A good tip that I believe would be helpful for any new/newer player trying to find their way in SMITE 2, would be to regularly review gameplay and tips from established players in order to figure out where you are making mistakes.

Figuring out what role/class of god best suits you can take some time, be patient and try different characters until you find the one that clicks with you. In SMITE 2, you will earn a token which can be used to unlock a new god. Use these tokens to try different characters in different roles.

Once you figure out what role/class/god you want to learn and get better at, sticking to that character/role will be ultimately more beneficial to learn the game in a faster time span. MOBA's are incredibly deep in terms of skill and knowledge and optimising your learning path will see a faster rate of return.

I will list below some good players for each role that anyone can seek out and study. Reviewing gameplay of better players is one of the most essential things to improving, if you don't understand what you are doing wrong in games, this is a great way to figure that out.

Solo - fineokay

Jungle - Weak3n

Mid - BennyQ/Sheento

ADC - PandaCat

Support - PolarBearMike

These are simply suggestions, some players and content creators will resonate better with some people. There are many resources out there for various gods and role, find what suits you best and study hard in order to improve yourself as a player!

Cooldown Geb Aspect Build

Reasoning:

With the release of Aspects in SMITE 2, different playstyles have been made possible for different Gods. Generally, Geb is played as a peel/engage support looking for big engages with blink ults and peeling for carries in the backline.

However, Geb's aspect allows him to spec into a more warrior style gameplan with more damage in exchange for a reduction in his CC. His Aspect - Aspect of Calamity changes his Shock Wave (2) ability. Instead of dealing damage in a cone in front of him and knocking enemies into the air, it deals damage in a much larger radius around him AND reduces it's cooldown by 0.5 seconds for each enemy hit.

The cooldown reduction is what makes this build possible, if maximising how many targets your 2 hits, it is possible to cast your 2 every 3 seconds late game meaning enemy carries need to be much more cognizant of your dive capabilities.

The Builds:

There are 2 different builds you can try with this new aspect, the first of which is a full intelligence CD build that focuses on using the Staff of Myrriden active to instantly reset the cooldown of your 2 for a double cast in an attempt to one-shot any carries hit by your full combo. This build provides some protections in the form of Breastplate and Prophetic Cloak, which both provide some cooldown which is the most essential stat in this build. Your 2 sits around an 8 second cooldown with this build, if you hit all 5 enemy gods + any neutral minions or camps - your 2 cooldown will be halved resulting in incredible damage with soul reaver procs (as Geb base damage is not that high).

The other build that can be viable with this aspect is more of a solo lane warrior focused build:

While this build does not have as much raw damage, it makes up for it in terms of protections and tankiness. This version of the build has the same game plan, but is just focused on more sustained damage and harrasment of the backline carries instead of one-shotting them. This will allow you to frontline effectively, engage effectively and just be a general nuisance for the enemy team. Late game scaling on this build is very good as double guardian frontline can be extremely difficult to kill for some compositions.

Trying these new Geb builds have been incredibly fun for me, in SMITE 1, Geb was one of my least played characters as I am not a support player. However, with the release of his Aspect, his flexibility in other roles can be easily explored without being accused of trolling by your teammates!

Currently in SMITE 2, balance changes are happening very fast. This means that the "best" team comp generally changes from patch to patch as new items and gods release that shake up the existing meta game.

At the most recent Vegas Founder's Series LAN, there were some clear picks that were favoured above others in certain roles. This is generally because these character's have favourable build paths on a given patch, good lane matchups or just being overtuned. This is what I would consider to be the strongest current team composition:

Solo - Thor: Thor proved to be invaluable at the Vegas LAN due to the utility, cc and backline dive potential that he has. Abusing items such as stone of binding, void shield and gargoyle's, Thor was able to played as a pseudo frontline/diver that could provide tankiness and backline threat all in one.

Jungle - Aladdin: Aladdin was banned in all but one game at the Vegas LAN, which was game 4 of the finals. Safe to say, there was a reason he was perma-banned all tournament. Between his passive wishes that grant him incredible tempo and 1v1 ability, his mobility and slipperiness is uncontested in the game and paired with his incredibly overtuned damage numbers - Aladdin is pretty strong.

