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Skill Floor and Skill Ceiling

21 1 23,540
9.8
by dacoqrs updated February 15, 2015

Smite God:

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Salutations!

Hello!

I am glad to say since everyone thought my last general guide was trolly, this one will be quite legit.

Today we will be discussing what a "Skill floor" is and what a "Skill Ceiling" is. These are commonly used terms that most players that I talk to seem unaware with.

PS. This guide will be quite wall of texty. If you don't like it, go away.

What is "Skill"?

"It's how good you are and stuff"

Well, sort of.

When I say skill, it's a combination of things. And when I say skill in this guide, I mean skill with a CERTAIN GOD, not overall skill.

Practice + Playstyle + General Smite Knowledge = Skill

By practice, I mean, the more you practice with a god, the better you can play them, and the more tricks that you know.

For example, as Neith, you know to never use Backflip as an attack.

Playstyle means how much you enjoy and are good at playing a certain role. If you are good at tanking, this will overall add to your "Skill" level with that role, and the gods it pertains to.

Smite Knowledge is just self explanatory. The longer you've been playing Smite, the better you are at it. Quite Simple.

What is a "Skill Floor"?

The definition of Skill Floor is...

How good you need to be with a god to play MODERATELY with it.

As in, not go 30-0, but to at least stay positive and preform well.

Gods with low skill floors tend to be rather simple gods with straightforward mechanics. Usually, gods like these tend to attract new players.

Gods with noticeably low Skill Floors:

Loki, Neith, Vulcan, Thor, Ymir

Gods with noticeably high Skill Floors:

Chronos, Odin

What is a "Skill Ceiling"?

A Skill Ceiling is how good you need to be with a god to MASTER him.

This means you know all the tricks to playing with this god. You know every aspect and how to play with them.

Gods with high skill ceilings do not mean they are hard to play. It simply means they have special tricks that can help them preform well.

Gods with noticeably high Skill Ceilings:

Loki, Sun Wukong, Bacchus, Guan Yu.

Gods with noticeably low Skill Ceilings:

Neith, Freya, Hercules, Arachne

Special Cases

The following are for special cases that show how gods with certain skill floors and ceilings can shape a god.

Special Case: Loki

Loki:

Skill Floor: Low
Skill Ceiling: High

A god with a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling translates to

"Easy to play, Hard to master"

Loki is not at all hard to play. Press one, press 3, hold down left click.

But he has many elaborate tricks with his decoy, such as block ultimates, that take lots of practice to perfect.

Other of these types include Chaac and Agni

Special Case: Neith

Neith:

Skill Floor: Low
Skill Ceiling: Low

Gods with low skill floors and ceilings mean they are easy to play and master. This means that there are not too many tricks to learn and easy to pick up.

Any experience player will tell you that Neith is not at all hard to play, and not at all hard to master.

Other examples of this are Hercules and Freya

Special Case: Arachne

Arachne:

Skill Floor: High
Skill Ceiling: Low

A god with high skill floors and low skill ceilings mean that there is a certain level of skill requires to play a god, but once you reach that standard, you can't go much further than that. Arachne is like this because while she is hard to learn, there aren't that many tricks.

Arachne is extremely unique in this case, but Ah Muzen Cab and Cupid are similar.

Special Case: Athena

Athena:

Skill Floor: High
Skill Ceiling: High

A god with both a high skill floor and ceiling mean that the god is not only hard to learn, but hard to master. All and all, this doesn't mean a god is bad, it just means it's not easy to play, and require some general skill. Athena has many important combos that need to be utilized, but she has many more hidden tricks to be mastered.

Other gods like this are Vamana and Bacchus

A Godly List of the Gods (WORK IN PROGRESS)

Here you can see my list of skill floors and ceilings for each god. Remember, these are subjective and based on popular opinion and observation. (Remember, you can use CTRL+F to find the certain god you are looking for. If you don't feel like doing that... well, the list is in alphabetical order.)

Agni
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Ah Muzen Cab
Floor: High
Ceiling: Low

Anhur
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Anubis
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Ao Kuang
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Aphrodite
Floor: Low (Maybe moderate)
Ceiling: High

Apollo
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Arachne
Floor: High
Ceiling: Low

Ares
Floor: High
Ceiling: Low

Artemis
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Athena
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Awilix
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Bacchus
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Bakasura
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Bastet
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Cabrakan
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Chaac
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Chang'e
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Chronos
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Cupid
Floor: High
Ceiling: Low

Fenrir
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Freya
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low


Geb
Floor: High
Ceiling: Low

Guan Yu
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Hades
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

He Bo
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Hel
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Hercules
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Hou Yi
Floor: High
Ceiling: Low

Hun Batz
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Eset
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Janus
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Kali
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Kukulkan
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low (More like moderate, really)

Kumbhakarna
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Loki
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Mercury
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Ne Zha
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Neith
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Nemesis
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Nox
Floor: High
Ceiling: Low

Nu Wa
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Odin
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Osiris
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Poseidon
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Ra
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Rama
Floor: Low
Ceiling High

Scylla
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Serqet
Floor: Low (Closer to average)
Ceiling: High

Sobek
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Sun Wukong
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Sylvanus
Floor: Moderate
Ceiling: Moderate


Thanatos
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Thor
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Tyr
Floor: Low
Ceilig: High

Ullr
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Vamana
Floor: High
Ceiling: High

Vulcan
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Xbalanque
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Ymir
Floor: Low
Ceiling: Low

Zeus
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

Zhong Kui
Floor: Low
Ceiling: High

In Conclusion

Thank you for reading my guide. I appreciate it. In the future I plan to do a gigantic list of all the gods, and their respective floors and ceilings (see above). Peace!

