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An In-Depth Discussion On God & Item Choices (SMITE 2, Open Beta 2)

2 0 690
by Branmuffin17 updated February 3, 2025

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Introduction

Recent updates:

2025/2/3: Guide created. Guide is current as of Open Beta 2.

Revision History





Hello everyone! My name is Branmuffin17, and I'm a SMITEFire admin and casual SMITE 2 player on PC. Welcome to my SMITE 2 Items guide, which discusses the merits and of (most) individual items. It also covers other aspects of choosing items, including builds and build progression, appropriate itemization for god types and roles, and concepts such as mechanics of damage mitigation and how penetration / protection reduction works.

The format of this guide, compared to my SMITE 1 version, focuses more on general item types, grouped by offensive, hybrid, defensive, and counter items, with subcategories based on different functions/features. This is a work in progress, and I will be adding chapters slowly.

Also, with SMITE 2's avoidance of categorizing gods as Assassins/Guardians/Hunters/Mages/Warriors, I am generalizing a variety of things. Gods can be played in multiple roles and aspects come into play, but let me know if I'm forgetting something or need to move gods around.

Feedback, corrections, additions, and anything else that will improve the content of this guide are appreciated. With that said, let's get into it.

Categorization on Gods / Roles


A note on god classes: SMITE 1 categorized all gods into one of 5 classes: Assassins, Guardians, Hunters, Mages, and Warriors. It served as an indication of the type of role they would best serve, with Guardians and Warriors generally being better built as tanks with lots of health and protections, while the other 3 roles typically built with a damage focus. Guardians and Mages dealt magical damage, while Assassins, Hunters and Warriors dealt physical damage.

SMITE 2 has done away with the class system, though it has retained the damage type the god deals (at least for historical gods from SMITE 1). For now, the following groupings are here to provide you with some general ideas of best function in different game modes, and you can base your item choices accordingly. (That said, if you want to play any god in any role, more power to you!)


DAMAGE TYPES


You may see that a god's damaging ability scaling may be strength-based (e.g. Hercules), intelligence-based (e.g. Kukulkan), or may have abilities that scale from both stats (e.g. Medusa). However, note that whether they scale via strength and/or intelligence, each god will deal only one damage type, regardless of the type of scaling.

For those familiar with SMITE 1, they'll automatically identify most of the gods present in SMITE 2. For those unfamiliar, the lists below should help.


Gods That Deal Magical Damage:

Aladdin
Hecate


Gods That Deal Physical Damage:

Hua Mulan
Mordred


ROLES


The gods listed in each category below are generally suggested for those roles. This does not mean that other gods cannot work when they're not listed. This categorization and listing is for general reference only.


Carry (ADC):
  • Offense or Defense Focus: Offense
  • Conquest Lane: Duo Lane
  • Non-Conquest Role: Damage-Dealer
  • Strength of the Role: Basic Attack Damage Per Second, Structure Damage
  • Typical Stat Focus: Strength and/or Intelligence, Attack Speed, Critical Chance, Penetration
These gods typically aim to deal their main damage through their basic attacks. Building strength and/or intellect (mostly strength for basic attack scaling), attack speed and penetration allows them to deal consistent and high damage to enemy tanks, objectives and structures.



Jungler:
  • Offense or Defense Focus: Offense
  • Conquest Lane: Jungle
  • Non-Conquest Role: Damage-Dealer
  • Strength of the Role: Burst Damage, Mobility
  • Typical Stat Focus: Strength and/or Intelligence, Cooldown Rate, Movement Speed, Penetration
These gods often look to utilize mobility to surprise enemies and burst down unsuspecting enemies quickly. They typically want to focus on the enemy backline / damage-dealers, and then extract quickly to avoid getting killed in turn.

Aladdin
Mordred

Mid-Lane:
  • Offense or Defense Focus: Offense
  • Conquest Lane: Mid Lane
  • Non-Conquest Role: Damage-Dealer
  • Strength of the Role: Burst Damage
  • Typical Stat Focus: Strength and/or Intelligence, Mana, Cooldown Rate, Penetration
These gods typically put their primary focus on high damage through their abilities. Through good scaling, they look to maximize damage through high strength and/or intellect (usually intellect-scaling), with Cooldown Rate allowing them to use their abilities more often.

