Season 4 has been quite volatile so far, with a large amount of meta changes and different game states. One of the biggest changes was the map objectives losing some value. This is especially true since Patch 4.9, where Zyrhoes as well as many other pros believe that "objectives aren't as impactful as before." However, what this has led to is that objective play is practiced less at ranked levels because of the belief that objectives don't matter. While he agrees they are less important, Zyrhoes states that "objective play is still probably the most important aspect of high level play". So how can you improve your objective play? In this article, we are going to look at each objective and how to play around it. Furthermore, we are going to look at building a team composition based around objective control and how to turn a good draft into effective power plays.

Gold Fury

At the start of the season, the Gold Fury’s gold reward was increased. This was toned down for Patch 4.9 and Zyrhoes believes that it has made the game a lot fairer, saying, “In previous patches, an early Gold Fury would often result in you snowballing and winning the game but now there's more room for comebacks”. What this means is that the Gold Fury is now an objective that can be contested even when behind, because the first Gold Fury won't be as insanely valuable. So now that the Gold Fury becomes worth contesting even from behind, how do you contest and fight around it? The Gold Fury dominates the duo lane side of the map and it's fought over more often in the early game because it's easily accessible to 4 players, instead of the Fire Giant's 3.

The first step to a successful take on the gold fury is vision control. Vision is important as, according to Zyrhoes, “If you have good vision control, it's very hard for the enemy team to know if you're actually doing the objective or if you're just baiting and looking for picks instead”. Fighting around the Gold Fury is very favourable as you can usually force players to come and face you, whereas a fight in midlane or near a tower might only draw out 1 or 2 enemy players. So, the power of vision control is twofold as it not only forces the enemy team to respond at any sign that you may be attempting the Gold Fury, but it also makes it “impossible for the enemy team to steal it because they won't be able to know the HP of the objective”.

This is something that is vastly undervalued right now, especially with the prevalence of gods like Sol and Poseidon, who can easily turn the corner at the perfect time to steal the objective with the knowledge of its current health.

The introduction of the Gold Fury Oracles has further complicated the vision game around the Gold Fury. These harpies provide vision directly in the Gold Fury pit for free if your team manages to take out both. However, too often you see people not sentry warding the Gold Fury because they control the oracles. While a free ward is good, ensuring that the enemy team cannot ward is even more important as Zyrhoes mentioned. Putting a sentry ward above and below the Gold Fury pit will effectively cover the pit and a part of the jungle that is rarely sentried: the pathways. While obviously not as useful as the pit, if the enemy wards the pathways they can still collect a lot of information about what your team is doing in the Gold Fury pit. This setup of sentry wards allows you to control what the enemy can see in the pit and in the pathways around it.

This setup of sentry wards allows you to cover both the gold fury pit and the pathways, as shown by the map on the right.

So what about actually fighting? Well according to Zyrhoes, it all comes down to “if one of the teams has a power play. Almost in every scenario you will have a power play when you look for objectives and usually what you do then is you send one of your frontline to zone the enemy team”. This ‘power play’ can be either one of your carries being ahead of their enemy counterpart, one of your gods being adept at objective control or just a member of their team being dead. Fighting when the teams are both even is incredibly risky because of the potential value of the objective.

One of the most important members of your team, as mentioned by Zyrhoes above, is your zoner/frontliner. They by themselves define where your team’s frontline will be and they also contest the enemy frontline. The ‘dances’ around the Gold Fury and the Fire Giant that we see in the SPL are conducted by the frontliners and they are designed to secure as much space for your team as possible. Your frontline does not necessarily have to be your huge, tanky character.

Zyrhoes defines your zoner/frontliner as someone that is “able to either kill people coming in or have a lot of CC which could keep the enemy team away from the objective or setting your team up for another pick”. The logic behind this is simple; either they kill the enemies trying to contest or they make it easy for the team to kill them.

Bellona is very meta right now and an example of a perfect frontliner. Strong CC, great damage and the ability to handle multiple enemies at once, she is a force to be reckoned with on the front lines.

Overall, you need to ensure your team can do the Gold Fury quickly, as the longer you take, the higher the chance the enemy team will respond. This means your midlaner and your ADC are the most important for taking a Gold Fury. Thus, making sure they are protected while you're doing it is very beneficial. This comes from both their positioning and the zoning of the enemy team. The Gold Fury should be taken at the side of the pit closest to your jungle to limit the enemy team's flanking opportunities and allow you to retreat safely if you do get flanked.

A common misconception is that your frontliner should be tanking the Gold Fury. The frontliner is far more suited to patrolling the edges of the pit and ensuring that no enemies are in position to contest. The tanking should be done by the other 3-4 members and the damage should be juggled. Allowing one person to tank all the time, especially in the early game, allows them to get easily picked in the aftermath because of their large health deficit.

