How to build carries 4.18 – Smite Conquest

How to build carries 4.18 – Conquest

Hunters have a wide range of viable items. Two main build paths power/penetration and critical strike. Penetration builds focus on dealing damage to tanky targets and objectives. Critical strike builds are designed to kill anything without protections quickly. A vast range of items which can become situational. Items can be less efficient if still effective in most cases.  Builds have a general rule of thumb. The class wants power, attack speed, penetration and utility. Combine power with attack speed for higher damage output. Add some penetration to cut into protections. The utility can be found in defence or life steal.  Life steal provides sustain during team fights.  A defence can help keep you alive to deal damage.

Make things simple plan on explaining why certain items not viable. At the same time explaining why certain items are situational and the usage.

Non-viable items

Atalanta’s bow – 30 physical power with 25% attack speed. Passive 7% movement speed, 4 stacks total per basic attack hit on enemies. The item provides pretty mediocre statistics, with pretty mediocre passive.  Failing to provide enough statistics to make it viable.  Costs 2300 gold other items are just more cost effective. Designed to replace an item which got removed from the game. 

Ichavial / Silver branch bow – 25% attack speed with 10 penetration, passive removes 28 physical power total. Costs 1700 gold designed to be a bridge item. Silver branch bow is similar just for magical power reduction.

Jotunns Wrath – Can be built on ability focused hunters but much better items to build.  Mainly building it for the 10 penetration for 2450 gold. Cooldown is not helpful on hunters. Crusher gets more use and provides better numbers.

Situational items

Qin sais – Build against teams which invested heavily into defence items.  Against triple tank teams shreds targets that build high amounts of health.  Should not pair this item with critical strike damage as a result.

Titan’s bane – Penetration is useful against objectives and tanky teams.

Brawlers beat stick / Toxic blade – Both of these items are counters towards healers. 3 or more with a self-heal or team-wide heal. Brawlers best on ability-based hunters who can apply the passive. Applying the passive without much effort want 2 or more abilities which can apply it. The toxic blade is the opposite wants best on hunters who basic attack being the main source of damage.

Starts
A wide range of viable starts, each one having its own playstyle. Different game modes have different starts on certain hunters. Bumba’s mask is less useful on all game modes apart from conquest.

Bumba’s mask – Start in the jungle, extra sustain with gold.  Allows carries to get ahead by clearing jungle camps. Most useful on good jungle clear camp hunters.

Item name Item name Hunter
Bluestone Bumba’s mask Ah Muzen Cab

Anhur

Cernunnos

Chiron

Cupid

Hou Yi

Medusa

Neith

Skadi

Ullr

Death’s Toll Bumba’s mask Anhur

Apollo

Artemis

Cernunnos

Iznami

Jing wei

Rama

Xbalanque

Not using Bumba’s, build blue stone or death’s toll with tier one boots. Don’t forget to buy couple potions.

Example builds

Ninja Tabi Devourer gauntlet The Executioner Poisoned star Wind demon Deathbringer
Ninja Tabi Transcedence Asi TItan’s bane Qin Sais Odysseus bow

What about defence items? 

Can build defence items, don’t have to focus purely on damage. Can’t-do damage if you die. Bunch of options on the table and most are situational. Pick up items which provide the highest benefit to the biggest threat against you. Just means replacing one item within the build.

Hide of the Nemean lion or spectral armour can force assassins or warriors off you. May require protections against both sets of damage. Hide of the urchin would be a better choice. Options are wide open and massive amount of items to build.

Smite ranked on console still toxic

Decided to play some ranked conquest. Admittedly it on a console, which has a bad reputation. Many PC players joke about console yet average PC player not so great. Making the same basic mistakes. Taking on bad fights and failing to farm. Failing to understand the basics instead blaming others.

Every player makes mistakes including myself. Most mistakes are made regarding early jungle pressure. The vast majority won’t learn how to play from behind. Seeking out easy snowball based wins to climb. Don’t understand how certain fights are just terrible. Taking on aggressive high risk fights the majority of the time.

