Basic mistakes you want to avoid (v1.75 Reformatting IP)

Hello, and welcome to my reformed Guide of basic mistakes. This guide is about fairly basic mistakes that are often made by beginners, but may also be made by veterans as well. Hopefully, this guide will help you to quickly recognize these situations and improve your overall level of play.

Some notes:

• I assume you have a basic understanding of the game and terms.
• This guide applies primarily to conquest. Certain points may also apply to other modes (However don't expect much regarding Arena, as the gap in gameplay style is too big).
• Points may be pretty random, so don't expect a specific type of organization. I will try to put them in a normal way you encounter them in a match.
• I may miss some mistakes that should be in this guide, as I haven't played with new players for a long time. If you see a mistake I missed, point it out in the comments, and I'll do my best to incorporate it. This could also be the other way around with mistakes being obsolete.
• The guide is mostly aimed at new to intermediate players, but higher level players may still find something useful.
• Some of these mistakes are general MOBA mistakes, and can also be used for other MOBAs e.g. LoL or DotA. Also, as I play other MOBAs too, I may mistakenly use terms that apply more to non-SMITE games. Apologies in advance!
• This is my first guide, and I'm not really good at BBcoding and with the aim of the guide it can easily become a wall of text.
• This guide is mostly a collection of mistakes and that's why I will always consider it as an incomplete guide.
• Because of me coming back to the game, but mostly the site I have an outdated view of the game state. Most of my edits are based on LoL mistakes which can be easily applied to smite too.

Now that that is out of the way, Let's start with the guide!

Let's start at where the game starts for most game modes: God selection. Depending on the game mode you either have a pick and ban phase (draft pick, most commonly seen in ranked) or only a pick phase (except for assault and several GotD modes that uses random pick). I will start with the system that uses both as this system also includes the pick system (only slightly different).

For people that don't know the draft system, Smite uses an 8 ban draft system.

• The player with the highest ELO/MMR will do the banning.
• The system starts out with 2 bans from each side with order side starting (4 bans total).
• After the first ban phase order side will get the first pick.
• Chaos gets 2 picks followed by order getting 2 picks
• Chaos gets a pick
• next ban phase starts with 2 bans per side starting with Chaos
• Chaos get one pick followed by the last picks of order
• Chaos gets last pick

During the first pick & ban phase normally high tier gods or annoying pub-stomp gods get banned away or picked. During the second pick and ban phase bans become more targeted to non-picked roles (if possible) and the other roles get picked up.

The most common mistakes made here is not listening or not giving your/others preference. In some cases it's better to ban away a not so common pick. because you are matched with randoms it doesn't mean the high tier picks always get picked and you can't target ban enemy players. If you don't know or even when you do know what to ban ask your team also for some options. This will end up in the bans not being selfish that they would only benefit you.

Order gets the first pick meaning in a lot of cases they will use it to pick a high tier god. This gets advantage gets countered away by Chaos having last pick allowing them to get a good counter picks or something else that is going to help their team out against the enemy team. And because the gods are visible it can be easier or harder to make a certain pick.

Apart from that pick phase isn't really different from the casual blind pick. In a lot of cases you will end up with one god from every role. Which eliminates the most common mistakes in a composition. So what are the most common mistakes in a composition? well let's start with the ones that can happen when you take different roles in certain lanes (e.g. a mage in the solo lane instead of a warrior) and how it influences your team composition.

Team composition

Most mistakes during God selection get made here. The 2 biggest factors in team composition are damage type and frontline/backline. After these 2 there are several small factors like amount and type of CC and match ups.

