Smite Build Guide: Class Breakdown: Hunters (WIP)

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Introduction

Hello, my name is Duotem and I'm a semi competitive player on PC(ign:Duotem). I've played on two different combine teams and made it to wildcards in the AVGL Fall 2016 tournament.

I've been busy with school and other real life things so I haven't been able to create specific god guides in the way that I originally wanted so I'm altering course a little bit. I'll be creating class breakdowns which will be released gradually instead of all at once. If there are questions or requests for additional topics feel free to ask in the comment sections and I'll do my best to answer as soon as possible. As always my guides and explanations will be geared towards conquest, but most points will carry over to other modes

General Topics Breakdowns Will Cover

General role you play
Listing of relevant stats to build towards
Item breakdown based around stats
Important concepts for creating builds with examples

Conquest Specific Topics Breakdowns Will Cover

Advice for early, mid, and late game play
Playing from even/ahead
Playing from behind
God descriptions and tips

Topics Breakdowns Will Not Cover

Specific builds for each god
In depth leveling guides
Tier Lists

I will be looking for guides to link in each god description so pm me if you're interested in having your guide featured.
It will need to have a Conquest section and not all guides submitted will be featured.

Updates

3/28/2017: Completed the early game section
3/27/2017: Started the early game section
3/22/2017: Began formatting second half of the guide
3/20/2017: Wrote build concepts section
3/19/2017: Guide Released with Hunter summary, stat breakdown, and item breakdown

Hunter Summary

General Role You Play

As a hunter you fill the role of Attack Damage Carry, otherwise known as ADC.

Your goal is to provide sustained physical damage mainly through your auto attacks from a long range.

Pros

High Sustained Damage

High Objective Damage

Strong Late Game

Cons

Low HP and Protections

Very Item Dependent

Very Little Crowd Control

Relevant Stats

The Relevant Stats

Movement Speed

This is one of the most important stats in the game about skillshots. Movement Speed, MS, allows you to chase down the enemy, dodge the enemy players, rotate across the map to help your team, and reach farm faster.

As a result a player with boots will almost always beat a player without boots once mid or late game hits. The general minimum requirement for MS is 18% which you can get for the cheap cheap price of 1550 gold or less. However, MS suffers from diminishing returns so you don't need to focus this stat on most gods and in hunters case just build into damage.

Attack Speed

Attack speed, AS, is the damage multiplier for hunters as it deals with how many attacks per second you get. The hard cap for AS is 2.5, but don't need to build all of that from items as hunters start with around 0.96 AS on average. You'll often find this attached to other stats.

When building AS items you have to keep in mind that it doesn't build from flat stats, but as percentages of your base AS. For example, if you have a 0.96 base AS and you build you'll gain 0.19 AS not 0.2.

Penetration

Penetration, Pen, is the stat responsible for removing enemy protections allowing you to do more damage. Pen is done as either a flat value, found on items like , and percentage, found on . It is also done another way in terms of flat, or percentage, , protection reduction. There is only a hard cap on flat penetration at 50. Percentage and Flat penetration both work on objectives while reduction only works on players.

One thing to keep in mind is that protection reduction reduces the effectiveness of percentage pen because protection reduction is applied first. For example, if you have against an opponent with 100 protections the Titans Bane will have 33 pen. However, if you also have and auto 3 times the enemy protections will be reduced by 36. This will cause the Titan's Bane to go off of the 64 remaining protections bringing it down to 21 pen.

Power

Power is the stat that increases the damage your auto attacks do before the enemy protections are factored in. While this is a stat you want it is readily available on most items you want to buy. This makes it so you don't need to build items for the power alone and can instead focus on the other stats for the most part.

The Question of Lifesteal

To Crit or not to Crit?

Items

Item Breakdown

Starting Items

Movement Speed

Stacking Items

Other Lifesteal Options

Bridge Items

Flat Penetration

Percent Penetration

Raw Damage Per Second(DPS)

Critical Chance

The most expensive item in the game and pretty much a must have for crit builds. This item simply increases the damage multiplier from 2 to 2.4. You want to buy this as your fifth or sixth item item due to the amount of investment required. It's also generally not worth it unless you already have some amount of crit either built already or in your abilities.

