Noob in need of help with understanding duo lane combos

Hey guys,

Sending out an SOS in the hopes you guys can answer a couple of questions for me and a friend who recently started playing smite together.

Firstly I need to preface this by saying that smite is my and my friends first moba. I come from a WoW background and could never get on with the top down view and constant clicking the mouse in other mobas. When I found smite i thought it was awesome and I love playing it.

With that said, I usually play Smite with a friend and we are on skype together which should make us a good pair for the duo lane, right? However when it comes time to choose gods at the start of the game there is more often than not a great deal of complaining about who takes what from our other team mates.

Gods that we tend to play include Aphrodite, Artemis, Ra, Ao Kuang, plus a handful of others. I am aware that there are 'acceptable' lane pairings but the vitriol from other team mates when we play something unorthodox is quite amazing. For example we played a few games as Ra and Aphrodite and it went incredibly well but the complaints from other team mates at the start of the match were unbelievable, even when we stated at select screen that was what we were going to do and it didn't affect the other lanes that had appropriate gods to work them.

So long story for a simple question. What duo lane pairing would you guys suggest for a couple of newish players that would be forgiving enough and would most importantly be acceptable to other players? I love playing Ra and my friend is a big fan of Aphrodite (apparently an unbelievably terrible choice of pairing even though when we get to play it it works very well indeed). I am however open to playing anything other than an assassin.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer and I get the fact that some combos are better/stronger than others. Just looking for some kind of explanation as to why certain combos are acceptable while others are simply "omg you are so bad. we are gonna lose! gg wtf?!" before the game even starts?

You need a tank and a damage dealer. Tanks are just gods with tons of CC and protections. Damage dealers can be mages, assassins, or hunters. Tanks can be warriors or guardians.

Aphro...might be an exception to the tanks rule, but I know it doesn't always work. But she can work as a damage dealer.

Thanks for the response Subzero.

So are you saying that if you dont have a tank you are missing out on the cc that they bring? And the cc is crucial to winning the lane?

No, it isn't. But late game, in a teamfight, you'll need the CC.

Alright, that makes sense. Thank you very much.

Was still wondering what a good combo would be then. I hear ADC and Tank thrown around a lot but not sure if there are combos that are better than others. For example my friend and I have tried Sobek and Artemis a couple of times and it didnt go too well. Looking at Kumbhakarna, he looks like a lot of fun and would be great cc-wise.

Any suggestions for a good duo synergy? I should add that I live in asia and my ping is often 350ms and skill shots are often very frustrating :/

Sorry for so many questions, just want to get better at the game and not be a weight around the neck of my team.

Hey folks,

So last night I took the advice given here and my friend and I tried ADC and Tank. I played Kumbhakarna and my friend played Artemis. We found a couple things out over the course of a few games. First the pressure the opposition an put on us early in the game is insane! First game we were up against Hel and Neith. We got pushed so damn hard we spent most of the game under our own tower and even then got killed too many times and ended up feeding Hel and Neith so they started to roll our team. If it wasnt for the other members of our team picking up the slack it would have been a disaster. However late in the game the combo began to shine. I cc'd and my buddy just tore ppl up and we ended up winning the match.

We found it to be similar in the next few games we played. Some games went much better but the early pressure that the opposition could put us under was pretty extreme. Granted we never came up against another Tank/ADC so not sure how that would have gone. We just seem to have no healing ability. We also found that in games where the opposition didnt have a guardian, they were pretty screwed late game. I really felt that I could turn a bad situation into a winning one with a few well timed cc's.

My question is this: How can we absorb the initial pressure so as to not feed the opposition and be able to keep up with them gold-wise and xp? Is the combo of Artemis and Kumbhakarna not a good one or are we doing something wrong that is easily fixed? I tried asking ppl in the lobby after the game or before the game or even during the game but nobody was willing to offer any advice. Seems ppl are prepared to spend time typing to complain but not to offer help. Hoping you guys can!

Thanks in advance.

***ba and Art aren't too bad of a combo. Usually it comes down to the synergy of the two players that are playing them. ***ba can cc them for a volley or art can trap them for ***ba's ult. One thing that you really should think about when playing duo is that, you should poke whenever you get the opportunity. If you can wittle the enemies health, they'll have to think twice about engaging. Also, if you don't want to be pushed under tower for majority of the game, ask for a gank. It sounds so simple and it's something most junglers should be doing if you are pushed under tower but it's something that goes unnoticed in smite. Junglers these days tend not to rotate to duo lane, and that ends up with you, if you're not poking, getting pushed half of the time. As support, you're not really keeping up with gold and xp, you should be focusing on making opportunities for your carry and taking the damage that they would be taking if you weren't there. One combo I'd recommend is a hades/cupid combo. Nice synergy and when both ults are combined it can be brutal. Virtually every tank in the game goes well with a carry, you just need to find the best combo that suits your playing style. If your carry is one that looks for kills, help them be aggressive and try the ymir/athena xbalanque combo. Xbalanque's a god that you want to make sure he gets kills, strictly because of his passive. ***ba's not a bad support with xbalanque either, but he's not exactly the best either.

Actually i believe that a hunter and guardian duo lane isn't good early game since the tank isn't tanky enough and the hunter needs item to be powerful

But the main reason they are the most viable is that they scale the best into late game. Of course they might be overpushed early game against double mage lane but if they keep farming without giving kills, they scale really good, outscaling the enemy laner and become monsters late game. If you are looking for easier lane don't use *** and artemis, they are pretty hard to master. Try neith/apollo/amc and ymir/athena/sobek. They are much easier

Hey guys thanks for the responses. Agreed that they are great late game and my buddy was def saying that Artemis needs items to get going. Will try the other combos suggested and see how we go.