Smite God Guide - Arachne in Arena
A very common misconception about Arachne is that she is terrible in Arena. Often you will see someone moan about a teammate picking her before a match and will often be blamed for a loss as well. What I will admit though, is your common Arachne will do poorly and this isn't the god's fault but more often the player. Arachne has a much higher skill cap and if you are uncertain on what to do you will do poorly. So I decided to write this guide to help some people out there that do wish to play her in Arena and to not do bad but in fact excel.
Abilities and their uses
First, I shall mention the strengths and weaknesses of her abilities.
Passive – Poison Claws - Arachne applies poison on every physical attack that hits. The poison ticks every .5s for 3s.
Arachne has, arguably, one of the best passives in the game. These extra ticks of damage scale decently well and you will find that a lot of your kills will come from them. These ticks also make Arachne hit very hard with her auto-attack and the only other god which naturally can hit harder than her is Bakasura with his Butcher's Blades active.
1 – Broodlings - Arachne lays spider eggs that act as wards, seeing enemies in the area around them. Enemies getting too close to the eggs cause them to hatch 2 spiders that attack the nearby enemy, slowing them by 20% and doing 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 (+17% of your physical power) physical damage every second for 10 s. Max of 5 eggs can be deployed.
This ability falls a bit flat in Arena and may feel even worthless at times. The ward function is mute in Arena and there are actually very few places you can lay these eggs without them getting hatched by creeps. Generally the best idea is to just put eggs behind any of the pillars in the middle of the field. They will help out with creeps early game and can occasionally come in handy to slow enemy players.
In combat situations, it is not a terrible idea to lay an egg sac if you are waiting for an opportunity to either hook a player with your ultimate or are trying to save a fellow player who is being chased. One very useful tip is a trick to use on Loki. If you are running from Loki and you are afraid he will use his ultimate to catch you, lay an egg as you run. If their ultimate is up, they will see you pause for a moment (as laying an egg makes you stop for half a second) and try to use this chance to stun you but there is a very good chance that instead of hitting you, it will hit your egg instead. I have done this several times and it almost always seems to work.
2 – Drain Life - Arachne pounces on her target, silencing them and draining 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 (+15% of your physical power) health as physical damage every .5s for 3s. Right clicking or being disabled (stun, fear or silence) will knock Arachne off.
Drain life does heal for a fair amount but it will not save you in a lot of 5v5 situations in Arena. However, if you fight anyone 1v1, this ability should make you win almost automatically, as they can't hit what is on their head.
In arena, the main point of this ability is the silence. If you are with your team, after hitting the target a couple times, just jump on them with Drain Life so they are unable to escape with an ability and your team should play clean up. There will be mainly situations where this silence becomes invaluable and this is one of the areas Arachne will really shine.
3 – Tangled Web - Arachne spins an entangling web at her ground location, slowing and crippling her enemies within the radius for 20/25/30/35/40% lasting 3/3.5/4/4.5/5s.
This ability is pretty self-explanatory. Its use doesn't really change from conquest and should be used to either to save a fellow team mate who is being chased or to slow the enemy team as your team runs in. It can also be pretty handy to slow an enemy player at a distance to make using your ultimate a bit easier at times.
Recently, her web was changed to also apply a cripple effect and to fire faster. This gives her even more support for her team as you can cancel out other gods movement abilities which gives her a definite edge. Now that it fires faster you don't have to exactly predict their enemy movement anymore as it will almost immediately take effect wherever you place it.
Most importantly, with the cripple, gods that rely on certain movement abilities can be completely locked down. This can now be used in place of Drain Life after pulling a God in with Cocoon to stop their movement although I still find Drain Life to be more reliable.
4 – Cocoon - Arachne fires a web projectile towards her enemies. If the web hits an enemy god, it wraps them tightly doing 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 / 300 (+50% of your physical power) physical damage and stunning them for 1 s, as Arachne pulls them to her.
Your use of this ability makes or breaks you. This is the hardest skill shot in the game. For not only is it a small hit box, it also has a delay. This ability takes a lot of practice to get down for you really have to try to judge how your target is going to move. However, if you get good with it and hook in some nice quick kills, it makes you an invaluable member of your team.
The real trick to this in arena is to not be obvious with it. If possible, always go with a target that seems to be paying attention to something other than you. This is only a 30 second cool down but repeated misses can cost you the game. Prime targets should also be gods without a leap or charge, as they are easier to guarantee a kill.
Ideally, when you pull someone, you will want to hit them with 2-3 basic attacks before jumping on them with Drain life. Cocoon does have a short stun which will give you enough time to hurt them before needing to silence them. If your target has no real escape mechanism you may not even want to bother to use Drain Life, as it will be quicker to kill them without it.
Arena Advice
To do well in arena as Arachne, you will need to keep your distance. Arachne has very little to ensure her own escape and you will not want to be on the front line. Wait for your team to initiate to get in closer and when you do, come from a blind spot if possible. Arachne can kill fast, even early game, and you will definitely want to get in and out as quick as possible. Your use of Cocoon can also be used to initiate a fight, by catching an enemy player (most likely killing them in the process) and forcing their team to try to come in and save them.
If the enemy team has two tanks that are doing their jobs, it will become harder to use cocoon properly. Ares can especially make you have a bad day as Arachne if he is picking on you. Although this is always a good idea, but when facing two tanks especially, come in from the side to use cocoon. You will most likely be by yourself in these situations but anyone you pull in should not be able to get away.
Your average Arachne you see in Arena will usually have a terribly negative K/D ratio or have a lot of kills and about the same amount of deaths. These players are usually over stepping Arachne's limits and getting themselves into bad situations or have a bad build. But if you keep your distance and get used to her limits, you can do very well in Arena.
Build
For the most part, you build Arachne like most other physical gods but I have found that the following first four items will be incredibly beneficial to you in Arena.
Warrior's Tabi – No Surprises Here
Frostbound Hammer – Despite the fact that Arachne has a slowing ability, the reliability that this item provides is needed. Whenever you hook someone, you will be able to hit them with a few basic attacks that will slow them before you jump on them with Drain Life to silence them. This slow will let either your team guarantee the kill or for you to finish them off yourself. Without Frostbound hammer, I found myself in a lot of situations where my target would just barely get away because of the delay you get after you come off your target from drain life. This item alleviates this and you will generally get a lot more kills because of it.
Executioner – Power, attack speed, and penetration. This is needed for practically every physical god.
Deathbringer – With this item, Arachne's damage will be fine for the rest of the game. She hits hard on her own and does not need much physical power to tear through players, even tanks. Getting this fourth gets your crit and crit damage up and you will find that at this point you are a killing machine.
Any item after is up to you really. I personally change it up depending on if I feel I need more penetration, want life steal, or mobility. Generally I will get Fatalis for the attack speed and the crazy amount of mobility it now provides and then cap it off with Rage for more crit.
To reiterate: To do well as Arachne in Arena you need to stay back, predict player movement to get good at using Cocoon, and to use a proper build. If you do well you should at least get to a 2:1 kill/death ratio.
A warning for enemy gods to look out for are Bacchus and Ares. These two can make it hard to be Arachne in arena for a couple of reasons. They both make you have to back off to the point of making Cocoon really hard to use. Bacchus is also great at knocking you off people while you're using Drain Life with both his belch and jump.
Finally, here is a montage of me playing Arachne in Arena and doing well as her. When you do well as Arachne in Arena, it is one of the most satisfying of experiences in Smite. It feels like you overcame the odds and when you start getting really good K/D ratios you can tell the moaners to stuff it.