Just an update

Welcome everyone to this update blog. During this blog I will talk a bit about what I have been up to lately. Mostly on my thoughts about preseason and my upcoming guide.

So let's start with preseason. Easily said I haven't played a lot. For some reason I tend to dislike preseasons. Probably because of the amount of change. This not only counts for smite, it also counts for LoL. I have to admit I have played more preseason smite than LoL. The reason probably has to do with me playing LoL quite competitively as I have a premade of friends. However I got slightly bored of my role and trying other roles with LoL toxicity is awful. In combination with the premade being quite rigid in roles it started to slightly bore me. I. Addition several of the premade also play other games over LoL so sometimes you end up with no one to play with.

So smite preseason has been quite decent. While I haven't played a lot because of being busy the games I have played were quite decent. Most of my games have been on assault or joust. I like the new joust map although i didn't play enough to catch the starts. Mage item changes are quite to my liking. Although some items are going to need changes or removal to see play again or not heavily out shadowed ( Shoes of the Magi Spear of the Magus). The pen changes are nice. However I still wonder how healthy they are as you are forced to grab ~3 items including % pen for the meta builds. I do think it will help players who wouldn't build the "old" % pen item early enough. If numbers show it was a good change I hope physical items receive the same treatment, one of my last games being a good argument, which shows a "too late" pen pickup in such a way that I as tank regretted not picking a warrior (a full physical damage team in joust) just to grab Void Shield. However at the same time I think it can be seen as unhealthy as it forces you to slot certain items as pen is quite an important stat. Most mage builds show it as if you want lifesteal you will want to grab pythags since you want to reach cap.

But enough smite stuff most people are probably curious for the progression of the guides I planned in my last blog. Well I have good news and bad news. Last blog was a while ago, the bad news is I haven't made a lot of progress compared to then. Reason for this is a "writing burn out" caused by my thesis and well the stabilization period preseason left. Good news is there has been progress as I do feel I finished brainstorming the things for the topics. And I feel like sharing the general outline with you all.

To start off a quick reminder that the guide is going to be based mostly on the thoughts behind item building and not on the calculations way. The latter requires a lot of testing and "bookkeeping" something you won't do during the game. Also does this type of item building result in quite a rigid build, with low to no reaction/counter building opportunities.

Another thing to note is that I won't be using the names for the conquest roles. Like the first part in Bran's item guide discussing I will make use of a more RPG based style namely:

• Sustained damage
• Burst damage/nuker
• Tank
• Bruiser
• Support (this one will be mostly mentioned as smite does not really have dedicated supports that is not a tank (compared to Dota or LoL)

So the guide is going to be made up out of 3 main parts. The first one will be the basics and will cover the above role system, and super basics like the stats and the use of the certain stats (and importance). It will also cover the main stats a role looks to get in their build apart from movement speed (don't worry I won't skip over the importance, however I would have to repeat myself to many times at that point probably). After this segment the goal is to have learned people that when you post a full tank build it is actually on a tank etc.

The second will be more focused on the item building itself discussing order, gold costs, "core items", synergies and include examples of the thoughts behind (meta) builds.

The last big chapter is gonna be more focused on the influences of situational items, counter building and game modes.

This was my blog for now. If you found certain major topics missing please suggest them below.