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Hello, and welcome to my reformed Guide of basic mistakes. This guide is about fairly basic mistakes that are often made by beginners, but may also be made by veterans as well. Hopefully, this guide will help you to quickly recognize these situations and improve your overall level of play.
Some notes:
Changelog after 1.5Changelog till 1.5Let's start at where the game starts for most game modes: God selection. Depending on the game mode you either have a pick and ban phase (draft pick, most commonly seen in ranked) or only a pick phase (except for assault and several GotD modes that uses random pick). I will start with the system that uses both as this system also includes the pick system (only slightly different).
For people that don't know the draft system, Smite uses an 8 ban draft system.
So let's continue with something early in the game: the start of a game.
A lot of people that decide to start building items themselves (which can be pretty hard if you have no idea what you're doing or what items do) can sometimes make mistakes while buying your first items from your 1500 starting gold. It can be multiple things ranging from not buying a starter item to forgetting Hp or mana pots (assuming they have the Gold for it).
It's very important to have sustain in lane
If you need to return early because you ran out of HP or in some cases mana it's bad. Mostly because you will miss Exp and gold and the opponent can do some early damage to your tower.
Overall needing to recall early can hurt you and your team a lot.
Depending on how you are going to build you want to just stay in lane as long as possible in most cases (depending if you take a stacking item because an adc should back after clearing the wave when he can get his 
Devourer's Gauntlet or 
Transcendence so he can begin stacking).
This may sound weird but some people think the best way of regening is getting killed. However I can assure you it's not: If you die you are dead for at least 5 seconds (on lvl 1) this is the same time as a recall. However normally the death timer will be higher when you first die, because you normally don't die on lvl 1. Normally when you are out of regen or need to go and back you are ~lvl 3 then your dead timer is already ~10 seconds. In that time you can easily recall and heal up in base.
And to top it off you are also giving a lot of free gold and exp to your opponent
Normally you sustain yourself in lane with the help of consumables (
Healing Potion, 
Mana Potion and 
Multi Potion) and a Starter item (however not all of them provide sustain the main sustain starter items are 
Vampiric Shroud,death toll and 
Bumba's Mask.
Consumables may be seen as a waste of money as once you use them they are gone, but in the early (and even mid game) they can easily help you stay in lane longer as a Healing Potion can provide you with almost 50% hp in the early lvls for most squishy characters.
It's more common that players start with a starter items in conquest. However sometimes you will still see people that start building a full item instead (So instead of taking a starter and a T1 item or they go for a T2 of an item). they do this because you will be selling the starter anyway so you are wasting some money. However if we go and compare a build with a starter item and one without we will notice that in most cases a starter item results in a better start (especially if you are jungling)
exampleSomething most people also buy during the start of the game are consumables. Most people only buy them at the start of the game. However most consumables stay relevant to buy during the game, because of different uses.
Healing Potions or Mana Potions are able to restore health and/or mana during or after a small skirmish (the act of using a potion just before or during a skirmish is called this pre-potting this tactic makes your health pool bigger then the max).
Wards always stay relevant because of the strength vision gives in the game. The vision gives you more awareness of enemy movement making you able to react earlier or better.
However the reason for this chapter was the potion of physical might (red pot), 
Potion of Magical Might (blue pot), 
Elixir of Power (red elixir) and 
Elixir of Defense.
These consumables can sometimes be pretty useful mid game (mostly red and blue pot elixirs are to expensive). But when do I buy them?
Well the elixirs shouldn't be bought till you are full build as they delay your build to much. However power pots can be bought at almost moment in the game. However when is the best way to buy and use them?
Well in mid and late game you could better save them until a teamfight and pop them right before the start. During laning phase using them just before a skirmish against your opponent. In both cases this should only be used when it will give a much needed edge against you opponent. However buying a red or blue pot somewhere in mid game is a risky tactic as just letting it run it's time or getting killed will cost you 400 gold (you do want to have at least a kill or some assists so it pays back). In most cases it's better to just save up for core items.
