Smite: Scylla God Guide .

So far we’ve discussed gods for all lanes, yet we haven’t touched on a suitable occupant for the middle lane. It’s time to complete your conquest team with the scariest of children on the battlefield; Scylla – Horror of the Sea.

This Greek creep is a great addition to any team, but works especially well with the other gods we’ve discussed so far. Scylla has the ability to stay on the back-lines of a fight, yet still contribute to it immensely due to her amazing damage output. The problem with the rest of the team was that most gods had no escapes or had a predictable escape. Scylla has an escape that you can place on the ground 5 seconds before using it, granting you vision and making sure there are no enemies to where you want to go. It’s basically a temporary ward! And the greatest thing about Scylla: you can sweep entire teams with your ultimate, as you can use it again if you’ve killed someone with it. And this works an infinite amount of times, so 6 shots if you can secure kills on everyone!

 

ABILITIES

 Quick Learner

This is a passive that grants you a nice bonus to your magical power and secondary effects on all of Scylla’s abilities if they’re at max rank. Even though some of her secondary effects aren’t that useful, Quick Learner still gives 20 magical per max rank ability, which in turn will give you 80 magical power at level 20. That’s 80 magical power just like that, handed to you by Santa Claus without having to do anything for it. Having this passive, it’s beneficial to max out abilities as quickly as possible, so sometimes it might be a good idea to skip leveling an ability until you’ve leveled up again, as you will have 2 points to spend instead of 1 (for example, don’t level an ability at level 8, so you can max out your Crush and level your ultimate at level 9).

 Sic ‘Em

Oh, Scylla and her crazy dog friends. Sic ‘Em is the root Neith wishes she had, but could never have. Scylla sends two of her hounds forward, doing damaging to the enemy, rooting and crippling the first enemy hit. You simply can’t get out of this ability without using beads or a CC immunity ability. It might be hard to hit sometimes, but a skilled Scylla player will have you rooted in no time. At max rank, this ability will root and cripple two additional targets standing near the first enemy hit as well. If your opponent is zigzagging all over the map, try to aim for minions near him, as you’ll have a chance to root your opponent as well. This ability gives you a greater chance to hit I’m A Monster, as your opponent will most likely not want to waste his/her beads on this ability.

 Crush

This ability hurts. Like; IT HURTS. If you’re simply looking at the numbers displayed in Smite, you’d think the damage output really isn’t all that great, but when you start playing Scylla you’ll see you were just plain wrong. Crush creates a magical field on the ground that slows enemies. Then after 5 seconds, it detonates and deals damage. But the best part about this ability is that you can cancel it early and you still do the same amount of damage, unlike Ymir’s ultimate. Okay I admit, there’s are negative side to this ability as well. You can literally dodge Crush with two fingers in your nose. It is quite easy to spot and it takes a while to land on its destination, granting you with plenty of time to get out of the way to make sure you aren’t hit. You can throw this ability over walls however, so make sure to utilize this fully, as it’ll give you the element of surprise. It’s also great for zoning opponents and works great when trying to get the enemy off jungle objectives. Oh and at max rank this ability gives enemies that come into contact with this ability a 25% magical protection debuff – otherwise known as a free temporary obsidian shard (which it stacks with, just FYI).

 Sentinel

Sentinel is a great ability all together. It grants you with a little bit of MP5 as a passive, which is especially welcome in the early game. Now for the active part of the ability; Scylla summons a sentinel (one of your loyal hounds) to the target area, granting vision of enemies for 5 seconds. As I said before, it’s basically temporary ward. You can then activate this ability again to move to the Sentinel‘s location. At max rank your vision will no longer be blocked by walls or other line of sight blockers, and you can place Sentinel a bit further away. This ability makes for a great escape and also gives huge chasing potential. You can put up your Sentinel to scout where your opponent went, so if you place it in the opposite direction of where you’re running, you’ll have the option to change directions quickly when you spot the enemy. Like all of Scylla’s abilities, this ability takes a while to cast however, and you’ll easily be interrupted by taunts or other heavy crowd-control.

 I’m A Monster

Good doggies, stay away doggi– ARGH *muffled sounds*. Oh, what happened to Privatyr? Yup, he just got eaten by Scylla. With I’m A Monster, Scylla reveals her true nature and becomes CC immune for the next 6 seconds and gains movement speed – which at max rank doubles. She may then strike the opponent with one (extremely) powerful attack. If this is the killing blow on the enemy, she gains another 6 seconds and may strike again. This is the only ultimate in the game that actually resets upon killing the enemy, so make sure to fully utilize it by striking over walls when the enemy team is all grouped up like the sheep they are. They’re just sitting ducks (oh deer (!), the animal puns are insane) when you activate this and they’ll be making it their number one priority to either kill you or get away from you as soon as possible. In Season 2 this ability is especially useful to secure jungle objectives (fire giant and gold fury) as HOG is no longer the objective finisher it once was. Did I mention this ability has INSANE damage output due to its high scaling? It has 120% freaking scaling, so in theory this ability could have: 800+1082.4 = 1882.4 damage. Pair this with some penetration, and you’re just shredding through enemies like they’re paper.

