PSA: Predictive Counterplay

Hey everyone, I'd like to clear up a common misconception about counterplay.

This is intended for new players, but veteran players should still look this over.

So if you've been playing Smite for a while then you probably know what counterplay is. But for new players..

Counterplay is the ability to... well, counter another god. I don't mean Aegis, Beads, or Counter Picks. While those are all effective ways to countering enemies, counterplay refers to more tangible things, such as teamfight positioning and juking.

Some people argue that counterplay does not exist in Smite. After all, if Poseidon is releasing the kraken directly under you, you're basically dead, right?

Well, yes. But what I feel is hard to understand is that counterplay in Smite is predictive.

By this, I mean that to counter other gods, you have to predict what they are going to do and when they are going to do it.

Let me give you a real life example. Me and Toast were playing a Conquest, and I was Janus and he was Hercules. An enemy Ra attempted to dive tower, and we used this combo on him:

Earthbreaker - Driving Strike - Portal - Unstable Vortex + Excavate

Envision that into your head. It's a well thought out combo: The enemy Ra was cced the entire time, and there was nothing he could do... or was there?

Read the scenario again. Why was a Ra diving tower anyways? Against a Hercules, the stunlock machine?

So, was there anything he could do once he was hit by Earthbreaker? Not really. But, Ra had two chances to live...

1. If he had not dived tower, he would have lived.
2. If he had juked the Earthbreaker, he would have lived.

Ah, but he didn't do either of those. So where's the counterplay?

Well, that's the thing: Once you dive tower, it's too late to do anything. Instead, you have to know the enemy god, and know that diving is a really poor choice.

Really, counterplay in this game all comes down to three things: Knowledge, Positoning, and Juking, in that order.

Knowledge is key in this game. If you know who you are up against, how they win and how they lose, you will win, a lot. Knowledege should always dictate descions like tower diving.

Positioning, also. Positioning yourself in the correct spot makes certain gods completely useless. Take Poseidon for example. I know that standing about 30 units away on a diaganol makes it extremely hard for him to hit his abilities. Not only is 30 units outside of range of his Kraken, he will also have to turn to Whirlpool me, which allows me to punish him.

And finally Juking, a skill that everyone should be constantly trying to get better at. In an entirely skillshot based game, if they can't hit you, you can't die.

To make matters worse I had this super long essay typed out but then I hit the back button so now this is the slightly less informative retyped version, heh.

If anyone else would like to comment on this, that would be great.

Yep!

A good thing to add on to counterplay are immunity frames. These are insanely helpful and can be used to avoid huge amounts of burst. All leaps, banishes, and knockups give immunity frames. So even abilities that don't "look" like leaps but are still classified as leaps in-game still give immunity frames. F.e - Feather Step, Last Breath.

A few abilities that can go past immunity frames are No Escape, Fire Shards, and World Weaver. You are not immune to DoT's applied before your immunity frames during immunity frames. Things like the bleed damage from Loki's Vanish and Serqet's Last Breath.

So if you have a jump and Vulcan ult target shows up where you are, you're obviously going to jump out. Alternatively you can jump right back on it (provided with the right timing) if your positioning is superior to where you are going to jump away.

The only self banish is Janus' Portal. All other banishes are dealt to the enemy. Freya cannot banish an ally and Sylvanus can't knockup his teammates to save them from a Poseidon ult. However, if an enemy Janus has a Portal placed down, and lets use Vulcan's ult again, you can purposely go into the Portal to avoid the damage from Earthshaker. However it might not always be the best idea since Janus might be able to deal more damage with Unstable Vortex right after.

But immunity frames also call for coordination. If you knockup or banish an enemy team they will be immune to incoming damage (not your DoT) for a short period of time. This includes any knockup or banish -
Moonlight Charge, Wrath of Terra, Fearless, Belly Flop, Waterspout, etc.
Banish, Portal, Wind Fire Wheels, Epic Uppercut, etc.

you know that everyone sees something else as counterplay do you? I even see it in two catogories.



here you have cato #1 immediate counter play. exists out of counter picks, actives and juking.

also teamfight positioning is more teamplay



without aegis (and not enough health) yeah you pretty much are, because there is only immediate counterplay.



this is something you always need to do know which options are available to you and your enemy



1. he tought he could kill you
2. the player was just stupid

also he didn't see the janus coming.


1. he decided to do it
2. he didn't react fast enough

he should have seen the earthbreaker coming but he didn't.

this really depends on the dive. because you can still do a lot of stuff (unless CC'ed what happened)



uhm the knowledge point is what I agree on but the other 2 are more required for juking (and the counterplay that is meant by a lot of people is my second cato. mechanical counterplay. and how that goes I will tell you that after all this)



this makes sure that you won't get an ability on your head but will also make a lot of things harder to do



jup true the same as picking a good counter to the persons you need to face. (immediate counterplay)


For me what you are saying here the counterplay is juking and that's my cato #1 counterplay. and what most people mean by counterplay is everything except the stuff in my cato #1.

my cato #2 is mechanical counterplay. these are things that are mostly game related. here I put counterbuilding, counter jungling and some more skill related things as body blocking.

a reason why a lot of people say there is no counterplay is because you need to use actives or juke the ability.

things that are actually counterplayed is body blocking Neith ult or when sobek wants to grab someone squishy and throw them into the middle of his team. (also a bit teamplay).

the elements of mechanical counterplay are:
availability: is a response possible

clear: is the need for the response clear (is it really needed to body block the pull)

Interesting: is it usefull etc/ the effects. e.g. body blocking a neith ult (that got shot a a squishy with full health for burst damage (yeah some people do this) as tank gives the adc to live longer.

well after body blocking there isn't much more then building (which can also be put in cato #1) or counter jungling.

because smite doesn't have a lot of options on most skills then to dodge it. a lot of the abilities penetrate multiple persons and most of them ignore minions (mercs dash athena's dash) so you can't use the minions to fend things of (sobeks pull is the only dash that stops at minions).

maybe you won't agree on what I have said but that's why I said everyone sees counterplay different. the one sees juking as counterplay the other doesn't

A bit of a bad habit, skimming through things first then reading it later. Usually only do this if I just want to add something on. Anyways -

Counter play is a huge category that includes both counter picks and counter builds. Counter play is changing your pattern or style of playing to do better against another's (pattern/style of playing).


@devampi

Positioning can be part of counter play. You could even say team play is also part of counter play. If you adapt or change anything in the positioning/team play - counter playyyy!

I like this idea Dac... maybe you could pour a couple thousand hours into listing every counter play to every combo ever :D. Just kidding, a generalized guide would be really cool, especially coming from someone who already has a guide or two on specialty topics in Smite.

yeah a lot of stuff is counterplay and that's why there is so much discussion about it

My favorite counter play is to juke everything(including Nu Wa ults,Neith ults and Ao Kuang executes) it works very well and I usually take no damage.

wait how do you even juke a Nu Wa ult (aegis is not a juke)

Yeah, by "juking" we don't mean just popping aegis.

Juking means actually physically dodging it.