Let's start with the 2 big factors and with the damage type. Normally you will see a 2/3 composition with it (either 2 magical and 3 physical or vice versa). The reason this is done is to spread the type of damage and make counter building harder. If we would shift this to a 1/4 or even worse a 0/5 composition the enemy will have an easier time counter building and lowering your teams damage output
against them. This can end up in your team being out damaged by the enemy team.

the other big factor is frontline/backline or otherwise dubbed tankiness of a team. Depending on class and build gods are either part of the frontline or backline during a teamfight. Tankier teammates will be part of the frontline and keep dangerous enemies at bay while the squishy but high damage dealing backline members will try to kill the enemy team.
Missing one of these lines in this composition can end up making your team die to quick or don't do enough damage. Also does a change in this part of your composition make your team more sensitive for a certain type of damage (burst or continues damage).

After these 2 big factors the small factors will also influence fights a bit in their own way. E.g. the amount and type of CC you team has can make it easier to lock down enemies or pick them off. And clear speed can determine how much you can roam. Because their are a lot of them I won't go in depth explaining them. Most of them influence small parts or can be considered irrelevant to a team composition. A bad team composition can lose you the game!

So let's continue with something early in the game: the start of a game.

A lot of people that decide to start building items themselves (which can be pretty hard if you have no idea what you're doing or what items do) can sometimes make mistakes while buying your first items from your 1500 starting gold. It can be multiple things ranging from not buying a starter item to forgetting Hp or mana pots (assuming they have the Gold for it).

It's very important to have sustain in lane

If you need to return early because you ran out of HP or in some cases mana it's bad. Mostly because you will miss Exp and gold and the opponent can do some early damage to your tower.
Overall needing to recall early can hurt you and your team a lot.
Depending on how you are going to build you want to just stay in lane as long as possible in most cases (depending if you take a stacking item because an adc should back after clearing the wave when he can get his Devourer's Gauntlet or Transcendence so he can begin stacking).

This may sound weird but some people think the best way of regening is getting killed. However I can assure you it's not: If you die you are dead for at least 5 seconds (on lvl 1) this is the same time as a recall. However normally the death timer will be higher when you first die, because you normally don't die on lvl 1. Normally when you are out of regen or need to go and back you are ~lvl 3 then your dead timer is already ~10 seconds. In that time you can easily recall and heal up in base.
And to top it off you are also giving a lot of free gold and exp to your opponent

Normally you sustain yourself in lane with the help of consumables ( Healing Potion, Mana Potion and Multi Potion) and a Starter item (however not all of them provide sustain the main sustain starter items are Vampiric Shroud,death toll and Bumba's Mask.

Consumables may be seen as a waste of money as once you use them they are gone, but in the early (and even mid game) they can easily help you stay in lane longer as a Healing Potion can provide you with almost 50% hp in the early lvls for most squishy characters.

It's more common that players start with a starter items in conquest. However sometimes you will still see people that start building a full item instead (So instead of taking a starter and a T1 item or they go for a T2 of an item). they do this because you will be selling the starter anyway so you are wasting some money. However if we go and compare a build with a starter item and one without we will notice that in most cases a starter item results in a better start (especially if you are jungling)

Something most people also buy during the start of the game are consumables. Most people only buy them at the start of the game. However most consumables stay relevant to buy during the game, because of different uses.

Healing Potions or Mana Potions are able to restore health and/or mana during or after a small skirmish (the act of using a potion just before or during a skirmish is called this pre-potting this tactic makes your health pool bigger then the max).

Wards always stay relevant because of the strength vision gives in the game. The vision gives you more awareness of enemy movement making you able to react earlier or better.

However the reason for this chapter was the potion of physical might (red pot), Potion of Magical Might (blue pot), Elixir of Power (red elixir) and Elixir of Defense.
These consumables can sometimes be pretty useful mid game (mostly red and blue pot elixirs are to expensive). But when do I buy them?

Well the elixirs shouldn't be bought till you are full build as they delay your build to much. However power pots can be bought at almost moment in the game. However when is the best way to buy and use them?
Well in mid and late game you could better save them until a teamfight and pop them right before the start. During laning phase using them just before a skirmish against your opponent. In both cases this should only be used when it will give a much needed edge against you opponent. However buying a red or blue pot somewhere in mid game is a risky tactic as just letting it run it's time or getting killed will cost you 400 gold (you do want to have at least a kill or some assists so it pays back). In most cases it's better to just save up for core items.

