Gideon Build and Deck Guide

Table of Contents

1. TL;DR
2. Overview
   1. Strengths
   2. Weaknesses
3. Abilities Analysis
4. Deck Considerations
5. Gideon Deck #1
6. Gameplay
   1. Early Game
   2. Mid Game
   3. Late Game
   4. Tips and Tricks
7. Heroes Synergy
8. Updates History

TL;DR on Gideon

Gideon is high mobility caster adept in wave clearing and burst damage. Using his abilities, Gideon can control fights and be a dominant threat with or without a team.

Focus on buying cards that increase your Power and Mana.

Cosmic Rift and Void Breach are Gideon's main source of damage. Gideon opens a rift in space and drops a meteor that deals damage in an area.

Cosmic Rift will slow the enemy down ensuring you land Void Breach.

Gideon's Ultimate, Black Hole, deals large amounts of damage and pulls enemies toward him.

Torn Space will allow you to teleport to get in and position yourself to hit as many enemies as possible. Late game, use Cosmic Rift to aggressively push down lanes. Look for opportunities to gank the enemy team with Torn Space and combo Black Hole with allied abilities for Ultimate destruction.

Lore of Gideon

• Believes limits are for the meek.
• On his sixth birthday, witnessed the death of a star. Fell in love.
• Dekker suspects "Gideon" is not his true name.

Gideon Overview

Gideon's Strengths

1. A very impactful Ultimate. The biggest AoE Stun in Paragon.
2. High burst potential.
3. Awesome wave clear
4. Good escape capabilities.

Gideon's Weaknesses

1. Vulnerable to CC
2. Squishy

Gideon's Abilities Analysis

Portal Blast

Ranged basic attack dealing Basic Damage.

An important note for laning with Gideon (read more about laning): his basic attack has one of the longest wind-up animations in Paragon. It means that there is a noticeable delay between you pressing a button and Gideon hitting his target. You need to consider that when landing your killing blows on minions.

Void Breach

Gideon summons a comet projectile that pierces minions and deals Ability Damage in an area and applies Slow to enemies for a short period of time.

Burden was replaced with Void Breach in v44.

Burden is a cast projectile-based ability with aiming mode. It is a lock-on spell, but it can be used even if there is no enemy in the reticle. It means two things.

1. Number one, you can miss it.
2. And number two, you can pre-cast it if you see your opponent is about to become visible to you. Let's say you see them running at you from behind a corner.

Using the ability. Burden does not deal much damage and its purpose is slightly different. The main goal of using Burden is to slow your target down and limit their movements. This will help you to land a perfect Cosmic Rift, prevent your prey from escaping, or get some extra seconds to run away.

Projectile. Since Burden is a projectile you need to aim carefully if your target is moving. The most reliable way is to catch a moment when your opponent is standing still, or moving directly at, or from you. Remember that barriers like Steel's Bulwark, Dekker's Containment Fence, or Yin's Quelling Gale will block Burden.

Cosmic Rift

Primary Ability. Gideon rips a meteor from the sky that deals Ability Damage and applies Slow to enemies for a short period of time.

Cosmic Rift is a long-ranged AoE cast ability with a medium wind-up and aiming phase before execution.

Mastery. Cosmic Rift requires execution mastery. Due to a wind-up delay between triggering the ability and applying damage you need to track your target or targets. If timed incorrectly your enemy can simply dodge it. On the other hand in narrow map points or during skirmishes Gideon may have a lot of opportunities to hit more than one enemy multiplying impact of this ability. Use Burden to slow your enemy and ensure landing a perfect Cosmic Rift.

Damage. Damage output is absolutely identical to what Howitzer delivers with his R2000 Missile, what Gadget can do with her Sticky Mine or The Fey with her Untamed Growth. Range is also the same. The only difference is that Cosmic Rift can't be blocked or let's say reflected by Yin with her Backlash.

Using the ability. Cosmic Rift is the main damage dealing ability Gideon has. Good for bursting down enemies and clearing minion waves in a blink of an eye. In addition to that you can force your enemy to re-position by simply pretending to land Cosmic Rift but not actually doing so. This is because when you enter a Cosmic Rift aiming mode it is visible to your enemy. They will have to double their attention and probably pull back.

Torn Space

Secondary Ability. Gideon opens a portal, allowing him to quickly teleport away. Friendly heroes can follow him through the portal by jumping into it.

Very versatile ability. Obviously it works as an escape ability and can be used as means of chasing someone down as well. In this regard Torn Space is pretty much the same as Feng Mao's Reaping Dash. Torn Space is a great tool for juking especially when used right in the middle of a jump and onto a ledge.

Another usage is to get safe altitude prior to executing the Black Hole.

And lastly "Friendly heroes can follow him through the portal by jumping into it". Again:

Friendly heroes can follow him through the portal by jumping into it.

