What Determines the Meta

The meta in Smite is usually born out of the competitive scene, starting in scrims, then being shown in competitive games, and then generally trickling into the highest level of ranked down to the lower ranks. Meta can mean a few different things, but primarily comes down to a mix of "the best way to play the game" and "which characters are the best to play".

The god pick meta is also defined by a few other factors:

• Who's the most over-tuned gods and what's the most overtuned items currently?

• What counters those gods and items?

• What synergizes with those gods, items, and their counters?

On top of those three things, especially in competitive play, role flexibility plays a large factor because it can make a draft unpredictable for the opponent.

We can generally determine which gods are "meta" early on in competitive from a mix of their pick rate, ban rate, win rate, and the eye test to determine why the pick/ban/win rates are what they are.

What is the best way to play the game?

If we're going to base our meta off of competitive play, most notably the Founders Series, 24/7 Open Tournament, and amateur tournaments like SmitePrime, the current best way to play is picking gods that are effective at fighting on and invading enemy camps with Sunder at the beginning of the game, going for early Queen Naga, Gold Fury, and Fire Giants, and trying to end the game before the team playing from behind can reach build and level parity.

Who's/What's Overtuned?

Currently, the most overtuned gods are generally believed to be Bacchus and Susano. We can see this in their 20% ban rates during the Founders Series, and in my experience casting games that weren't on the official broadcast, they were often banned or top picked. Both of these god's also have that aforementioned role flexibility as well, Bacchus being strong in both support and solo, and Susano being primarily strong in jungle but also viable in solo and mid.

A certain god that also had a 20% ban rate seems to be missing there... that would be Jing Wei. Jing Wei's strength doesn't necessarily come from her numbers being insanely over-tuned (however, they are a bit too high), but from her strength using Crit items, which are very strong in carry and mid right now. These items do lots of damage even to tanks, and are notably the fastest way to take down towers for their bounties and shredding those early Queen Nagas, Gold Furies, and Fire Giants. Behind Jing Wei, you have Sol who also utilizes crit very well on top of a hyper aggressive playstyle from Carry or Mid, and sometimes you will even see these two picks go to the Chaos teams top 2 picks to do that objective shred but also counter that top god in Bacchus, who can be weak to being shredded down by a team that's playing with two carries instead of a traditional mid-lane burst mage.

Speaking of traditional mid-lane burst mages, we can't talk about overtuned items without bringing up the combination of Transcendence and Book of Thoth (and usually Soul Reaver alongside them). We often saw Neith being played in mid (even moreso than Sol), and sometimes in Carry because she utilizes this build so well. Another god that utilizes this well saw lots of play in Carry when Jing Wei or Sol were banned, and that's Cernunnos. Specifically in mid, Kukulkan also likes the combo due to his passive gaining power from mana, which means he sees decent amounts of play and success.

Outside of those two roles, gods like Mordred, Loki , and Chaac utilize this build in both Jungle and Solo lane, however none of these were the top tier of gods in either role despite high play rate (Loki and Chaac) or high win rate (Mordred), falling behind the aforementioned Susano and Bacchus... and some other gods that has very good role flexibility and counters both of those top tier characters.

What Counters those?

Fenrir. If there was ever a god that said "I have role flexibility and I'm here to counter the top god", it's Fenrir. He's been a top pick in Support, Jungle, and Solo in Smite 2, and his playstyle is largely the same as it was in Smite 1: Either burn actives off of backliners (or carry them to their death if they don't have beads) or grab an enemy tank with ult, and make sure they die (that's you Bacchus). Remember Susano? He usually likes to go Blink as his relic, which means he has no CC immunity to escape from Ragnarok if Fenrir can catch him in the bite. This on top of having very respectable base stats made Fenrir a top pick and gave him the highest win rate during the first weekend of the Founder's Series (74.4%).