 

Here are the pros and cons of playing Scylla

PROS:

• Great burst damage
• Has great team presence from a distance
• Ultimate destroys teams or allows you to escape safely
• Ability to scout for enemies with Sentinel
• Lots of utility (root, cripple, slow, protection debuff and vision)

 

CONS:

• Abilities easy to dodge due to slow casting
• No sustain
• VERY ability reliant
• Some full rank bonuses aren’t all that
• Very weak against gods with high mobility

 

Scylla was one of the first gods I got to rank X, simply because she just works really well in several game modes. I mostly played her in Siege, as I wasn’t really into Conquest back then (I didn’t have the necessary skill for it yet), but I quickly found out that she shines even brighter in Conquest than she does in Siege. What makes Scylla stand out from other burst mages, in my opinion, is her Sentinel ability. It provides you with a great way to escape from the enemy, since you won’t get blocked by walls or Odin’s ring of DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. Sorry, I just hate that ability. If I had to compare Scylla with any other mage it’d be Anubis, but with an escape. Scylla is definitely a top tier pick; not entirely overpowered but hard to get around, making her extremely useful in team fights and generally fun to play.

Now for the roles you can play, they’re pretty straightforward. Let’s get started!

 

Do NOT play these roles

• Support: Squisheroo, that’d be your supportive spell. The effects? It’d grant you a quick and painless death and instant rage from your team. Like all mages, Scylla isn’t fit for the support role. She’s very squishy and gets taken down easily, can’t take the front-line in a fight to save her life and doesn’t have the hard CC to stop enemies from killing your carries. Scylla completely relies on her burst damage, so building defensive items would completely negate that.
• ADC: An ability reliant mage focusing on hitting basic attacks? Cool story, but it’ll never work. You’re just gonna get swept by the hunter on the enemy team and you won’t be able to contribute to taking towers AT ALL. Just focus on what you’re good at Scylla, you don’t need to prove yourself in other departments.
• Jungle: Even with your built in MP5 and some nice utility, you are not fit to gank lanes. Again, you’re very squishy and as soon as the enemy spots you, you get pooped on. Using Sentinel offensively would allow you to gank, I’ll give you that much, but you’d be wasting your only shot at escaping without dying. A kill for a kill might be worth it sometimes, but not EVERY time.

 

Mage-tastic burst

• Solo lane: Although I’m not a huge fan of burst mages in the solo lane, as most solo laners are meant to provide either a hyper-carry like Bakasura or a sustain-oriented god like Chaac or Aphrodite, Scylla works pretty well. At level 9 or 10 (depends on if you level skip or not), Crush can basically take out the whole wave and then you’ll be able to poke down your opponent. It’ll be difficult to secure a kill early-game, but as soon as you start rotating you’ll be able to pick up some nice kills.
• Middle lane: This is where I play Scylla. Her wave clear might not be great early-game, but she can make up for that with her control from Sic ‘Em and her ability to finish targets easily with I’m A Monster. If things get tough, just use Sentinel to get out of there and perhaps slow your opponent with Crush. Do keep your lane warded though, so you know when to sentinel away in time. Scylla takes some skill to play, but if you are good with her, she’ll have a great pay-off.

 

In this build we’ll be focusing on equipping Scylla for the middle lane, so we’ll have a complete Conquest team at the end of this guide. This build will be damage-oriented and will make you very squishy, so make sure you don’t dive into fights and instead stay back and fight from a distance.

 

STARTER ITEMS

 Like any mage, you should start out with Vampiric Shroud. It provides you with the sustain necessary to stay in lane long enough to finish your first fully completed item when you return to base for the first time. 20 magical power, 100 health and 5 MP5 is no laughing matter, and its passive will give you mana and health back from killing minions.

 Again, I always build this, as it always builds into something mages will need in the late-game. Lost Artifact might not seem like the best item at first, but without noticing it, it still gives you that extra MP5 that makes you stay in lane just that little bit longer and also grants you 15 magical power. If you pair all of this MP5 with the 4 MP5 from your level 1 sentinel, you’re looking at 14 MP5 at level 2. No one has this at this level, and as you only really use 1 ability to clear a wave, you won’t run out of mana any time soon. So also grab two health pots so you don’t die, as there’s not really any need for mana potions just yet.

