Abilities Build
Summary
Mages/Casters, in most MOBAs, have an amazing ability to control the battle, taking on the middle lane. As Gideon, either solo or duo up in Mid Lane (if you have a friend who plays Feng Mao, I would suggest you double up Mid).
When to use potions and recall to base
Use potions when:
- Your mana or health falls below 75% maximum AND there are enemies near you or engaging you. Having a higher health or mana means you can stay in the battle longer. There is no difference when using it with a lot of health or using it with little health, as they will improve your health and mana you either way.
- There are no enemies near you and your health or mana is below 40%, using your potions will help you push your lane much more effectively.
Recall when:
- You have 1 or 0 potions and your lane is secured, meaning your minions are pushed up, attacking under the tower or your opponents have recalled, too. Allow your health to regenerate while on the stairs to get a head start once your health is back. Be sure to be in Travel Mode when leaving base.
- Your Core is being attacked or your Friendly Inhibitor is Under Siege (Love that voice).
Using your potions and recalling during these scenarios will give you a significant tactical advantage.
Abilities
Infinity (Passive)
DESCRIPTION: Gideon has bonus Energy Penetration
HOW TO USE EFFECTIVELY: Use cards that will give you a lot of Energy Damage. The Energy Penetration you need is already built into Gideon. When looking at his character, the key indicates all of his damaging abilities scale with Energy Damage.
Portal Blast (Primary Attack)
DESCRIPTION: Low damage, medium range attack
HOW TO USE EFFECTIVELY: Even if you can't kill your opponent, repeated Portal Blasts will easily take them down 25% to 50% from their maximum health.
Burden (Secondary Attack)
DESCRIPTION: Gideon fires a projectile that links him to an enemy hero. As long as the two are linked, the enemy is slowed and takes damage over time.
HOW TO USE EFFECTIVELY: Use Burden before casting Cosmic Rift so they are left taking damage for longer. By slowing your enemy, you can land more attacks by using Torn Space to keep the link.
PROS:
- Slows the enemy down, allowing for an easier escape
- By slowing the enemy down, using abilities to attack is much safer and easier
- Low cooldown
CONS:
- Can easily miss or the enemy can dodge
- Does not prevent enemy from using mobility spells
- You have to get in close to use it
Cosmic Rift (Ability)
DESCRIPTION: Gideon opens a rift in the sky dropping meteors at target location.
HOW TO USE EFFECTIVELY: Casting Cosmic Rift in the direction where your enemy is moving will cause them to walk into it, receiving damage. Cosmic Rift's range is very large, allowing you to do damage to enemies while remaining untouchable. Your enemies may use mobility to escape, which can give you an advantage when following up with Torn Space and casting Black Hole to finish them off. Always be trying to hit your opponent.
PROS:
- High damage scaling
- Large range and mid-sized Area of Effect (AoE)
- Can prevent enemies from following you
- Medium mana usage
CONS:
- Can be easily dodged
- Medium-High cooldown
- Low damage early game
Torn Space (Ability)
DESCRIPTION: Gideon opens a portal at a targeted area, allowing him to quickly teleport somewhere else. Friendly Heroes can follow him through the portal for a short period of time.
HOW TO USE EFFECTIVELY: Torn Space is very helpful for getting yourself out of sticky situations - or putting an enemy in one. Use Torn Space to unleash your potential, getting close to engage them with all of your spells. If you see a teammate in damage, you can teleport away and your teammate can follow through for a short time, saving them. After saving your teammate, cast Cosmic Rift between you and the enemy to secure your teammate's safety.
PROS:
- You teleport, so you can go through synthetic walls from enemies
- Teammates can follow you through your portals
- Really helpful for confusing enemies by teleporting behind them
- Great for combo moves
CONS:
- Medium cooldown
- Somewhat smaller range
- Takes a moment to cast
Black Hole (Ultimate Ability)
DESCRIPTION: Gideon opens his rift device, summoning a black hole overhead. Enemies within the area are pulled toward Gideon and take damage over time.
HOW TO USE EFFECTIVELY: Unlike Cosmic Rift, Black Hole's AoE is based on Gideon's location. Black Hole can work as both a finisher and a way to pull running enemies back towards your teammates. Using Torn Space to get up close to your enemy and then casting Black Hole is an effective move. However, if your enemies have their mobility available, they can escape. Prevent this by making them waste their mobility by casting Burden and Cosmic Rift in succession. Be careful when casting Black Hole, as it will leave you defenseless and open for attack, making you an easy target.
