Support Guide for Season 2

Hello, I am CheekyBaboon. I have played a handful of MOBA's across the years, but in no way claim to be a professional. I think myself as someone knowledgeable and part of that is due to this very site, where I have often sought guidance from.

Recently, I have noticed that some people are not entirely certain about how to play the support role in conquest. I have seen multiple games where the support is blamed for not securing objectives or because he or she is lost. I am creating this guide as a beacon of light in effort to guide both new and existing players that are not certain about the ever-coveted role of supporting your team.

I really try to be kind and persuasive of new players to Smite. If you see someone new to Smite that doesn't know how to support, I can only hope that this can serve as a valuable resource to help that person.

As a forewarning, I will mention that this guide is a bit long because I do try to be as detailed as possible. In essence, I try to hold your hand through the supporting process. Should I miss something, feel free to leave me a message or comment. I will always welcome constructive criticism. This guide will also be a WIP.

This is a good question. What, exactly, constitutes a god befitting of the support role? Most supports are there to take care of the carry by means of absorbing damage in lieu of the squishy ADC and/or using crowd control to stave off enemies wanting to destroy your team. For this reason, supports tend to be built defensively and often have stuns, slows, roots, and even heals.

Do you know how doctors might allude that the best cure to a certain lethal illness is prevention? This also befalls upon you as support. Being the tank and crowd control master on your team aren't the only ways to keep your carry alive. Warding is a key part about playing the role. If a friendly teammate can see a gank before it ever gets to him, he is much more likely to live.

Some people think that it is the support's job to die and I think this mindset is completely erroneous. Yes, you are likely to be the one on your team with more deaths than kills, but this is not a free pass to die frequently and end up giving the enemy team an enormous edge. Your job is to absorb damage, cc enemies, save allies, and to survive. Knowing when to back out of a fight is key.

Remember that the support role is vital to any team composition. Supports do not always get to bathe in the glory of massive killstreaks, but your role is just as important as the carry. In my opinion, support is one of the harder roles to play and often a thankless job. People expect you to know how to play it and when you do a brilliant job, you probably won't get much praise. Please do not let this defer you from the role. It can be very rewarding, specially when you're playing a carry and end up with a support who actually knows what he is doing.

Now I will give a few examples of some good supports and even some sub-par supports. There are many great supports with varying strengths and weaknesses. Guardians like Ares, Athena, Ymir, Geb, Sylvanus, Kumbhakarna, and Bacchus have crowd control abilities that allow them to peel off enemies from friendly allies. Normally, guardians are built with high protections and health in order to stay in the fight longer and continue to CC down enemy gods.

The mighty Greek God of War is a true nuisance in the hands of a skilled player. Early game, Ares does an enormous amount of damage and can become a force the enemy ADC will fear. Equipped with a cripple that you can refresh, Ares can ensure that the enemy will not escape if he manages to land Shackles. This ability can be difficult to fully take advantage of and Ares requires a prolonged length of time to dish out this much damage. Using stuns against him really hurts his damage potential. Additionally, Ares's No Escape is a mind game. The enemy is forced to buy early beads or waste their ultimates to not get pulled in, because if they do, it is almost certainly a death.

Athena, in case you didn't know, is Ares' sister. She is a lot less brutal and more befitting of the term "guardian." Her Preemptive Strike allows her to jump into the fray or it can be used to rotate across the map quicker. Equipped with a taunt, Confound, Athena literally forces enemies to hit her instead of allies. Above all, is her ultimate: Defender of Olympus. This ability allows her to move from one end of the map to the other in 4 seconds and tip the scales in your team's favor. No other support can keep up with this. On top of that mobility, it does a lot of damage in an area around an ally and offers some mitigation.

Ymir, Father of the Frost Giants, is a master of crowd control and can dish out plenty of damage if he can land the combo. This guardian can stun multiple enemies with his Frost Breath for a whopping 2.25 seconds. During that time, he can then apply a slow to make sure enemies cannot escape after the stun wears off. Do not underestimate his Ice Wall, either. It takes some practice, but using it properly can prevent an enemy from escaping or save an ally. This is why fighting him in narrow areas can be extremely dangerous. Most people will know to avoid his Shards of Ice, but if you can freeze, slow, and place a wall behind your opponents, this ability can end up doing a large amount of damage.