This feature can be vital for your entire team not only yourself alone. Torn Space is a great counter to Dekker's Containment Fence and enemy Gideon's Black Hole. You can use this ability to get out of enemy range and get your allies with you. You may need to get into range for the sake of saving your teammates.

It appears that Gideon remains vulnerable to incoming damage at the starting point of teleport until it finishes. See how Khaimera was able to last hit Gideon during Torn Space animation:

Black Hole

Ultimate Ability. Gideon rises up, creating a black hole that applies a Stun and slowly moves enemies towards it, while dealing Ability Damage. This is a channeled ability, which means it can be interrupted by Hard Crowd Control (Stun, Silence, etc.).

Black Hole is a high impacting channel ability with no wind-up. It does not require confirmation by pressing a basic attack button and starts execution right upon you hitting the ability key.

Almost always this ultimate is executed after Gideon uses Torn Space to get on top of the battlefield. It is important to be high enough to minimize incoming damage from melee heroes. but remember that the range of Black Hole is a sphere and the higher you get the lower damage range you have on the ground. Black Hole damaging area is a cylinder so it does not matter how high are you above the surface.

Always watch out for opponents with Crowd Control abilities like Dekker, Rampage, the The Fey and so on. Their Stasis Bomb, Boulder Throw or Fly Trap will render you helpless and completely deny your ultimate. Grux and Howitzer can also interrupt your Black Hole if you are executing it on the ground.

Gideon's Deck Considerations

Gideon is a very flexible Hero that can utilize very different decks. Even choosing affinities for a Gideon deck is not a straightforward process. However:

1. First of all Gideon is a caster who deals damage with his spells. So focus on cards and gems giving you Ability Damage and increasing your Mana Pool
2. Second, even though he has a reliable escape Torn Space he's squishy. So depending on your play-style you may want to invest into HP, gems for survivability or cards making your game safer (Sleeper Agent)
3. Spell Shield Gem is nearly a no-brainer for Gideon

Core Cards for Gideon

Gideon Deck Build #1

Explore Deck

Gameplay with Gideon

Early Game

Gideon's staring position is at Mid Lane.

Control minion waves to freeze then around the river and try to keep your mana pool high enough for a combo of Cosmic Rifts + Void Breach. This will allow you to perform a quick wave clear which in turn will give you time to move to either lane for a gank.

With Torn Space you may allow yourself to be aggressive and push with your wave to the enemy tower. But do that only in case your opponent-midlaner does not have hard CC (Morigesh, Gideon, Countess, etc.). Otherwise you may find yourself in a CC-chain from a midlaner and a jungler which will give you no possibility to use your teleport.

Control at least one River Buff and try to either harass your opponent from the distance when they are taking the Buff or organize a lane push to make their absence in the Mid Lane more dangerous. Remember that you can steal a River Buff with your Rift from the distance. To make this happen wait for your opponent to land the first hit at the River minion and execute your meteor right after that.

Mid Game

Keep controlling the Mid Lane and keep watching for ganks with your team. Especially if you get the River Buff with invisibility. Make sure you always clean enemy wards placed near mid lane. Of course do this carefully and remember that you can always get away from the river using your Torn Space onto a ledge.

Hopefully the Mid Lane enemy Tower is destroyed earlier than yours. As soon as it happens you may live the middle more often and for longer period of time since you now able to push middle waves further than the 1st tier tower. Turn this into your advantage on other lanes.

Late Game

Continue with controlling the Mid Lane going left and right when needed. Still do wave clearing to keep pressure on the T2 middle tower or an Inhibitor. It is OK to do enemy jungle camps but carefully. All the same objectives from the Mid Game still remain.

When going in for a team-fight make sure your opponents have used their CC abilities. When fighting in the Jungle try to get a point close to a wall to limit angles you can be hit from with a crowd control ability.

Again, never ever start a fight with your Ultimate especially having at least one opponent with CC abilities.

Tips and Tricks with Gideon

• Coming soon

Heroes Synergy

Gideon and Steel

Slam the Hole

Steel can protect Gideon sitting on his Black Hole by using his Shield Slam at the same time knocking up enemies and making them unable to CC. Additionally putting a Force Shield between the Rift Mage and enemies will protect him from any CC projectiles like Stasis Bomb or Boulder Throw.

Gideon Updates

v42.3 (Aug-29 2017)

Gideon was not performing really well after the New Dawn. His abilities were buffed by increasing their scaling from Power.

Cosmic Rift

• Power scaling (3.03 → 3.55)

Burden

• Power scaling (1.79 → 2.09)

Black Hole

• Power scaling (3.57 → 4.18)

v41.0 (Jun-27 2017)

Black Hole

• Initial pull removed
• Steady pull increased (300 → 450 units every .35 seconds)