![[OUTDATED] SMITE: Ah Puch - Horrific God of Decay for SMITE](https://steamsolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/outdated-smite-ah-puch-horrific-god-of-decay-smite.jpg)
Overview
An in-depth guide on how to play SMITE’s very own necromancer, Ah Puch. In it, I’ll discuss builds, abilities and how to use them, matchups, and various other tips and tricks.
Introduction
My name is Eelektreigon (unless I’ve changed it as a joke), and this is my first guide I’ve made on Steam. I’m not the most avid player of SMITE, but I’m definitely not new to it either. But enough about me, let’s just get into the guide on my personal favorite god, Ah Puch.
Ah Puch is a Mage from the Mayan Pantheon. He’s designed to be a back-line harasser, gradually using his various poking abilities to whittle down a target’s health and/or straight up nuke them, all the while staying at a comfortable distance away from said enemies.
But Eelek, how is Ah Puch your favorite god in SMITE? He sucks! There’s so many better mages that you could be playing, why would you want to play a low tier piece of trash?
Yes, I’m fully aware of how outclassed Ah Puch is in a competitive level when compared to gods like Vulcan and He Bo who can just poke more effectively than him, and that’s not even mentioning his crippling lack of a dash or leap to get him out of danger. However, Ah Puch has very good sustain and can fulfill a niche role as an Area Controller. He’s also a great god for casual play and beginners, since he isn’t the hardest god to play, isn’t very popular at the moment, and teaches the player valuable lessons on mana usage and positioning.
This guide is going to be an in-depth explanation of Ah Puch’s abilities, some effective builds, his matchups, some tips and tricks, and much more!
Abilities
I hope all of you are ready for some math, because there’s going to be a lot of it in this section.
“Who needs friends, when I can raise my own?”
Ah Puch is closely attuned with the dead and may exhume corpses at his will. When walking over a decaying corpse, Ah Puch lowers the cooldown of Undead Surge and Corpse Explosion by 2s, restores 5% of his maximum Health and 3% of his maximum Mana.
Essentially, Undead Surge and Fleeting Breath (his 1st and 3rd abilities) will drop corpses on the floor. They will stay on the ground for 45 seconds. These corpses are extremely integral to Ah Puch’s kit, as they are his source of both sustain and damage. However, try not to spam them, since it takes quite a chunk of mana to throw them out, and enemies can destroy the corpses by hitting them with 2 basic attacks. 6 corpses can be on the map at any given time.
“Arise!”
Ah Puch raises up to two decaying corpses from the underworld that surge forward exploding on anything they touch, when they reach max distance, or when Ah Puch reactivates Undead Surge dealing damage and slowing targets hit. The corpses collapse after exploding remaining behind.
Ability Type: Projectile
Damage: 90/110/130/150/170 (+35% of your magical power)
Slow: 20/25/30/35/40%
Slow Duration: 3s
Corpses Dropped: 1/1/2/2/2
Radius: 20
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Cost: 70/75/80/85/90 mana
So there’s a lot of math here, but in reality, this is a pretty simple ability. It’s just a projectile attack that slows and drops corpse(s). Although it’s not Ah Puch’s main source of damage, it’s very important to level this ability up to at least Rank 3 to throw out 2 corpses instead of just 1. You’ll see why in just a little bit.
“Die for your master!”
Ah Puch causes the target area to explode dealing damage. Corpse Explosion also causes any decaying corpses in the area to explode.
Ability Type: Ground Target
Initial Damage: 60/70/80/90/100 (+10% of your magical power)
Damage per Corpse: 60/85/110/135/160 (+25% of your magical power)
Radius/Corpse Radius: 20/25
Cooldown: 8 seconds
Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana
Remember how I said getting as many corpses as possible was important? Well now they explode, which can only mean good things. Let’s set up a scenario here: Ah Puch has a maxed out Corpse Explosion, has about 600 magical power (a reasonable amount for this particular god), and his target has no protections. If he somehow hits that target with a Corpse Explosion fueled by 6 corpses, Ah Puch will deal a grand total of 2020 DAMAGE. Never underestimate this ability’s very safe poke damage, and we’ll discuss how to use that damage as efficiently as possible later.
“Suffocate!”
