Today I'll be going over a couple of ways to make sure your opponent's attacks don't quite hit the mark. First up...

Dodging

The first decision to make when damage is coming your way is whether to dodge at all. While it may be tempting to try and dodge every attack that comes your way, don’t try to avoid absolutely everything. Dodging takes significant concentration, slows you down, and often prevents you from taking other actions, such as dealing damage to your attacker. Because dodging limits your other options while buying you time, it should only be employed with good reason: stalling until backup arrives, waiting for a cooldown, wasting the other team’s time, or avoiding a particularly powerful ability. If you’re full on health, your team is with you, and your escape abilities and actives are off cooldown, focus on winning the game rather than dodging every single shot.

The basic idea of dodging is simple unpredictability. The fastest way from Point A to Point B may be a straight line, but that’s also the most predictable path. You’re trying to guess where the opposing player thinks you’ll be…and then not be there. To this end, switch up your movement patterns. If you’re fleeing an opponent who’s trying to finish you off, don’t just run away by the most direct route. Change your path, rotating back and forth to create a jagged zigzag pattern that can’t be easily guessed. If you’re firing off ranged basic attacks, don’t just walk straight forward or stand still. Weave around to the best of your ability, staying on target but being a very active and hard-to-hit target yourself. If you’ve ever seen pro ADC’s boxing, their movements may seem erratic or even completely random, but they’re trying to anticipate their opponents’ attacks and doing their best to strafe and backpedal around them.

In addition, consider using your movement abilities as part of your dodging toolkit. Obviously, if you’re being pursued or chasing down an opponent, you’re going to try and use these abilities to gain speed, but in a pure boxing match they can be invaluable for avoiding damage. Leaps, dashes, and teleports can often be used to reposition away from ground-based abilities, or quickly escape attacks like Sol’s Supernova that give you a second or two of warning. If you use an ability in this manner, however, you’re committing to a fight at this location until the ability comes off cooldown: using Summon Suku to leap out of a Ymir ultimate means you won’t be disengaging over any walls for the next ten to fifteen seconds.

The tips I list above should help with many of the abilities in the game, but the key to dodging specific abilities is knowing what kind of an ability you’re trying to avoid. Many things about Smite just require good game knowledge, and unfortunately this is just something you can only acquire with time. There are abilities like Janus’ Unstable Vortex which render standard dodging patterns worse than useless, and just need to be played against to be fully understood. That being said, here are some hints to help you with a few common ability types. Remember that the tips above about when to dodge, being unpredictable, and using movement abilities all apply here.

Abilities with long, narrow targeting boxes should be dodged by moving from side to side, strafing on a path perpendicular to the direction of the attack. This category encompasses many straight-line abilities and all ranged basic attacks, so in most cases, this will means strafing or running horizontally as you engage or disengage from a target. This same general principle also applies to abilities that take the form of a horizontal rectangle, like Hercules’ Earthbreaker; move perpendicular to the targeter (in this case, towards or away from Hercules) to have the best chance of dodging the ability.

Cone abilities like Ymir’s freeze or Susano’s pull can often be dodged by moving around the opponent at close range. While staying next to your opponent isn’t always something you want to do, the shape of these abilities means that their hitbox is smallest when it’s closest to their actual character model. This means that you can sometimes avoid a cone ability entirely by sticking to your opponent and circling their character.

Dodging long-range abilities like the ultimates of Janus or Chiron is much the same as dodging short-range straight line abilities. Weaving from side to side will be your most effective option. In addition, try to avoid standing still in predictable locations. If you run low on health in a big teamfight, don’t just walk around a corner and back; put some distance between yourself and your opponents, and try to avoid their range of vision.

Bodyblocking

Sometimes, of course, dodging isn’t enough; maybe it isn’t you that needs to avoid damage, but a wounded teammate standing nearby. In this case, if you’re at full health or are playing a tanky character, it might be worth moving in between your teammate and the source of damage. This is known as bodyblocking, for obvious reasons, and comes with its own set of peculiarities. In this case, of course, you’re not trying to be unpredictable. In fact, you’re doing just the opposite. The goal of bodyblocking is to predict your ally’s movements and match them, to keep yourself between them and danger until they can escape. Most of the time this will take the form of absorbing a single devastating ability like an Ullr axe or a Thanatos scythe, but occasionally (especially if you main support) you’ll be called on to absorb a barrage of abilities or basic attacks from your opponents. In this case, just try and keep your enemies in front of you and your allies behind you, and use walls or pillars to help block the space between the enemy team and your allies. Your bodyblocking power will be increased, of course, if you're playing a character with a large in-game model, like most guardians.

Keep in mind that bodyblocking only works with attacks that stop on a single target; area-of-effect abilities and attacks that pierce through targets will only get stronger if you stand right in front of a teammate. This is just another part of the process that takes trial and error to learn. Anhur’s Impale, for example, will only hit and knock back a single god, making it a prime target to be intercepted by a support or solo laner, but the spears from his Desert Fury can hit every target within range. Bodyblocking is extremely important, but don’t waste your vital HP on trying to stop something that can’t be stopped.

Recap

Dodging is a vital skill, if used at the right time for the right reasons. Make your actions unpredictable and erratic, and incorporate your movement abilities into the mix to escape big abilities or reposition yourself. Know what kind of abilities your opponents are throwing at you, and if there’s any specific kind of movement that is more effective against those abilities. Another related skill is bodyblocking, or taking damage for someone else. Bodyblocking can also be important, but requires prediction of your ally’s movements and knowing which abilities can and cannot be blocked.

Get your own AKRacing Chair here and support our players, all profit goes towards the teams!