Analysis of magical penetration items

There are only few magical penetration items in Smite - Spear of the Magus, Demonic Grip, Obsidian Shard, Void Stone and Dynasty Plate Helm. Choosing the right penetration item for the job is one of the basic things that can truly change the result of a match.

How penetration is calculated:

In Smite, penetration has an order in which it’s applied to deduct the protections of enemies. There are two main types of penetration: Penetration and Protection Reduction. Both do basically the same things but they do have minor differences.

Imagine Penetration as a bonus to your god’s stats. It’s not debuffing the enemy - it’s buffing your own god.

Protection Reduction is a debuff applied to enemy gods. It is usually applied with some kind of a player action (basic attack or ability hit) but other gods on your team can benefit from it (assuming they are also magical). All of these types of penetrations apply to physical gods and protections as well. Also, there’s a difference between a percentage based penetration/protection reduction and flat penetration/protection reduction (which deducts an exact number of protections). Be careful, percentage based penetration doesn’t increase other forms of penetration. (Obsidian Shard doesn’t increase your 15 Flat Penetration to 20)

The order in which protections are removed from the enemy:

1. % Protection Reduction
2. Flat Protection Reduction
3. % Penetration
4. Flat Penetration

Now let’s say that we’re playing Ra and we bought Spear of the Magus and Obsidian Shard. After applying 2 stacks of Spear of the Magus’ debuff, the protection calculation for attacking an enemy with 200 magical protections is:

200 -40 (% Protection Reduction from 2 stacks of Spear of the Magus)

160 -20 (Flat Protection Reduction from 2 stacks of Spear of the Magus)

140 -47 (% Penetration from Obsidian Shard)

93 -15 (Flat Penetration from Spear of the Magus’ item stat)

In this scenario, we managed to reduce the high amount of protections from 200 down to 78. As you can see, percentage based penetration doesn’t work very well with protection reduction. It makes the percentage penetration much less effective. (That’s why you usually don’t see people running around with both Obsidian Shard and Spear of the Magus.)

To calculate damage, the usual formula is applied:

Damage*100/(Protections reduced by penetration +100)

Scenario: Ra fires off his Celestial Beam [1] which should do 300 damage to a god with no magical protections.

With Penetration items: (300*100)/(93+100) = 155 damage

Without Penetration items: (300*100)/(200+100) = 100 damage

As you can see, investing in penetration is worth it - especially in mid to late game when your abilities get a much bigger damage bonus for reducing enemies’ protections. Now let's move on to specific items:

Spear of the Magus

+40 Magical Power

+15 Magical Penetration

Passive: Enemies hit by your damaging abilities have their magical protection reduced by 10 and an additional 10% for 5 seconds (maximum 2 stacks).

Spear of the Magus is the single best magical penetration item (at max stacks) against enemies with up to 262.5 magical protections (which even guardians usually don’t reach in a normal conquest match). It should be noted that you need to apply the 2 ticks of damage with your abilities before the full penetration takes effect. It also needs to be done for each enemy separately. Also, the protection debuff only works on the Gold Fury, Fire Giant and enemies who have been damaged by your spells, because the debuff doesn’t apply to any structures.

However, because this item applies a debuff to enemies, any friendly magical gods will benefit greatly from this additional penetration. Two Spear of the Magus items do not stack additional penetration above the maximum amount of 2 stacks, but if you have 2 mages on your team, one of them can build Spear of the Magus and the other mage can build a different penetration item, which makes them deal close to true damage on squishy targets (depending on the penetration items used, of course).

The few downsides of this item are: it doesn’t have a lot of magical power; it is a little bit more expensive (2150 gold) than the other penetration items and finally: if you pick up this item, you need to make sure that the god you’re playing has some damage over time spells for the penetration debuff to stack up and be effective.

Obsidian Shard

+70 Magical Power

Passive: You gain +33% Magical Penetration.