Ah Puch throws a charm from the underworld which awakens a decaying corpse that applies miasma to targets in an area and falls to the ground, remaining behind. Targets take damage every second. After the duration, targets take additional damage and are stunned if they were healed by an ability during the initial duration.
Ability Type: Ground Target
Damage per Tick: 30/35/40/45/50 (+20% of your magical power)
Additional Damage: 50/100/150/200/250 (+50% of your magical power)
Duration: 4s
Stun Duration: 1.5s
Radius: 13
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Cost: 70 mana
This ability is what solidifies Ah Puch as a situational counterpick in competitive games (more on that in the matchups section). Fleeting breath is an extremely good poking tool that can be used in many different ways, whether it’s for the powerful antiheal or the strong poison it applies. It also drops a corpse, which can be used to deal extra damage with Corpse Explosion (again, more on that in the combos section).
“Rise, my minions! Serve your master once more!”
Ah Puch unleashes an army of Wraiths from the Ninth Hell that swarm forward and deal damage to enemies they collide with.
Ability Type: Line
Damage per Wraith: 40/50/60/70/80 (+10% of your magical power)
Duration: 6s
Radius: 50
Cooldown: 90 seconds
Cost: 100 mana
If there was any doubt about Ah Puch’s ability to control the battlefield, Empty the Crypts should say otherwise. While this ability counts as a Line, it’s more of an AoE that moves indepently of Ah Puch. The main point of this ability is that the enemy team will want to avoid this gigantic field of projectiles, which can have a ridiculous amount of tactical uses. Of course, we have a section for that, so we’ll talk about this ability a LOT more later. Sadly, this ability ends immediately if Ah Puch dies, so keep that in mind.
Combos
After that complete cluster of information, it’s time to see what all of these abilities can do when put together. This section is almost entirely going to be text, since there’s little other way of explaining it. In addition, Undead Surge, Corspe Explosion, and Fleeting Breath will be referred to as 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
Most of Ah Puch’s more complex combos revolve around the use of his passive, which reduces the cooldown of the 1 and 2 by 2 seconds whenever he recovers a corpse. The 3 drops one corpse, while the 1 drops 2 (most of the time). Also, this is assuming that Ah Puch has 40% CDR, so the cooldown of the 1 is 6 seconds, the 2 is 4.8 seconds, and the 3 is 6 seconds.
Your main damaging combo is very simple, and can be done extremely quickly when practiced. I highly recommend turning on Quick Casting on all abilities except the Ultimate (which can be used just fine with Normal Casting).
1 —> 3 —> 2
Now, this combo may seem extremely simple to use, but getting good at using it as quickly as possible to get incredible poke damage off takes good timing between the short cast times of each individual ability. However, similar to Odin’s Bird-bomb combo, it leaves Ah Puch very vulnerable and uses a TON of mana. On top of all that, if the enemy has a jump, they have plenty of warning to jump out of the way or, even worse, towards Ah Puch. So long-story short, use this combo if you want to get a quick kill or if you know the enemy can’t follow up afterwards.
So if the main combo is so easy to dodge, what should a smart Ah Puch player try to do instead? Well, my main advise is to try to utilize the effects of your passive to start pulling off more intricate combos.
1 —> 2 —> 3 —> Passive Proc —> 1 —> 2
This is my personal favorite combo, since it can be used to bait out jumps, gives a small bit of heal, and does more total damage than the main combo. The 3 can be thrown in many ways, which depend on the target you are trying to hit. If they are trying to use a healing ability, throwing the 3 can shut down their healing quite nicely. It can also be used to apply a quick poison, but it does leave your precious corpse in the middle of danger, a place you may not want to be. Instead, throwing the 3 at Ah Puch’s feet can give a Passive Proc for free, which should reduce the cooldown of the 1 and 2 enough for them to be used again.
While throwing the 1 at the wall is an easy way to get Passive Procs over and over again for almost nothing, It does not go throught said walls. However, the 3 and 2 can be thrown over walls.
3 —> 2 —> 1 —> 2 Passive Procs –> 1 —> 2
The start of this combo can be used for sneaky poke damage from behind a wall, and resetting the cooldown of the 1 and 2 using the corpses from the 1 allows for a second 1 into 2 combo.
