The best SMITE 2 Hercules builds are exactly what you need to get the most out of the champion of Rome and the son of Zeus. This brawler god has almost exclusively melee-focused abilities, so you want to be in and amongst the action as much as possible. He's the true definition of a tank and if you use these Hercules builds in conjunction with our top SMITE 2 tips, you'll be on the fast track to pentakills galore.

Here are all of the best SMITE 2 Hercules builds as suggested by our community of SMITE veterans, with thousands of collective hours in the series so far, alongside a full rundown of his abilities and the best roles to play with him, before finishing up with some Hercules-specific gameplay tips and tricks. Here we go:

Hercules abilities explained

In the original Greek and Roman mythology, Hercules is famous for his legendary strength. In SMITE 2, most of his abilities reflect this, with all but one dealing pure damage. You’ll find several displacement and crowd-control abilities too, which can be a lot of fun after you get the hang of using them properly. Here's NiteDark with a rundown of how each of them works:

• Apotheosis (passive): "Hercules gains Strength when enemy gods damage him. This stacks up to three times and lasts for five seconds. Additionally, hitting an enemy god with an ability provides a single stack, or two for hitting your ultimate, towards achieving Apotheosis."

  • "At four stacks, enter an empowered state that immediately subtracts two seconds from your active ability cooldowns and provides additional strength, protections, size, and cleaving basic attacks for the duration."

• Driving Strike (first): "Dash forward dealing damage, stunning, and pushing enemies hit."

• Earthbreaker (second): "Create a rift that deals damage to enemies in front of you. Enemies hit by the end area are pulled to you."

• Mitigate Wounds (third): "Immediately heal yourself, and gain attack speed and protections temporarily. At the end of the duration, heal yourself again for a percentage of damage taken during the effect."

• Excavate (ultimate): "Hurl a boulder at a location, displacing enemies wherever it lands. The boulder then rolls and bounces off walls, dealing physical damage to enemies hit."

For a deep dive into how each of these abilities works in-game, check out ChrisTDickson's video below:

Inters3ct recommends a powerful wombo-combo with Hercules's first and second abilities. If you successfully displace enemies with Earthbreaker and bring them towards you, you can follow it up with Driving Strike to push them towards the rest of your team, while dealing considerable damage at the same time. 

"This is your bread-and-butter combo and can mean instant death for squishy targets if you hit them with it and push them into the rest of your team. You'll want to get good at predicting enemy movements and mixing up your timing on Earthbreaker as simply walking up to enemies and letting it rip will let them quickly adapt and juke it. Your hit rate on this combo will directly correlate to your win rate on Hercules so actively try to improve at hitting this and get better at reading enemy movements."

NotAValveGame has broken down each of his abilities in the video below, but he also has a perfect example of how to do Inters3ct's combo at the 0:57 mark:

Best Hercules roles

While Hercules is a versatile character, Inters3ct explains he plays best as a bruiser or tank in the solo lane. mypets agrees:  "He is a very good tank for starting fights and coming out alive while dealing a lot of damage. If you're someone who likes to lead battles, Hercules is ideal." NiteDark has also found success with Hercules in the jungle, showing just how flexible the champion of Rome can be, while mypets mentioned he can also be played in a support role.

Best Hercules solo build

Our first solo Hercules build comes courtesy of Inters3ct, who has given a detailed explanation of why each item is the best pick. It's worth noting that all of our builds here recommend using the Blink Rune as your relic of choice, mostly thanks to Hercules's lack of mobility outside his Diving Strike ability.

• Bluestone Brooch (starter): This gives you extra lane clear and damage to help take down enemy backliners much more easily late game.

• Mystical Mail (first): This item is really strong because it gives a magical damage aura around you that helps clear the wave early on. Since it deals magical damage and Hercules is physical, you'll likely catch the enemy solo god building physical defense against you by surprise, and get a lot of value from this item as a result.