Hirez claims that ranked provides the most competitive environment. It does not provide that. Ranked is nothing more than a ladder. Games come down to early pressure how you play the jungle. Rewarding risky high snowball focused players. Players can be sloppy just got lucky, keeping bad habits at higher ranks. Some higher rank players do deserve the ratings given to them. Games are not more competitive on average.

Encourages a toxic set of behaviour. Players report each other for no good reason. Rather sad how mode meant to make you better makes you worse. These sorts of players should quit ranked. Understand the frustration but at a certain point maybe the blame is on you.  Sometimes, however, it can be hard to see what went wrong.  Professional players advice is focused on you, not your teammates.
.
Missed nothing from avoiding rank almost all season. Expected the matchmaking to improve but quickly dismissed that idea. Hope the matchmaking gets better but I doubt it. All I want is that god skin and loading screen. Right now just getting abuse from players. And blow out games based on early jungle pressure. Yet players ask why not many jump into the ranked ladder. The system not designed to help players grow or improve.

Ranked is nothing more than a public stomping playground with a ladder. Once you discover this, why play ranked to get better if just get abuse.  Hard to get better if the game rewards the worse behaviour possible. All about early snowballs diving people. Similar mistakes are made at lower levels to higher levels. Profesional players even talk about ranked being causals until a higher level.

A common theme is map awareness most players lack it so badly. Forced to babysit people and call missing every single time. Understand heat of the moment lack of map awareness. Map design sort of becomes obvious which direction people path in. Majority of my mistakes are simple basic things. Make assumptions that teamamtes understand what is happening.

Last two ranked games disconnecting players, neith instant lock after I call carry. Before that was a jungle who was unable to play from behind. Looking forward to grinding out 130 wins for a loading frame and skin. Seriously something needs to be done to improve the match performance. Grinding out 150 wins looks next to impossible. I do make mistakes but get more patience. Sometimes underestimate early game minion damage. Making simple mistakes like taking on too much damage early game.

Hope season 5 changes how minions work. Sometimes the AI is bit iffy. Minions die faster giving one side a clear unfair advantage. Larger groups can spawn leading to clear advantage. Often minimal interactions can cause them to target you. Towers suffer from similar problems. Sort of makes sense but can be frustrating.

The distance between lanes makes it too easy gain extra farm. Can sustain off camps provided you pick up bumbas. Farm so safely not risky unless you don’t have a clear advantage. Once you gain jungle pressure turns into the other team punishing your mistakes. Jungle fades into a second lane that rather safe. Game declines to team fighting rather quickly. Middle land often is 3 vs 3 lanes that feel melted into the jungle. What happened in middle lane helps decide the flow of the game. Forcing the other lanes to change playstyle to avoid falling behind.

Smite requires a massive knowledge pool. Vast amounts of items to learn to make that worse. Patches every 2 weeks with changes make it even worse. Majority of players can’t cope unable or unwilling to learn. Don’t blame them game gives you little to no tools. Recommended items are out of date due to the vast changes which can happen. Auto-leveling can be outdated again due to the changes.  Hope honestly that patch changes to slow down and reduction in items. With small set for certain gods. Small universal tree plus branches of specialist items. Would also reduce the number of passives. Decreasing items could lead to better balancing. Certain items have been abused on certain occasions. Which twist the item out of it designed role. A Recent example was a defence item which helped survivable.

Jungle design plus how certain abilities are easy to land is partly to blame. Abilities do too much damage are too easy. Players can’t dodge certain abilities if they are wide massive circles.  Certain aspects just frustrating with little to no downside. Snowballing is serious problem caused by the jungle design. Certain gods are overturned having too much. Decent clear opens up so many options in the jungle. Easy access to jungle farm causes so many problems. Wards are another issue. Players undervalued wards too often. Unwilling to buy wards for whatever reason. Vision is super useful in helping general map awareness.

Honestly, would like to see hunters changed. Early clearing hunters should have lower late game damage. A Late game focused hunter should have worse clear and bad boxing potential. Locking off critical damage from certain hunters. Steroid based hunters just too powerful in certain respects. Build paths should be more costly given the free farm. Season 5 could see big changes but honestly feel certain hunters are overturned.

