Quick Solo Lane Guide S5 (patch 5.21)

Welcome to this guide, I'm SmoothHomie and I've been playing smite for about 3 years now, currently my highest rank is masters. In this guide I'll try to explain fundamentals, match ups, stages of the game, itemization, and a tier list for ranked solo laners. Guide is mainly directed towards newer conquest players, but those that already have experience in it might still pick up something. I also encourage you to discuss any parts of this guide and any recommendation or critique is welcomed.

Hope You enjoy this guide and find at least something useful in it, lets get started now.

We will quickly go through fundamentals, they come down to: map awareness, warding and tracking the enemy jungler(yes, it is important in solo lane as well).


Map Awareness


As in any other role, having a decent map awareness is a key to your performance. Knowing the location of enemies and their next one or two moves allows you to make plays according to them. It will directly influence your decision making depending on proxying, invading and playing the team fight properly in the late game. My personal advice if you find yourself having difficulties with it, set a timer that will beep every 5-7 seconds in order to remind you to check the map and have a quick look of what is happening.

Warding in Early and Mid Game

Warding in Early and Mid Game



Red wards are your extremely aggressive wards, in case if you have huge amount of pressure in lane or if you were able to pull out multiple invades through the early game and can safely continue with them in mid game these wards will allow you to keep the eye on enemy jungler and his path which he decides to take after securing his speed buff.

Green wards are also aggressive but not so much, it involves the most common entry points of enemy jungler and mid laner, it will spot most of rotations and keep you relatively safe.

Blue ward is your pyromancer ward in case if the enemy team wants to cheese it, I recommend to ward it if you have a ward to spare.

Yellow wards are your defensive wards, they allow you to see any aggressive pathings from enemy mid and jungler, in case if they are invading your back harpies and blue buff and keeps you safe if you're freezing the wave in front of your tower line.

Late Game Warding

Gold Fury is no longer an important objective, we have reached a point where everyone is or is close to reaching level 20, everyone has their 5th item completed and are grouping in order to fight around the Fire Giant pit or sieges are about to happen.

Red Wards and orange wards are your sieging wards, you're denying enemy vision in order to keep them on their toes and guess what your next move is while they're hugging their last remaining structures. Orange wards near the FG pit can also help you determine the pathing enemy team is taking while you're taking the FG which will help you in potentially taking a pick on one of enemy carries or zoning the enemy team more efficiently.

Green wards are your standard aggressive wards while fighting over the FG, it allows your carries to poke enemy team while also allowing you know exact location of enemy carries in order to plan their dive with your jungler in most of cases if you're not on a peeling duty.

Blue wards are FG ward and mid harpies ward, plus the ward over the FG wall. It allows you to potentially spot any possible flanks or even an attempt to steal the FG over the wall.

Yellow wards are your defensive wards once more, this time they allow you to walk into the FG pit without worry of someone being around the corner. Without team it is really risky to contest FG so I'd definitely recommend to have them up.

Purple wards just like red wards are the sieging wards. It allows your carries to poke enemy team and also prevents vision from enemy team over the wall making their siege more difficult.

Match Ups

We can divide match ups depending on the wave clear strength and kill pressure as winning, even and losing match ups.

Winning

Winning

Winning lane match ups are considered usually the ones where you're sure to out pressure the enemy solo laner and make more impact in the early game. You're mostly supposed to play aggressive and look to poke and force your laner out of the lane to lose the farm or kill him in case he doesn't. In case if he backs you have an opportunity to either proxy, look for invades or rotate depending on what you think is best.

Even

Even

Lane pressure is even, the match up is mostly determined by the mechanical difference, wave management and other outside factors. Going in for trades when your jungler is there, when you have the minion advantage or when you know his abilities are down will win you the lane. Make sure to secure your own blue buff.

Losing

Losing

These are the match ups where you definitely lose the pressure in lane and you're very prone to dying in lane. You're mostly looking to make an impact in the late game, thus thing you'd like to do is set up a freeze under the tower and farm safely, that way you're safe from any chances of ganks and the enemy solo laner can't pressure you as much.

Freezing

Freezing

An important thing to keep in mind is that you can't effectively freeze the wave unless the enemy wave is even in terms of hp and minion number or has the bigger wave. Freezing the wave in front of your turret is also important to keep in mind that the wave is going to be pushed towards the enemy team due to the sake of the equality law. Equality law means that if both waves are equal the one that is going to lose the push is whichever is further away from their turret due to the fact that enemy wave comes in sooner and helps with the push of it. So be aware that frozen line is eventually going to be pushed in with the huge wave. This is important to keep in mind if the wave is in awkward position and you're in danger of a gank. Better to miss out 2 minions than to die for them and lose much more.

Proxying

Proxying

Proxying is an action where one player clears the incoming wave before it passes the t1, anything before that tower is considered proxying. In order for proxy to be successful you need a) Have a pressure in lane, b) be sure that the enemy laner can't kill you during the clear, c) know that the jungler is on the other side of the map and mid laner can't rotate to collapse on you or be confident that you can take the 1v2 and end up on top.

Benefits of proxying is quite obvious, it allows you to rotate without worrying about losing any potential farm under your tower or it allows you to invade back harpies or blue buff while enemy solo laner is busy clearing the wave and even if he manages to clear it and decided to contest the buff there is a huge probability that his abilities are on cool down from the wave clear and you have a better secure.

Early Game

Early Game

Early game is pretty straight forward for the solo lane, you need to be aware of the match up in lane and play accordingly to it. In case if you're in losing match up, your main goal should be setting up a freeze in front of your tower and securing your buffs. If you're playing an early impact god then your goal should be to outpressure the enemy solo laner and look for rotations to make impact before you fall off.

