Building Basics Episode 2: Late Game Items

Hello all and welcome to episode 2 of my Smite education series: Building Basics. Here we'll be going over building faux pas that I've seen on far too many guides, some examples including when/if to buy boots, when to stack/how many stacking items to buy, when to buy Tahuti, and more. I'll be covering just one of these topics at a time, so look for those mentioned above in future installments. Today's topic is about some of the most expensive items in the game, crit items, Rod of Tahuti and more!


Smite contains many items from which you can assemble your god's build. Some of these items are extremely powerful at different stages in the game, and the prices of these items are often reflective of that. The most important factors we'll be taking into consideration today are power curves and cost efficiency. Your character's power curve is how much power they proportiantely gain at every stage in the game, and how that compares to their opponent's power. Cost efficiency is how much value an item has at a given time compared to how much that item costs. Generally these two factors are what matters most when deciding when to buy what to buy in a give build order.


Firstly, let's go over magical finishing items. For this we'll be covering Rod of Tahuti, Spear of Desolation and Soul Reaver. All of these items are massively powerful items, so we want them as early as possible right? Wrong. Let's start with Rod of Tahuti. Rod of Tahuti costs 3320g and provides 125 power, 15mp5 and a passive that increases your magical power by 25%. These are some amazing stats and an amazing passive. However, these come at quite a steep price, over 3000 gold. Buying this item thusly takes a long amount of time, and the power curve is steep. Early on in the game for example, it's easy to gain 100 power with Bancroft's Talon, however you'll have to wait around 150% of that time to get Rod of Tahuti. During that time you'll be stuck with Restored Artifact, which only gives a measly 50 power. This pays off late game when Rod of Tahuti's passive can provide you with over 100 power, but early game it's truly not worth the price when power is so much easier to obtain.

On top of this, other items provide you with much needed stats earlier on in the game, such as lifesteal, cooldown reduction, movement speed, penetration, and more. All Rod of Tahuti is good at is capping off your power once you've finished all these other components such that your lategame is truly scary. Spear of Desolation is very similar in this regard. Its passive is far better late game when teamfights are happening more often, and there are cheaper alternatives for penetration such as Obsidian Shard and Spear of the Magus. Soul Reaver is yet another one of these items, there are items that provide far more essential stats for cheaper prices early on, and its passive is more useful when 1% of an enemy's health is equivalent to a lot more effective health due to higher late game health and protections. What's most important to consider with these last two items is your power curve compared to your opponents' builds when buying them. Simply getting a stacking item, cdr, lifesteal or penetration item (eg: Obsidian Shard / Spear of the Magus) will take far less time and give you far greater benefits for the price at this stage in the game.


Crit items are very similar to Rod of Tahuti and Spear of Desolation, only for physical gods. Items like Malice and Deathbringer are very expensive, and there cost a lot of money before you can reap their full benefits. Earlier on in the game there are other options that give you a better power curve as well as providing more essential stats like attack speed, penetration and lifesteal. Crits are at their most potent later on in the game once you have these other stats for several reasons. Attack speed allows you to crit more often, penetration allows you to bypass enemies' defenses to better deal the your damage and lifesteal allows you to heal more from the damage you're dealing. Finally, having more power means that every time you crit, you'll be getting twice as much value from every power item you have, thus crits are more effective depending on how many power items you've already bought. All of these factors combined are why crit items are best bought 4th item and onwards.


Lastly I'd like to talk about two other items for physical gods that are also often bought too early, Bloodforge and Qin's Sais. Bloodforge, like Spear of Desolation is a great late game item with a passive that is hugely beneficial in team fights, however its high cost makes it hugely detrimental to your power curve when compared to other lifesteal options at early stages in the game. While not quite as essential to build as late as possible (it can be a viable 4th item option depending on the situation), it definitely shouldn't be built second or third. Finally Qin's Sais is another great item that really shouldn't be bought before your 4th item (in the vast majority of cases). Qin's Sais passive scales with attack speed (since you can get more procs per second) thus the later in the game you buy it, the more attack speed your character will have by level and by item to make it more effective. Additionally, since its passive scales with enemies' health, this becomes even stronger the later it is in the game as well. Earlier on, there are simply more effective options than Qin's Sais for attack speed and power.


So in conclusion: Items that are extremely expensive often disrupt your build's normal power curve leaving you at a severe disadvantage against players that purchased less expensive items early on. Often these items have passives that are far more useful the later you are in the game, especially when compared to the passives of cheaper items. These items aren't bad, their stats certainly show that they aren't, but knowing when to purchase them so that they're most effective is essential.