Various things which need be addressed. Sometimes it was your fault, other times it bit less clear. I do enjoy smite but at times just frustrating to play ranked. Feels like rank is meanless a exercise in patience with other players. Just viewing ranked as a ladder over competitive matchmaking.

Game fails to teach you how to play. Way too much knowledge required. Every player makes mistakes high risky snowball plays are rewarded. Ranked is toxic environment with a ladder. Grinding out 150 wins for a reward is not worth it. A vast sum of knowledge is required due items. The jungle is a second lane with easy access to a farm. Snowballing is a serious problem as a result once gain jungle pressure too easy to keep it. Certain classes are overturned with hunters being an obvious example.  Hi Rez has added a vast sum of knowledge in items. Jungle is the second lane with easy access to the farm. Snowballing is a serious problem. Ranked is one big giant with little pay off given how toxic people can be.

I do like smite but the title has issues like every other game.

Smite lifesteal on Izanami

Izanami basic attacks count as AOE attacks with life steal only being 33% efficient.   Basic attacks also don’t scale to 100% on every hit, 80/20 is the ratio.  Time for some maths on how much life steal you gain.

100 = physical power.

10% lifesteal

x = 33% coefficient

80 ÷ 10% – x2 = 4.8

20 ÷ 10% – x2 = 1.32

4.8+1.32 = 61.2

38.8% less compared to other hunters

Smite Season 4 snowball problems?

Smite season 4 snowball problems?

First impressions of season 4 some rather big problems appearing. Just an average low-level player couple things bugging me.  Not massive fan of how the game currently feels and plays.  Not fun to play or watch when certain things happen. Many players blame the matchmaking but feel this could be a symptom. Not fun to play snowballing games or fun to play against snowballs.   Current jungle starts was a symptom of a much bigger problem.  Instead of fixing it Hi-Rez made that problem worse.  The goal was independent farming of jungle camps.  Stopping early game invades at the cost of the farm.

Jungle camps now have a delayed start against lane minions.  Opening up the jungle camps to be done in various orders.  Early game wave clear becomes super important.  The early game farm becomes super important any XP lead can lead to kills.  Clearing small jungle camp minions is quicker compared full clearing early on.  Gain more gold and don’t give up to much lane pressure.  Worth sharing camps due faster clear and how much gold/XP can be found.

Result mess up early game whole jungle can be taken away from you.   Instead of making the jungle independent you benefit sharing farm.  The jungle has become a main source of the farm. Jungle became rich in XP/gold with no downside to sharing. Want to spend 10 mins keeping control of the solo lane jungle. Snowballing has become a major problem due to all these changes. Offensive early game is rewarded one minor mistake can cause big problems.  Invading jungle camps are much more common.

Mistakes early game can cause major problems.  Based on my ranked games so far made series of mistakes and snowball can’t be stopped.  Could be down to player inexperience.   Once you get behind you must share or don’t win.  Can’t farm if the other team taken all the objectives and the jungle.

Problem: Sharing xp/gold on camps

No downside to sharing XP/gold from jungle camps.  Clear the camp equals faster rotations back to lane. No downside to sharing XP/gold in general.  All lanes have become farm lanes.  Middle lane sharing loads of farm with the jungle and support.  Leading to gold problems for the middle lane. Middle lane shared so much farm normally took ages to come online.  This issue needs to be addressed. The main cause of snowballing right now.  With so much farm makes sense to share it. Teams which don’t share get behind rather quickly.  Makes sense to share no matter what behind or ahead. Leading into two problems jungle being farm rich and clear.

Problem: Jungle full of farm

Due sharing XP/gold combined with how much farm the jungle contains.  Something designers increased from season 3 to 4.  Makes no sense not to share the jungle farm.  A reason why middle laners have been picking up jungle starting items. Once you gained pressure makes sense to keep pushing it.  Same time invading is now heavily rewarded.  Offensive is rewarded once you gained pressure to want to keep it.   All classes having access to this farm causes big problems.

Problem: Clear

Being able to clear jungle camps quickly.  Being able to clear waves quickly allows you to put pressure on the jungle.  Allows you to put pressure on various map objectives.  Can’t be proactive just have to react to what the other team does.  Meta comes down to moblity or clear.  Whole game comes down to clear potential.  Slowly snowball out of control due clear.

