Smite 2 Conquest from Noob for Noobs

Mobas are complicated. I've played Smite 1 quite a bit but mostly arena and without knowing anything.
In this guide I'll gather every infos i've learned about Smite 2 Conquest.
Feel free to join me in the learning with the goal to not get flamed every game :d

Some general stuff and glossary

First and foremost:
I won't cover the other game modes and will focus on Conquest.

Conquest is the main (?) MOBA mode of Smite with the familiar "5v5 push minions, destroy towers and the enemies base" gameplay.

Some terms used in the guide explained:

• Bruiser - Not as "tanky" as Tanks but just as much in the front lines. These are your fighters. Imagine a gym mommy with sword and shield or a hammer. Still tough and can hurt.
  
• Ganking - Trying to kill an enemy laner through numbers advantage (literally ganking up on them).
  
• Jungle - Area between lanes on either side is the jungle.
  
• Jungle Camps - The colored baubles you see on the mini map. Just some camps of neutral enemies in the jungle area.
  
• Last hit - If you land the very last hit that kills something you get the "Last hit" which comes with extra gold, exp, etc.
  
• Lane - The maps consist of 3 lanes and a Jungle. The lanes according to voice comms are: Left, Mid, Right. I often also call them Solo (On the side of the red Fire Giant), Mid, Duo (On the side of the yellow Gold Fury).
  
• Objective - An objective is a thing on the map that when claimed provides an advantage for your team. Objective examples: Enemy Towers, Phoenixes and the Titan, Gold Fury, Fire Giant, Naga Queen, etc.
  
• Pushing - Killing enemy minions so that your own minions can push forward towards the enemies base.
  
• Recalling - Going back to your base to heal and/or buy items.
  
• Roaming - Moving to another lane to gank an enemy.
  
• Tank - Tanks are the super hard to kill Gods that inhabit the front lines. They have a lot of protection, health (aka they are "tanky") and often disrupting abilities to protect their team. But they often lack damage and/or mobility. Imagine a beefy dude with 2 shields in hand. Maybe doesn't hurt as much but tough as nails.
  
• Ward - A consumable item. You can have up to 2 of the normal wards. They can be placed on the floor where they go invisible and provide vision. Super important to always see where enemies are. Place them on objectives.
  
• Sentry Ward - Works the same as a Ward but can also detect other Wards! Awesome to clear enemy wards and limit their vision on you.
  
• Wave - A group of minions is called a wave (of minions).

Summary of all roles

Here are the 5 main roles and I will type up each one in their own sections:

• Solo - If you know League of Legends, this is your Top laner. A lot of trading with the opponent and a focus on farming. Doesn't seem to roam often. Solo starts on the side where the red volcano thingy is (the Fire Giant :P). The game actually pings where your lane is in the beginning unless turned off.
  
• Mid - The classic Mid Laner. Often ranged, often mages. Loads of farming and helps the jungler secure camps. Can roam easily to other lanes
  
• Carry - In League this would be your ADC. Often rangedi and needs a TON of gold to destroy everything late game. In Dota I think this is called Position 1. They are accompanied by a Support to help them farm.
  
• Support - Often Tanks and Enchanters (Healing, Shielding, Buffing type Gods). Helps the Carry get TONS of gold. I think support tries not to last hit minions but helps getting the minions low enough to last hit. Also helps with jungle camps in the same way.
  
• Jungler - League players know this one but If you're coming from Dota this might be different. This role roams around between the lanes taking the colorful jungle camps, helps other lanes push or try to kill enemies on every lane.

Solo Lane

The solo laner starts on the side the Fire Giant is. Thats the big red area on the map.
You can also check the jungle camps. Solo Laners start where the blue camp is.
So if you see the yellow Gold Fury area or the purple buff next to you, you are wrong :P

The Lane consists of the usual minion path as well as a War Horn and 5 camps on the edge of the map and the jungle with some camps on the other side. There are also 2 Portals on the edge that can teleport you across the entire map to the corresponding Portal on the Gold Fury Side (and vice versa)

Solo Lane Gods are often tanky fighters or full tanks. But any God with a bit of wave clearing potential can work well.