Hecate


Solo:
  • Offense or Defense Focus: Defense
  • Conquest Lane: Solo
  • Non-Conquest Role: Tank
  • Strength of the Role: Crowd Control, Tanky
  • Typical Stat Focus: Protections, Health, Cooldown Rate
These gods are often able to fight well 1v1. They often have some added mobility to allow them to pressure the enemy backline / damage-dealers, while being tanky enough to survive a decent amount of damage.

Hua Mulan
Mordred

*Note*
  • Ra is seeing success in the Solo lane when using his Aspect of Thermotherapy.

Support:
  • Offense or Defense Focus: Defense
  • Conquest Lane: Duo Lane
  • Non-Conquest Role: Tank
  • Strength of the Role: Crowd Control, Tanky
  • Typical Stat Focus: Protections, Health, Cooldown Rate
These gods are intended to do what the name says...support their teammates. They do this by being able to tank damage, provide CC to lock down enemies or peel for teammates, and by choosing items that provide team utility (e.g. movement speed, CC cleansing, etc.).


*Notes*
  • Ra should use his Aspect of Thermotherapy.
  • Vulcan should use his Aspect of Fortification.

Build Progression Basics for Roles

God / Role Considerations


Theorycrafting and the art of optimizing builds has always been at the forefront of high-level play. Individual skill level and teamwork can make or break a team, but item choices have a huge effect as well.

The process of choosing the best items for a given situation incorporates recognition of several things, including but not limited to:


God Kit: What skills does the god have? Do they include high burst damage, or do they provide a lot of crowd control (CC)? Does the god have strong basic attack function, or do they rely on abilities for their damage?
  • Jing Wei has ranged basic attacks and her kit provides buffs to her attack speed and critical chance...she should focus on items that support her basic attacks through strength, attack speed, critical chance and penetration. Sobek has 2 abilities that displace enemies, and another ability that reduces enemy healing, so his strength is crowd control, and cooldown reduction (CDR) items work well for him to use those abilities often.

Damage Types & Scaling: Does the god have single-hit skills, or can their abilities hit multiple times in succession (either tick or DoT damage)? What is the scaling type of said abilities (+ X% of your strength and/or intelligence)? The higher the scaling is, the more that the stat will increase the damage potential.
  • Single-hit abilities benefit more from non-stacking penetration items, such as Obsidian Shard and Titan's Bane. Basic attackers will often build stacking penetration items provided by items such as Demonic Grip (intelligence-based) and The Executioner (strength-based).

  • Do the god's skills have high base damage and low scaling, or low base damage and high scaling? High scaling strongly benefits from higher power (e.g. Anubis's Plague of Locusts has 264% scaling at max rank (if all 12 hits land) and often indicates that they're meant to be built for damage. Inversely, low scaling (e.g. Geb's Shock Wave has 50% scaling) is a hint that they should be focusing less on damage and more on tanking or utility. Or, you can potentially get more damage out of the ability by using it more (increasing cooldown rate).

Game Mode: Are you playing Conquest and expect to find yourself alone or with only one other teammate for a good portion of the match? Are you playing Duel, where it's just you and an enemy? Or are you playing Arena, where it's a constant teamfight?
  • In Conquest, certain starter items (which were designed specifically for early laning in Conquest) are almost always suggested, as they provide important stats to help you stay out longer or win exchanges. Stacking items such as Devourer's Gauntlet and Book of Thoth are also more helpful and easy to stack during laning, compared to some teamfight modes.

  • In Duel, you only have to worry about one god, so counter-building is a key component of an effective build. Build some magical protections against a magical damage dealer even if you're an offensive god, and sustain items with lifesteal or health restore to stay alive longer.

  • In teamfight modes, some items can have effects on multiple gods at once, and threat of damage from multiple enemies at any time can mean protections can have a more significant effect. In Conquest, Jungle starters like Bumba's Cudgel are important for clearing camps quickly, but in Arena, you won't need that effect and will be better served with something like Bluestone Pendant.

Team Compositions: Once you're familiar with the gods, you can easily recognize if an enemy team is likely to be tanky, squishy, or if there's an imbalance (e.g. 4 magical-damage gods and only 1 physical-damage god). It's a bit easier in Conquest since roles are assigned, but for teamfight modes, it will also have an effect on which god you choose (depending on teammates choices, role calling, etc.).
  • If you're a tank, and you see the enemy team has 4 physical gods, you should obviously focus much more on physical protection than magical. If you see that multiple gods on your team are basic-attack oriented, choosing Shogun's Ofuda will help enhance their damage output.

