Overview
In this guide, I will show you a few tips when playing Fafnir the Lord of Glittering Gold.
Introduction
Meet Fafnir – The Lord of Glittering Gold. At first glance, this dwarf doesn’t seem so menacing. Then that gank comes out and suddenly he isn’t a dwarf anymore. He can certainly remind you that size is not everything.
In this guide I am going to explain to you how to best play Fafnir for the role you selected.
Abilities – How He Works
Nerfed as of patch 3.16! See details below!
Fafnir’s abilities make him ideal in the support position which is exactly where he is supposed to be. He has a lot of abilities in his kit that can help out your fellow ADC in the dual lane. There will be a lot of numbers here that you can find in the game anyways. However, there are some things the abilities do that I feel aren’t clear in the description so feel free to read over if you aren’t clear on some of Fafnir’s mechanics.
1st Ability – Cursed Strength
Fafnir’s first ability is a skill shot ability. With this ability he throws his hammer forward and damages everything it hits. It will pass through minions and jungle monsters including the gold fury and the fire giant. If the hammer hit’s a god, it will stop short and apply a stun to that god for 1.5 seconds. It also deals damage and applies a slow to the enemy god hit and any other enemy gods within 20 feet. Damage is only applied to the god hit.
Damage: (100/140/180/220/260 +50% of you magical power)
Slow: (20/25/30/35/40%) speed decreased.
This ability is used to help clear waves or secure kills.
Cooldown: 15 seconds
2nd Ability – Coerse
This ability does a lot of things for you and your team. The first thing is does is act like a buff for the friendly god you put it on including yourself.
It’s buff includes:
- Attack Speed buff from (10/20/30/40/50%) increase.
- Damage Buff from (5/10/15/20/25%) of the god’s power that Coerse is placed on.
This means that when placed on your fellow ADC, he will deal extra damage based on the ADC’s power and your ADC’s attack speed will increase as well. This buff is not based on your power at all and is only based on your target’s power. This is ideal for clearing minion waves faster than your adversary.
The second thing this ability does is provide healing for yourself. Whenever you use Coerce on yourself or an ally you will be healed. This ability helps you stay in lane longer even after being poked out. You can remain in the back if you like and continue using this ability on your ADC to continue assisting the wave clear.
Healing is from (50/80/110/140/170 +40% of your magical power) in HP regained.
Cooldown: 13 seconds
Cooldown: 15 seconds
3rd Ability – Underhanded Tactics
This next ability is one that should be used carefully. It is a skill shot ability with a small cone with a radius of 20 feet. It will disarm and deal damage to any enemy god within that cone. It’s also a leap which means that Fafnir can jump over jungle walls and suprise the enemy. It is also your means of escape should you find yourself in a pickle. The distance for the leap is 55 feet.
Damage from (80/120/160/200/240 +60% of your magical power)
Cooldown: 18 seconds
The primary reason I say take extreme care with Underhanded Tactics is because it is on an 18 second cooldown. If you use it offensively you won’t have it for an escape.
Ultimate Ability – Draconic Corruption
Fafnir’s last ability is a transformation. When activated Fafnir becomes untargetable like when Sun Wukong goes into the clouds during his ult. During the transformation you cannot be hit by basic attacks or abilities, but you will continue to take damage over time if it was applied. When the transformation finishes, any enemy god within 30 feet will be poisoned. All of Fafnir’s abilities receive buffs and his basic attack is now a fire breathing dragon that applies damage over time. All damage over time will apply 3 times for 3 seconds. First at 0 seconds, second at 1.5 seconds, and final at 3 seconds.
1st Ability Buff – Cursed Strength
All of Fafnir’s initial ability stats remain the same for the most part. For instance, Cursed Strength still stuns and slows while Coerse still applies the attack speed and damage buffs as well as the heal. The base damage is replaced with Damage Over Time from the dragon poison.
Now deals:
- Damage Over Time from (50/70/90/110/130 +25% of your magical power)
- Protections Debuff from (20/25/30/35/40%) of protections.
- Flat 20% protections are taken away now.
2nd Ability Buff – Coerse
The ability now can be applied to all allies within the 25 foot area.
3rd Ability Buff – Underhanded Tactics
The ability now let’s you leap 70 feet instead of 55 feet. The ability will also stun the closest god to Fafnir within the cone for 2 seconds. It also applies damage over time.
Damage over time from (40/60/80/100/120 +30% of your magical power)
Back to Ultimate Ability – Draconic Corruption
The duration of Fafnir’s ult ranges from (20/25/30/35/40) seconds. Warning: When Fafnir’s ult finishes, you are targetable and unable to move until the transformation is complete. Make sure you are our of harms way before the time is up. You can cancel Fafnir’s ult early if you need to.
Fafnir’s Ult abilities are kept seperate from his regular abilities. You can use Underhanded Tactics in his regular form and then Ult. Once the transformation completes Underhanded Tactics is available for his dragon form. The normal Underhanded Tactics will be on cooldown and will continue cooling down while you are in the Ult. When your Ult finishes all your normal abilities should be up again unless you cancelled the ult really early.
Passive – Endless Greed
Fafnir’s passive is where this god really shines. In my personal opinion, I feel it’s a bit overpowered. It’s been nerfed.
Fafnir get’s two things with his passive. The first is a free Watcher’s Gift that grants him 4 bonus gold from minion kills, Structure kills, God kills, and assists. Everything you kill or get an assist in killing gives you an extra 4 gold.