PROS:
- Can do serious damage early on
- A fairly large range
- Prevents enemies with mobility cooldowns from escaping by pulling them in
CONS:
- Enemies can still attack you while you are casting
- The duration of a low-level cast is too short to be able to kill them at full health, even while attacking them while they are retreating
- The range of the cast is centered around you
- At a later level, two enemies can kill you while you are casting... easily.
Early Game
Always, always, always buy your cards as fast as possible. You will get to lane faster and be able to control the game earlier.
Beginning
Once Mid, get to the center as fast as possible, being able to control the lane from the start will give you a huge tactical advantage. Utilize your Cosmic Rift by casting in front of them while they are advancing towards your lane. Since the range of Cosmic Rift is so large, you will be using this spell... a lot. Best case scenario: They take significant damage early. Worst case scenario: They back away from your lane and hang out far or under their tower. Assert dominance early and they will be scared later.
Vs. Melee
If the enemy you are against is not ranged, you will have a serious advantage over them, as repetitive Portal Blasts (primary) will do significant damage. Play as far away as you can from them, and if they attempt to get close, use Torn Space to get away quickly. Torn Space will also allow teammates to follow you. To utilize Cosmic Rift, use Burden to slow them down and cast Cosmic Rift behind them to prevent them from running away or receive damage while running.
Vs. Ranged
If the enemy you are against is ranged, utilize your Cosmic Rift's range to the best of your ability. If you consistently hit them, by the time your mana is low, their health will be low as well. Cosmic Rift's range will allow you to attack range opponents outside of their basic attack range. Using Burden (secondary) with Cosmic Rift will cause your opponents to become serious annoyed with and/or scared of you.
1v2
If you are outnumbered 1 to 2, you must play far away and carefully, no matter the circumstances. Request help from teammates and hope that they push down the center of the lane, making it easier to do a little damage. Stay behind minion lines or under tower.
2v1
If you the opponent is outnumbered 1 to 2, it is okay to have a little fun with the enemy. With your teammate ready to help, you can teleport behind them and Cosmic Rift over yourself. This will either do significant damage to them while they hurt you a little or have them run away into the arms of your teammate. There is no escaping them.
Mid Game
Mid game, by my standards, is indicated once you unlock your ultimate ability.
TODO
Cards
Build as much Energy Damage as you can. Gideon has built in Energy Penetration, so that won't be a problem. If you are dying a lot, build armor or health cards. Don't hesitate to use weak upgrade cards on your passive as they will give you a tactical advantage.
Late Game
This is usually defined after 30-40 minutes have passed and you have maxed out one or two abilities. Your ultimate ability should be level 2 at this point.
Grouping
Group pushes are easy. Target the most heavily damaged lane, group up, and push. ONLY PUSH IF YOU ARE WINNING OVERALL!
Group defending is a bit more difficult. Never go in with a mobility and keep your enemies at bay. If any of your teammates die, you will be at a serious disadvantage.
Inhibitor/Core Attack
Never attack the Inhibitor by yourself. Attacking the Inhibitor will alert enemies of your presence and you will be shut down. If you are being overwhelmed, nobody will be there to help you.
THE INHIBITOR WILL REGENERATE! YES! IT WILL! If you have a failed attempt at destroying their inhibitor, it will have regenerated enough health that your attacks would have been rendered useless. Make sure to take it down with one push. You cannot attack the core when no inhibitors are destroyed, meaning if an inhibitor regenerates you will not be able to defeat the enemy
Destroying an enemy inhibitor will cause Super Minions to spawn three at a time. Super minions are significantly hard to kill and will make destroying the core very easy.
TL;DR
Do energy damage at hurt the enemy with Cosmic Rift. Also buy Energy Damage cards. Hit hard. Become a Paragon Legend.
It should be Q, E, Q, Right click. I can't believe you'd only upgrade right click on level 12.
It's extremely useful to have a slow, as you can just slow down an enemy first, then drop your Q on them and they'll take a ton of damage.
Yeah, agree. Dark Tether is too good to postpone it for so long.
Oh yeah, I had never gotten around to fixing that. Sorry!
Also I think you're misleading players into thinking Gideon is another basic-attack hero with cards like Agoran Scepter and Riftmagus Scepter. The only thing Gideon really needs is Energy Damage, Health and Mana. You deal most of the damage with your abilities anyways, so getting critical change and critical bonus is worthless.
What I do with Gideon is I'll take the blue camp buff as soon as it spawns, then start pushing the mid lane hard, focusing on last hits on minions rather than bullying my opponent. I go back to base either when I have 7 or 9 unspent card points and get a Wellspring Staff, first upgrade is a Greater Mana (3). Later on I'll max it out with 2x Strikes (2). From then on it's usually Staff of Adamant with Greater Health (3) And 2x Major Strikes (3), then another Staff of Adamant or Tempered Plate is I really need the physical armor.
