...SMITE! New Player Guide!

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4chan's premier SMITE guide

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FACT: You will be playing with bots from Account Level 1-4 FACT: You will be in new player matchmaking from Account Level 5-29

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The current /smgen/ Clan is "[SmGen] - Smite General Plus" Do not use "[SmGen] - Smite General", it's a discord honeypot

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Preamble

Heads up, this guide / network of docs and links in it's entirety is long.
It's purpose isn't as much to be a thesis on the game, or even a complete breakdown of the newfag experience, but instead to give you short and slightly longer versions of literally everything you ever could want to know coming in fresh, which you can skip to and from for reference when you need them.
I'm doing this, because the old /smgen/ one was out of date and could have been better it seems every other guide for the game on the internet (even the ones apparently aimed at new players) seems to presume you have a set level of MOBA knowledge, that they skim over - which results in lots of helpful and detailed stuff for intermediate and longer term players, that will completely fly over your new-player head. Like giving you a textbook on basic English before you can even read.
This guide is different, in that I'm hitting core concepts and introductions, and putting you on the fast track to being able to look up your own stuff.

I'm not expecting you to read the entire thing (I'd even say doing so would be bad first time around, as you'd get overwhelmed by information and forget the more important stuff - chew through it slowly), however it does have the core amount of everything you should want to know, as you begin to learn by yourself, when want to know it. Some parts you'll honestly only need to read once, some others you'll return to a few times after realising how important what was mentioned, and some parts you'll probably save time and have open in a window to read over between your innumerable noob deaths. I'm not going to treat you like an idiot either and dictate what you should and shouldn't read - all of it is helpful (or it wouldn't be here - the rest of the guide is much less than fluff-y than this intro), it's up to you as to what you want to look into.
If you want the current meta, answers to specific questions or Godtoon Pick/Winrates, then you'll need to branch out by yourself. But, for your bewildered first few hours and games - where you're 7 levels behind despite going for kills and building full damage, some giant snake thing just flew over your lane, you just got barfed on LET THE ETERNAL DARKNESS EMBRACE YOU!You have been Slain!AROOOOO'd for your first time with seemingly no counterplay, and what appears to be Cthulhu is pointing and laughing at you as your team melts down in chat; this doc should be a complete gold mine and treasure trove to you in terms of basic information, and has been written with this specific approach in mind.
The game does get substantially easier once you know what's going on. And the matchmaking does get substantially better once you're out of the pre-30 player pool.

Also, of my kind consideration for you, the reader, I recommend you put some music on; so you're not silently alone in a dark room at 11pm reading up on how to play a MOBA. Just a thought.

For the game itself - Good luck [VVGL] [Left/Tri/Tri/Circ] & Have Fun [VVGF] [Left/Tri/Tri/Cross]!

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What is ...SMITE!: Battlefield of the Gods? How does it compare to others on the market?

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• Smite is a Free-to-Play, 3rd-person Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) videogame developed by TitanForge Games and published by Hi-Rez Studios for PC, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox.
  In Smite, players control a God, Goddess, or other mythological figure, and take part in team-based combat, using their Abilities and tactics against other player-controlled Gods and non-player-controlled Minions. Smite features many different game modes, with the largest being Conquest.

  The player controls the God in a 3rd-person perspective, which is a unique characteristic of this MOBA, as other games of this genre are typically played from a top-down perspective. Each God has a Basic-Attack, a Passive trait and four Abilities with varying effects - such as Area Damage, Crowd Control, Buffs, and others. These Abilities are acquired and upgraded when the player's character levels up, by gaining experience from their team defeating Minions, taking down Towers or Phoenixes and defeating enemy Players; with a maximum level of 20. Gold (used to buy items that increase power, defense and passive effects, potions, wards and abilities) is accumulated through standard periodic income by slaying enemies (Player and NPC alike) or selling owned items.

  The large areas between the lanes make up what is called the "Jungle", where computer-controlled mythological monsters such as Harpies, Satyrs or Chimeras periodically spawn at specific locations, distributed symmetrically across the map. Killing certain Monsters in said Jungle may cause a "buff" to drop on the ground, where it can be picked up by a player. Depending on the type of monster killed, this will grant the player bonuses to stats such as damage dealt, movement speed or attack speed. There are also major special neutral mobs, known as "Jungle Bosses", who appear conditionally, that when killed, will grant the entire team who killed it a team-based buff dependent on the Jungle Boss taken out.

Literal modified Wikipedia blurb aside, you already know what a MOBA / ARTS roughly looks like, so let's get down to the obvious comparisons within the genre.
For the last decade, SMITE has safely occupied the 'third' position in the MOBA market; comfortably far beneath League of Legends (LoL) and Defence of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2), and comfortably ahead of essentially all MOBAs that try to break into the unusually narrow genre. Many have tried (from Heroes of the Storm, to Paragon, to Pokemon Unite), and yet for the last decade, none have survived long-term other than LoL, DotA 2 and SMITE.
For all intents and purposes, these three games *are* the MOBA genre.
As of typing, SMITE is a slowly but still steadily growing game, and while it will likely never reach the market share or cultural relevance that its two larger sister-titles have (unless they really somehow manage to shoot themselves in the foot, and pull a WoW / FFXIV, with SMITE as the benefactor); it's increasingly becoming more well known, and isn't going anywhere any time soon. To describe it's playerbase numbers, SMITE has a low new-player uptake, but extremely high long-term player retention, and profits equally from casual players and whales due to surprisingly forgiving and non-intrusive monetisation practices. In short, it's safe to invest the time to learn, you're not in a rush to 'enjoy it while you can'.

The key driving aspect to SMITE carving out it's niche, is that it departs from the MOBA genre in a few notable ways:

• Most obvious is the unique Third Person PoV and resultant higher theoretical gameplay skill floor than it's two major competitors.
  This brings two major things to the table - first of all, there is a much more tangible and immediate skill aspect to the game. Almost every single ability in the game is a skill-shot within a 3D space - you need to aim and lead your shots / abilities far more, can choose to make shots at ranges you are not guaranteed to land them at, and as a melee fighter, you need to keep your reticle on your target. While that sounds seemingly minor, it adds a more direct gameplay aspect compared to the Top-Down competition. This isn't a point-and-click adventure, where Basic Attacks auto-lock once fired - you *can* miss your shots.... all of them.
  Secondly, is that you are functionally far more blind compared to the Top-Down MOBAs, as enemies can walk up behind you almost completely unseen (provided they stay out of your field of view). This makes ganks potentially more deadly, but also gives more immediate information to the player (as your view distance is generally far greater than that of a Top-Down). Your positioning not only affects what you can see, but can influence what the enemy does not see.
• Another major difference between SMITE and it's competition is it's map complexity. In their flagship modes, LoL and DotA 2 have typically square maps, with each team occupying an opposing triangular half - SMITE instead opts for a more hexagonal map in it's flagship mode. This suits Third Person better, as sightlines are longer, affording more visibility down lanes by default. Lanes themselves are also much wider, allowing for teamfights to have ample breathing room. Bouncing off of this, SMITE's jungle region is also much more complex than that of LoL or DotA, with multiple extra objectives for the Jungler (and co.) to occupy themselves with - and no river - forcing more complex pathing throughout the Jungle. While it lacks the map-manipulation of DotA 2's trees, it is still the map with the 'most to do' on it.
• In other modes, SMITE has a far more active / evenly spread playerbase outside of it's 'main' mode, with many people even sticking purely to these 'less serious' / 'more casual' modes. These range from the typical ARAM / Assault (All Random Godtoons, 1 Lane), to Arena (no real objective, just a 10-15 minute teamfight, very very popular), to Duel / Joust (1v1 / 3v3 on a smaller map) and a variety of other modes - even including semi-common high-effort Events, with completely unique rulesets and custom made maps (ranging from Raid-bosses, Dominion, 2v2v2v2v2, Kart Racing and Capture the Flag).
  If you don't like the 'main mode', you have options - which is far more than can be said for SMITE's competition, each of which boils down to 'the Main Mode only + maybe ARAM if you're lucky and playing primetime'. RIP Twisted Treeline + Crystal Spire lol.
• lmfao it's the only MOBA that regularly gets (actual) new content.
  You like new maps? SMITE gets them yearly, and for some modes, will rotate through a variety of them over a year.
  You like new gamemodes and gameplay-events? SMITE gets them yearly.
  You like major map alterations to the main mode? SMITE gets 3-4 every year.
  You like complete reworks and overhauls to the main gamemode? SMITE gets one every 2-3 years just to keep things fresh.
  You like skins and customisation options? SMITE has the largest skin cycle of the three, averaging 10-20 skins per month, with a variety of established and original themes (ie, not 1-skinline-per-patch), on much closer models you actually get to look at, instead of being zoomed out half a screen out away from (complete with custom Voicelines, VFX, SFX and occasionally unique emotes and Win/Loss screens).
  You like Crossovers? Only in SMITE can your Midlane be Danny Phantom vs Megatron, while Rambo and Uncle Iroh rotate in from the Duo lane (but wait, oh shit, nobody expects ADC Bob Ross coming in to countergank). Ironic, really, that it's the smallest competitor that's getting the most done. And that's on top of the expected balance updates, item additions and minor-mechanic additions / alterations.
  SMITE has to put in work to maintain it's position in third place, and it puts in that work and more.
• Finally, once you're used to the game, Godtoons in of themselves are much more customizable on a match-to-match basis, with no out-of-match gameplay-affecting progression. In other words, they can be played much more 'normally' outside of their classes 'usual' role - and there's no such thing as Rune Pages or the like, so every player plays every Godtoon to the same potential at the start of the match. The only differing factors between two identical Godtoons on a new player and an SPL pro-league player is itemisation, ability progression throughout the match and pure skill. That, and Guardian Junglers or Mid-playing Godtoons in ADC are normal and viable (if unorthodox) - provided they can fulfil the basic demands of that role.
  This is also in due part with the much more accessible Shop system. Godtoons Stats are much more dependent on the items they have over their base level-scaling (to a degree), and the Shop is only split between whether your Damage type is Physical or Magical. There's only a few Tier 1 items, which each branch out into a multitude of more complex Tier 3 items with additional effects that generally all fit within a given idea (for a few examples; everything on the Katana tree benefits Physical Basic Attackers, the Talisman tree is mostly focused on Magical Defence stat-building, while the Ancient Blade tree is a tree designed for utility counterbuilding).
  On the other hand, there are no item Actives - what you can actively 'do' boils down to your Abilities, Consumables and Relics.

The overall result of this, is a game which is both the most accessible to the genre for newer players, with the most 'active' gameplay and a solid skill ceiling to boot.
That said, I'm not here to give SMITE a handjob - it lacks the mass-popularity of League, and the ultra-autism complexity, depth and macro of DotA2. While there are some complex kits to sink your teeth into, it doesn't have any 'extraordinarily' complex kits; such as the Invoker, Arc Warden or Meepo from DotA 2, nor does it have anything like the 200-years Aphelios of LoL .... Yet. / any more, RIP pre-Rework Persephone / Hydra's Set. You are not going to impress needy, fatherless, groomable e-girls by playing it, and you are not going to garner the respect of the elder-neckbeards for being good at it. It occupies a middle-ground between DotA 2 and LoL in many ways (closer to LoL), while doing many things completely unique by itself. To say the very least, it's no copycat.
If you're moving over from LoL or DotA 2, there will probably be a few Godtoons that you're comfortable with (for example; Susano plays similarly to Yasuo, Maui hits a lot of Thresh's notes, while Artemis and Neith are two aspects of Sniper) - just ask for comparisons within the thread if you want more detailing, or see the dedicated bit for it when it's done.
While there are many other differences that really set it apart from the body of the genre (Longer TTK, Lasthitting / CS being much harder, Minion Collision, Minions having times when they can hit like trucks if left unchecked etc), you'll just need to learn that with experience - I wouldn't have enough time to detail them all.

Hopefully I've sold you on checking out the game! Don't forget, it's also free to play - and unlike the competition is uniquely the only major MOBA on the console market (crossplay optional, don't worry).

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New Player Tips & Pitfalls

Before a game

1. Jump straight the fuck into Jungle Training / Practice. It's a Godsend of a mode, and has everything you could ever want while new. Try a few Godtoons, but most importantly, mess around with your Sensitivity and HUD until you're comfortable.

   • For Sensitivity, the general benchmark is being able to at least turn 180' in 1s - or the ability to dodge a Medusa Ult upon sound cue (don't look into her eyes).
   • For HUD, move the minimap closer to your reticle - not obscuring it like a retard, but close enough that you can very easily look at it. The rest of the HUD is fully customisable. Aside from the near-mandatory minimap you'll want no matter what, move the rest around according to your personal function (more important = higher priority).
     The Custom HUD is also a thing. If you want to turn off one of the HUD elements, just set it's opacity to 0. Consolefags, stick to the old HUD, since the new shop is a straight downgrade and will cost you time in-game.

   • Casting Mode is the debate of our age.

     • Normal Casting lets you line up your shots, but takes the longest to input, as it's two button presses. This is best for new PC players, who are still learning the sizes and distances of their abilities.
     • Quick Casting is ideal for controller or custom keybinds on PC, as it shows a reticle as long as you have the button pressed, then inputs once released. For typical WASD-1234, using this will fuck up your movement as you try to aim (since you're locked into it, and can only cancel via hard-cancel or a jump); but this isn't a problem for thumbsticks (controllers), ability bindings that place them on your index finger or thumb, or the buttoned-mouse master race. If you're not WASD-1234, use this one, it's a just flat upgrade to Normal Cast.
     • Instant Casting gives minimal delay but immediate investment, and is the 'default' for more experienced players. Don't feel the need to go overboard with it, as some abilites have benefits to aiming (Vulcan Ult as the prime example, since on Instant Cast it can't go further than 55 Units, which defeats the point of a long-range missile bombardment), however you'll want to use this as much as reasonably possible.

     Finally, if you do so desire, you can also change casting styles on a per-Ability basis (Menu -> Abilities), for when one casting mode is especially useful - such as having Instant Cast on escape abilities (which you don't need to see a reticle for). On the other hand, your 'default' casting style; regardless of what your abilities asigned to in the menu, will dictate how your wards and relics are used across all Godtoons, and as a result, I highly recommend at least having it set to Quick or Instant (depending on if you prefer to carefully place Wards, or want immediate Sundering Spears), and then customising Abilities accordingly.

