Before they recently nerfed the main Aura items
(
) in Patch 4.11, Support Builds were pratically always the same. After that, people started to buy other items much more frequently. This amplified even more in Patch 4.13, when they buffed many defensive items (
), so today the items used are quite varied, but we can still recognize the best and core items.
Start:
Watcher's Gift will always be the best Support Starter, giving +5 bonus Gold, +12 Health and +10 Mana per minion assist, it provides awesome Sustain in lane.
Lono's Mask is another great Starter, giving a stack of +2 Max Health per minion assist (max 75 stacks); reaching 75 stacks rewards 400 Gold.
Together these two items produce so much Gold for the progress of the Build. At the start, 3
Healing Potions and 1
Multi Potion will be enough considering the Sustain from Watcher's Gift.
After Lono's Mask reaches 75 stacks and gives you 400 Gold, you can sell it whenever you want if you need Gold to complete an item, while it's best to keep Watcher's Gift until Late-Game.
Swift Wing is a Starter sometimes used in Solo and Support roles. If you happen to back with 800-1000 Gold after completing boots, it may be better to buy this instead of a T1 item, to improve your rotations.
Due to the nerf it received in Patch 4.9,
Mark of the Vanguard is no more a viable bridge-item in Support Builds.
BOOTS
Travelers Shoes
Travelers Shoes is the go to boots in Smite, and a very good item on every Guardian, improving their rotations and farming.
Reinforced Shoes can be good on immobile Guardians that are often focused out by the enemy team, and synergizes well with abilities like Sobek's passive.
Shoes of Focus is especially good on Guardians with a global Ultimate (Athena, Terra), with good peel abilities (Geb, Khepri) or that can make use of the early CDR and Mana (Artio, Kumbhakarna). It's the best Late-Game boots, so you should sell your other boots and get Shoes of Focus when your Build is complete.
Shoes of the Magi can be a funny item to use as Support, but you shouldn't build it in serious matches.
Also give a look to
Emilzy's Support Boots Guide.
HEALTH ITEMS
Gauntlet of Thebes can still be considered a core item, because the slight nerf in Patch 4.11 didn't influence its performance much.
Winged Blade is used to counter-build team comps with a large number of Slow effects, or specific Gods whose main CC is Slow,
like
Nemesis and
Osiris.
Relic Dagger can be used to have Actives avaible more frequently, especially when the only form of engage of a Guardian is
Blink Rune. This item works better if built during Late-Game.
PHYSICAL PROTECTION ITEMS
Jade Emperor's Crown is a core item of the Support Build. Being like the aggressive counter-part to
Sovereignty, it has basically replaced Sovereignty after Patch 4.11. This item works better if built during Early/Mid-Game.
Breastplate of Valor can be used on Guardians that can really make use of the +20% CDR trough all the stages of the game (Khepri, Artio, Terra, others), bearing the lack of Health of the item. It works better if built during Early/Mid-Game.
Midgardian Mail is used to counter-build team comps with 2 or more Basic Attack oriented Gods.
Hide of the Nemean Lion can be used to counter-build team comps with 2 or more Basic Attack oriented Gods, especially Hunters and Assassins that have increased Critical Strike Chance from items or abilities.
Emperor's Armor can be used to increase the chances of winning Team Fights near structures. It works better if built during Late-Game.
MAGICAL PROTECTION ITEMS
Genji's Guard is a core item of the Support Build, thanks to the buff it received in Patch 4.13.
Shogun's Kusari is used when 2 or more allied Gods are Basic Attack oriented and can make use of the +25% Attack Speed Aura.
Pestilence is used to counter-build team comps with AOE/Self-Healing abilities, Life-Steal, or Bracer of Undoing
Bracer of Undoing.
Void Stone can be used on aggressive Guardians that can make use of the +20 Power and Protection Debuff Aura (Ares, Bacchus, others).
Even though it didn't receive any changes in Patch 4.11,
Heartward Amulet wasn't already used much because of the presence of Shogun's Kusari and Pestilence. After Patch 4.13, there was no reason to prefer it over the items listed above.
HYBRID PROTECTION ITEMS
Spirit Robe is a core item of the Support Build, due to its useful Damage Mitigation passive, CDR and CCR.
