Introduction Top
Joule is probably the most underrated hero in the game, so I tried to create a build for her so more people will use her again (probably not going to happen). When you look at the items, you might think: 'isn't this supposed to be a Catherine build? It's better on her anyways'. Well, protector Joule works for a couple of reasons: her stun is an area stun, Joule is way better at dealing damage than Cath, people often underestimate Joule and don't expect her to much of anything in a match and there are many more reasons why Joule is just as viable as Catherine. But for now, I will just get into the guide. I don't have much experience in making guides and my English is flawed but I hope you still like it :)
Early game Top
Start off with one point in thunderstrike, an ironguard contract, a scout trap and two potions. I assume that you know how the contract works. It gets you gold an some nice health regeneration. Use the potions when you are low on health or energy. The scout trap deals tons of damage when your team decides to do a 3-person jungle ivade. If no fight breaks out in the beginning of the game, put it in the brush near the jungle shop to gain vision. Next up, FARM. This shouldn't be new, farming is one of the most important things in vainglory. Use a basic attack and immediatly use your thunderstrike to farm effectively. The thunderstrike resets your basic attack so by using the above mentioned method, you can deal damage fast. You should be farming primarily in the jungle, but you can roam into the lane from time to time to look for ganks. After you acquired some gold you should buy boots, an energy battery and an oakhart. Try to be around your teammates most of the time to get more gold from the ironguard contract. After you got even more gold, upgrade your contract into a stormguard banner to farm more efficiently and upgrade your oakhart into either a lifespring or a dragonheart. If your team needs a reflex block, like when against Ardan, Ringo or Adagio, build a crucible as soon as they get to level 6. Don't engage into enemy heroes alone early game, but help your teammates out when they decide to engage with the enemy. Because that is basically your main role, to help your teammates with your stun and items.
Mid Game Top
Continue to farm as much as possible. Fights break out more frequently in mid-game so try to support your allies. Don't be afraid to go for a kill yourself though, because at max stacks, Joule is deadly. Once you have all the items mentioned in the above chapter, you should start building to an aftershock (I'll get into items later on by the way). Also upgrade your energy battery into a void battery. After afterschock, upgrade your stormguard banner into a warhorn. Warhorn brings immense utility and helps you deal more damage when farming and taking objectives. Joule is absolutely amazing at taking objective with both warhorn and aftershock. She deals insane damage to turrets and miners, and enemies trying to steal the gold mine will think twice about it when they see a fully stacked Joule guarding the mine. Or they don't and they are likely to get killed. Use warhorn in teamfights when your team needs to escape or chase. After a turret goes down (on either side) Joule's rocket leap drastically increases in effectiveness. It becomes much easier to jump on enemies from the bushes. You should be looking for ganks and kills more often in this state of the game. If your laner or fellow jungler is constantly harassed, you should stay close to them. Jump on your laner with your rocket leap. This might seem weird, but enemies with a gap closer, like koshka or krul, usually immediately dash at your laner. I have prevented a koshka or taka instantly killing my laner many times. This can really turn the tides because the greedy assassins will get bursted down quickly.
Late Game Top
In the late game, it's even more important to stay with your teammates. Farm when you can, but don't risk your allies dying because you left them to farm. Try to ace the enemy team and secure the kraken. Joule is very good at tanking the kraken and she deals very high damage to it with max stack thunder strike and warhorn boosted basic attacks. A well timed big red button can also steal the kraken, should the need arise. You should also attack turrets when you can, because Joule can deal with turrets very fast too. Upgrade your sprint boots and lifespring into travel boots and fountain of renewal respectively. They both add in your tankiness and allow you to help your teammates better. After that, upgrade your void battery into either a clockwork or an eve of harvest. With a clockwork, aftershock and warhorn, you can spam your abilities everywhere. With the overdrive on rocket leap and all those cooldown reduction, you can use the leap every five seconds! That is incredibly important in teamfights because a well timed stun can possibly immobilize the whole enemy team. Add in Celeste that follows up your stun with her own, and then fires off her ultimate while you do the same. Just imagine the damage :0 Keep stomping on enemies so your carry can burst down the stunned enemies while you take the hits. Also keep gaining stacks, even without much crystal investment, you thunder strike deals noticeable damage at max stacks.
abilities Top
Joule's heroic perk grants her bonus armor from the front and sides. This makes her so good as a tank. Keep in mind that Joule is weaker from behind, so she is vulnerable when getting chased by, for example, Ringo. Also keep an eye on enemies with bonesaw.
Joule jumps into the air and crushes all enemies under her feet, stunning and damaging them. This is your most important ability in teamfights. As mentioned earlier, Jump on your allies when the enemy team has an assassin or someone else who is dangerous to your carry, like Catherine. When you stun those enemies in time, they can't harm your carry. Because if your carry dies, you will likely lose the teamfight. Besides, Koshka and Taka are both rather squishy so a stun can lead to their death. Also use this skill to jump over walls, either when escaping or chasing. Always remember that you MUST land the stun. It takes practice but if you miss, your carry can be bursted down before you can take the enemy team down.
Joule instantly fires a beam of lightning in the targeted direction. It deals both weapon and crystal damage and becomes stronger for each consecutive hit. You lose all stacks when you miss a target, so be sure to hit something with it when you have some stacks. Use this ability for farming and to reset your basic attack. After you managed to get some thunder strike stacks, it deals very high damage to multiple targets.
