Season 1 saw very little variation in Hunter builds across the board. For the longest time, the Crit build (outlined below) dominated the role, with penetration keeping you relevant into the midgame and crit carrying the lategame. It is a high damage build, especially against Mages, Assassins and other Hunters, but the domination brought by Warriors in the Solo and Jungle (and even Mid... Goddammit, Nich 'TheBoosh' Lewis!) roles towards the end of the season warranted a relook into how Hunters were building. James 'Krett' Horgan, caster, renowned theorycrafter and new Coach of Team eGr, stepped up and presented the SMITE community with a new build based around penetration predominantly and featuring Qin's Sais, which he named, the Unicorn Build.

Whilst the NA and EU scenes had their doubts about this new build, the Crit build having been accepted as standard for so long, it was first properly picked up by Krett's old Chinese team that he coached, China.DB. China.DB's Hunter, LoneLy, used it in every game and placed just shy of qualifying for the SWC in second, which caught the attention of the other regions who adopted it in the weeks leading up to the SWC. The Unicorn build ended up pushing out the Crit build in popularity due to the raw effectiveness of Qin's Sais, with it even being adapted by NA pros, John 'BaRRaCCuDDa' Salter and Steven 'Zapman' Zapas into a hybrid build featuring both Qin's Sais and The Executioner with more flexibility in the lategame, aptly named the Zapacorn build.

Season 2 brought many changes that affected Hunters, including a significant Qin's Sais nerf, Warrior Tabi having their penetration removed, Ninja Tabi having attack speed added, Ichaival having penetration added, changing Blue Buff to Purple (attack speed) Buff and finally base attack speed buffs across all Hunters and clear nerfs across the more popular Hunters. Each one of those changes had a significant impact on the role, leading to the two worst hunters in the Season 1 Meta, Cupid and Xbalanque, quickly becoming frequently top picks and bans in Season 2 competitive since clear became much less important (due to every Hunters' clear now being sub-par) and boxing and carrying potential became imperative to the position. All of these changes left Hunter players with one burning question: what are we supposed to build now?

From watching professional streams for the weeks leading up to Season 2 of the SPL, I can report on how players are currently building and I will attempt to interpret the philosophies adopted as the Metagame progresses.

The Standard (Crit) Build

New season, new items, new buffs, new builds...? Nope, back to basics! The changes to the Crit build that Season 2 has brought are minor, starting with the intoduction of the Bluestone Pendant starter item, which replaces Death's Toll. This is because the Blue Buff was replaced on the Duo Lane side of the map with the Purple Buff and, with Death's Toll's mana regeneration being nerfed in favour of its HP regeneration, Bluestone fills a perfect niche by providing constant mana regeneration to these relatively mana-hungry Gods. There is another slight change in that you should build Ninja Tabi after finishing Devourer's Gauntlets this season because of the significant amount of attack speed that they provide, but I will get more into Boot choice further into this post.

The thought process behind this build is pretty straightforward; stack up your Dev's for the early lifesteal and physical power, control the midgame with attack speed and protection shred from Ninja Tabi and The Executioner, and transition into the lategame as a hard-hitting ranged carry with crit items, Rage and Deathbringer. As far as finishing this build goes, it is not as straightforward as it was in Season 1 where you would almost always finsh off with Titan's Bane for the high amount of penetration that it provides.

Above are common examples of items that can fill the slot indicated by a question mark in this build.

• Titan's Bane, as stated before, has been standard for this build since Season 1. It does a good job of increasing the damage of your crits, helps you push towers and objectives and helps to make up for the loss of penetration from Warrior Tabi this season. If the enemy team has a Warrior in the Solo and/or Jungle role, then Titan's Bane is a necessity, however it's still worth picking up against less tanky apponents. Basically, if in doubt, grab a Titan's Bane.

• Brawler's Beat Stick is an item that soared in popularity upon the advent of Krett's Unicorn build. It gives a huge amount of base penetration at 20, and a respectable 40 physical power. These stats were the main reason that it was picked up in Season 1, with the healing reduction passive being often ignored, however healing is playing a big part in the current Meta and people are realising that a team with a Divine Ruin, Pestilence and a Brawler's have the ability to apply 100% reduced healing to a target, which is invaluable in a teamfight. Pick this up against Aphrodite, Chang'e, Ra and even high sustain Gods like Hercules.

• Malice is another once-underutilised item that is seeing more play because of Krett's mathematical analysis. With Rage and Deathbringer, it raises your base crit chance to 70% along with applying a 75% physical power DoT (180 damage with the above build before mitigation), as well as 50 physical power. Malice is a pretty solid choice if you are ahead and you want to stay ahead.