Note: This can be one of my more confusing chapters (for smite at least) because most regen items provide (a bit of) pool ( Stone of Gaia) and most pool items do provide (a bit of) regen ( Book of Thoth). However there are some exceptions on this rule (warlock's sash). (and in most cases the regen or pool is just an addition to the stats you bought the item for).


Let's continue with something you kinda need to keep track of all game: Your health and mana pool vs regen.
Normally pool is better than regen as it has a bigger impact on surviving during the game. After all when your HP pool reaches zero your god dies. You may have a regen of 50 Hp5 but because most of the damage in smite is considered burst damage (abilities and crits) it won't help you as much in a gank or fight as 300 more hit points. This is because you won't have the time to regen that amount of HP in the time you are getting killed (the fight needs to last at least 30 sec).

This doesn't mean regen isn't important but regen is more useful for after a fight so you can stay in lane instead of backing. Another thing you can compare here is lifesteal vs Stone of Gaia. Lifesteal is in most fights better than having the regen from Stone of Gaia if you can provide enough damage for it (as low damage won't heal you as effectively as high damage).

Relics

With that said I'm moving on to something that has a bit to do with our last 2 points (saving and pool vs regen). Relics are very limiting so you need to consider your choice in most cases.

The first thing I'm going to start with the meditation cloak branch an item that the auto buy system buys for players as one of their relics (if it hasn't changed). A lot of players who start to build themselves will start to buy this relic too, because they can't play without it (because they are way to used to it). However this active is pretty bad (except in assault where it's core to get it). The item recover a part of pool and gives a lot of regen afterwards to sustain you in lane. Only in late game you will normally have such a high Mp5 or pool (or in case of adc won't use abilities as much) that you won't need it for the mana or regen any more. This leads to you wasting a relic slot. My own recommendation is to build a mana pool item ( Book of Thoth or Transcendence) if you still struggle with mana in the late game. Partly the early game is about mana preservation.

Most of the other relics are fine but there are some other weak ones and some are really situational.
The only standard active a lot of players get is Purification Beads because of the amount of hard CC this game has.

To finish up the relics we have the point of when to use the relic. Because a lot of newer players (and sometimes older players) mistime their relics.
When to activate a certain relic depends on what kind of relic it is. Most relics have a long cooldown so misplacing or timing them can make the next situation a lot harder.
Using a relic depends on the sort relic. Blink Rune is used different then Aegis Amulet. Blink Rune is a relic used for initiation while amulet can help you survive.

So when do use use certain relics.
Well actives like Blink Rune or Horrific Emblem (etc.) are best used at the initiation of a fight (e.g. Blink Rune on Ares), but can also be used to chase a target (e.g. Horrific Emblem.

These relics are not that easy to misuse compared to Purification Beads or [aegis amulet]].
This is because removing a CC or mitigating a high damage spell is more favorable to use at the right time. However not every cc should be beaded immediately because that is a waste of the relic CD.
Times you should use Purification Beads is when you know you can get out alive if you remove the CC and would be dead if you don't remove it. Sometimes it's hard to know this, but after a while you will get better at knowing if using beads is useful or worthless.

So first of I'm going to post this link to Zilby's full guide on the subject.

I have noticed from game experience and looking at newly released guides here that a lot of players forget to include certain stats in their item build.

the most common stats to see in every item build are:
-power
-protections
-movement speed
-HP and mana
-CDR (in mage/assassin builds only)

things a lot of builds miss are:
-penetration (being a really important stat)
-attack speed (not as important on certain builds but this is a stat I don't see in builds that do need it).
-lifesteal (not the most important stat but some roles it's pretty important

So just to help people out a bit in building I will post small which stats a certain class needs (for more info on building I recommend to take a look at the posted item build guide at the top of this chapter)

Another mistake when item building is the order people build certain items. A lot of people aren't flexible with the build. Sometimes you will need that bit of magic protections, earlier then you need that bit of physical protections. Look good at how people are building, who is getting fed or is a bigger threat. this also dictates what you need. If no one on the enemy team is building protections yet you can delay your penetration items till later.