There's another thing that counters Susano as well... walls. A lot of Susano's strength comes in his ability to move around fights, either disengaging from fights and quickly making distance and engaging fights and quickly closing distance. Susano's issue is that his two movement abilities are a dash and a thrown teleport that doesn't go through walls unless he hits an enemy with it. This made two of the top frontliners Odin and Ymir, both legendary wall character, Odin with the cage on his AO4 and Ymir with the Ice Wall on his AO1. Both of these character also have very respectable CC and damage in their kits for frontliners, although Odin is a bit safer because of his shield and leap, making him less susceptible to that scary Fenrir Ragnarok. It's worth mentioning that these walls would normally be countered by Shell, but almost nobody is building that relic over Blink or Sunder, and when up against Blink, they are very strong at forcing it, which means those character's can't use it as an engage tool. These walls are also very good at locking down gods without leaps that are higher up in the meta like Sol and Cernunnos as well.

Ares deserves somewhat of an honorable mention here as well, as the cripple on his chains can counter a lot of these frontliners like Bacchus, Susano, Fenrir, Neith and Odin along with his No Escape ultimate being very prevalent due to the lack of Beads in most people's relic slots.

So what are we missing?

• Hecate. She's one of the top mid-laners right now and doesn't utilize either OP build path (Crit or the Transcendence/Book of Thoth combo). She also doesn't necessarily hard counter any of the current meta gods either like Fenrir or Odin. She doesn't seem to have severely overtuned numbers currently either. Hecate seems to have the potential of holding the meta hostage similar to Smite 1's Yemoja. Her high skill-level utility through most of her abilities, and especially her AO4 are going to be extremely difficult to balance the game around. An important thing to note though: Taking up that mid lane spot in Smite 1 with her more utility based kit would mean giving up secure on objectives, but the prevalence and strength of Sunder in Smite 2 largely removes that drawback.

• Thanatos has seen very mixed success in competitive so far. I think this god fits a similar role that he did in Smite 1, where if he really gets rolling, he can hypercarry the game from the Jungle. Top level hypercarries on top level teams such as Adapting and Dzoni will perform very well with this god, but lower level junglers or lower level teams will struggle to find the same success.

• Zeus has seen decent success with a few... interesting builds, but sample size so far is too small on any one role or playstyle to make an accurate assessment. He is very strong around objective play with Lightning Storm (AO4), but is still weak to all in dive, which the top meta gods like Susano, Bacchus, and Fenrir like to do, and to walls, from gods like Odin or Ymir.

• Anhur would seem strong in a meta so focused on early pressure and objective play, but's just outshined by Sol in carry early game and by Cernunnos and Jing Wei late game. Not to mention the top support starter, Selflessness, really hampers his Impale combo damage.

• Athena: The speed at which teams are grouping up (sometimes before the beginning of the match, and oftentimes definitely by 5 minutes), and the existence of teleporters has really hampered the effectiveness of Athena's ultimate (AO4). Athena is also strong when she can set up for large mage abilities like Kukulkan with her Taunt (AO2), but the current meta mid-laners are not those style of gods. She's soft-countered to a degree by the prevalence of walls in the game (Odin and Ymir) and her damage is also fairly lackluster compared to other supports such as Ares, Bacchus, and Ymir.

• Hades, Anubis: These gods struggle to find a role they're good at despite being somewhat flexible. They take too long to scale when coming out of the jungle. Neither are good mid-laners because their early clear is quite dangerous, and it's always a distinct possibility that a high burst assassin is waiting by mid-lane at level 1, and neither of these gods can play from behind. And when it comes to solo, the Intelligence/defense hybrid options are somewhat limited, not to mention how easily accessible anti-heal is to be built and both are hard-countered by Odin cage's antiheal. Hades has seen some success in solo because of how oppressive his early pressure and sustain can be in the lane, while Anubis has not seen that type of playstyle work in the same way.

• Bellona just struggles with itemization currently, and the disarm doesn't counter the double-AA comps well enough to make up for it. It's seen some success in solo, but that was usually down to a major skill difference between the teams that were playing early on in tournaments.