Portal Demon

The newest added objective to Smite, the Portal Demon was meant to revolutionize objective play and be a counterpart to the Gold Fury, giving less gold but giving the team that takes it a portal near the Fire Giant pit to allow greater flexibility with rotations. However, the Portal Demon has failed to make a large, game-changing impact.

Zyrhoes says that “the Conquest map is a bit too small to be having both Gold Fury and Portal Demon. The issue here is that if you have a good fight which leads to your team being able to do Gold Fury, you can now in many cases just run over to Portal Demon and secure that as well after the Gold Fury. This is pretty bad because the losing team in this scenario has a very hard time coming back from this loss”. Essentially, the Portal Demon does not fulfill its purpose as a counterpart to the Gold Fury, instead playing second fiddle to it.

However, this does not mean it should be ignored. According to Zyrhoes, it is valuable “because after you secure the Portal Demon, everyone can just back to base, with a lot of gold in hand. Then you just take the portal back and everyone will be back with new power spike items, full HP/mana and bunch of wards. So, after doing two objectives in a row, you didn't actually lose any map pressure at all”.

Too often, the Portal Demon is snuck, either after a Gold Fury or after a tower. This is incredibly dangerous, as not only does it give gold and experience, but it also gives high mobility to the team that took it. This allows the Portal Demon to be the ultimate ‘win-more’ objective. When you win a rough team fight in a close game, go for the Gold Fury or the Fire Giant. But when you wipe the enemy team while being ahead or after you’ve already taken another map objective as mentioned above, it is a great objective for solidifying your lead and locking the enemy team out of the game even further.

Once again, vision control is key to the Portal Demon, as it is with all objectives. However, warding specifically for the Portal Demon is pointless due to its proximity to the Fire Giant pit, so specific warding will be covered in the Fire Giant section. However, one thing to note is that it is impossible to finish the Portal Demon without the enemy team knowing, as killing it emits a loud, map-wide sound which all players will hear. This means the enemy team will know about your ability to instantly teleport to the middle of the map and will be ready for it.

The Portal Demon's proximity to the Fire Giant pit is shown here. This means that warding for the Fire Giant will also cover the Portal Demon

Unlike the other two objectives, the Portal Demon does not require your entire team to complete and does not require a specialized team to be able to take it out efficiently. Already near the mid game, your midlaner and your jungler can take out the Portal Demon by themselves if they effectively juggle the tanking duty. Keep in mind that the Fire Giant/Portal Demon pit is a lot more open than the Gold Fury pit, which makes any attempt at a steal much easier for the enemy.

Fire Giant

The Fire Giant has been almost unchanged since its inception and has remained the biggest objective on the Smite map. As Zyrhoes simply puts it, “It's a late game objective and if you manage to secure it without dropping any kills, you're most likely going to have a very good time while the FG buff lasts”. The Fire Giant still carries the largest amount of risk but also the largest possible gain when it comes to objectives. The Fire Giant buff gives one team a definite quantifiable advantage over the other, as well as a large amount of gold and experience.

Warding the Fire Giant pit is infinitely harder than the Gold Fury pit because of its size and openness. The Fire Giant pit mostly consists of pillars and columns, which allows a lot more movement and makes aggressive positioning so much harder. Another thing that isn’t considered often is the implications of the fact that the Fire Giant takes longer to do than the Gold Fury. This means that you need vision control deeper into the enemy jungle, as you need a more detailed knowledge of any enemy movements because you will be vulnerable for longer. Otherwise, the warding logic is the same as with the Gold Fury, with some useful spots shown below.

As well as simply warding the pit, these are some useful spots. The first one on the left in the enemy teams speed buff allows you to spot rotations coming from their fountain. The one in the middle allows you to spot rotations coming from the midlane. Finally, the one on the right allows you to keep an eye on rotations from the solo side and anyone who might be trying to steal the Fire Giant through the wall.

The Fire Giant is the only objective on the map with its own unique attack patterns. These can be sometimes misunderstood even at high levels of play. It is not uncommon to see even pro teams mishandling a Fire Giant take, so it’s useful to know the specifics of its attacks.

The Fire Giant's basic attack can either be ranged or melee, depending on your distance from him. This attack applies a 40% healing debuff and a 20% damage debuff to anyone hit by it. Its first special activity is Magma Blast. This is a channeled line ability aimed at the person tanking the Fire Giant. During its 1.5 second channel, it slows for a colossal 80% and when it triggers it knock’s up anyone caught by it and does an insane amount of damage. Its second special ability are the Magma Pools, which are the small circles that spawn under everyone within the Fire Giant pit (including pets) and do massive damage every second for 5 seconds.

The Fire Giant’s hit chain consists of 2 of his basic attacks, followed by a Magma Blast, 2 more of his basic attacks, another Magma Blast and then 4 basic attacks followed by Magma Pools. This means that the Fire Giant's behavior is essentially predictable, even if his chain is quite long. Tanking the Fire Giant should be done on the side of the pit closest to the enemy jungle, as it allows the Fire Giant’s attacks to potentially zone away the enemy team and makes sure its attacks are out of the way of the friendlies trying to kill it.