   • Other recommended options;
     • Ruler is the best Distance Line while you're new, since it will show you the 55 unit limit of your Basic Attacks (switch to Line once you've got the gamesense down).
     • Enable Bracket Highlighting, since it helps size up minion waves, and tells you who is being aimed at.
     • No Reticle because it's useless visual clutter. Some people like it, but, yeah.
     • Change Ground Reticle to taste.
     • Turn Help Tips off, turn Ward Ping and Jungle Markers On.
     • Turn Restrict Camera Pitch Off if you're M+KB or want to upskirt the girls, keep it on if you're on Controller.
   • For Controllerfags (I've done the work so you don't have to); Savage is apparently regarded as the best layout (Savage Plus being to personal taste, depending if you want to have your Ult safe or to easily access). 20 X Sens is the minimum to get you your Medusa Ult dodge, 17 Y Sens, 4 Acc, 3/3 Dead is apparently the most intuitive otherwise. Alter to taste.
   • Finally, please figure out the fundamental controls. Most notably - which key brings up the item shop, and which key teleports you back to base. You don't want to find yourself in your first game not knowing either.
     
   2. Turn off Auto-buy on Items ASAP. Auto-Buy items are notoriously bad and ill-suited to Godtoons (which is why you should just ignore it); meanwhile the 'Recommended' only shows the items most commonly built on a Godtoon (which means you'll be getting the selections of the lowest common denominators, and often miss some good synergies).
   3. Auto-Level is more complex - if you input the levelling progression you want in advance (within the Godtoon section from the Main Menu) and your Godtoon only has one 'meta' role, it can be fine to crutch on it while you're learning how to juggle every other mechanic in the game during play - but for Godtoons who can play multiple roles or matches that require adaption for counterplay, it's not simply a case of one-build-fits-all.
      For all new-player intents and purposes, the 'usual' Ability plan is to put 1 point in and unlocking each of your abilities, then maxing your best minion waveclearing ability first, then your next best attacking ability, then the remaining ability - all the while putting a point into your Ult whenever you're allowed.
      There are outliers, you'll learn them in time.
   4. If you plan on playing a Godtoon, try to make an item loadout for yourself in advance; even if you're just duplicating somebody else's (in TCG terms, netdecking). You don't want to be spending valuable time lingering in spawn picking and choosing what to build, and if you're new, you probably won't know what's good for your Godtoon pick or what's meta - with a good chance of accidentally hitting a stat cap (e.g. trying to go above 40% Cooldown Reduction) and wasting Gold. While ones you'll find online may lack detail or personal taste; in terms of getting you the basics for a Godtoon, they do help.
      I'd go further to say that once you're comfortable with the game and have a few hours down, go back into the Godtoon menu, and make an item loadout for *every* Godtoon you have unlocked - it'll take a while, but is the fast-track-way to learn the Item Shop and the current meta, as you begin to see similar recommended items pop up. From there, you should become more comfortable as you begin to work on homebrew builds and modify item builds on the fly during matches to fit a scenario. Come back to do builds for the free rotations too - it'll further feed into self-teaching, clean up your shitty and outdated builds and will slowly get you full builds for Assault.
      For a very general item building guide;
      
   • The first 3-4 items you take should make up the body or 'core' of your build.
     While pre-choosing a 5th and 6th item is useful for a 'smooth game', the simple fact is that many games don't even last that long, and those slots are often reserved for counterbuilding, or for if one of your core items needs to be built later, because you need an important counterbuilding item ASAP (such as the always-important-if-present AntiHeal).
   • A 'typical' template /diy/ build will include a Starter, one stacking item and some cooldown. Tanks take the type of Protection they need first, while Damages will take the type of Penetration they want first ('flat' Penetration better into other Damages, % Penetration better into Tanks).
   • It goes without saying, but lay out your builds in a way that you'll know what your past self meant, once you get into a match. Don't just randomly throw in items - ignore the 'categories' of each row, and design it with your item progression in mind.
     Personally, I use the 1st row to indicate Starters and the first item of a build, the 2nd row to indicate the other four items I'd want for a match, then another / offrole build in the 3rd and 4th row if a Godtoon can play multiple roles, and then save the 5th row for Situational or Alternate items (especially the lowest tier items in useful item trees). Past a certain point you'll be able to dip into the rest of the shop on the fly (making custom item builds less important), but as a new player this'll save you a lot of hassle.
   • Because coding, as of now if you put an item in a rightmost slot and save, it'll push itself as far left as possible (to join up with a row). This means no spacing your items out in the Item Builder - if you want to space something for whatever reason, just sub in a Ward or a Potion inbetween.
   • Usually you shouldn't put Relics in your item loadouts, unless they're unorthodox. They take up slots, and you don't need to remind yourself to take Beads + Aegis for most matches.

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During a game

1. Wards are the most important items in the game. Bar none. Bird Ward Up!

   • Vision and Map Awareness are incredibly important in SMITE and will save you more times than any Protection item. Wards can alert you when the enemy Jungler is hovering around next to your lane (getting ready to rape you); when the enemy Support / Mid is roaming around (to sniff out an opportunity rape you), or in select scenarios, when the entire enemy team has just passed a choke ... on their way to rape you. And much more!
     Prioritise them as much as you would short-term wallhacks - because that's exactly what they are.
   • While the priority of you setting up Wards varies by role (eg, ADC will usually want to get their power spike earlier on over warding; Supports will support with wards as they build their first item), everybody should be responsible for Warding their own lane; and Support / Jungle patching up in between. If you don't have wards up, don't only be surprised if you get ganked, but also if the rest of your team makes active judgements to ignore your lane by thinking the enemy is elsewhere.
   • In particular for Warding, there are two key items to consider:
     • Everybody can start with a free Vision Shard Relic, which acts as a mini-Ward on cooldown. Every lane should consider using this to to cover their ass - if you're new, ignore the other shards, this should be your default until you're comfortable with what you're doing.
       Though note, it's got a 50% smaller radius, and only lasts 33% of the duration of a regular ward - so just keep it for if you need some short term vision, like going in to chip at a tower a bit early, or if you want to quickly follow up on a suspicion that somebody's in the jungle. Think of it as your friendly lil' condom - put it on before you try to fuck something, to lower your risk of death.
     • Chalice of the Oracle should always be pretty high priority after your 1st finished item, no later than before your 3rd item.
       This isn't picked up at higher levels because powerspiking early is more important than long-term economy - but you're not playing at a high level yet and it's a very good QoL item until then, and comparable to heroin in the relief it gives you. Wards are cheap enough at 50 Gold a pop, but with Chalice of the Oracle they're even cheaper past the 8th Ward. Considering you should be aiming for ~10-15 Wards per game (yes, 10-15+), it's an amazing economy buy. The downsides are that you get no refunds, and it clogs up an item slot (which you might want a Sentry Ward for, to secure Fire Giant with, or if your Godtoon plays around item slots like Baba Yaga).
   • Finally you can only have 2 active wards at any one time (new ones overriding the oldest). This works to Chalice of the Oracle's advantage while you're new, as you'll have an easier time monitoring how many you've got up.
2. There's a very good tip / rule; to flick your eyes and check your minimap every 5s REGARDLESS of what's going on (a bit overboard imo, but it gets the point across, my personal tick is ~7-8s, but I look around for a bit longer each time) - this is why you'll want your minimap a bit closer to your reticle than you'd initially expect. The minimap is, without a shred of irony, just as important as the gameplay. Your attention should be split between both evenly.
   While warding gives you vision and an alert ping whenever an enemy is nearby, simply looking at the minimap regularly can give you insight into how the game is going and what might be incoming minutes in advance. For a simple example - the enemy Jungler has just gone out of sight in Mid, heading towards Duo = likely an incoming Gank, no Ward needed). Even if it's not a warning for you, VGS'ing a callout can keep your team alive.
   • Want to force yourself to learn this? Have a metronome either in another window (or irl if you're already musically inclined) and set it to whatever time interval you want to get used to.
   • Teamfights aren't exempt from this (since their Jungler or Solo might still be moving around your lane via Jungle for a pincer maneuver), but it's ok to check at a lower interval if you've got shit to concentrate on.
3. Everyone that participates in any kill (Minion, Mob, Tower and Player Kill) will get some experience and gold for it. Kill Stealing is not a mechanic in the game (only who gets the Kill reward and who gets the Assist reward) with the exception of an enemy being able to steal Jungle mob / boss kills. 'Leeching' is SMITE's version, which in short, don't stick around somebody if they're alone, farming and don't need help.... unless you are aware of what you're doing and they can get fucked because you know why you're leeching their waves.
   Last-Hitting is a mechanic, but only really relevant on earlygame Supports letting their ADC take the larger reward in the earlygame. It's much better to secure a kill rather than risk the enemy getting away, and 5-man teamwork is much more incentivized by the same metric (especially in Arena).
4. Enemy minions that are damaged by a Structure only give 25% of their usual Gold reward - so if you're pushed under your tower, focus on the minions that the tower isn't attacking to mitigate the Gold economy loss. All minions will give you full EXP reward providing you're not splitting / being leeched, so don't get caught up over keeping them off the tower line. It's completely fine to just sit under tower and recover health - a death is far, far worse than losing some farm.
5. On the topic of Towers - if you attack an enemy Godtoon under a structure, the structure will ignore any Minions (not Godtoons) damaging it, and attack you - which is why you should decide if you're going to either attack / destroy the tower, or bite the bullet and attack the Godtoon defending it while eating some tower shots. Not both at once. If two Godtoons damage an enemy under their structure, it will 'remember', and will focus on the second once the first is dealt with.
   Aside from this, a structure will not change aggro until it's target is either dead or out of range. Structure Attacks are auto-aim, auto-tracking and will always strike once fired (even if you teleport across the map, like with Athena's Ult). If all minions die under a structure, it will default to the closest enemy Godtoon.
6. The best way to juke attacks is by moving forward while turning with the mouse / right analog stick (aka Tank controls and ZigZag). Strafing sideways and backwards lowers your movement speed, along with the Basic Attack movement penalty if you try to attack while doing it. Also, there's a very slight amount of acceleration in the way you move, meaning you can't spin around and throw an Ability at your pursuer without slowing yourself down. If you're being chased by the enemy team, do not turn around until you're more-than-confident you're safe. Don't even risk it. If you want to leave them 'gifts' in the form of delayed AoE Abilities, just throw them in front of you, run through them and detonate them when youthink they'll be on top of it. Otherwise, the Minimap can also help tell you if you've got an enemy on your tail or not.
7. Get familiar with the ingame voice-command-system (VGS System), which you can use to issue commands such as setting up a gank, calling for defence, or pointing out a MIA enemy from your lane (who might be roaming around). Hit V on your keyboard (or if on controller, Right on your D-pad) to bring up the list and the corresponding prompts to call out what you like. The VGS system has a bit of a skill floor, but is worthwhile to learn, and everything you could ever need to say is somewhere in it.
   • If you want the down and dirty; the main ones you need to commit to memory are your Basic Responses ("Yes", "No", "Sorry", "No Problem"), MIA calls ("Enemy Missing Left/Mid/Right") and 'Carefuls' (""Careful Left/Mid/Right/Jungle"). You'll also probably pick up your "Greetings" calls early.
   • After that, Self Gank callouts ("I'll Gank Left/Mid/Right"), "BRB" + "Out of Mana" + "Building Stacks", "Attack Mid" (for spamming come a lategame push) and Objective Defends ("Defend Fire Giant/Gold Fury/Titan" / "Defend!").
   • Then as your final batch of important callouts, Help Lane ("Help Left/Mid/Right"), "Group Up", "Enemies Behind Us" and Lane Retreats ("Retreat Left/Mid/Right"). Your emotes are also fun to learn - not just for match start fuckery, but because laugh-emote-spamming over a kill / missed ability is a valid form of psychological warfare. Careful not to tempt karma.
   • After that, you'll learn the rest with time - but anything you might want to say is somewhere in the VGS system. Custom chat is a spook.
   • For the special map pings that people use exclusively when raging; PC just needs to click the map, while Controller holds the Right D-Pad button for a few seconds to bring up the minimap and does it that way.
8. In terms of noob relics, the infamous one is Meditation Cloak, because noobs often play far more aggressive than they should, and crutch on the healing. While each role will always have it's own Relic meta, Purification Beads and Aegis Amulet ('free CC immunity' and 'iFrames in exchange for no actions') is the usual 'de-facto' loadout if you can't think of anything else. Teleport Fragment, Blink Rune and Magic Shell are other common ones depending on role. The sole exception to this is on the Assault gamemode, where the otherwise complete lack of healing and constant teamfighting makes Meditation Cloak a must-pick first Relic.
   Additionally, while the concept of forcing players to 'burn' relics comes into play once you git gud, for your newer experience, it's better for a Relic to be on cooldown all match, then never be used. No such thing as a wasted use this early on.

And finally / most importantly

9. Calm down with the aggro. The major newfag mistake is playing way too aggressively, and needlessly dying. Trading deaths is usually not a viable strategy in SMITE (or MOBA's in general), as you'll be putting increased strain on all your teammates, as the enemies get a passive Gold and EXP boost (on top of fighting 5v4's). This is a genre where a difference of 3+ levels is a pretty difficult task to play into.
   As a new player, your first priority should be to keep yourself alive where possible, then you can begin to focus on kills - because as of you reading this, when I say "Ares Ult / Ground Tiamat Ult / Jing Wei Ult", you probably don't know which of the three you'll need to use Beads for, else a near guaranteed death (in fact, you probably didn't even know there was such a thing as a 'Ground' Tiamat). As a new player, you can get as many kills as you want just fine - but wait for a Support to set them up for you (it will happen).
   While this becomes more irrelevant later on; once you begin to get some combined gamesense as for how aggressive you can be, understanding the difference between bad enemy positioning and them baiting you, when playing offense is the best defense (eg Lifesteal) and when you should poke for kills - in your early-learning phase you should really just play more passively.
   Not passive and being a bit aggressive where you think you can get away with it, I mean passively and passively - hug towers and Supports, and run from gangs of enemies when you're on your own. An end K/D/A score of 1/2/6 is far more valuable from a new player than 4/14/5 - keep that in mind, and you'll be getting 13/4/15's in no time.

Oh, and don't ever be afraid to ask questions in the thread. We're almost always happy to help.

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The /smgen/ Clan

The current /smgen/ Clan is [SmGen] - Smite General Plus Do not use [SmGen] Smite General, it is a discord honeypot

Why? A word from Anon; Long story short, at some point in Season 8, all the clans were deleted and reset, to clean up for a clan system rework. The /smgen/ clan disbanded with the intention of remaking itself, but a discord server got in just before any Anons did, stole the name and took control. From there, they ran the once active gen into the ground with their drama and namefagging, and the gen was dead within 2 months as they did everything but talk about the game. They didn't care about the site past attentionwhoring and namefagging, would bring their offsite bullshit into the gen, and only wanted to use our name so they could get a constant stream of applications in their DMs for them to filter through. They refused new players, console players and just people they personally didn't like within the gen (with the exception of female-sounding Player Names, because obvious and desperate groomers are obvious). They made it repeatedly clear they did not want to play with Anons, and the gen completely died for it, because we had no way around them. This is primarily why the gen is so dead compared to /lolg/ or /d2g/, even considering the large difference in playerbase. /smgen/ did not die - it was murdered.

