Skadi Tips

Look, if you're a newer player with a lower account level, now is probably a great time to start familiarizing yourself with the mode. If you want to wander around a bit, to familiarize yourself with the map's feel, create a custom game for yourself.

The biggest difference between Conquest and basically any other mode comes down to a couple of main things, depending on the role you choose. Matchups and awareness. If you're familiar with your god and the enemy god and what they can do, you try to one-up them, all while also focusing on the minion waves and whatnot. The awareness aspect comes because no matter the lane, there's a potential that another enemy or two could come and try to kill you. Wards and watching the minimap help avoid some of this.

I'm no Conquest expert. Others on this site, such as DV-8 and Estidien (if he shows up again) are much more experienced. But I definitely enjoy the mode, whether I do well or not. Don't be too afraid to dive in, or you'll become like I was for quite a while.

As for Skadi in mid, it's because she's a bit more ability-focused. This makes her a bit like a mage, though her damage is physical. This gives her an advantage for objective killing, since only basics can usually deal damage, and physical damage-built gods typically can deal more damage, more quickly.

I believe I have her listed in the Conquest guide as a non-mage mid-laner, as are other hunters that excel at ability use. This is like some mages that have good basic attack function ( Freya, Sol, Chronos) who can function as a magical ADC.

Yeah that's a good point, probably better now when I'm a lower level and will get paired with lower ranking players. Tomorrow I'll try putting together some quick builds for each class (in case I don't get Mid or ADC) and then I'll give Conquest a shot. I'll let you know how it goes, ask a few questions that I might've missed from the guides and whatnot.

Just finished a conquest match and it wasn't bad. I play on PS4 and find that not very many people use voice chat so the toxicity was cut by a lot which was great. I died a lot more than I should've/would've liked but I didn't go into the negatives which was something. We won but it's hard to tell how well I did since I got the feeling that both sides weren't incredibly experienced in conquest. This is the build I used and I was hoping for some insight.

Mage's Blessing Transcendence Ninja Tabi The Crusher Asi Qin's Sais after I completed that and had an extra 2100 gold I sold blessing for Odysseus' Bow. After awhile of playing with that I found that if I got into a fight and won, a large chunk of my health would be gone and decided the extra power and lifesteal would be nice and sold Ninja Tabi for Bloodforge. This build is not set in stone and worked for me but it was just that one time and it might never work again, I'm just wondering if there's anything wrong right off the bat that should be fixed. I played Skadi in Mid if that helps.

Yo Diabolic,

So I checked the match. You're right, all accounts, averaged out, were probably around 25 or so. The enemy team had a level 7 at bottom and 37 at top, while yours was more balanced, with 13 at the bottom and 29 at the top. Fairly even by account level.

SmiteGuru Elo ratings (which are always questionable) had your team definitely favored, averaging probably around 1,400-1,500. The enemy team's highest was 1,492, but all others were 1,200s or lower.

Then you look at gods chosen, and things get wacky.




So, build order is an important thing. Less so when playing against low level players, but as competition ramps up, it becomes a very important thing.

Items like The Executioner or Titan's Bane aren't good to build early. They deal % pen or % protection reduction, which means they'll be more effective the more protections the enemy has. Early game, that's very little. Instead, at least one earlier item with flat penetration (things like Asi, Heartseeker, The Crusher) will help damage output overall...or you don't have to get flat pen for a hunter, and just get The Executioner mid-game, say 4th item.

Warrior Tabi or Ninja Tabi should always be in the build, and are built either 1st or 2nd. Typically, you'll incorporate a stacking item in Conquest (either Devourer's Gauntlet for basic attack focus, or Transcendence for ability focus), and you might rush that 1st (though it's okay to get it 2nd too). In your case, you got the blessing, and built Trans 1st, which is just fine. You then got Ninja, which is also fine. (Again, just don't replace it)

If you don't get Devo's for the lifesteal, then you'll typically get a lifesteal item later. You got Asi 4th, after The Crusher, and this is fine. Asi can be built anywhere in the build depending on WHEN you need the lifesteal more, and it's functional as early as 3rd because it's also a cheap item. You'd never want to build the other option, Bloodforge, early in Conquest, because of the high price.

