Lots of people play Assault frequently, myself included. However, every day I see veteran players making strategic mistakes that often cost the game. These mistakes can be broken down into four categories: Poor team composition, poor building, common gameplay mistakes, and poor death timing. All of these issues are fixable, however to understand the issues you must first understand the game.

Some fundamentals of Assault are in order, then. Firstly, know the value of a minion. In any other gamemode, a minion will net you ~10-25 gold, assuming you kill them alone. But in Assault, the minions are meant to be split between 5 players. Naturally, HiRez had to increase the value per minion as to keep the pace of the game up. This means that, if you're lucky enough to have no buddies around when you kill a minion, you can net yourself somewhere between 50 and 100 gold per minion. So how does this apply to gameplay? Well, remember that when an enemy minion gets hit by your tower, the death of said minion produces no gold. Knowing this, you should encourage your team to focus on killing minions before focusing on killing gods, within reason. Also, remember that sharing the gold is a net gain for your team. Firing off a Hail Mary Vulcan ult into the back of an enemy tower in order to kill a minion wave is selfish, and there is no need to be that guy. The other main fundamental of Assault that you should know is that, by its very nature, no game is secured or lost until you've hit the post-match lobby. Almost any gold lead is recoverable, and almost any teamfight winnable. Don't get discouraged or cocky when you think a game is won or lost, because that is so often not the case.

Before you can show off your sick Assault skills, you have to first get through the torture of a random draft. Even though this is a small piece of the puzzle, it's vitally important. So, where is the skill in a random draft? The reroll button. Especially considering Assault only gives you 20 seconds to decide who is rerolling what, this is really a team effort. So the ground rules for rerolling are as follows:

1. Never reroll a healer. Guan Yu, Aphrodite, Hel, Chang'e, Ra, and even "Half-Healers" such as Cupid, Isis, and Chiron are invaluable.

2. Tankiness and sustain are easily more valuable than damage. Warriors and tanks can win the game for you, so treat them as valuable commodities in the picking stage and only reroll them if they have no place in your team.

3. If you're really craving a high damage, "squishy" god, keep gods with a good teamfight presence. AoE's and high damage ults are key. Remember, Assault is basically a 15-30 minute teamfight. Gods that are weak in this aspect can lose you the game.

4. Avoid too much of the same damage type. This is fairly obvious, but if you have 5 physical gods, try rerolling and asking others to reroll in order to get some diversity in the team.

5. Globals are weak. Just saying those words as a Conquest player is strange to me, however, remember that there isn't ganking or split pushing or any of the mechanics that make those Januses, Thors, and Apollos so invaluable in Conquest.

I think, alongside this, there should also be a short list of gods that you should simply reroll (and conversely, keep) no matter what. The gods you should roll without question would be: Arachne, Bakasura, Loki, and Ratatoskr. These short ranged, single-target gods just have very low value in a team, and should honestly never see the light of day in Assault.

As far as gods to always keep, there's a few that come to mind. They are: Ah Puch, Khepri, Bacchus, Bellona and Hercules.

Following these guidelines will often net you a superior team to your opponents. That said, sometimes you and your team can work very hard to reroll the right gods and still end up with a pile of junk. Don't let that discourage you, you can still win. I've seen some pretty crazy odds be beaten myself. The picking stage isn't the deciding factor, but smart rolling can give your team a key advantage.

Builds and Items:

Building is a vital skill in Smite. We all learn it rather slowly--usually you get some kind of boots, core, then situational item, right? Well, yes, but there are a few key differences in a good Assault build and a good Conquest build. Firstly, no starters. Starter items are great for the super early game, but in Assault, you start at level 5. There is no super early game. The quick health, protection, or damage boosts of starters simply don't mean that much at that level. Perhaps equally importantly, auras are a godsend. Tanks (and even Warriors!) should buy either Heartward or Sovereignty at the very beginning, as you will usually have 3-5 people gaining protections and MP/HP5. As far as other valuable auras go, Pythagorem's Piece for mages and Soul Eater for hunters are very solid items that have good base stats and good auras. In general, you don't want to start with boots. Normally there is a solid item under that 3000 gold starting limit that will give you more bang for your buck. Chronos Pendant for mages, Soul Eater for hunters, and Sovereignty/Heartward for the beefier types can be complete lifesavers early.

