Learn to Learn the Game

Taking a look at how own Smite teaches new players how to learn the game and realizing what a poor attempt it is, and as quite a few posts are submitted weekly by them to ask for help and tips, I've decided to make a guide to learn how to actually learn about the game. To begin with, I'm not the best or more mechanically skilled player out there at Smite by far, but I've been playing for years now so better or worse I am without a doubt some veteran player and my knowledge of this game is vast. I'm even surprised many times to see how pros do not remember some item passives or ability cooldowns that I totally do when they are way more talented players than I am. Skillfulness and knowledge are different, and in this matter I think I'm perfectly qualified to give tips. To the point:

Smite tutorials are bad. They are OK to have a first approach to the game and a better feeling of its mechanics, but you shouldn't take anything you are shown there as a whole or even necessarily correct. I've even been matched with newer players that thought and told others that the duo lane was simply 'the right lane' because they saw it in the tutorials. This is an example of tutorials being lazy and imprecise about the information they should be giving. The very first build you're told to make as ADC is completely wrong, and it's not even a question of meta because they totally ignore starter items which are crucial and teach to get a support relic on them: meditation. When you see this on a carry, you know the chances of them being a new player are high because they are told wrong by the own game. I could tell a little more about this here but I'm going to include it at the end as part of overall tips I can give. I want first to give you tips of how to learn the game by your own.

And after all the ramble, here we go. The best way to learn about Smite is whatever but Smite itself, except for your own gameplay experience. At the start, you will be wanting to just have fun and figure out the basics, what is alright. When you want to actually improve, start wondering everything: how you died, how you killed, how you lost, how you won... Besides that, outer sources are the best to learn, specially Youtube. There are many Smite content creators, and some of them specialize in making very useful guide videos about the game. They also specialize in different roles. For me, the best on every role are:

Support: PolarBearMike and EmilZy. Specially EmilZy is really active and helpful.
Jungle: Weak3n. For me, he's not the best or nicest teacher out there, but he actually uploads guides. You can also watch Adapting on Twitch.
Solo: FineOkay. Just like EmilZy, he does upload a ton of guides that are very helpful and talks about a little of everything.
I feel like the rest of the roles aren't that well covered in this concern, but you can search for Emilitoo and Barraccudda (ADC) and Wlfy and PrettyPriMe (MID) gameplay videos and streamings. For more overall tips, guides and interest videos, you can watch some DukeSloth, Raynday Gaming, Inters3ct and Incon (more like pure gameplay videos, but he plays everything and does it well). If you can understand Spanish, Warchiwar doesn't focus a lot on lessons but he's very analyst in his videos. Ferre also has a little of everything, being some videos pretty helpful and Dheylo and DavidArnaiz are the same case: they don't upload much of Smite lately but have many useful videos about the jungle and support roles respectively on their channels, specially DavidArnaiz. I don't know much about other regions, but surely you can find something in your language on Youtube without putting too much effort into it. If you want to specifically learn some Loki (cringe), ProfessorLoki is the best place to do so.

About other sites, I don't feel like copying builds from Smitefire or Smiteguru or akin is the best idea. It can be helpful to a certain degree if you really have no clue about what you're doing, but certain builds in there are posted by people that don't really know much more about the game than you do and others look at very specific situations and you might be completely wrong with your build if you didn't understand the purpose. Learn to build is not the easiest thing to do, but I think that the best way to do it is to play the game, learn what items do, learn what gods do and why those items would fit them and watch better players' videos to see what they built, why they built it and in which meta.

Before I spoke about playing the game. Of course, a crucial part to learn is to test all gods, so you know how to play with and against them and acquire a further knowledge about the mechanics of the game through that. While not all gods are available to be played from the start, you can end up with getting a lot of them without having to pay and there are also many events where you can play them for the match. And certainly this is a matter of what you want to do with your money, but I think that God Pack is incredibly cheap for what it gives and no other MOBA does, and there are also times when you can get it even cheaper, so if you are starting to like the game, I think it is always a good purchase.

Another thing that seems to be trivial but it's actually pretty useful is to ask people when you get into a game with more experienced players. I guess you might not want to do this because of the possibility of them harassing or insulting you for being newer, but if that's really the case believe me that they're going to figure it out at the maximum time of 5 minutes just by watching you play and then they are going to be angrier of you not bothering to ask the bases from the beginning. Of course, they shouldn't go mad for that reason anyway, but many players will be willing to give you some tips and glad that you took care to ask. If not, just mute them. They probably didn't even know that much of the game and that's why they rage and blame others. And that leads to another point: don't be afraid to play a game. It's just a game. You can mute people by pressing tab key and clicking on the button aside their names. Also, devs don't pay attention to fake reports.

This is not exactly related to the topic, but if you want to find a main role, what you should do with the pass of time because being amazing at all doesn't work here and it is better to specialize, play a lot of everything and eventually you will know what you like more or what you do better. After years, I'm not 100% sure about my main, but this helped me reduce the options.

If you already got the very bases and want to go a little deeper, you can watch the Smite update shows on Twitch or Mixer on alternate Fridays to figure out what the meta is going to be and watch eSports to learn the most complex concepts from the best.

As an extremely shallow data, supports and solo laners need to build full defence, junglers and mid laners a lot of power and penetration and ADCs a good mix of power, penetration and attack speed.

