Artio: The Bear Goddess

Bill "Gozii" Bouchard

Artio, The Bear Goddess, is the latest character to be released into the Battleground of the Gods. She is a Celtic guardian who plays as an ability based stance switcher and performs best as a front lining bruiser. Her design is very natural with druidic influences from Celtic culture and includes some very intimidating bear animations. She has two forms: druid and bear form. The druid form focuses mainly around healing, rooting, and crippling, while the bear form focuses on damage, stunning, and dashing. Her kit involves 7 total abilities, with her ultimate acting as a stance switch. Her abilities are as follows:

Passive: Decompose

Enemy gods hit by her abilities have decreased physical and magical protections

3% debuff per stack (Max 8 stacks)

First Ability: Energy Surge (Maul)

Druid: Artio deals damage in a cone and heals herself and allies within 55 units for each enemy god hit.

Bear: Artio slashes twice, dealing damage.

Second Ability: Entangling Vines (Ferocious Roar)

Druid: Artio cripples enemy gods in an area around her and decreases their protections.

Bear: Artio stuns enemy gods in an area around her and increases her own protections.

Third Ability: Life Tap (Heavy Charge)

Druid: Artio channels a beam of energy, dealing damage over time, slowing, and rooting enemy gods who are hit by the entire ability.

Bear: Artio charges forward for 3 seconds, dealing damage to enemies and slowing them.

Ultimate: Shapeshift

Active: Artio changes stances

Passive: Every time Artio hits an enemy with an ability, she gains 1 stack of invigoration, granting movement speed and mp5. Stacks last 4 seconds and max at 8.

As stated, Artio performs best as a bruiser, which means that she is great at sustaining in fights and using abilities in succession over time. She can combo several different abilities together to gain whatever advantage she may need in each situation. She can use the cripple to initiate in a fight and trap gods with escapes. She can dash in with her bear form and stun gods before dealing damage with her claw attack. She can clear waves with her lifetap followed by her energy surge for some serious healing. There are many ways to play Artio, but in every situation, she will always be reliant on staying in fights and dealing sustained damage, creating consistent control, and offering solid healing over time. It’s what she was built to do and she does it very well.

One major issue with Artio is that she is a mana hog, especially in the support role. She generally functions best in either the solo lane and the jungle because those two roles offer some mana sustain through bumba’s mask and the blue buff. She struggles with controlling her mana in the duo lane, but it is something that can be alleviated if the player uses her abilities economically and manages her mana usage. When building Artio, it is very important to keep mana and mp5 in mind with the items you pick up because she can suffer throughout an entire game if she does not build items with these stats. Stance switchers have this problem in general, since they have double the amount of abilities to choose from and can use them all in a short period of time. It’s easy to get carried away with her in team fights before looking at your mana bar and wondering where it all went.

A hugely positive aspect of Artio’s kit is that she has excellent wave clear. She has the advantage of being able to use two abilities at level one, and her damage numbers are quite strong. In comparison to other guardians, she is certainly on the higher end of damage potential due to the many damage options she has and the high damage amounts per ability. Her auto attacks are not particularly strong, but they do look cool as a melee ranged burst of magic. In addition to her damage, she has very strong cc with two slows, a cripple, a root, and a stun. Add protection shred, protection buffs, movement speed, mp5 and healing to all of that and you have a seriously bloated kit. Nevertheless, her high utility allows her to perform many roles throughout a fight which plays well to her kit’s strengths.

When leveling her abilities, it would be wise to get her 1 first. After this you can grab her 3, 2, then put a second point in the 1 before leveling the ultimate (which you already have at level 1). Her highest damage comes from her 1, so you can choose to max that first, or go with the three if you prefer the sustain and damage over time. You can put points in your ultimate if you want to, but your two is also very helpful to level up so you may want to prioritize that. In conclusion, the recommendation for maxing is 1, 3, 2, 4.

Before discussing her build, it should be mentioned, once again, that she performs best in the solo lane and the jungle. Her preferred build adds onto this notion since she does very well with hybrid items and loves having mana and CDR focused items as well. In general, you want to look for both damage and defense in her build, maybe pepper in a little damage with a lot of defense just to play it on the safe side. In the next section, instead of giving several builds, here is a list of recommended items with descriptions.

Starter Items - Vamp shroud in solo, Vamp shroud + Bumba’s in the jungle, Watchers + Lono’s in support, Sands of Time (Situational)

Boots - Can get any boots you want. Depends on the situation.

Stone of Binding (Core) - You should build this on her nearly 100% of the time unless you want to shy away from its low(ish) protections for a support build. The passive for this item is constantly proccing during her second and third abilities in both stances.

Breastplate of Valor (Core) - This item is a must have in the solo lane and even in the jungle on her. She really loves that mana and CDR. Seriously, get this item on her.

Genji’s Guard (Core) - One could argue whether this item is core, but it has 40 mp5 on it and the passive helps her out tremendously with even more CDR (which she really wants, remember that).

Void Stone (Common) - This is the second magical defense option you want to keep in mind for her. It allows her to shred even more protections and helps her and her teammates deal even more damage. Who doesn’t like that?

Mystical Mail (Common) - This item makes perfect sense on her since she already has aoe cc around her and can slow enemies and stick onto them. She plays almost like an assassin, so extra close ranged aoe damage is most welcome.

Jade Emperor’s Crown (Common) - We are getting into support territory with this item, but it can also be used in solo and jungle builds. The aura lowers enemy god’s physical power which helps her entire team.

Mantle of Discord (Common) - Another support focused item, but can be used in tanky solo builds. Having more aoe cc is great for her kit. Plus, look at those protections.

Spectral Armor (Situational) - This is the number one sleeper item for Artio. All your friends will laugh at you for building it, but little do they know, it's amazing on her. 300 mana, 10 MP5, 20% CCR (actually really good for a bruiser). In addition, the passive fits her PERFECTLY. Just think about it.

Hide of the Urchin (Situational) - This item’s base stats are good enough for the price, plus she’s easy to get stacks with. Can be used in solo, less likely for support builds.

Spirit Robe (Situational) - Should only get this if playing against a very high cc comp. There are more valuable options, but it is a very good item nonetheless.

Shogun’s Kusari (Situational) - You’d mainly get this for the 20 MP5. The passive doesn’t directly help her, but can be good for the right team.

Hide of the Nemean Lion (Situational) - Good against the right comp and solid MP5.

Lotus Crown (Situational) - Same protections as Jade Emperor’s Crown, except it has 30 magical power, 20 MP5, and a fitting passive. Don’t sleep on this item.

Shield of Regrowth (Very Situational) - Getting into iffy items now. This item is great, but should you value it over the 13 items mentioned before it? Maybe. Try it out!

Rod of Asclepius (Very Situational) - Not as cheesy as you might think. A little too heavy on the damage side of things though and may leave her too squishy.

Chrono’s Pendant (Extremely Situational) - MP5 and CDR. Boom.

Polynomicon (Heh) - Do it. You won’t.

Spear of Desolation (Bring it) - The end is near.

With that, thanks for checking out the guide for Artio on the new Content of the Gods website! Stay tuned for more in the future!