At some point they stopped playing the game entirely, and the clan that they went as far as to kill our gen for, also died. Anons gave up dealing with their bullshit when we merged with the dying /palg/ to form /hrzg/, and we came up with a solution - an alternate place to gather, where we could just play with other Anons with no personalityfag bullshit involved (as the system was intended). The discord server did not notice we had ditched them for almost an entire year. When discord trannies finally noticed we weren't using their honeypot any more after they lost a chunk of players, and that the alternative was now larger than their honeypot (yes, it really did take them a year to notice, they use the site so little); they have been occasionally whining about it ever since, and are back to their old tricks in terms of derailing and attacking Anons. In typical control freak and discord tranny style, they've started messing with the OP, but since they don't contribute anything, I've asked for this statement / explanation to be put here so they can't obfuscate the truth. Trannys will seethe, I don't care, they can fuck off.

If you want to find other Anons to play games with when they're online, use [SmGen] - Smite General Plus. It's Open Joining and almost all the regulars are in this Clan, with the exception of a few who are just in Clans with their irl friends. If you want to be groomed by a childless 37 year old man who watches steven universe and dresses like a woman... well good luck, because [SmGen] - Smite General is Invite Only, so you'll need to beg one of the trannies in DMs to get in. To maximise your chance, change your name to something that a porn-addled tranny would think is feminine like "uwuPixieSparkles347". The worst part of this is that none of this is hyperbole.

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Fundamental Stats and Mechanics (Read this shit, it's boring, but read it)

I'm going to make this as painless as I possibly can. You'll hear a lot of stuff you already know, but I have to lay everything out, as there's quite a lot of stuff that's either hidden or confusing.

• Power
  • Physical and Magical Power are identical in how they affect ability damage. This is calculated as the Base Damage of the Ability + the God's Power, multiplied by the Scaling of the Ability.
    For example, if a Hun Batz uses a Lv1 Overhead Smash with 85 Base damage and 95% scaling, with 100 Power, he will deal 85+95 = 180 raw damage. After, that it will be lowered by Protections and Mitigations of the target, to result in the 'actual' damage dealt.
  • There is no 'hardcap' to Power or Damage. The only cap that exists is the Item Power cap, preventing you from going over 400 Phyiscal Power or 800 Magical Power respectively, via the base Power stats of your Items.
  • Your Power can still be increased beyond the Item Power cap; via your Passive, any Buffs from Abilities, Item Effects, Potions, Jungle Buffs and any other God's Abilities or Auras. While somewhat confusing to display, this is why you may see some Gods with a Power that is above the 'Power cap' presented.
    A common example of this is Kukulkan, who will regularly go above 1,000 Power, if he is building in such a way that he additionally maximises his Mana (which, as a result of his kit's Passive and any other mana-based Item Passives, will usually put his 'Real' Power far above the Item Power cap).
  • While there are later mentioned differences between Physical and Magical Damage, in terms of 'raw Power' alone, they are identical. 100 Physical damage hits equally as hard as 100 Magical Damage before later calculations.
  • The reason why Magical Power has a higher cap is because Mages are designed to benefit from a higher amount of Ability scaling - this is also why Guardian scaling is often miniscule in comparison.
    Indeed, logically, for the most part, you can equally gauge Physical and Magical Power on items. A Physical Item with 50 Power is (roughly) comparable to a Magical Item with 100 Power.
• Basic Attacks
  • A Basic Attack deals a God's Base Basic Attack damage (+ level scaling), plus a portion of their Power.
  • The key difference between Physical and Magical Power is how they affect Basic Attacks. A Physical Basic Attack deals +100% of the Physical Power of a God, while a Magical Basic Attack deals +20% of the Magical Power of a God (with the exception of Olorun, whose Basic Attacks uniquely deal 25% of his Magical Power).
    This is why maxed out Physical Damage is generally more threatening than maxed out Magical Damage - the Magical Damage is mostly applied to a God's cooldown-limited Abilities, while the Physical Damage primarily benefits a God's ever-present Basic Attacks (even more if that Basic Attack is ranged, such as on a Hunter).
  • Almost all Melee Basic Attacks share an identical range of 12 Units, hitting the closest enemy directly in front of you / where you're aiming, within the 90' cone front of you. Functionally, from the centre of your model, this roughly gives you a range of ~10 units (as your model is included in that range, which usually takes up ~2 units, no matter your size). A Basic Attack with 'Cleaving' properties will hit every enemy within this 90' cone.
    While your cone is 90', given the size of an enemy's hitbox, as long as you clip them you will deal damage. This is what functionally gives you a ~180' cone (aka, you hit what is in front of you).
  • For all intents and purposes, 1 Unit appears to = 1 Imperial Foot. American developer.
  • God with innate / permanent 'Extended' Basic Attacks (currently Awilix, Achilles, Cu Chulainn, Lancelot and Surtr) have 16 unit Melee Basic Attacks at the cost of a thinner 45' cone, in which the Basic Attack will hit. Functionally, this is a 50% range increase, at a 50% width cost. Mid-chain Extended Basics appear to be variable / God-dependant, on if that alters the cone in any way.
  • Ranged Basic Attacks have a general range of 55 Units, but will vary based on the origin point of the model, and where the Basic Attack originates on the animation. While unnoticeable for the most part, at the extremes, this results in Cupid / Martichoras / Anhur having a 'real' range of 55 Units (as their origin point is almost exactly the the centre of their models), while Aphrodite and Hades have a 'real' range of ~58 Units (their Basic Attacks originate at the tip of their elongated staffs, and their animations push it far from their body).
    This also extends to the origin-point of the hitbox - two examples here is that Ah Muzen Cab is strongly left-handed, while Ix Chel swings her staff from the far right. This results in their Basics coming from very slight angles (which can hit walls or lead to inaccuracy in close-range groups). Note that none of this really matters case-by-case, but you will notice it at the extremes (with AMC having a reputation for 'clicking' better with left-handed people, despite it being a videogame with identical controls).
  • Mechanically, the only two Abilities that affect Basic Attack range are Ishtar's / Hachiman's Sniper buffs (extending their ranges to 80 Units) and Thoth's Screen (extending any of his Basic Attacks that pass through the screen to 85 Units).
• Attack Speed
  • Attack Speed dictates how fast you progress through your Basic Attack chain. For most Gods, an Attack Speed of 1, with no progressive Basic Attack chain, results in 1 Basic Attack per second.
  • Progressive Basic Attack chains vary the time taken to perform a Basic Attack, and affect damage of that Basic Attack by the same degree.
    If a God has an attack chain of 1 / 0.5 / 1.5 and an Attack Speed of 1, their first attack will take 1 second and deal 100% of their Total Basic Attack damage, the next will take 0.5s and deal 50%, and the last will take 1.5s and deal 150%.
  • Since Attack Speed increases with percentages, it does not stack flatly. 20% + 20% does not equal a 40% increase. If you don't understand, you should have paid attention at school.
  • Additionally, since Gods have variable 'Base Attack Speed', that %-increase may not benefit them as much. A God with a Base Attack Speed of 1.1 will benefit more from 10% Attack Speed than a God with a Base Attack Speed of 0.9. Inversely, Gods with lower Base Attack Speed suffer slightly less from Attack Speed debuffs. You won't notice this, but it does exist.
  • The Attack Speed cap is absolute. No matter what you do, nothing in the game can go over 2.5 - resulting in 2.5 Basic Attacks per Second on a 1/1/1 progressive chain. While you could fit more attacks in, if your progressive chain allows for it (eg, Charybdis's 1 / 1 / 0.3 / 0.3 / 0.3 cycles through her chain at the same speed as 1 / 1 / 1, but the 0.3's will have a much shorter delay, and so she can fire more in that time), a Basic Attack with a chain value of 1 cannot exceed 2.5 Basic Attacks per second.
    The only complete 'loophole' to this is Olorun during his Ult, as he benefits from his own time-manipulation. Fundamentally, he is still limited to 2.5 Basic Attacks per Second, however he decreases the duration of 'a second' for himself, at least from the point of view from the game's engine (which as of writing gives him a potential of 3.6 Basic Attacks per second, if he has hit the 2.5 Cap and is within his Ult AoE).
  • For most examples, using an Ability will completely reset the progressive Basic Attack chain. For Gods which have a notably low delay when using their Basic Attacks, this means that they can essentially ignore their recovery animation and 'fit' more damage into a small period, with minimal time lost and while ignoring the 'slower' Basic Attacks that may come later in the chain. Gods which take a while to fire the first Basic Attack in their chain (in relative terms) are deemed 'unable' to do this, as the time taken to Basic Attack is not worth resetting the chain for.
    This is known as an Attack Animation Cancel, or an AAcancel. If you're new, don't worry about it, but it is something that is taken into account at higher levels of play, and a few Gods are balanced around the expectation that they will be AAcancelling with their Abilities.
  • Using a Relic will not reset a Basic Attack Chain. This is most iconically done with a Blink Rune to perform a 'Blinkbasic' - where a Melee God with an extremely high damage Basic Attack multiplier within their chain (eg Serqet, Ne Zha, Thanatos, Loki, Guan Yu) will attack the air for a few seconds from out of range to progress to that heavy Basic, then blink to their target, instantly performing the highest damage attack in their chain.
    When combined with an AAcancel chain, this is known as a Blinkchain. This can paired with Crit, in an attempt to score a oneshot kill.
  • Relic Shards will not activate while a Basic Attack is being performed. It's stupid, but it's just how it works - you can't Wing Shard or Horn Shard while holding Basic Attack, you need to take your finger off the input, then activate the Shard.

• Protections / 'Prots'

  • Short Answer: More = Better. That's all you 'need' to know.

    ~ ~ ~

  • Long Answer:
    • The only Protection that changes on a by-God basis is Physical Protections. Magical Protections are dependant on the Class a God belongs to; with 'Guardians', 'Warriors' and 'Hunters/Mages/Assassins' making up the three 'Tiers'. All other Prots must come from Items or Abilities.
    • Unlike Power, the Prot Caps of 325 cannot be exceeded via most conventional means. Flat Prot Passives, any Flat Prot Buffs from Abilities, Item Effects, Potions, Jungle Buffs and any other God's Abilities or Auras will NOT allow a God to exceed the Prot cap.
      The only way to break the Prot Cap is to be under the effect of a % increase using an Item or during an Ability. For the most 'common' example of this extremely niche scenario, if a Support Sobek ends the game while Ulting, you may see in the post-match screen that he will have exceeded his Prot caps, as his Ult gives him an unconditional % increase to his Prots. Alternatively, both Corrupted Bluestone and Eldritch Dagger (and other items like them) allow a God to exceed 325.
    • The full calculation is (Raw Damage * 100) / (Prots + 100).
      This is an Exponential Relaxation Curve (a curve that becomes flatter as it goes on), however, it is functionally linear for most Gods who build Prots (as all Gods have 'some' base Protections, and tankier Gods will already be closer to the region of the graph which is near-linear). Since the exponential part of the graph is focused within the lower numbers (below 100 Prots it's more of a curve, over 100 Prots it's almost a straight line), there are two main things to be observed from this :
      1. For Gods who have low base Prots, a small amount of Prots is exponentially more valuable, until they hit 100. The 15 Prot Aura from Heartward Amulet is far more valuable to the Agni with less than 100 Prots, than it is to the Sylvanus with over 300 Prots. Likewise, this is why it can be valuable for some hypercarries to slot in one Prot item (eg Magi's Cloak) - the few Prots they gain is worth far more to them than it does a Tank, the Item Passive can allow them to dive more safely, and their Power is still high enough to be able to do their job of blowing up a backliner.
      2. For Gods building Penetration, the difference between Unmitigated Damage and 'any' Mitigated Damage is very noticeable. This is why a Scylla with 800 Power and only the 15% Reduction on her AoE is MUCH LESS dangerous than a Scylla with 600 Power but with 65% Reduction and 30 Flat Reduction. The Unmitigated Damage will do *exponentially* more.
  • tl;dr:
    • 50 Prots = 33% Damage Reduced
    • 100 Prots = 50% Damage Reduced
    • 125 Prots = 56% Damage Reduced
    • 150 Prots = 60% Damage Reduced
    • 200 Prots = 66.6% Damage Reduced
    • 250 Prots = 71.4% Damage Reduced
    • 300 Prots = 75% Damage Reduced
    • 325 Prots = 76.5% Damage Reduced

• Penetration / 'Pen'

  • Short Answer: More = Better. If you have no Pen, you will deal almost no damage. That's all you 'need' to know.