• The Morrigan is very strong in ranked currently due to a bug with her passive proccing crits at an absurd rate, allowing her to melt objectives, but building crit on her is currently banned in competitive. She's also rarely seen play at the competitive level, so I don't actually have any idea where she would fall into this meta.

TLDR

The meta is currently defined by the sunder relic, early invading, quick grouping, and super early objective pulls. On top of that, there are a few gods and/or item combos who's numbers are overtuned, dragging them to the top of the meta, and the counters to those gods right along with them. Competitive teams often like to prioritize gods with high role flexibility near the top of their drafts.

Top Tier (bans or first picks)

• Bacchus - overtuned, role flexibility

• Susano - overtuned, role flexibility

• Fenrir - role flexibility, counterplay

• Jing Wei - overtuned, itemization

Secondary Tier (first pick potential, likely top 2 on Chaos side)

• Sol - itemization, role flexibility

• Neith - itemization, role flexibility

• Hecate - utility, downsides minimized due to Sunder prevelance

• Odin - counterplay, role flexibility

Tertiary Tier (played in a lot of games... or should be)

• Ymir - counterplay, role flexibility

• Cernunnos - itemization, role flexibility

• Mordred - itemization, role flexibility

Picks that are either outshined or are niche (definitely see play, but maybe shouldn't sometimes Loki)

• Ares - counterplay but lower prio than Ymir or Odin

• Chaac - itemization is good, but is countered a bit by Odin who can be seen in most games

• Thanatos - hyper-carry potential

• Loki - itemization is good late, but jungle needs to be early aggressive

• Kukulkan - itemization is good but isn't Hecate or Neith

• Zeus - can be really good but is countered by a lot of the higher tier picks

Outshined (Don't see a lot of play and deservedly so)

• Anhur - outshined by too many other characters in the same role

• Hades - struggles due to counterplay

• Bellona - itemization is poor

• Athena - undertuned damage, doesn't fit the current playstyle great

Just plain bad (Do not play this)

• Anubis - just outshined in every role by a mile, lack of mobility makes him vulnerable

Unlisted (Just not enough data)

• The Morrigan - due to bug ban and lack of play

As you can see, despite the small god pool currently available, there's quite an in-depth logic and strategy behind each pick and ban that teams are currently using in the meta right now.

Mordred is the Breaker of the Round Table, and once you've mastered him, your enemies will feel like he's put them through a few Round Tables.

Mordred is a melee god that does Physical damage. He scales off of Strength, Intelligence, and Protections. His most prominent roles are in the Solo lane and in the Jungle, but can potentially be niche flexed into Support and possibly even Mid depending on team composition and current meta.

Your goal with Mordred, regardless of role, will often be finding your way to the enemy backline to do lots of damage and survive with mobility, protections, and sustain. How you do that damage and get that sustain is largely up to your build path, which Mordred has many options with, but before getting to build paths, let's talk about how he's played.

Mordred Abilities

• Basic Attacks: Mordred's basic attacks are anything but basic when it comes to Smite 2. He has two swords, called Mourning and Clarent. His attack chain is Mourning>Clarent>Clarent>Mourning, and it's timing is 1/.75/.75/1. Mourning (attack 1 and 4) scale like normal basics with primarily strength (100% STR/20% INT), but Clarent (attack 2 and 3) scales only with 100% INT and 60% STR, which means his basics get value from building some INT.

• Passive - Wrath of the Forsaken: This gives you a "Wrath" meter, similar to Smite 1's King Arthur. This meter fills some passively on it's own, but largely fills based on hitting abilities and basic attacks on enemies. Hitting gods gives a bit more wrath than hitting minions. This passive largely replaces the cooldown for the ultimate, which we'll touch on in a second.

  • The second part of the passive is a little Dash, which hits the first god for a little bit of damage and knocks them up. This doesn't cost Wrath or Mana, so feel free to use this pretty much whenever. It's good as just a little movement ability to get around or dodge abilities too. You use the Interact/Jump button to use this, and it does have a lower cooldown if you build CDR.

