Question about Rotating and General Game Flow

Hey everyone,

So, I am not only new to Smite, but MOBA's in general, as Smite is the first and only one I've ever played. In the video tutorial they give you to watch before you play your first Conquest that I watched some time ago, the phases of the game were described as Laning, Ganking, and Team Fighting.

The Laning phase makes sense to me, as you're trying to defend your towers, farm up levels and gold, and even push the enemy towers. After that though, it doesn't make so much sense to me. I'm not sure like when I should leave my lane to go attack or gank another lane, or if I should do that at all.

For example, why doesn't everyone stay in their lanes the whole game and keep pushing the towers and phoenix's until they meet up at the enemy titan? Now, I know that this is not what you do lol, and I could make a few guesses as to why that wouldn't be a good idea, but I'm unclear on it enough to ask about it.

Also, I am unclear on when these game phase changes actually happen. How do you know for example, when the laning phase is over? Or when the ganking or team fighting phase is starting? I tend to stay in my lane for much longer than I'm supposed to I think.

And finally, although I think it sort of falls in with the previous questions, I am not sure when to rotate or why to rotate.

I apologize for the length of this question, and I thank you all very much for taking the time to read and answer. It is greatly appreciated.

Hey there mate!

Well, since you are new to MOBA games I'll try to explain in the most basic way, ok? (:

You got the laning phase alright, so i'll go straight to the ganking one: As you may have noticed, ganking is when you leave your own lane to help on another one. The thing is how to know when is time, right? Well, basically there are 2 tipes of gank: The jungler and the 'helpers'.

1- The jungle: Maybe in the lower levels (as you may be now) there wont be many people doing jungle, because it is a hard task. Jungle is done mostly by assassins and they keep farming the jungle monsters to level and gold and they gank the lanes when those are in need of help, push or if a little extra hand will grant a kill for the lane. So the junglers must be paying a lot of attention to the whole map/game to know where he is needed (or needed the most) and go give the support. There are thousands of video guides on how to jungle, if you felt interested, but as i said, it is a hard (even though VERY important) task! A team who have a good jungler will have a very strong point in their favor.


2- The "helper": Well, let's assume you are playing mid lane as a mage and your lane is already pushed or you just killed your direct opponent but you are ok on health and dont have money to upgrade your itens, for instance. So you check out the other lanes on your map. if they are in need of help, the help that the jungler should provide, and the jungler is unavailable you go there and do as a jungler would do, gank the lane and help them secure a kill, or survive if they are being attacked. But be aware, ganking as someone else other than the jungler is even harder than doing as the jungler itself and if it goes wrong, not only you feed the other lane as also you leave yours unprotected. This type of action is, once more, an advanced one. Begginers hardly ever will try those, and even good players preffer to avoid it.




Going now to the team fights.
The team fights start to happen when the whole team start to stick together all the time. Maybe because one of the opponents is too strong for each to be caught alone against them, maybe to push lanes faster, killing GF/FG, whatever. When this does start to happen, the other team will counter it in the same way. Mostly those happen from mid to late game, but it's not unnusual to see pro players walking together since early game. When those team fights happen, you should be prepared to play as good as you can, because they pretty much decide the matches. A good team fight results with 3 alive in a team and all dead in the other. If this happens (specially in late game), you can say it is almost a win for the live ones. Sometimes some survive, sometimes a whole team stay alive, some other only one are standing. Depends.. And those TF's are the decisive actions, most of the time. Later you can look for split pushing and back doors, when you feel more confident with MOBAs, TFs and so.





Hope I helped somehow (:



Enjoy!

well as the guy above me already said the jungler doesn't have a laning phase but the ganking phase is for every role different. we normally call the ganking phase the roaming phase because most gods tend to wander around a bit more.

the jungler will always be in the ganking phase till the teamfight phase

the support is the one who will begin ganking as one of the fastest normally. because of is rotation to mid to help the jungler with the mid furies he can straight aftrwatrd gank middle with the jungler.

solo laner he has won his lane when he manages to destroy the first tower. with this tower destroyed he can push up further and then leave his lane unattended for a while to gank mid (and maybe even duo lane) or try to steal a buff

mid laner can rotate but you won't see it a lot unless the situation of a pushed lane and a dead/missing enemy mid laner.

the adc normally doesn't have a ganking phase as much he normally stays behind to farm up on the creeps to get to late game.


The teamfigt phase is at the end wen adc start to get painful. but teamfights can always occur even in laning phase roaming. because of defending gold fury or in late game fire giant. your role in a teamfight depends also on the sort of character. the adc is going to hurt the most in the long run but also the mage (and sometimes assassin) will hurt a lot because of teh burst they bring. Normally you will see the focus on the adc mage and assassin first.

Just wanted to say thanks a lot to both of you who took the time to read and answer my question. Your replies were extremely helpful!

Just to help your understanding a bit more. When to rotate out of your lane you say? How to know when there is a team fight?

Say you're a mid laner. You can rotate when your enemy mid laner has rotated out, you've pushed up your lane and/or there is a potential gank in another lane. The support and jungle will be rotating the most but from time to time if you see an opportunity and you're just sitting in lane, go ahead and gank! What I mean by an opportunity is if an enemy is overextending in a lane, if you're confident together with the person in lane you can kill the enemy, or if your ally just needs help. Either bad positioning or objectives will spark team fights. So team fights around mid camps, buffs, the gold fury, and fire giant are very common. Or it can be that Bakasura was just awkwardly positioned in the jungle and your team grouped up to help him and their team grouped and and... You get it :P.

Good luck on your smiting!