Obsidian Shard offers the player more magical power and better structure pushing ability - the penetration applies to damage made to towers and phoenixes. It is also cheaper (2050 gold) than its biggest competitor - Spear of the Magus, and you don’t need to stack anything which means that you can buy it on pretty much any mage at the cost of lower penetration on enemy gods.

Demonic Grip

+60 Magical Power

+25% Attack Speed

Passive: Your basic attacks reduce your target's Magical Protection by 7% and an additional 5 points for 3 seconds (max 3 stacks).

Demonic Grip is a great choice for all basic attack focused mages. It is a bit more expensive at 2280 gold, although this price is balanced by good penetration, 25% increase in attack speed and a quite high magical power bonus which makes it the preferred item over Hastened Fatalis for basic attack oriented mages who also have high magical scaling on their abilities.

Void Stone

+40 Magical Power

+50 Magical Protection

Aura: Reduces the Magical Protection of enemies within 55 units by 15.

Void Stone isn’t as much a pure penetration item as it is a supportive item or an addition to a build which aims to get some magical protections while not sacrificing a lot of magical power. This item has lost its popularity mainly because of its poor price / stats ratio. It just doesn’t offer too much for the price of 2350 gold. The only real use of this item is to buy it for a magical guardian who is insanely well farmed and wants to do more damage, but let’s be honest, that doesn’t happen very often AND there is a better item for this situation: Soul Reaver.

Dynasty Plate Helm

+30 Magical Power

+30 Physical Protection

+15 Magical Penetration

Dynasty Plate Helm - another defensive item which adds a little bit of damage and 15 flat penetration. It is a very cheap item at 1750 gold but the 30 physical protections it adds is not much. Once again, it might be a good item for magical bruisers or just mages who want to get that little bit of physical penetration. But once again, there are better, more specialized physical protection items for mages like Lotus Crown for healers and the more expensive Celestial Legion Helm against assassins and hunters. However those don’t have the 15 magical penetration stat which works great in combination with Obsidian shard.

Penetration item recommendations for all magical gods

In this part I will give you recommendations of the most effective penetration items for each of Smite’s magical gods. Please note that these are only my recommendations and as such, they are by no means set in stone - the meta changes, items get buffed, gods get different their abilities reworked, etc. These recommendations may also change based on your team’s composition, enemy team’s composition or how far ahead you are in the match.

Agni - this god really benefits from using Spear of the Magus’ debuff on enemies because when they get affected by one of your abilities (except Noxious Fumes [1]) and a fully stacked passive, the debuff will immediately get to max stacks making your next few abilities a lot more damaging. If you feel like it’s hard for you to focus on filling your passive meter all the time, you can buy Obsidian Shard instead. You’ll do a bit more damage with your first ability but overall, the damage output will be lower.

Anubis - the choice here is obvious - all of his damaging spells are DoTs (Damage over Time spells) which means that you should definitely pick up Spear of the Magus.

Ao Kuang - the best penetration item for the dragon king of the eastern seas is the one that offers a combination of high magical power (to massively increase the damage of his abilities) and attack speed (to multiply the damage output) - Demonic Grip is a perfect fit.

Aphrodite - Aphrodite’s role is to support other players - healing as much as she can while staying away from deadly assassins and hunters. To fulfill this, her build usually includes items for magical bruisers - Warlock’s Sash or Breastplate of Valor - and utility items - Rod of Asclepius. She only rarely needs actual penetration items but if she wants to help other mages on the team, buying Spear of the Magus and using her Love Birds [3] on enemies can be quite effective. Also, if you’re far ahead of the enemy team, you could consider buying Void Stone. It will not only help other mages but it will increase your survivability as well.

Chang’e - Chang’e players can choose either Obsidian Shard or Spear of the Magus. I usually prefer to use the Spear of the Magus. Thanks to Chang'e's low cooldowns and the ability to support other mages, she can make good use of this item.

Chronos - another god with high magical scaling on his abilities who’s using his basic attacks to deal most of the damage. This should tell you that the best item for him is Demonic Grip.

