I'm late to this one so somebody already took my OP comp... That's ok though, here's a similar one that I think can perform just as well.

Chaac (Solo) - Chaac is an underrated menace right now, he keeps flying under the radar thanks to all the Ra and Sobeks in the solo lane. He has short cooldowns and deals crazy damage while remaining very tanky in team fights. His large AOE silence ultimate can cause an entire enemy team to wipe provided he has the right team by his side.

Aladdin (Jungle) - Aladdin even after countless nerfs is still the undisputed best character in the game in my eyes in the right hands, he is hard to master sure but once you understand everything about him late game he cannot be defeated. Early game is pretty meh though so don't feed early!

Hecate (Mid) - Hecate has shown us that again in the right hands she can pull off miracles, her giant AOE ultimate pairs nicely with the likes of chaac to sweep up an entire enemy team, chunk their hps bars and then displace them into your backline. She also has crazy good safety again with her displacement ult, shield, and self peel from her AO1.

Ra (Support) - I chose to put Ra here because of his aspect and the fact that this comp already has a nice frontliner being Chaac. He will help keep immense pressure in duo lane with healing and good wave clear and late game he will be able to stay alive while buffing and healing his team.

Jing Wei (Adc) - There are a few adcs I thought to put in this spot but Jing Wei just has such incredible safety and with her passive she is able to return to lane quickly even if she is pushed out. She is a farming MACHINE and will usually hit level 20 before most others because of that. Her AOE crits pair nicely with this comp and even alone she can tear apart just about anyone.

I've got three simple but huge tips to improving quickly in Smite 2

1. Watch videos from good players - whether it's content creators or pros, watching people play and understanding why they do what they do, when they choose to farm over fighting or vice versa is key to getting a fundamental understanding of how to play a MOBA like Smite 2.

2. Read items and abilities/numbers - reading goes a long way, overtime even if you are using auto build, read, read, read. You should learn what abilities do so you know in what situations to use them, how much damage they do so you know if you can all in on a fight or if you are better off poking, and figure out any gimmicks that come alongside.

3. Watch your games back - so many times I have personally found myself wondering where things went wrong during my games and a lot of the time I struggle to figure it out but that's not necessarily a bad thing, you shouldn't be analyzing mid match about where things went wrong you should be figuring out what you can do now to make the game state better. Instead after a game is over go watch it back and analyze, maybe you should have taken extra time to farm so you had an advantage in a fight, you can slowly put things together the more you analyze and review.

There are plenty of other tips, hundreds or thousands probably that could help you improve in Smite 2 and in the MOBA genre in general, hundreds of different interactions, items, etc. The key is to not get overwhelmed, take it slow and enjoy the journey of improving, mute toxic players, maybe find peers to play with, games are meant to be fun even if they skew towards the competitive side. If you aren't having fun take a break and come back with a fresh perspective and a willingness to learn.

Oh, also plenty of genius minds in the Just About submissions, make sure to read them all if you really want to best the competition!

What is duel? Should you play it?

Duel is a great way to test yourself in a 1 on 1 scenario against someone (ideally) with equal skill. If you enjoy the Joust mode and want something similar that allows you to flex your skills in a 1v1 situation then duel is the mode for you.

How to duel

Unlike other casual modes this mode is catered more towards competitive players rather then the casual audience despite currently being a casual only mode. This is indicated by the draft pick/ban style of play before the game starts. Before picking your god both players are given 2 bans to remove any characters they simply do not want to play or fight in the duel. This allows for a bit of theory crafting and planning before the game even begins. Similar to other modes duel is all about controlling the map, clear the majority of buffs on the map and don't miss waves and you will stand good chance in a fight, pay close attention to what item(s) your opponent has and how much gold they have in pocket to pick and choose when you should take a fight. The red buff is especially important to contest in most situations right off the bat in duel. This is because red buff allows you to get pressure on the wave and opponent with ease, of course some mana hungry characters will still opt for the blue buff start to ensure they can clear the wave safely.

One lost tip

The Lost Knight! In Smite 1 known as the bull demon king. This jungle objective is immensly important in controlling the pace of the game. Just like in Joust defeating this creature will net you a 20% penetration buff, health regen, and will disable the frontmost enemy structure or in the case of the Titan weaken it. If you get this buff you are able to dive your opponent with a big advantage in the fight and will often give you the win condition you need.

This is a wacky one for sure so bare with me. It's possible I burnt the food when I simply meant to cook. Kukulkan is known as "the bringer of wind and rebirth" however currently there is no part of his kit that embodies rebirth just wind... lots of wind. So here is my take on a support aspect for the slithery wind serpent.

Kukulkan: Aspect of Rebirth

• Power of the Wind Jewel: Kukulkan passive remains the same but instead of gaining bonus intelligence, Kukulkan gains bonus protections based on maximum mana.

• Zephyr: This ability no longer scales off of intelligence instead only dealing its base damage and slowing the enemy as normal. Firing this ability within his Whirlwind results in a more powerful slow.