• Breastplate of Valor (second): Cooldown reduction (CDR) is very important for Hercules and this is the premiere physical defense CDR item in the game right now, so it's super efficient.

• Genji's Guard (third): The same as Breastplate of Valor but for magical defense, and you'll need some of that when you begin rotations to other parts of the map.

• Stone of Binding (fourth): Gives great tank stats and reduces enemy protections on hard-CC hits - and guess what? Hercules has a lot of hard crowd control. He has so much, in fact, that he can keep this effect almost constantly active on whoever he’s fighting, increasing not only his damage, but his team's follow-up damage too.

• Spirit Robe (fifth): This offers both kinds of defense, a passive effect to stop you getting CC-chained down (which is Hercules's main weakness in the late game), and some CDR to boot. What's not to love?

• Glorious Pridwen (sixth): This last slot can really be replaced with whatever you need in the current match. If you need more magical defense, get something like Oni Hunter's Garb. More physical defense? Maybe pick up a Void Shield. Or try one of the myriad of other active items that can be a tonne of fun to use. Pridwen is just the most generic good option I can suggest for the sixth slot; its active effect grants a shield based on your protections and the item has a lot of CDR as well, which as we've discussed is amazing for Hercules.

Inters3ct adds: "This build should get you started but as always with SMITE, situational building is critical and you should switch out items if you need to pick up other options. Like getting Genji's Guard first instead of Mystical Mail if your lane opponent deals magical damage, or dropping the Pridwen for Ruinous Ankh if you need anti-heal, etc."

Best Hercules jungle build

Both NiteDark and yan57436 recommend the following build if you take Hercules into the jungle lane:

• Relic: Blink Rune

• Starter: Bumba's Hammer

• Item 1: Jottun's Revenge

• Item 2: Hydra's Lament

• Item 3: The Crusher

• Item 4: Musashi Dual Swords

• Item 5: Deathbringer

• Item 6: Titan's Bane

This build focuses less on the tanky side of Hercules and instead maximises his damage output against both jungle camps and enemy gods. In the jungle, you should take advantage of the long grass and wait for your teammates to engage with enemies in the other lanes before pouncing. By the time the late game rolls around and you're floating between every lane, you'll be dealing immense damage.

Cloggedbean has an excellent TikTok video below which, alongside detailing each of Hercules's abilities, also includes a slightly different jungle build for him at the end:

Hercules tips

While the two builds above will ensure your Hercules is as strong as possible for your chosen role, that's no use if you don't know how to actually pilot the character. That's what these top Hercules tips will help with.

When it comes to ability leveling, NiteDark suggests the following depending on role:

• Tank: 3 > 1 > 2

• Jungle: 1 > 2 > 3

NiteDark also explains that Hercules's main strengths are the fact he has excellent crowd control and area damage, so in the late game when you're more likely to be fighting multiple enemy gods simultaneously, he excels. His passive also allows him to stay alive for longer compared to "most other melee gods", and since his ultimate is disruptive, it can be used to isolate enemies for your teammates.

On the other hand, Hercules seriously lacks mobility, which is why we run the Blink Rune, and his cooldowns are long, hence the focus on cooldown reduction. His ultimate and second ability are also quite precise, so if you miss the target, you're heavily penalised.

NiteDark suggests engaging in fights with Driving Strike because it can both initiate and interrupt, especially if you have teammates coming in to help with the battle. When you're in the thick of it, use Inters3ct's combo from earlier, which allows you to push enemies towards your allies. Mitigate Wounds should also be used liberally in longer fights, as it enables you to both stay alive for longer and escape, or to chase down enemies.

Make sure you check out Empen's video below for a few extra tips and thoughts on how to play Hercules:

Do you have any other recommendations for Hercules? Do you have an excellent support build you've discovered with him? Let us know in the comments below!

Some text has been edited for brevity, clarity, or spelling, punctuation, and grammar. You can find the original wording here. Image credit: Titan Forge Games