Mid - Hecate: Hecate was head and shoulders above the other mid laners, this is due to her safety, self peel, high damage, insane scaling and good teamfighting ability. With characters like Neith falling out of the mid lane meta, there was not many early game characters that could be used to try and bully the Hecate matchup meaning that late-game scaling was an inevitability. (On the current patch, Gilded Arrow is broken which means Hunter's are insane in mid, meaning that Hecate loses some value as these are not good matchups for her, this item will be nerfed quickly though)

Support - Aphrodite: Aphrodite was another pick that was heavily banned throughout the tournament. This is due to her ability to peel, heal and increase damage for allies. Aphrodite's Jealousy mechanic if used well is incredibly strong. In SMITE 2, if optimally switching allies, you can provide this Jealousy buff to 3 people (2 allies + Aphrodite) which is a very strong damage buff numbers wise. Utility + CC + peel + healing means that Aphrodite as she stands, is incredibly strong in support.

ADC - Ullr: Currently in the ADC role, the variation is decent as there are many strong picks. Medusa and Jing wei currently are very strong picks, I just think that in combination with Aphrodite support, Ullr is a slightly better pairing. This is due to his incredible laning phase which beats every other ADC currently (goes about even with Medusa), his incredible burst and utility, and general survivability. His presence on the map when a good player is playing him is scary!

In the time that Aspects have been out, I've thoroughly enjoyed trying each one to see the variation in playstyle that each one allows.

In my opinion, these are some of the most fun (and strongest) Aspects currently in SMITE 2:

1. Neith, Aspect of Wind - This aspect removes the root effect of Broken Weave explosions, as well as reducing the time of the buff. But, it greatly increases the Attack Speed benefit, and allows World Weaver to grant Neith Broken Weave stacks.

This aspect allows Neith to build and play for a more traditional ADC attack speed/on-hit build rather than the general power/pen build that Neith would normally build. This aspect is great in terms of pure DPS and can absolutely melt objectives.

2. The Morrigan, Aspect of Mischief - This aspect removes the stealth effect that Confusion gives her. Instead, reactivating the ability swaps The Morrigan's position with the clone that the ability spawns, allowing her to teleport instantly.

This aspect shifts how you approach fights as Morrigan, instead of playing for one shot kills out of stealth, you can instead play as a slippery assassin looking to dive and pick carries in the backline. There are a few tricks with this aspect, with the main one being that your teleport does NOT interrupt your 1 windup, meaning you can have this ready to go as soon as you teleport.

3. Thanatos, Aspet of Reaping - The Aspect Of Reaping allows Thanatos the opportunity to build much more bruiser-esque and allows much greater late game scaling. This removes his passive's ability to heal, instead granting him increased maximum health. It also grants his 3 ability bonus damage and a healing effect that heals based on Thanatos' maximum health.

This aspect shifts Thanatos away from being a burst assassin towards much more of a bruiser playstyle. At the most recent Vegas Founder Series, this aspect was wildly popular and was run much more than default Thanatos. The build ran was generally more tanky with stone of binding, void shield, gargoyles and general penetration seeming to be very good on him.

Background:

Joust is a gamemode fought between 2 teams of 3 on each side. The map is a single lane with the mode having an emphasis on team skirmishes, with a little taste of map macro play.

Much like Conquest, the aim of the game is to defeat the enemy Titan. In your way, stands 1 tower and 1 phoenix that you must destroy first.

To start the game, you will receive 1250 gold, and receive increase gold spooling (7 gold per second) as opposed to Conquest gold spooling (3 gold per second).

On the map, there are 4 buffs that exist:

Blue buff - There are 2 Blue buffs that will spawn on the map, one on each side (Order and Chaos). Blue provides CD and mana regen.

Red buff - This is the most important "neutral" buff on the map. To start the game, most teams will fight over control of the minion wave and in turn the red buff. Generally, the team that clears the wave first will gain pressure of red buff. First wave pressure is very important as it has a clear snowball effect on the next few minutes of the match. Red buff provides a damage over time (DOT) effect on any damage applied by the wearer of the buff.