Sharing, jungle and clear. 

Early game becomes super important one or two mistakes can cause major snowballs.  Super frustrating to play against and play.  Feels unrewarding and dull being honest with you.  Often feels like nothing you can do if make one mistake or the team makes a mistake.  Forced to pick gods with early game clear or moblity to counter it.  Mistakes in first 5 mins can cost you the game nothing you can do. Once that happens feels like the game out of your control.  Super frustating don’t want to play it.

Could be misplaying the early game.  Problem it becomes rather hard to address or focus on your mistakes if everybody is not winning.  Not even sure what I could do better apart from not fight.  May have to record my gameplay and seek advice.  Jungle wise not even sure how to start or response to certain starts.

Other problems…..

  • Burdern of game knowledge
  • Starter items
  • Items
  • Wards
  • Matchmaking

Season 4 is mixed bag for me so far.   Get the feeling matchmaking could be working just very snowball heavy game wise.

 

Season four wishlist smite

Season four wishlist smite

Season 4 of smite is coming January after the world championship.   Created list of balance changes I would like to see.  Included the reason behind the changes.   Won’t cover just balance, quality of life changes.   Only started to play during season 3.

Matchmaking changes

Hi-Rez released a FAQ page on matchmaking.   Highly recommend reading that page answers couple questions.  System rates players based on performance.  Balancing teams based the rating given to players.  Explained in detail on the FAQ page.  Certain factors weighted,  factoring inconsistency.

Matchmaking rating score is hidden.  The formula is unknown, forced to make assumptions. Possible player perception about the system is incorrect.  The margin of error is tiny, a vocal minority are wrong.  Smite guru offers some insight yet is inaccurate.  Biases could be at play, players overconfidence in abilities.

Making series of assumptions based on my own player experience.  Matchmaking could be rating certain players to high others to low.  The system could be working as intended just overconfident in my skills.  A bunch of questions about the system still.

Problem:  Team balancing

Current system scores teams trying to pair teams of equal value.   Using matchmaking rating system, total sum together trying to find a game. Avoiding massive player differences across the team in general. Problem here system always tries to find a game.  Lacking an upper limit or soft limit.

Ranked soft limit can be bypassed after some time.  Restrictions reduced after hitting certain time limit.

Solution

  • Upper limit on differences between players.
  • Resetting matchmaking system searching for an extended period of time.
  • Setting soft limit for team balancing
  • Reviewing the restrictions
Problem:  Average team balance

Teams total matchmaking rating is taken into account.  Balancing teams based on that average. Average could be way off players scores.  With massive differences in variables allowed.  The highly rated player could be put at a serious disadvantage.  Paired with lower rated teammates against higher average opponents.

Solution

  • Balance based on player average and team average.
Problem:  Rating system favours win/loss ratio.

Does not factor in player performance, changing ratings based on that.  Weighted more towards wins and losses.  Players can be carried even with poor performance.  Players who carry should be rewarded. Just factoring in team performance does not give you clear picture.

Solution:

  • Wins/losses should not be only thing weighted
  • Player performance should be rewarded even with poor team performance
  • Factor other variables, not just wins or losses.
  • Variables like player movement against enemy movement.
General items

Hud customization

Would like some HUD customization options for a console.

Items

Would like to see more items with certain choices locked. Example change some Guardians playstyles.  Allowing for interesting choices changing how gods are played.  Restrictions could be placed on certain items. Could create Guardian only items designed give you more defence.  The game already does with magical and physical items.

Ranked

Reason to play ranked over casuals.  Longer queue times games just as unbalanced.  No real reason to play ranked at all.  Rewards should be displayed at the start.

Clan system

Some changes which make clan system more relevant.  Constant updates to the clan chest.  Make worth being inactive clan getting players together.

Removing or revamping game modes. 

Joust/clash suffer from snowball problem.  Early clear teams just snowball hard due to the distance. Conquest jungle should be tighter.

God balancing

General problem smite has certain abilities super powerful.  Turning gods into ultimate bots.  Rest of the abilities are weaker.  Would like to see ultimates reworked with abilities tuned upwards. Small minor balance changes were done over big changes to abilities.