• Slipstream: this ability now provides its slow immunity and movement speed buff to nearby allies as well. If used inside of Whirlwind instead of dashing Kukulkan flies around inside of the tornado giving slow immunity and further increasing movement speed to allies in a wider radius this also grants them a strength, and intelligence buff.

• Whirlwind: This ability functions as normal but provides a protection buff to allies within the tornado. This buff persists while allies are inside and dissipates after they leave the tornado for 2.5 seconds.

• Spirit of the Nine Winds: This ability no longer scales off of intelligence and deals reduced damage to enemies hit. Any ally hit by the Spirit of the Nine Winds are healed for a flat amount.

Justification

Kukulkan has always been known as a powerful burst mage and he certainly embodies the power of wind but in his lore Kukulkan is again known as the bringer of wind AND rebirth. The kit I designed allows Kukulkan to function as a buffer backline support with a protection scaling passive and an ultimate that allows him to bring rebirth to his allies.

What is Joust? Should I play it?

Joust is a fairly straight forward game mode designed to give you a taste of what to expect when jumping into conquest or to go back to and enjoy as a generally more casual and quick mode. If you don't have the time or patience to play though a full game of Conquest, don't want the level of chaos that Arena brings to the table, and don't like the randomness factor that Assault gives then you should certainly give Joust a try. It's especially a good time if you have two friends to play with.

How to Joust

The game start has each team starting at a buff camp before going to wave, there are a few ways to do this. If you have the more aggressive team comp or early pressure you may want to start at red buff and take the teleporter to then quickly take the purple camp, then head to the wave and finally grab your blue buff after clearing. You could also start at blue buff, quickly clear the wave, and then head to contest red and/or purple buff. The last way that I have seen people playing is to have 2 people clear a buff and the wave while the last player goes to solo clear whatever buff that isn't being contested or to try and steal the buff away from the opposing team.

The key to success in this mode is to snowball your teams farm using the 4 buff camps around the map and of course each and every minion wave, this means your team will gain exp and gold faster then the enemy team. It's also important to fight frequently (ideally as a team) to maintain pressure and control over the map. Of course team composition is important just like it is in any mode. Generally a team wants a strong frontline character with lots of CC, and two backline characters to demolish whoever that frontline is targeting, of course there are plenty of different compositions to try and I'd argue it's still up in the air to what is the "best" team comp for Joust.

A tip to guarantee your win

Outside of farming more efficiently and winning fights there is one objective on the map that is incredibly important in Joust, that objective is called The Lost Knight, this powerful jungle monster is located in front of the purple buff and can completely turn the tide of the game. Defeating this knight will grant your entire team a 20% penetration buff, health regen, and will disable/weaken the frontmost structure on the opposing teams side. If you find you have more pressure then the opposing team but they are sitting comfortably under tower, phoenix, or even the titan then get your team to take down this lost knight and you will find the enemy has nowhere left to hide.

What the heck is/are Diminishing returns (DR)?

Diminishing returns is a system put in place to allow players to build the stat that they want as much as they want with some caveats... In Smite 1 we had stat caps which made it so you could not buy as much of a stat as you wanted as you'd lose value from doing so. In Smite 2 this system is thrown away in favor of unlimited potential! (again with caveats).

Diminishing returns only applies to the following stats/systems: Hard crowd control (not soft), Cooldown rate, Movement speed (applies to slows as well), Protections.

Hard Crowd Control

Hard crowd control follows a slightly different formula then the rest of the systems in Smite 2. Basically this means that if you are hit with hard CC, the first time you are hit you will receive 100% of that abilities crowd control and you will also gain a stack of DR which lasts for 6 seconds and reduces the effectiveness of the next hard CC by 20%, if you are then hit with another hard CC you will of course be CC'd for 20% less time but also receive another stack of DR for 40% hard CC reduction (This is the max amount of DR you can have at a time).

Everything else

Simply put this means that while you are still technically allowed to build these stats as much as you want/can you are still bound by the rules of diminishing returns. These stats follow more of a curve rather then a straight line up. The more you invest into these stats the less value you get from them.

The outlook

Smite 2 has been a true rollercoaster of emotions and I think it's fair to say we were all terrified of the situation Smite as a whole was in back when the Smite 2 closed alpha dropped. Smite 1 had announced that development was going to slow to a crawl, layoffs happened, a ton of long time content creators left, things looked very grim. Since then however the amount of passion, blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into making Smite 2 as good as it can be in as short a timespan as possible has really truly paid off.