• Odysseus' Bow is a relatively rare addition to this build, but I thought it deserved a mention as it can act as a cheaper alternative to Malice. It dramatically increases your attack speed and therefore your crit chance since you will be stacking your Rage faster, assuming that you are able to hit your shots, and hitting for an extra 110 damage (before mitigation) every 4 shots is, again, like having an instant Malice passive. So, if it is getting to lategame and you're looking to continue to ramp up your DPS, but you also need to finish some actives, then consider picking up Odysseus' Bow.

• Finally, Asi is simply what you would pick up for survivability. If you feel like the sustain from the Devourer's Gauntlets is not enough for the fights that you are taking, then pick up an Asi for that extra burst of lifesteal. Just remember to utilise its passive correctly and fight when you trigger it, since it will really help you when trading against enemy carries.

The Triple Crit Build

The removal of penetration from Warrior Tabi coupled with the addition of penetration onto Ichaival is what drives the thought behind this build. Almost as soon as Season 2 was announced, this build was theorycrafted by Krett and put into use by players everywhere once the Season 2 patch hit the live client. With Hunters' base attack speed being increased across the board, it makes sense to focus on gaining as much attack speed and boxing potential over the enemy Hunter so Ichaival's power stealing mechanic is perfect for this, along with its attack speed and penetration. This build changes focus completely, however, towards the endgame where you sell Ichaival and pick up Rage, Deathbringer and Malice giving you extremely high crit chance. You may notice that the end build result is identical to one of the possibilities presented for the Standard build and that is because Hunter builds this season are focusing on controlling the enemy Hunter in the midgame in order to outscale them in the lategame.

Ichaival is the big factor in this build. Whilst it does make a lot of sense to build it on a God who will spend the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the game dueling opponents from a distance, it does fall off in usefulness. Let's say you are playing a Hunter and opt to go for the Triple Crit build start with Ichaival, whereas your opposing Hunter has decided to build Standard. This is a problem for you because once your opponent has finished Executioner and has started on their Rage (assuming that you are relatively even in gold), you will be just buying your Light Blade to build into Executioner. Yes, you will have the extra attack speed and dueling potential from the Ichaival, but in the midgame, all it takes is one lucky crit to turn the tide of a duel in your opponent's favour. This is why you must take certain factors into account before deciding on a build every match.

Build Matchups

There are general rules that you may follow to help guide you in regards to what to build for each match. First, we need to identify which Hunters are Steroid Hunters and which are Non-Steroid Hunters, where Steroid refers to having an active ability to increase their attack speed.

• Steroid

• Non-Steroid

There are a couple of technicalities regarding these groupings (Cupid's attack speed steroid is also a dash, so you risk using your escape recklessly for it; Ullr's attack speed isn't active, but what he gets passively from his ultimate is very relevant), but this is how we shall treat these Hunters. As a general rule, then, if you are a Non-Steroid Hunter versus a Non-Steroid Hunter, then it is advisable to build the Triple Crit route. Any other matchup should see both Hunters building Standard. This is because Non-Steroid Hunters cannot artificially increase their crit chance through use of an attack speed steroid, so Non-Steroid mirrors favour the Ichaival opener. However, when a Hunter with an attack speed Steroid is on either side, then it becomes a race between the two to see who can get their crits online first.

Whilst this is a relatively simplistic way to look at these builds, it is a good general rule of thumb to follow.

Boots

Before wrapping this up, I will quickly discuss Boots. As I have already said, Season 2 has removed both penetration and cooldown Boots, replacing them with physical power and attack speed Boots. When the season started off, many Hunter players were building the boots in accordance with the Steroid/Non-Steroid way of thinking: build Warrior Tabi (power) if you had a Steroid Hunter and build Ninja Tabi (attack speed) if you had a Non-Steroid Hunter. However, the addition of power onto the Purple Buff seemed to provide all Hunters with enough damage to forgo Warrior Tabi and all buy Ninja Tabi, hence the latter becoming standard for all Hunters across the board. That being said, it is not always a bad idea to pick up power boots on a Hunter, especially if going with the Ichaival opener, though it would only really pay off if you are already significantly ahead and can abuse the extra power that you have over your enemy Hunter.

Thanks a lot for reading this guide, I hope it goes some way to helping you to understand your game a bit more. Please leave a comment if you have any feedback, or if you have any ideas for areas of SMITE that you would like to see covered.