    ~ ~ ~

  • Long Answer:
    • Penetration is loosely split into 2 'categories' - Flat & %.
    • The purpose of the Flat / % split is to determine who will hit what harder. % is calculated first, then Flat is applied.
    • % ignores a '%' of Protections. If the enemy has 150 Prots and you have 10% Flat Pen, you will hit them as if they only have 135 Prots.
      A DPS with 40% Pen and 0 Flat Pen will kill high-Prot targets easier; as '-40%' is more impactful to a target with 325 Prots than it is a target with 60 Prots. This is counterplayed by the fact that 325-40% is still 195 Prots to get through. Therefore, while % Pen makes it *easier* to tankbust, the Tank being fired on still has some breathing room to work with.
    • Flat ignores a 'Flat' amount of Protections. If the enemy has 100 Prots and you have 10 Flat Pen, you will hit them as if they only have 90 Prots.
      A DPS with 45 Flat Pen and 0% Pen will kill low-Prot targets easier; as '-45' is more impactful to a target with 60 Prots than it is a target with 325 Prots. This is counterplayed by Prot-auras, which allows Tanks to nullify the threat of Flat Pen destroying their backliners. That, and the targets with low Prots are usually what the Tank is protecting.
    • Flat is generally seen as the more valuable Pen type for getting kills with, but is usually harder to build and falls off in effectiveness lategame. Since it's effectiveness also varies by target, it's not as blanketly 'reliable' as %.
    • Shred / Theft is still either Flat or %, and reduces the Protections of the target (affecting their damage taken from all sources), rather than reducing the Protections from just your own damage.
    • Flat or % can be limited to Physical Protections or Magical Protections. If it isn't specified, it's reducing both.
    • Item Passives will go past thestat caps. Currently, this applies to Obsidian Shard and Titan's Bane (each enabling 60% Pen).
• True Damage and Executions
  • 'True Damage' is not True Damage. Yeah, it's annoying.
    True Damage completely ignores Protections, but is influenced by Damage Alteration and Mitigations. For an extremely niche example, a Serqet using her Ult on a target hit by Sundering Spear will have her Ult's True Damage increased by that amount. Hence, 500 'True Damage' can actually deal 600 damage, if on a target that has a debuff that makes them take 20% more damage.
  • Executions are not accounted for in damage calculations.
    If you are below the threshold given and are Executed, your health is immediately set to 0, and any post-death effects do not activate. As of writing, the only three executioners are Thanatos, Ao Kuang and Achilles; while the only only 4 interactions this has, is with Khepri Ult, Persephone Passive, Kumbhakarna Passive and the Alternate Timeline Item Passive.
    This used to be different in the earlier years of the game, and Executions used to just be 9999 True Damage... until a semi-infamous clip of a drunk fat man surviving a Thanatos 'execution' with a large amount of Mitigations came out.
• Damage Mitigation / 'Mits'
  • 'Damage Mitigation' is more accurately 'True Protection'. This time, it is really is 'True' Protection. Yeah, it's annoying.
    This is the final part of the damage calculation, and will always be accounted for.
  • There is no difference between Mitigations and 'Reduced Damage Taken', or anything along those lines. On the other hand, 'Reduced Damage Dealt' applies to all damage output, by the target under the effect of the debuff.
  • In Season 10, the entire Mitigations mechanic was overhauled.
    Previously it would stack percentively (-50% + -50% = -75%). Now it simply stacks additively (-50% + -50% = -100%). This now means that theoretically, 100% Damage Mitigation / Faux-Immunity is now indeed possible (whereas before it was subject to it's own decreases).
    Ironically, this calculation change was introduced because complete fucking retards thought they could hit a value of 100% Mitigation with the previous calculation, and complained extremely loudly - when instead they were factually wrong and just hit a high number, then healed the rest of the small amounts of incoming damage to appear that they were immune. Turns out nobody can do basic percentile mathematics I guess. Or that clickbait titles are very effective at riling up a crowd.
  • This has also been accompanied with a new, silent Item Mit Cap of 25%.
    If you get 15% Mits from Prophetic Cloak and 15% Mits from Spirit Robe, it will cap out at 25%. This includes the Mitigations sourced from the 3k Blue Pot consumable, and the aura-mits from Lono's Mask.
    I'm going to be honest, the rules for how this Mit Cap interacts with God / Ability Mitigations has been proven to be pretty fucky-wucky, but the 'catch-all' answer is that Item Mits.... should (?) additively stack with God Mits - a Baron Samedi with 25% Mits from Items and 35% Mits during Ult will have a total of 60% Mits during Ult.
    There are examples where God Mitigations will not stack, and will instead usually prefer the largest value..... provided it's not doing whatever the fuck it feels like because I have no fucking clue what the new calculation is supposed to be (for example, a Kuzenbo with 15% Mits from Passive, 20% Mits from Ult and 25% Mits from Items will not reach 60% Mits. He'll hit 50%. You fucking figure it out) (And don't even bring external Ability Mitigations such as Khepri's Rising Dawn into the mix). With how new and far-reaching this core mechanic change is, it's unclear if 'odd' Mitigation results are intended to prevent 100% (as was the intent of the 'change') or are just bugged because LoRez.
  • While Damage Mitigations / Reductions are almost always in % (previously to keep it balanced / to prevent 100% mitigations), there does exist Flat Reduction, which will reduce damage taken by that set amount under the same logic as Mitigations, from ALL individual sources of damage.
    For example - you get hit by Ah Puch's Antiheal Grenade, and because you healed, you're in for two instances of damage. Each instance would be reduced by the Flat Reduction. Additionally, if he's built Soul Reaver and you're hit with the Item Passive, that too is also reduced by the Flat Reduction. Additionally, he's also built Conduit Gem, and you're hit with the True Damage Item Passive on that..... that too is also reduced by the Flat Reduction. On one Ability, the Flat Reduction applies to all 4 instances of unique damage sources individually, for x4 the indicated value.
    As of writing, the last remaining source of Flat Reduction was finally removed, after 4 years of going under the radar. Rest in Peace Manikins Hidden Blade 5 Damage Reduction, Rest in Peace. We'll keep this section here for mechanical posterity.
  • "Increased Damage Taken" can be treated as negative-Mits (since it is calcultated at the same end-point of the damage calculation as Mitigations). 25% Mitigations + 10% Increased Damage Taken = 15% Mits. Alternatively, overcapping Item Mits by 10% would make you functionally immune to said 10% Increased Damage Taken; despite still not being able to go over the 25% Item Mit Cap.

• Lifesteal & Healing

  • Short Answer: Lifesteal rewards health for damage dealt. Healing heals you. That's all you 'need' to know.

    ~ ~ ~

  • Long Answer:
    • Physical Lifesteal only applies to Basic Attacks.
    • Magical Lifesteal applies to both Basic Attacks and Abilities.
    • If you want Lifesteal on Physical Abilities, Physical Ability Lifesteal is a completely different and standalone stat (generally less common).
      Physical Ability Lifesteal does not stack with Physical Lifesteal.
      Don't double check me, don't doubt me, don't bother looking that up yourself because "you didn't think it was like that" - I'm telling you how it works right here.
    • All AoE / 'non-single-target' Magical Abilities in the game have their Lifesteal reduced to 33%, since they're expected to hit multiple targets. If it can only damage one God (at a time), it benefits from 100% the Lifesteal value - if not for any reason at all, it's 33% of your Lifesteal value. If it penetrates Minions and Gods, it will be reduced, if it penetrates minions but stops on Gods, it will benefit 100%.
      For a good spread-example, Fafnir's tiny leap AoE and his huge Ult-channel AoE each equally are reduced to 33%, however his single-target, non-penetrating Hammer-throw benefits from 100% Lifesteal healing.
    • As of Season 11, all Lifesteal against Minions and Jungle Mobs is now reduced by 50%.

• Antiheal, Healing Increase, Heal Theft and Healing Denial

  • Good news: Global Antiheal is dead! Yay! Rest in Piss, it was horrible, and only existed because Yemoja ''''''Healers''''' made the game a slog at upper levels.
  • Bad news: Season 10 introduced a new calculation, which, like the new Damage Mitigations calculation, seems simpler on the surface, but is far more of a headache in practice. This time, it's because everybody is a special snowflake, and there's almost as many exceptions to the rule than the rule itself.
  • 'Antiheal' and 'Healing Increase' are two sides of the same coin; each directly countering one another. Both these stats affect all forms of healing; including Ability-Heals, Lifesteal on Gods, Lifesteal on Minions / Jungle Camps / Bosses, Map-Health-Pickups, Item Healing, Consumable Healing, HP5 and even Fountain Healing.
  • Here are two examples of the reaching-effect of these mechanics;
    • Healing Increase will increase the healing from %Max HP Healing and %Missing Healing. A God with 2,000HP that would heal 1,000HP from a 50% Max HP heal, will recover 1,200 if they have a 20% Healing Increase buff applied.
    • A God with 10 HP5 will typically heal 10 Health per 5 Seconds. Under the effect of a Healing Increase of 20%, they will recieve 12 Health per 5 Seconds, even as their HP5 still displays 10HP5. Under 20% Antiheal, they will conversely recieve 8 Health per 5 Seconds.
  • Antiheal and Healing Increase interact and stack additively, even if they are a percentage. 20% + 40% - 10% = 50%
  • There is no delineation between Healing Increase / Antiheal from God Abilities or Items. Cu Chulainn's 40% Antiheal on his Barbed Spear is functionally idential to Divine Ruin's 40% Antiheal.
  • There is now an Anitheal cap of 80%. There is no Healing Increase Cap. If Antiheal is greater than 80%, it will do nothing other than counter Healing Increase.
  • For no other reason than confusion, there are numerous case-by-case buffs that only influence certain parts of Healing Increase / Antiheal.
    • One example of this is "Healing Obtained", a subvariant of "Healing Increase" (eg Typhon's Fang, Anubis Passive) - which functionally provides Healing Increase, but only to healing via Lifesteal (not affecting ability heals, external heals, HP5 etc). As a result, it would require 80% Antiheal to prevent an Anubis from being healed by another God, but 140% Antiheal to be able to hit the Antiheal cap for his own Magical Lifesteal.
    • Another example of this would be the Ankh Relics - which only apply Antiheal / Heal Theft to God Abilities, External Heals and Lifesteal, but will not affect Map-Health-Pickups, Item Healing, Consumable Healing, HP5 or Fountain Healing.
  • Heal-Theft is an additive, flat calculation, that is completely divorced from the Antiheal Formula (however, is usually coupled with some amount of Antiheal anyways, to make it 'feel' like Healing is being stolen). Heal-Theft will clone the original value of any God Heal (not Item Heals), and grant the portion of it that is being 'stolen', under the category of healing-type the Heal-Theft is under (either Ability Heal or Item Heal). It ignores any Healing Increase or Antiheal of the target, and simply clones the original 100% value - and is then under the effect of the Healing Increase / Antiheal applied to the target recieving the heal.
    • For example, Cerberus's Passive is classified as an Ability Heal, and can indeed activate healing item effects as he steals healing (such as Breastplate of Regrowth) - however Heal-Theft from Tainted Amulet is classified as an Item Heal, and will not. Hence, Ah Puch can force Cerberus to take a stun from his grenade, by picking up a corpse as Cerberus steals the heal from him (hence the Cerberus just healed from an Ability) - but he cannot do the same to a Nike building Tainted Amulet (as the Nike healed from an Item).
      If you were to steal 20% of a 100HP heal, from a target under the effect of 40% Antiheal, you would recieve 20HP (100*0.2), while the target would recieve 60HP (100*0.4). If you are then affected by 30% Heal-Increase yourself, the your final heal-theft would be 26HP (20*1.3).
  • There now exists "All Healing Reduction", better phrased as 'Healing Denial', a new and unique status entirely, which takes the place of 100% Anitheal. This currently reserved exclusively for God Abilities (namely Odin, Osiris and Serqet Ults). Healing Denial is not countered by Healing Increase, and will not allow Heal Theft to take place.

• Movement

  • Nobody seems to actually know what the Movement Speed number is.
    From testing, it appears to be that flat Movement Speed is given as how many units a God moves in 20 seconds. Since a Unit seems to be a thinly veiled way to say 1ft (because LoRez is situated in one of the three remaining 3rd world countries on Earth that hasn't moved to metric yet), a God with 300 Movement should move ~900ft/minute.
  • Every God's Movement Speed is split across 'tiers', each 5 Movement apart. In general terms, the Melee Basic Attackers are the fastest Gods, followed by Assassins and Tanks, followed by Hunters, followed by Mages.
  • There are softcaps and hardcaps to Movement Speed.
    Don't worry, you'll usually never reach them and will barely notice them if you do - even if you 'try' to max out your Movement Speed (just like how Basic Attack damage is capped at the impossible 10,000 damage).
    • If you do care, the first Softcap is at 457 (reducing additional Movement gains by 20%), then at 540 (reducing by 50%). The Hardcap is at 754 (because the engine can't process past a '1,000' value found within the default Movement formula, and 753.55 is the maximum value possible before it hits that - it may 'show' more, but you will not go faster that). Unless you're making a full-Movement test build in the Practice range, you will rarely (if ever) reach 540, and will not notice when you're past 457.
  • This is only for your default 'running around'. Dedicated Movement Abilities such as Dashes (eg Susano 1Pt3, Khepri Grab) operate on a different formula with a fixed distance, however channelled 'Charges' (eg Chiron's gallop, Charon's speed-row) do not, and will cap at 754 Movement (but are not affected by slows / speed boost). The difference here is that Dashes are unaffected by Roots, while Charges are (causing you to run in place while using them).
  • The fastest default-Movement Gods in the game are Mercury and Chiron (Mercury technically out-pacing Chiron's base movement speed by 1, because easter-egg detail / his Passive's title) - each moving at ~5.8m/s. Considering Passive Movement abilities however; Amaterasu, Awilix and Lancelot are faster in practical terms.
  • Currently, the slowest + lowest mobilty God (with the least additional Combat Movement) in the game is currently Merlin, moving at 5.41m/s. There are others on his speed-tier, but most have some way to drasitcally increase their movement, with dashes (eg Thoth, Agni) or high-uptime speed-boosts (eg He Bo, Chang'E).
    As you can see, there isn't much of a noticeable difference across the cast - at most a 7% difference between the extremes, and roughly 1% base Movement per 'Movement Tier' of 5.
  • From Level 1-8 of any match, your Movement Speed will increase by 3% per level, to an 18% increase. This is because there used to be dedicated items to Movement Speed (Boots), however they were so fundamental to get early, that it was just incorporated into the Base Mechanics to allow for build flexibility.
    Since this is a % increase, it does not influence a God's base Movement number, only scale off of it. Mercury's high Base Movement gets more out of Movement Speed Increase than Merlin.

  • Depending on your actions, your Movement will be subject to various Movement Penalties;;

    • While using a Ranged Basic Attack, your Movement will be reduced by -50%
    • While using a Melee Basic Attack, your Movement will be reduced by -35%
    • While moving backwards, your Movement will be reduced by -40%
    • While moving to the side, your Movement will be reduced by -20%

    Only the highest single penalty applies at any time - hence, you have the same Ranged Basic Attack penalty in any direction you move. Since looking behind you means you are moving sideways and backwards at some point, you will slow down when doing so. Finally, moving diagonally does not scale gradually - for example, a Forwards-Left input does not partially slow you to 10% for being half-way between Forwards and Sideways, it slows the full 20% for moving sideways. Only directly Forward gives 100% movement speed.

  • The Jump button does actually have a function in this regard, that isn't just a tiny self-knockup + silence. While jumping, you will retain the speed you are moving at until you land. This can be used to look behind you if you are being chased, without losing movement speed. Niche, hard to pull off, and almost useless to the point you shouldn't ever need to use it - but it does work.
  • 'Mounted Horseback Movement' is Tank Controls. As of writing, this applies the Guan Yu Ult, Hachiman Ult and Lancelot's Horseriding. The Horse will constantly move forward, so you can only control if it is turning Left or Right. As a result, you use your aim to look around independently of your Movement Direction, without incurring a Movement Penalty.
    Horses are however, still subject to backwards Movement Penalty, which functionally means you can decide on two 'speeds' for your horse, depending on if you are 'holding them back' or not. This is extremely useful to learn. Otherwise, Horses do not change speed in any way if you try to move / push them forward, as they are constantly moving forward anyways.