At the start of the game, focus on clearing the wave and not fighting if you don't know what you're doing. Minions deal a bunch of damage early.

Try not to be walking around doing nothing. If you're not fighting, farm a wave or a camp. If you're not farming, ward the map. If you're not warding, go back to heal and buy items.

Top relics change with the meta, but if you're ADC or mid you're always right with Beads and Aegis. If you're jungler, you're always right with Blink, Beads and Aegis. And if you're support or solo you're pretty much always right with almost everything that is not Beads or Aegis.

Don't try to rush a tower or objective too early. You won't have that much damage to take a tower before you are ganked by the enemy team and objectives precise a team effort to be taken, specially the Fire Giant.

Skills can't deal damage to towers and phoenixes.

Watch the difference of level between you and your enemies. If you already gave them some kills, go to catch up in farm or they will keep killing you and win you the game, not necessarily because they are better, if not just because their characters are now way stronger than yours. Don't forget that it is still some sort of role-playing game. It is normal if you're some levels behind as a support though.

It's a 3rd person MOBA, it is not about left and right: solo is the lane aside the Fire Giant with the towers being closer each other and duo is that aside the Gold Fury with the towers being further. It changes every game. It depends on your team being on the Chaos or the Order side.

Jungle's lane is the whole map, but they mostly farm the monster camps between lanes and the only buff they have to pick is the yellow one. Also, do not farm exclusively, gank the enemies on their lanes too.

Smite items don't work like LOL's. On the right window at the store, you can see all the tiers of an item. Once you got one from the top, you can start another item. I guess the confusion comes from it having different tiers for different items that are shown together because of them having some similar core stats, but you can't actually get a tier 3 item by building into several tier 2 items. You need to follow the straight path from the bottom to the top to get that final item you want and forget about the rest. If you notice that some item paths end at tier 2, this is called a 'bridge item'. Bridge items work like tier 3 items that are very cost-effective, but it is usually better to trade them for another actual tier 3 item late game.

Similar to bridge items, starter items are cheap items composed by a single tier that help you overcome the early game, but you must sell them by the time that the rest of your inventory is full and you have enough gold to trade it for your last tier 3 item. Current starters are called 'blessings' and they evolve after achieving some quest, giving an extra bonus. This present system of starters make it easier for you to build, but remember that they are inopportunely named for their respective most common classes to be played in those roles instead of the own roles, which would be more accurate. If you want to try some alternative picks like Fenrir solo or Sol ADC, don't forget to get Warrior's and Hunter's Blessing respectively instead of Assassin's and Mage's Blessing, what is not going to work so well for you in those situations.

Almost everything but Fire Giant (it deals mixed damage), blue camp monsters, mages, supports and some item passives deals physical damage.

Place wards. And no, it is not the support duty exclusively. Everyone has to ward. The only role that can be admitted to delay this task a little bit is ADC, and they will also have to start placing their own wards sooner than later. After your first back, you should be getting your first wards. Wards actually do win games.

Get used to take a look at your minimap every few seconds. This is very important. Also, if you're running away from an enemy, don't start turning around to check. You are naturally slowed when you do that. Enemy icons are shown on the minimap, check it there. You are also naturally slowed when you hit basic attacks, don't do it neither if you're trying to escape or catch someone unless you know they are going to land and kill them.

Have fun.

Smite is awful at teaching how to play the game and doesn't tell you neither where to learn it. It took a lot for me to learn for this reason. I'm sure it would have been easier for me to do if someone had told me this. I hope you find it useful.

https://www.twitch.tv/wlfy7 (Pro Mid player)

https://www.twitch.tv/prettyprime (Pro Mid player)

https://www.twitch.tv/deathwalker79 (Pro Solo player)

https://www.twitch.tv/barraccudda (Pro ADC player)

https://www.twitch.tv/incon (Good Smite player)

https://www.twitch.tv/dmbrandon (Informative Smite player/Solo player)

https://www.twitch.tv/zyrhoes (Pro Mid player)

https://www.twitch.tv/emilzy (Pro Support player)

https://www.twitch.tv/theadapting (Pro Jungler player)

https://www.twitch.tv/fineokay (Pro Solo player)

https://www.twitch.tv/baskinrobin1 (Pro Mid player)

https://www.twitch.tv/captaintwiggy (Pro Jungler player)

https://www.twitch.tv/callmemast (Good Smite player)

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffhindla (Pro Support player)

https://www.twitch.tv/weak3n (Pro Jungle player)

Wlfy, Prime, Fineokay, Barra, Incon, Dmbrandon, Emilzy, Adapting, Fineokay, Mast, Jeffhindla have youtube accounts you can check out as well, some of which have god guides. Also check out Weak3n on youtube.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/166529015/The-Word-of-Thoth-A-Smite-Mechanics-Guide

https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/bugs-beginners-universal-guide-to-smite-9303 (A bit outdated but somewhat relevant beginners guide)

https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/the-overarching-conquest-guide-s5-patch-5-8-12069 (Conquest Guide)

https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/an-in-depth-discussion-on-item-choices-s5-patch-5-8-14522 (Item's Guide)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/105BHfSE5Oq_yCJsYVDpIEDEVZP2hGd-qsjGLLrKYi6c/edit (Lasbra's jungling guide)