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Honor of Kings Athena Guide: Best Arcana, Build and Gameplay Tips

Tips to play Athena in Honor of Kings!

Honor of Kings’ Athena is a hero in Honor of Kings, who stands out as a unique and enjoyable character to play in the game. Serving as a fighter tank, Athena is accessible to a wide range of players due to her straightforward mechanics and easy learning curve of attacking and staying alive with shields. In this Honor of Kings guide, we will take a look at the skills, and best builds, including tips and tricks to dominate every game with Athena.

We have previously discussed how to master playing with other Honor of Kings heroes like Diaochan, Private Ear, Solarus, Lady Sun, Musashi, Mirrorblade, Eternal Sage, Peacekeeper, Arthur, Menki, Angela, Monkey King, Alessio, and Sea Farer. So make sure to check these hero guides as well. For now, let’s focus on Athena.

With Athena, this is mitigated a bit though with her insane sustain and tanking potential with her skills.  Having a good backup for teammates would be important when fully utilizing her tankiness. However, it is important to recognize that mastering Athena goes beyond grasping the basics. Knowing when and where to fight and when and where to get away or let the enemy get away distinguishes great fighters from beginner ones.

Skill Analysis

In this section of the guide, we will talk about the skill analysis for Athena in Honor of Kings.

Passive – Divine Awakening

In this skill, Athena has two forms:

  • Normal Form: Athena deals 25% extra damage to non-hero units.
  • True Form: Athena enters this after dying, gaining vision of the nearby area and becoming untargetable while losing the ability to use basic attacks and skills she can however continue to move and grant 10% movement speed to allied heroes that move toward her Athena will resurrect in her true form’s location dealing 480+120% physical attack to nearby enemies launching them for 0.75s.

Skill 1 – Holy Advance (Damage, Crowd Control)

CD – 6 seconds
Mana Cost – 50

Athena raises her shield and dashes in the target direction dealing 290+63% physical attack as magic damage. Knocking back all enemies within her pat while gaining a shield that negates 375+82% physical attack damage for 1 second. Athena also gains immunity for the shield’s duration.

Skill 2 – Unstoppable Spear (Damage)

CD – 6 seconds
Mana Cost – 40

Athena dashes in the the rage direction enhancing her next basic attack and dealing 350+100% physical attack physical damage to target enemies. If the same target is hit 3 times consecutively during the short time that the basic attack is enhanced, extra physical damage is death equal to the target’s 25% lost health.

Skill 3 – Immovable Aegis ( Damage, Crowd Control)

CD – 22 seconds
Mana Cost – 70

Athena raises the Aegis at her current location, gaining a shield that negates 900+100% physical attack damage and immunity for 1.5 seconds. When this duration comes to an end, Athena will use her shield to perform a counter-attack, dealing 240+70% physical attack in magic damage to nearby enemies. For the duration of the skill, every hero attack on Athena increases the counter-attack damage dealt by the shield by 12.5% and reduces casing time stacking up to 8 times.

Best Arcana build and Spells for Athena in Honor of Kings

Arcana Build

In this section of the Honor of Kings guide, we will pick the best Arcana Build for Athena as a fighter.

Reaver, Eagle Eye, and Mutation

Athena can maximize her potential by equipping the recommended arcana. The reaver arcana provides Athena with more tankiness and sustain with its additional lifesteal that she needs in order to become as tanky as most tanks are. Next is the Eagle Eye rune that allows her to deal more damage, especially to those that are also tank fighters, as she is mostly more effective against squishier targets to mitigate this physical pierce is an important aspect.

Honor of Kings Athena Guide Arcana Build
Image via Level Infinite

Lastly is the calamity arcana which boosts her critical rate in order to make sure that critical strikes hit and destroy the squishy targets especially when going for the high critical damage build that most Athena mains go for.