If you have ever played on a team with a good Geb, you know why people love this god. His Shock Wave is easy to land and is really good at helping clear the minion wave. Roll Out is amazing because it can help initiate, escape, and immensely increases Geb's mobility for rotations. The most defining feature about this god is his Stone Shield, which gives your friendly target additional temporary HP. This can help teammates narrowly survive or to prevent them from being annihilated given that it removes any CC effects. If someone gets stunned or pulled into the enemy, shield them to give tem a chance to escape.

You will find that Sylvanus will never be a bad pick. This god can provide both an aggressive and a safe laning experience. What is different about this god is that his basic attacks are ranged and have an AOE effect. Sylvanus doesn't have to dive into the fray and risk taking too much minion damage, since he can use most of his abilities and attacks from a distance. Verdant Growth provides a great root when it strikes enemise and if placed on the ground, it will grow into a flower that will give MP5 in an area around it. When I pick Sylvanus, I like to throw a flower behind the middle tower to give the middle laner some sustain during the laning phase. People will love you for doing this. Furthermore, his Wisps provides both a decent heal to allies and a DoT against enemies around you. Nature's Grasp can be hard to land, but if you pair it with your root, this ability becomes extremely deadly. Wrath of Terra is fairly easy to land with Greater Blink and has the potential to hit multiple gods around you.

There are also good warrior supports such as Guan Yu, Sun Wukong, and Hercules. These supports can be built semi-tanky with some damage as well.
Now for sub-par supports that you should not consider picking unless particular circumstances arise. Some of these gods can support, but there are usually better alternatives. Sobek, Hades, Aphrodite and Cabrakan are three guardians that can be better suited in other roles aside from support. These gods are not impossible to support with, but the are simply not as good as the others mentioned.

Sobek seems to be the most controversial. I have played Sobek support and done so successfully. He has a fast pull with Charge Prey that can isolate an enemy behind friendly minions or allies and even pull enemy gods into tower range when they push too much. Tail Whip is a nice AOE knock up that you can use to remove multiple Magi's Blessing in the late game and his ultimate, Lurking In The Waters is a long, big AOE slow that does a ton of damage when you resurface. The drawback with Sobek is that he can actually hurt the team. Charge Prey throws the enemy behind you a certain distance. If you charge from a bad angle, you could end up saving the enemy. Or if someone is chasing your low health teammate, you might end up accidentally pulling the enemy towards your ally, dooming his efforts to narrowly escape. Tail Whip also displaces enemies, so you could end up tumbling some foes in the direction of a friendly god. Conversely, Sobek can also save allies. Using a previous example, if you pull an enemy giving chase to your ADC from the right angle, you can actually force the enemy away from your ally. I like Sobek because he can be aggressive and much like Ares, there is a constant fear factor that he's going to pull you. Ultimately, there's a risk with Sobek that you don't run into with other gods. He's not a bad support by any means, there are just better gods fit for the job.

Why the King of the Underworld is labeled a guardian is beyond me, and likely a thought that has crossed many other players. Hades does not fit the role of a support. He has amazing lane clear in the early game that can steal farm from the ADC. His means to CC someone is a silence + fear with Shroud of Darkness. It's nice, but it wont necessarily peel as well as a stun would. He's also ranged and his kit begs to be built like a mage. I have seen people attempting to use Hades as support and usually does not turn out well. For some reason, people do not want to buy Hand of the Gods on him. I will not even try to reason that out. I will just say that I highly recommend that you do NOT pick Hades for the support role. He is better in the solo lane.