Talking about a bit of flexibility don't stick to the exact same item build every game. Sometimes other items in the same item tree as the item that you are planning to buy for the 5th game in a row, are a better fit for the game.

Renting items

I will continue on renting items as we have just discussed getting (renting) a starter item can be more valuable than starting with a T2 item.

The act of buying something and selling it later in the game (most common with starter items) is what we call renting. You don't see this happen in a lot of roles unless someone made a mistake in their itemization (if you did then my advise would be only sell it when you need the space). However in the meta atm you usually see an adc pick up an T2 like ichiaval and sell it later on when they reach full build. This may be seen as a loss of 850 gold, but if it helped you to pick up several kills then the item has paid itself back.

Also don't be afraid to buy more Healing Potions (or even when you are an adc a Ward) even if you have lifesteal a Healing Potion can help you win/survive a fight and you can easily get the gold back by getting 2-3 last hits (or just that 1 kill you could get because of the pot)

Rushing items

Sometimes I see people rushing items in the early game that aren't going to do a lot there. Certain items are great for the early game while others aren't. An example is Rod of Tahuti on a mage or Deathbringer on a carry. If you get these items as 2nd or first you won't benefit as much from it as when you would buy them as 5th or last item.
The reason why rushing Deathbringer (or rushing any crit item in the first place on an adc) is because they lack the damage. If you play Artemis you will notice that when you crit from her passive it won't make much of a difference in early game. So you can better invest in more damage items and attack speed items first (or for Rod of Tahuti gain more power as the passive is worthless early game).

So my advice would be to invest in the right items at the right time, because that is more cost efficient at that point of the game.

Saving for items

This is a point I see a lot of players make. They Die and because they miss 500 gold for their tier 3 item they buy some tiers of their next item(s). This isn't necessarily bad as sometimes it can help you out.
However in most cases it's better to save for the item your building. As most tier 3 items give a passive that T1 or T2 items won't give you. Making saving for a full item a better opinion.

You also have the point about saving for a same sort item but one of them being more expensive most commonly being Deathbringer and Rage. For some gods that use this combo it can be better to spend your gold on the Rage instead of saving up for the Deathbringer while other gods can better get Deathbringer first.
In this case you should look to which of the 2 items will benefit you the most (in this case your DPS).

A small example:
For most adcs it's more useful to get Rage before Deathbringer as it will slightly improve there DPS (because of a higher crit chance there dps can be higher with 2-3 damage a sec). while Artemis can better get the Deathbringer first because with help of her passive ( Still Target) increasing the DPS of Deathbringer- Rage over the DPS of Rage- Deathbringer

This can be one of my more confusing chapters (for smite at least) because most regen items provide (a bit of) pool ( Stone of Gaia) and most pool items do provide (a bit of) regen ( Book of Thoth). However there are some exceptions on this rule (warlock's sash. (and in most cases the regen or pool is just an addition to the stats you bought the item for). After that I will continue about Damage VS Survivability

Let's start about the part of pool vs regen.
Normally pool is better than regen as it has a bigger impact on surviving. You may have a regen of 50 Hp5 but because most of the damage in smite is burst damage (abilities and crits) it won't help you as much in a gank or fight as 300 more hit points. this is because you won't have the time to regen the amount of HP in the time you are getting killed.

This doesn't mean regen isn't important but regen is more for after a fight so you can stay in lane instead of backing. Another thing you can compare here is lifesteal vs Stone of Gaia. Lifesteal is in most fights better than having the regen from Stone of Gaia if you can provide enough damage for it (as low damage won't heal you as effectively as high damage).