Note: This can be one of my more confusing chapters (for smite at least) because most regen items provide (a bit of) pool (
Stone of Gaia) and most pool items do provide (a bit of) regen (
Book of Thoth). However there are some exceptions on this rule (warlock's sash). (and in most cases the regen or pool is just an addition to the stats you bought the item for).
Let's continue with something you kinda need to keep track of all game: Your health and mana pool vs regen.
Normally pool is better than regen as it has a bigger impact on surviving during the game. After all when your HP pool reaches zero your god dies. You may have a regen of 50 Hp5 but because most of the damage in smite is considered burst damage (abilities and crits) it won't help you as much in a gank or fight as 300 more hit points. This is because you won't have the time to regen that amount of HP in the time you are getting killed (the fight needs to last at least 30 sec).
This doesn't mean regen isn't important but regen is more useful for after a fight so you can stay in lane instead of backing. Another thing you can compare here is lifesteal vs Stone of Gaia. Lifesteal is in most fights better than having the regen from Stone of Gaia if you can provide enough damage for it (as low damage won't heal you as effectively as high damage).
Book of Thoth or Transcendence) if you still struggle with mana in the late game. Partly the early game is about mana preservation.
Purification Beads because of the amount of hard CC this game has.
Blink Rune is used different then 
Aegis Amulet. Blink Rune is a relic used for initiation while amulet can help you survive. Blink Rune or 
Horrific Emblem (etc.) are best used at the initiation of a fight (e.g. Blink Rune on 
Ares), but can also be used to chase a target (e.g. Horrific Emblem. Purification Beads or [aegis amulet]]. Purification Beads is when you know you can get out alive if you remove the CC and would be dead if you don't remove it. Sometimes it's hard to know this, but after a while you will get better at knowing if using beads is useful or worthless.
So first of I'm going to post this link to Zilby's full guide on the subject.
I have noticed from game experience and looking at newly released guides here that a lot of players forget to include certain stats in their item build.
the most common stats to see in every item build are:
-power
-protections
-movement speed
-HP and mana
-CDR (in mage/assassin builds only)
things a lot of builds miss are:
-penetration (being a really important stat)
-attack speed (not as important on certain builds but this is a stat I don't see in builds that do need it).
-lifesteal (not the most important stat but some roles it's pretty important
So just to help people out a bit in building I will post small which stats a certain class needs (for more info on building I recommend to take a look at the posted item build guide at the top of this chapter)
ADC:guardians/supports:mages/mid:jungler:warriors/solo: Healing Potions (or even when you are an adc a Ward) even if you have lifesteal a Healing Potion can help you win/survive a fight and you can easily get the gold back by getting 2-3 last hits (or just that 1 kill you could get because of the pot)
Rod of Tahuti on a mage or 
Deathbringer on a carry. If you get these items as 2nd or first you won't benefit as much from it as when you would buy them as 5th or last item. Deathbringer (or rushing any crit item in the first place on an adc) is because they lack the damage. If you play 
Artemis you will notice that when you crit from her passive it won't make much of a difference in early game. So you can better invest in more damage items and attack speed items first (or for Rod of Tahuti gain more power as the passive is worthless early game). Deathbringer and 
Rage. For some gods that use this combo it can be better to spend your gold on the Rage instead of saving up for the Deathbringer while other gods can better get Deathbringer first. Rage before Deathbringer as it will slightly improve there DPS (because of a higher crit chance there dps can be higher with 2-3 damage a sec). while Artemis can better get the Deathbringer first because with help of her passive (
Still Target) increasing the DPS of Deathbringer- Rage over the DPS of Rage- Deathbringer
This can be one of my more confusing chapters (for smite at least) because most regen items provide (a bit of) pool ( Stone of Gaia) and most pool items do provide (a bit of) regen ( Book of Thoth). However there are some exceptions on this rule (warlock's sash. (and in most cases the regen or pool is just an addition to the stats you bought the item for). After that I will continue about Damage VS Survivability
Let's start about the part of pool vs regen.
