Introduction

One of the most critical things about the solo lane is how you decide to build. There is not, and will never be, one best build across the board for every solo laner. Every build for every role, not just solo lane, needs to have a purpose; you need to build for a goal. Solo laners generally build a more tanky build, and the first item they build after boots is the first step towards that goal. The first item that is built is generally a defensive item designed to give them survivability in the laning phase. When laning against a physical opponent, as is common, most solo laners default to Breastplate of Valor, with the occasional Hide of the Nemean Lion. This could be a good choice, but I am going to discuss other options to this and look at matchups to help you decide which item would be best.

Source: SMITE Gamepedia

Breastplate of Valor vs. Hide of the Nemean Lion

These are the two most prevalent first item pickups in the current Meta, with Breastplate seeing vastly more play. When picking up Nemean over Breastplate, you are trading 100 mana and 20% Cooldown Reduction for 15 extra protections and the passive of reflecting basic attack damage, as well as 100 gold. Breastplate is a favorable option in many situations because most gods use abilities to clear wave or are more reliant on abilities than basic attacks in the solo lane, gods like Guan Yu or Odin. When you are matched up against a basic attacking god such as Osiris, Bakasura, or a hunter, then you have a tougher decision to make. In cases such as these, you need to consider how you are taking damage in lane, whether from the in-hands or from abilities. A good way to ascertain this very early is looking at what your opponent built as a starting item.

When they have Death’s Toll as their starter, then they are planning on using basics, where Bluestone Pendant indicates the intention of using abilities to clear and poke. Neither of the protection items are bad choices, but the argument behind building Breastplate of Valor is the 20% cooldown reduction and 300 mana are more useful than the endgame value from Hide. Even though it is the first item being built, it is still important to account for the late game phase, including team fights. If the opposing team has 2 hunters, then reflecting the basic attack damage back at them would be a huge help, as well as the bonus physical protections. If you are playing Guan Yu, whose late game role is to heal as frequently as possible come endgame, or Odin who needs to be able to have their ultimate on a very low cooldown, then Breastplate of Valor is a necessity. For gods like Osiris or Bellona that are more than heal bots or ultimate bots, it may be worth considering the pickup of Hide of the Nemean Lion over Breastplate of Valor.

Against Magical Lane Opponents

When itemizing against a magical lane opponents, neither Hide of the Nemean Lion or Breastplate of Valor will help you get out of the laning phase, as they offer no Magical protection. There are several valuable options when considering a magical item pickup in lane, whether first item or after either Hide or Breastplate. Unfortunately, magical damage dealers were not popular enough to examine pro play in order to get a good idea of what to do and how to build against them. In order to deal with this issue, I crunched some numbers to find the items that were most gold efficient, and this is what I found concerning magical defense items:

The most stat efficient items concerning magical defense, as I have highlighted in green, are Pestilence and Genji’s Guard, followed closely by Oni Hunter’s Garb and what Ancile will become in 3.13. This is just a look at comparing gold to protections, and passive abilities allow for massive counter play, especially items like Runic Shield. I have personally been building Genji’s Guard after my preferred physical defense item. It provides nice cooldown reduction to either stack with Breastplate or to still have cooldown reduction after building Hide.

When building a defense item against a magical lane opponent, you also need to take into account more than just the type of damage they deal. The most popular mages for the solo lane are Chang’e, Ra, and He Bo. The first two both offer some form of heal, which would mean building Pestilence would shut them down hard. He Bo has long range poke, allowing him to damage you from a distance. He Bo also has no healing, so pestilence’s passive would not be of use. If you have self-sustain, it could be worth building the cooldown to compensate for the poke that you would be taking. If you don’t, or if your sustain is your ultimate, then building Genji’s could be a better pickup, just going for the cooldown reduction on the passive and the item itself. Oni Hunter’s Garb could be a good early game pick up if you can get the passive stacks, with the item giving 105 magical protections at full passive stacks. In the early game, if you can avoid taking magical damage for 30 seconds, you would have 105 protections until you take magical damage. The only problem is not taking damage for a long enough time to build the stacks, which could be risky. This again emphasizes the importance of having a knowledge of the items and the other gods in the game before committing to an item build. The most gold efficient protections does not mean that they are necessarily the best item to build in the situation, and the non-quantitative aspect of item passives needs to be taken into account somehow.

Conclusion

Having a successful laning phase in the solo lane can set your team up for a successful mid and late game. One of the biggest parts about lane dominance is getting out of the laning phase with no deaths to your opponent, and a great way to ensure that doesn’t happen is by building smart, with targeted itemization against your lane opponent. While warriors dominate the solo lane, there are some magical gods that appear occasionally, and knowing how to counter them is a key part of improving your game in the solo lane. Even knowing which protection items to build against a specific type of damage is something that will help you find more success in the solo lane.

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