Mantle of Discord can be used on aggressive Guardians that are often in the middle of Team Fights. It works better if built during Late-Game.
Hide of the Urchin is the most selfish item that can be used in a Support Build, but it gives so much tankiness. It can replace your Health item slot if the Early-Game goes well, otherwise this item can be quite hard to complete and get online when playing from behind. It works better if built during Early/Mid-Game, due to the stacking passive.
ACTIVES
Magic Shell is a defensive Relic, used to protect allies from incoming Damage.
Heavenly Wings is a Relic used to counter Slow effects and help allied Gods with no mobility in their kit.
Phantom Veil is a defensive Relic, only used to counter
Odin, to ensure all allies have a safe escape from his
Ring of Spears.
Horrific Emblem is an aggressive Relic, used to maximize the CC output of a Guardian during Team Fights, or to chase down single enemies.
Blink Rune is an aggressive Relic, used as the primary form of engage on certain Guardians (Ares, Geb, others)
These are the best and most used Relics in Support at the moment, despite Phantom Veil being very situational. Upgrade Relics only when your Build is complete or almost complete.
Build Progression:
In general, the order of your Build should depend from which type of Damage is the biggest threat: for example, building
Gauntlet of Thebes as your 2nd item will equally protect you from
Physical Damage and
Magical Damage, while building
Jade Emperor's Crown first will make you more tanky against
Physical Damage, but less against
Magical Damage during the Early-Game. Again, you can build
Spirit Robe as your 5th item to keep both Protections on the same level, or you can build
Hide of the Nemean Lion first to prioritize
Physical Protection.
In cases where 3 or more enemies are
Physical and 2 or less are
Magical, your Build should look similar to this:
-1st Boots
-2nd Health/Physical Protection
-3rd Physical Protection/Health
-4th Magical Protection
-5th Hybrid Protection/Physical Protection
-6th Physical Protection/Hybrid Protection
In cases where 3 or more enemies are
Magical and 2 or less are
Physical, your Build should look similar to this:
-1st Boots
-2nd Health/Magical Protection
-3rd Magical Protection/Health
-4th Physical Protection
-5th Hybrid Protection/Magical Protection
-6th Magical Protection/Hybrid Protection
Build Examples:
1. Travelers Shoes>
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STARTERS
Watcher's Gift and another depending on the
Healing Potions and 1 
Multi Potion.
Ares - God of War, is an aggressive front-line Guardian, having one of the highest damage abilities of his class. He lacks of the hard CC required to peel for teammates efficiently, so he can't be of great help to the back-line.
No Escape. His Early-Game isn't the best because of his weak wave-clear, but reaching level 5 changes it all.
Susano, 
Serqet and 
Awilix. You can reach max damage and duration of the ability by timing the chains, respecting the 2s available between every chain before firing another. Chains also go through walls.
Purification Beads or their CC immune Ultimates at a time that isn't optimal, still giving a clear advantage to the team.
Searing Flesh for camps and wave-clear, always upgrade 
Shackles when possibile, getting one point on 
Bolster Defenses and 
Reinforced Shoes provides can help him withstand the damage and CC of the enemies, and the item synergizes well with 
Blessed Presence, Ares benefits of every Aura item he owns, and due to the Protection Reduction Aura of the item, 
Void Stone is the one that increases his damage output the most, while giving him good Health and Magical Protection. But just thinking about the damage potential while building can mean you have to give up on 
Shogun's Kusari's utility or 
Genji's Guard's CDR.
Relic Dagger, Ares can engage efficiently through
Blink Rune and use his other Relics more often, while gaining decent Health, some CDR and Movement Speed, which is always useful not having an escape.
Magic Shell is the best way Ares has to protect himself and his allies, without having to use his CC to help
Heavenly Wings can enhance the mobility of all the team for a while and be used both offensively and difensively,
Stone of Gaia
I had already seen your guide when I was looking for inspiration before I started, a really nice guide too!
I also hope to keep it updated, but these days I will not have much time
Only the Build part remains unchanged - for now.