Item Costs: What is the gold cost of the item? Especially in longer game modes with slower gold accumulation (such as Conquest), choosing a high cost item early in the game can mean that you're still working to complete it while the enemy already has completed their lower-cost item of choice, giving them a significant statistical advantage at least until you're able to finish your item.
  • Building appropriate lower-cost items early in a match can lay the foundation of needed stats to enhance the effects of higher-cost items later in a match. Building enough cheaper items that provide a preferred function (e.g. Jotunn's Revenge provides decent strength and high CD rate for 2,450 gold) earlier allows you to gain quicker access to the full stats, instead of choosing to buy a high cost item like Avatar's Parashu (3,700 gold) whose active also scales off of existing strength, meaning it's going to have higher effect when you've built more strength items.

  • This doesn't mean that higher-cost items cannot ever be built early without good effect. In cases where you're able to get significantly ahead in farm (due to pressure, kills, securing the Gold Fury, etc.), it can give you enough gold difference to get an expensive item earlier. Items like Doom Orb (2,850 gold) can give you very functional early effect (high intelligence, movement speed for safety and quicker rotations) that balances the cost.

Personal Playstyle: As quoted by Krett: “The core of every build in every game that has a build – even an MMO like World of Warcraft – is the methodology,” explains Krett. “What are you doing and how does your build help you do it?” In other words, how do you play, and how can you tailor a build to best suit your playstyle?
  • Aggressive Playstyle: Do you find yourself overextending a lot? Are you able to easily get kills, but then have problems getting out alive? Of course, the optimal solution is to train yourself to recognize optimal situations where you can attack, with a high probability of survival, by watching enemy ability use (making sure their CC abilities or ults are down), gaining better awareness of surroundings and teammate proximity to help, etc. However, as an example, one build style you might consider is to build some protection instead of going full glass cannon, or get some additional movespeed to help you escape.

  • Having to back constantly due to low health, mana, or both: Do you take too much damage, too often, in comparison to enemies? Do you constantly find that you quickly run out of mana? For health, choosing items with additional health or protections can help you stay out longer, but you might also consider items providing lifesteal or health regen early in a build. For mana, consider 2 options: 1) learn to choose the best times to use abilities, rather than just spamming them when they're available, or 2) building items providing additional mana or mana regen.

  • Consider God Choice: If you have an aggressive playstyle, it's probably better for you to choose Bacchus or Sobek over Khepri in a tank role. If you're much more comfortable hanging back and poking or protecting from distance, you might find more enjoyment playing Hecate over Hades, or Geb instead of Ymir. Learn the strengths of each god, and consider honing your skills with those gods that fit your personal preference.

Build Progression (Tank, Bruiser, Glass Cannon)


The following is a brief and general breakdown of standard build progression with itemization examples based on build type (tank, bruiser, full damage).


Tanks

Summary: Tanks choose items that provide protections and health, with the intent of soaking up a lot of damage and being a major distraction to the enemy team. Historical SMITE 1 Guardians and Warriors such as Khepri and Odin are most often built tanky, though examples of gods not originally from those classes that can act as a tank include gods like Baron Samedi, Fenrir, and Ra.

General Role: Full tanks are usually built in the Support role in Conquest, though the Solo lane may also build similarly. They have great tank function in all other modes to help soak damage, disrupt enemies, and protect teammates.

Build progression: Starter items are built first, and protection / health / CDR items are typically built after that. Later in a build, expect to see more situational utility and counter items to fit the needs of the match. You (almost) never see full offensive items being built. Here is an example:

Tank Build Progression
  1. Starter Item
  2. Protection and/or CDR item
  3. Protection and/or CDR item
  4. Protection and/or CDR item
  5. Situational / counter item
  6. Situational / counter item
  7. Situational / counter item
Tank Build Example
  1. Selflessness -> Heroism
  2. Prophetic Cloak
  3. Talisman Of Purification
  4. Stampede
  5. Screeching Gargoyle
  6. Ruinous Ankh
  7. Spirit Robe
The build case above is great for a classic tank / support that is looking to stay close to teammates and react to enemies by countering them with CC abilities. All items are providing protections, with CDR in 3 of the top 4 non-starter items. There's a lot of utility from actives in Talisman, Stampede and Gargoyle, a counter item in Ankh, and good mitigations from Spirit. Utility/Counter items become more important as the match goes on.

