The best SMITE 2 Sobek builds are essential if you want to learn how to play the Crocodile God, also known as the God of the Nile. This scaly deity is typically played as a support character thanks to his tanky nature, and right now he's also one of the best gods in the game overall, with our expert community having placed him in S-tier in our SMITE 2 tier list.

We asked our community of SMITE veterans to break down everything you need to know to play Sobek. In this guide, their expertise will lay out his abilities, set out some of the best Sobek builds for every role in which he usually plays, as well as cover some general gameplay tips so you can get started with the toothy one. Here's what our expert players had to say:

Sobek abilities explained

First up, let’s understand the Crocodile God’s kit. Here's Inters3ct with a rundown of each of Sobek's abilities:

• "Blessing of the Nile (passive): Sobek gains a stack of protection every time he deals damage, up to a max of three stacks. Each stack grants 2+0.4/level protections. So for example you'd get ten at level 20 for a total of 30 of both protections at max stacks.

  • This is a simple passive that you don't need to track or pay attention to. You're just more tanky when you're fighting, simple!

• Charge Prey (first): Sobek dashes forward, stopping at the first enemy hit, stunning them and, if possible, throwing them over his head.

  • Affectionately known as 'the pluck', this ability is the core of Sobek's game plan. Fishing for this in teamfights is your way in as it throws enemies far out of position and, if used right, straight into follow-up damage and CC from your team. Get good at hitting this and you get good at Sobek - it's that important!

• Tail Whip (second): Sobek spins his tail, damaging and knocking back all enemies around him.

  • A simple ability, it just deals AoE damage around you and knocks enemies away. The knockup is fairly short and is mainly there as an interrupt, not a lockdown. This is great to use right after your pluck to interrupt enemies trying to jump away.

• Sickening Strike (third): Sobek strikes in a cone in front of him, dealing damage while healing himself for each enemy hit. Additionally, he will apply disease to each enemy hit, which spreads to nearby enemies. The disease deals damage over time and reduces healing taken by 40%. Each enemy god hit by this ability reduces its cooldown by one second.

  • Another fairly simple ability that's just used on cooldown for damage, wave clear, and healing. Its anti-heal component makes Sobek especially valuable against enemy teams with strong healing or sustain.

• Lurking in the Waters (ultimate): Sobek submerges into the ground, gaining CC immunity, protections, and restoring 10% mana per second. During this time, enemies in the area are heavily slowed and Sobek charges up. After a duration or if cancelled early, Sobek emerges, dealing heavy damage to all targets in the area and executing enemy gods that are below 10-25% health depending on charge time. For every enemy god executed in this way, Sobek gets +25 bonus health... permanently.

  • This ultimate is incredibly scary in SMITE 2 due to the added execute effect. The heavy slow can be a great follow-up to an enemy that you plucked out of position with Charge Prey as it can prevent them from retreating back to their team.

Cloggedbean's bite-sized Sobek TikTok guide is the perfect accompaniment to this section, detailing all of his abilities along with some crucial items:

When it comes to the best ability leveling order, NiteDark recommends maximising Sickening Strike first, then Tail Whip, and finally Charge Prey. Lurking in the Waters should be increased "whenever possible", which means this roughly looks like the following order: 3>2>4>1. ForMol agrees with this, while yan57436 suggests similar, but thinks the ultimate should be prioritised a little more.

Sobek is mostly played in the support lane, but most of our community agree he can also flourish in the solo lane. However, Asphyxyate also thinks he can be used in the jungle, showing just how versatile Sobek is.

Feddboii goes into plenty of detail in the practice arena for Sobek's abilities in his video:

Best Sobek support builds

Starting with the support lane since that is arguably Sobek's strongest position, Inters3ct has suggested a build which "has a focus on high cooldown but includes crucial active item effects like Purification and Amanita Charm that can support your teammates. 

"This is alongside the starter item of the build, Heroism, which gives allies a shield when they are hard crowd-controlled near you to keep them alive. This build is also more full-tank focused as the support doesn't really need to be dealing high damage; their main focus is keeping their damage dealers alive through crowd-controlling enemies and using the aforementioned powerful active items."

• Relic: Sundering Arc

• Starter: Heroism

• Item 1: Talisman of Purification

• Item 2: Amanita's Charm

• Item 3: Breastplate of Valor

• Item 4: Genji's Guard

• Item 5: Spirit Robe

• Item 6: Glorious Pridwen

2bakedcookies has a slightly different Sobek support build in mind:

• Relic: Sundering Arc

• Starter: Heroism

  • This item goes well with Sobek due to always wanting to build him as a tank. Being able to make a shield for a crowd-controlled ally based on your health will always be valuable.

• Item 1: Gauntlet of Thebes

  • Mixed protections at full stacks is very useful for being extra tanky.

• Item 2: Talisman of Purification

  • This is a must-have item for any support; the ability to have team-wide CC-cleanse is immensely useful and should never be left unpicked.

• Item 3: Screeching Gargoyle

  • This item gives cooldown reductions, magic protections, and an active silencing effect in a cone in front of you, as well as reducing enemy protections. Very useful for shutting down mages and other strong ability users.

