SMITE 2 Beginner’s Guide: Essential Tips for New Players

by Fernando Diaz / Game Guides, Tips & Tricks / 28 Aug 2024

Rule the Battlefield as a Deity in SMITE 2 with these key strategies! This guide will give you the skills to unleash your godly might and win matches.

The Item Store and Auto Buy

When you begin each game you’ll have no items, but you’ll get gold as you play to purchase them. The item store offers many options to improve your Strength, Intelligence, defenses, or utility.

If you’re just starting out, the Auto Buy system can help you out. It gives you pre-made item sets to choose from, and it’ll buy items for you as you get gold. This lets you learn the game without stressing about what to buy right away. When you feel ready, you can start tweaking your builds to suit how you play.

Strength and Intelligence: Abilities Get a Makeover

Smite 2 changes things up by ditching the old physical vs. magical damage system. Now, abilities get stronger based on either Strength or Intelligence depending on the god and the ability. Take Neith, for example. Some of her abilities might get better with Strength, while others improve with Intelligence.

This creates a lot of chances to build items. Want to pile up crit on a god that used magic? Go for it! This freedom allows you to try new things and discover what suits your playstyle best.

Buff Camps and Jungle Control

Buff camps have returned, but they work differently now. The first time you clear a camp, it won’t give you a buff right away. Instead, the camp gets stronger the more you clear it. Once it hits level two, it’ll begin dropping buffs, and these buffs become more powerful the more you clear the camp. Be sure to keep farming these camps to strengthen your team.

Relics and Active Items

Smite 2 has changed relics. You start each match with Purification Beads and a Vision Ward. These help you survive fights and track enemies. The interesting part: Smite’s original relics are now active items in the store. You can buy as many as you want! But remember, loading up on actives might not always work best.

Try out different active items to find what suits your style.

Protections and Effective Health

Protections function like the original Smite: they lower the damage you receive, but with decreasing returns. Still, your effective health (the amount of damage you can withstand) grows with each protection point. This means you become tougher as you build more protections, but you’ll need to balance this with other key stats like damage.

Cooldown Rate: How It Works

Smite 2 has introduced a Cooldown Rate system to replace the old percentage-based reduction for cooldowns. This new system allows you to stack cooldown rate, which lowers your cooldowns, but it comes with diminishing returns. To give you an idea, a 10 Cooldown Rate might cut your cooldown by 9%, while a 50 Cooldown Rate could lead to a 33% reduction. At the higher end, a 100 Cooldown Rate would result in a 50% cooldown reduction. You can push your cooldown rate as high as you want, but the key lies in striking the right balance for your build.

Penetration: Keeping It Simple

Smite 2 has made penetration easy to understand. You won’t find separate physical and magical penetration anymore—it’s now just flat or percentage penetration. The main thing you need to think about is whether you want to stack Strength or Intelligence, which makes choosing items more straightforward.

Life Steal: What’s Changed?

Smite 2 has simplified life steal. You won’t see it split between physical and magical anymore—it’s just life steal now. This change means any god can use life steal items and get benefits from them regardless of their usual damage type.

AoE life steal now gives full value for every target it hits, which makes those big abilities even more helpful to keep you in the fight. Remember that life steal against non-god targets (like minions and jungle monsters) drops to one-third so you won’t be able to keep up as much from clearing waves.

Gold Fury and Ancient Fury: Map Control Essentials

The Gold Fury is still here, but it’s gotten an update to stay important throughout the game. After the third Gold Fury kill, the Ancient Fury shows up, which is harder to beat but gives a strong buff. This buff turns off enemy structures for a short time giving your team the perfect chance to push down towers or Phoenixes.

This game feature keeps both map sides crucial as the game progresses so watch the Gold Fury area and be prepared to fight for it when necessary.

The Interact Key

The sequel adds the Interact Key—a fresh way to engage with various items and goals on the map. You’ll notice a cue when you’re close to something you can interact with such as:

Grabbing the Warhorn in the Solo Lane: This strengthens your next wave of minions.

Using Teleporters: Travel across the map.

Opening Doors: Gain entry to your team’s base or other areas.

Collecting Jungle Buffs: No more taking your teammate’s buffs—just interact to claim it.

Fernando Diaz

Fernando is doing what he always did, sharing his honest opinions about games whenever he can. The difference is now he is writing and not talking about it.
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