Mid Game

Mid Game
This is a period of where the usual rotations start, you have 2 to 3 items besides your boots and you're fighting over the GF, you can either look to split push if your team is ahead or you feel like you can't win the fight since you're behind or rotate to GF in order to contest her, same with Pyromancer where you will most often need to show your presence since it is on your side of the map.

Late Game

Late Game

On most gods, your main task will be to absorb the damage, zone enemies from the objectives and during sieges to try and force any defensive ultimates from enemy team together with your jungler while diving the back line, unless you're on a peel solo laner and you're leaving other team members to be the initiators. Explaining each of them would require too much effort and isn't specifically tied to solo lane so I'll make a separate guide about them.

For the sake of simplicity we will divide the items into physicals, magicals and mixed, depending on who can build them. I will not discuss any final builds here since this is not a specific good guide.

Starter

Starters in solo lane during the fall split have mainly switched to either rushing a t2 boots or going for Guardian's Blessing or Mage's Blessing depending on your play style, getting either more accumulated gold through safe farming or looking to obtain more pressure in lane. That combine with the Chalice of Healing and potions of your choice.

Physical

Physicals Hybrid and Power

Void Shield - Used mainly on aggressive warriors and assassins in solo lane, gives a good debuff for your team making the back line dive much easier. Recommended on gods like Cu Chulainn, Camazotz and so on.

Berserker's Shield - Good for sustain in lane and gives a lot of pressure early to mid game, good on aa charachters like Bellona, Osiris and Erlang Shen.

Gladiator's Shield - Ability version of berserker's, gives sustain to gods like Sun Wukong, Cu Chulainn and so on.

Runic Shield - Picked into heavy magical enemy team comps due to its passive.

Ancile - If you intend to dive the enemy mid laner like Raijin or if you're laning against Cabrakan silence can be extreamly impactful, lacks other survival stats making it highly aggressive option.

Masamune - Meant for those that are constantly diving the back line and are in middle of the enemy team, like Sun Wukong for example.

Soul Eater - Extreamly good on heavy ability based gods in solo lane, Pele, Sun Wukong and Cu Chulainn, you can experiment with it on other gods. Be aware that you're very vulnerable in the first few minutes of the match due to it.

Magical

Magical Power and Hybrid

Void Stone - Counterpart of Void Shield, used to shred the prots of enemy carries making them easier to kill, recommended on Sobek.

Stone of Binding - Early bridge item, gives your team a pen buff whenever you hard CC an enemy. Recommended on guardians that can easily proc it with multiple abilities like Sobek and Cerberus

Soul Reaver - Currently viable on characters that offer a lot of damage in solo such as Terra, you can experiment with other guardians as well.

Ethereal Staff - Good for pooking the enemies before team fights occur due to its passive.

lotus crown - Can be considered on healers in solo lane such as Hel or even Terra if you want to go more utility based.

Mixed

Mixed Defense

Spirit Robe - Should be picked if enemy team has more than 2 or 3 hard CC abilities, the item itself is mainly what it is because of its passive.

Mantle of Discord - Gives a good chunk of defense with a passive that can bail you out in some clutches.

Magi's Cloak - Something to consider if you're the one who is constantly being collapsed on by Fenrir or Ares ult and you have no way of escaping it.

Hide of the Urchin - Good if you're ahead or if you're expecting a huge team fight to occur and you have enough gold for the item.

Hide of the Nemean Lion - Item picked into aa comp that is building crit, otherwise its not worth it since your prots will just get shread and you'll die before even doing something with this item.

Breastplate of Valor - Standard item in most of solo laner builds, gives everything you need from early to late game. Physical defense, mana, mp5 and cool down reduction.

Spectral Armor - An item to consider picking up over Hide of the Nemean Lion against crit gods, I personally recommend it more over the nemean.

Witchblade - Picked into heavy AA comps due to its passive.

Winged Blade - Antislow item, good into comps with 3 or more slows.

Relic Dagger - If you're playing a blink facilitator, this is something to be considered due to its passive and cool down.

Genji's Guard - Magical counterpart of Breastplate of Valor, gives ton of mp5 and gives about 20% cool down reduction if you include the passive.

Oni Hunter's Garb - If you're intending to constantly be in the middle of enemy team this is an item for you, recommended on Sun Wukong and other gods like him.

Bulwark of Hope - If you're in a need of more surviability or enemy team has a true damage dealer like Serqet, shield can come into a clutch.

Pestilence - Bought into healer comps due to healing reduction.

Heartward Amulet - Something to consider if enemy team has 3 or more magicals on their team if your support doesn't have one.

Talisman of Energy - An item that gives you a small buff after minions are killed, can work during the sieges, useless during the jungle fights.

Mystical Mail - Gives you early to mid pressure in lane, also allows you to kill the back line during late game fights faster.

Midgardian Mail - Anti aa item, consider picking it up if you're fighting against 2 or more aa based characters or if you intend to dive the enemy adc.

Emperor's Armor - Sieging defense and offensive item, few extra shots from phoenix on enemies or few less on you can make the difference.

Keep in mid tier list is mainly for ranked and its personal opinion from me and my friends, if you disagree feel free to discuss it in comments but I probably won't change anything here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TNLNu5NotQ = Fineokays tier list, recommend you to give it a look since he has better insight in the role and plays more solo over me.

Thank you for reading this guide, hope You have enjoyed it and found at least something useful. Once again, I'd like to encourage you to discuss anything inside of this guide, look for a better possibility and not take it for granted.



Smooth Homie