I know it's fun to stare at our scantily clad Goddess of Beauty, but this is going to be a pick I will not suggest. In the typical MMO role, healers and buffers are given a supportive role. Aphrodite, however, is lacking in some departments. Love Birds is an absolutely great heal. I mean, it can really make a difference in teamfights when she's constantly healing her allies. She also has an almost free Greater Aegis that affects her and her soul mate. Her Kiss can also stun enemies and Back Off! can momentarily stave off greedy hands trying to kill teammates. What I don't like about her is that she cannot tank effectively. She needs CDR and magic power to make the best use of her kit and building tanking items is really taking a lot away from Aphrodite's potential. She will become a high priority target when the enemy team realizes how much her heals aid allies and will therefore be melted down quickly. Aphrodite support can work if your solo laner is willing to take the role of a tank, which often warriors do. It's always a gamble though. Supports are generally underfarmed and underleveled and support Aphro will die quickly. She is very situational and I will recommend not choosing her. Again, she is not bad, but there are far superior options. Aphrodite also is better suited for the solo lane.

When choosing a god, look at what the rest of your team has. Warriors are physical and guardians are magical damage. If you have too much magic damage on your team, you might consider a warrior support. Likewise, you should likely pick up a guardian if you have a lot of physical damage on the team already.

Now you're in a match and you are not entirely certain what you should get at level one. You might be tempted to grab some boots at the beginning, but this is a surefire way to make your laning phase a struggle as you won't be able to stay in lane long and might be forced to back soon. There are two builds that I use when starting as support:

Reasoning: Watcher's Gift can be an amazing starter item. Take a look at the stats, it gives you 100 more health to make you a bit sturdier and it has some built in MP5, which helps you regenerate mana a bit better so you can use your abilities more often. Now look at the passive. You get extra gold, health, and mana regen for not last hitting minions. This means that you get some additional sustain and money when you let the carry farm. Hand of the Gods helps clear jungle camps and mid camps (explained later) and the two wards will be used to keep an eye out for enemy ganks. The five potions will allow enough sustain in lane for you to take some damage if need be from enemy poke or minion damage. Since you already have the MP5 from Watcher's Gift, you really don't need mana potions.

Reasoning: This is probably my most used build because I enjoy playing the aggressive support that gets on the enemy team's nerves. It can create a fear factor between you and the enemy carry because at any given time, you could rush in and try to hurt him. As you can see, Mark of the Vanguard gives your god additional protections and a bit more health than Watcher's Gift. Instead of the sustain from Watcher's, however, you instead mitigate 5 damage from attacks against you. In the early stages of the game, this is huge. This means you can absorb more damage for longer and can therefore jump into the fray and poke the enemy gods in the lane. Due to the fact that you will probably be playing more aggressive, you will also need a lot of sustain due to minion damage. For this reason, I take up multiple potions. This build can be very high risk, so I only recommend it after you have learned how to play the god you choose.

These are the general builds I use, but you may feel free to adjust them as you see fit. For example, you might go for the safe build on Sylvanus, but choose mana potions instead of health potions due to the fact that his Wisps is a magnificent heal.
Each of these starting build has its strengths and weaknesses. The safe lane makes you a lot more passive and less likely to get an early kill, but it will also prevent enemy ganks, whereas the the aggressive build will open up the potential to get a kill in the lane and leaves your jungle a bit more open for being ganked. On some gods, you may also prefer to substitute some of the aforementioned potions for Multi Potion. Again, you can find a compromise between these two builds as you see fit. Find your playstyle and comfort zone with the starting builds.

One thing I do want to emphasize is the importance of Hand of the Gods. You must always get this item at the start with the support. This helps clear the jungle camps faster and will be important... no... it will be vital for securing objectives later in the game. It doesn't matter if you're trying to play an unorthodox support for one reason or another. This is one of the support's defining items, so please do not disregard it.

Starting items? Check. Let's head towards the laning phase. Not so fast there, now. There's a small pre-laning phase that you will be expected to partake in. As soon as you finish your items, you will need to begin walking towards the Damage jungle camp, not the lane. Here, you will meet the attack damage carry (ADC) and the mid god while waiting for minions to spawn. The locations of the damage camps are a bit different depending if your team is on the Chaos or the Order side. They are here, as follows:

If you do not know which side you're on, just look at the map. As the support, you will be laning in the long lane, or colloquially referred to as the duo lane. Look at the distance between the friendly and enemy tier 1 towers in that lane. You will end up in the lane with the longest distance between said towers. The damage camp is always in the jungle adjacent to this duo lane. Additionally, just look for the signs as you walk out of spawn. There will be some pointing towards the damage camp as you walk around the jungle.

