Smite Knowledge
Introduction
The core gameplay is based on three core pillars decisions, mechanics and information.
Decisions – What choices do you make
Mechanics – Not just hitting objects but how quickly you can react
Information – Taking in the state of the game and processing it.
Triangle of playstyles in smite. (Meta terms borrowed from Magic: The Gathering)
Most of the time in all roles you find yourself switching between each style depending on what happening. Players who master this are deadly. Every stage of the game requires a different style to win. The most important point here is every player has a preferred style and must be willing to learn that for each role. Every role must learn the limits for you personally.
Aggro – Overwhelming any opponent, quickly ending the game.
Control – Have answers to any efforts to overwhelm.
Midrange – Taking elements from the above, faster than control and slower than aggro.
Farming is necessary in order to get gold and experience. Players often lack discipline when it comes to farming, the most efficient way of playing smite focuses on farming all the time. Heart of each playstyle, different approach to farm. Aggro seeks to overwhelm stealing farms and forcing fights around them. Control seeks to limit any loss of the farm, keeping pace with answers. Midrange borrows the same approaches mixing them together. Most players form a bad habit of ignoring farming and seeking out kills. Can overwhelm these players just by out-farming them. Without discipline can end up just end up running at people aimlessly.
Loads of overlap between roles, and learning one role ends up helping in other roles. Slowly start to understand what everybody should be doing. As a support what do you want X role doing at that moment? Ask what question but be careful certain bad habits can cloud your choices. Some random elements you can’t change but can change your own gameplay. Practice makes perfect after all, don’t have to play smite to improve.
What does each role do?
Carry / Mid are farmer-centric damage roles, carry does constant damage and mid does sudden burst damage. Can’t do that without a farm, want a neutral farm and do it safely. 100 gold kill means nothing but that with 1,000 gold extra farm hurts the other team way more. Need to take huge risks to put yourself behind. Can’t deal damage if you die, both roles need to stay alive but deal as much damage as possible. Mid laners often are key to securing objectives. Both should be together during team fights dealing damage to whatever threat is in front of them.
Support is the main body to carry / mid, without each other you don’t have answers. Nothing without your arms carry (LEFT) and mid (RIGHT) staying alive. Depending on the game but need be aggro, control and midrange rolled into one. Need to learn when to engage or disengage and how to counter the other team doing the same.
The jungle is farming centric mid-range-based role, getting other lanes ahead and keeping control over the farm. Need to balance who you help and when. During team fight stages your whole purpose is to maim or kill anybody. Looking for any opening say the other team carry dashes and want to target that player. Late game letting solo engages, you just clean up. In some games, you can do whatever you want but bad habits can form during late-game fights.
A solo secondary threat against damage classes, tank with damage. The whole point is to farm turn-up during team fights and keep other team damage busy. Again, support needs to switch between styles, learning when to engage or disengage.
Okay, that massive simplification of each role. Can play glass cannon and snowball over people but good players understand how to counter it. Certain gods are great at it but need to understand how to play into good players.
Risk management against opportunity is one of the hardest concepts to explain. The basic idea is reducing any risk against opportunity. Here are some examples
- Attacking gold fury with a numbers advantage, with the stronger burst
- Seesaw – Attack the other side of the map forcing a reaction
- Attacking gold fury when solo gets attacked
Understanding risk is difficult, understanding opportunity is harder. The neutral farm is not always safe to clear, sometimes it can be used as bait. Don’t always have to invest resources when doing something, being present and doing nothing works too. Resource management along with paying attention to other team resources is a useful skill. Don’t want to attack without mana or health, can’t do much if don’t have anything left. Could have already used relics or abilities that can swing a fight. The other teams could have used everything already making it the perfect time to attack.
Watch any professional player, can see them abusing any opening on offer. Looking for patterns in opponents could even be breaking their resolve to play. Various mind games you can play, baiting people into fights you want.
Season X – Coming soon
The page I should start to write / build ideas
Build case study and theory-crafting
Ranked diary
Useful links
Smite training – Sub reddit for players looking for improve or ask questions
The Word Of Thoth – By Flareb00t how smite works