Two Thumbs Up for One Ups (2/2)
Smite, battleground of the gods, is a Massive Online Battle Arena (MOBA for short) that was released on the Xbox One in the Summer of 2015. Players take on the role of a god from various mythologies and take part in arena combat, completing various objects on their way to victory (or defeat).
Smite operates almost identical to most of the other popular MOBA games on the market (League of Legends, DOTA 2) where two teams of five players are pitted against each other in team combat. Before a match starts, the player selects a god from the eight available pantheons, 73 gods in total.
The players must work together and use their abilities together to navigate a three lane map and to destroy the enemy minions, towers, phoenixes, and titan in order to win.
Towers - There is anywhere between one to six of these towers on a map depending on the game mode. These towers can defend themselves, however, and will focus its attack on the first enemy that enters it’s circle. In order to take out a tower, players must wait for their minions (constantly spawning friendlies that are used as cannon fodder to help accomplish your mission) to enter in the tower’s circle to take the initial damage while you wail on the base of it.
Phoenixes - These work the same as towers expect they deal more damage, they can regenerate their health and they can respawn a couple minutes after you take them out.
Titan - The end goal for all teams. The titan works like a more powerful phoenix with more health and damage and the ability to move around in it’s area.
It should be noted that it is extremely important to take out towers before phoenixes and phoenixes before titans. If you don’t do this, the objectives will immediately focus on you and will result in an almost immediate death. Teams need coordinated strategies and pushes in order to take down all of these objectives. Very rarely does a single person sway the outcome of a game.
Along with these objectives, various buff camps are located around the map that are used to increase damage, mana, attack speed, movement speed, experience points, and gold.
In Smite, there are eight different pantheons that represent mytholigies from different cultures. These include Greek, Roman, Hindu, Norse, Egyptian, Chinese, Mayan and Japanese.
Along with gods belonging to different pantheons, each god is also classified under a different class.
Hunter - This is the heavy damage dealer. The further they get into the game, the more powerful they become. Because of the power they possess, they also are considered “glass cannons” or have very little defense compared to other gods. These gods usually sit in left lane with guardians.
Guardian - Low damage but high defense are the attributes of these gods. They are tasked to be supportive to all teammates. They essentially soak up damage intended for other players. They help protect hunters in the left lane.
Mages - These gods are much more bursty and rely on their abilities to deal out their damage. They usually sit in middle lane by themselves.
Assassin - These gods are exactly how they sound, quick and powerful and never engage in straight-up combat. These gods maneuver around the map making sure their teammates get the powerups around the map. They also provided many flanks or “ganks” to catch the opponents off guard.
Warriors - This class of gods as a good mix of defense and power. They can either be specced as having more damage or more defense, depending on the team composition of your opponent and how the game is going in general. They are usually found in the right lane by themselves.
Each god has different abilities that match their individual mythology that can be leveled up by killing camps, towers, phoenixes or enemies to help defeat the other team. As the player plays, they gain gold which they can spend on items that will help improve and buff their characters. Since each god falls underneath a specific class, some items can be class specific in the sense they help out with one class more than one. A player wants to build their character to their strengths, not their weaknesses.
When I first played Smite back in August, I was immediately hooked because I always had an affinity with mythologies. Being able to take the role as Zeus, Thor or Hercules made the experience so much more enjoyable. The game has a huge learning curve if you do not have any background in other MOBA games. This happened to me and felt that it took me months of playing in order to know what I was doing. This isn’t just true in the combat portion of the game but also in the item building portion of the game. There are a ton of different items to help spec your character to your liking and it is really hard to keep track to what each item does. It took me about three months until I could finally turn the “auto-buy” feature off. While I have had many enjoyable experiences playing Smite, I’ve also had my fair share of bad ones as well. When you are getting steam rolled by a team much better than you, there isn’t much you can do except what for ten minutes when you can surrender or wait for them destroy your titan. Playing alone also has it’s disadvantages because it’s harder to communicate with teammates. Overall, Smite offers a great game that supports the communication with teammates and a strategic aspect of the game that isn’t intended for everyone.
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