• CC, Diminishing Returns / CCR & Slows

  • CC is the acronym for Crowd Control, the factor of an Ability to control the movement or positioning of an enemy, without necessarily damaging them.
    • Soft CC is when the victim can still control their Movement to a degree.
      This includes Slows, Cripples, Deafens, Blindness, Vortexes, Roots, Time Distortion and Torment / Insanity.
    • Hard CC is when the victim is completely unable to move or act of their own accord, or completely loses the ability to use a part of their kit. (What may otherwise be classed as Soft CC in other games is mechanically classed as Hard CC in SMITE).
      This includes Stuns, Silences, Taunts, Frenzies, Fears, Intoxication, Disorients, Madness, Mesmerizes, Trembles, Disarms, Sleeping and Repels.
    • True Hard CC is when the enemy is completely unable to act of their own accord aside from minor directional inputs that influence their direction, and no amount of Diminishing Returns / Cleansing can stop or reduce it once the effect has been applied. This is why Knockups (the most common version of True Hard CC) are considered as 'the most valuable' CC in the game.
      This includes Polymorphs, Banishes, Command Grabs and Knockups.
      Knockups and Knockbacks are considered identical, with the only difference being which direction you are moved (upward / around / carried by a target).
  • Diminishing Returns (DR) *used* to be one of the least understood mechanics in SMITE, but with it's elevation into a visible stack on the buff bar (the little blue / purple guy going super saiyan), they're quite straightforward to understand now. When hit by CC of any kind, you'll gain a DR stack, which reduces the duration of the next CC instance by 20% (unless it's True Hard CC), up to a cap of 4 stacks, or 80% reduction. Additional DR stacks refresh the duration of all stacks built up.
    CC of any kind cannot be reduced below 0.5s, unless it was lower than 0.5s to begin with.
    Abilities that apply CC in an area (such as the many Slow / Cripple fields in the game) apply their DR stack only on the first instance (ie, not upon re-entering), however Abilities that repeatedly apply CC will repeatedly stack DR stacks (with Hun Batz Ult being the prime outlier / example - maxing out DR stacks almost immediately, yet being unaffected by it, since it applies so many instances of Fear, each of which are below 0.5s by default, that it will always last for it's full duration, regardless of DR stacks, unless cleansed)
    Soft CC gives 1 stack, Hard CC (and True Hard CC) gives 2 stacks. Being Cleansed or using Beads retains all DR stacks built up. Stacks currently take 15 seconds to fade, unless refreshed.
  • CCR (the dedicated Crowd Control Reduction stat) is calculated in addition to Diminishing Returns, and CCR itself caps at 40%.
    Considering that DR provides 80% CCR, by default, for a long duration, to every God in the game and neither DR or CCR combined can overcome the total CC duration reduction-cap of 0.5s, CCR is *easily* the most useless Item stat in the entire game, and should *never* be considered in a build.
    In practical terms, 10% CCR totals to 2% CCR when DR is considered. For a 1s stun, that is a 0.02s reduction, which for the average person, is less than human reaction time. For many people reading this, you are physically incapable of noticing how little of a difference it makes.
  • Negative Cooldown Reduction has a cap of 40%, and stacks additively (ie 10%+10%=20%). While it's not technically CC, I can't think of anywhere else to put this.
  • Slows are the most common form of CC in the game, and have dedicated caps and mechanics, as they are uniquely accounted for within the Movement calculation.
    The first softcap is at 40%, and until then, all Slows will apply additively. However, since Slows apply as a %, they will naturally scale down with application, with the largest total slow taking the un-reduced priority. If you don't understand, you should have paid attention at school.
    After 40%, the Slow's strength is reduced exponentially, but roughly works out to ~50% reduction in strength (so a single source of a 50% Slow would be ~45%, as the 40% is unaffected and the remaining 10% is roughly halved). DR Stacks / CCR only reduces the duration of a Slow, not it's strength.
    Item-Slows do not stack, however Ability-Slows do. Only the strongest active Item-Slow is accounted for.
    The hardcap is at 150 Movement, which is ~2.2m/s. Since Gods have different Base Movement, each God has an individual '% hardcap' on how much they can be slowed to this minimum value; with naturally slower Gods hitting this hardcap earlier than ones with high base Movement. That said, the hardcap of 150 is usually reached at ~60% Slow, up to ~75% Slow for especially fast Gods.
• Auras
  • Auras will always apply to the person building it. This is because the game views the person as the 'origin point' of the Aura, and thus will always be in the centre of it.
  • Identical Auras of any kind do not stack, and you should avoid building the same Aura-Items as teammates. The most immediate example of this is the item-based Antiheal Auras, as they warn you that they don't stack - however it also applies to ANY identical Aura of any kind. If two people build Shoguns Kusari, the Auras will not overlap nor stack, it will simply originate from two different people. In modes that allow for multiple Gods, you wouldn't be able to have 5 Amaterasus with their 1-Auras, regardless of if they rank it differently.
  • The only exception are Auras that directly deal damage (eg Cu Chulainn's Steam). In this case, identical auras do stack, as they're considered multiple conditional AoE attacks, rather than buffs / debuffs. Cerberus's Heal-Theft Aura is likewise considered a conditional AoE entity.
  • Antiheal Auras do stack with Global Antiheal, and the highest value Aura (Global Antiheal, until the targets enter into combat) will be preferred.
    GET FUCKED GLOBAL ANTIHEAL

Additional Jargon Glossary (of the stuff you actually want to know, and are not told)

• Boxing = Two Godtoons aggressively zoning into each other with attacks, trying to force the other away while taking minimal damage (like how two boxers will fight each other by throwing punches, while ducking and weaving). Unlike normal zoning, if a Godtoon with worse boxing ability tries to dive a Godtoon with better boxing while both are aware, the worse will almost always die, making it something to consider when engaging. To be 'boxed down a lane' is *not* to be indirectly zoned down, as much as it is aggressively *forced* down.
  Different to the term 'boxing something in'... common sense.
• Collapsed On = The general movement of a teamfight, where a single enemy caught out of position is swarmed by the entire opposing team (similar to a house of cards falls or "collapses" inward). In most cases, no amount of teamwork can save them. Not that it will stop them complaining.
• Diff = Usually an insult, wherein ___ Diff means the difference between two mirrors was so great, it was the deciding factor on the outcome of the game. Most commonly 'Support diff' or 'Jungle diff' by the ungrateful cunt laners who expect backup on every misplay.
  'Team Diff' is slightly less insulting, as it indicates that the entire team was heavily outplayed (and thus it's the matchmaking's fault, or some other cope).
• Front-to-Back / Back-to-Front = The two ways a team can approach a teamfight. Both have upsides and downsides.
  • Front-to-Back is also known as 'Deathball', where one team will focus on whittling down the easier-target Tanks first to reach an undefended low-health backline.
  • Back-to-Front is also known as 'Dive', where one team will try to quickly get past the Tanks and attempt to kill the DPS as fast as possible, leaving the low-damage Tanks for last.
• Godtoons = Godtoons (gods, that are also toons) (also known as godtoons).
• HP5 / MP5 = X amount of Health / Mana regenerated every 5 seconds. Used because 6 HP5 is less of a mouthful than 1.25 health per second.
• Hypercarry (Noun) = A more extreme version of the Attack Damage Carry (ADC), builds very high Power and doesn't focus on any survivability with the intention of 'carrying' their team. Previously the difference between a Carry and a Hypercarry was that while Carries simply dealt high damage lategame, Hypercarries were able to essentially 1v5 the enemy team when played by a competant player - as an kind of 'objective step-above' the usual dedicated damage-dealer.
  As time passed, the terms became amalgamated - now Hypercarry is in reference to any character whose damage scales well into the lategame (since any character is equally a Carry / Hypercarry when in the right hands), while 'Hardcarry' is in reference to characters who subjectively / *commonly* are able to win games by themselves.
  tl;dr Most Damage-focused kits can Hypercarry, only good 1v5'ers can Hardcarry.
• Kit = All the Attacks / Abilities / Passives a Godtoon has access to by default. Another term you will traditionally be laughed at / 'jakked for using unironically in-thread.
• Meta = You do know that the Meta / META is an acronym, not a Noun, right? It's certainly not what Facebook thinks it's called now, that's for sure. Most Effective Tactic Available. The more you know!
  As a side note, the meta is almost always a spook, and not treated correctly. In simple terms, the most effective tactic available for the SPL (the theoretically optimal meta) is not the same as the most effective tactic available for Casual games, or games at various ranked MMR's, or even games on different platforms. If somebody tries to demand you play to the tune of a meta for a level of play that does not apply to you, punch them in the jaw.
  There is no such thing as 'the' meta, only 'a' meta.
• Peel = To remove an enemy from their effective range needed to damage an ally. Usually in relation to Soft CC (aka slowing them down or impeding them, but not neutralising their threat), and often results in them turning their sights on (You) instead.
• Proc = Soyboy term, to build up stacks to activate a buff / debuff, or any other kind of effect that is "triggered".
  For example, "it takes X hits to proc Y item's Passive".
  Don't say this (ever) or you'll get mocked / 'jakked in-thread; to the point that the word in of itself within /smgen/ is used post-ironically, and associated more with the manchildren and tryhards who use it and to bait out joke-y responses over the outright verbal meaning (given how detached the word is from casual vernacular) (i.e. try saying it in public, you'll get what I mean). Unless you deliberately want to derail, don't say this.
• Puddle = Lingering AoE.
• Squishie / Squishy = Dies quickly. Another term you will traditionally be laughed at / 'jakked for using unironically in-thread.
• Zoning = To prevent an enemy from entering a given area (or 'zone'). Said area is often either be the range they can damage you / teammates or through a chokepoint toward an objective that's being delayed for. Every Godtoon in the game can zone with their mere presence, since the act of Zoning is simply a bluff as to if they'll attack or not.

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How do I play each gamemode?

Given Conquest is not the only mode, it's natural you'd want some info on how to play the other modes. While I can't go as in-depth, I'll put a little something here for the core rules and gameplay flow that each mode features, so you're not completely clueless if entering these modes.

Conquest

As the 'main' gamemode and most complex of the gamemodes, I've just bit the bullet and thrown this into it's own dedicated doc, since it got to the point it was taking over this link. There's a ton of resources for everything about this gamemode, tailored from general-suff to role-dedicated stuff. Chew through it at your own pace.
If you are absolutely brand new, I would genuinely recommend you just ignore Conquest for a while. It's not that I'm trying to put down your fun, it's that you'll have more fun if you know roughly what's going on beforehand (objective-based strategic gamemodes work like that). Get familiar with the gameplay in Arena, get familiar with the idea of laning in Joust, then when you've got the basics down, jump into Conquest. If you want an account-level-range, you don't need to put it off forever, something like Acc. Level 10-15 should be fine enough.
If you just want the up-to-date starts, see the second image.

https://rentry.org/smgen_Conquest

Arena

A 5v5 revolving around tickets, where you're pretty much permanently in a teamfight.
Probably the most straightforward gamemode on the list, the most accessible for new players and the one with the most players outside of Conquest (which they affectionately call Cuckquest in response). If you know how to play it, this mode is borderline impossible to be snowballed in.

If

Minions spawn regularly, run down from their Phoenix to the centre, then follow the same lane on the opposite side for a bit, before running towards the enemy Portal. Dealing damage to an enemy minion at any point before it dies deducts a ticket from the enemy team, but an enemy minion reaching your portal deducts a ticket from your team.
Every 10 player kills, a Minotaur spawns, and runs down with the same pattern - with the key differences being their health and AI. By default, they act as normal minions, however if 'escorted' (with any allied Godtoon near them), they will ignore all enemies and walk forward. In ticket value, they're (currently) worth 15 tickets if they reach the Portal.
Your respawns are also shared across your team - for most deaths, you'll respawn instantly. Since the wiki (and the 'Overarching Arena Guide') are made by retards / ledditors (what's the difference, hey?), they only have this unhelpful quip, so I'll explain in further detail here than what you'll find there. At the start of the match, each team has a collective respawn timer of 10s - this means that everybody has that time upon death assuming Ticket lead is equal. One guy dies, then the rest of the team is wiped 9 seconds later, they all respawn 1 second afterwards. Depending on the ticket imbalance, this will scale upward and downward, to up to 60s (at ~100 Ticket difference).

The only thing you need to be aware of is that, while an easy and minor objective, tickets are still the name of the game in this mode, and so a wave of minions will always take priority over teamfighting. For everyone.
Let me explain.
Each minion wave is 7 large - 3 Soldiers, 3 Archers and a Brute. In of itself, this is potentially 7 ticketsworth (damaging all of them = 1.4 kills every 20 seconds, and just over a teamwipe every minute) - but wait! If the little fuckers reach the portal, now you're dealing with 14 tickets-worth of difference between you and the enemy (almost the same as a Minotaur). Meanwhile, Godtoons are only worth 5 tickets (2 less than confirming a wave), and are comparatively much more annoying to pin down and kill.
But I'm not done yet!
Minotaurs are suprisingly simple, yet important objective. At 15 tickets a pop, they often accompany a minion wave and are worth nothing if killed - making the sway 29 tickets-worth.
Even if 2 people suicide when ferrying a Minotaur alone, their team is now guaranteed to be ahead in ticket economy. A full minion wave + Minotaur is worth more than a fucking pentakill in ticket sway. Bodyblock for Minotaurs, and shove the fucker into their Portal if you've got the bulk for it.
Yes, Arena's focus is on teamfighting, but if only one team (or even, only one player) plays the Objective, and focuses on not dying, then that team will almost always win over the other. Only if both (or neither) team are playing the minions, does it become a case where whichever team scores the most player kills from teamfights can narrowly edge out a victory.
Great if you want to bump up your winrate for forced 50 to fuck you over later.