As one can see, Ah Puch has more intricasies to his kit than one would think at first. Knowing the right time to use which combo is crucial for surviving long enough to stay relevant as a harasser. It’s also noticeable that the ultimate isn’t used in any core combos, since it should be considered a completely different ability set from the rest of his kit. Its uses will be discussed in the Tips and Tricks section.
Builds
This is my custom God Builder loadout for Ah Puch. My starter items are usually Sands of Time and Shoes, with some Health and Mana Potions to stay relevant. The passive mp5 on Sands of Time dramatically increases your early staying potential. Sometimes I trade out Shoes for Uncommon Sash if I feel risky. There’s no real reason to get any other start right now, at least on Ah Puch.
While I get Shoes of Focus for the CDR and Mana, I usually sell it for Shoes of the Magi if I get Breastplate of Valor later on.
After finishing boots, there’s a few options. Even though it’s not very good in the current meta, I like stacking early on to help mid and late game. Usually it’s Warlock’s Sash since it works so well with his passive, but sometimes I’ll go for Book of Thoth to go glass cannon.
Even though Spear of Desolation is an extremely good Mage item right now, it could be more worth it to get Chronos’s Pendant in its place on Ah Puch, since it has valuable stats for him and a passive that compliments his already short cooldowns greatly.
Gem of Isolation is a must-buy for Ah Puch. It helps make his ultimate more threatening, his abilities easier to hit, and also gives extra Health for the passive. It also now gives Crowd-Control Reduction to help Ah Puch escape just a bit easier. That extra 90 magical power is also pretty nice.
If I haven’t sold my starter item yet, I do so and get a penetration item, usually Spear of the Magus, since it almost fully stacks as the corpses reach their target, making the following explosion hit extra hard.
Now I get any of my defensive options on the bottom row. If I’m getting CC’d too much, I get Spirit Robe. If I need Physical Protections, I get Breastplate of Valor. If I need Magical Protections, I get Genji’s Guard for the CDR or Bulwark of Hope for more health. If I’m playing Conquest and there’s an even mix of both kinds of damage, I get Mantle of Discord. The reason I get Shoes of the Magi if I get Breasplate is due to overcapping my CDR too much (the max is 40%).
The reason I use this build is because it offers a ton of survivability in the late-game, your worst phase. Typically in something like Joust, I build a lot more damage earlier, since I’m not always terrified of an enemy jungler, nor do I necesarrily need to worry about long games. But they, this is all my personal experience, so take my builds with a grain of salt.
This is my ability build. It’s pretty straightforward, but you may notice I get the 3rd point in my 1 at level 5 instead of a point in my ultimate. The reason for that is because I find the value of 2 corpses on the 1 to outweigh the direct benefits of the ultimate. I also dont finish my 1 until the last couple of levels to conserve Mana when I throw out corpses. I skip putting points in the ultimate because the only benefit of leveling it up is the damage of the wraiths. I also try to keep the mana cost of the 1 as low as possible for as long as possible, but that’s entirely debatable.
EDIT: After the recent buff to all of Ah Puch’s mana scaling, I would now try to level the 1 after I finish leveling the 2, since now it only costs 90 mana at max rank instead of 110. Since I’m lazy and don’t want to take updated screenshots, this’ll have to do.
Matchups Part 1
Now, because there are so many gods in SMITE, and Ah Puch is considered a weaker god due to his lack of mobility and extreme mana hunger, most matchups are unfavorable for Ah Puch. He gets hard countered by almost every assassin, most warriors, and most guardians, simply due to their strong CC or their ability to survive Ah Puch’s main combo. Here are some favorable and unfavorable matchups for each role.
Assassins:
Good Against:
Sadly, as an immobile mage, pretty much every single assassin CAN cause a ton of trouble for Ah Puch, but Awilix, Ne Zha, and Thanatos can be somewhat handleable as long as the person playing one of those gods isn’t onto your shenanigans. However, all of them can kill you very quickly if they do get close to you, which may be harder said than done due to their lack of traditional escapes. Dont consider these gods WEAK against Ah Puch, just manageable. Just play smart and you should be fine.
EDIT: I actually started making this guide just before Camazotz came out, so I didn’t include him then. Now that he’s out, we’ll talk about him here.