Damage VS Survivability

This will mostly be about the lane that can have this dilemma. I'm talking about the solo lane. Especially if you are playing a warrior in the solo lane. However there are some things that apply to carries (and mages and assassins to to a lesser extent) as well though, because newer players sometimes build defensive items on them.

You can have 2 cases if you are the solo laner. You do a more damage focussed build or a more defensive build. sometimes this ends up in either.

1. Having a lot of survivability but aren't able to do any damage.
2. Having a lot of damage but no survivability (leading to dying to quick and not being able to inflict damage things that happen to the carry normally)

number 1 is something that can happen when you build way too defensive on carries (that's why normally carries have no defensive items, I would however if you are just starting out recommend to take 1 hybrid/defensive item as it gives a bit more margin for mistakes.) but can be annoying if you are a solo laner that wants to do a bit more damage but doesn't have it.

number 2 is something really common for normal adc. some people think because they have an escape they are invincible or nothing can happen to them. and that's why they don't need life steal or beads.
However for a solo laner this is even more annoying as they also need to be able to tank some damage (as normally you will be in melee range) and this way they can't do that (you will have something most assassins get in a team fight which is picking someone that's out of position of or cleaning up). And if you also add the fact that most solo laners don't really have an really reliable escape (most are either short dashes and others have just have no escape)

For solo laners: you will need to find some kind of balance with their team. Does the team lack a good tank? you will be going more to dealing no damage and if your team is tanky enough you can go for a more damage orientated build. making build differ every game.

Well another big mistake we are going to talk about are the resources in the game: Gold and Exp.

- The big mistake a lot of new players make is the importance of Exp in the game.

Gold may be the more visible currency as you need it to buy items that will help you win the game, but Exp is as important as gold and for certain roles even more important.
Normally you notice that you get Exp when you lvl up (or if you killed a minion you see a small indicator telling you +x Exp and next to it + x Gold).
Some players don't understand that a lvl difference can make them lose or win a fight. A small lvl difference ranging from 1-2 lvls normally (the biggest exception here is around the first ult point) doesn't make that much of a difference but a bigger lvl difference can easily give an edge to one of the players because they will have more stats and more lvls in their ability meaning they will do more damage and are harder to kill.

Newer player normally find this harder to manage and you can see this pretty well when they are jungling or supporting.

One of the reasons a support rotates is not only to help another lane but also to give the adc a better Exp income. There is a jungler because this way the solo laner gains more Exp and the resources from the jungle camps won't be "lost" (still junglers should find a balance of ganking and farming or staying in a lane).

- Another thing about resources is the point of denying them to the enemy.

A lot of newer player are more focussed on how am I doing (how is my lvl, items etc.). When they get better they notice that sometimes let other players from the team get some last hits too. Because A support having some aura items can be pretty useful. (If you are pushing a lane while you already have full items you should try to let other team mates that are helping you push get those last hits on the minions if they aren't full build yet)

However a much bigger step is to realise the enemy also needs them and are a bigger decisive factor. So denying them resources can mean a lot this is mostly done by zoning, counter jungling, pushing enemies out of the lane or if we only look at Gold by letting the minions get hit by the tower.

Well first of jungling isn't an easy role (just like support). A small mistake can get you behind. and every game it plays differently.

So first of I will start with when to gank. This really depends on the game and god you are playing. several gods have better ganks early and other better ganks later into a game.
big mistakes when people decide to gank (or in some cases need a gank. Yeah laners this is also a bit for you) is when a gank isn't possible and it's better to farm your jungle or invade/counterjungle their jungle.