Normally pool is better than regen as it has a bigger impact on surviving. You may have a regen of 50 Hp5 but because most of the damage in smite is burst damage (abilities and crits) it won't help you as much in a gank or fight as 300 more hit points. this is because you won't have the time to regen the amount of HP in the time you are getting killed.
This doesn't mean regen isn't important but regen is more for after a fight so you can stay in lane instead of backing. Another thing you can compare here is lifesteal vs Stone of Gaia. Lifesteal is in most fights better than having the regen from Stone of Gaia if you can provide enough damage for it (as low damage won't heal you as effectively as high damage).
Well another big mistake we are going to talk about are the resources in the game: Gold and Exp.
- The big mistake a lot of new players make is the importance of Exp in the game.
Gold may be the more visible currency as you need it to buy items that will help you win the game, but Exp is as important as gold and for certain roles even more important.
Normally you notice that you get Exp when you lvl up (or if you killed a minion you see a small indicator telling you +x Exp and next to it + x Gold).
Some players don't understand that a lvl difference can make them lose or win a fight. A small lvl difference ranging from 1-2 lvls normally (the biggest exception here is around the first ult point) doesn't make that much of a difference but a bigger lvl difference can easily give an edge to one of the players because they will have more stats and more lvls in their ability meaning they will do more damage and are harder to kill.
Newer player normally find this harder to manage and you can see this pretty well when they are jungling or supporting.
One of the reasons a support rotates is not only to help another lane but also to give the adc a better Exp income. There is a jungler because this way the solo laner gains more Exp and the resources from the jungle camps won't be "lost" (still junglers should find a balance of ganking and farming or staying in a lane).
- Another thing about resources is the point of denying them to the enemy.
A lot of newer player are more focussed on how am I doing (how is my lvl, items etc.). When they get better they notice that sometimes let other players from the team get some last hits too. Because A support having some aura items can be pretty useful. (If you are pushing a lane while you already have full items you should try to let other team mates that are helping you push get those last hits on the minions if they aren't full build yet)
However a much bigger step is to realise the enemy also needs them and are a bigger decisive factor. So denying them resources can mean a lot this is mostly done by zoning, counter jungling, pushing enemies out of the lane or if we only look at Gold by letting the minions get hit by the tower.
Well first of jungling isn't an easy role (just like support). A small mistake can get you behind. and every game it plays differently.
So first of I will start with when to gank. This really depends on the game and god you are playing. several gods have better ganks early and other better ganks later into a game.
big mistakes when people decide to gank (or in some cases need a gank. Yeah laners this is also a bit for you) is when a gank isn't possible and it's better to farm your jungle or invade/counterjungle their jungle.
before I can say when to gank I'm going to quickly cover the sort of ganks:
-a standard gank is coming from behind by using the shortest route.
-a loop/long gank is also coming from behind but this time by using a longer way (more commonly when you want to catch an fleeing enemy)
-a counter gank is ganking a lane that is getting ganked by the enemy.
-a direct gank is coming from the front this will normally cost you a gap closer
-a blink gank is using blink to cross a wall to gank you opponent
-an ambush gank is hard to pull of but this is making use of a corner and when an enemy walks past it you grab them
-lastly the global gank something that's possible for people like 
Athena, apollo] and [[thor that have a global/ partially global ult/ablitiy.