The other super expensive crit item. Unlike Deathbringer this item functions better as the lone crit item as it wants you to crit once then allow the bleed to run out in the end doing more damage. However, critting more than once within the three seconds causes you to lose the potential damage which makes it worse than Deathbringer in dedicated crit builds. You either want to build this as your only crit item at the end of your build or as the third crit item in a crit build.

A decent crit item but often overlooked because it doesn't do what most crit builds want to do which is huge amounts of damage as well as only providing a below average amount of crit chance. This item exchanges the damage for a cheaper cost and on crit effect that reduces enemy damage and slows them. However, since most crit builds would rather just kill the enemy it is often overshadowed by Malice as the final item in a crit build. The utility is still strong though and the attack speed make it a decent pick up still.

Will be updated at a later time

Wind Demon

One of the best crit items over all, and although it is expensive it isn't insanely so. It also provides an on crit that isn't damage effect similar poisoned star, but it effects you instead of the enemy. This is inherently stronger because if you have to stop fighting them or that enemy dies you still retain the buff. Did I mention the buff is attack speed, aka another damage multiplier, and movement speed. This is generally the crit item you want to buy first.

Build Concepts

Hidden Stats

Damage Per Second (DPS)

This is the main stat you're building toward as a hunter. You want to deal as much damage as you can over a short period of time to give your team the best chance of winning teamfights.
There are tools such as KrettCalc, which you'll need to update item stats for, and Word of Thoth: A Smite Mechanics Guide can help you derive the formulas if you are interested.

Shots to Kill (STK)

How many autos it will take to kill someone if you hit them all. The lower the number the better it is. Probably the most important stat in boxing because if this number is lower than your opponent's you have a greater room for error.

Time to Kill (TTK)

How long it will take you to kill someone if you hit all your autos. The lower the number the better. This is the second most crucial stat in boxing because if your STK are the same the faster kill time takes priority.

Power Curve

In the simplest terms it's gold efficiency in terms of DPS. How much DPS can you get for X amount of gold and the sharper the curve is the better.

Double Stacking is Bad

So there are three main issues with double stacking which are how expensive it is, the delay to your power curve, and it overloads your power.

Expensiveness: So the issue with expense is that for a lesser amount of gold than it takes to finish , , and I can finish the first three items in a Trans build, a Devos build, and a non stacking start, including the starter item. This leads to an ability to progress through the build faster, have a stronger ward presence, or buy potions for greater lane sustain. This will enable the person with the normal build to deal more damage earlier forcing the double stacker back and making them lose gold, delaying the build even more.

Delay to the power curve: Then you have to factor in the build order for the items and what results from it. You want to build early so you can make use of the mana and regen when it is most important, you need boots so that you can push up and not fear dying to ganks or players you can out maneuver you, but you also want to build as soon as possible because it needs the stacks to truly be effective. However, to get the most value out of the build you need to build it in the , boots, order so that you're actually getting the value for what each item provides. This causes your Devourer's stacks to be very delayed and you lose a lot of damage early in the game. The other meta builds are going to be cheaper, have a greater DPS, and similar or better TTK and STK values which they can abuse to keep you down.

Overload of power: This is likely the most controversial part of this argument. Physical power is actually one of the worst stats for hunters because of how prevelent it is. It's like how money becomes worth less the more of it there is because it ends up representing a lesser portion of what is actually worth something. By buying items solely for power you lose out on other stats like attack speed or penetration as well as utility effect like the one of which allow you to put out more damage overall. You'll find power on your boots, most lifesteal, most pen, all crit, ect, ect. So you'll end up picking it up along the way. In this vein, Don't get unless you want the lifesteal and Don't get unless you want the mana.