before I can say when to gank I'm going to quickly cover the sort of ganks:
-a standard gank is coming from behind by using the shortest route.
-a loop/long gank is also coming from behind but this time by using a longer way (more commonly when you want to catch an fleeing enemy)
-a counter gank is ganking a lane that is getting ganked by the enemy.
-a direct gank is coming from the front this will normally cost you a gap closer
-a blink gank is using blink to cross a wall to gank you opponent
-an ambush gank is hard to pull of but this is making use of a corner and when an enemy walks past it you grab them
-lastly the global gank something that's possible for people like Athena, apollo] and [[thor that have a global/ partially global ult/ablitiy.
(-in LoL you also got a sidebrush gank here you use the brush thingies)

well some gank types are for in the jungle and others are for lane ganks.
the mistake of when to gank for most of them is when a lane is to pushed to the enemies tower. if you gank them they can get into the safety of their tower faster making it more risky to kill them. the only possible gank in this case is a counter gank.

the best way to gank is by the standard gank or loop/long in most cases. as in smite they can't look behind them unless they turn around so they won't see you coming. (this makes ganking a enemy pushed to their tower harder to gank)

So now some misconceptions about ganking. A lot of people only see a gank as successful if there is a kill during the gank. However a gank is in a lot more ways successful.
you can consider a gank successful if:
-there is a kill on your side
-you force the enemy to back
-get an active
-and the most common one and hard to see: switch lane dominance

this last point is also the reason why you gank. you can look at which lane has the best dominance by looking at health bars and at amount of gold.

that's mostly it for ganking. so now a small part about when you can't gank or counter gank. sometimes it happens that you are in your left jungle while right lane gets ganked. Something you could do then is gank left lane if possible. Or the subject I want to move to counter jungling.

you now know that the jungler isn't near his left jungle so you can take some camps (preferably buffs). this will end in an Exp and gold loss and maybe even a buff loss. this can put another jungle behind.

if you are getting counterjungled you should ward you own jungle and see if you can catch the enemy jungler. or if you don't have that time (counter-)counterjungle him. this way you won't lose as much as you otherwise would have.

This is something you see a lot of newer players not worrying about as they are focussed on getting kills. However objectives are way better most of the time as they progress you to winning the game. yes you take them down faster in late game but the gold they reward has also become less (mostly for the buildings).

a lot of games are lost because people don't focus them enough. if you have taken down some members of the enemy team and you then just proceed to farm instead of try and take a t1 tower. This will lower there map control and reward your whole team with gold. Or go and get the fire giant which gives a buff that will help you push and in team fights.

Also don't be afraid to trade buildings in certain situations. If you are getting a t2 tower and the enemy team a t1 tower the trade is in your favour (as a t2 tower gives more gold and exp than a t1 tower).

rushing through mid

Something some players believe is that rushing through mid is always the best tactic. However in Smite it isn't.

Unless you can easily kill the titan while the other team is dead it's almost always better to take down more buildings. Because every tower or phoenix standing gives more hp, protections and power to the titan. making him harder to kill and making the tactic harder to use.

Contesting objectives

Partly do you have the Wards win games statement here, but if you can contest a gold fury or a fire giant you should always try. The thing here is when can you contest one of them?

well this depends on multiple factors but one of the biggest factors is number of people.
If they are taking gold fury with only 2 persons and you can contest it with the same number or higher (or you are so fed you can easily kill them both) you should always try to contest it as giving free gold or buff to the enemy team can get them ahead or will cost you your advantage.
Other things you need to think about is if you have the damage or hp to contest it, because you can't contest the camp if you are only a support and you are up against an adc and mage.

If you can't contest it but you have a high damage ult (mostly mages that can do this) you should try to steal it with the damage from your ult. If you time it right it can secure the objective (especially now Wrath of the Gods isn't used a lot) which didn't waste your ult. If you miss it may feel like you wasted your ult but at least the team can't blame you for not trying. If you are going to steal make sure the enemy doesn't know you are there unless you need to get into mellee (I still recommend mages with an ult that goes through a wall or over it. Also should you die with a successful don't worry to much as 1 death isn't that bad if you gave the fire giant buff or the gold from fury to your team instead of the other team.

tower diving/diving to deep

This is something that happens to a lot of new player. They see a kill and go for it totally forgetting there is a tower or another enemy team member nearby. Or they dive deep into enemy territory (jungle or when in lane between 2 towers, etc) and get killed because they can't get away quick enough.