(-in LoL you also got a sidebrush gank here you use the brush thingies)
well some gank types are for in the jungle and others are for lane ganks.
the mistake of when to gank for most of them is when a lane is to pushed to the enemies tower. if you gank them they can get into the safety of their tower faster making it more risky to kill them. the only possible gank in this case is a counter gank.
the best way to gank is by the standard gank or loop/long in most cases. as in smite they can't look behind them unless they turn around so they won't see you coming. (this makes ganking a enemy pushed to their tower harder to gank)
So now some misconceptions about ganking. A lot of people only see a gank as successful if there is a kill during the gank. However a gank is in a lot more ways successful.
you can consider a gank successful if:
-there is a kill on your side
-you force the enemy to back
-get an active
-and the most common one and hard to see: switch lane dominance
this last point is also the reason why you gank. you can look at which lane has the best dominance by looking at health bars and at amount of gold.
that's mostly it for ganking. so now a small part about when you can't gank or counter gank. sometimes it happens that you are in your left jungle while right lane gets ganked. Something you could do then is gank left lane if possible. Or the subject I want to move to counter jungling.
you now know that the jungler isn't near his left jungle so you can take some camps (preferably buffs). this will end in an Exp and gold loss and maybe even a buff loss. this can put another jungle behind.
if you are getting counterjungled you should ward you own jungle and see if you can catch the enemy jungler. or if you don't have that time (counter-)counterjungle him. this way you won't lose as much as you otherwise would have.
This is something you see a lot of newer players not worrying about as they are focussed on getting kills. However objectives are way better most of the time as they progress you to winning the game. yes you take them down faster in late game but the gold they reward has also become less (mostly for the buildings).
a lot of games are lost because people don't focus them enough. if you have taken down some members of the enemy team and you then just proceed to farm instead of try and take a t1 tower. This will lower there map control and reward your whole team with gold. Or go and get the fire giant which gives a buff that will help you push and in team fights.
Also don't be afraid to trade buildings in certain situations. If you are getting a t2 tower and the enemy team a t1 tower the trade is in your favour (as a t2 tower gives more gold and exp than a t1 tower).
formula (from the word of thoth) Wards win games statement here, but if you can contest a gold fury or a fire giant you should always try. The thing here is when can you contest one of them?
Wrath of the Gods isn't used a lot) which didn't waste your ult. If you miss it may feel like you wasted your ult but at least the team can't blame you for not trying. If you are going to steal make sure the enemy doesn't know you are there unless you need to get into mellee (I still recommend mages with an ult that goes through a wall or over it. Also should you die with a successful don't worry to much as 1 death isn't that bad if you gave the fire giant buff or the gold from fury to your team instead of the other team.So yeah there is a surrender option in Smite. It's a nice option to have to get to the next game quicker. However it's also a big pitfall for certain players. This has also to do with morale.
Sometimes you see players who say surrender at 10 (Smite should up this number as after 10 min you can't say if you are done for already) as they find the match lost because they lost there lane or someone else did. However a lot of times the game isn't lost already at that point.
There is a reason why you see pro people or a lot of high ranked players only surrender after certain events far in the late game (mostly team wipes. Damn in Dota the surrender will only be put out if they get teamwiped in base. even if they need to fight against mega creeps (barracks which are the same as phoenixes don't respawn en spawn super creeps (double hp and damage of normal) if they get destroyed and mega if all barracks are gone (double the Hp and damage of supers or 4x of normals)) while most players already found the game lost after the first baracks have fallen).
It is because as long as they aren't killing the titan game isn't lost yet. Even if the other team is ahead a mistake on their part can turn the game around hard (I have seen games go from an almost certain loss to a win).
The game only is lost if the titan falls. If you got killed 3 times or lost a tower it doesn't mean you lost already. The reason why you don't see a lot of surrenders in high lvl play is because people noticed this unless they are certain they lost (as with a team wipe where no one is going to respawn on time to hold the enemies of giving the enemy team enough time to finish the game. Or when you are behind and someone leaves as a 4v5 has a really small change to win still this shouldn't be the biggest reason to surrender as sometimes 4v5 is winable)
So if you are considering a surrender it should actually be clear that your team lost. Not just because someone lost his lane or someone got fed.