Dont Build Only Power For Odysseus Bow

Example Builds and Power Curves

All the example builds are calculating using Neith vs a Neith, who has no extra defensive stats, with levels being upgraded at the same time. Leveling: Item 1 with starter item (Level 5), Item 2 (Level 9), Item 3 (Level 12), Item 4 (Level 15), Item 5 (Level 18), Item 6 (Level 20), Item Swap (Level 20). Stacking items are calculated based on 0 stacks when purchased, roughly half stacks when the next item is bought, and stacks completed when the second item from purchase is added. The gold you get back from selling items is factored into the total build cost. Wind Demon receives its passive when the second crit item is purchased. We'll be discussing this in terms of the following three builds:

Triple Crit

					Wind Demon
This build is a hunter staple. It provides some of the highest single target damage with an extremely low STK and TTK. However, it is very slow to come online and you will be at a disadvantage in the straight up 1v1 versus attack speed/penetration oriented builds until you get your first crit item. It also has the highest consistent lifesteal value of the three builds listed here. One thing to keep in mind is that it has relatively low structure damage. You sell Death's Toll for Deathbringer once you finish the fill the rest of the item slots as it provides the largest damage spike but is too expensive to prioritize earlier. You'll sell Ichaival for Malice as it is the highest damage option that gives you more consistent crits to facilitate blowing up the squishies. End Game Stats Before selling Ichaival Gold: 13764 DPS: 750.69 STK: 7 TTK: 2.66 After selling Ichaival Gold: 15625 DPS: 823.05 STK: 5 TTK: 2.03

Hybrid

						Wind Demon
This build sacrifices the strong lifesteal and consistent crits of the first build for a stronger early game and objective presence. It is one of the highest DPS builds in the game against players as it packs a good amount of pen, the health shred of Qins, and the burst damage of crit. It also contains Titan's Bane which allows it to shred towers,and tanky targets. You start out with a cheap pen and attack speed build which allows you to come online four items into the build, but transitions into crit for late game. However, since you are trading out some crit chance for more consistent damage the STK and TTK values take a hit. You sell Death's Toll once the first five items are completed for Wind Demon. This brings up your burst damage allowing you to outbox players with more dedicated penetration builds. After that, you sell Ichaival for Deathbringer to solidify your burst damage ability and begin truly exploding the squishies. End Game Stats Before selling Ichaival Gold: 13064 DPS: 757.61 STK: 7 TTK: 3.05 After selling Ichaival Gold: 15125 DPS: 849.57 STK: 6 TTK: 2.67

Transcendence


This build takes a hard 180 from the previous two builds and instead focuses all its single target damage in the early game and switches to AOE damage in the late game. It beats the previous two builds in TTK at the start with first item built. While only being 50 gold more expensive then the Hybrid build through Titan's Bane. Then it takes the option to take the advantage of the high power, pen, and attack speed values this build has to make the most of Odysseus' Bow. This build doesn't have any sells as it lacks a starter item and bridge item like Ichaival. However, items like Hastened Fatalis or Rage could be strong last item options if you value the passives more than Odysseus' Bows. End Game Stats Gold: 12950 DPS(No Bounce): 732.09 DPS(With Bounce): 999.79 STK: 8 TTK: 3.25

Game Stages

Stages of the Game

Early Game

Starting Items

Starting Location

Outclear or Outcleared
If you are even or favored to outclear in the the head to head adc and support match up you want to head to the lane and position yourself as close to the middle of the lane as possible so you can abuse that early clear as soon as possible. This is because when even the first team to use their clear generally wins that first fight as they will be tanking less minion damage.

Otherwise you have to decide whether you want to deny invade potential, focus on the wave, or try to fight. If you decide to deny the invade then you should look to do the small creeps at the purple buffs, and if you have a high clear support you can look at taking them from red as well. In this case if the enemy team just clears the wave you give yourself the strongest chance to hit level 2 after the first wave as you only need 3 of the small creeps plus the minion wave to push you to level 2. This forces the enemy to commit to either clearing the purple buff, going all the way to red buff, or doing the oracles which can allow you to gain back lane pressure. If you have in addition to the high clear support you can look to just clear purple buff.

If you decide to focus the wave you want to position just behind the middle of the lane and look to do what you can to the wave as well as attempting to poke the enemy duo lane in the process. After the first wave you'll want to focus on the second wave instead of your buffs so your tower doesn't take a ton of damage and you don't lose too much gold.

The fight option is very reliant on your support. In this scenario you're trying to get as much poke as possible on the enemy team and baiting them to use their abilities on you instead of the wave. For a hunter the best thing you can do is focus your auto attacks on the support so they take too much damage to tank much of the damage your minions put out. It may also be worth to step into an ability of the enemy so that the minions start to aggro that player instead of the enemy minion wave.

