Introduction Top
I'm Tikune from the
Halcyon Hammers. At the time of this writing, I have 320 wins and have been ranked "The Hotness" on the North America servers for a week, thanks largely to playing with this Adagio build over the last several weeks.
I'm writing this guide because I found the relative dearth of weapon-powered Adagio builds here a little surprising. Vainglory is a very well balanced game and all of the heroes can be played competently with weapon, crystal, utility or hybrid builds. However, with one exception, a strict weapon-powered build entails sacrificing energy and the need to use abilities much more sparingly. Adagio is that one exception. His heroic perk
Arcane Renewal allows him to recover energy from enemies sustaining damage while burning with Arcane Fire, a product of his first ability
Gift of Fire. Understanding this is key to succeeding with weapon-powered Adagio.
Even in the early game,
Gift of Fire is nearly free if you can ignite a number of enemies at once, such as the minions in the lane or the pairs of minions in the jungle, and do enough damage per second (dps) to those enemies over the course of the Arcane Fire's duration.
From the mid-game onwards, the combination of
Gift of Fire followed by Adagio's second ability,
Agent of Wrath, become nearly free as well. This is because your items and higher level will allow you to do much more damage natively and
Agent of Wrath increases that higher damage output by 70% (if you're the target). More dps directly results in higher energy recovery.
With that clear, let's discuss the build.
Starting Items Top
This Adagio build can work well in either the jungle or the lane. If you're starting in the jungle instead of the lane, I would consider replacing the Halcyon Potions with Scout Traps to assist your team with vision of potential enemy raids of your side of the jungle. Where to place your scout traps is beyond the scope of this guide, but there are many great locations to chose from and trial and error can help you identify good locations.
Particularly as a jungler, it can be tempting to start with
Ironguard Contract to increase the rate at which you can farm early on. I would discourage this as it makes you and your fellow jungler more susceptible to raids by aggressive enemies if they've started with combat-oriented items like
Swift Shooter or
Weapon Blade.
Stage 1 Items Top
In the early game, I recommend rushing towards two copies of
Blazing Salvo while also getting
Sprint Boots and
Oakheart. The additional health will help with your survivability in any early team fights and should you need to flee or chase, the
Sprint Boots are essential. In general terms, you want to keep pace with your enemies' boot tier to avoid being unable to successfully chase or flee in the early game.
Stage 2 Items Top
In Stage 2 of this build, you want to complete your 2 copies of
Blazing Salvo and upgrade
Oakheart to
Dragonheart as well as
Sprint Boots to
Travel Boots. Additionally, purchase
Piercing Spear as it can be used towards building either
Breaking Point or
Bonesaw.
Stage 3 Items Top
At this point, you should be completing your first Tier 3 Item. Typically, this will be
Breaking Point, but if one or more of the opponents you need to focus on killing first in team fights has
Coat of Plates or
Metal Jacket, this can be substituted for
Bonesaw. At that point, I recommend replacing
Tornado Trigger as your second tier 3 items in favor of
Breaking Point. While you'll sacrifice some attack speed (which is particularly effective on Adagio), as well as crit chance and crit damage, I find that the attack speed from the combination of
Breaking Point and
Bonesaw is still ample.
The perks of those two abilities, particularly against a team building armor, outweighs Tornado Trigger's benefits for this build. It's important to realize that even without armor items, every hero has a native armor value and
Bonesaw can quickly shred up to 60% of that value as well as any additional armor gained from items. As such, you increase the direct damage the target enemy will sustain from you as well as from your allies.
Also, the higher health afforded by
Crucible and eventually
Shiversteel will help you survive team fights long enough for the perk from
Breaking Point to become very effective.
Stage 4 Items Top
Now we'll work to increase our damage further with a Heavy Blade as well as our increase our health substantially with a
Dragonheart as we build towards
Shiversteel.
Final Build Top
Should the game last this long, adding
Sorrowblade will significantly increase your damage output. The active ability from
Shiversteel will allow you to slow fleeing enemies and prolong your ability to achieve stacks on
Breaking Point. This build is particularly strong at the end of the game and can help secure your team's victory.
Situational Aggressive Final Build Top
If your team has an early advantage, securing the gold mine throughout the game and outfarming both sides of the jungle, your opponents will likely begin building more defensively to improve their survivability. At this point, I suggest substituting
Tornado Trigger for
Bonesaw and substituting one of your two defensive items in favor of a second
Sorrowblade.
Ability Path Top
1.
Gift of Fire
I recommend beginning with
Gift of Fire and taking it to overdrive first (maxing it). Add your other abilities as they first becomes available (
Agent of Wrath at Level 2 and Verse of Judgment at Level 6).
The healing and energy recovery from overdriving
Gift of Fire will keep you from needing to return to your base throughout the game for life or energy, increasing your ability to farm and defend your lane and jungle.