• Item 4: Stampede

  • The huge movement speed boost for the team will always be useful for escaping and engaging.

• Item 5: Stone of Binding

  • Since Sobek's CC is so strong, this item makes it even stronger by reducing their protections every time they get hit with one of your hard CCs. It provides mixed protections as well, to be tanky against magic and physical damage dealers.

• Item 6: Hussar's Wings, Ruinous Ankh, or Spectral Armor

  • This category is just for counter-building usually. Support gods need to keep track of who they are going up against and counter-build appropriately.

Best Sobek solo builds

Meanwhile, if you're playing Sobek in the solo lane, Inters3ct recommends the following:

"This Sobek Solo build focuses heavily on cooldown rate to increase the frequency of your key crowd controls on enemies in teamfights. It has a balance of both protections, but as with all tank builds, you can adjust the order or even the items themselves if you need more of one kind of defence than the other. It also has a bit of intelligence sprinkled in through Pendulum of Ages, Chronos Pendant, and Triton's Conch for added damage."

• Relic: Sundering Arc

• Starter: Pendulum of the Ages

• Item 1: Mystical Mail

• Item 2: Breastplate of Valor

• Item 3: Genji's Guard

• Item 4: Triton's Conch

• Item 5: Spirit Robe

• Item 6: Chronos' Pendant

Or you can go with 2bakedcookies's build, which shares some similarities:

• Relic: Sundering Arc

• Starter: Sands of Time

  • This helps with mana consumption, and gives a nice cooldown reduction (CDR) boost and some additional damage against minions.

• Item 1: Gladiator's Shield or Genji's Guard

  • Depending on what you're up against, you will either want Gladiator's Shield first for some extra damage, CDR, and protections, or Genji's Guard for magic resist and a powerful passive to counter magic damage.

• Item 2: Shield of the Phoenix

  • This item gives heal you every time you hit an ability. It works extremely well with Sickening Strike.

• Item 3: Mystical Mail

  • It’s hard to get away from Sobek and the damage from Mystical Mail will add up. Also helps with wave clear.

• Item 4: Shifter's Shield

  • This makes Sobek scarier when he is at full HP, and harder to kill when getting low on health.

• Item 5: Circe's Hexstone

  • An additional engagement tool from Sobek that easily sets up Charge Prey. Keep in mind that this item does not give protections, only max health.

• Item 6: Talisman of Purification, Hussar's Wings, Ruinous Ankh, or Spectral Armor

  • This category is just for counter-building usually. Solo laners will counter-build just like the support but it's not always as important - you can fit a lot of items into your final slot. One of my favorites is Talisman of Purification because having two players in the match with team-wide beads is infinitely valuable.

We'd highly recommend checking out TheMortonMan's Sobek guide, because it is immaculately edited and presented, with plenty of tips for his abilities and well-thought out explanations of the various items you can use with the Crocodile God:

Sobek tips

Finally, our community has plenty of additional tips and tricks for playing Sobek that don't fall under the sections above. First up is NiteDark, who outlines each of Sobek's strengths as a character:

• "Crowd Control: Sobek excels in controlling engagements with abilities like Charge Prey and Tail Whip.

• Sustain: His healing from Sickening Strike provides durability in prolonged fights.

• Disruption: Sobek can isolate enemies effectively, disrupting team compositions.

• Durability: His passive grants stacking protections, making him a strong frontline tank."

And his weaknesses:

• "High Mana Costs: Frequent use of abilities drains his mana quickly, requiring careful management.

• Skill Dependency: His effectiveness depends on precise use of abilities.

• Anti-Heal Vulnerability: Healing reduction items or abilities greatly hinder his sustain."

NiteDark expands on all of these and then some in his "Sobek made simple in less than five minutes" video:

Both NiteDark and Oreo-McFury00 suggest initiating fights with Charge Prey, because this will "separate [the target] from their team” leaving them to “be easily attacked by your allies," explains Oreo. "Follow this up by using Tail Whip to knock the enemy back and prevent them from running to safety. Use Sickening Strike to deal additional damage and regain some health you might have lost in the fight, and finally, if you get the enemy god to less than a quarter of their health, use Lurking in the Waters to finish them off and give yourself a permanent boost to your own health."

However, one thing to keep in mind when using Charge Prey - the pluck - is that you want to avoid plucking enemies that are mid-ult, such as Cupid and Poseidon. This tip comes courtesy of Turkeymaser9000, who also explains that during teamfights, you should stay "close to both the carry and the mid" so you can protect them both and disrupt the enemy attack. Asphyxyate explains that Sobek should often be the one on the frontline "annoying his opponents" due to how much damage he can withstand.

Along with the combo mentioned above to initiate fights, ForMol also suggests 2>3>4>1 to disrupt teamfights. They also mention that you need to be flexible with your item choices and adapt to the enemy team composition when necessary, which ties in to 2bakedcookies's build suggestions for the final item to counter your lane.

Do you have any more builds or tips for playing Sobek in SMITE 2? Did you find success with these builds? 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