Zhongkuini Tortellini - Mid Conquest (6.9)

Well some are focused on pure damage, some are focused on sustain/tankiness, some focused on early game damage/sustain... it's mainly you need to look at the item choices.

For example, the bancrofts builds. Bancrofts makes Zhong Kui harder to kill early game not just because of how much lifesteal it can grant with it's passive but the potential power spike as well which can let him turn fights very easily.

But then lets look at say... rushing Spear of the Magus after boots. This is when you are not focused on sustain or tankiness, but rather putting out as much damage possible (via application of Zhong's 1 or his ult which are tick damage and so hence work well with magus) early without having to rely on something like Bancroft's passive.

And then lets compare it to an early Pythags. With pythags you're looking at lower kill potential than rushing bancrofts or magus, but you're gaining CDR, higher BASE lifesteal (than Bancrofts - not including bancroft's passive) for sustain, a good team aura (Aura is especially great on physical gods), a little health and all at a cheap price.

Reasonings for particular item choices:

Divine Ruin - Making sure healer characters or characters with very high sustain in their kit (e.g Kali ult), can't just steamroll your team. Situational pickup. Pay attention to enemy team comps and builds, but also your team's comp and builds, because if your team doesen't have a lot of anti-heal when it's needed then its going to become a priority pickup for you).

Hide of the Urchin - Some extra tankiness to pair with Zhong Kui's passive so he won't immediately die when he ults the backline characters in a teamfight, and the extra health can pair well with health/lifesteal so he's harder to kill unless focused down and has anti-heal applied to him.

Pridwen - Further comitting to a tanky build, when you decide that damage isn't as much of a priority than survivability, and you want the area capability that Pridwen will allow when paired with Hide of the Urchin.

Mantle of Discord - Helps counter heavy burst if he's being focused as a lone target, with the passive allowing him to escape and/or teammates to use the disruption as an initiation oppurtunity.
It also works well with the ult since it allows him to keep dealing damage simply by being there with his ult active while enemies are stunned.

Soul Reaver - Damage-Proc effect item to help deal with high-health targets, especially into the lategame (typically against enemy Solo/Support though this can also include other enemies depending on their build). Is not reliant on other power on your build to be utilised effectively, but does rely on penetration or protection reductions to get the most out of it.

Ethereal Staff - Health/Mana stealing/Damage-Proc effect item to help deal with high-health targets, though useful as well for making even your typical squishy characters have an even lower health pool, while making yourself tankier in the process. Was recently buffed as well and comes at a good price. Is not reliant on other power on your build to be utilised effectively, and not reliant on penetration to be useful either. Good Bruiser item that be considered often.


Gem of Isolation - Bruiser option to make it harder for enemies (especially backline characters) to get away from your damage/ult as Zhong Kui, and easier for your frontline to harass them. Is especially good against gods with no escape/low immunity, and/or don't have slow immunity in their kit. Was nerfed recently to pretty much be only useful on characters (like Zhong Kui) that have DoT abilities that can proc the item passive over several seconds.

Relic Dagger - Good utility item (especially since recent buff) that can be used either for self-peel (e.g. letting you have your Purification Beads up more often against team comps that specifically try to force beads actives for easy kills), or can be used in combination with an offensive relic like Blink Rune to help initiate easier more often. However this item is mainly seen on Supports currently. It's sometimes seen a bit on some junglers and is less common on other classes, as it would be a more situational pickup for them.

In general protection items are are very strong compared to damage items until (typically) lategame when the enemy carries tend to have percentage penetration/reduction like Obsidian Shard and items that scale in damage depending on health like Qin's Sais. Item's like Spear of the Magus are great at reducing base protections to near 0, to allow your abilities to deal near True damage, though the item falls off lategame against high protection targets compared to percentage penetration/reduction which scales based on the protections themselves, not only due to the amount of protections that are reduced by Magus compared to Demonic Grip/Obsidian Shard, but also dependent upon how easy/quickly you can apply the Magus passive to assist damage from other abilities. Unless enemy squishies are building protections though, Magus does NOT fall off lategame against them, though if you can't stack Magus quickly against them then other burst items or flat penetration can considered instead. In the very lategame, a DoT mage like Baron Samedi won't need Magus for Squishy damage if if he's building high power (and/or damage proc items), so it would be more ideal to focus on items that hit tanks hard. It's why often at a high level, like in the SPL you may see pros pickup both Spear of Magus AND Obsidian Shard on DoT mages in their build.

Team comp can also sometimes effect item choices. Some games I get comps where only 1 character on my team can effectively frontline, so sometimes I might pick Zhong Kui Mid and go a more tanky bruiser build so teamfights can go better.

Now im not going to explain every since item choice since this isn't a guide, it's just meant to show you what the typical builds could look like in certain games, and that you could generally use.

If you want to know when to build certain items, and why, then you could do these things:

1. Keep up to date with Patch notes changes, items get buffed and nerfed, increasing or decreasing their relevance.

2. Look at how experienced/high level players build, why they choose certain items and when, and on specific characters. You could do this on Twitch when say... pro players are streaming and ask them in their chat, you could ask them on their Youtube videos in the comments, you could watch SPL games and look at the items they build in those matches (You can use Smiteprobuilds for this, but it's better to see the actual match itself to help understand the item choices better).

3. Understand how the game's stat mechanics work. Which is where the Word of Thoth mechanics guide comes in: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ow_ls0iB2wi2jbgU1FZv7RWWbqRDBGpt/view (Word of Thoth - Game mechanics guide)

4. Understand the character's kit does and what item's benefit them. E.g. Characters with high power scaling on their abilities can benefit a lot from high power, that's just one example. Another example could be starters and starter items, for instance mages like Thoth and Baron Samedi, they have bad early clear so you typically don't want (Tier 2) starts that rush into stacking items, because you may want something like Mage's Blessing and suitable tier 1 item to help with clear and mana sustain in the early game, if it's a cheaper start that lets you get more potions then that can be useful for sustain into high pressure, since you may take poke often.

Read their kit, whether thats in-game, or on the Smite Wiki. Look at what base stats they have, how the stats scale per level etc...


5. Look at the item's guide here on Smitefire: https://www.smitefire.com/smite/guide/an-in-depth-discussion-on-item-choices-s6-patch-6-8-quot-mid-season-quot-14522

Needs minor updates in few places but overall explains certain item choices. Now it may not help you specifically teach you how to build every character in every situation, but it helps explain why and when certain items can be bought.

6. Ask on Smite reddit. You may or may not get good answers, but it depends on how experienced/knowledged the person is that answers them.

7. Though not strictly related, watch this video and it might explain some of the things I mentioned, alongside things I haven't: