Season 5 has seen hunter players favour critical strike items over penetration focused builds. Quicker lane clear combined with more gold per minion. Further changes to how penetration works against objectives allow for higher damage per second builds. Burst is back for the main damage classes in smite. Hunters which make use of critical strike chance are heavily favoured at the moment. Critical strike based builds are viable until players work out the counters.
Hunters who love critical strike chance are the following.
- Anhur – Passive
- Artemis – Passive
- Hachiman – Steriod
- Izanami – Steriod
- Jing Wei – Steriod
- Rama – Steriod
- Ullr – Steriod
Generic builds have just enough attack speed to provide great damage per second. High penetration builds are better against defensively focused builds. Until players start building against it best to go full burst. I use these builds as a reference, builds are situational.
Generic build – Triple critical
| Ninja Tabi | Devourer gauntlet | Deathbringer | Asi | Poison star | Wind demon |
| Attack speed | Sustain | Little bit of everything | Penetration, sustain | Passive | More critical chance |
Triple critical strike build provides massives amounts of burst. Hunters lack viable items which give flat penetration and targets normally don’t have enough protections to make it viable. Aura items during team fights can be a problem most of the time it won’t be.
Generic build – Double critical
| Ninja Tabi | Devourer gauntlet | The executioner | Deathbringer | Asi | Poison star |
| Attack speed | Sustain | Penetration | Critical strike chance | Penetration, sustain | Passive |
Higher penetration compared to the first build at the cost of damage.
Generic build – Triple critical
| Ninja Tabi | Transcendence | Asi | Deathbringer | Poison star | Wind Demon |
| Attack speed | Power | Penetration, sustain | Critical strike chance | Passive | Attack speed |
Lacking the same level of sustain compared to Devourer gauntlet.