Okay, now all jungle camps spawn at the 10 second mark after the game officially begins and the friendly laning minions begin their frivolous march to clash against the enemy minions. Your goal is to finish both the damage and attack speed camps and reach the lane by the time the minions get there, so timing is crucial. I will explain this in a step by step process.

As soon as this camp spawns, attack it and use damaging abilities to bring it down as fast as possible. Do NOT and I repeat do NOT use your Hand of the Gods at the damage camp. You have two other allied gods attacking it and using abilities to bring it down as well. Using HoG will be overkill and will hurt you in the following step. If your mid laner is using a ground target AOE ability, try to keep the camp within the ability as long as possible. Here is where I will explain leashing as well, as this also an important part of your job. After having attacked it, you and your teammates will take turns tanking the camp minions. The process of leashing consists of passing the camp's aggression towards one god to another by pulling the camp in one direction and then letting the camp aggro towards someone else. You do this by attacking first and then moving towards the edge of the circle on the ground. When you're ready to switch aggro, step outside the circle and the camp will aggro the next person that attacked it in the circle. Ideally, you want to pull the damage camp in the direction opposite from the middle lane until the large minion is at a little bit less than half health and then forcing the camp to aggro onto the mid god, who should be attacking from the direction closes to the mid lane. This is effectively kiting the camp in order to minimize the damage taken and the distance the mid laner has to walk towards his own lane. If done correctly, the red buff from the big minion should land at the mid god's feet and he can be on his way to lane. Remember: do not pick up the damage buff, that is for the mid lane and do not use HoG on the damage camp. Next, move towards the attack speed camp as quickly as possible.

Because most supports are melee based, your carry will probably be at the attack speed before you and will attack as soon as he gets there. Your job here is to run in and use Hand of the Gods on the camp. At this camp, it should only be your ADC and you attacking it, so HoG helps deal additional damage without the help of the mid god. Leashing is also a good tactic here, except now you want the attack speed buff to land closer to the duo lane. Again, do not pick up this buff. This is for the ADC. However, I will make a special mention that Sylvanus can benefit more from this attack speed buff than the ADC because his ranged basic attacks are actually AoE. This is currently the only guardian that might be okay to pick up the attack speed buff at level one. After that first time in the match, the ADC should always get it. Now rush towards the duo lane as quickly as possible.

Ideally, you should arrive at the lane as soon as the first minions begin to die and you should hit level two soon after you reach the lane. Your jobs in the laning phase include:

• Keeping both you and your ADC safe
• Helping push the lane back
• Taking an opportune moment to either get an early kill or force the enemies to retreat to base
• Allowing your ADC to farm and get last hits.
• Securing mid camps.

The support needs to keep both himself and the ADC alive. They can do this by preventing enemies from killing allies by using stuns, heals, slows, and body blocking. Body blocking is something I find fascinating in Smite. A guardian has to literally stand between his ADC an enemy to tank hits because projectiles and swings do not pass through you. There are some abilities that can pierce or are innately an AoE that can get past your portly defenses, Mr. Bacchus, but you can mitigate a lot of damage by body blocking. Now remember that everyone in the beginning of the match is still relatively squishy and you can only absorb a limited amount of damage. Starter items definitely help, but there is one thing to keep in mind: You cannot tank the minion wave. They do a lot of damage early on. You can take a few hits here and there, but please do not try and tank the full wave. This is a good way to die, feed, and upset the carry you're laning with because it will make his farming job a lot harder.

You have to help the carry push the lane some. This consists of using abilities on minions to damage them. If you have an AoE like Geb's Shock Wave, or Ymir's Glacial Strike, try to time and angle the abilities to both hit minions and enemy gods to effectively poke them a bit.

If you are going to be aggressive, your goal is to try to get a kill or force the enemies back to the fountain to heal up. If your opponents are the aggressive team, your goal is then to try and turn the tables when they attack you or simply to keep both you and your carry safe.