Gideon is an awesome hero but you shouldn't get items with attack speed or critical chance.
@Seraff, it can be different actually. I was playing against a Gideon player once who was going after basic attack sped and hell that was tough in the early game.
BTW you can show us your approach and a build deck if you simply expand your comment into a guide ;) There is no the-only-one-right way to build up your hero. Epics were aiming diversity IMHO an if they fail it's an Epic fail.
I don't understand why you would use equipment items with crit damage. You'll only have 4% crit so it doesn't seem worth it to build the crjt chance and then the crit damage. You should be building cooldown reduction instead since a mage like Gideon will be using his abilities a lot for damage and wave clear.
yeah with a basic attack of 2, spending crit & speed points on Gideon is a huge misuse of the character since those attributes only bolster basic att-damage. You really only need to decide between 3 builds for Gideon.
1) dps: wellsprings (x4) & major casts (x12)
2) tankcast: Staff of adamants (x4) & greater health (x12)
3) castspam: chrono(?) (x4) & associated cool down upgrade (x12)
(sorry I forget the card names for the cool down build)
obviously you can make hybrids between these main 3 styles (which I often do)
like starting with dps so you have the upper hand vs minions & jungle and then slowly transition towards tankcast once pvp becomes more prevalent in the late game for example.
PERSONALLY*
I go cast spam i
Pendulum of Lords X1
Chrono-Mancer Disc X1
Agoran Scepter X1
Staff Of Adamant X1
Infinity Stream X1
build health max and max mana with cool down reduction first the go for chrono mancer disk as well, but after that i go for an item with unique passive of (argon scepter) 50% when maxed (because i'm assuming his cast can crit?) after ill go for infinity stream depending if i'm being pushed a lot. last ill get adamant staff for sure then some sort of resistant item for sustain and have found very good results out of it. For upgrades i go chrono, max/health regen,energy damge, and max/mana regen. But im no expert just my opinion plz any advise would be awesome! Also please escuse my grammar haha!
Building up health 1st prevents your Cosmic Rift from scale fast enough to one-shot a minion wave and collect a lot of last-hits. And this in turn slows your CXP collection and therefore Cards upgrades. Are you OK with that approach?
@GEORGE yes not just health but cool down reduction, it creates a lot of pressure for a lane when you cast 2 cosmic rifts with in 15 seconds as wells as when you do get a big damage item they dosnt suspect the damage! when it 15 mins in game and your cool down for Cosmic Rift is 7 seconds its great! But even with damage early game i cant one hit a minion wave. iv also noticed when I don't have a jungler ill clear enemy white camps when they are pushed. so i guess it fits my play style, ill try going energy damage first to try it! thanks for the advice.
@TheRealBroheim, And I'll look for CD reduction.
Energy dmg>hp>cd
I take energy dmg/hp card with 15dmg bonus and fill it with 3x1 cost hp. That way i have enough hp to survive gankers and to push lane in early. After i go wellspring with 3x3 cast (you can discard harvester and get 1 4cost if you have). By that time i'm 1shooting range mobs and almost melee ones). Pendulum is good for cd but i have one with phis. resistance and 2.5% cd + 2.5% more on full, i fill it with 3x7.5% cd redux (if there is lots of gankers i go with one phis. res. upgrade) and by now i have lots of mana to put 3cost with unique bonus whan over 50% mana 12.5% cd reduction but i don't upgrade it(cd is capped on 40%). In late game i discard 1st card and i use some life steal with Energy dmg or 1more wellspring, even energy ressist if you feel squishy against energy cary.
GL :)
I did my build using cards to increase my dps and increase the cooldown of my abilities. By the time I get to lvl 11 I can destroy all the minions coming at me and help push my minions up using them as cover and a distraction to be able to cast the link ability when heroes are low on health. Dunno if this suits you guys but it works quite well for my play style.
Ps4:
I have been using getting my hero to about 200+ Energy damage, 2300 health, 24 lifesteal, 24%crit chance, and just about 100 energy pen. It has been working out fantastic. I first buy the health/man's and harvested. Then I go for my active lifesteal/energydamage/energy pen. I'll get one energy pen upgrade early on. The. But a passive all energy damage weapon. Then I'll go back and buy my last energy pen from my first active card. Then I'll max out my last passive item, normally 2 energy and 1 health upgrade. Then i buy my last active item and get rid of the harvester at this point if I didn't need the point earlier on. I go 2 crit chance and one energy damage. Then finally get my last and final upgrade on my first active item and get my only life steal, I believe it's a +20 gives you enough to keep your health up against all mobs.
@Kinofkim (not verified), How about making a guide with this layout?