Diving isn't something I would recommend to do unless you know tower damage better. Diving is one of the biggest reasons people get behind and even in higher lvl play diving can go really wrong. Especially if you get tunnel vision as most players get. Sometimes they don't forget tower damage but forget the god they are trying to kill also got damage and cc.

before you go and dive make sure you have:
-the hp for it
-the damage (maybe even a CC spell)
-know the cc and damage of your opponent and tower
-enemy ganks (as sometimes you get the kill and then you get killed because the enemy jungle ganked your lane.)

Too focussed on objectives

Another tunnel vision thing: some people are to focussed on damaging or taking an objective they totally forget enemy gods or the amount of minions tanking the tower hits. (I have seen this a lot of time in all MOBAs I played and in LoL dominion you can see this mistake really well.) this ends up in them not taking the objective but getting killed.

As I said in LoL dominion this is something you see a lot so I will start with an example from that game.
In LoL dominion you need to capture points. while doing this you can't attack but can be attacked. A lot of times I see players trying to capture a point and then when an enemy comes close they keep capping the point (which is slowed when attacked) all while the enemy just kills them (I have had a triple kill this way once and recaptured the point)

In conquest you can also see this when people go and damage a tower and then forget to dodge basic or skills. Or stay to long tanking some tower shots, because the creepwave is gone. you should always be aware of your surroundings when sieging a tower (I have ganked people sieging towers that had wards were I walked through). My best recommendation is to get/stay out of your opponent range or force them to back (off)/kill them before starting to siege the tower.

So yeah there is a surrender option in Smite. It's a nice option to have to get to the next game quicker. However it's also a big pitfall for certain players. This has also to do with morale.

Sometimes you see players who say surrender at 10 (Smite should up this number as after 10 min you can't say if you are done for already) as they find the match lost because they lost there lane or someone else did. However a lot of times the game isn't lost already at that point.
There is a reason why you see pro people or a lot of high ranked players only surrender after certain events far in the late game (mostly team wipes. Damn in Dota the surrender will only be put out if they get teamwiped in base. even if they need to fight against mega creeps (barracks which are the same as phoenixes don't respawn en spawn super creeps (double hp and damage of normal) if they get destroyed and mega if all barracks are gone (double the Hp and damage of supers or 4x of normals)) while most players already found the game lost after the first baracks have fallen).

It is because as long as they aren't killing the titan game isn't lost yet. Even if the other team is ahead a mistake on their part can turn the game around hard (I have seen games go from an almost certain loss to a win).

The game only is lost if the titan falls. If you got killed 3 times or lost a tower it doesn't mean you lost already. The reason why you don't see a lot of surrenders in high lvl play is because people noticed this unless they are certain they lost (as with a team wipe where no one is going to respawn on time to hold the enemies of giving the enemy team enough time to finish the game. Or when you are behind and someone leaves as a 4v5 has a really small change to win still this shouldn't be the biggest reason to surrender as sometimes 4v5 is winable)

So if you are considering a surrender it should actually be clear that your team lost. Not just because someone lost his lane or someone got fed.

Something that needs to be hammered in certain players at ever opportunity. A lot of people are toxic/frustrated/angry and blame others in the game. However being toxic has impact on the game what most of these players don't understand yet. The thing that will lose them a lot of games and also has been proven to lose games (around 23%).

I'm talking about Player morale

Every time you are negative towards teammates the morale of some players drop putting them on tilt. Which leads to them playing worse and in the end can lead to losing the game. This behaviour can even go so far that the tilt continues in the next match. Trash talking has the same effect on certain people. That is probably why Smite doesn't have an all chat.

Also for players who are on tilt or don't know what tilting is should read this blog from a dotafire member.
My own advise for people who are tilting is to take a break from the game. And with this I mean go and do something entirely different don't watch videos from the game etc but go watch something else or play something else.