Fighting Before the Wave
With how long it takes for the minions to reach each other it has become a common thing for the duo lanes to meet and try to outbox each other to try and gain an advantage. If you want to do this it is best for you to finish your starting build and go to the middle of the lane as soon as possible as the person already there will generally have a small advantage. If the trade starts going the wrong way don't forget you can stop autoing and move away to reset the fight. Too many times I've seen hunters refuse to back down and losing lane because of it.

However, if your support wants to join in the fight it is worth considering playing a little behind the middle of the lane. This way the enemy might push past the middle to fight you and the support can come behind them out of the jungle entrance in the middle of the lane.

Starting Alone
If your support decides to start somewhere besides your lane there are a couple things that can happen. If the enemy adc is also alone it simply becomes a regular 1v1 lane and is likely the best case scenario for you.

Otherwise you have two options. You can do something similar to the early buff clear to deny them invade gold and xp or you can just try to clear the wave. If you choose to clear the wave throw the your ability on the melee creeps and back off allowing the wave to push to your tower. This way you aren't getting super poked out on minions and less likely to get forced to back. You'll follow a similar playstyle until the support leaves the lane. If you are looking towards denying the invade you can do the small creeps on the purple buff and then take the long way around to avoid getting killed it most cases. Again can possibly solo the purple depending on starting build.

Farming

As the adc you are specifically in charge of two jungle camps on your side of the map, the purple buff and the gold fury oracles. You should be looking to do your purple buff on respawn, whether or not anyone else is there. If you drop the buff and the support isn't around to get it just pick it up as the penetration debuff extends as far as your auto attacks. The oracles you want to do as often as possible as well, but due to how highly contested they generally are and how tanky they are you usually want to have someone else with you as well. You should also be looking to split the red buff experience if you can and do the back harpies if your minion wave is pushed up.

The biggest thing I see when I play that can be improved with regards to farming early is back timings. There are four main things to consider every time you get ready to back which are: the item you're getting, your jungle camp timers, where the minion waves are, and where the enemy team is.

The biggest mistake I see based around people backing for items is that they'll often wait for a full item no matter what health or mana levels they are at. One example of this is when building along side a starting item. If you end up with low health and mana and are out of potions its generally going to be better to back and upgrade to and get a fresh health and mana bar. When making this decision it's about the stats the lower tier item provides. In our example only costs 650 gold but gives you an additional 10 power, 150 mana, and 4 mp5. When you compare this to finishing for 2050 gold you get 25 power, 300 mana, and 6 mp5 in terms of raw stats. So for less than half the cost you're getting close to half of what you'd get for finishing the item, which makes it a good buy.

When considering jungle camp timers during a possible back you're really looking at minimum time where you aren't doing anything. In the best case scenario the back harpies and the purple buff will be spawning when you are leaving the base. This way you aren't losing out on farm during the travel time. In most cases if the buffs are close to spawning it's better to wait until the camps are spawning so you can maintain or begin getting an experience lead over the enemy adc.

As far as minion wave position goes it really comes down to what can either I or the enemy get off this. Generally if you and the enemy hunter are backing at the same time as the minions reach the tier 1 tower mark it will be better to stay and push the wave and then back. This allows you some poke on their tower, a bit more gold you can use for wards, and keeps your tower safer from someone coming over and pushing it down while you're backed. It will also allow you a bit more time to do the back harpies and buffs mentioned in the previous section without missing too much minion farm.

Finally, the enemy location plays into the decision with minion waves as well. If you can see everyone on the map besides the person who just backed you can usually stay to push that next wave. If all the other enemy players are on the opposite side of the map you can even look to push down the tower or invade their jungle before you back. This is where wards are the most important as they are what allows you to make these aggressive plays to start snowballing your lead.

Wards

Strong Early Hunters

These gods are strong as they provide high clear and/or a strong fight presence in the first five levels.

Mid Game

Rotations

Objectives

Wards

Best gods

Late Game

Positioning

Best gods

Playing when Even or Ahead

Playing When Even or Ahead

Increasing the Lead

Farm
Invades
Rotations
Objectives

Altering Playstyle

1v1
Wards
Splitpush

Playing from behind

Playing from Behind

Reducing Your Losses

Defense
Manipulating minions
Rotations

Altering Playstyle

1v1
Desperation Plays
Wards
Splitpush