TL;DR Solo Lane:

• Push fast, Poke enemies, get as many camps as possible, get blue camp everytime it's up. If ahead try to steal enemies camps or kill them. War Horn is nice especially later in the game. Portals are nice for a quick gank on duo lane. Plan your recall timers

The current start in Open Beta Patch 2

Most Solo Lane Gods start at their own blue camp and clear it, grabbing the little buff that pops out of the big neutral enemy. To grab it press the shown button (Default: Space Bar)
Gods with really bad clear sometimes opt to just start on the minion wave instead.

Early Game

The main goal is to get as much EXP and Gold as possible. That is true throughout the game tbh but early game feels super fast in that regard.
The first God to hit Level 2 often immediately has an advantage and can look to poke or even kill the opposing God.
After pushing one or two waves of minions, the Solo Laners often pivot to the adjacent camps.

Not sure about Warding but from what I've seen most Junglers start on the other side of the map, then chill mid lane and take middle camp. So you are safe for the first few levels.
Latest at Level 5 i get paranoid since they can destroy me with 2 ultimates.

Recalling

I try to only recall if I have way too much gold or when there is nothing more to grab i.e. all camps are dead, war horn gone and my minions have pushed into enemies tower. If you recall and your enemy can still do things without you being able to interrupt them, you will lose a LOT of gold and experience.
The Base Portal can help to recall and quickly return but always check your cooldown above your HP Bar before considering.

Mid Game

I have not yet figured out what the Mid Game priorities on the map are or when Mid Game begins tbh. Often its just a free for all with ganks and the same gold farming as in the early game. I try to be more aware of the map and place some wards. If my Base Portal is available, I look to gank the duo lane using the 2 Portals next to the solo lane that teleports you to the same Portal on the other side of the map. Can be very sneaky and often leads to easy kills!

Late Game

Same as Mid Game not sure when this starts. But I am now starting to group up to take objectives or, if Im too late or my team has things handled, I keep pushing my lane and grab more gold and exp.
My noob ass is mostly running around like a chicken though..

Mid Lane

Sorry I have yet to play a single game of mid lane :x

But some observations:

After your own jungler clears their first two camps, the often want to push the next minion wave alongside you. Push it fast and then follow your jungler to the camp adjacent to your lane (the "middle camp") and take that with your jungler.
Then go back to pushing and grabbing nearby camps.

Watch the map closely and maybe grab a few wards to see enemy jungle ganks coming.

Carry

The Carry starts on the side, where the yellow Gold Fury area is.
If you check the jungle camps on the map, you want to start on the side where the purple camp is.

The Lane, much like Solo Lane, has 5 camps on the edge of the map.

Most duo laners seem to start at their purple jungle camp and clear it. The carry grabs the buff and both move back to lane.
If the enemy doesn't to that and instead pushes your minions first, it can often feel suffocating trying to last hit minions under tower.
Im not fully sure what to do here but i assume with buff you are much stronger and might be able to just destroy the enemy instead of going for minions?

Main Goals:
Get all the gold to get all the items and destroy all the enemies.
To to that, push minions like crazy, grab all the 5 camps on the side and if available grab nearby jungle camps.
When fighting in lane try to kill the enemy carry first. That way, even if you also die in the exchange, at least the enemy carry can't farm while you are respawning.
Be nice to your support! Being so close together can be difficult like with a roommate. But remember that you need each other and everyone is always learning!

Without knowing what every God does this lane can feel super punishing. Because coordinating with your support you can unleash absolute mayhem on the enemy from early levels.

Watch for ganks! Both junglers are very close in the beginning and could pop out of the bushes any time.