Changelog

5/1/14: Published.
5/4/14: Fixed typos and such (Thank you, Chiulin!)
5/12/14: More typos being fixed. (Thank you, TT!)
6/8/14: Published Godly List of the Gods (Rough Draft)
7/2/14: Clarified "Smite Knowledge"
7/11/14: Added Rama to GLOTG.
8/11/14: Fixed Nu Wa for her remake (For those of you who don't know, both her floor and her ceiling used to be high. Look at her's now. .-.)
9/4/14: Added Cabrakan.
9/14/14: Change Ao Kuang to Kukulkan. Fixed Odin for his remake.
11/2/14: Added Sylvanus and Nox.
2/5/15: Added New Ao Kuang, Awilix, and Hou Yi.

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1
KamikazeKitty (4) | February 16, 2015 7:04am
Zilby wrote:

I like this guide because it does a great job of explaining both skill floors and skill ceilings.

However, in terms of actually determining what's high and what's low I disagreed with almost everything. I think this entire subject is easy to conceptualize but far too subjective to actually employ.

Example: My first god was Chang'e, I had never played a MOBA before but I have always played her with a positive k/d. Athena was my first support, but I found her easy to both learn and master. Now that I'm at 25 mastery, I still have a hard time playing Thor at all effectively and have basically given up on him.


I have to look at it subjectively, because I am definitely a burst mage and hunter player through and through, I'm not that great with junglers and I'm a terrible support, so I think a lot of them are different from what I would say.
I think Chang'e is easy to play but hard to master. Playing her passively is easy, stay back poke, ult go in for kills... But playing her aggressively and dancing around your enemies requires some for-reals skill if you know what I mean.

On a side note, I got in a game with Zirby and got really excited because I thought it was you for a second :(
1
KamikazeKitty (4) | February 16, 2015 6:57am
Chiulin wrote:

Lots of typos. You use "well" many times when you should use "good."
You say "Skill floor" in the "Skill Ceiling" section, when you clearly meant "Skill Ceiling."

Now. You say Hercules is easy to play and master. I say **** you for this good sir. I cannot Herc. I have tried soooo hard. Maybe he's just not my type. xD

Anyways. Good guide. +upvote from me.


I agree with the guide. I am the absolute worst with warriors last game Chaac 0-11 and I can play Jerkules. You are probably trying to think to much, just faceroll the keyboard and win game.
1
Zilby (132) | December 15, 2014 8:45am
I like this guide because it does a great job of explaining both skill floors and skill ceilings.

However, in terms of actually determining what's high and what's low I disagreed with almost everything. I think this entire subject is easy to conceptualize but far too subjective to actually employ.

Example: My first god was Chang'e, I had never played a MOBA before but I have always played her with a positive k/d. Athena was my first support, but I found her easy to both learn and master. Now that I'm at 25 mastery, I still have a hard time playing Thor at all effectively and have basically given up on him.
1
dacoqrs (40) | November 3, 2014 12:11pm
Diesoft wrote:

How is Vulcan skill ceiling low?


None of his abilities really require much thought. You could say his 2 requires "turret placement skills", but you would do just as well plopping it down behind your minion wave.
1
Diesoft | November 3, 2014 8:16am
How is Vulcan skill ceiling low?
1
HolyPudding (19) | October 31, 2014 9:30am
HammaSmite wrote:

*looks at list* Hm...okay, this is good....hm.....WAIT WHAT THE ****? THANATOS IS A LOW SKILL FLOOR AND LOW SKILL CEILING? WHAT THE **** IS WRONG WITH YOU? XD


Because all you need to do is land your skills, which aren;t teh hardest to land. You never really need to employ advanced tactics as your kit does everything for you.
1
HammaSmite (7) | September 6, 2014 8:42pm
*looks at list* Hm...okay, this is good....hm.....WAIT WHAT THE ****? THANATOS IS A LOW SKILL FLOOR AND LOW SKILL CEILING? WHAT THE **** IS WRONG WITH YOU? XD
1
dacoqrs (40) | September 2, 2014 11:43am

How the hell is Anubis' skill ceiling high?


Anubis needs to hit Mummify EVERY time to be mastered.
1
SweetTenderLove (6) | September 2, 2014 8:13am
How the hell is Anubis' skill ceiling high?
1
dacoqrs (40) | May 18, 2014 5:04am
Foxnos wrote:

Where would you say gods such as Fenrir and Tyr goes?


Tyr would probably be where Loki goes. While Tyr's rotation isn't difficult to learn, there are different aspects of it (Such as learning how to use the environment) that are not so simple to learn and take practice.

Fenrir is really, REALLY tough... if I had to guess, it would be where Arachne goes, as it seems like there's nothing to master about him, but he's also a hard to learn god? Don't quote me on that, cause Fenrir really is up to the player entirely, but that's just my perspective.

Remember those are just my opinions and certain people gravitate toward certain gods, roles, and playstyles :)
1
Foxnos | May 17, 2014 12:45pm
Where would you say gods such as Fenrir and Tyr goes?
1
dacoqrs (40) | May 16, 2014 11:59am
Tea100 wrote:

We need more guides explaining such things :)

Though I kinda feel strange for beeing a decent Athena player and really ****py Loki, where i am not even managing to get positive kd in majority of cases...


Like I said, these are just what I see and my personal experiences... and obviously, certain players gravitate toward certain gods and playstyles (:
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