How to play Nemesis in Smite 2!
Nemesis is an assassin that excels in one-on-one fights, whether building ability damage, basic attack focused, or bruiser, she is a force to be reckoned with.
Nemesis's passive allows her to steal basic attack damage, strength and intelligence through basic attacks. Her passive also reduces their basic attack damage, strength and intelligence as well. This passive is something to keep in mind for basic attack cancels, as it will boost her damage significantly while also making her enemy much weaker.
Nemesis's 1 is a short dash that does damage. She can cast this dash twice before it goes on cooldown. Her dash combined with her 2 makes it very difficult for opponents to escape you. Don't forget to weave in basic attacks between each dash!
Nemesis's 2 is a large cone ability with a "sweet spot" in the middle. The sweet spot gives the ability a hefty slow. This ability has a huge range and makes it extremely difficult to escape Nemesis's grasp. Using this along with the 1 makes it hard for enemies to even escape you. This ability also has hybrid scaling, which means it scales off int and strength.
Nemesis's 3 is a self-shield that reflects and heals a percentage of damage taken during the ability's duration. The reflect is based off your strength and the heal is based off your int. Always consider what may be more valuable against your opponents and build accordingly for either a strong reflect, strong heal, or a mix of both at the cost of exceling at neither. One important thing to remember is that any crowd control will immediately remove Nemesis's shield, so make sure to time shields' appropriately.
Nemesis's 4 is a single target ability that allows you to immediately steal a percentage of an enemy's protections as well as gain a movement speed buff. It also applies the movement speed and protections you gained negatively to whoever you target. In Smite 2 it also deals physical damage in an area instead of just one person. This ultimate ability should be used the moment you want to engage on someone so you can maximize the value of the debuff.
Nemesis can be played either in the jungle or in the solo lane and will build differently depending on the role you chose.
Here is an example build for the jungle.
Bumba's Cudgel: This item is great on nemesis when you are focusing on ability damage as it allows for hard-hitting basic attack cancels, as well as some CDR for hitting an enemy with a basic attack.
Jotunn's Revenge: A great rush item since it is cheap, has a good amount of strength, a lot of CDR and a handy passive that assists in securing more than one kill in a gank.
Hydra's Lament: This item almost feels like it was designed for Nemesis with how amazing it feels on her. It simply increases the damage by 30% on your next basic attack. Basic attack cancelling is something that should be done on Nemesis already so this just rewards you even more for doing so. Also gives a good amount of mana and mana regen to alleviate early game mana issues.
Oath-Sworn Spear: Gives some pen, decent amount of strength, and an amazing passive for dealing with other squishes who may try to face you in a one-on-one fight. Also partially assists against tanks but it's not the reason it is taken.
The Crusher: This item gives a decent amount of strength, some CDR and pen, and most importantly, a very powerful passive. The passive adds a lot of damage when building mainly strength and hurts a lot. A staple in many ability-based assassin builds.
Heartseeker: Another item we are grabbing mainly for the passive, it does damage based off the target's max HP as will as some of your strength. Also a staple in many ability-based assassin builds.
Titan's Bane: An item I love to grab on Nemesis because of how she already steals protections. This will make even tanks fear you.
Here is what I would build in the solo lane as Nemesis.
Firstly, I would use her Aspect of Justice which removes her area-of-effect damage from her ultimate in favor of averaging her health out with whoever she targets. This makes tank Nemesis extremely difficult to kill as she can just heal her health back up when getting low.
Bluestone Pendant: Very strong option for Nemesis as she already hits hard early. This item will just chunk enemy gods and works extremely well in the solo lane.
Depending on what you're going against, you will either get Gladiator's Shield if facing a physical god, or Genji's Guard if facing a magical god.
Shifter's Shield: Gives mixed protections, max health, max mana and an extremely powerful passive that gives strength or int, depending on whichever is higher, when above 75% health. Also gives protections instead when dropping below 75% health. Works well with Nemesis since you will heal with the Aspect of Justice and do even more damage when at high health.
Pharoah's Curse: This item gives mixed protections and attack speed as well as an active effect of slowing enemies and their attack speed around you. Nemesis likes to have attack speed and being able to stay on top of people so this item is a must buy when building tank.
Void Shield: This allows for nemesis to do more damage as a bruiser and helps her physical teammates as well with the physical protection reduction. Also gives a bit of strength which nemesis uses well.
Bloodforge: This item is a damage item, but it has a defensive active effect that helps Nemesis have even more shields. Also gives attack speed which is valuable.
Qin's Blade: Gives attack speed, strength and a super powerful passive that makes you win pretty much every fight in a one-on-one scenario against tanks, mages, assassins, and some carries.
Nemesis excels at picking off targets in the 1v1 and chasing down targets to confirm a kill. Just be sure to be smart with your dashes as they are your only mobility tool and you'll be stuck stranded without them if going into a bad situation.