With the changes we had discussed about :D
Here's what I think you should improve so far:
Your coding for
Might want to mention why
A personalized build for each guardian individually would be useful. Especially in special cases with the likes of an
You can keep the general builds as a "base" template or to steer players in a generally acceptable direction, however.
Those are my thoughts on what you should add/change. Aside from that, it's very barebones so the faster you can add the guardians, the better. More as I find other things in the future to mention.
The things you do have already, however, are a job well done.
As for the icons, I would either put them on both sides or on the left side only because they look strange to me only being on the right. That's a purely aesthetic decision, so it's ultimately up to you how you want to present it.
It's intentional, I prefer it like this. Do you think that putting icons on both sides would be better? I saw some templates with icons on both sides, but I wanted to be original :3
Of course I thought about extending the matchups section, but my problem is, for example, what do I write in the hardest matchup for
That's a good idea, if there are particular items for a god that synergize with the god's kit, I can add them :D
But I've already written what I think about
If that does appear to be the case, you could just refer them to the
I'll write about the matchups when I have time, thanks for the feedback!
In my Conquest guide, that was one thing I had to figure out...initial presentation of each role. Not only did I want to provide the icons for the commonly used gods for each role, but I also wanted to give a general overview, and make it consistent for each chapter. The hardest part was figuring out HOW to present it...and in the end, I had an epiphany, and ended up with the "who what when where why how" sequence.
For this guide in particular, you want to evaluate the ease/feasibility of covering specific topics. Let's look at what you have right now...
If you do feel that adding matchup information is important, then I'm with Zero, that providing a name without any reasoning or explanation is just not helpful enough...and in many cases, this may be subjective opinion, and you usually want to avoid subjectivity in a general guide such as this. Objective statements where possible.
But in any case, will reiterate that I don't feel matchups are all that important for this role. Just providing one single god for best and worst matchup, when you've got 16 gods in total?
An overview of his skills and how to use is very nice. I think it's just typing accidents, but you have a ton of new lines in the middle of a sentence, and it makes the skill writeups look very disjointed. I also understand the size increase for the icons as well as it makes them stand out, but it also introduces a lot of weird line spacing depending on if that line has an icon or not. This goes along with my other comment on having all wording centered in some areas...easy to read as long as the lines go all the way across, but clipped/disjointed elsewhere. Personal preference, of course, but I do a lot of reading, so I appreciate organization that's appealing to my eyes.
Instead of complaing or giving you answers, I would ask you some advices:
What should I write briefly under the initial god description, instead of difficulty, matchups? Maybe nothing? I don't think statistics would be useful to the casual player
As I said, I was just thinking about how many infos and which infos I should put in. Should I make it a true God guide, hidden in a handy spoiler? There will be 16 of them, but what's in a hurry? I just hope not to get tired!
I'm writing this guide from my smartphone, because I'm poor :3 I didn't think about the display in other devices, my bad. I should really fix it, huh?
If you have any good idea, let me know pls
One thing I want to clarify is that I love the effort you're putting into this. It may seem that I'm just pointing out things that could be improved (my opinion), so want to make sure you know I think this has been great, even if far from complete.
Pokédex, lol. I would try to clean up the lines if possible though. It is such a pain working on something else than a computer, so props to you.
This is going to be long, so I'm going to hide in a spoiler.
Anyway, just an example.
You deserve a big thank you and a You Rock m8.
GuardianDex, lol
"Cancel that"((
Cancel that))They shouldn't be complete god guides. A quick description of what the god excels at, and what the god is less successful in. A small description of the abilities and, as I mentioned before, a more personalized build for each god and why the items in that build just work really well for them.
You could include god stats for theory-crafting purposes, should anyone be willing to do that, it'll be easier for them to find the stats as opposed to going to the SMITE Wiki for them.
As Bran said, match-ups are less important in the support role than other roles. You're just there to make sure your team stays alive, not to go head-to-head with your enemy support. This doesn't mean that this information isn't any less valuable though. It could be useful to know for
My thoughts. Feel free to implement as you desire, your guide after all. I'm sure Bran will have a paragraph of additional things you could add at the ready soon.
I hate you Zero. And I just proved you right =(
I'm not saying it to mock you or anything, in fact I think it's really good that you do what you do, your approach to things are very helpful, and I say you should keep doing it, always.