Conquest changes

Problem:  Jungle farm

Jungle feels like second mid lane.  Spend most time in the middle over the jungle.  Jungler should be making farming choices in the jungle.  Fighting over farm instead just teaching farm.

Solution

Add more jungle camps which worth more compared general waves.  Avoid other classes taking the farm make them tougher.

Problem: Much higher lost of farm during ganks

Solution:

Longer distance between lanes

God balancing suggestions

Every god should have some sort of niche.  Don’t want to see loads of changes.  More minor changes one at a time.  Tried to explain the problem with each god and why.  Disagree with me please explain in detail why.

Ao kuang

High burst potential against a single target.   Stealth which can be used as an escape.  Ultimate features an execution mechanic plus heals him.  Acts as only hard crowd control.  Design wise safer super high burst with low-risk high reward.

Problem: Ultimate

Allows Ao Kuang to safely engage or disengage without any real risk.

Solution

Remove any of the following things off the Ultimate.

  • Heal
  • Damage
  • Execution mechanic

Jing Wei

Combined together super safe late game hunter with two escapes.

Problem:  Passive

Allows the god to gain extra farm without risk.  No risk when comes to trading against hunters.

Solution

Adjust the passive various solutions

  • Decrease the distance or add a timer.

Problem:  Persistent Gust bonus attack speed

Solution remove the bonus attack speed

Problem:  Agility immunity to basic attack movement penalties

 

Solution remove the immunity

Erlang Shen

Tiermonster owner Lordwhizzkid explained here.  Shen has major identity crisis warrior or assassin. A decision must be taken before any balance is done. Something has to be done.

Smite 3.23 thoughts

Wings for victory patch 3.23 for smite.  Season 4 starting after the World championship.  Won’t cover everything only the important changes.

Celestial Legion Helm something that I have overlooked.  Won’t change much being honest. Changes to the Hydra’s Star/Hydra’s Lament are far bigger. Cooldown plus mana seen pretty much every jungler pick it up.

Obsidian Shard vs Spear of the Magus

Disagree Hi Rez that mages have options for penetration. 

Spear of the Magus works best on dot damage abilities.  Can be rather hard apply on certain mages. Item has big problems against any defense.   Flat penetration is not very good against targets with defense.  Including objectives anybody building defense items.  Terrible item to build in certain cases.  

Obsidian Shard works on any ability don’t need to follow up.  Penetration is % based destroying any high protection target. 

Right now flat penetration is weaker but situational.  Don’t understand the minor 10 power reduction.  Lower power won’t make big different to Obsidian Shard. 

Erlang Shen

Changes do nothing not even nerf in my eyes.  Don’t fix the core problem warrior with major identity crisis.  Feeling more like an assassin over warrior.

Jing Wei

Minor changes removing the crit early.  Explosive Bolts now worse still makes her super strong late game.  Key problem Jing Wei was super safe with great late game.  Higher cooldown on Agility makes her less safe.  Unsure the changes are enough.  She needs much bigger changes. 

Tyr

Uniform stance switch again not sure why this was done.

 

Smite Ranked Thoughts

Why is ranked so Toxic?

Four months ago decided to stop playing ranked smite.  Playstation community was rather toxic. Seen more toxic messages from smite compared almost decade of playstation.  Personally suffered from insults.  Tonight was given four over couple hours.  Dozens messaging other players to report each other. Messages including ‘report for feeding’.   Inconvenience truth players have bad games. Reporting players for bad games, terrible attitude to hold. Behaviour like this means should not be playing ranked.  That attitude is setting you up to fail.

Decided to change my attitude, avoid any negative remarks.  Going to try be less toxic.  Avoiding anything which could be taken in negative way.

 

Experience with the community, toxic waste dump.  Threats of reporting players, over poor performance.   Telling people to uninstall, within low level ranked matches.  Players unwilling to give advice or take it.  Blaming others for any mistakes. We all have bad games, oh the horror.  Poor performance does happen, deal with it.  Learn how to play from behind.   Many players don’t learn how to do this.  Sometimes not your fault if your team not carrying any weight.  Team game after all can’t win without your team.