Fafnir has since been nerfed, his passive gives him 2 gold instead of 4 gold for every minion Structure kill, God kill, and assist.
This passive does stack with the starter item Watcher’s Gift so you can get 8 gold for minion assists instead of 4 gold. It’s common for me to be ahead of everyone in the match in terms of gold simply due to this.
The second thing Fafnir gets is bonus protections for the amount of gold he has in hand. This gives the #onemorewave a new meaning. If you have 1000 gold in hand you can get 30 extra physical and magical protections. That is the max amount of protections, but that’s a free Armoured Cloak in terms of protections.
This has also been nerfed to 20 protections if you have 1000 gold in hand.
Conquest – How to Support
Support
So you’ve picked Fafnir and probably took up the support position when doing so. That being said I should tell you a little something about how Fafnir should be played in that position. First thing you should do is put a point into Coerce.
Next buy Watcher’s Gift, tier 1 boots and potions. You can also get a couple of early wards to place.
Once you are done with the store head to your respective jungle and prepare to clear the camps. When the jungle camps spawn, use your Coerce on the ADC and tank the damage buff. Once completed head to boars and again Coerce the ADC. This will heal you from the previous camp you tanked and allow you to clear faster. When you finish the boars you should have leveled up by now. Head into lane and put a point into your Cursed Strength and use the hammer to help clear the wave. Then of course Coerce your ADC and let him clear the rest while you defend your ally.
Throughout your stay in the dual lane, continue to level your Coerce till max rank. Your ADC will greatly appreciate the 50% increase to their attack speed and you will be able to sustain yourself in lane for a long time. When you run out of mana though you should head back. When you do head back pick up Traveller’s Shoes. The extra movement speed, extra gold, and HP5 is really worth it.
Throughout the game you will build yourself as a tank. There is no single build for tank as it depends on your enemies team composition. However, my typical tank will start with Hide of the Urchin.
From there I will head into Mantle of Discord or Spirit Robe.
From there you would build into health items that counters the enemy’s team composition.
Magi’s Blessing if you find that CC is a problem. I threw in Gauntlet of Thebes because of Fafnir’s heal in his Coerce. Also pairs well with any healers on your team. Midguardian Mail for the enemies with high attack speed.
Despite having no damage items, Fafnir does a lot of damage in the late game. This is a fact that many people can easily forget. You can also stun lock an enemy when in your ultimate form that can really lock down a damage dealer on the enemy team for almost 5 seconds total if you combo the Cursed Strength with the Underhanded Tactics.
This allows you and your team to blow up a target of your choosing if they don’t have beads.
Fafnir – One Shot Faf
Speaking of damage, Fafnir when built properly can be a very potent damage dealer. Potent enough to 100 to 0 a squishy god no sweat. I’ve put together a build for those occations you decide to play as a damage Fafnir.
It certainly should go without saying by now that you should start out with Watcher’s Gift and Traveler’s Shoes. Whether you decide to or not, the first item for this damage build you should pick up is Polynomicon.
This item will be activated every time you use Coerce or any other ability and deals a huge chunk of damage. When you combo with this item it can have devistating effects.
Cursed Strength -> Basics -> Coerce -> Basics -> Underhanded Tactics -> Basics
Coerce -> Basics -> Cursed Strength -> Basics -> Underhanded Tactics -> Basics
In the early game it may not be chunking a whole lot, but it will. Next item you will need is Soul Reaver.
This item goes without saying. 10% of the target’s HP gone. These two items are often paired together with devistating results.
The two main damage items are in place and the only thing left to do is increase your magical power. The more magical power you have, the more damage Polynomicon does. From here on out it’s magical power items.
The Rod of Tahuti will greatly increase your damage output. If you weren’t chunking before you will be now. The next item I like to throw on because I know I can. As Fafnir you struggle to find ways to spend gold.
Spear of Desolation, despite it’s huge cost, is a great item for Fafnir in this build. His cooldown times hold him back quite a bit. Not only do you get a power spike and penetration, but being successful in the gank descreases all your cooldowns. Should you think that this item is too expensive you can simply buy an Obsidian Shard instead.
Sell the Watcher’s Gift and the last item is a toss up really. I typically stack a Warlock’s Sash before I build Polynomicon to get that 600HP boost for survivability and 110 magical power. If you want to maximize damage output then build the Book of Thoth.
If you choose one of these items it’s best to start it first for obvious reasons. Otherwise you could build into any other item you want. The damage items are in place and the next item will either increase survivability or damage output. You could even pick up Chronos Pendant to reduce those massive cooldowns.
Once you decide what the item is the last step is to sell the Traveler’s Shoes and pick up the Shoes of the Magi.
If you maximize your magical power, you can one shot an enemy Chronos with no protections. I have done it.
When in a teamfight play like an assassin. Go after the mage, the ADC, or any other squishy god and hit em hard. Keep in mind that your ultimate basics do not proc the Polynomicon. You will be using Fafnir’s dwarf form for the most part. Your ultimate form will mostly be used defensively to avoid damage or to escape.
Summary
Fafnir is my new favorite guardian. He is one of the hardest guardian’s to kill without chaining CC to lock him down. His Coerce provides an insane amount of sustain and the attack speed increase really helps your hard carry. I plan on adding a few videos later if you want to see how effective he is. Knowing what to build and what his abilities do is only half the battle. Have fun!