Common Starter Items:

General Defensive Items w/ no Actives:

Items w/ Offensive Function:

Common Counter / Utility Items:

Protection / Utility Options w/ Actives::

Bruisers

Summary: Bruiser builds and playstyles may combine offensive and defensive stats in their item choices, often to help counter specific enemies while retaining a good amount of damage potential. Gods with abilities providing high base damage can build mostly protections and still be a strong offensive threat. Matches in the duel mode often build both defense and offense to specifically counter the one enemy they're facing.

General Role: Conquest Solo-laners, as well as select Junglers may often build as Bruisers. In other modes, almost any god can go Bruiser, depending on the situation. Just understand that you're getting some damage and some protections without being particularly strong in either.

Examples of Gods Sometimes Built As Bruisers:
Build progression: Starter items are built first. What follows depends on the god, build preference, and mode. In the Conquest Solo-Lane, you'll usually get an item that counters your lane enemy 1st and/or 2nd. Here is an example:

Bruiser Build Progression
  1. Starter Item
  2. Damage or Protection item (highest threat)
  3. Damage or Protection item
  4. Situational / counter item
  5. Situational / counter item
  6. Situational / counter item
  7. Situational / counter item
Warrior Solo Build Example
  1. Bluestone Pendant -> Bluestone Brooch
  2. Gladiator's Shield
  3. Screeching Gargoyle
  4. Shield of the Phoenix
  5. Phoenix Feather
  6. Ruinous Ankh
  7. Circe's Hexstone
The above build may look somewhat similar to the tank build example, with exceptions. The starter has an offensive focus, Gladiator's Shield has early bonus damage function, and Shield of the Phoenix provides some health sustain. Phoenix Feather is a selfish item that helps keep you alive as you dive and disrupt the backline.

Common Bruiser Starter Items:

General Defensive Items w/ no Actives::

Items w/ Offensive Function:

Common Counter / Utility Items:

Protection / Utility Options w/ Actives::

Full Damage (Glass Cannon)



Summary: Full damage (AKA glass cannon) builds focus on maximizing damage (at the cost of survivability) via stats like strength, intelligence, penetration, lifesteal, attack speed, and CDR. "The best defense is a good offense" is a perfect motto for them. They may occasionally build one item with some protection function, but generally want as much damage as they can get.

General Role: Gods that choose full damage are commonly used in the following Conquest roles: ADC (Carry), Jungler, and Mid-Laner. Any god in non-Conquest modes can choose to build full damage, but some are obviously better choices than others.

Build progression: Starter items are built first. Depending on the god, all following items look to increase their strength/intelligence, penetration, CDR, attack speed, critical chance...things that increase their damage output.

Carry Build Progression
  1. Starter Item
  2. Damage and / or Utility
  3. Damage and / or Utility
  4. Damage and / or Utility
  5. Damage and / or Utility
  6. Damage and / or Utility
  7. Damage and / or Utility
Carry Str+Int-Scaling Build Example
  1. Leather Cowl -> Hunter's Cowl
  2. Devourer's Gauntlet
  3. Bragi's Harp
  4. The Executioner
  5. Qin's Blade
  6. Titan's Bane
  7. Sun Beam Bow
Mid-Lane Int-Scaling Build Progression
  1. Starter Item
  2. Damage and / or Utility
  3. Damage and / or Utility
  4. Damage and / or Utility
  5. Damage and / or Utility
  6. Damage and / or Utility
  7. Damage and / or Utility
Mid-Lane Int-Scaling Build Example
  1. Conduit Gem -> Archmage's Gem
  2. Book of Thoth
  3. Soul Gem
  4. Gem of Focus
  5. Obsidian Shard
  6. Divine Ruin
  7. Rod of Tahuti

Common Starter Items:
[*]Basic Attack Focus: Death's Toll, Gilded Arrow, Leather Cowl

Common Damage Items:

Utility / Survival Items:

Starter Items



Starter items are effective low-cost items intended to support the early stages of a match, and in SMITE 2, they have their own dedicated item slot, so you're not sacrificing the rest of your build by picking one up! While the base starters are quickly outclassed by standard Tier 3 items, they can be upgraded later in the game (level 15 for Support starters, level 20 for all others).