Negative reaction does not help.  How many times at school did teacher shout at you.  Did being shouted at improved your grades.  Shouting at your team does not help them improve.  No saint when comes to online gaming. Negative thoughts is going to have major impact.  Behaviour changes, decision making changes.  Have degree of respect treat others how you would like to be. Reporting them does not improve the matchmaking.  Deal with the cards in front of you. Learning how to deal with difference problems.

Wards

Any player can only carry three wards, placing just two. Four main routes into the fire giant one player can’t cover every inch. Need wards message should auto buy wards.  Every role should be picking up wards. No excuses as potions fall off hard late game.

Smite Hunter Builds Season 3

Hunters follow 6 core build designs.  Certain early game items help smooth the power curve.  Builds listed are final don’t include the early game items.  Disclaimer don’t normally play hunters, build order is useful to understand.

Build Name 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th
Caster build Transcendence Warrior Tabi Jotunn’s Wrath Brawlers beat stick Titan’s bane The Crusher
Double stack Devourer’s Gauntlet Ninja tabi Transcendence ASI Titan’s bane Malice
Ability hybird Transcendence Warrior Tabi ASI Titan’s bane  Qin sais Malice
Ninja tabi Jotunn’s Wrath Titan’s bane Malice
Shifter’s shield Soul eater
Transcendence Warrior Tabi ASI Titan’s Qin sais Masamune
Everything Devourer’s Gauntlet Warrior Tabi ASI Titan’s bane Qin sais Malice
Ninja tabi Titan’s bane Qin sais Malice
Warrior Tabi The executioner Qin sais Malice
Ninja tabi The executioner Qin sais Malice
Power/pen Devourer’s Gauntlet Warrior ASI Brawler’s Beatstick, Qin sais Titan’s Bane
Ninja Tabi
Critical damage Devourer’s Gauntlet Warrior Tabi ASI The executioner Wind demon Deathbringer
Ninja Tabi The executioner Malice Deathbringer
Titan’s bane Wind demon
Wind demon Malice

Ward rant smite

Ward rant smite

Wards are useful should be picked up by every role. One player can place two wards at any time. Smite has 2 major objectives with 4 entrances. 10 main ward placement areas on the conquest map. 5 players with 2 wards each is 10.

Point being made is simple. Buy wards use wards love wards. Bad habit not buying any wards should be buying them. Casual games does not matter, want to be building up good habits over time.  Calling players missing, buying wards.

Best advice I can give any player is buy wards. Wards allow you to be poorly positioned giving you warning to move. Providing with more knowledge locations or rotations.  Wards are not a luxury item,   50 gold can save your life.

Smite training – Anti heal

Smite training – Anti heal

Decided to do some theory maths on anti heal items.  Focus is mainly around Aphrodite.

Aphrodite –  Love birds with 40% scaling in total.

Magical power Heal  -25% -40% -50% Total
0

150

250

500

700

228

288

328

428

518

57

72

82

107

130

91

115

131

171

207

114

144

164

214

259

171, 137, 114

216, 173. 144

246, 197, 114

321, 257, 214

388, 311, 259

 

Extra sustain acting as heal buffer, soaking up damage.  Anti heal rather important due how strong constant that sustain becomes.  Add in the natural health regeneration out of combat.  Teamfights can be decided over time due to healing.  Healing reduction absorbing extra scaling most healing abilities have.  Healing does not scale off magical power instead cooldowns far more impactful.  Love birds standard cooldown is 12 seconds -40% cooldown reduction brings down to 7 seconds. Being able to heal for 228 every 7 seconds rather useful.  Rod of asclepius gives you 25% extra healing with regeneration buffs to allies.

Point being made is simple don’t underestimate how powerful healing can be.  Throw in some higher than average effective health.  Bursting people down becomes rather difficult, forced to focus on the healer over the damage dealers.    Below is incomplete table of healers in smite

Healers in smite

God Heal
Aphrodite 15% scaling 228
Chang’e 30% scaling 130
Hel 40% scaling 180
ISIS 15% scaling  160
Ra 15% scaling  360
Zhong Kui 20% 240

Missing couple healers off the list,  Guan Yu, Terra, hercules.

Hope you find this information useful 🙂