Let your carry farm up and get as much gold as possible. If you see a minion low on health, don't attack it. Let the ADC take it. This isn't much of a concern in casuals, but definitely something to consider when your carry is building stacks.

Now you have been laning for a while and I will urge you to keep track of the clock at the top. You want to make sure your lane is pushed out enough so that you can make your way over towards the mid camps. When the clock is at about 2:40 or 2:45, you want to start making your way over toward the mid exp camps. Notify your ADC that you're leaving him and then begin your march towards mid the lane.

Here is where wards will begin to shine. If you had some from your starting build, make sure to leave some behind to watch your ADC's back. As you approach the mid camps, keep an eye out for their jungler and their support. Securing the mid camps can be a difficult task and you have to consider multiple factors:

• Does their support have the chance to reach the camp you're going for?
• Is the middle lane pushed in favor for your team?
• Are any of your teammates not nearby?
• Is their mid laner someone with a massive power spike at Lv. 5?

This list is not exclusive, but as you can see, you have to play it smart. If the enemy jungler is Bastet and your ally jungler is Kali, you probably do not want to fight the enemies. If you see the enemies congregated at one camp, it can often be smarter to rotate towards the camp on the other side of the lane. Remember how you got Hand of the Gods? Now is the perfect time to use it. Deal as much damage as you can with an ability and then use HoG. The camp should go down quickly and you can carry on your way. For the most part, I am going to recommend not engaging in fighting over these camps. It is better to at least take one rather than risk it all and end up giving away a kill. After the camps are done, you will probably linger around the middle lane a bit and keep on eye on the enemy support. Stick around for a wave or two to keep the mid laner safe. If no confrontations arise, you can teleport back to base.

Assuming you didn't die or weren't forced to back during the laning phase, this should be the first time you have returned to base. This isn't always the case, but it is the ideal case. You should have some gold you'll be looking to spend. Some gods differ and many situations change the priorities, but in general you want to pick up:

It is very important that you buy higher levels of HoG as soon as possible and the warding is an integral part of your job that I will go into further detail later. If you do not have enough money to buy all of these, you must prioritize warding first and then the boots and HoG 3. If you're playing some supports that require Blink like Ares, Geb, Ymir and Sylvanus, you can consider staving off on a rank of HoG to get tier 1 blink because their skillsets paired with a blink can turn the tide of a battle. Alternatively, you might get Shoes of Focus for guardians or Warrior Tabi for warriors if you're ahead of the enemy team. I prefer the Travelers Shoes and Talaria Boots just because it encourages roaming. You can run from lane to lane, use an ability on a god, and then back off. This creates some possible mind games and you get some additional gold just for landing an ability. Once you have your items, begin heading back towards the duo lane.

The Mid Game should begin at around this time where people will begin looking for ganks. You want to take care that the ADC does not get ganked and will therefore ward the side of the jungle he is farming in. These locations will be labeled in the next section. Once you're back in lane, get some exp and help push if need be. Aid your carry with taking down the attack speed buff again and place two wards down. Now you're no longer considered part of the duo lane. You must roam and get exp from kills, exp camps, and jungle buff camps. Help with as many jungle buff camps as you can and help your teammates wherever you may be needed. This is the hardest part about supporting, the rotations. You have to be everywhere on the map. A good way to keep track of this is if you see the support going somewhere, it is a good idea to go towards that lane as well to balance any advantage the enemy support seeks to gain.

You will also be responsible for securing Gold Fury and Fire Giant kills. Get your HoG 3 ASAP so that the enemy cannot steal these objectives. This is an integral part of the support role and cannot, by any means, be overlooked no matter what god you pick. In order to secure these objectives, you will have to get them to at about 33% health or when you see the HP bar is yellow and not red anymore.

Rotations are key for this phase of the game. One thing to remember is that you want to be active, not reactive. Take initiative and make the enemy support follow you. Yes, if he rotates, so should you. If you rotate, however, he'll be forced to be the one that has to react. This should put you ahead if done correctly.