Freya - Freya is very similar to Chronos but there’s one difference - Freya’s damage scales better off attack speed while Chronos relies on magical power much more. This usually leads to a situation where Freya players often build Hastened Fatalis before buying Demonic Grip.

He Bo - While He Bo’s low cooldowns may lead you to believe that Spear of the Magus is the superior item, there is one problem with that: as a He Bo, you need to ensure that your ultimate ability - Crushing Wave [4] - does as much damage as possible. My recommendation? Use Spear of the Magus if you’re going to focus down one target at a time or just buy Obsidian Shard to do more poke damage and cause more destruction to multiple targets. Obsidian Shard is usually the better choice.

Hel - similarly to Aphrodite, even Hel players might want to buy some items for magical bruisers before getting a penetration item. I’d recommend using Void Stone if you’re ahead and Obsidian Shard in most situations.

Isis - even though Isis’ Wing Gust [1] is a damage over time spell, you might want to consider buying Obsidian Shard. This is because your first ability (which is also Isis’ main source of damage) only has 4 instances of damage. This means that only your 3rd and 4th hits will truly make use of Spear’s full penetration capabilities.

Janus - once again, your source of damage is a single burst spell. If you were to buy Spear of the Magus, you’d have to hit your enemies consistently with both - Unstable Vortex [2] and Portal [1]. Doing so would sacrifice your escape though, which is definitely not ideal. Obsidian Shard is the better choice here for sure.

Nox - Nox has an ability with a very short cooldown which is great for Spear of the Magus but you’ll have to learn to hit her Nightfall Raven [2] very often. Obsidian Shard is a great alternative for those who just want to cause big AoE (Area of Effect) damage to the whole enemy team.

Nu Wa - though it may be a bit surprising, go with Obsidian Shard. While you have a some spells that cause damage over time, your minions already offer a massive magical protection debuff to enemies they hit. Also, your ultimate will do more burst damage to all enemies on the map.

Poseidon - the Whirlpool ability’s damage over time and its cripple effect make the players always use it before using their ultimate - Release the Kraken [4]. This means that if you use Spear of the Magus, you’ll also apply some stacks of the debuff to your enemies before they’re hit by the huge and devastating Kraken.

Ra - Obsidian Shard is probably the better item to pick up here. Most Ra players don’t use his Solar Blessing [2] for damage but for healing - and there’s good reason for that. Your other spells deal pure burst damage which would make the use of Spear on Ra slightly ineffective. If you want to be more tanky, getting Void Stone isn’t a bad idea either.

Scylla - it is simple - all of this creepy little girl’s spells deal damage in a single burst. Obsidian Shard will be much more effective with this goddess.

Vulcan - on Vulcan, it is important that you have very high poke damage and the ability to do as much damage with your ultimate in order to finish someone off or to end a teamfight before it even starts. Definitely pick up Obsidian Shard for the smith of the gods.

Zeus - I think that Obsidian Shard is a very good choice for Zeus players because the Chain Lightning [1] ability has a relatively long cooldown and there’s no guarantee that you will hit the same enemy twice with this spell - the idiom “Lightning never strikes the same place twice” really fits here. If you are building for Zeus to be basic attack focused, try to put Demonic Grip into your build.

Zhong Kui - the demon queller’s 1st and 4th abilities deal damage over time. This means that Zhong Kui benefits greatly from picking up Spear of the Magus to aid him with enemy protections. Once again, you can’t go wrong with Obsidian Shard but I think that Spear of the Magus is a bit more potent.

Guardians - guardians like Hades or Kumbhakarna who are building for damage will definitely make great use of Void Stone. It will give them protections, damage and penetration as well as reducing the magical protections of all enemies around them. This works quite well on all guardians because their kits usually need them to be in enemies’ faces to work.

Special thanks goes to Getsukei for letting me use one of his great wallpapers in this guide - make sure to check him out, he's got a lot of nice artwork. Thank you for reading my guide. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, please, leave a comment below this guide or send me a message on Twitter - @TheRikisak

[VEA]: Awesome!