Rama

# Building

##General

For builds, check [this page](http://www.smite.guru). While building in Smite is very situational, grappul offers a nice basic build that off of which
you can base your own, optimized build. If you want me to go into details on a certain item / on all of them simply say so and I will.

##Useful items

**Transcendence:** You *can* build Transcendence on Rama, which will allow you to spamm your 1 a lot more often for better clear. You do, however, reduce your late-game damage (or at least delay it a bit) as well as your survivability since you don't get DT.

**Death's Toll:** The currently most common build on Rama is starting off with Death's Toll and going into a regular Atk Spd and Crit build. You wont be able to spamm your skills as much early, but you'll get a better power curve, more late game damage and a bit additional survivability.

#Skills

##Skilling
Keep in mind that everyone has their own preferences and that the "best" way to skill is the one that best suits your playstyle. There are, however, some basic guidelines that are worth following, which are what I'll try to list below.

###Priority
4>1>2/3

*You want to max your ult for good damage and your 1 after that for lane clear. After that it's up to you; if you're getting ganked a lot you might want to max your 3 to have it on a shorter cooldown, otherwise you can max your 2 for better trade potential.*
###First five levels
1-3-1-2-4
###General

Don't skill until the very second that you're going to use it. Keep your skillpoint ready incase the enemy tries to invade / your team needs you. Be ready to put a point in your escape ability if you need to get out quick: it's better to
lose out on a little bit of earlygame power instead of giving away first blood.

##Astral Quiver

Rama's Astral Quiver generates an Astral Arrow every 12s. Also, every basic attack that Rama lands will reduce the amount of time to generate an arrow by 2s. Astral Arrows are used with his other abilities.
##Astral Strike
Rama switches to a more powerful arrow that pierces and slows enemies. This ability consumes 1 of Rama's Astral Arrows and deals bonus damage with every shot. Damage from this ability is reduced to 75% for each enemy hit after the first. Rama cannot toggle this ability if he has no Astral Arrows.

The slow can be stacked up to 3 times.
##Pick Me Up
Passive: Any time an enemy is hit by an Astral Arrow there is a % chance that an Astral Arrow pickup will appear on the ground (Only procs on the first enemy hit by Astral Strike). The pickup adds one Arrow to Rama's Astral Arrow count.

Active: Rama gains increased attack speed.
##Rolling Assault
ama performs a roll in the direction he is currently traveling. After performing a dodge roll, for 5s Rama's next basic attack will consume an astral arrow that cripples the target and deals bonus damage. Rama incurs no movement penalty during this shot.
##Astral Barrage
Rama launches into the air and shoots 3 powerful arrows at the ground, each successive shot increasing in damage: 50%, 75%, 100% and decreasing in AOE size: 30, 20, 15.
#Tips

##General
Rama excells in a 1 vs 1 situation. With his steroid he can trade very easily, his 1 allows him to poke enemies through minions or even structures, his 3 is great to stopp enemies from using their own escape, and his ult allows you to either finish targets that are trying to escape off, or to kill enemies that might otherwise burst you faster.

###Astral Quiver

There's not too much to Astral Quiver, try to use the smartly so you don't run out of Astral Arrows when you're trying to clear wave or poke enemies out.

###Astral Strike

This is where Rama get's his laneclear from. If you use it exclusively for that, you should be able to clear without mana problems, but if you keep spamming it for poke you might run out of both mana and Astral Arrows. The ability increases your damage per shot, let's you hit all enemies in a line and slows them slightly.

Later on you'll clear quite quickly and can use this for additional damage or for the slow. The mana cost doesn't increase as you level this ability, so it becomes quite potent late.

###Pick Me Up

The passive aspect is useful but isn't something you should focus too much on unless you constantly find yourself out of Astral Arrows. Pick them up if you can, but don't take too much poke for it.

As for it's active use, it's your steroid. It increases your Atk Spd by quite a lot (50% at max rank) and allows you to trade with other ADCs or shred enemies very quickly. Try not to use this too much early on, as it's quite mana costly and you'll easily run out of mana while lane clearing if you constantly spamm Pick Me Up.

###Rolling Assault

####Defensive

This is one of your escapes, it allows you to quickly traverse a short distance. It's important to note that it's one of the only abilities in the game that are aimed not by where you're looking at, but where you're walking to. As such, you can look at your enemies and roll backwards at the same time. That's also where the cripple is very useful, you can roll out backwards, hit your enemy with your next basic (for which you wont incur movement penalty) and thus stopp them from using their own gap closing abilities.

###Offensive

In an offensive scenario, you can use this ability as a simple gap closer. The cripple is often underestimated, as you can use this ability preemptively (before the enemy get's their leap / dash off) to cripple them and thus stopp them from using escapes. Combine that with your 1 and 2 and you'll have a crippeled, slowed enemy that you'll delete very quickly.

###Astral Strike

Rama's ult is pretty fantastic and makes him a very strong ADC.

####Offensive

Offensively this ability is pretty simple. You've got a fantastic attack range within which you can snipe enemies. Your damage increases for each shot while the AOE size decreases. Keep in mind that there is a little bit of travel time, so you have to aim ahead a bit, more so for the 2nd and 3rd shot as for the first one. As you're up in the air, you can also easily hit enemies who are behind walls, so it's great for a gank or to finish off someone cowering under their tower, even if you're still in the jungle.
You're fixed in place though, which enemies can abuse by hiding behind a wall so as to escape your vision.

####Defensive

This ability takes you to the sky and with that, out of the fight for it's duration. As such, if you're getting ganked and are unlikely to make it to safety, you might want to ult to give you a little bit of additional time for your team to rotate. The ability ends either after all arrows have been shot or after 5 seconds, which you can see on the targeter. As such, if you're using it defensively, don't use all three arrows instantly but save at least one to get the full duration.

Not only is it good to counter ganks, but it can easily save you from burst or DOT, either by using it to preemptively counter enemies' ults (e.g. if Poseidon is using his 3 to cripple you and you expect a Kraken, ult to escape the damage) or to partially counter their damage (e.g. partially escape Zhong's ult).

Another important point to note is that you can wait out your own cooldowns while in your ult. At max rank, your 3 has an 8 second cool down, so if you need to escape, it might be a good idea to use your 3, run for another second or two and then ult. By the time you're back down your 3 should be up again.