Camazotz is currently one of the scarier gods to play against, due to his absurd healing and close range burst damage. However, in my experience from playing as him, he actually has a very hard time if he gets even slightly behind early game. Because of this, Ah Puch is actually a very good counter to Camazotz, since Ah Puch can deny him from walking anywhere near your team, and is slightly tankier than most other Mages. Both of these things drastically reduce Camazotz’s potential to snowball into the absolute monster he is right now, and that’s not even mentioning Ah Puch’s natural anti-heal, which can basically be applied for free as Camazotz drinks his essence pools.
Bad Against:
While no assassin is fun to play against as Ah Puch, these gods are the absoulute worst of the bunch. All of them can not only outmaneuver you, but also have strong CC and can kill you before you have a chance to do anything. The worst offender of this is Fenrir, by far Ah Puch’s hardest counter. Not only does he have 2 escapes, which are also his source of damage, his ultimate is one of the best CCs in the game, and he WILL bring you and only you back to his team over and over again until you officially have gone 3/15 yelling furiously “I can’t do anything against this!” While I know Fenrir can be countered by bringing a good guardian like a Ymir or a Fafnir onto your team to peel for you, it doesnt change the fact that they often won’t come and help you during the early game, and late-game you’re practically a lost cause. So yeah, Fenrir destroys you.
Hunters:
Good Against:
Hunters are an interesting case for Ah Puch, since all of them destroy him late game in a 1v1 situation. However, due to Ah Puch generally being an early to mid game god, he becomes quite effective at shutting down hunters with particularly atrocious early games. All of these gods with the exception of Neith fall under this category. I’d say Neith is an easy god for Ah Puch since her escape is easy to bait out, and she has a natural heal in her kit.
Bad Against:
The reason these hunters are so problematic is that they have better early games than other hunters. Izanami and Skadi especially are well-known to occasionally build somewhat ability based to be played in the mid or solo lane, in which an Ah Puch would directly have to lane against them. Especially in the case of Izanami with her special basic attacks, this can make early laning phase extremely painful.
Mages:
Good Against:
While a good Ah Puch can deal with almost any mage as long as he plays his cards right, these gods are ones that I personally have done very well against. All of these gods are either immobile, late-game focused, have to get closer than others to properly engage, have a heal, or any combination of these factors. The only one I hesitated to put on here was He Bo, since he has one of the best late-games of any god in the game, but in the end, he’s definitely manageable as long as you don’t let him get to that stage.
Bad Against:
The Mages Ah Puch struggles against are ones that can be overly safe from his damage. Of course, they are all squishy and can be killed if they do get caught out, but it’s easier said than done. Ao Kuang is technically a mage, but he honestly deserves to be considered an assassin due to his prominent place in the jungle meta and his close range abilities. And because he’s an assassin, that means you’ll naturally have trouble against him.
Matchups Part 2
Sadly, Steam Guide sections can only be so long, so I had to make another section.
Warriors:
Good Against:
Warriors are a weird case. They’re naturally tankier than other gods, but they won’t necessarily outrun your main combo or try to outright kill you. I had a lot of trouble deciding matchups for this section, but I think these 4 warriors are the easiest to deal with when laning against them in the Solo Lane. You could make arguments for Hercules and Bellona, but their setup is easy to dodge (for the most part). Again, don’t consider these gods WEAK against Ah Puch, just manageable.
Bad Against:
Again, you could make arguments that other warriors counter Ah Puch as well, but I personally struggle against these 4. Odin has an early game as equally good as yours, and the rest are basic attack based gods who can tank all of your damage, CC you, and basic attack you to death. I almost put Bellona in this category as well, but her CC starts from her ultimate, and I’ve actually out-boxed plenty of Bellonas by spamming 1 and 3 and proccing my passive while running around like a pansy.
Guardians:
Good Against:
Typically, no god in the game really wants to focus the Tank at any given time (unless you’re Ao Kuang, then you focus whoever you want), and that rule applies to Ah Puch as well. The Guardians that Ah Puch is good against are typically ones that support their team from a distance or have to be close to their allies to be effective. It also just so happens that Sylvanus and Terra have to get allies close to them for healing, something Ah Puch can counter easily.