Though you don't necessarily need to mention your CQ guide everywhere lmfao.
Also...I very specifically mention my CQ guide, not as a selling point for my own guide, but because it has a very specific example of the application I'm discussing. Honestly, not trying to sell my guide off on everyone, but wouldn't you agree my point of defining main topics was very applicable?
Edit: Can I just say...
Quoted: Branmuffin17 - August 16, 11:54PM
Quoted: Branmuffin17 - August 17, 12:23AM
Whew, what a quick turn of events! Hha.
The way I see it, if he loves to hate me then he just really likes to pick on me,
and if he hates to love me, he just doesn't want to love me at all.
Is that how you think of me, Bran? :(
Fine, bully!! ;-;
*edited by ****...no offense Zero*
Edit by meself: Clearly you took offense to your fabulousness, I see right through you, ****.
I'm starting to make a more concrete idea. I'm waiting to know what Bran thinks before I get to work :)
Coming Soon:
Ares chapter, How to Build your Support Guardian rework, Sobek chapter.Feedback is always appreciated!
-You could link Stuke's or Ricu's (or both) Ares guide;
-In the tierlist, I'd place Khumba above
Cabrakan.
Nice to see the croc getting some love.
-Neither of them is doing too well, and I thought to put both in B. Why do you think kumbhakarna should be above cabrakan?
***bakharna is more like a true Support in some ways...specifically because he single-handedly can stop a multi-god gank attempt. Yes, he also can deal some incredible damage, but...mez, stun, and that knockup ult are huge.
In the end, I fear ***bha's massively long CC way more than Cab's. Cab's stuns are less duration, you can dash or leap out of his Tremors, etc., so you don't have to burn
Yeah, AOE abilities or teammates not paying attention can interrupt ***bha's yawn, but it's an incredible CC ability with good AOE range and an instant effect. And that stupid
Either way, again, my opinion, and perhaps silly arguing over gods that aren't even A Tier, lol. If they're B or below, you're basically dealing with a potential disadvantageous matchup, at least according to people who know the game better than me.
I just wanted to add a quick thought about Relics. I feel that there are a few more relics that you could add to the list pertaining to how they can be used by Supports.
Yeah I was planning to add
As you said, Meditation Cloak is not good as others. It has Mana regen too, but it will not protect your allies as well as
About
Following up with some more specific comments to the guide as it currently stands.
STARTERS
- If you don't suggest
Shoes of the Magi in general, I don't see the need for you to even mention it, unless you really want to.
- Personally feel
Gauntlet of Thebes got a significant nerf...not to say it's nonviable, but losing 50 health and 5 of each protections definitely hurt it. If you argue that Sov got nerfed really bad, then Thebes provides the same physical protection. And sure, although it provides magical protection as well, 15 protection is really not much at all (as magical power is generally much higher than physical). The high health is nice, but Sov also has good health, and still provides the wearer with significant additional physical protection, which is honestly more important...since minions/towers/phoenixes/GF/FG/Titan deal physical damage.
- Note that Jade is specifically used to counter physical ADCs...in the current meta, Magical ADCs are seeing a resurgence, so it's not great to pick up against those. I know you mention this in the build progression section, but best to also state it in its own section.
Anyway, keep up the good work!-I can think about changing this.
-mhh maybe I can change the Heartward Amulet part.
-I didn't want it to be a specific tier list, more like a pure ranking, but I used the juice gaming tier list as "background" because it's so cool :3
-I can think about changing this.
-I think the centered test is cool... but I wanted to use it because Prism did :3
-that's a great idea, I like it :D
but I can work on it in the future, in this period I will not have much time...
-yeah I didn't know about specifing that Shoes of the Magi isn't a great choice...
-nah I see that Gauntlet is still often build at higher levels of play
-k, I can specific this in the future, but for now I prefer to focus in other chapters to extend the guide
Also, I think it'd be interesting to list each guardian and talk a bit about their strengths and weaknesses, while providing a good guide for further information if any, like Prism did.
I don't want to do copy and paste from Prism's work, but I want something more specific than playstile and brief informations, something that can really help someone who wants to learn how to play the god, maybe tips on how to use abilities and combos. At the end I would still link heplful guides or videos.