1. Cruel Strikes: Slashes in a small cone in front of Mordred then slams in a short line. The slash is pretty straight-forward: just a simple damaging ability that scales with STR. The line has two parts. The first is also just simple damage that scales with STR, but it has an interesting reaction with the basic attack chain that scales with protections. If the next basic attack would be Mourning (first or fourth attack), the slam does bonus damage based on protections, or if the next basic attack would be Clarent (2nd or 3rd attack), he instead heals scaling with protections. The ability icon changes as well: It's more pink when it's going to do extra damage, and is more orange when it's going to heal. Attacking once then hitting the slam is good for sustain, especially if you've built a lot of protections. The Heal isn't as big if hitting minions.

2. Bloodrage: This is a classic rage ability at the core, doing damage, that scales with both STR and INT pretty evenly, in a circle around Mordred, and giving an AS% and MS% stim. This ability is very packed though because while Bloodrage is active, you can stack a protection buff onto Mordred, and a protection debuff onto enemies with basic attacks up to 4 times. At max level, this is currently an 8 per hit protection buff/debuff, which means hitting 4 basics while in Bloodrage, Mordred can get a short 32 protection buff and can shred 32 protections off of an enemy.

3. Severing Slice: A simple line ability that deals damage, scaling on INT and slowing enemies. The fun part of this ability is that when hitting the center of the line, it causes the enemy to Bleed as they move, which scales with strength instead of INT. The Bleed is a DOT on minions rather being based on their movement.

4. Heart Slash: So like I was saying about the ultimate cooldown, Mordred doesn't have a traditional time-based cooldown but instead has 2 different ultimates based on how full the wrath meter is. One is for when between 40-80 Wrath, called Heart Slash. This is a wide line in front of Mordred that's initial hit scales with STR and Roots any god you hit for 1.5s. During the Root, there's a DOT every .3s that gives healing, both scaling on INT. Mordred also gains a Shield while channeling.

   1. Pursue the Weak: Above 80 Wraths, Mordred's ult becomes Pursue the Weak. When activated, Mordred becomes CC immune and can run through walls. On first god hit, it deals damage scaling on both STR+INT and stuns in a small circle, then everyone stunned will get taken up into the sky with where Mordred hits a few more strikes that also scale with both STR+INT.

Ability Upgrade Path

1. Cruel Strikes: This is the ability you'll want to start with, it gives you the most burst damage from a single ability at the start of the game, which is good for jungle and minion clear, along with boxing if in solo lane. If you're going a STR or Protection focused build, you'll want to max this ability first.

2. Bloodrage: You'll always want to max this ability between Cruel Strikes and Severing Slice, as it scales well with both STR and INT, and the prot buff and shred are strongest in the mid-game.

3. Severing Slice: This ability will normally be that last you'll want to max, but if you're going an INT based build, it may be smart to max it first for extra damage on the initial hit.

4. Heart Slash/Pursue the Weak: You'll want to upgrade this at every opportunity as the base heal and shield on Heart Slash, and the damage increases on both forms is not something you'll want to skip over.

Ability Usage/Combos

Unlike some other gods, there's not many clear "combo's" with Mordred. You really just need to know when and what ability to use for each situation. At a basic level, just cycling through all of your abilities while weaving basic attacks in between them will have you doing well enough as you learn which ability is best to use in any given scenario. The only ability you should really think too hard about at first is that once you use Bloodrage (AO2), you'll want to hit those 4 basic attacks before it wears off to take advantage of the the buff/debuff it provides.

• If you're looking to sustain, you can use Cruel Strikes (AO1) after using a basic attack to heal from the Slam.

• If you need to prot-shred or stim your MS%/AS%, use your Bloodrage (AO2). This is really good during objectives, letting you shred down towers, phoenixes, or things like GF/FG with autos while your abilities are on cooldown.