Additionally, the jump in Burst Heal from level 4 to level 5 of this ability is significant (from 70 to 165) and can make a big difference to you and particularly your allies (as
Crucible and ultimately
Shiversteel will generally give you a much higher health total than your allies), even while you lack the scaling possible for crystal-powered Adagio builds.
2.
Agent of Wrath
The increased damage output from
Agent of Wrath with this build makes Adagio's basic attack very powerful in the mid to late game. The damage boost for overdriving this ability is also significant (from 65 to 115), but most of the benefit of this ability comes from the 50% damage boost against enemies burning with Arcane Fire as well as the additional 20% damage boost for casting this on yourself.
3. Verse of Judgment
I advance Verse of Judgment last because the duration of the stun is the same throughout (2.2 seconds) and weapon-powered Adagio can achieve higher damage output with the combination of your other two abilities than is provided by Verse of Judgment. Furthermore, Adagio is quite vulnerable during the channeling of Verse of Judgment, even with the increased armor and shield, and the time and energy spent casting Verse of Judgment is time that you're not adding stacks to
Breaking Point in a team fight.
Verse of Judgment is best at the beginning of team fights if you are sure you can avoid an enemy stun, either with your
Crucible or because the enemies lack the ability to stun or have just used their stun. Verse of Judgment shouldn't be used until you've cast
Gift of Fire and ignited the enemies that will be targeted, as it will not stun enemies that aren't burning with
Gift of Fire.
With that said, I will occasionally use Verse of Judgment to aid a fleeing ally, as enemies that see the area of effect of Verse of Judgment will almost always abandon chase to get outside of its range or try to instead stun me (which I can prevent with
Crucible).
Gameplay Top
Adagio in general, and this build in particular, is quite flexible and can perform well in either the lane or the jungle.
Laning
In the lane you will have a greater chance of completing your build as you'll generally earn and progress more quickly than your jungle allies. In this role, it's more important to last-hit minions and farm as quickly as you can than it is to attack the enemy laner(s). Of course, you want to keep the enemy laner(s) away from your turret (or ping your allies when you cannot) and maintain map awareness throughout the match to know when your allies need your assistance in the jungle.
While in the lane, it's important not to get too greedy and overextend yourself in order to constantly enemy minions if they are fighting your minions near the enemies turret. Wait for the minions to get closer to your turret and you'll have a better chance of surviving ganks (surprise attacks) from the bushes below. In general, stay closer to the top of the map and away from the jungle bushes to give you more time to react to a gank.
Tip: If the enemy minions are fighting uncomfortably far from your turret, a single basic attack on the enemy hero will cause their minions to chase you, ignoring your minions briefly. This is a good way to draw the fight closer further from the enemy's turret when you're alone in the lane. With that said, you generally don't want the fighting to be taking place too close to your turret or the enemy laner(s) will be able to safely target your turret and it's more likely that your turret will destroy enemy minions denying you the last hit.
Repeatedly use
Gift of Fire to damage the group of enemy minions and be sure to target those burning minions with your basic attacks in order to recover most or all of the energy you spent casting
Gift of Fire.
Many matches are won or lost not by the laner's ability to be in the lane for every minion wave, but by the relative success of each team's jungle and if you don't want to find your team falling behind early on, you need to be prepared to assist your allies in the jungle. As a laner, I tend to follow the build pretty closely, but prioritize tier 2 boots a little more quickly than I otherwise would to ensure I can get to team fights and back to my turrets quickly.
Jungling
As the jungler, I would suggest substituting the starting
Halcyon Potion items with a
Scout Trap and establishing vision of your side of the jungle, prioritizing your lower set of minions and the Gold Miner (and ultimately the Kracken). Picking up a few Halcyon Potions as well as a couple Scout Traps early on. It's very important to be prepared to defend the Gold Mine from being seized by your opponents or, ideally, to seize it with your team when you have an advantage (such as when one or preferably more of your enemies have died or been forced to return to their base). Ping your allies for assistance before trying to take the gold mine by yourself.
Otherwise, your priorities are to farm the jungle at least as effectively as the enemy team and be prepared to assist your allies.
Be aware of the behavior of the enemy laner. If they are extending themselves beyond their side of the map towards your turret and you're waiting for jungle minions to respawn, go to the lower bushes on your side of the lane and prepare to gank the enemy laner. When Adagio targets himself with
Gift of Fire and is in close enough proximity to an enemy, it slows that enemy by 70% for 1.5 seconds. Time and time again, that slow can make the difference between life and death for the enemy laner, particularly if you use that slowed period to run past the enemy laner while basic attacking them, they'll then have to run past you to get to safety on their side.
Closing Remarks Top
Hopefully this guide and your experience playing will show you the potential of playing as weapon-powered Adagio. If you find that a variation on this build works better, I'd love to hear about it in the comments below. I'm constantly trying to learn how to improve at this game and am eager to hear other players' points of view. See you in The Fold!
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