Qin's Sais is a good choice for a power/pen build, especially when it's enforced with other attack speed items like Ninja Tabi, The Crusher, and Asi. But since Asi has 0 power, you don't want a 2nd item with no power, so this is partly why I wouldn't get Odysseus' Bow...and would get The Executioner instead.

And then you could have stopped there and been good...OR you could have replaced Asi with Bloodforge late-game, for the added power and the health shield upon getting a kill.

Upon seeing the enemy, if it were me in your position, what I probably would have considered mid-game would be to adjust my build to go after more burst damage. This isn't something you'd expect to do at your level when you're still learning builds...but for me, I would have made some build plan changes, and gone into crit. That build for me would have looked like:

Transcendence, Ninja Tabi, Asi (maybe) if I wanted lifesteal at this point), Rage, The Executioner, Deathbringer, Bloodforge (replace Asi late). Qin's, you see, takes advantage of high health targets (typically those that also build tanky). Crits can often delete squishes more effectively.

Note again, though, that Trans + crits aren't typically optimal. I'd just do it in this specific case to take advantage of a squishy enemy comp.

In any case, keep playing, and if you want feedback, I'm happy to discuss.

Hey Bran, thanks for the in-depth reply. Looking at your suggestions, your reasoning seems pretty solid to me and here's the changes I think I'll make for the next conquest I do. So I'll start off the same Mage's Blessing Transcendence Ninja Tabi The Crusher Asi and then I think I'll make my finishing item The Executioner. After that I'll probably replace blessing with Qin's Sais and if things are going well and we're more into the teamfight part of the match I'll replace Asi with Bloodforge for the extra power. And of course depending on the enemy team I might need to adjust (though I'm not quite at the experience level to shift the focus of a build to something like crit mid game).

Conquest is quite the learning curve compared to arena (keeping track of enemies and staying aware of possible ganks is my kryptonite) but fun all the same.

One thing you might consider is just skipping The Crusher, so you can get into Exe/Qin's more quickly, because for basics, Qin's is the central component of your DPS...unless you decide to focus more purely on ability damage.

And yeah...learning when others don't know what they're doing makes it doubly-hard if you are trying to develop good habits. For example:

• You might call mid and someone else shows up there, screwing up a 1v1 matchup, stealing farm, etc.
• The jungler doesn't do their job and you get ganked more. Or the enemy jungler doesn't do their job and you're never bothered, which gives you a false sense of security.
• People don't pick up the right buffs, or don't start at the normal/meta locations.

These can all screw you up. Definitely, when possible, do your best to do what you understand is the proper thing. Consult the Conquest guide if needed, or ask specific questions here.

That's a tough one that I might need to experiment with. I'm finding that early on I'm having a much easier time clearing waves and putting pressure on the enemy with abilities such as piercing cold (I max piercing cold as fast as I can in conquest) whereas later on I'm more basic while my abilities are more initiators and finishers (this is in part due to their longish CD). So I guess my dilemma is figuring out if the sacrifice in ability damage for basic damage is worth it for the early game but it's just something I'll have to test because I agree that it might be better to get exe/quin faster.

That's exactly it. Trans will definitely help with clear due to the high power, and Piercing Cold should always be maxed first for wave clear. But you have a choice at that point, when you can mostly clear a wave in a couple of seconds with the ability and a couple of basics overall. Focus more on ability use, or basics?

If you do go ability, then items like Titan's Bane, Soul Eater, and Jotunn's Wrath can all be considered. But in most situations, you would want to go more basic attack, via The Executioner, Qin's Sais, etc. That route, with higher basic attack speed, will also allow you to chew more quickly through objectives (towers/phoenixes).

Again it's something I'll have to test but I feel like because of her longer CD's, going full (or mostly) ability for the full match isn't as effective since in a teamfight I could empty my kit and be left at a disadvantage if the enemy team is not all or mostly finished. So I guess my question is is it a viable option to go mostly ability and then switch? What I mean is to keep my first three items the same and then get an ability item like Jotunn's Wrath 4th and once the focus of the match is less on clearing minions and more on teamfights (by this I mean later on when, from my experience, both teams start rotating between lanes more frequently for team fights/pushes), I sell Jotunn's Wrath and start getting exe/qin to start going more basic for the team fights.

Absolutely you can change things up, if you've got the gold to do so. I've done that before.