There are a lot of players that are obsessed with their KDA, amount of damage they have done, win%, damage tanked, etc.

They use it to look at how well they have preformed and aim to improve it to see if they got better. And some people even to push the blame of a loss on someone else.

However, the game will give you this message:

That's right the game doesn't care if you had a KDA of 20-2-15 or that you did 300K damage.

The only thing it cares for is: did you Win or Lose

That's where the whole Elo/MMR and ranked system is made of. Did you win a game: you will gain more tribute. Did you lose: you will lose some tribute.

Now that I have said this. It doesn't mean that they mean nothing at all, but they should always be taken into context. Example: if you played a support with a bad KDA but you did help your team win, it won't be reflected a lot in the stats except that you won.

On top of this I want to say something about something some player believe in: Low Elo/MMR Hell (these players are blaming matchmaking a lot for their losses).

It doesn't exist!

Most of the players that are believing in this, are players that blame others for their loss. Instead of looking at their own mistakes first they look at their allies or a certain role (poor jungle and support).

To get better at this game you need to look at the player you have the biggest impact on: yourself. If you focus on fixing your own mistakes you will get better and won't stagnate in skill, getting more frustrated with the game or stop having fun with the game.

Even pros (see this article), casters (see Purge a caster from Dota talking about the MMR Hell in his dota basics/general guide (part of the text above is a lightly edited quote from him)) and youtubers (see next part) agree on this.

here I have a video of an LoL player that discusses attitudes in LoL ranked. LoL ranked is kinda similar as smite ranked attitude wise IMO. Still some points can be incorrect with Smite's ranked. However from my experience I noticed attitudes in MOBA's are mostly the same across every MOBA (even if I haven't played ranked yet I have seen ranked chats from friends from multiple games)

So first of: one of the best ways to learn the game is by watching people who are good at it. You can see combo's and a lot of other useful stuff in those games.

However Don't think you can bring all those things directly into a casual game, Because:
-the pro teams know what they want to achieve with certain picks or builds.
they know exactly how they want to play this game with their picks or with the items they build. While you don't even know why they do that.

-don't think you or your teammates have the necessary skill to play as them.
The pro's practise a lot of hours a day (normally around 10). they have more experience and better reflexes. So don't think you or your team can easily replicate them.

-the co-ordination between pro games is higher then a casual team.
also one of the things that leads to the downfall of copying pro's (aka being a PPC which stands for pro player copycat). those teams have played a lot of time with each other and know how every one of the members play.
But in casual or ranked you are mostly playing with randoms. Sometimes you are on the same wavelength, but most of the time you aren't. Making things that are in need of a lot of co-ordination fail.

-The lvl of play is different
To say it easily the lvl of play between casual/pubs and pro's is really different. Certain items work better on high lvl play but are pretty worthless in lower lvl games. and visa versa.

keep these points in your mind if you are watching pros as even learning from good people can make you lose your games.

I hope that this guide helped some people seeing mistakes faster and make them easier to avoid. Also as I mentioned at the beginning of the guide I'm not a beginner myself any more so I could have missed some mistakes (or just haven't thought about (or just missed) certain mistakes). Feel free to point common mistakes I missed out and maybe I will add them.

Also my thanks to:
-Sando from dotafire from whom I took the idea and (a lot of) points for the guide
-Smuggels for making the blog about tilting
-Purge for an part of my view on MMR/elo hell
-The maker of word of thoth, for the information for the titan and other mechanics
-scrapcomputer for making the ranked attitude video

and my thanks to our own Smitefire members:
wolfman for doing a grammar check for a part of the guide.
Zilby for helping me with BBcoding.
[Branmuffin17 for doing a grammar check and helping with reformation my guide

I wanted to thank you for reading my guide. If you have questions or feedback just put them in the comments or send me a PM.
If you notice grammar mistakes or BBcoding mistakes PM them to me.