The Fire Giant casting Magma Blast. Note the long line on the ground. Stepping on this line at any point along it will slow you for a considerable amount and should be avoided

The Fire Giant casting Magma Pools. These appear under every friendly character in the pit and do damage over time. Also notice the debuff applied (visible as the small red icon above my health bar). This is the debuff given by the Fire Giant's basic attacks.

While all the Fire Giant’s attacks are destructive, the most impactful by far is the Magma Blast. The massive slow and large knock up can spell the doom of your Fire Giant attempt if it catches more than one of your players. This attack is why staying away from your damage dealers is imperative while tanking the Fire Giant. The job of avoiding the Magma Pools falls to everyone, but it is the responsibility of the person who is tanking to control the direction of the magma blast.

Gods that are good at tanking the Fire Giant are Supports who are especially tanky, such as Geb and Fafnir. While it may be tempting to let your lategame ADC tank the Fire Giant because of their good lifesteal in the lategame, the debuffs that the fire giant gives and its natural 50% resistance to lifesteal means that they usually aren't suitable for the job. Also, letting them not tank leaves them available to react faster and safer to a surprise gank by the enemy team.

The Fire Giant's difficulty not only comes from his strong attacks but also his passive stats. As mentioned above, he has a 50% resistance to lifesteal but also 100 physical protections and 50 magical protections. In addition, he has 6650 health and gains 150 per level. A Fire Giant attempt needs to be taken seriously and planned out throughout the game.

Objective based team compositions

The meta right now dictates that map objectives are the most important factor when it comes to winning a game. During the last LAN, the EU region destroyed NA simply because they focused heavily on objective control whereas NA didn't. This means that drafting a team that is at least partially designed to take objectives efficiently is very beneficial. What this means, according to Zyrhoes, is that you should be drafting "mainly strong early game gods because if you get early pressure, it's easier to force your way through the jungle, set up good vision, and then look for picks which will lead to free objectives. There's also some gods which are really good at killing objectives fast and being able to secure them easily, such as Isis or any other god with a high damage dealing ability or just high raw DPS output”. Essentially, drafting an entire team of late game carries leads to you conceding objective control in the early game which means there will not be a late game for your composition to thrive in.

Zyrhoes has been playing a lot of Sol recently and she personifies everything he mentioned about a god who excels at objective control. High damage, high DPS and the ability to apply pressure in the early game and open up possibilities for objectives for her team.

Almost all ADC's are great for objectives because of their high DPS so your ADC choice is usually irrelevant. Midlaners that are great for objectives are either ones that can deal massive damage with their ultimates to secure (Thoth, Ra, Sol) or ones that deal less damage but also zone away the opposition (Isis, Vulcan, Scylla). An objective focused support is one that can easily secure a zone for their team and potentially also help tank the objective. Great supports for objective play include Sylvanus, Fafnir and Ganesha. The choice of junglers usually doesn't matter as, similarly to ADCs, junglers will always provide good DPS to help kill the objective. However, a few do stick out as having exceptional secure or control, such as Susanoo and Hun Batz. Finally, your solo lane choice needs to be able to hold the frontline and give the rest of the team space to complete the objective. This means they need to have high survivability and a lot of crowd control potential.

An example of a great objective control team. High DPS, lots of control and lots of ways to secure the objectives.

Towers or Objectives?

We've all been there: you win a fight decisively and as a team you cannot decide whether you should go for a map objective or push towers. What is the correct choice?

According to Zyrhoes, "it depends on how much time you have, you will either go for towers first and then the objective or you will just go for the objective straight away. In most cases, the objectives are more important because you can come back and destroy towers later while objectives despawn for a long time when killed".

The question of time is directly linked to how far into the game you are. In the mid and late game, where death timers are longer, going for towers first is a definite responsibility. The tradeoff between towers and objectives is permanent map presence versus a temporary lead for your team.

Zyrhoes provides some interesting insight here. "This is when Portal Demon comes into play: say you just won a teamfight, after that you go straight for Portal Demon. Everyone comes back through the portal and then you can start pushing towers straight away where the enemy team is probably still on death timers". So, while the Portal Demon doesn’t work as a counterpart to the Gold Fury, it is the go-to objective for when you need to secure a gold/experience lead and concrete map pressure.

It is worth noting that Phoenixes hold additional value. The fire minions that you will spawn in the respective lane once you kill a Phoenix can be used to apply pressure on the enemy team and create time for your team to take map objectives or towers in other lanes.

Final Notes

Objective play in Smite is more important than it's ever been. Even though the game isn't as snowbally as it was at the start of the season, the early game still dictates a lot of how the rest of the game will go. Using the tips above, you will be able to ensure that your team is best equipped as they can be to handle objectives and to win the game.

Thank you for reading and thank you to Zyrhoes for his valuable insight!