Questions about Actives

Hello everyone,

I'm back to ask some noob questions because my client crashed during god selection which makes me a deserter for 30 min and reset my goodwill x_x

Over the past five days or so I've worked on learning one God per class, and at this point I'm starting to feel like I'm getting a general grasp of what certain Gods do, which items are supposed to be built on the Gods I play and which abilities I should be maxing. I'm not entirely sure, however, which actives to use on the Gods I play and when to buy them.

Right now, I generally use the following actives:
Warrior - Bellona: Greater Sprint and/or Enfeebling Curse - allows me to stick to my targets (generally Hunters), and I don't feel she needs defensive options because she's generally pretty tanky. Have also used Shielded Teleport before to get back to my solo lane ASAP.
Hunter - Anhur: Greater Purification + Combat Blink - Defensive options to make sure I don't get caught and die without dealing damage. Doesn't seem to help much considering how horrible I am at playing Hunters though @_@
Mage - Janus: Aegis Pendant - Early on, Aegis Amulet can be used to dodge an enemy's burst in mid lane (depending on matchup), while later on it can be useful in a 1v1 while my abilities are on cooldown or to give me time to move to a wall and use Portal to get out right afterwards.
Guardian - Khepri: Greater Blink - used in combination with Abduct to initiate in lane or during a surprise gank mid.
Assassin - Hun Batz: Greater Blink - used in combination with Fear No Evil for a surprise initiation after flanking the enemy team, leaving Somersault as an escape option if necessary.

My questions based on this information are as follows:
1. Do my current choices make sense? Which other actives are strong on the Gods I mentioned or on certain classes/roles in general? For example, are supports supposed to buy Greater Providence, Girdle of Support or Shell of Absorption?
2. Perhaps more importantly, how early should I buy actives? Right now, my buy order depends entirely on when I (am forced to) back and how much gold I have during those moments. Now I suppose that's pretty normal, but I can imagine it might still be useful to make sure you have a specific active by a certain point in the game, for example. Just looking for some general advice on this.

Thanks in advance for any responses :)

well they aren't horrible and it's something that should suit your play style. the only thing I'm going to say is that Purification Beads is standard for every role (except guardian) as cc can be a big deal.

I don't play bellona but sprint isn't a bad item. However most people use Weakening Curse because it reduces the lifesteal (don't know if Enfeebling Curse got more valuable after the healing reduction on weakening got nerfed)

as said pur beads aren't bad and cobmat blink isn't bad but because anhur got an escape most people take either sprint (to stick to someone better) or Aegis Pendant (to ignore some damage)

aegis isn't a bad item but still you got a lot of options depending who you are playing like Combat Blink or sprint etc.

Greater Blink is perfectly fine for most (if not all) supports to initiate as second active some people take Shield of the Underworld

for HB you don't really need the blink as he got 2 gap closers (he has a teleport on his 3 mostly used to initiate). As said beads is recommended as a CCéd monkey is a dead one.

on your 1 point Greater Providence has been removed from the game. And with HoG being nerfed the other options are good options.

2. it depends on the game and matchups and god choice. Certain match up require an early beads ( Ares) or if you are playing a support without initiate ( Ymir) you want an early blink to be able to initiate more.
Normally you buy them if you feel that you need a certain one. if you almost never get stunned then you can easily wait and finish an item instead of buying one. However buying one is more important then upgrading it. So if you think you gonna need beads you should buy them (I have played games with buying actives after full build and well I had soem deaths that weren't needed)

I hope someone else can give a better explanation (because on active part I have been out of the game to long)

And a small tip. for playing adc maybe messing a bit with sensitivity will help you with aiming basics.

Firstly, just know that Greater Purification is crazy good. Like so good that you pretty much need it guaranteed on any gods that aren't tanky or lack magi's blessing.

So for now I'll go through the general classes as you did to give you some idea of what's standard.

Warrior: If played in solo Shielded Teleport is often one of my most common choices since it allows you to put pressure on your lane as well as rotate quickly if given an opportunity. If you don't build tank items, you'll probably need either magi's blessing or Greater Purification, but generally warriors have enough inherent tankiness that they can't be burst down as easily as the lighter classes. I would advise against getting both Weakening Curse and Greater Sprint since both basically accomplish the same thing. Actives for warriors are probably the most versatile overall, try to pick an active either to counter enemy gods or to complement your own (eg: some Warriors like Odin and Tyr benefit a lot from having Greater Blink)

Hunter: Hunters need Greater Purification and either the sprint or blink branch for movement or the aegis branch for protection since they are very vulnerable. Due to nerfs incoming to the blink branch, I'd advise getting used to sprint if you choose that. Sprint is currently really strong on Hunters again since after the HOG nerf most supports are grabbing Creeping Curse which you gain immunity to with Improved Sprint and since you can use it to get to lane or rotate faster. Do note however that Greater Aegis or Aegis Pendant can be useful for countering ult combos like Xing Tian+ Medusa and is better in some cases. If you're playing a hunter in solo, you could still grab Shielded Teleport.