There are (mostly) 2 starter items intended for each of the 5 roles (Carry, Support, Jungler, Mid-Lane, Solo-Lane). However, ALL gods can consider any of the starters, so you can tailor your start to the needs you have and the role you're playing.

This section is organized by Starter items intended mainly for the 5 Conquest roles. Note that some starters categorized in one role can still be useful in others. For example, Death's Toll is a functional pickup for basic-attacking gods in the Solo lane. (Based mainly on balance issues and the current Conquest map, Bumba's starters are being picked up in a variety of roles. This is likely to change with upcoming balance adjustments!)


ADC (Carry) / Basic Attack Starters

ADC (Carry) Starters


Jungler Starters

Bumba's Golden Dagger
Bumba's Cudgel
Jungler Starter Items


Mid-Lane / Intellect Starters

Mid-Lane / Intellect Starters


Solo Starters

Solo / Strength Starters


Support Starters

Selflessness

Support Starters

Damage Items



Coming soon

Hybrid Items



Coming soon

Defensive Items



Coming soon

Conclusion



Let me know if you think I've missed a major topic, provided some incorrect information, or anything else that comes to mind. Hope this helps your understanding of the various items in SMITE 2!


Brandon / PC IGN: Branmuffin17

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An In-Depth Discussion On God & Item Choices (SMITE 2, Open Beta 2)
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Categorization on Gods / Roles
Build Progression Basics for Roles
Starter Items
Damage Items
Hybrid Items
Defensive Items
Conclusion

SmiteFire & Smite

Smite is an online battleground between mythical gods. Players choose from a selection of gods, join session-based arena combat and use custom powers and team tactics against other players and minions. Smite is inspired by Defense of the Ancients (DotA) but instead of being above the action, the third-person camera brings you right into the combat. And, instead of clicking a map, you use WASD to move, dodge, and fight your way through the detailed graphics of SMITE's battlegrounds.

Smite 2 Gods

Achilles Agni Aladdin Amaterasu Anhur Anubis Aphrodite Ares Athena Bacchus Baron Samedi Bellona Cabrakan Cernunnos Chaac Cupid Danzaburou Fenrir Geb Hades Hecate Hercules Hua Mulan Hun Batz Izanami Jing Wei Khepri Kukulkan Loki Medusa Mordred Neith Nemesis Nu Wa Odin Pele Poseidon Ra Rama Sobek Sol Susano Thanatos The Morrigan Thor Ullr Vulcan Yemoja Ymir Zeus
View All Gods

Smite 1 Gods

Arachne Awilix Bakasura Bastet Camazotz Cliodhna Da Ji Fenrir Kali Lancelot Loki Mercury Ne Zha Nemesis Pele Ratatoskr Ravana Serqet Set Susano Thanatos Thor Tsukuyomi
Ares Artio Athena Atlas Bacchus Bake Kujira Cabrakan Cerberus Charon Cthulhu Fafnir Ganesha Geb Jormungandr Khepri Kumbhakarna Kuzenbo Maui Sobek Sylvanus Terra Xing Tian Yemoja Ymir
Ah Muzen Cab Anhur Apollo Artemis Cernunnos Charybdis Chernobog Chiron Cupid Danzaburou Hachiman Heimdallr Hou Yi Ishtar Izanami Jing Wei Martichoras Medusa Neith Nut Rama Skadi Ullr Xbalanque
Achilles Amaterasu Bellona Chaac Cu Chulainn Erlang Shen Gilgamesh Guan Yu Hercules Horus King Arthur Mulan Nike Odin Osiris Shiva Sun Wukong Surtr Tyr Vamana
Agni Ah Puch Anubis Ao Kuang Aphrodite Baba Yaga Baron Samedi Chang'e Chronos Discordia Eset Freya Hades He Bo Hel Hera Ix Chel Janus Kukulkan Maman Brigitte Merlin Morgan Le Fay Nox Nu Wa Olorun Persephone Poseidon Ra Raijin Scylla Sol The Morrigan Thoth Tiamat Vulcan Yu Huang Zeus Zhong Kui
View All Gods

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