Purple buff - This is the less important "neutral" buff on the map, it spawns in the "jungle" and is generally cleared first by the team that gets red buff pressure. Purple buff provides a stacking STR/INT buff with lifesteal.

Phantom Knight - This is the new Bull Demon King or Fire Giant equivalent in Joust, defeating it will provide a 20% penetration buff and also disable the foremost structure present on the enemies side. This jungle boss is essential for success in Joust, ensuring it is warded later in the game is always a good idea as losing this buff can be game losing.

Common Team Compositions:

1 mage + 1 guardian/warrior + 1 hunter

1 hunter + 1 guardian + 1 warrior/assassin

1 mage + 1 warrior + 1 assassin

Generally, these are the most common team compositions you will find in Joust. In 3v3 you have less teammates and must cover more weaknesses with less god slots. In turn, this results in certain compositions being much stronger than others. There are many variations of compositions you can employ, and this acts as more of a general guide. The main things you need to cover within your composition are as follows:

Wave clear, Single target damage, AOE damage, Frontline and Engage.

If your composition covers most of these things, you should find decent success.

Amaterasu Aspect: Aspect of Reflection

The idea for this aspect would be to make Amaterasu Support a more viable pick, the idea would be to take away some of her damage and replace it with utility. Amaterasu currently serves an interesting niche with her aura buffs and giving her an extra piece of utility could really make her more support oriented play style viable.

The way Amaterasu 2 currently works:

Press 2 to begin charging your mirror and decrease all damage taken while charging. Reactivate the ability to fire a projectile that deals Physical Damage to enemies hit, increased by the amount the mirror was charged.

The way I propose this aspect changes Amaterasu 2:

Press 2 to begin charging your mirror. While the mirror is charging, reflect abilities and basic attacks for 1.25/1.5/1.75/2/2.25 seconds. If during this time, Amaterasu's mirror gains full charge, deal a percentage of reflected damage (10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%) around Amaterasu after the duration has ended.

How this aspect changes Amaterasu's playstyle:

Currently Amaterasu is played mainly as a Solo Laner. However, with her aura from her 1, and her passive - Amaterasu has some supportive capabilities. With the addition of an aspect like the one suggested, Amaterasu could have an easier time in the support role with the addition of an extra piece of utility. This utility would enable skill expression in the form of correctly timing and reflecting key abilities that could be the difference between winning and losing a fight. Currently Amaterasu 2 does not serve much purpose for Support as it is mainly a wave clear and damage ability which overall takes away from her potential support capabilities. I think that in SMITE 2, role variation between classes should be increased and this aspect serves that well.

SMITE 2 has shown great promise and growth over the last 4 months or so.

I am an Australian player who purchased the game in May last year to try it out knowing there was no OCE servers, and felt the game was very rough. I started playing SMITE 1 in 2013, I personally have a lot of hours in S1, I also played in SMITE Masters 2018. I feel as though I have a good grasp on what gives S1 that familiar feeling that initially got anyone who loves SMITE in general hooked on.

This first period of S2 felt rough, and until OCE servers came back, the game was fairly unplayable for me. However, since 24/7 access opened, the difference between then and now is night and day. I have always personally felt that the reason that S1 initially had a lot of issues was the speed at which anything would be addressed by the developers. With the introduction of video series such as Titan Talk and the A.B.P (Always Be Patching) mentality, the interaction between the developers and community feels impactful and is GREAT to see. I have a lot of optimism about the continued future of this game.

The biggest issue this game will face in my view is player retention. The new player experience in a MOBA style game is BRUTAL. I'm not even sure how you fix this frankly, but a smoother experience for new players is essential in my eyes to boost retention. The feeling you get from MOBA style games when you land a satisfying combo, get really fed in a game, or winning a really close back and forth game is truly something special. Finding a way for new players to be able to experience those HIGHS of MOBAs something that could be looked at, the constant cycle of getting frankly sh*t on every game can understandably be tiring for a lot of new players (this issue is particularly bad in regions like OCE with small populations so I understand I am biased here).

I love SMITE as a franchise, it has given me a lot personally and I want to see it do well. I hope that Hirez continues their trajectory and I believe that SMITE 2 will be a great game.