Support

I have not yet played as support.

Like the carry you start at the side of the yellow Gold Fury.
Looking at jungle camps you start where the purple camp is.

Most duo laners start at the purple camp and clear it.
If you attack the camp first, the camp enemies attack you which can be good to keep your carry as healthy as possible for upcoming fights (Especially if you play a tank).
Try not to last hit the jungle enemies cause they also give gold to your carry. But its important to still clear the camp fast.

From what I understand you do not last hit minions but can shoot them to get them low enough for your carry to last hit them.
Help your carry as much as possible to get money and experience.

At level 2 there seem to often be openings to attack the enemy. Either shooting them from afar to whittle down their health of fully going nuts on them to try to kill them.
Keep in mind that your carry usually wants to get minions and farm first. So if you engage while a full minion wave is on your side, you 1.) can lose HP to those minions making the fight more difficult 2.) lose gold from those minions 3.) if you lose the fight the enemy can easily push and get a huge advantage.
So be aware!

As with carry role be nice to each other. We are all here to learn.

Jungler

Alright. The Jungler probably needs the most explaining.
Definitely check out some Videos on the Smite 2 Jungle for general information on camps and such!
But for some reason most of these Videos just show their gameplay and in the beginning I had to look for multiple sources to understand everything..

Some general things I've learned so far:

Camps

Honestly just watch this Video from LemTM and make sure to show him some love with likes and such:

The start

You can see the Start in the above video!
His recommended path at the end is similar to what I've been seeing although there is a variation shown in other videos:
After the first two camps I've seen junglers either directly gank mid if possible or push the minion wave in the middle to take the mid jungle camp together with your mid laner. The Mid laner then often follows you to your red jungle camp and they take the buff after its dead.

From here it's a bit fuzzy to me. I usually run around and try to nuke every camps (and the harpies that spawn between the camps) as quickly as I can and look for possible ganks on every lane. If I know where the enemy jungler is I often chill on their side of the Jungle and grab camps they haven't gotten yet.
But make sure to press Tab to bring up the score board and see the levels and gold amounts of everyone. Ganking a lane thats level 10 while you chill at level 7 can be dangerous.
After a gank and if I have enough gold for an item (or at least a tier 2 component) I recall and repeat the above.


Traditionally in MOBAs, the Jungler often gets a lot of hate from everyone because they either think they know everything in general and jungling in particular better than you or think they've lost their lane because you didn't help (kinda the same thing).
Ignore them. Honestly just ignore every communication thats not immediately helpful.
Bring up the score board, click the hater and block and/or mute their comms. Its not worth it to listen to them!
Carry on, keep learning and have fun.

Items

Boy oh boy! This is a big and important one.
First of all if you are still learning the controls just keep Auto-Buy for now but note that auto-buy is bad if you wanna win!

As in every MOBA there are a ton of items to learn and I advice going into practice mode or vs. AI games to check out the shop thoroughly.

Item basics

Runes

Runes are your "F" key Ability if you will.
Read through them and picks whats nice.

Blink Rune is picked A LOT and functions similar to "Flash" from League of Legends. You can just teleport quickly even in combat. So nice!

In Duo Lane the Phantom Shell Relic can be super annoying to deal with!

Starter Item

Everyone takes one starter item which you keep throughout the whole game.
Some of these help with jungle camps, others focus on hitting enemies. No idea how to choose these yet. I see most of them picked up so none of them seem super useless. Bumbas Cudgel in particular seems extremely valuable tho since it helps with jungle camps and everyone needs those anyway.
At level 20 you can upgrade your started item! So they keep relevant throughout.

Consumables

I usually pick up at least a health potion in the beginning but not at the later stages. Throughout the game you want to buy Vision Wards and after filling all item slots you can spend remaining gold on elixirs of strength / intelligence to permanently gain stats.
In solo line I like a cheeky Health Chalice to help with trading.