Something that needs to be hammered in certain players at ever opportunity. A lot of people are toxic/frustrated/angry and blame others in the game. However being toxic has impact on the game what most of these players don't understand yet. The thing that will lose them a lot of games and also has been proven to lose games (around 23%).
I'm talking about Player morale
Every time you are negative towards teammates the morale of some players drop putting them on tilt. Which leads to them playing worse and in the end can lead to losing the game. This behaviour can even go so far that the tilt continues in the next match. Trash talking has the same effect on certain people. That is probably why Smite doesn't have an all chat.
Also for players who are on tilt or don't know what tilting is should read this blog from a dotafire member.
My own advise for people who are tilting is to take a break from the game. And with this I mean go and do something entirely different don't watch videos from the game etc but go watch something else or play something else.
There are a lot of players that are obsessed with their KDA, amount of damage they have done, win%, damage tanked, etc.
They use it to look at how well they have preformed and aim to improve it to see if they got better. And some people even to push the blame of a loss on someone else.
However, the game will give you this message:
That's right the game doesn't care if you had a KDA of 20-2-15 or that you did 300K damage.
The only thing it cares for is: did you Win or Lose
That's where the whole Elo/MMR and ranked system is made of. Did you win a game: you will gain more tribute. Did you lose: you will lose some tribute.
Now that I have said this. It doesn't mean that they mean nothing at all, but they should always be taken into context. Example: if you played a support with a bad KDA but you did help your team win, it won't be reflected a lot in the stats except that you won.
On top of this I want to say something about something some player believe in: Low Elo/MMR Hell (these players are blaming matchmaking a lot for their losses).
It doesn't exist!
Most of the players that are believing in this, are players that blame others for their loss. Instead of looking at their own mistakes first they look at their allies or a certain role (poor jungle and support).
To get better at this game you need to look at the player you have the biggest impact on: yourself. If you focus on fixing your own mistakes you will get better and won't stagnate in skill, getting more frustrated with the game or stop having fun with the game.
Even pros (see this article), casters (see Purge a caster from Dota talking about the MMR Hell in his dota basics/general guide (part of the text above is a lightly edited quote from him)) and youtubers (see next part) agree on this.
here I have a video of an LoL player that discusses attitudes in LoL ranked. LoL ranked is kinda similar as smite ranked attitude wise IMO. Still some points can be incorrect with Smite's ranked. However from my experience I noticed attitudes in MOBA's are mostly the same across every MOBA (even if I haven't played ranked yet I have seen ranked chats from friends from multiple games)
the videoSo first of: one of the best ways to learn the game is by watching people who are good at it. You can see combo's and a lot of other useful stuff in those games.
However Don't think you can bring all those things directly into a casual game, Because:
-the pro teams know what they want to achieve with certain picks or builds.
they know exactly how they want to play this game with their picks or with the items they build. While you don't even know why they do that.
-don't think you or your teammates have the necessary skill to play as them.
The pro's practise a lot of hours a day (normally around 10). they have more experience and better reflexes. So don't think you or your team can easily replicate them.
-the co-ordination between pro games is higher then a casual team.
also one of the things that leads to the downfall of copying pro's (aka being a PPC which stands for pro player copycat). those teams have played a lot of time with each other and know how every one of the members play.
But in casual or ranked you are mostly playing with randoms. Sometimes you are on the same wavelength, but most of the time you aren't. Making things that are in need of a lot of co-ordination fail.
-The lvl of play is different
To say it easily the lvl of play between casual/pubs and pro's is really different. Certain items work better on high lvl play but are pretty worthless in lower lvl games. and visa versa.
keep these points in your mind if you are watching pros as even learning from good people can make you lose your games.
I hope that this guide helped some people seeing mistakes faster and make them easier to avoid. Also as I mentioned at the beginning of the guide I'm not a beginner myself any more so I could have missed some mistakes (or just haven't thought about (or just missed) certain mistakes). Feel free to point common mistakes I missed out and maybe I will add them.