  • This is also smart to use as in combination with the passive Dash while leaving the fountain so you can get to where you need to be on the map quicker.

• If you just want to throw some ranged poke or need to slow the enemy, you can use Severing Slice (AO3).

• You can used your Dash on the Interact key for all sorts of different scenarios. Whether it just be dodging abilities, closing distance, or using the knockup for damage/CC/setup, it's all in figuring out when and where you should be using it.

  • I find it really helpful when boxing the enemy to use the knockup on the dash to setup Severing Slice (AO3), so you can guarantee you hit the thin middle line to cause the Bleed.

• Both forms of the Ultimate (AO4) are really good engage/setup and peel tools for your team, as they are both fairly long multi-target CC abilities. Make sure to not underestimate how good Heart Slash can be even though it's considered the "smaller" form of the ultimate.

  • Heart Slash (AO4) is a good self-peel and sustain tool as well, giving a big shield and decent sized heal to Mordred as it does DOT to any god's stuck inside of the Root.

  • Pursue the Weak (AO4) is often times best used through walls when using it this way, as the turn radius is quite poor, making it somewhat easy for expecting enemies to dodge if they see Mordred coming.

  • I like to think of Pursue the Weak a lot like Smite 1's Ne Zha's ultimate (Wind Fire Wheels) when used for setup; it's a fairly easy for big burst mages like Kukulkan to hit their sometimes difficult to land ultimate abilities when they know when and where the targets you've taken into the air are going to land.

  • Pursue the Weak (AO4) is also a strong escape tool if you can manage to not accidentally hit a god during it (easier said than done). It gives CC immunity, which is a little more difficult to come by as you don't normally want to be getting the Beads relic on Mordred, and is a long range dash that can go through the walls of the map.

Now onto those build paths!

Mordred Builds

Auto-Builds

These are pretty much all either Solo or Arena builds, but will get you by in those places ok if you aren't comfortable building yet.

• Bruiser: This is probably the best auto-build option for Mordred in most cases. This will play similar to my Cooldown Bruiser build without the flexibility or option of counter-building.

• Basic Attack Warrior: This isn't great from my experience but can be a fun way to try and play him.

• Full Tank: If you know going into the game you'll need Anti-heal (like if the other team has a Hades or Chaac), this can be a good auto-build option since it contains Ruinous Ankh. Outside of that, this is very much a "get in there, and just be in there" build because of low CDR. A lot of your utility in fights will be constant Mystical Mail DOT procs, the anti-heal, and having high base defense stats.

• Hybrid Bruiser: This build is probably the worst auto-build because it attempts to be Hybrid in too many different ways, between STR+INT, ability+basic attacks, and damage+defense... and suffers because of it.

Solo

Cooldown Bruiser

• Relic:

  Sunder. This lets you invade, gives extra damage in a fight if necessary, and gives you good camp and objective secure for your team. You should pretty much be looking to start every game by invading either the enemy Blue/Red with your solo-laner or enemy speed/purple with your duo-laners. If your team doesn't goes to invade with you, you can try to sneak a solo invade on red or speed buff.

• Starter:

  Bluestone Pendant because it's damage procs on abilities will synergize well with the high CDR nature of this build.

• Starter items:

  Axe to give you a little extra damage for the early camp and lane clear and damage in early fights.

  3 Health Pots since you shouldn't need mana sustain from pots because you should be able to invade the enemy blue or secure your own blue buff for that sustain.

  Solo Strategy: If you have enough gold during a back at some point around your first item, a Health Chalic can be really good and make your sustain through most of the early-mid really hard to deal with.

• Hybrid 1st item

  Helps you clear early without making you too squishy.

  • Gladiator's Shield will synergize and scale well with the rest of the build with the passive, while the strength will help the damage on the first basic attack and the AO1.

  • Helm of Radiance will give INT to give extra damage on your 2nd and 2rd basic, and the immediate damage on the 3, along with a lot of physical prots. This should only be built when the solo-matchup is a god that does Physical damage.