Strength and Intelligence

Every ability from Gods have stats they "scale" with (aka "become stronger with"). Sometimes its purely with Strenght or Intelligence, other times they have both.
If you bring up your abilities with CTRL (or press ALT to show cursor and hover over them) you can often see the scaling in brackets.

Check out this graphic from the Smite Subreddit to learn more (still seems to be up to date):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/1fdl8t1/smite_2ldr_gods/

Shredding and Anti-Heal

DONT SLEEP ON THESE
Trying to kill tanks without "Shredding" items is like melting a block of cheese instead of shredding or slicing it first. Takes forever. Consider items that either give you Shredding outright or reduce the enemies protections to also buff your teams damage! Dont sleep on this!

Some awesome Items I see often for Shred:
Titan's Bane for big Shred and big Strength Boost
Void Shield and Void Stone for a nice mix of tankyness and shred for the team. Often seen on fighters / beefy solo laners.
Dominance Similar to Titans Bane. Bit of attack speed for carries probably?
The Executioner is awesome for carries or Gods that attack a lot.
Heartseeker and Soul Reaver are less shred but deal more dmg to high hp targets with STR and INT respectively.
Qin's Blade is similar to the above but with added attack speed. All basic-attack carries seem to buy this
Oath-Sworn Spear shreds through your abilities. Awesome for more spell heavy gods.
Stone of Binding is a fantastic item for CC heavy Gods.

Side-Note:
Demonic Grip seems to see no play at all. Not even on Poseidon? Maybe if Chronos comes to Smite 2 :D
Im probably forgetting some but just look through the shop honestly!


Similarly, if the enemy just keeps healing you can get anti healing items!
Brawlers Ruin is the strength option
Divine Ruin is the intelligence option
Lernaean Bow gets the job done with some attack speed and poison! Nice for carries
Ruinous Ankh for aoe anti heal and tankyness. Great for fighters and tanks.

Side note: Vulcan

If you play Vulcan you can buy Modules at the shop at certain Level thresholds. No idea whats good here tbh! But don't forget about them ;P

Itemization

Buying the correct items is essential to win games and to me it requires the most amount of learning.

There are not too many guides up yet for smite 2 gods and builds so I highly recommend checking out each item first, trying to remember what does what and then slowly get into how itemization works.

Some match-ups simply are (or at least feel) completely unwinnable without the correct items or are just much easier when you buy correctly.

My favorite example as of recent was playing against Ares but forgetting to buy the purification bead relic.
His ultimate chains all enemies around him and makes him immune to crowd control. He then pull in all chained enemies which is often certain death.
Purification Beads break the chain but if you forget it in the beginning and by for example the blink rune, you are screwed.
BUT: The Item "Talisman of Purification" can save your little beginner butt. It's an active item that removes CC (Crowd Control, see glossary) from you AND your surrounding team! Absolute life saver.

But honestly im still learning here and can't give much tips on itemization yet :x
So maybe here are some quick infos instead.

Quick tips and infos

• I heard that "Screeching Gargoyle" is super OP and every tank should get it. EDIT: It has been nerfed by 1 second silence time. Still seems very good though
  
• "Qin's Blade" is super strong on Carries.
  
• "Soul Gem" seems bonkers OP?
  
• "Stampede" is an awesome ultility item to engage with your team. Similar to Leagues Shureliyas but more tanky!.
  
• "Hussar's Wings" is so cool if enemies slow you a lot. Straight up makes you immune to slow!
  
• "Helm of Darkness" can be nice if you don't have the Blink Rune.
  
• If you're looking for League of Legends Thornmail or Dotas Blade Mail => "Hide of the Nemean Lion" is similar!
  
• "Pharaoh's Curse" and "Spectral Armor" seem to be anti-auto-attack (anti-carry) items (similar to League's Frozen Heart)

[|Silver| Suin]

Why i have less gold than everyone else?