Also, I have read your Sobek guide and I find it a really well done guide! I took inspiration from it to add spoilers and changelog, you'll probably end up in my "Thanks to" conclusive chapter :P
Also thanks for reading and liking my guide :)
https://www.scribd.com/doc/166529015/The-Word-of-Thoth-A-Smite-Mechanics-Guide
Calculating damage mitigation is variable, as it depends to a degree on enemy penetration/protection reduction. But you can start with a base. I'll put the calculation details in a spoiler.
In both physical and magical cases in this specific situation, Urchin blows Magi's out of the water. I'm not sure where you're getting your values.
But we shouldn't just target the effective health...it's only one part of the equation. We'll open up the item considerations at this point.
Magi's Blessing is specifically great for the CC immunity, but it has a CD of 70 seconds and you can't control when it's going to work. The first hard CC you get hit with when it's available will activate it.
This means it's way more effective for squishier gods that might not build ANY other health or protection items (where that 350 health increase is a higher % boost for their overall numbers), and where they're not always in the thick of a fight...meaning, they close in, try to do their damage and get out...and so they might expect the Magi's passive to be up, so that if they get hit with that CC, they might have some extra time to escape.
If you're playing
You do list a variety of items (a very large variety in fact), and most of these would be better choices than Magi's. I think it wouldn't hurt if you just completely dropped it from your item options.
As a Support, and just based on her kit, you're going to want more CDR than you've built. Your standard build isn't a bad one, but you should mention that you should replace Travelers Shoes late with
I admit that I haven't used Magi's Blessing too many times in my builds... But now that they're removing Stone of Gaia's CC immunity effect in 4.15, it remains the only item that can save you if hit by an Ares or Da Ji ultimate... The passive gets blown off of you pretty easily yes, but it may be your only salvation in some cases :P
Despite this, I think I'll remove it from the options, thanks for the advice!
I did not understand if you were using Artio only as an example, anyway I just chose a random Guardian to show the items, this is not intended to be an Artio guide, maybe I should remove the build?
Actually I wrote about trading travelers for focus in a note at the end I think.
Thanks again for the feedback :D
LOL sorry, I didn't realize it was a general Support guide...I was just commenting on the effective health thing and the list of items at the top. Thought it was for
Yeah, I would make it universal by not choosing a specific god. I have multiple guides that are universal...if you choose a god, it makes it seem like it's for that god. So yeah, maybe remove the build, but detail the information in the body of the guide like you already do.
Just an FYI, we did have a universal guide for Supports by Prism, but it hasn't been maintained: https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/become-the-guardian-of-the-gods-s3-15403
And yes, you're right, especially with
That said, still think it's best to focus on items that more directly help the team, or help you protect the team (via CDR for higher ability use). Guess you could argue that not getting pulled by an
I'll look at the link you attached later, I just woke up lol
Bye
"Become the..." was a guide for warriors first started by Stuke, and people started working on the different classes.
https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/become-the-master-assassin-s4-v-2-2-15903
https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/become-a-god-hunter-s4-16187
But besides Stuke, no one has been maintaining regularly.
Regarding
For now I'll refine the build part, if I start to add other chapters, maybe I'll change the guide name to something Similar to the others :P
EDIT: META guides (Color Compilation, BB-Coding guide) also shouldn't be affected by the new/old tags and vote decay
Rather, any item with any flat penetration will basically cancel the protections, give or take 5...Ichaival has 10 flat pen, so 5 is left over.
I think it IS important to balance health and protections though...not just focus on protections. And overall, this person's build does that. Lots of health, pretty good protections. Just...Magi's isn't a great option.
About Sovereignty, the nerf in 4.11 has halved the Protection that the Aura provided to the team (from 30 to 15), so it's as if they had drastically reduced the impact it had on the game. Now I think there are more valuable options of Physical Protection items, especially Jade Emperor's Crown, which can ne considered the aggressive counter-part to Sovereignty. Unless they nerf Jade Emperor's Crown's Aura (like from 30 Physical Power Reduction to 20), I doubt that we will see Sovereignty in the pro scene again.