  • Triton's Conch will give you a lot of health on top of STR and INT and a scaling STR and INT aura that will help your team once you start team-fighting.

• Phoenix Shield for lots of sustain when using abilities.

• NEXT 3 ITEMS

  Your first item here should either be to counterbuild the enemy solo or add more protections and CDR. The next two items can either be counterbuild for the rest of the enemy team, Actives to help the team, or more protections/CDR.

  If you don't need to counterbuild:

  • Breastplate of Valor for more physical defense and CDR.

  • Genji's Guard for magical defense and CDR.

  • Mystical Mail for physical defense and a good constant damage tick around you to further help with clear and long drawn out fights... however you lack CDR.

  • Amanita Charm (Mushroom) for hybrid defense and an Active that gives your team an AOE heal that can also be really strong for you while boxing.

  If you do need to counterbuild:

  • Ruinous Ankh for antiheal.

  • Leviathan's Hide for anti-AA.

  • Spectral Armor for anti-crit.

  • Hussar's Wings can be good if you're getting slowed too much.

  • If they have a lot of CC to set up damage on you, you can go Spirit Robe (if not banned) for extra defense when CC'd, or you can go Talisman of Purification for an Active that gives a small AOE CC Cleanse and Immunity for 1 second.

• 6th Item:

  Glorious Pridwen gives a lot of CDR and hybrid prots. It also has an Active that gives a big shield, slow, and extra damage that synergizes well with all the tanky items you've built.

  • If absolutely necessary, you can forgo Glorious Pridwen to counter-build further with one of the above items.

  Perfect Scenario Build where you don't need to counter-build:

  Bluestone>Gladiator's Shield>Phoenix Shield>Amanita Charm>Genji's Guard>Breastplate of Valor>Glorious Pridwen

Jungle

Triple Stack

This build takes a little bit of time and farming to get online and doesn't give much flexibility for counter-building, but once you've got all three items stacked, Mordred will be doing an absolute ton of damage with all of his abilities and basic attacks.

• Relic:

  Sunder. This lets you invade, gives extra damage in a fight if necessary, and gives you good camp and objective secure for your team. You should pretty much be looking to start every game by invading either the enemy Blue/Red with your solo-laner or enemy speed/purple with your duo-laners. If your team doesn't goes to invade with you, you can try to sneak a solo invade on red or speed buff.

• Starter:

  Bumba's Cudgel because you're going more ability focused and you want to be able to clear the jungle quickly.

• Starter items:

  Axe to give you a little extra damage for the early camp clear and damage on early ganks/fights.

  2 Health Pots and 1 Mana Pot since you aren't guaranteed blue buff sustain like in solo.

• FIRST 3 ITEMS:

  Devourer's Gauntlet, Transcendence, Book of Thoth

  • Triple flat penetration once they evolve on top of your AO2 prot shred. These are some of the only ways to get flat pen, which is usually stronger than %pen against squishy targets.

  • The mana synergy on Transcendence and Book of Thoth give you a ton of INT and STR on their passives once evolved.

  • Go Devourer's Gauntlet first for the lifesteal to sustain during camp rotation, then Transcendence because the STR scaling is better on you primary two clear abilities (AO1 and AO2) and first basic for AA-cancelling, then Book of Thoth to complete the triple stack.

• Tekko-Cagi gives strength, cooldown, and a passive that gives movement speed and extra CDR on ability usage, this let's you get your damage off and rotate around faster for clear and ganks.

• The Crusher: This gives a little bit more cooldown since this build is lacking it a bit. It also gives you some %pen later in the game to punch through natural protections and do better damage to tankier targets. The passive gives you a good bit of extra damage to your targets as well.

• Heartseeker: You're building this to get some more %pen and the passive helps do some extra damage, especially to tanks.

  • The passive gives %HP physical damage based on 3% of your STR. Ex: 300 STR would give you 9% Max HP damage. When hitting a 3000 health target, you'll be hitting for 270 extra damage on each ability.

