Gods need to rely on items to get the job done and just like us humans, sometimes gods just can’t handle themselves and end up buying way more than they need. Every statistic in Smite has a hard cap and managing around those caps is more difficult than it may first seem. This guide will help you understand what each cap means and which caps are more flexible than others.

How bad is it to overcap?

There are two factors that are important in determining how bad it is to overcap. First, you need to ask yourself the questions "Are the other statistics on the item worth the overcapping?" and "How much am I overcapping?". Since every tier three item has several different stats it is very important to determine if the item is worth the cost of overcapping.

For example, say there is a character that has Breastplate of Valor and Ritual Dagger and wants to pick up a Mantle of Discord. Do the other stats on Mantle make it worthwhile to overcap the Cooldown by five? In this instance, since the item gets you to the CDR cap and gives you new stats that you didn’t have before it is alright to slightly go over the cap for CDR.

However, if a person were to want to get Spirit's Robe after they pick up the Mantle, would it be worth it to pick up the new item? Since the character was already at the CDR cap before picking up Spirit’s Robe, it is no longer worth it to pick up the new item even though it has the same variety of stats that Mantle has. The reason for this is that you are gaining no value out of having the extra CDR item.

The way you remedy a situation like this is to replace one of the CDR items you have for a different item that gives you similar base stats that you are replacing. For this example, replacing Breastplate of Valor with the Spirit's Robe will both replace one of the CDR items that overcaps the stat and replaces some of the physical protections you were gaining from having the Breastplate alongside the other stats from Spirit’s Robe.

That sounds confusing. What stats are ok to overcap?

There are some statistics that are much more flexible to overcap than others. If you overcap on your protections, then you gain very little benefit from any new items that have the same stat. However with statistics such as CDR or stats that are very difficult to cap, such as Health or Power, you gain other benefits. It is very rare to pick up an item solely because it has CDR or Health as they are usually 'bonuses' to the items, be it either their passives or other raw stats.

Why is it a problem to overcap protections?

Protections and Health are the base for every defensive item in Smite. Since this is the case, if you overcap on your protections you are no longer gaining the stat that you are picking up the item for in the first place, It is also much easier to overcap on protections in a build since there are a few items that give 70 or more protections. which makes it unlike health, since health is mostly a bonus to the item and is extremely difficult to overcap.

That may sound slightly confusing, however say you have full physical protections and you want to pick up a Breastplate of Valor for some Cooldown Reduction, since you have full protections you are wasting 2300 gold and an item slot for a ‘bonus’ effect instead of purchasing an item that has CDR and Magic Defense or Health which now gives you a ‘bonus’ effect and a different base form of defense rather than just wasting the gold on a useless physical defense item.

What about overcapping Power?

The power statistic falls under the same branch as Health. For magical characters, it is fairly irrelevant if the character has overcapped on power since, by the point in the game where a character eventually does get overcapped, they need to have all six items in order to overcap in the first place, which makes it inefficient to replace one of the items since you will no longer be at the cap.

For physical characters, while power is an important statistic, it is less beneficial by itself than magical power. Physical characters rely on either critical hits or penetration to do much of their damage, especially if they ever end up overcapping on power which makes the cap of physical power fairly irrelevant since it has to rely on other stats to matter.

This brings us to the point of Penetration. There are three ways for penetration to be calculated, they are flat penetration, percentage penetration and protection reduction. Protection reduction procs first, then flat penetration, then percentage penetration. Because of this, pairing an item such as Titan's Bane and Executioner together makes Titan’s Bane less effective since Executioner reduces an enemy's protections, thus making it to where Titan’s Bane takes away less overall protections with its 33% penetration passive. However due to the way that the penetration cap works, flat penetration can be capped and then you can still gain the percentage penetration afterwards, so the penetration cap is fairly irrelevant since you cannot overcap it unless you have every penetration item and other items of the same type can still be used if the cap is reached.

Overall, remembering which stats are fine to overcap and which ones are inefficient is important for mastering the use of item statistics. It is also imperative to remember that if the item you have gets you to the cap, don't pick up another item with the same statistics without replacing one of your items that has the same stat you are gaining. Finally don't forget to ask yourself the questions, "Are the other statistics on the item worth the overcapping and how much am I overcapping?" I wish you luck in your theory crafting and happy hunting!

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