Also my thanks to:
-Sando from dotafire from whom I took the idea and (a lot of) points for the guide
-Smuggels for making the blog about tilting
-Purge for an part of my view on MMR/elo hell
-The maker of word of thoth, for the information for the titan and other mechanics
-scrapcomputer for making the ranked attitude video
and my thanks to our own Smitefire members:
wolfman for doing a grammar check for a part of the guide.
Zilby for helping me with BBcoding.
[Branmuffin17 for doing a grammar check and helping with reformation my guide
I wanted to thank you for reading my guide. If you have questions or feedback just put them in the comments or send me a PM.
If you notice grammar mistakes or BBcoding mistakes PM them to me.
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Ra
Breastplate of Valor
Loki
As a new player who probably needed to see this, I can say that you've got a good guide put together here. My only quip is that you could improve the proofreading, but that issue doesn't take away from the positive substance your guide has. Good job.
true gonna control the spelling with word next update.
Zilby I have been pretty busy with school lately and parts of the guide need me back more in Smite itself too. And well probably version 0.9 will be coming out sooner (as I'm going to egt a week with a lot of free time next week hopefully)
Meh, I realized it when I was half done and was too lazy to change it.
A guide with no grammar mistakes is a good guide.
Sush Wolfman. XD <3
don't you mean someone else take the last hits or Am I making a mistake now in the working of jungle camps or mask
Yes you're write. I wrote everything at once and did not really read myself afterwards. Sorry! xD
freya adc loki jgl athena sup aphro mid swk solo (was I close?)
I actually was
The interest is that the dual lane is both magical/physical (so that it's not "easy" for the other supp to put protections), and a lot of rotation potential (
Anyway, if you need any help writing stuff, don't hesitate to PM me. My job is not really demanding right now! :D
Another topics that could be added (if you allow me to respectfully propose! :D):
- Doing camps (conquest/joust/siege/arena) vs rushing to the lane
A lot is to be said on how to position yourself when doing camps, who should engage and take damage, how to do 2 simultaneous camps on the dual lane (harpies+red) while sharing the XP, etc...
I'm a bit out of the run for doing parts of this (because doing 2 camps wasn't something when I played a lot) and my positioning while clearing a camp is moving. But I'm planning to come abck to the game soon so maybe it will come after a while.
- Sharing XP/gold/kills
Let the carry do the last blow on minions, let them get the first blood and other god kills if possible
Let the jungler (with
Wait your carry when doing the purple buff / join the jungler when he's doing your buff
I thought over the kill part today so I planned that one myself (because of one of my comments today)
don't you mean someone else take the last hits or Am I making a mistake now in the working of jungle camps or mask
- God picks in casual
Some people always go guardian SUPP, hunter ADC, mage MID, warrior SOLO, assassin JUN which is quite easy to read, but most gods can play multiple roles, and it's really important to know that and to use that to your advantage.
For example, if I go with a team with
freya adc loki jgl athena sup aphro mid swk solo (was I close?)
also something I already thought of including only on a different way
- Doing camps (conquest/joust/siege/arena) vs rushing to the lane
A lot is to be said on how to position yourself when doing camps, who should engage and take damage, how to do 2 simultaneous camps on the dual lane (harpies+red) while sharing the XP, etc...
- Sharing XP/gold/kills
Let the carry do the last blow on minions, let them get the first blood and other god kills if possible
Let the jungler (with
Wait your carry when doing the purple buff / join the jungler when he's doing your buff
- God picks in casual
Some people always go guardian SUPP, hunter ADC, mage MID, warrior SOLO, assassin JUN which is quite easy to read, but most gods can play multiple roles, and it's really important to know that and to use that to your advantage.
For example, if I go with a team with
well I would still appreciate any more mistakes you see (over PM) also I'm going to add some new sections soon.