Intermediate player still struggling.

Okay, one more thing! Having a proper build, not only for the god you are playing but for the circumstances you are in and to counter the gods you are facing and how they have been built, along with the right strategy can absolutely make a world of difference. A world of difference. I am talking truckloads, here.

Look at a thread under general discussion called How do defenses work. There is some discussion there about protection and penetration, and my view may not be entirely correct, but that just goes to show you why I keep saying there needs to be an official Players Reference Guide for Smite. It should provide all the formulas and examples so how these things work is clear. To me these things make a huge difference.

Right now, the way I try to determine what is best is by experimenting. These things simply are not intuitive.

I do not have much experience. I'm new to gaming. When first learning about Smite, mostly by watching game play on youtube, I learned the characters had abilities and that the 4 was called the ultimate because it was the most powerful. Well I downloaded Smite and I tried to build Kali, and the way I thought I should build her proved totally useless. I don't recall the exact build. I know it emphasized her abilities, so there was cd of course, Jotuun's Wrath in particular. It was so bad I thought Jutuun's must be a useless item. It just wasn't intuitive that with her as with most physicals you have to emphasize her basic attacks. With Neith I tended to do just that but not with Kali, I think because she is melee and I just didn't want to be that close to the action :P

Thanks for the constant posts. Every little bit of info youve given me is helpful. Where i think the problem for me is more about early game though, and while this talk about items is food for thought, at this stage of the game there is not much itemisation so it seems kinda a moot point. Maybe im wrong?

I see your point. I had another thought that might apply, but frankly, I do not understand this part of the game very well and am just beginning to get a handle on. It has to do with experience or XP. The way I understand it, XP can be more important than gold or kills in the early game. XP is critical to leveling up, and not falling behind in levels is the key, and really what you are having trouble with in some games. I do to.

So here is what I think I know about XP: 1) Getting pushed back to you tower too much is not a good thing. If your tower hits minions you cannot get last hit gold or xp from killing them. The strategy of pushing opponents back and keeping their in order to suppress their XP is referred to as "zoning," so you hear people talk about getting zoned out or zoning opponents out. That sounds like what is happening, right? 2) there are gods that are good at zoning out opponents. An example would be Sobek. Because Sobek has a pull, when playing against him you have to worry about him pulling you out of position. If he gets you between him and his lane partner, you can easily be killed. If it very early in the game, you may escape but will be pushed back to tower or have to return to base to regen. 3) To get XP you have to make the most of your time. Obviously, if you have to go back to base often you are losing out on a lot of potential experience. The faster you get out of the base and back into the game the better, and once you are there, you have to get busy. 4) My understanding is that you gain XP just being around dying enemies, whether minions or gods. Knowing all the ways one gains XP is, therefore, important, but I do not know them all, and I do not know how close you need to be to gain XP. The basic idea seems clear enough, though. You need to be in or near the action, whether in lane or in the jungle, but not under your tower.

So, the god or gods you are fighting against and how they match with those you are playing can apparently be critically important. This can be luck of the draw, but it would obviously help to know how XP works and be familiar with things like zoning strategy, what you can do to combat it, who is good at it, and who isn't.

I feel like this is the missing piece of you puzzle, and I want to know more about it, too. So I will post a thread under general discussion and see if more knowledgeable players will offer some insights.

I think you are getting closer to solving the problem. I tried playing a game just now, as sobek so I could test the theory out just as you said. I got completely thrashed and while that probably isnt surprising, ( I never really played Sobek before, while my enemies seemed to know theirs really well) I couldnt help but shake the fact that we keep coming back to the same point: How to play aggresively while not dying. This seems to be key. Playing defensively obviously doesnt work, while in my experience playing aggresively tends to get one killed. Somewhere there is a balance and I seem to be struggling finding it.

One thing does seem to bother me though. If there are these zo called zoning gods. How does a non-zoning god manage?

Dude, I'm doing my best to chase down a real answer, and when I do, I'll share it with you. To me, the real problem is that HighRez has yet to provide a guide that explains in detail how the game works. If they did, everyone could figure this stuff out for themselves. Right now, it all seems to boil down to experience and experiment. It is patently ridiculous to me that any company offers a game without explaining in detail how it works for those who want to know. If they have there reasons for doing so, I don't understand them. It may possibly be that simply have not gotten to it yet. They are still developing the game and trying to balance it, which is fair enough, but I still do get not publishing the means by which you are trying to do so. It's frustrating to say the least.

That being said, I suspect that how XP works is the secret to leveling up. It is NOT all about minion kills, god kills, and assists. My impression is that simply being involved in or near the action whether in lane or in the jungle conveys a measure of XP to you, but it is all vague. The details are missing.

I say it yet again: An official guide explaining such things is needed.

I wrote that thread asking about XP. I have received two responses to date, which I appreciate but am not convinced are entirely accurate and which are certainly not complete. Someone commented that you do receive XP under tower but not last hit gold. This may well be true. I think it was the same person that said you receive XP when you kill a minion or god or get an kill assist, which makes sense, but my impression is that you do not need to actually kill or assist to get XP but simply be involved in or even near the action. Is it doing damage that gives XP? Being damaged? Killing a minion or god? Getting a kill assist. Being in proximity to any of this? That I cannot look up the answer to the question in an official guide and get a definite answer seems unbelievable to me, but that, my friend, is the way it is right now.