Joule fires a massive beam of energy that deals incredible damage over three ticks. This ability is best when combined with an ally with a stun, because otherwise enemies can just walk out of the beam. Use this in teamfights to deal massive damage. It's really easy to dodge though so try to use it on enemies that only have one escape route. When you get chased by an enemy that is rather low on health, you can also unexpectedly turn around and fire the beam. This might get you a surprise kill, but be aware where to use it so enemies can't simply walk out of the beam and kill you. I decided to not get the third point for big red button because with this build, Joule isn't supposed to deal as much damage as possible. If you go with a shatterglass, don't get the overdrive on thunder strike and put your last point in this ability.
Boots are important for every character. It gets you around quicker and gives you some nice defensive stats. Use the passive for chasing/escaping.
Warhorn brings immense utility to the table. It grants you health and energy regen, cooldown reduction, a passive that makes your basic attacks do consistent damage to non heroes and an active that speeds up not only yourself, but your entire team for 1 second. With the passive that warhorn provides, Joule can farm very fast and deal incredible damage to gold and minion miners, as well as turrets and the kraken. Use the active when your whole team needs to escape, or when chasing the enemy team.
Fountain of renewal gives you some nice defensive stats. It works amazingly well with Joule's heroic perk. The active heals you and your team. Use it when your allies are on low health. When your team is behind, or when you get killed too fast, it's usually a good idea to get this item before getting warhorn.
A clockwork gives you more max energy, which is really important to spam your abilities. And with the cooldown reduction it provides, you can spam your abilities everywhere. You can also upgrade your void battery into an eve of harvest. An eve also provides more max energy, but it trades cooldown reduction for extra crystal power and crystal lifesteal. It works well with thunder strike, but keep in mind that it is more expensive than clockwork and you can't spam your abilities as much (you still have cooldown reduction from warhorn and aftershock though).
An aftershock allows Joule to deal noticeable damage without much crystal investment. The cooldown recuction makes it so that you only need to use one fresh basic attack to get the most out of the basic attack reset of thunder strike. I can't really explain it well, just watch the Joule hero spotlight on youtube. Everything about Joule will be explained by the godly voice that Ciderhelm possesses.
A crucible gives you a lot of health. It also has an active reflex block for your whole team. I usually get fountain of renewal first, but if you are fighting Ardan or Adagio, for example, I get crucible first. When fighting those enemies, a reflex block is really cruci(b)al to escape their ultimates. I'm sorry. When your team doesn't need a reflex block at all, you should get a shiversteel instead. A shiversteel also gives tons of health and it has an active that slows down enemies.
An atlas pauldron gives you both armor and some shield. It's passive is why you should get it though. The passive lowers the attack speed of enemy heroes. This can seriously mess up enemies that rely on attack speed like Krul, Saw or Glaive. It's hard to use, but when you know how to use it properly, it can render some enemies almost useless.
If you don't need a crucible and don't want to use shiversteel, you can replace those items with a shatterglass. It drastically increases the power of your abilities, especially big red button. It also works well with both aftershock and eve of harvest, because it powers up their lifesteal. You aren't really all that tanky without crucible/shiversteel though so only get this item when your teammates are rather tanky as well.
When you almost finished your build, and you have to secure/kill the kraken, you can use infusions. They power you up for 3 minutes. Always get a crystal infusion first. When you have completely finished your build and you still have gold left, you can also use a weapon infusion. Not that your basic attack will deal much more damage, but it does power up your thunder strike and the armor and shield is always nice.
The new update Top
The new update is here, finally. I am glad to see that Joule got buffed. However, some changes they made to Joule aren't actually ideal to this build. I will list down the things that have an impact on this build.
POSITIVE CHANGES:
- Joule's armor gain from heavy plating is much better now, so she has an easier time tanking hits, which is great for this build.
- Her shield scales better into the late game. Again, easier time tanking.
- movement speed from 3.25 to 3.4! This is a huge increase and will definitely come in handy for this build. You can get to allies faster to protect them when they are in trouble.
- rocket leap peforms faster and has a higher crystal ratio. Rocket leap is overall more balanced and responsive now.
- thunder strike works completely different now. It has a much better crystal and weapon ratio plus shield pierce when charged up. But it only has one stack. It's more reliable now but Joule can't become a total nuke anymore when stacked up, because there is only one stack.
- big red button charges almost twice as fast!!!! It't much easier to hit enemies with it because they can't dodge it as easily. It's finally the inescapable nuke it's supposed to be.
- big red button's cooldown is reduced, which is nice of course.
- frostburn got buffed. It is now a noteworthy item over crucible as it gives you plenty of crystal power and the slow effect can be useful.
NEGATIVE CHANGES:
-Joule's base armor was reduced. This means she is much more vulnerable from behind, even more than she already was.
-Joule's base attack speed is decreased. This isn't even noticeble though (for this build).
- the stun duration on rocket leap's overdrive is decreased a Little and it's damage is decrased. These changes aren't so bad when you look at the tradeoffs, but does hinder Joule a bit.
- Joule's thunder strike doesn't reset your basic attack. This is a huge bummer because Joule can't do such insane damage to objectives as she could before and taking objectives was what Joule really exelled in. This also makes aftershock much less useful, so you might as well not get it.
- aftershock go nerfed. And because you can't reset your basic attack with it anymore, you might as well not get it.
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