  The Build: Devourer's Gauntlet>Transcendence>Book of Thoth>Tekko-Cagi>The Crusher>Heartseeker

Ability Burst

This build gets online a lot quicker than the Triple Stack build, and scales well throughout the whole game despite being slightly weaker at full build. You definitely want to look to be getting active on ganks early with this build and trying to snowball early pressure into a win for your team.

• Relic:

  Sunder. This lets you invade, gives extra damage in a fight if necessary, and gives you good camp and objective secure for your team. You should pretty much be looking to start every game by invading either the enemy Blue/Red with your solo-laner or enemy speed/purple with your duo-laners. If your team doesn't goes to invade with you, you can try to sneak a solo invade on red or speed buff.

• Starter:

  Bumba's Cudgel because you're going more ability focused and you want to be able to clear the jungle quickly.

• Starter items:

  Axe to give you a little extra damage for the early camp clear and damage on early ganks/fights.

  2 Health Pots and 1 Mana Pot since you aren't guaranteed blue buff sustain like in solo.

• Tekko-Kagi gives you strength, cooldown, and a passive that gives you movement speed and extra CDR on ability usage, let's you get your damage off and rotate around faster for clear and ganks.

• Jotunn's Revenge: More strength and early CDR. Let's you chain together kills on ganks because of the cooldown resets it gives you.

• 3rd Item

  Mana Sustain: At this point you've got a lot of CDR, but unless you're constantly invading their blue buff successfully, you're going to start strugging with mana sustain because you're cycling your abilities a lot.

  • Hydra's Lament is a classic safe jungle item for this in this slot, gives good sustain and gives you extra damage on your first auto after an ability which synergizes well with Bumba's.

  • Transcendence could be good with a ton of mana and sustain, and the flat pen on evolve, but the stacking takes a while and you don't have a ton of mana synergy in this build.

  • If you need anti-heal in your build, it's not a terrible idea to go Divine Ruin here, the mana sustain and intelligence works well on Mordred in this slot while Brawler's Ruin doesn't as well.

  • Rushing Heartseeker could also be ok, but it's a little early to be buying such an expensive item that scales a lot better in the late game.

• Last 3 Items:

  Your last items should really be %Pen items. You want to be able to punch through some of those natural protections squishies have at the higher levels and also be able to damage the tankier targets when you need to fight them.

  There's a lot of solid choices in the first slot here:

  • The Crusher gives a little extra CDR and some good extra damage in the passive when you hit abilities.

  • Serrated Edge can be good here to give you a little more sustain, and lets your autos hit really hard with the STR and LS% buffs for when your abilities are on CD.

  • Titan's Bane can be a really good just giant stat-stick on penetration if you're really struggling to burst people down.

  • Oath-Sworn Spear's flat protection reduction on ability hit can synergize super well with the prot shred on your 2,

  • If you didn't build Divine Ruin in the mana sustain slot and need anti-heal, you might want to look at Brawler's Ruin in one of these last 3 slots.

  • One of the last two items should probably be Heartseeker. It's very good at this later stage because the passive is proccing pretty hard at 300+ STR, especially against high max health build targets.

  • Actives

    If you want to replace one of the last 3 items with an Active Item, you can build:

    Pendulum Blade to get a pretty quick CDR reset on your 3 main abilities or
    Avatar's Parashu to turn you into a mega-damage machine for 10s every 180s. This will probably get Mordred up to near 500 damage, especially if you have any STR buffs or an Elixir of Strength.

Example Build where you don't need to counter-build:
Bumba's Hammer>Tekko-Cagi>Jotunn's Revenge>Hydra's Lament>Oath-Sworn Spear>The Crusher>Heartseeker

As you can see, Mordred can seem like a simple character on the surface but has many, many ways to build to utilize different parts of his kit, which has a few in-depth mechanics added on. Now it's time to Pursue the Weak and slay some Titans.