Battle Spells

The only spell viable for a jungler is Smite, as without this they will surely be left behind by laners in terms of exp and gold. However, if you are going for a laner Athena, one can opt to have flash as your battle spell as extra mobility is essential for any fighter tanks.

Best Builds for Athena in Honor of Kings

Although this build order is not set in stone, one can build around the enemy team compositions. In this section of the guide, we will give an overview of what build which Athena is for at his best possible build order without considering the enemy team composition and/or laning phase match-up in Honor of Kings.

  • Boots of Dexterity: These boots are specialized boots for high damage per second attackers that like to deal damage with their auto attacks. It is exceptionally useful for Athena that deals huge amounts of damage with her normal attacks in order to take down the enemy heroes. These boots give the champion equipped with it an additional 60 movement speed as most of the other movement speed boots give. In addition, the stat that it gives to the attack speed with +25% attack speed is what sets it apart.
  • Axe of Torment: Axe of torment is one of the core items that every Athena player should aim to build first. This gives her a huge power spike going into the mid-game. The items give her the necessary damage and bulk to be able to deal against enemy squishes while still being able to support the team in team fights as a very bulky front liner with her tankiness and her shields from her second skill and ultimate skill. The item gives 86 Attack damage and a 15% reduction to school cooldowns.
  • Eternity Blade: Eternity Blade is a must-have, if you are an Athena main that is more focused on dealing as much damage as possible against enemies. With specialization to burst the playstyle with this build is to deal as much havoc in the enemy back line as possible and try to take down enemy carries. This item gives Athena an additional 110 physical attack and 20% more critical rate and a passive that allows her to be able to deal more critical damage.
Honor of Kings Athena Guide best Build
Image via Level Infinite
  • The Master Sword: This versatile item offers numerous advantages to the user. With an extra 80 Physical attack, it can cause significant damage during battles. Furthermore, the weapon’s 20% Critical Hit Chance enhances the likelihood of landing a critical hit, further amplifying the damage output of Athena. The Athena Sword also bestows 500 Maximum Mana and 500 Maximum Health, bolstering a hero’s endurance and ability to sustain. However, what truly sets the Athena Sword apart is its unique passive ability called Strong Attack, which is crucial for Athena. After utilizing an ability, this passive boosts the wielder’s Movement Speed by 12% for two seconds, and the subsequent Basic Attack inflicts an additional 0.8 times the wielder’s Physical Attack as Physical Damage. With a cooldown of three seconds, this passive becomes a powerful asset for both engaging in combat and evading threats.
  • Repacious Bite: As Athena is a jungler champion, the most important item to have in order to be able to keep up with the experience and gold scaling for her would be the jungle item which in this case should be the Repacious Bite. This is the chosen jungle item as it allows Athena to deal more damage to enemy heroes while also adding to her mobility with movement speed. The item gives the user an additional 60 physical attack and 8% movement speed. But the main thing about the item is that it upgrades the smite of the user and increases damage dealt to monsters by the user and it grants 30% more exp and 20% more gold to the user when killing the jungle monsters.
  • Blood Weeper: Bloodweeper is the ultimate sustain item for any fighter or physical damage dealer as it makes the user heal a portion of their damage which is very huge for high DPS characters. This item gives 100 physical attack and 500 additional health and 25% physical life steal. The biggest part is its passive skill which is ‘revive’ which allows the hero to recover 400-610 health within 5 seconds when self-health drops below 20% with a cooldown of 20 seconds.

Honor of Kings Athena Gameplay Tips

Athena is an incredibly enjoyable and captivating character in Honor of Kings. She possesses impressive tankiness and sustainability in her abilities and attributes, while still maintaining formidable damage potential suitable for fighters. This is particularly evident in her damage output during the mid and late-game.

Despite her prowess as a fighter, Athena excels at initiating team fights with her kit and inflicting significant damage to enemy tanks and fighters through her passive ability in her item build. However, a player must have a good understanding of the map to get the most out of any hero. In this guide, we will outline and elucidate the strategies for playing Athena in the early game, mid-game, and late game in Honor of Kings.