By now, you should be looking to start buying more items. You'll need defensive items and other items that will help your team. This will vary across enemy compositions, but I will highly suggest the following:

These two items give a good chunk of health and protections. On top of that, you get two auras. These auras are magnificent. 25 HP5 from Sovereignty and +20 MP5 from Heartward. With this much sustain, you can roam from lane to lane without having to back as frequently. This not only helps you, but helps all five members of your team. It is crucial that you pick these up, but always remember that when you go back to base that wards have higher priority. I want to emphasize that every single time that you leave base, you need to have 2 wards in your inventory. Always. No buts. Always. If you manage to walk to the phoenix and you forget them, turn yourself around and go get them. This is how important warding is. If you forget your wards, you've messed up. You need wards.

These items will make you a bit tankier and will therefore allow you to be part of the front line in team fights.

This is a good time to further elaborate on body blocking, something I find to be an incredible feature in Smite. As the tank, you can position yourself to stand between yourself and allies to literally block harmful attacks and some abilities. You will want to absorb abilities that would otherwise hurt your team. When the enemy hunter is shooting basic attacks at your mage, your job is to stand in between them and face tank every single shot they shoot. They will try to move around you, so you'll have to dance with them to try and block the projectiles.

Late Game begins as soon as you hit around level 15 or so. The carries and solos will be a bit higher and they will begin to start doing a lot more damage. You should use any gold you have to buy defensive items after the aura items listed in the previous section. Hide of the Urchin works really nicely. If they have attack speed based carries, you might consider a Witchblade. If they have gods that use basic attacks, like ADC's, Midgardian Mail and/or Hide of the Nemean Lion work brilliantly. If they have a lot of magic based damage dealers, Runic Shield or Stone of Gaia can work really well. If the enemy healer is making a huge difference, you can consider Pestilence and definitely a Weakening Curse.

These are all defensive items, meaning you will not be doing much damage. It is not your job to deal the most damage in team fight. Your job is to force enemies into attacking you. You will be focused a lot just because you are the front line and if the enemies get through you, they get to your squishy mages and hunters in the back. You need to out last a lot of damage and survive as long as possible. It is your job to lure enemy ultimates onto you. These abilities can obliterate allies but you have to live through it as long as possible. If the enemy team is not focusing you, then your job is to apply CC's so your team has an advantage in fights. You might find this dull, but it can be very satisfying to survive Poseidon's Release The Kraken!, Neith's World Weaver, and Loki's Assassinate because this means that these abilities will not be used to rip through your squishy teammates.

During this phase of the game you will also likely be tanky enough to take shots from towers and phoenixes. When your team is pushing with little time to waste, run into tower range and allow yourself to absorb the damage while your team attacks the tower. You will be expected to tank towers and phoenixes when the lanes aren't pushed far enough. Sometimes you will have to do this under the pressure of enemy gods still alive and trying to stave you off. This is also another vital part of the support. These structures deal physical damage, so physical protections and HP works best. Under pressure of respawn timers, you might even have to tank the titan. This can be hard because the titan hurts. A lot. Even with tanky items, it will do a lot of damage. If there is no minion wave, you'll be forced to do this and you might even die trying. Sacrifice yourself if need be because your teammates cannot tank as well as you can.

When you get your first set of wards, you will want to choose two of these locations:

Rather soon, however, you will want to place down a ward or even better, a sentry ward inside the ring where the gold fury rests. If you put it inside, you will be able to see the actual gold fury and if it is being attacked. If you put it outside, it will not track the movements of the gold fury and the enemy team could possibly still kill it without you knowing.


As the game progresses, you will start to try and ward the Fire Giant as well. By this point, a lot of your other teammates should be helping ward too. Make sure you place wards around gold fury and fire giant throughout the rest of the game. This is part of your job and part of everyone else's. Everyone should ward, but you should always be the primary warder.

There you have it. This was my first guide on Smitefire and I hope it goes a way to help both new and experienced players improve their support play. Feel free to leave constructive criticism and suggestions, because I would like to make this guide as user friendly as possible.

Now get in game and do some great supporting!