Anyone with any knowledge of Conquest knows that there are 5 roles in the game, each with their own best builds, purposes, and goals. The mid lane can be one of the most diverse lanes as far as purpose goes. There are mid lanes that can play a more supportive style, like an Isis, into more utility like a Janus, into straight up burst damage like a Scylla. For every type of mid laner, there is a starting build that fits best for what you want to do. This article will attempt to explain the differences between starting builds and how to pick the best start for your game plan.

Starter Items

You start with 1500 gold in a game of Smite. At this point, there is no gold difference between any player, so any advantage that you would gain comes from either god selection or intelligence in building. The standard starter items in Smite cost 800 gold, and the only two that matter to mid laners are Soul Stone and Vampiric Shroud. Each one has pros and cons, which are essential to know when considering how to build in the opening stages of the game.

Soul Stone

This item is definitely seen more in pro games, and for a good reason too. The base stats are solid on their own, being 20 magical power and 100 mana, but the passive is what adds purpose to this item. With Soul Stone, as many will know, you stack basic attacks and then the next ability you use will do extra damage. This is how it is used for the most part as it allows almost any mage, including low clear mages, to effectively clear lane. Keeping mid pressure is critical in SMITE, as it opens the doors to invading the enemy jungle, specifically the damage and speed buff camps. Invading jungle after gaining lane pressure is the best way to translate the early game success into a win. Keep your opponent down, and you should win handily. The part of the passive that people do not utilize to the fullest extent is that Soul Stone grants 4 MP5 per stack, maxing out at 20 MP5. This, while it may not be useful come end game, is amazing at allowing you to recharge your early game mana bar with haste. This item allows you to use more abilities before backing, and makes them hurt more.

Vampiric Shroud

This item is used significantly less than Soul Sone, but there is still use in building it in certain cases. Vampiric Shroud gives the same base power as Soul Stone, but gives 100 health in place of Soul Stone’s mana. Vampiric Shroud also gives a base 5 MP5, which is useful, but pales in comparison to a fully stacked Soul Stone. The thing that sets Vampiric Shroud apart is its passive, giving you 10 health and mana for every enemy killed. This allows you to sustain better in lane, but at the cost of the damage that you would get from Soul Stone. This should be taken into account when choosing what to build. This decision is also up to what you build after, which is the next section of this article.

What Comes After the Starter?

This is the bigger question here, as building Soul Stone on just about every magical mid laner should be happening. There are 3 solid options for what to do with the 700 gold you will have left after building Soul Stone. These are Imperial Helmet, Tiny Trinket, and Lost Artifact. Imperial Helmet, for 600 gold, gives you 10 Magical Power and 20 Physical Protection. This gives you the largest amount of survivability of any of these three options, and give you the potential of building into Dynasty Plate Helm very quickly, giving you an excellent amount of early penetration and survivability. This can also be built into Lotus Crown, which provides protections to the entire team if you have a heal like a Ra. This Item provides a decent amount of flexibility, but it is largely defensive. Select this item if you are worried about your immobility or the early game physical jungler.

The second option is Lost Artifact. This item gives you 15 Magical Power and 5 MP5, and provides a lot of flexibility with what you want to build. It can be built into Rod of Tahuti, Chronos’ Pendant, and Doom Orb. Rod should not be built here, as it should come much later. Doom Orb gives you a large amount of power (Up to 140 when fully stacked), as well as 200 mana and 7 MP5. This being said, it is much riskier than Chronos’ Pendant. Pendant gives you 75 Magical power and 25 MP5, as well as giving 20% cooldown reduction. Chronos’ Pendant finds more play in professional settings because it is much safer, and the meta picks like Janus do much better with Chronos’ Pendant because of the cooldown reduction. Both are acceptable to build, but be sure to use your head. Don’t build Doom Orb if you are feeding, it is largely only worth it if you can maintain full stacks for extended periods of time.

The third option, and my personal choice, is to build Tiny Trinket. Tiny Trinket, for only 540 gold, allows you to get an extra potion at the beginning. It gives 20 Magical Power and 4% Magical Lifesteal. By doing this, you can somewhat compensate for the loss of sustain from building Soul Stone over Vampiric Shroud. It also has the most flexibility of any of these three starts. With the re-emergence of healing in high level play, this start allows you to build into an early Divine Ruin. Divine Ruin sacrifices some power for healing reduction. Divine Ruin provides you with 65 Magical Power, 15% Magical Lifesteal, and 150 Mana. This is less power than any of the other options, but the passive provides 40% reduction in lifesteal, which is huge. If the other team does not have healing, you can turn this into a Bancroft’s Talon. This provides 100 Power and 12% Lifesteal, but shines, once again, with the passive. Bancroft’s Talon provides you with more Magical Power as you lose health, capping at 100 extra power when you have 25% health left. That means that, you can get 200 Power from this item, which is insane. You will not often get all of this power from the passive, but it is still considerable. Bancroft’s Talon is a criminally underused item, but has started to get more use. This is my personal choice, and I will build it in almost every game that I play Mid Lane in.

Conclusion

Selecting a build is one of the most interesting things in Smite. There are a lot of items that do a lot of different things, and there will never be a definitive best build. You should always build for what you want to do. If you are a Janus that wants to make more portals, cooldown reduction has more relevancy than Power. If you are and Agni that wants to burst people down with your combo, Power and Penetration take a front seat. No matter what anyone tells you, know that items do things, and that you want to build for how you want to play the god. Try new things, try off-meta things, and see where they take you, as long as you do so sensibly.

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