Early Game

For the early game she will start as a jungler the first skill to be learned to gain an edge in the laning phase would be the second skill where Athena dashes and deals damage to enemies hit. This gives additional damage in order to clear the jungle camps faster to be able to gank against the enemy lanes faster. The second skill is also most useful in early ganks with high mobility and damage potential.

Honor of Kings Athena Guide early game
Image via Level Infinite

During this stage of the game, Athena lacks the duelling potential against other junglers. It is advisable for Athena players to utilize her available abilities as tools for ganking a 2v1 into lanes that have better burst capabilities than her in the earlier stages such as in the mid-lane. With this strategy, being able to weaken enemy laners for the mid-game phase once Athena starts to ramp up her damage will become an unstoppable snowball that would be borderline impossible to kill.

Mid Game

The mid-game marks the point where Athena starts to unleash significant damage and starts to bring out her dueling potential, particularly against enemy squishes like marksmen and assassins, surpassing them in both damage output and sustain. This is the start where you can look for fights against enemy junglers and laners to gain more control of the map to be able to take out the objectives and turrets for your team.

In this phase, Athena will have enough damage to effectively duel enemies that are also in the lane. The best path to take in this phase would be to try and push your lane first as the enemy laner would probably be outmatched at this stage of the game if the early game goes perfectly, This gives additional pressure in the lane forcing other players to try and gank you so your other team will gain a breathing room. If playing behind it would be better to roam and try to look for picks with your team.

Late Game

In the late game, although Athena loses the assassin-type damage that she had in the mid-game, she has now become more of a warrior tank with her extreme tankiness. This allows her to play a more supportive role of soaking up damage for her back liner mages and marksmen that is able to deal more damage in the late game than her in the mid-game.

Honor of Kings Athena Guide late game
Image via Level Infinite

During this phase of the game, it is crucial for Athena players to prioritize their role as the team’s protector in skirmishes and team fights. One of Athena’s key strengths lies in her crowd control ultimate, which involves slamming the enemy with her ship and stunning them. This ability should be utilized to catch opponents off guard, creating opportunities for your team to retreat or engage against the incapacitated enemy.

Heroes that counter AthenaHeroes Athena can counter
MischiefFrost
Sun CeBreezy
Private EarLady Sun
VoidcallerJudge Dee

Athena possesses exceptional dps capabilities along with remarkable sustain and tankiness. She still has a weakness though as once she expends her mobility skills to engage with an enemy it would be hard for her to keep up and not get kited especially as being a jungler does not let her have a flash spell that can be a deal breaker on whether or not she may be able to kill the enemy before they can just kite away.

This is the normal weakness of fighters and tanks that is usually mitigated by the additional spell as a gap closer in fights but with her it is important to focus on builds that can give even the slightest edge in mobility against enemies.

Final Thoughts

Athena is one of the more interesting fighter characters that are currently available in the game. As a fighter tank, Athena attracts a wide range of players due to its easy learning curve and accessible gameplay. However, it’s essential to recognize that Athena has a high skill ceiling, allowing for mastery by those who understand the nuances of strategic positioning during intense team fights and skirmishes.

Players who surpass the basic understanding of Athena’s abilities and equipment will excel in their gameplay. Although Athena is beginner-friendly, achieving true mastery requires a comprehensive understanding of his distinct playstyle and the strategic art of positioning.

An excellent pick for rank games, Athena is definitely a good pick for the current meta. These tips will surely help you to guide easy wins with Athena in Honor of Kings. Crowd control is also a great threat to him, so play carefully. Athena can be considered a must-play hero if you are playing solo. You can also refer to our latest tier list to know more about the revamped meta heroes in this current season.

That’s all for today’s Honor of Kings Athena Guide. Do you prefer to use Athena in any other way? Let us know in the comment section below!

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