 

CORE ITEMS

 This is the first item you should get if you have the money to buy it. Book of Thoth will give you flat flat out 100 magical power, 15 MP5 and 125 mana, but that’s not all! It’s a stacking item that will increase your maximum amount of mana. You’re probably thinking I’m contradicting myself, as I said Scylla doesn’t really use that much mana, but hear me out. Every stack will grant you 10 additional mana points, up to 75 stacks. You receive 1 stack per minion kill and 5 for a god kill. Now comes the fun part however: Aditionally, 3% of your mana will be converted to magical power. With no other items and maxed out stacks, you’ll have 2.293 mana at level 20. So 3% of this will give you roughly 69 magical power. That means you’ll have 169 magical power from just this item, and as other items will most likely include some extra mana as well, the bonus power will be even higher! So it’s definitely a good pick up for you.

 This is either your first or second pick-up, depending on how long you were able to stay in lane. I chose Shoes of Focus again, as you’re very ability reliant and your basic attacks just don’t really combo with your abilities. So better to be able to spam abilities and maybe mess one or two up than to mess one up and be screwed in the process as your cooldowns are too long. Pick this up first if you can’t afford a full Book of Thoth yet, and pick this up second if you can. Sentinel will provide you with enough mobility to last you through the early game anyway, so having no boots yet isn’t that big of a problem.

 To fully maximize your cooldown reduction, get Chronos’ Pendant. Along with the 75 magical power and 25 MP5, this will give you 25% cooldown reduction, reaching the maximum of 40% cooldown reduction. Now your two main damaging skills are at 6 seconds cooldown, so you’ll be able to spam them pretty much constantly. If they’re on cooldown and you’re in a tight spot, use Sentinel to back up a bit and wait for them to come off cooldown and then re-engage. I’m personally a huge fan of full CDR on any mage, but on Scylla especially as this will allow her to use her Sentinel to engage as well and still be able to escape later on.

 This is a must-have for any burst mage. Since Scylla doesn’t really have any damage over time skills, Spear of the Magus isn’t a good pick-up for her. Instead, buy Obsidian Shard, as it gives you flat out penetration on any ability without having to get the two stacks from Spear. 33% penetration will allow you to tear through enemy defenses, making sure no one will appreciate your ultimate. Oh did I mentioned it gives you 70 magical power as well? That’s also pretty great.

 

FINAL ITEMS

 This might be my most controversial pick on the list. The other items are all pretty straight-forward, but this is more of a tanky item. So why would you pick it up? As I mentioned before, Scylla is VERY squishy, and as I advice you to not build Warlock’s Sash (double stacking isn’t really a good idea in Conquest), you’re seriously lacking some health. To make sure you aren’t 3 shot by hunters, pick up Ethereal Staff. The magical power it gives you might not be very significant (around 65 extra magical power from its passive  at level 20), but it still grants you 600 extra health and 300 mana, both making you more likely to survive longer fights and boosting your Book of Thoth bonus. It also gives you 30 magical power and the passive of 2% health being converted to magical power.

 TaWOOTi – it’s Rod of Tahuti. Come on, this item is just great all-in-all. 125 flat out magical power, handed to you just like that? Don’t mind if I do! 15 extra MP5? This is the gift that keeps on giving! 25% increased magical power all-together, WHAT?! Christmas came early or something, ’cause this item will boost your magical power like no other. If you don’t pick this up, you’re missing out on the huge amount of burst damage that Scylla can provide, rendering you useless compared to other mages.

 

ACTIVES

 Greater Purification is a great active to make sure you can get out of a fight with Sentinel, as you won’t be interrupted by any CC from guardians or other gods. It’s a great survival tool, and can also be used aggressively if you need those 3 seconds on your cooldown gone to secure a kill.

 Normally I don’t get both Greater Purification and Aegis Amulet, but I do on Scylla. Aegis Amulet will make you immune to all CC and damage for 2 seconds, which makes it a great item to avoid damage from Vulcan’s Earthshaker or Poseidon’s Release the Kraken. It might also be useful when you’re trying to stall those few extra seconds so your Sentinel goes off cooldown so you can escape. You cannot move when using this however, but it does grant you a 20% damage reduction buff for 4 seconds after the immunity is over.

Scylla is very fun to play, but does require some practice. Unfortunately, I can’t teach you how to practice, so that’s up to you. Have fun playing the Horror of the Sea!

P.S. Has anyone noticed that these guides have become progressively longer? It’s quite alarming…