Bad Against:
The Problems with Guardians start when they no longer want to deal with your shenanigans and just CC you out of position for their team to kill. Therefore, agressive supports can make Ah Puch’s life a living hell if they know what they’re doing.
FUN FACT: Fafnir can use his dragon breath to destroy Ah Puch’s corpses. Since the dragon breath has such a fast attack speed, it’s theoretically possible for a Fafnir to destroy Ah Puch’s corpses BEFORE they explode, whether it be on himself or a teammate. It’s hard to pull off, but possible.
WOW that took longer than I first expected. But hey, there’s a lot of gods in SMITE, so I have to talk about all of the notable possibilities. If I didn’t mention a certain god in this section, it’s because they aren’t good or bad against Ah Puch, just neutral / manageable.
Tips and Tricks
Now for the most important part of this guide. In this section, I’ll go over some ways you can be a better Ah Puch player. Let’s start with subtler ways to use his abilities.
This is probably one of the most versatile abilities in the game, since it creates a gigantic field of damage that the enemy won’t want to go anywhere near. The obvious way to use it is as an escape, which usually only works when the enemy already used their movement ability or doesn’t have one. However, you can also use it in the same way to save a teammate, since the AoE is so huge. The item Gem of Isolation will make damaging abilities apply a 15% slow, which includes Empty the Crypts. Therefore, you can use it while boxing to give yourself an advantage. It’s also a situational way to make your main combo slightly easier to hit if you’re chasing an enemy. Ganking with this ability also leads to great results, since you can force the enemy to either run into the wraiths, your towers, or your teammates. The slow from Gem of Isolation combined with the slow from the 1 applies a 55% slow at max rank, which helps with initiating and ganking. You can also drop this to help secure objectives like Fire Giant or even towers for your team, whether it be offensively or defensively used. As crazy as this sounds, you can also use this ability to clear lanes in an emergency situation where you have to back as quickly as possible and you don’t think you need the ultimate. Since you’ll typically get full CDR every game, never be afraid to use this ultimate, even if you panic and it accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Now let’s about some tips for two of Ah Puch’s biggest weaknesses, his high mana costs and his lack of mobility.
How to manage mana:
The answer here is actually pretty simple, it’s just something you have to get used to. Early-game, try to hold off on using your 2. Instead, try to clear waves and camps using only the 1 and 3. Keep your mana up with your passive, and only use your 2 if you REALLY want to poke the enemy team. Early game, usually you’ll have enough mana to use your full combo 3 times, so try to make them count. In order to stay relevant, try hitting both enemy gods and the minion waves at the same time with the 1 or the 3. I also advise playing Ah Puch in the Solo lane, so that you get access to the mana buff early in the game and (hopefully) won’t have have to worry about junglers as much. If you’re playing Joust or Clash, it’s definitely worth grabbing the mana buff almost immediately after contesting the damage buff.
Tips on positioning:
Many mages require a lot of attention to where all of the enemies on the map are, due to their naturally low mobility. This is especially important for Ah Puch, since he has extreme trouble dealing with enemies at close-range. Whenever you throw your corpses too far out of harm’s way, it’s often better to either detonate them or just let them get destroyed over running into danger. If the enemy is tanky enough to live through your main combo, it’s not the worst idea to throw down your ultimate to stall out time for your abilities to come off cooldown and/or make a getaway. The trick of being a good Ah Puch player is knowing the right time to harass, and when to back off. Sadly, positioning is something that I can’t really explain directly, it’s something that you’ll learn with experience.
Conclusion
And that’s the end of it!
I actually started making this guide back in September, and I only just published it now that Season 4 is out. If you look closely, you can actually see some evidence of this huge time gap in some screenshots.
Hopefully this guide taught you some valuable information on how to play Ah Puch better. In the end, I’d say if you ever wanted to play Ah Puch in a competitive game, keep him as a counterpick. He can be either extremely good or extremely bad depending on the enemy team, so feel free to bring him out if the enemy team doesn’t have any super-hard counters and they have many gods that he counters. With Camazotz being introduced to the game and a recent buff, Ah Puch may come back into the meta soon. I highly recommend playing Ah Puch if you’re in casual games, since many low level players might not even have a clue what this god is capable of.
If you have any other questions or want to tell me how poorly I made this guide, feel free to leave a comment expressing your concerns!