should blow up. The other senecio is your getting dived, so you cast your 4 so that those around you get teleported away to the area you cast out. Big thing to remember when using the ult in this way is that you want to make sure if your not in a situation where you want to continue fighting after getting the diver off of you, that no one is in the other teleporting area, as they will be brought to you while the diver is teleported away. The last thing to really think about is the smaller portals that get left - you can definitely make some plays with these but senerios which this will be beneficial will be fewer.
Left the Passive for last. It allows her to interact with a structure to give that structure a healing/mana restoration area when standing by the structure. Or you can interact with an ally who has recently slain an enemy to give them and yourself extra Strgenth and Intelligence. You always want to be giving the buff out to allies, as it also benefits yourself and ya know them lol. It’s definitely better than the Structure buff, but the passive has no cooldown so you can give both out freely.
So all that said, how does Hecate actually play out? She is no doubt weak early and has a weak laning phase for quite a while. Keep pressure down with the 1 Mez while using the 3 to reduce damage if laning against a magical. She farms the map OK, with the bonus damage on the 1 being nice at times to help efficiently clear. As the game progresses, you can get more and more aggressive with your 4, until eventually late game where you hit the whole enemy team with it, bring them right up to you and delete them in less then a second lol. Build wise pure INT with some CD and PEN is the way to go in some form, with potentially maybe 1 defense depending on how hard your being dived.