Mage: Mages are pretty much the same as hunters, always grabbing Greater Purification and the actives mentioned above.

Guardian: Currently the best two actives to grab on a guardian are the Creeping Curse branch and Greater Blink (in most cases) but due to incoming nerfs to Greater Blink this is subject to change. Since the HOG nerfs, guardians are more open to choosing actives they desire.

Assassin: Assassins can grab a variety of actives, but some key ones are Greater Purification, the sprint branch (including Achilles' Spear), the aegis branch, Greater Blink, *sometimes* the Hand of the Gods branch and Shielded Teleport if played in the solo lane.

Items not really in the meta: meditation branch, Teleport to Gods, Girdle of Inner Power (although Girdle of Support can sometimes be bought on supports).

Special case: Shield of the Underworld is a weird item that can be useful when countering enemies with lots of lifesteal either on a support, ADC, or Nemesis (because of her shield) and Hades (because of his ult).

When to buy: as Devampi said, when you think you need them. I fall into the opposite camp of usually getting full actives too early since I'm always insecure in regards to my own safety when I'm playing with randoms. However, since I'm dropping ~1200g before 5th item when I do this, I often find myself lacking the passive power I should have attained by then. Even worse, sometimes I'll be playing mid and go "the enemy jungler has been in my lane a lot and the support has been rotating, I should grab Purification Beads" which I then proceed to do. Then they gank, I get CC'd, forget I got tier two beads so early, and die without using them >_<

Learn from my mistakes~

Actives are basically based on 1) Your basic playstyle 2) God selection 3) Enemy gods. Basically a must for almost any god (exception might be warriors and supports cause they are more tanky) are beads. Curses are VERY helpful for their secondary effects. The one that reduces health regen is more helpful cause lifesteal and healers (even though it was nerfed HARD). Some are just helpful in certain situations like the Heavenly Agility to chase someone or the teleport to get back to lane (usually solo lane). The blinks are usually for supports or warriors that need initiation and can do quick hard cc.

This is usually what i see on each role:

Jungler: Fist of the Gods and Greater Purification
Solo: Shielded Teleport
Mid: Greater Purification or Combat Blink (for escape or initiation)
ADC: Greater Purification and maybe Achilles' Spear
Support: either of the curses or Greater Blink

Greater Aegis is another alternative for the beads.

Hmm, I notice no one mentions Shell of Absorption, is it considered weak? It sounds like it could be ridiculous in (late game) teamfights to me.

Anyway, thanks for the detailed responses guys :) I'll have to work on my usage of the beads then (I usually think of the active too late / after I'm already dead, heh).

Zilby and Devampi covered the beads for the most part. Greater Purification is the best active in the game and is standard on every god except for guardians and maybe some warriors. So yeah, get that! Once you figure out how to use it effectively (preemptively using this to confirm damage or a kill or to get out in situations you would not have), it's just... gr8. So much CC in Smite compared to other mobas, it's a must.

I suggest to get Heavenly Agility instead of Greater Sprint 10/10 times just cause it applies for your full team and for a slightly longer CD, you get extra healing. Greater Sprint used to be better but nerfed so the other option, Heavenly Agility is uber strong rn. Greater Blink on both Khepri and Hun Batz are the right choice. The others you mentioned are probably all situational.

Answering Q #2 and if shell is good or not? - It really depends from game to game. If you're ahead or they're a CC heavy team, you might need it early etc. But you might not be able to tell that yet. A general rule is get tier 1 beads right after finishing boots (not if you're support unless you need it). Get another active whenever you feel like it or right after completing a core item in your build. Don't prioritize ranking up items past t1 until you get all of your main items online, preferably last items. On this subject, when getting Heavenly Agility, stay at Improved Sprint for the slow immunity and upgrade it as the last item in your full completed build. Shell of Absorption is a good pickup for supports if the enemy team has a lot of wombo combo potential. If you're playing another role and have nothing better to get (after you have beads), this is good to get.

The best support actives include: Weakening Curse / Creeping Curse, Heavenly Agility, Shell of Absorption, and blink. But most supports will start with Creeping Curse (slow is strong early game) and need blink to initiate or beads so it's not always an option. These actives are gotten in other roles when they have nothing better to buy.

^ Green's comments are on point