Returning player questions

I ve played smite for a long time, level 30, pretty good at ranked but due to work i left for 6 months and now i returned. I decided to start with a new account and also get the god pack to have every god which is nice(though leveling again to 30 is not).

I have a few questions since i ve been missing for so long and that new reddit forum doesnt feel so much like a forum tbh

1)Even before i had a serious problem against good players as melee in side lanes, especially some combinations were really killing me gold wise. I try to be as careful as i can but this doesnt help me much gold wise and the only solution i found is getting hog on all my melee characters. Any advices on that??

2)Is there even an algorithm in use for normal conquest, currently level 15 and i have barely played any satisfying games, either we win with 20/1/12 or lose epicly because half the team was dying all the time even though i still had a positive kd, and carrying with Neith or Thanatos doesnt work so well >.<
Do people even know the word careful???
I had a chronos that kept going ridiculously close to the enemy team and being overly aggressive and dying 6 times and then saying Chronos is bad and leaving O_o, or one time there was a Thor "bot??" that kept attacking me even when he was in the range of the tower or all my minions were attacking him.
I guess i had a reason i never played non-ranked conquest before. Anyway i heard things change around level 20, is this true?

3)I really like the concept of Thanatos but i have little idea on how to build him.
I usually jungle but if jungle is taken i just focus on leveling in the lane carefully and randomly go try get a kill if i see an opportunity somewhere. Lategame i feel extremely squishy and usually just try to hide behind places till i see a good moment to attack since jumping in the fray usually gets me killed without even realizing how i died xD
Everytime i play him though i really dont know what items to use for him, his ulti really makes me feel that i dont really need some specific item and lately i ve been trying Ninja Tabi and Bloodforge so with the attack buff i can solo the gold fury early since it helps all the team.

4) Death Scythe what do you think about that skill? I ve been kinda avoiding lately since it damage is barely higher than Soul Reap and the health you gain is almost non-existant since you are losing 10% health to use it. And with a high 2 and 3 you can still reach a low health target fast enough to use the 3 to kill him instead of 1.

1:
Fist is good, the stun is op. Good item on mostly all melee gods, do you play solo or duolane?

2:
Not sure, haven't leveled in a long long time :p

3:
I would build cdr, pen and life steal (don't play him much though).

4:
I like going 1 first just because you can 100 to 50 everyone with it, as long as your aim is good. But the 3 is sick too, like it depends on the game and how I am feeling. 3 is great for jungle clear, but 1 is great for ganking, but as I said I don't play him much :p

Seeing that I consider myself a good Thanatos player I'll answer 3 and 4 for ya.

3. You should always take Thanatos into the jungle. If someone else already called jungle, then don't play Thanatos. His weakness really stands out in lane. My usual buid for him is:

Warrior Tabi
Asi
Rage
Deathbringer
Quin Blades
Bloodforge

Depending on how good the game is going early on, I'll rush Bloodforge instead of Asi. In team fights, your 1 and 3 are your go to abilities. Your 3 has a silence on it that will piss off mages to no end. Your 1 is your heal/nuke. It is an attack you need to land.

Thanatos may be squishy, but due to how he is set up you will hardly notice late game. With all his lifesteal potential, he can literally bang with the best of him. The ability that does this is your 4th question.

4. Death Scythe is what makes him so feared. That baby can literally take a non tank down to half health late game. Also remember, once he hits lvl 20. He will be able to insta kill anyone below 40 health. Even tanks.

Thanatos is the best tank buster in the game. Once you get skilled with him; people will fear you.

I have never seen a Than that gave me trouble not max 1 first.

He is acually really good in mid and decent in solo. The burst damage with the 1 is just devastating for every mid god in the game. It takes some skill to pull it off, but I've seen a ton of Thanatos win mid by miles :p
The fact that you can take 50% of someone's health with one ability is pretty huge..

And Aphrodite Thanatos is pretty troll :p

Correction: The players are really good. I've seen mid Loki's before just destroy mid mages. Doesn't mean taking Loki mid is the thing to do.

His major weakness early on is that he uses his health for abilities. Death Toll and HOG can only do so much.

Whaaat, when did Loki become a bad mid?

Loki, Thanathos, Ne Zha, Hun Batz etc etc are actually good mids. They just have a different play style, the normal mid gods are farm machines where the once I mentioned is all about the kill. True there isn't a meta for it right now, but for maybe like 6 months ago this was what everyone did.

The fact that ppl doesn't do it anymore doesn't mean it's not good. For instance have you ever played with or against a good Loki solo?

When a Loki gets his HS stacks and are able to start roaming it hurts and a Loki solo can only rotate mid basically. If you have him mid he can rotate everywhere and be a ridicules threat, sure he (and the rest of the once I mentioned) has a harder time early game than all the normal mids so you have to be really god to pull it off. That doesn't mean its not good :P