The most obvious roles in a Smite team are Solo, Mid, ADC, Support and Jungle. However, the game of Smite is complex and varied, so there are many different roles within roles. Some of these roles are absolutely essential to the team, while some are just potential roles and we are going to look at both. These roles are all sub roles, which means they aren't linked to any of the main roles directly, and you can fulfil more than one of them at once.

Essential Roles

Initiator

The team's initiator starts fights for your team and makes sure they go your way. This is often achieved through some sort of large crowd control, a big AoE team fight ability or an ability that gives the character some mobility to jump into the enemy team. Your team's initiator has to always be looking out for opportunities to start a fight, most commonly when the enemy team misplays or when your team has pushed an advantage. An initiator should be fairly tanky, as they'll be the first into the fight and will have to stay the longest. Multiple initiators are definitely a possibility, but too many can result in a team fight that has no direct flow and focus, which can cause your damage to be too distributed.

The optimal number of initiators is two, the primary initiator and the secondary initiator. The primary initiator starts a fight and stays in it with their tankiness and generous cool downs. The secondary initiator waits for the counter-engage to happen from the enemy team, and then initiates again off of that, to swing the team fight back in your favour.

Athena is the perfect example of a primary initiator: Tanky, mobile and strong amount of crowd control.

Because of the vague nature of the role, pretty much every class of God can be an initiator in some way, either primary or secondary. Primary initiators are usually Guardians, Warriors and some Assassins. These gods usually have lots of crowd control, mobility and can survive fights for a long time. Secondary initiators can be any class, but the only classes that can only be secondary initiators are Mages and Hunters. This is because these gods have less survivability, but very often have very powerful abilities which can swing the fight very easily, such as Raijin's ultimate.

Lategame Carry

The team's lategame carry is extremely important in the current meta, where the state of lategame is reached pretty much every time you play. The late game carry's job is to farm and get big through the early and midgame, to be able completely destroy the enemy team lategame. A lategame carry needs to have good scaling on all of their abilities to make the most out of their items and good waveclear to build up gold and experience quickly. However, with high scaling comes low base damage, so lategame carries are very vulnerable early on and require protection.

Ideally, each team should have one lategame carry, otherwise your team is too dependent on the lategame and will lose the early and midgame too drastically for the lategame to have any meaningful impact.

Lategame carries are more often than not hunters. Their high basic attack scaling and attack speed makes them suited to dishing out a massive amount of damage lategame.

The role of a lategame carry can be fulfilled by three classes: Hunter, Assassin and Mage. The most common class for the role is definitely Hunter, as ADCs have the easiest access to farm and are least required for Midgame team fights, which allows them to get big easily. Some assassins, like Kali and Mercury, which are basic attack based, can also be good lategame carries due to the massive amount of damage they can inflict with their basic attacks. Mages that can be lategame carries are either basic attack based (Sol, Chronos) or have a massive amount of reliable burst damage (Scylla, Raijin).

Peeler

The team's peeler is tasked with protecting the vulnerable members of the team from damage, and helping them do what they need to do. As much as you may have a frontliner or as far behind as your carries stay, they will get attacked at some point and their own self peel may not be enough to save them. This is where the peeler comes in. A peeler is not necessarily tanky, the only requirement is having abilities which help increase survivability of friendly gods, such as Geb's shield and Isis' Staff of Protection ultimate. Peeler is an important role, but it's often not a "full time job" so to speak. You can often busy yourself with other things like front lining and then peel when required.

One dedicated peeler is perfectly fine, seeing as it isn't a full time role as we mentioned above. The role of peeler is usually taken up by one of the teams frontliners or, quite counter intuitively, one of the early game carries. The early game carries, once lategame is reached, don't really have to carry anymore, so their crowd control can be used to help their lategame counterparts. A good example of this is Neith, as lategame her damage is mediocre but she has a good amount of crowd control in her kit.

Geb is the perfect example of a guardian that isn't an initiator but a great peeler. His crowd control isn't good at stopping people, but it's amazing at disruption, which is what you need to be a peeler. Geb also has one of the more powerful abilities in the game, his damage shield.

Any class can peel effectively, with the most common being guardian due to their natural protective nature. However, this most certainly isn't the only option, so keep that in mind when deciding who your teams dedicated peeler will be. Because it is a role with such low requirements, you can assign part time peelers for fights on the fly, allowing you to adapt to situations within the game.

