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Blink Rune is a must in 99% of situations, either as a first relic for more aggressive plays or as a secondary relic. Only situation where you don't need to pick it is if your team has enough engage without you and you're in a need of another defensive relic.
Tap each threat level to view Sylvanus’s threats
Welcome to this quick guide, I'm SmoothHomie and I've been maining support for about 10 months now. In this guide we will go through Sylvanus' early game, abilities, itemization and team fighting. This guide will empathize primary on conquest, but it doesn't mean you can use certain aspects of this guide for other game modes. Sylvanus is one of unique guardians. He is the only ranged one and has an aoe basic attacks. He is definitely one of more interesting and amusing guardians to play as.
I encourage you to discuss any parts of this guide and any recommendation or critique is welcomed.
Pros
Good early game
Good pressure
Huge aoe ult
Huge protection buff
Sustain
Cons
Immobile
Rough time peeling if ult is down and enemy divers have Magi's Cloak
Nature's protection Nature's Protection is Sylvanus' passive, His passive can come in clutch some times when you're being chased or during early game lane fights, rooting enemy support allows your adc to land a free AA on them.
Verdant Growth is his first ability, it's your primary source of damage in lane outside of the AAs. Important part of it is that it reduces protections which in early game allows your adc to do almost and if not true damage in lane. It also gives 20 MP5 which you could benefit if you're low on mana in lane or you can place it under the tower in other lanes for them to regen.
Wisps is his second ability, it gives healing and protection to your allies and damages the enemies. Combine this ability with Lotus Crown and you provide an enormous buff to your allies in team fights.
Nature's grasp is his third ability, simply said it is a pull.
Wrath of Terra is his ultimate, it is a huge aoe knock up with a decent amount of damage. Good for engaging team fights or for peeling in late game.
Combos
Sylvanus isn't a mechanically demanding god, his kit is pretty straight forward. You can look to optimize it mainly by a) landing your root on an enemy without a dash or jump in order to guarantee your pull or b) using your ult, followed by a pull on a knock up target as soon as they are landing into a root. Second option is his longest CC chain available to him, and you can hardly ever fail to successfully perform it in a game.
Leveling Order Clarification
You're maxing your Verdant Growth first because it offers so much in term of wave clear, buff clear and a huge debuff for the fighting in early to mid game plus a decent amount of damage.
Wisps are maxed out second, the healing compared to damage from Verdant Growth is less useful in the early game, protections are also not as important compared to the amount of debuff you can provide. Why heal if you can kill them?
Wrath of Terra as your ult is maxed out whenever you can, it gives a decent amount of damage with each scaling.
Nature's Grasp as an ability it doesn't benefit much from leveling besides reduced cool down, so we usually put one point at it at level 2 in order to maximize our kill opportunity in lane and ignore it till the last few levels.
Early Game
Game just started, you walk towards your lane. You can either look to pressure their duo lane if you have a favorable match up. If not you can wait for the waves to approach and look to push, in most cases you will be able to out clear the enemy duo lane allowing you to invade their purple buff and obtaining level 2 faster than the enemy. You hit the level 2, you can now look to root the enemy and use your pull to either force the Purification Beads from the enemy adc or to pull their support and potentially obtain a kill. If not you can look to clear the next wave and go for your own purple buff putting you ahead for sure and without any risks. Be careful of potentially being ganked on level 2 from the enemy jungler doing the red buff start, you're quite immobile and big making you an easy target. You can now look to either obtain a kill or pressure the enemies constantly by showing the wave under the tower and denying gold and invading their purple buff off the cool down. Both of these will put your lane quite ahead. After leaving the lane and starting to roam you will mainly want to look for pulls in order to force the relics from enemy team and make sure to have the pressure going in the duo lane to assure that their adc is completely out of the game.
Late Game
Everyone has completed four items or more, it's time to start grouping and looking to contest the objectives or siege. You will mainly want to engage with your Blink Rune in order to force the relics or set up for your mid laner. Be sure to give your team the buff from Wisps and lotus crown before going in, in case of their jungler or solo laner flanking. If you're not engaging then it would be best to save your ult for peel, giving your carries a safe distance from the enemy and allowing them to burst any potential divers.
Thanks everyone for reading the guide, hope you guys enjoyed it and found something at least useful. Any critique or questions are welcomed, I'd also not recommend to take the build for granted and encourage you to find something that works for you. I personally believe that this is the most optimal build and recommend it if you're just starting out with Sylvanus.
Link to the guide where I describe situational items and which relic to pick up when: https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/comprehensive-support-guide-s5-patch-5-21-20959#top
Smooth Homie
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Also you don't have boots listed, neither Reinforced or cdr boots, you only listed tier 1 boots.
Also I would split relics into main relics and situational.
Sprint , blink, shell as main. Put the rest in situational.
Nice guide and build. I just think you could improve showing some build examples, would be nice for beginners.
Also, I guess Oni's hunters gab is not a core item on a Syl supp. I would put Gauntlet of Thebes as a Core item and Oni as a situational.
Besides, nice guide.
Thanks for the comment, appreciate it.