As for any other things to know:

• You get a passive 12 Gold per second in this gamemode - quite a lot. As in, it's something like 90% of your income each match. If you can't afford something, sometimes it's just better to wait than spending the next few minutes scrimming without it; especially for items which require stacking (Gauntlet of Thebes, Charons Coin etc).
• Godtoons with good combat mobility thrive at getting EZPZ kills in this mode - Godtoons like Bastet, Hun Batz and Susano do well in Arena, with their ability to get in and out within one Ability rotation and picking off choice targets from anywhere on the map.
• Aggressive Guardians with strong teamfighting / zoning thrive in Arena, simply because the entire duration of the match is one big, long teamfight. Jormungandr, Cthulhu, Cerberus and Kuzenbo are all disproprtionately stronger as maintanks, and building Auras likewise benefits their teammates much more.
• If the enemy team tries to bodyblock a Minotaur at the Portal-gate, any type of Knockup will de-prioritise their positioning, and will allow the Minotaur to walk past them.
• Wards aren't useless, only retards think you don't need them - they're less central, sure, but not meaningless. The Bracer of Radiance relic is disproportionately strong in this gamemode, and is something either the Tank or Offtank will usually want to bring, then promptly dump in the middle of the map. It's basically a permanent %age Power increase, and a GTFO card for the entire team (provided you don't place it retardedly, or selfishly, or both). It alone can add the equivalent damage of one extra teammate, and still bail your teammates out... for the low-low price of 800 Gold from matchstart. Absolute steal of a purchase.
• While 'carrying' is relatively hard in this game, there's a few things you can do at match start to net yourself an early lead;
  • First, if you're the Support of the team, when your team first goes for buffs, ignore the camp just before it dies to attack the next one along, and pull aggro further along / closer en-route to the lane (especially with the Purple Boar). Doing this nets you ~5s advantage on getting to the lane before the enemy, which is great for aggressive positioning.
  • Second, if you're not Support, and you're not one of the Godtoons that wants a buff, ignore them, head to the lane first, clear the wave and escort it to the portal. If the enemy doesn't deal with the wave (which they rarely will, because Arena), your team essentially starts the match with a Ticket score 2 kills ahead (1 for confirming a kill on their wave, 1 for getting your minions to their Portal).
• There is nothing wrong with chasing kills in this gamemode - under the sole requirement you confirm / trade. Invading the phoenix region (not the spawn, the bit before it) to confirm a kill and trade is actually a high meta strat - as it maintains the same ticket difference as before, while giving you an instant teleport back to spawn (if you were that low anyways, you wouldn't have got back anyways or contributed to the team any more). If you're a real cocky bastard, invade the spawn itself - but note you've got less than a second to confirm your kill as they hyper-regen. Keep it in moderation however - just because it's viable doesn't mean you can dive their spawn every push.
• There's an alternate version of Arena that occasionally pops up, called Corrupted Arena. The key difference is that the floor itself breaks away over time - so any Godtoon with push-back or throw (eg Geb, Sobek, Anhur, Hercules, Charybdis) becomes able to get instakills. It's a Xing Tian paradise. Also jihadi Kuzenbo's. And Jing Wei scum play. Another variation / addition to the theme is that a match ends with a final 5v5 showdown (independant of the Ticket-winner), which rewards a bonus amount of end-of-match rewards.
• Da Ji, Maui and Ares can use their Ults within their own spawn; making them all instakills.
• There is a special place in Hell reserved for 'people' who play max-cooldown Support Nox in Arena.
• Never, ever, trust a Horus Ult in Arena until you see exactly where it's going.

While all of this should be obvious after a few matches, here's a helpful little function-map for you to get you going.

Assault

1 lane - 5v5, Random Godtoons
The most chill gamemode of SMITE - in part because it's probably the most straightforward mode / in part, because you surrender yourself to RNG. Will you roll a perfect, balanced team with a bulky support, good teamfighters and a healer? Or will you roll 5 assassins into an enemy that got said perfect team? Happens more than you want - Welcome to Assault.
Since you can't really choose your godtoon, there isn't a 'meta' teamcomp. In terms of gameplay, you'll usually have an emote-off until minions spawn, each side will poke at the other for a bit until you get strong enough to bust a Tower (~Lv8-10); then it's a tug of war of teamfights as both teams try to barrel through the Titan ASAP. Really not complicated.

There are still however, a few core gameplay aspects and tips you ought to take into account to greatly increase your winrate in this most casual of modes:

1. Once you leave spawn, you cannot re-enter the shop until you die. You're also locked out of the shop if you use a relic within spawn. On the other hand, the enemy Fountain will still kill you if you enter it's area. It's usually not worth waiting in spawn for enough Passive Gold income to buy an item, as the loss to your EXP will outweigh whatever benefit you could get from the item.
2. Usually, grab Meditation Cloak. This is probably the most obvious aspect of Assault, but if you're new it's because 5 players popping Clock at once is a 100% heal over 4 seconds, and is vital for the high-aggro high-teamfight aspect of Assault, to constantly keep you topped off. Use it whenever you notice it off cooldown, you basically can't waste it. Furthermore, on the topic of Relics, once you're at 2nd Relic (or if you're feeling risky, before Cloak), it's highly preferable if at least one player grabs Bracer of Radiance, as, much like Cloak, the entire team can benefit from it disproportionately so compared to other modes. The only exception is if there's a notable Support Ult that you NEED Beads to deal with - in which case, weigh up how you feel playing into them without Beads or without sustain.
3. Likewise, always assume you're playing into a high-heal composition. Antiheal is disproportionately stronger in this mode, and everybody ought to be running it (and early) if possible. That said, identical item effects don't stack; including antiheal from damage items.
4. If nobody has bothered to do it - regardless of if you're a Guardian or not - somebody should build Auras and play Support. Even if you're a Support Mercury or Support Medusa, it's better than a team of 5 Hypercarries with no sustain - everyone is close together, so everyone benefits.
   In relative order of whenever you should grab them (personal judgement aside); Auras that grant MP5 are very valuable early on (as everyone will run out of Mana quickly), followed by auras that affect structures (or Physical Protection in general, so you can tank shots), followed by auras that provide AoE Protections. Don't forget that Auras do not stack - if somebody else has one, build something else.
5. Focus the Structures over Players - Towers are permanent, Kills are temporary. Sounds obvious, but much like Antiheal, often goes ignored.
6. Taking the right-hand way around the wall from Spawn is usually faster than going left. It's also the side you want to attack the Titan from, as it's the route minions take.

7. For the final aspect of non-Godtoon-specific gameplay that comes with Assault - learn how to stall and cuck the enemy. Since the entire gamemode is teamfights kicking off constantly, there's a good chance at some point you'll find yourself as the last chimpanzee alive on your team - at which point, you get to grin, as it's just time to fuck with the enemy for fun for vital strategy-plays:

   • If they clean your team up in front of your tower, just focus on cleaning up minions. If it's earlygame, even their Supports will be hesitant to invade an occupied tower, and if you can clear the full wave (even if they're attacking your tower) their damage vs your structure will be decreased as long as there's no minions in it's radius. The tower will do the damage for you.
   • If you're returning from spawn and your team gets wiped closer to their Phoenix or are the last squishy alive in a failed teamfight, go out of your way to steal all the Healing Orbs. Ignore enemy waves, ignore the fact you've got full health + mana, just steal them (and waste movement to get there first if needs be). Prioritise the close-mid Orb over the mid-'jungle' Orb, as it will take them longer to catch up otherwise). Even if you die, it'll be 5 low-health enemies (or forced to burn Med Cloaks) vs 3-4 fresh spawns on defence; heavily in your team's favor.
   • If you were in the middle of a teamfight, and are the only one left because of your bulk - again, ignore the enemy, and charge straight forward to pull them down their lane, ignoring their towers too. They will almost always chase you - doubling their journey to your front line - so your teammates have more time to respawn. There's a little bit at the back corners of their titan which is a golden zone - if you can reach here, no matter what, the enemy will be completely unable to reach your phoenix before your team respawns. Popping Aegis, using immortality-ults (Kali / Freya / Camazotz), harassing them so they can't ignore you or just juking attacks will increase your stall time in this scenario.
     If they do ignore you - that's fine too - just use Cloak selfishly to heal up, steal all the orbs, deny them every single minion wave, harass their respawns and then, (ONLY if you haven't done any damage to the Titan beforehand; as it will contiually heal if you do this) pull and drop Titan aggro to continually fill their screen with 'YOUR TITAN IS UNDER ATTACK!!!' messages until they come to janny you up (for free).
   • Jumping and Laughspamming adds vital additional psychological warfare to this process, and will make them focus you more. Don't forget, you're not K/D padding, you're wasting their time to win the game in the long run.

   

Joust

3v3 down a single lane, with a small jungle on both sides.
The definite 'third' gamemode of SMITE (the SMITE of SMITE), Joust has come in three major flavors in it's history - Classic, Chinese and Corruption.

• Classic is a single lane with a thin, ring jungle with 3 buffs. Classic is the most defender-ended map, with a notoriously difficult-to-push Phoenix and slower but more 'honest' games due to minimal farm. Almost all fighting takes place in the lane, since the time taken to grab a Jungle Camp will miss out on the Gold + EXP from minion waves.
• Chinese is a single lane with a more complex jungle layout and a unique jungle boss, that if killed shuts down the first structure. Chinese is a balanced map that equally encourages both aggression and macroplay and is the 'default' and most popular Joust map of the three.
• Corruption / Chinese Corruption is a single lane, with the most complex jungle layout, many jungle camps a unique jungle boss, that if killed shuts down the first structure. Corruption is the most farm-ended map, but also the most aggressor-favored map (resulting in high snowball potential).

In terms of teambuilding, you'll want a Tank, then two DPS's of opposing damage types (so usually Guardian / Mage / Hunter, Warrior / Mage / Hunter or Guardian / Mage / Assassin etc) but as much of a playerbase as this mode has - it's honestly not that unique. It's just a Conquest lane - 1 tower, with 3 people in a teamfight and none of the wider multi-lane strategy or consideration. Teamfight during minion waves, pick up as much neutral farm as you can whenever it's up. It's really, really simple (but honestly, don't forget to farm those neutral camps, they add up).
It's both Joust's greatest pull and draw - if you want a quick and simple game, it's perfect.... if you've got the time, why not anything else? Great for when you just need to grind out some wins, and are confident in your skill to carry / don't want to roll the dice as much as with Arena.

Duel

1v1 down a single lane traditional lane, with a small jungle on both sides.

This is it. Your final destination. Welcome to Purgatory.

"When a man has given up, he plays a MOBA. When he has completely given up, he plays Duel."
Another Anon, much wiser than I

If you are new, you may be tempted to try to use Duel as a way to 'improve without affecting other people's games'.
Stop!
Go no further.
Turn around and head into Arena, then practice in Joust once you're familiar.
You will find no mercy, no kindness, no quarter given in this gamemode. Everybody here is a tryhard of the most extreme and petty kind.
This is where people use Skin Advantage deliberately.
This is where people recognise in-game names and target-ban a player's main Godtoons.
This is where people consider the stats of a fucking Tier 2 item in how aggressive they're going to play an engagement.
This is where people will drop buffs, then not pick them up immediately, so they can grab them at a more optimal time ever-so-slightly later.
This is not play4fun. This is play2win. And if you fuck around, you're gonna lose.

Typically people will almost always build Hybrid (even Hunters / Mages / Assassins), which as a result of Duel's extremely unorthadox build priorities and extremely experienced niche community, leads to a highly developed and distinctly unique meta from the other gamemodes. Jungle Starter items are generally preferable as they give an edge when it comes to taking the valuable neutral farm, Meditation Cloak / Shell are the most common relic choices due to their high-value single-target sustain (unless Beads / Aegis / something else really walls a specific matchup opponent) and this is the one mode where there really isn't a 'meta build'. Your build is almost always going to be custom-tailored to your opponent, hence requiring a developed understanding of the Item Shop (but as a result, meaning every match can plays differently).
Natrually, due to the hybrid nature of the meta, Warriors are naturally dominant in the Duel meta, but not so much in the same way as they would in Conquest. For Duel, there is no such thing as 'win-lane-lose-game'. To win lane in Duel is to win the game and teamfighting is not considered at all - hence Godtoons who are proficient lane bullies are only seconded to the few Godtoons who are able to hyperfarm and get their optmial grind on extremely easily.

Finally, after all that, the only thing left to note on is to make sure you back every few waves, and always after every major engagement to heal up. It takes drastically less time to get back to the middle of the map here, so as long as you're not missing a large wave, take full advantage of it.

Ranked + Duel is also played on the given Season's Joust map too, with lowered Structure health, if that interests you - essentially the perfect culmination of the Solo experience.

See above. Duel has always been hosted on one of the three Joust maps in rotation, and the functional layout is almost identical.

Slash

2 lanes, 5 Godtoons with a small central Jungle.
From the ashes of Siege and Clash, came Slash..... but in reality it's just Clash 2.0. This gamemode does not resemble or play like Siege in any way shape or form.

Siege and Clash's replacement-mode (hence the name), Slash exists in a semi-awkward void of it's own creation - too stratified to lend from the casual modes of Arena / Assault, yet nowhere near as 'clean-cut' as Joust / Conquest. As such, it's somewhat of an isolated mode, with an isolated playerbase, and while Siege and Clash used to have quite a lot of overlap and their own core playerbases, their removal to pave way for Slash ruffled a lot of feathers.
In short, Slash is closer to the casual-mode end of the autism spectrum, with more of a focus on player killing than objective play and macro. The gamemode is extremely snowball-y, since it inherantly encourages players to stick to their lane (especially since it takes longer to rotate and reinforce a lane, than it does for one deathball to move from one tower to the next). If a small teamfight kicks off and one team loses, the attackers will not only have the numbers advantage (with their teammates safely rotating over and joining in), but the defenders will have a longer and less safe delay to arrive.
In Siege, this was balanced out by there only being 4 players on each team; making uneven lanes disadvantagous for the other. In Clash this was balanced out by there being a tiny, tiny Jungle and a skewed, diagonal map - making rotation time for defenders nonexistant. Slash took the worst parts of both and left out anything to prevent the snowball.
And this is all on top of the Juggernaut mechanic.

Slash comes with two unique mechanics - Juggernauts and Apophis. With them, let me explain 'how' you 'play' Slash.

• Juggernauts are Siege's contribution to this gamemode, and are in summary the only things you need to give a fuck about, outside of teamfights. Jungle camps aren't worth farming on cooldown, but these are.
  Functionally, Juggernauts are bulky Archer-Minotaurs, designed to force their way down a lane, soak some minion / tower aggro, and give you a way to head back to base, while not losing out on farm. From match start, you're going to do nothing but teamfight for the first 4 minutes and you will try not head back to base if possible. Why is this? Because at 4 minutes, the first neutral Juggernaut spawns in on the Egyptian side - defeat it, and it's a free ticket back to base without losing any farm. The team that takes the first Juggernaut has a 64% chance of winning the game.
  Once the Juggernauts start rolling in, is when you try to group and snowball your lanes. At 10 minutes the sided-Juggernauts spawn in, but by then, one team should have shoved their way down a lane. This is also why the game is extremely snowball-y - whoever breaks the first Tier 2 Tower gets free access to the enemy team's 'reserved' Juggernaut, often times before it's even spawned in. If the defenders do manage to grab their reserved Juggernaut, it has to battle through a much longer contested lane, taking much more damage before it threatens the attacker's Towers. This also means that the 'winning' team can semi-easily throw 4 Juggernauts down the lanes; all while the defenders have no access to a Juggernaut of their own and are forced to send one of their teammates to defend a lane sieged by a lone Juggernaut (putting the match state, at minimum, 1vJuggernaut and 4v5+Juggernaut).
  And it's with these Juggernauts that the already-oppressive winning team can stall time so they can complete the major boss that just spawned in at 10 minutes - Apophis.
• Apophis is the special Jungle Boss of this mode, ported in from Clash, lying closer in power-level and impact to a Fire Giant than a Gold Fury. Defeat it, and you get a decent Power buff, and more importantly a huge regen buff - you essentially become unbeatable in a drawn-out fight. If you're struggling to end the game, Enhanced Apophis (21 minutes) will additionally give all of your abilities a huge DoT, and make you deal a shitton of damage to Towers. Provided your team doesn't suicide sadly, more likely than you want to see, you pretty much cannot lose once you have Enhanced Apophis.
  Stand above it's spawn point as it spawns in, for a special surprise.