Frontliner

The last essential sub-role is the team's frontliner. In a meta so dependent on your carries making it to lategame in good form, a good frontliner can make the difference between winning and losing a fight. Their job is to hold boundaries between the two teams and stop anyone from pushing through and killing your carries and ruining your plans. A frontliner needs to be tanky, with a good amount of crowd control but also a fair amount of damage.

One or two frontliners per team is quite enough. One thing that's immediately noticeable is that the qualities that make a good frontliner are also shared with the qualities that make a good initiator. While having a frontliner that's also an initiator is fine, make sure you have at least another frontliner to hold the team together while the other one is initiating.

Bellona is an extremely effective frontliner but also useful as an initiator. Remember to always have someone frontlining however, as otherwise your team will get pushed back.

Frontliners are most often Warriors or Guardians. While pretty much all warriors can be frontliners due to their natural tankiness, crowd control and damage, the situation is slightly different for guardians. Some guardians, such as Khepri and Geb, are specialised to peel and protect their team. Any CC they do have is best used to stop people who dive the back line to try and kill the carries. As frontliners, they really don't have the correct tools for the job. However, more aggressive supports such as Ymir and Fafnir make for really good frontliners. Whoever your frontliner ends up being, make sure you have a character to peel for the carries in the back line, or make sure the carries know they are peeling for themselves.

Non-Essential Roles

The following roles, while each good in their own right, are not as important or as consistently useful as the previous ones. However, they are still powerful and should always be considered. Keep in mind that all of these roles will change up the dynamics of your team play, so be prepared to change how you play.

Healer

A healer on your team drastically changes how you work your teamfights and how you push lanes. The amount of sustain that a good healing character brings means you can kill one enemy, reset, heal up, move in, kill another and so forth. This style of fighting can be very difficult for the enemy team to counter, as your heals means that pushes can last for a very long time, while they don't have the resources to defend for this extended period. Your sustain allows you roam around the map, taking towers one at a time and never needing to back off completely.

One healer per team is usually enough as two will force the enemy into a large amount of anti-heal which can limit their effectiveness. With just one healer, you still get all the benefits because the enemy can't afford to replace too much of their kits with anti-heal. Drafting a healer and then a god with a small amount of self-heal is fine however, because it doesn't have an influence on the entire teamfight.

Healers like Hel are extremely powerful, but make sure you understand your new play style and win condition.

Healers are almost always mages, with the notable exception of Guan Yu. Mages like Hel and Ra are lategame powerhouses, Hel especially, which means that with your damage and your healing, you will be running the teamfights for your team. Guan Yu is a little bit different. Being a frontliner, Guan Yu won't dictate the pace of the fight as much as a Mage healer would. But Guan Yu allows you to push aggressively with your carries, as his heal will keep them alive even in dangerous situations, due to its low cooldown.

Backline Diver

Attacking the enemy carries is something you should be doing every game, but occasionally the situation arises where you need a dedicated person to go after them. This is the job of the backline diver. If the enemy has an incredibly strong frontline, to the point where you can't reach their carries at all, their carries are going to absolutely destroy you. In this situation, the backline diver dodges the frontliners completely, going straight to attack the carry. This means a backline diver needs mobility and survivability to make sure they can get to and then go toe to toe with the enemy carries. Keep in mind that they don't have to kill the carries, only disrupt them enough for the frontline to be dealt with so that the team can push forward.

One backline diver per team is usually enough. When you decide to draft a character that will dive the backline, they are usually also your initiator, which changes the dynamic of how you start fights. Now, you will be starting fights based on your initiators ability to get to the backline effectively, meaning you have to commit to your fights a lot more.

Survivability does not always mean tankiness. Kali is a great backline diver due to her insane damage and her ultimate which makes her invincible for a short amount of time, which allows her to dispense that damage freely.

The most common backline divers are Warriors, due to them usually having an ultimate that gives them a large amount of mobility which allows them to reach the enemies backline. However, a case can be made for having an assassin like Kali as your backline diver, because of her insane damage and her ability to melt other carries. Keep in mind that assassins are less healthy than warriors, so will either need to be backed up in some way or will need to retreat sooner.

Subroles in Smite are extremely fluid, and often change on a game to game basis. As long as you keep in mind what your team needs and how play your team objective, you are assured victory.

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