On top of this, Meditation is by far the best active for Assault, as it grants you early mana regeneration and a lategame AoE heal. Utilizing this active can turn a decent team into a fantastic one, and often Meditation/Salvation are the reasons you can turn a game around. Also, be prepared to be adaptable. Often times this means being able to fill a tank role for your team, even if you aren't a tanky god. Hun Batz, Serqet, Hades, Thor, and many others can fill the role of a pseudo-tank if it's what your team needs. As I said earlier, tanky gods are often, if not always better than the squishy types. The final piece of the building puzzle, at least for season two, is something called the Dirty Bubble. Dirty Bubble builds are most effective on squishy mages, as it helps them survive extended teamfights as well as allowing them pretty high damage. So what is a Dirty Bubble build? Well, simply, a Dirty Bubble build is where one builds tanky items on a character that is otherwise squishy. Usually this means something along the lines of: Breastplate of Valor -> Shoes of Focus -> Hide of the Urchin -> Ethereal Staff -> Spear of the Magus -> Rod of Tahuti. As you can see, this build allows for normally low-health gods, such as Kukulkan or Ah Puch, to take a beating and still have some penetration and power. All of this having been said, if nothing else, build what you think will be best against whatever you're fighting. Assault isn't some foreign world, and the builds often don't vary to heftily from the other facets of Smite.

Common Mistakes:

People make some really predictable mistakes in Assault. These may or may not apply to you, but they are things I see every day and are the same things that you should be on the lookout for. Firstly, never run in to defend a tower. Diving into 4 or 5 people as a midgame Artemis has another word: Suicide. Be careful! Not even a Phoenix defense is worth you running in alone and dying. People often misjudge this, and end up with more than one tower lost from a suicidal solo attack. Next, let people lifesteal/stack. If your hunter is at 50% HP and you are alone with him, there is no reason to not allow him to smack the wave 'til he has full health. Conversely, and notably with Zhong Kui, let your teammates build passive stacks. The reason Zhong is pretty weak in Assault is that most teammates ignore this rule and just take the last hits for themselves. Many gods require minions to gain power, so there isn't much reason to not let them do so. The final, and perhaps most damaging mistake I see is people raging/flaming a teammate for playing poorly. I know I'm going very in-depth with strategies and ways to win here, however realize that many people don't know how to play their gods. We're fast approaching 80 characters in the game right now, and people can't know all of them. Be calm and helpful, and you may just make some friends along the way.

Death Timing:

Nothing is certain in life except Death and Leavers. Sadly we can't control when our teammates leave, which just leaves us to worry about death. Unlike other gamemodes, dying is a fundamental part of the Assault experience. As there is no returning to base, in order to buy items from the shop, one must die. Simple as that. "So, why is this so hard? Won't I die sometimes in teamfights and just buy my items then?" Well, yes. Usually, that is. However there will come frequent times in Assault where you may find yourself 7-0 10 minutes into the game, with just a Soul Eater and no potions left. Why is this an issue, then? You're 7-0! The problem arises in the fact that you only have a soul eater, meanwhile the enemy team you've been stomping has been able to buy their boots and beads. You're now at a tactical disadvantage. You've hit the point where death is necessary so you can spend your 4,500 gold, poor baby. How should you go about this? There's a few ways. The first would be to do as much as you can possible do in a teamfight. Get all your damage out, bodyblock for your team a bit, and die. This is perhaps the most frequent (and honorable!) way to die when you need to.

The next, and maybe rarer, way to die is to make sure the enemy never gets your gold. Wait until most or all of them are dead, and simply walk into a tower or phoenix and let it kill you. This stops the enemy team from getting the gold boost from your death, and, since you've died at a "low point" in the action, you should be back up for the next teamfight. Remember that if you have some kind of global (Apollo, Janus, Thor ults), that you can often just use your ultimate to get behind the enemies and die to the Tier 2 tower, Phoenix, or Titan. The final, and certainly worst, way to die is to just walk into the enemy team. It sucks to have to do this, but often times you know that you'll be worthless in the next teamfight in your current state. You may have no mana, 20% HP, and 3,000 gold to spend. It turns out that it's a net gain to your team for you to die right now and come back strong in a minute or so, ready to fight for your team once more. Overall, dying is not an instinctive way to play Smite. So long as you remember to suicide every once in awhile, you'll be better off than most Assault players. Remember, winning is far more important than your shiny 7-0 K/D.

I hope this quick guide helps some of you get adjusted to the Assault life. Despite this guide, the best way to get better at Assault is simply to play it. Many of these tips will become instinctive over time, and before you know it you'll be a natural. The other thing I want to address is the transition to Season 3. With this guide coming so late into Season 2, you may be wondering if any of the tips will be out of date. So far as I can tell, the only thing that may change is the Dirty Bubble build. It may not exist, or it may come back in a different form. However Assault itself is going into Season 3 unchanged, which is why I chose to write this particular guide right now. The rules of rerolling, dying, and building are likely to stay similar, so don't be afraid of this if you're reading from the future. The fun and lighthearted nature has kept me sucked in for multiple years now, but I see many people bashing it or being afraid to start playing it because it's genuinely unique from all other modes. If you get nothing else out of this guide, know to just have fun. Assault is a wonderful gamemode for wonderful people, and it is my sincere hope that this guide helps you all to feel the same way about it that I do.

Are you into fantasy leagues? Then check out AlphaDraft and put together your allstar lineup!