(21k player spike occurred during the Founder series on Sunday)

As you can see by this graph (Thanks to SteamDB for the information) closed alpha dropped and people were excited but disappointed by what was released. Hirez had obviously dropped the game too soon and killed Smite 1 development a bit too early as well and fans were NOT happy. but after months of testing and community feedback Smite 2 was ready to release into a beta state and look at the numbers now, these numbers show that Hirez has managed to garner a respectable number of past and potentially new players back into their game and player numbers mange hover around 10 - 15k on a day to day basis for the past couple weeks since. Spiking a bit past 15k on the weekend. This is evidence to me that if Hirez stays on the path they set out for themselves the game can only grow in players and that is very exciting for us diehard fans who want to see them succeed. This is also proof to me that Smite 2 is ready to take the mantle from Smite 1 and become its successor.

Notes from a long time fan

In my eyes this game is already so much better then Smite 1, maybe that's simply because the scope for potential is so much larger, or maybe I am just excited for the teams newfound passion and eagerly waiting to see what comes next, either way the new engine and the teams ability to be clear and transparent with the community gives me high hopes for the future.

Some general things I think that need to be improved before the Beta is done and over are as follows.

1. New player experience - The new player experience is still sorely lacking, new players are introduced to a goofy but insightful intro to conquest by Zeus which is great btw love that but some information should be brought to the players attention sooner rather then later, more tools for learning, incentive to try out the practice and AI modes for new players, building information, strength and intelligence explanations, etc.

2. Player retention - Some of us just wont leave no matter what, we are dedicated fans through everything or at least until Hirez releases their next DKO... But what really needs to happen is a better quest system and something else alongside the current ascension pass progression. They have announced a battle pass system coming soon which will hopefully fix a lot of these concerns but I do think the daily quests should be revamped to give something outside of account XP as it does not provide much incentive to continue playing in my opinion.

3. More thought into aspects - This will be my last note because otherwise I will keep typing for the next decade and nobody wants to read all of that so here is a potential hot take. I love aspects, I think changing a kit to allow a character to play in a different role/style is amazing and something that has been missing from the game for a long time but I think more time and thought should go into these aspect ideas, just giving Anhur more attack speed for instance does not change what role you play him in or really how you play him, its always more beneficial to go the aspect because its simply more DPS late game then his original passive. This is in contrast to someone like Hecate who I think has a great aspect, her 2 is no longer a targetable ability but rather it incentivizes her to build proc items to maximize use of her spell eater spam. It also lowers enemies ability damage allowing her a better option for playing in the support role.

Thanks for reading my review of Smite 2, I know it was a lot! I have 4,000 hours in Smite on steam and just over 500 on Smite 2 now as well and I plan to let that number expand for years to come, I'm very passionate about this game and I hope it continues to grow!

I made this clip when Aladdin was released to PTS a few weeks ago but only got around to uploading it now. Super fun kit, managed to get a triple kill and then a double kill immediately after. As close as I could get to achieving a penta kill in Joust of all modes.

This was a very clean penta kill I managed to grab in a pretty even conquest match. Yes btw we did end up winning off it :) Enjoy.

Disclaimer:

(This tier list was created with ranked and tournament play in mind but is ultimately a culmination of my own personal opinions and experience with the game and its characters).

(I will go into detail on my reasoning for specific gods and for the S and D tiers to explain why I think they belong there).

Tier breakdowns:

S Tier - This tier consists of gods that are performing far above average, when played in recent tournaments they were picked or banned frequently, they are also all favored pretty heavily in ranked play.

Aladdin has insane scaling and late game can completely rip apart a team single handedly with nearly any damage build.

Ullr is in a similar situation where his numbers are simply too high along with being able to abuse items like Tekko-Kagi allowing him to keep 100% uptime on the items passive.

Ra has an aspect now that turns him into an unkillable monster capable of burst healing his team and providing buffs. With the aspect he can now attach his 3 to others to consistently heal them without worrying about positioning and his ult burst heals any teammates hit.

Hecate would probably be the most controversial in my S tier as she requires a higher skill ceiling then the others to pull off but if you get ahold of her she can make team wiping plays with her large AOE ultimate and AOE abilities.

A Tier - This tier is comprised of characters that perform better then the average god. Most of these gods are highly contested in ranked play with a few hot takes here and there.

B Tier - These characters I find to be for the most part fairly balanced and where I would consider average in terms of balance. They are picked relatively frequently in ranked play.

C Tier - These gods fall below average in terms of ranked/pro play or are very niche picks requiring one or multiple other characters to synergize with them. Yemoja you could argue should be multiple tiers higher but I find her to be less impactful then the other frontline supports in most situations.

D Tier - These gods are just bad unfortunately, luckily I've only felt that 2 characters belong in this tier which in my mind is an indication that most characters feel pretty dang good to play!

Sol has been nerfed one too many times in recent patches and is now simply the weakest ADC, her abilities scale off of intelligence and the ADC int items are not in a viable state so you are forced to build strength, the problem with this is that her passive doesn't allow her autos to slam as hard as they did when crit was broken, in contrast Zeus the other mage ADC in the game has a passive that still allows him to pump out numbers.

Cabraken was the most recent release and therefore might not belong in this tier, however from the few games I have played with him alongside community sentiment its obvious he is under tuned.