From the Order PoV, the left-hand / Waterfall lane is the narrower of the two; and so if you want to win games, try to tardwrangle your team into fighting down it (and vice versa - it's easier to be left alone and one-man-push-with-a-Juggernaut in the right-hand / Desert lane). It's not a huge win-condition to account for, but it does help. Other than that, there really isn't much in terms of 'tips' or 'strategisation' - take Juggernauts the moment they spawn in, and contest Apophis whenever you get a numbers advantage.
First herd of cats that manages to cleanly win a lategame teamfight wins the game.

Fun fact: 'Slash' is apparently a British slang term for the act of urinating - coincedentally or not, pretty much this gamemode in a nutshell.

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Can I get a quick rundown on each Godtoon? Anything more complex?

Most of these are just parked links right now. Trust me, I'm working on them, they're going to the top-shit. Dirt-into-Diamonds kinda help. Chef's kiss kinda shit. Will slowly add them as they finish.

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'How do I stretch my F2P economy the farthest?' + Skin Miscellany

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tl;dr don't buy anything aside from the Ultimate God Pack when it's on Sale.

The first thing you'll likely be greeted with, upon logging in for the first time, is an alert of about 15 quests and every bar saying there's "NEW CONTENT!!!" ! Don't worry about those, those are just your weeklies that piled up in advance - they'll clear up within 2-3 games. There's also that Welcome Pass thing - it's cool, it's free and you'll finish it without realising, don't sweat it.

As for spending money - this is a Hi-Rez game first and foremost. Remember who you're giving it too. Insiders indicate that SMITE makes an absolute fucking killing in terms of proportional profits, so don't get too caught up in the idea of 'throwing them some money to keep the game alive' - there's more than enough whales doing that for you.
For 'value', the "Ultimate God Pack" is the only gameplay-related pack, unlocking all past and future Godtoons as they come. Don't buy it immediately - it goes on sale at times and is shockingly good value when it does, get it then (and that's coming from me, *trying* to stop you from spending money). Don't worry about spending Favor before then, you'll get a 100% refund on anything that overlaps once you get that Ultimate God Pack. Let's pray it doesn't end up like the Paladins one, and removed from the game because of *intense hand-rubbing*.

Everything else is purely cosmetic. As of writing SMITE has absolutely no intended P2W mechanics, and no indication it ever will.

Now let me tell you what all those currency things do, then how you can game the system game:

• Favor
  The free and 'main' currency, earned through matches (more from the first win of any particular gamemode each day).
  Used to purchase Godtoons, Recolors, Emotes and Mastery Skins. As of Season 9, it was expanded to also be able to purchase Tier 2 Skins, Avatars, Viewer Points and Emote / Voicepack / Cosmetic Chests. See below for those.
  Generally speaking, you'll hit the 5,500 needed for the average Godtoon every week of playing, especially if you focus on your First-Win-of-the-Day bonuses in each gamemode and just do your weekly quests. New Godtoons are 11,000 only for the first few weeks they're available, and drop down later. You can also convert this stuff directly into Viewer Points and get a shitton from ads, which we'll cover when we get to it.
  Advice on spending it = once you've got all the Godtoons, get all the Emotes. After that, the Emote Chest will be guaranteed-drop for Dances / Special Emotes; which are both great to have, is better than coughing up gems and cleans up a lot of filler in some chests. After that, it's up to you, with either Viewer Point conversion or clearing out the voice Pack Chest being the best 'use' of Favor.
• Gems
  Purchased with actual money / occasional giveaways, or earned through Gem Storm events or from Daily Login rewards.
  Used to obtain most Skins (as well as everything purchaseable by favor). Log-in rewards are claimed automatically and allow you to earn up to 50 gems each week (only on the sixth and seventh consecutive days) - it doesn't have to be a chain either, you could miss the 5th day and still get dem gems 3 days later. Very forgiving, very appreciated.
  That's 2,600 Gems a year if you log in every day, excluding bonus income from events. That's your F2P economy that you're going to be managing, with small bonuses here and there.
• EXP, Account Level and the Rewards Center
  What it says on the can, your accumulated Account Level indicates how long you've been playing.
  You get a portrait border at Lv30, then every 20 levels after that until 160 - with it following a repeating exponential rule each time you get your new portrait border (so it takes longer to go from 33-34 than it does 51-52; and 159-160 taking more total time than 30-80). As of Season 10, there is no longer a hard level cap, but levelling past 160 is like a 'Prestige' (with no recognition).
  Nearly every level until 30 also unlocks something in the Rewards Center - but don't cash everything in at once (the '50% offs', 'Free Voice Pack' and Account Boosters are all on a timer once triggered, ushering you into making a choice quickly, else they be wasted - see below for that). Finally, AccLv30 is the point you're moved out of the noob pool of matchmaking, and thrown into the 200,000hr+ Account Matchmaking. You'll be able to visibly see / notice this, since when you load into these games, you'll start seeing many, many more types of custom Loading Frames other than the Unequipped / Japanese Frame / Frame of Truth you'll have been used to.
  Generally takes 1-2 months of play to get from Lv1-Lv30, depending on how much use you get out of Account Boosters.
• Account Boosters
  A factor for when you're new, far more than once you understand the game.
  These things are complete ripoffs in terms of Gem cost, however, you get quite a few days-worth of them for free in the Rewards Center for your first 30 Levels, and often get them for free in promotional packs. These offer a substantial x2 Favor gain, and 25% extra EXP and Worshippers (nice if free, ripoff if you have to pay). Their main use is to get you to Acc Lv30 (aka; out of newfag matchmaking / smurf containment) in half the time, and are useless after that.
  Save up the ones you get in the Rewards Centre, and pop them if you know you're going to play a lot for the period it lasts. Meanwhile, if they're bundled in a free promotional pack, don't 'purchase' it until you have some time to use the Booster you get from it (as it auto-activates). Past this, never, ever spend on these things.
• Viewer Points
  The currency of the Viewer Store, a small store with a selection of old and exclusive customisation options and skins.
  Encourages interaction with the SPL (see below for not!betting advice); where you get 1,500 points per correct match outcome guess for most of the Season (free to hedge a bet, but you can only go so far in advance, so you can't just log in once a year then bet on every match for the Season). Viewer Points are also generated by watching SPL streams if you link your / a Twitch Account, at a rate of 1,250 Points/4hr.
  As of Season 9, you can convert Favor into VP, 10k=10k. Unless you've sold your soul to the Ads, don't (at least until you have all the playable Godtoons+Emotes), and if you have, focus on thinning out the 10k point cosmetic pool over the 75k skins first.

• Worshippers & Mastery Level
  Earned through matches, specific to a Godtoon - earning enough Worshippers will increase your Mastery Level for that Godtoon - Mastery Levels are needed to obtain Mastery skins.

  • 'Golden' (Metallic Vivid Blue with Metallic Gold trim) is unlocked *for purchase* at Mastery Lv1
  • 'Legendary' (Matte Deep Black with Metallic Gold Trim) skin at Lv5
  • 'Diamond' (Matte Turquoise with Metallic Silver / Transparent / Crystal Trim, and some extra Blue hues / minor Crystal effects) at Lv10

  Godtoon Mastery does not increase past 10 (X) at 1,000 Worshippers, however each time you gain another 1,000 Worshippers, a Star is added to your Godtoon's Mastery Level. There is no limit on these stars, and they do nothing.
  Finally, there's a bonus mechanic, that unlocking Diamond Skins for purchase each gives a point on your 'Diamond Meter'. This is a long-term goal for your Account, but in short, the more Godtoons you get to Mastery 10, the more cool Diamond-y effect cosmetic shit you get.

• Monthly Commendations and Goodwill
  Goodwill increases each time you complete a match (up to 100%), drops to 0% if you disconnect a lot (or if you get enough player reports) and earns you a little bit extra Favor each match.
  Commendations are free to give out (most people do unless you were nasty), have no daily cap and accumulate over a month of play; plus you get given a free Commendation point for every game you play at 100% Goodwill. At 300, 450 and 600 points you get a Skin Booster, a Tier 2 Skin chest then a Tier 3/4 Chest respectively. Finally, if your dumb fuck ass can manage to stay unbanned for a full Season, you get a small bundle of 5 rewards, including a very nice looking White + Gold recolour for a different Godtoon each Season and a free Loading Frame (which is popularly used to indicate at the loading screen to the rest of your wary team that you're not a cunt / flamer).

But the human mind is fickle, and damn, at times, there are some desirable skins. You can get what you usually want without coughing up much, but you need to save up and strategise accordingly. This is where you gotta decide how far you want to go with how much you want to spend.
Here's how to stretch your time / wallet the best:

• First of all, you can pick up quite a few free bits and bats just by lurking for a while.
  Minor events sometimes pop up that give community made items + some free skins (usually pre-remodels / 'Classic' skins), and most Battle Passes offer 1 of their skins for 'free' if you can reach it later on in the pass. On top, you can get a few mid-tier chests, a seasonal skin and a frame if you can keep your spergery to yourself and maintain a solid Goodwill score. On top of that, other events may offer Odyssey Chests, which give you a roll at most of the preimium stuff in the game.
  It's not much overall, but it is something and it does add up.
• Ads oh no... - Right, I'm going to cut this shit straight and unfiltered.
  LoRez is a shady fucking company at the best of times, and nobody liked seeing these fuckers appear in Season 9. It's unknown how much data that they mine with this shit (with one ultra-shady leaked agreement indicating IP data is on the line - so if you're on a non-dynamic router, rule this shit out immediately), but one thing for sure is that it must be worth something, because putting ads on in the background (much like striking a Mephistophelean Deal), absolutely delivers on the 'free' goods.
  Capped off at 60 Ads a day, running them in the background for 30 minutes nets you 6,000 Favor, a shitton of useless boosters and 8.4 High-End Chests a week for free. After 3 months, you'll have a decent skin for most Godtoons in the game, after that, you'll thin chests out like no business. If you go in, go all in, and keep these fuckers running to make selling a part of your soul worth it. You can chain-ads, so you don't need to attend to them and click after each one ends, but apparently you might need to start it a few times just to get the ball rolling (like revving a chainsaw). Others have claimed that they have difficulty getting the full '60 a day', so try to time it semi-evenly and give it some space to breathe (since they don't want you watching 120 Ads every 2 days). Each 'day' appears to reset at 00:00 UTC.
  If you have a shred of dignity / caution, please ignore them (for your own anal safety). They don't pop up anywhere else and aren't intrusive to the point you're forced to interact with them.
• The Battle Passes usually offer the best consistant value for gems and are aimed at the F2P playerbase.
  They're technically 'free' most of the time at ~600-800 Gems, since if you finish the pass and spend every gem you get from your weeklies for the period, you can recoup the full purchase cost (but you still need that initial investment and you'll need to play the game quite a bit per pass if you want the full rewards).
  These offer multiple loosely themed skins (usually 4-6), as well as other customisation options (death stamps, profile pics etc) and a huge amount of match boosters to fill out the pass. There's sometimes external promotionals for the Passes too, so check the game's external store if you can pick one of these up (often giving every Godtoon skinned in the pass for free along with their gem-paid Voice Packs, with a few other goodies like Deal of the Deal coupons or Account Boosters for free).
• From there, the Minor Events (Halloween etc) are usually the next best.
  Shorter term, they offer a much more concentrated reward system over the course of 3-4 Patches + Bonus Patches (ie ~2 months); with Halloween being the consistantly best value of them. If you skip on the Battle Passes and hit all the Gem-giveaway events, you can pretty safely hit 1-2 of these a year (at ~2,000 to buy out each), however it'll eat through everything you're given (including all Weeklies and Gem-Quests). These usually contain ~8-10 skins and may additionally tie into the rewards system of the current Major Event.
• Major Events / Odyssey's hit a 'middle ground' (if that's even a thing).
  These last 16 Patches + Bonus Patches, usually 2 each year. While expensive (~8,000-10,000 Gems), you're getting the most for your money out of them, on top of a Tier 5 skin (the highest-value ones), however the initial price in the 1,000's of gems really makes them hard sells. Even if you were to cough up your money for the most expensive Gem Pack on offer, it wouldn't cover the cost if you arrive to the event late, after most of the skins release (since they're only 33% off while unreleased, or in their biweekly initial releases).
  They're the definite low-whale option, and aren't really designed to be accessible. If you game it as a F2P, you can get 1-2 skins off of them at a cheap price, and recoup some of the cost with some of the 'premium' event rewards after. Alternatively, if you appropriately strategise throughout the course of the entire event (patiently hitting the cheapest skins / bundles etc), you can usually get much of them and the Tier 5 itself for ~5,000 gems. That's still expensive, but noticeably less costly, in exchange for missing on some of the skins you don't want.
  The value of these are very much reliant on the quality for the Tier 5 skin on offer, and either way this is where the line for your 'F2P' economy is drawn in the sand.
• The two Deal of the Day choices are what they are.
  Sometimes you'll get 3 great skins on 3 Godtoons you main, most of the time it'll be a Global Emote, a Recolour and a skin for a Godtoon you don't even own - it pulls from the pool of every single customisation option in the game bar Tier 5 skins, so it's up to you if you like what you see. Sometimes you'll get Deal of the Day tokens for promotional events too, so if you have one, just check in every day to potentially get a good skin for your main for free, with 2 bonus things on top.
  The Deal of the Weeks DANZABUROUS'S SHOP!!! are dev-selected skins that essentially just act as direct purchases for skins that are less commonly available. You can also sometimes get Deal of the Week tokens for event promotionals, so keep that in mind.
• After that, is the Direct Purchases. While obviously the most reliable (you get exactly what you want), what you pay for one skin can sometimes cover multiple Passes, and they're often absolute ripoffs (1,000+ Gems for a skin).
  Sometimes there's also bundles involved - check these out, as they often have some good ones and can come tied with other skins for a much better, more hidden deal (as of writing, the Season Digital Loot Pack Bundle comes with 4 skins at 1,050... which despite the ripoff, is still objectively better than 1 skin at 1,500). If the Vault is still a thing by the time you read this, each bundle skin with a Vault key essentially comes with a bonus skin of your choice of the 6 on offer there.
• The worst value for money are easily the chests, worse yet the ones with huge pools in the 100's.
  While some are kind enough to have a pity mechanic (burn a hole in your wallet and open 5 to tick the boxes so you get to choose the 6th skin... but you're still paying for it though), they are still ultimately random, and there's far higher chance you'll get a contextual stinker for a Godtoon you don't play. Chests are the Blue Whale option, and even if your main Godtoon gets a new skin, it's best to wait for the chest that it's in to go on sale, rather than buying it in the first patch it releases with. Regardless however, keep your eye on the store - sometimes there are great deals on small-pool chests (the 6-12 skin ones), where if you like everything inside, you can just treat it as a glorified bundle. If you've been here a while, or sold your soul to the ads, you may have passively thinned out a few chests, so there's a higher chance of getting the new stuff in it too.
  Lucky lucky however, as of Season 9, Emote and Voice Pack chests can be bought with Favor. No more needing to thin the pools to get the shit you want! If you have a huge amount of Favor at hand, and already somehow have all Emotes & Voice Packs (be it from playing for ages, or having just got a refund via the Ultimate God Pack), you can also buy all the Recolors to thin out future item pools for any freebie chests you get.

Other than all that, you may be interested in the details and nuances of the skins themselves - unique details, special effects and other such things.
Have no fear!
Once again, we've got you covered - with the only resource on the entire internet that attempts to detail most of it. Keep in mind that it's constantly added to (as skins come out), but if you want to know which skin for your main has the most going for it past the appearence, check the link below out so you don't have to spend half an hour dipping in and out of the Practice Range.

https://rentry.org/smgenskins

https://rentry.org/smgenskins

https://rentry.org/smgenskins

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Lore & Default Splash Art Galleries

For your reading pleasure, I have contained all relevant mythological contexts, history of the Pantheons, game-narrative and general map-history / game-history autism into this.... 'brief' doc.
I suggest you grab a drink before delving in - there's quite a bit of mild entertaiment to chew into. If you thought this one was long...

https://rentry.org/smgenloredoc

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Useful Links

Free Downloads

https://www.smitegame.com/download
https://store.steampowered.com/app/386360/SMITE

Winrates, Playrates and Item Winrates

https://www.smite-master.com

Datamining Sources

https://smitedatamining.com
(Low on information, but reliable for long-term referencing)
https://twitter.com/M_MRL_Paladins
(Often has more detailed stuff depending on his mood. Actually posts in the gen, but he's also an autistic, schizophrenic and gay-pedophilic ESL twitter furry who might unironically kill somebody at some point / rape their corpse. And even if he has a stalker-level obsession with the Paladins ex-Community Manager, Romanova, he's still bisexual, so your man-ass isn't safe either. And no, none of this is a joke, he's been muttering to himself for years. Just tell him to kill himself every time his links his shit in-gen, it's a /palg/ tradition that carried over into the /hrzg/ merge.) (Admittedly, he still is the best dataminer)

The Word of Thoth

A very in-depth manual on all game mechanics (much better than the in-game Glossary if you have any thoughts, but I have got most of it covered within this doc, and it's increasingly out of date.... compared to this doc. Link's mostly just here for posterity.)
www.wordofthoth.com

Overarching Guides

Extremely in-depth guides that almost fully detail the 'meta' of each role within each gamemode. They're all more inaccurate than I'd like to admit. Don't worry if you're overwhelmed (you should), don't bother if you're so new you have no idea what they're even talking about, and don't take it all at face value (as usual across every game in vidya, meta is a spook)

• Conquest:
  https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/the-overarching-conquest-guide-12069
• Arena:
  https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/the-overarching-arena-guide-11968
• Assault:
  https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/the-overarching-assault-guide-6000

Online Version of The Pantheon War (See the Loredoc for more)

https://viewcomics.me/smite-the-pantheon-war/issue-1/full

Current operational status of all Hi-Rez games

https://status.hirezstudios.com/

Incoming Bugfixes / Changes

https://trello.com/b/d4fJtBlo/smite-community-issues

Hi-Rez's streaming channel

https://twitch.tv/smitegame

List of Voice Actors

https://rentry.org/smgenloreVAs
https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/video-games/Smite

List of other Official Smite Social Media

https://youtube.com/@smitegame
https://twitter.com/smitegame
https://facebook.com/smitegame
https://instagram.com/smitegame

"How2make / contribute OC?"

Retard-proof solutions to retard-tier problems.
By extension, consider this spoonfeeding for the rest of the site / how2computarr too. Most of it is the most FOSS you can get without compromising on functionality, and if you don't understand what any of this shit means, don't worry, it's what you want anyways. That said, even as I make this as retard-proof as possible, I take no responsibility if you somehow do the improbable and manage to fuck it up. A dose of common sense probably helps too - maybe don't bother doing this on a work computer that your sysadmin is watching in real-time with a screencapture. Don't forget that your ISP knows what you jack off to.
Also, you're welcome.

• For screencapture, OBS or Shadowplay (NVidia).
  • OBS is the FOSS one, but is extremely heavyweight and takes a chunk out of your CPU. It's designed more for streaming, but will run if Shadowplay doesn't. The only real advantage it really has is that the files it produces are smaller / more optimised.

  • Shadowplay (part of le geforce experience™) takes notably less of of a toll on your computer, is more convenient to use but comes with the downside that some computers can't run it. Also if you're a /g/fag that cares, it's proprietary / not FOSS, and is probably is 100% nVidia's backdoor into your computer for the NSA / Feds past the hardware backdoors. If your GPU is with AMD instead of nVidia, their Adrenalin stuff is already on your computer as part of their drivers because the feds want to make sure you're a good citizen, and is designed to be augmented with OBS instead. It's partially open source but nowhere near free software; so it's marginally better, but not ideal.

    https://obsproject.com/download
    https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/geforce-experience

• For videos, Webm4retards, Windows MovieMaker or VEGAS (if you can torrent acquire it legitimately).

  • Webm4Retards is the simplest of them all, and gets stuff done in under a minute. It's not complex at all (hence the name), and while it fails at many things, if you just want to trim, resize and convert to webm for site posting, it's all you need. It's also the best subtitle overlay tool out there for some reason...
    >inb4 dolphin porn
    It's ~40MB; FOSS, made by an Anon and it's commonly used across the site (even found in the /wsg/ Sticky). The version linked technically isn't the most 'up to date' one, but the only changes made since this version were to the name, because GitHub pulled it for having the word "retard" in the title. Welcome to the current year, if you've not been paying attention.
    For filesizes, Encoding > Size Limit > 4MB; and Processing > Resize > (Bigger Width = Lower Quality; Smaller = Smaller) (Anywhere between 480 to 720p wide should do you) will allow you to post it on 4chan. If you want audio, either tick the box for Audio and post it to /wsg/, or split the audio and the video and use the External Sounds filename method (see below).
  • Windows MovieMaker is 'good enough' for higher effort videos and edits. The /palg/ VideoAnon uses used it, and they've clearly got a ton of use out of it, as proof that it does work if you want to invest the time into it.

  • VEGAS is extremely heavyweight and complex, but extremely powerful.
    It's also a complete ripoff if you want to purchase it legit, so what you definitely should not do is get qbittorrent (the best FOSS torrenting program), you definitely should not make sure you're on a dynamic IP or VPN, then whatever you do, do not look for a cracked torrent (ideally using the tor browser and accessing an onionsite) because it's all 100% a compromised honeypot that catches so many people that you just never hear the stories of them being locked away forever&ever. Don't do that. You definitely don't want to do that, because piracy is bad and hurts the heckin multibillion dollar corporations (and more importantly if you're a moron who does it on an exposed IP with no protection, they will actually chase you up unironically, which is why you absolutely should not acquire the torrent via an onionsite like described, then hop IP once you've downloaded it).

    https://anonfiles.com/xc72ddR3xb/webm4r_-_latest_zip (Unzip with 7zip / 7-zip.org)
    https://gitgud.io/nixx/WebMConverter

    https://www.qbittorrent.org/download
    http://piratebayo3klnzokct3wt5yyxb2vpebbuyjl7m623iaxmqhsd52coid.onion
    www.1337x.to if you don't want to bother with tor. PirateBay is shit anyways, but it's the only place with Onionsites that doesn't require invites. Leet is better overall, and is less likely to be noticed if you refuse to buy into the tor psyop. Obviously I'm trying to ensnare you in a fucking smite introductory doc btw.

• For uploading, usually Streamable
  • For Streamable, you can use a fake email to sign up ({whateverthefuckyouwant}@maildrop.com or Guerillamail = Fast + Disposable; Protonmail = Takes a bit longer, but is an actual email), and while it whines that it'll delete links after a few months if you don't cough up for Premium, it usually lasts a good while longer. Don't use the guest profile temp-uploads, they only last a day, and for lurkers in the thread, they won't see them.

  • Catbox / Alternatives if you just want to drag+drop an upload (or upload images) without having to bother with sign-ins - at the downside that they take a while forever to load on the other end.

    streamable.com/upload catbox.moe

• For downloading, yt-dl.
  You've probably heard about it, because everybody with a brain uses it, and everybody with a marketing department doesn't want you to use it. The original (yt-dl) is out of date, so we'll be using yt-dlp (yt-dl patched) because it's better in every way.
  This will be aimed at Windows users, because they're the most common. If you're on Mac, figure it out yourself, for the crime of being on Mac, if you're on Linux, you should already know how to do this anyways because you weren't bullied enough at school.

  • Go here.
  • Ignore all the nerdshit and fluff, you're only after the "correct binary file for your OS", at the very top of the page.
  • Save to Local Disk (:C) -> Users -> [User] . You could put it elsewhere, but you're going to need to make the commands below much, much longer, to point to where you put it, so don't.
  • Go to your Start Menu (Bottom Left of the screen), type "cmd" into the Search Bar. Open the only program. Looks like techno-hacker-shit (because it is) (the command-line interface command prompt of your user).
  • Copy this yt-dlp.exe -i --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0
  • Right click, paste it in.
  • Enter. Does nothing but complain a bit.
  • Copy this yt-dlp.exe -i --format mp4
  • Right click, paste it in.
  • Enter. Does nothing but complain a bit.
  • Press Up / Down on your Arrow keys, and it will auto-scroll between those two commands. First is audio, second is video. You can change the file extension to anything you want (eg webm video instead of mp4), and provided it's available, it's available. You can also do a huge amount custom commands with yt-dl; but don't bother, those two commands are the only ones you need, and gets everything in the best quality you need it to be. We paste it in and enter first, so you don't need to manually type each command or retype it every time.
  • Go to your video / audio host of choice. In this case Streamable for clips, but literally anywhere is fine. yt-dl literally stands for YouTube-DownLoad, so guess where else it works. Catbox too. Honestly, basically anywhere. Copy the url. Go Up / Down to the command you want it in (Audio / Video), Right Click, Paste, Enter.
  • Make sure there's a space between the command and the url. I'd put one in the command, so I don't need to mention this, but rentry won't let me. Obviously you're not THAT stupid, but I'm making this as retard-proof as possible. Right?
  • Give it a few seconds.
  • The file you want is now in the same place the yt-dlp.exe is (Local Disk (:C) -> Users -> [User]).
  • It should rarely complain about links if they're working and is mostly just a media page, and if you somehow manage to break it (somehow), just download it again. It can also default to download images using either of those two commands, if you can't conventionally Right-click save it (such as the thumbnails for Youtube videos). Same for playlists. It'll try to download everything in the playlist however - trim the part of the url off if you don't want that, such as if that playlist has 7,306 links in it. Exit out of the cmd to cancel it.
  • Congratulations, you now have the ability to download almost all uploaded video and audio on the internet, in the highest quality possible, for free.
  • Is this piracy? No actually, you're just making a permanent copy of the copy that the website willingly lends you with permission when you load it. If it wasn't legal, the entire internet would be illegal. Piracy is shaky but based, this is completely clean. Look it up for yourself if you don't trust me, it's been in and out of the courts more than you can count, because it makes megacorps cope and sneethe that it's all free.
  • ...and SMITE!!!
• For images, anything from Photoshop, to GIMP, to paint.net.
  • paint.net is not FOSS, not opensauce but is free to use, extremely easy to use and 'good enough'.
    Lacks comfort features like custom brushes or persistant text boxes. If you hate mspaint, but hate programs that are too complex, this is the best program out there. Gets you your transparent layers, a few extra rendering + editing options, a colour picker and custom filetype saving, and is fast + isn't too heavy on your memory (but struggles with larger canvases). While it encourages people to make their own shit to patch up areas it's lacking in, nobody has bothered yet - so while custom brushes might be a thing one day, that day is not the day of writing.
  • GIMP is full FOSS, extremely powerful but takes a solid while to learn.
    It's unintuitive and clunky, but the most powerful and lightweight of the three, while having the most going for it in terms of customisation.

  • Photoshop has the most going for it, but is closed-source.
    Much like with VEGAS, you definitely should not disobey your corporate overlords, and definitely should not look for it in the same places with the same method you were specifically told not to use.

    https://www.getpaint.net/index.html / https://www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn.html
    https://www.gimp.org / https://www.gimp.org/downloads

• For sound-file functionality, you'll need the Exernal Sounds script, and to get that to run, you'll need a Script manager (one of the three Monkeys). You have the 'choice' between Greasemonkey, Tampermonkey or Violentmonkey. I put 'choice' in quote marks because there is no choice, Violentmonkey is the best in every single way. Use that one.
  Scripts are sound far more scary than they actually are, all they do is allow you to essentially download 'site upgrades', like mini-extentsions for individual websites. It's 100% safe, in so much as you trust the word of a completely trustworthy Anon on the internet who is telling you they're safe.

  https://sleazyfork.org/en/scripts/31045-4chan-external-sounds
  https://violentmonkey.github.io

  On the topic of scripts, it's my *personal*, *subjective* advice to stay the fuck away from 4chanX.
  It has a hidden cookie that it phones home with an unspecified, non-FOSS server to log and identify IP addresses (for the psudeo-thread-profile function, that you can't opt out of even if you 'turn off'), that the co-opted, now-tranny, leddit-using devteam constantly deny the existence of for no reason. And that's on top of it logging which posts you view, and saving that too (which you can opt-out of, but is active by default). In short, it glows, hard. Hiroshima running 4chan is bad enough, but at least he doesn't try to hide the fact he just wants to fuck you over with ads. That, and uBlock Origin plus an appropriately set up uMatrix completely walls off Jewroyuki's sneaky bullshit.
  and, >inb4, yes 4chanX is indeed FOSS, but that in it's own right doesn't mean it's legit. FOSS just means you can inspect it for sneaky bullshit and fix it on your own terms. After being inspected for sneaky bullshit, the existence of sneaky bullshit does indeed exist in 4chanX, and the project itself has become such convluted bloatware that modding it out within a new fork is unreasonable for the average user. Unless you want to debug and fork it yourself?
  Even if this is all schizobabble to you, where there's smoke, there's fire. Just stick to a script manager - it's much safer, lightweight and customisable.