Stacking items are very popular in Smite, with a range to choose from for both Magical and Physical Gods. These items all have base statistics, which are what they provide you with straight away when they are purchased directly. However, as the game progresses and you get more kills on Gods and minions, you gain stacks for these items. Each stack provides a bonus, up to a certain limit. The bonus provided and the maximum amount of stacks you can have depends on which stacking item you purchase.

This article will look at the effectiveness of stacking items and the value each stack provides, to give a better understanding of the potential these items have.

Magical

Item

Full Cost

Base Statistics

Passive

Fully Stacked Statistics

Doom Orb

2050

+40 Magical Power
+200 Mana
+7 MP5

You gain +2 Magical Power per stack, and receive 5 stacks per God kill and 1 stack per minion kill. Half your stacks are lost on death. Maximum 50 Stacks

+140 Magical Power
+200 Mana
+7 MP5

Comparisons

Other items on the Lost Artifact tree:

• Chronos' Pendant: +75 Magical Power; +25 MP5; +20% Cooldown Reduction
• Rod of Tahuti: +125 Magical Power and a 25% increase in your Magical Power.

If looking for power alone, Doom Orb is a good choice for early game, especially when stacked fully. It is cheap and can provide a great amount of Magical Power when stacked, giving you a large amount of damage in the early game. However, getting to 50 stacks on this item can be challenging, especially because you lose half of your stacks upon death. In the late game when you have more gold, it is a good idea to sell this item and replace it with Rod of Tahuti. This is a better choice as it increases your overall Magical Power by +25%. If looking for a mixture of Magical Power and Cooldown Reduction, Chronos' Pendant is the best choice.

Item

Full Cost

Base Statistics

Passive

Fully Stacked Statistics

Book of Thoth

2650

+100 Magical Power
+125 Mana
+15 MP5

You permanently gain +10 Mana per stack, and receive 5 stacks per God kill, and 1 stack per minion kill. Maximum 75 Stacks.

Additionally, 3% of your Mana is converted to Magical Power

+100 Magical Power
+875 Mana
+715 MP5

If we compare Book of Thoth to Soul Reaver, on the same item tree:

• Soul Reaver provides +100 Magical Power and +300 Mana. In addition, a God will take an additional 10% of their maximum health as damage when you damage them with an ability (once every 40s.)

Book of Thoth is very useful on Gods that use a large amount of Mana. Arguably, this item can be worked into the build of any mage, as it provides both Mana and Magical Power. The passive converting 3% of your Mana to Magical Power is not exclusive to the Mana received from stacking Book of Thoth, but includes all of your Mana. However, it takes 75 stacks to fully stack this item, meaning that you should build this item early game as one of your first items, so that you have enough time to stack it fully.

Item

Full Cost

Base Statistics

Passive

Fully Stacked Statistics

Warlock's Sash

2650

+50 Magical Power
+400 Mana
+300 Health

You permanently gain +3 Health and +0.6 Magical Power per stack, and receive 5 stacks per God kill, and 1 stack per minion kill. Maximum 100 Stacks.

+110 Magical Power
+400 Mana
+600 Health

Other items on the Golden Sash tree are:

• Gem of Isolation providing +70 Magical Power, +250 Health, and +250 Mana, and slows enemies hit by your abilities by 25%
• Ethereal Staff providing+30 Magical Power, +400 Health and +300 Mana in addition to converting 2.5% of your maximum Health to Magical Power.

Warlock's Sash is a very strong item for giving you some extra HP. Not only this, but it also gives Mana and some Magical Power. Warlock's Sash is particularly effective on 'squishy' Mages with less HP, such as Anubis or Scylla.

Similarly to Book of Thoth, this item takes a long time to fully stack. With 100 stacks, this item has the highest cap for stacks out of all stacking items in Smite. Therefore, you should build this as your first or second item in your build to finish stacking as soon as possible, in order to reap the full benefits provided.

Physical

Item

Full Cost

Base Statistics

Passive

Fully Stacked Statistics

Devourer's Gauntlet

2050

+25 Physical Power
+10% Physical Lifesteal

You permanently gain +0.4 Physical Power and +0.2% Physical Lifesteal per stack, and receive 5 stacks per God kill and 1 Stack per minion kill. Maximum 75 Stacks.

+55 Physical Power
+25% Physical Lifesteal

Soul Eater

2000

+20% Physical Lifesteal
+30% Attack Speed

Killing an enemy eats their soul granting +0.5% Movement Speed. If you take damage below 25% Health, all stacks are consumed restoring 1% of your maximum Health per stack. Maximum 20 Stacks.

+10% Movement Speed
+20% Physical Lifesteal
+30% Attack Speed

In the Spiked Gauntlet tree, two items can be stacked, as seen above. The remaining item is as follows:

• Bloodforge provides +75 Physical Power, +15% Physical Lifesteal and gives the player a shield upon killing an enemy, worth 200 Health +10 Health per level, and providing +10% Movement Speed.

Devourer's Gauntlet provides the most lifesteal when fully stacked, with an addition of some Physical Power.

Again, this item takes a long time to stack fully (75 stacks), therefore you should start building it in the early game. Devourer's Gauntlet excels at providing lifesteal, but doesn't provide much more.

By contrast, Soul Eater provides lifesteal with some extra benefits. It also gives Attack Speed, and restores 1% of your max HP per stack when you are damaged below 25% HP. This is useful on Hunters, as it gives a little bit of extra sustain which may be needed in dire situations!

Item

Full Cost

Base Statistics

Passive

Fully Stacked Statistics

Transcendence

2600

+35 Physical Power
+300 Mana
+6 MP5

You permanently gain +15 Mana per stack, and receive 5 stacks per God kill and 1 stack per minion kill. Maximum 50 stacks. Additionally, 3% of your Mana is converted to Physical Power.

+1050 Mana
+35 Physical Power
+6 MP5

The other item on the Morningstar item tree is as follows:

• Hydra's Lament provides +40 Physical Power, +15% Cooldown Reduction and gives your next Basic Attack an additional 30% damage; as well as increasing your MP5.

N.B.: Due to the Mana to Physical Power conversion, ignoring a god's current Maximum Mana, this item actually provides +44 Physical Power by default and +66 Physical Power at full stacks.

Transcendence can be used effectively on all Physical Gods: Assassins, Hunters and even some Warriors. Bonus Mana and bonus Physical Power are both extremely useful to a variety of Gods. Also, with only 50 stacks Transcendence does not need much time to stack fully.

However, it might not be as effective on Gods who do not use a lot of mana. Each stack only provides additional mana, and does not boost your power by very much, with a fully stacked Transcendence providing only +22 Physical Power over the directly purchased item. Additionally, there are no extra effects outside of the stacking of the item.

Item

Full Cost

Base Statistics

Passive

Fully Stacked Statistics

Heartseeker

1800

+25 Physical Power
+10% Movement Speed

Hitting an enemy with a Basic Attack helps you gain focus, increasing your Attack Speed by 3% per stack. Maximum 5 Stacks. At 5 Stacks your next ability cast consumes the stacks and provides an additional Physical Power buff for 3s

+25 Physical Power
+65 Physical Power
+10% Movement Speed
+15% Attack Speed

Stone Cutting
Sword

2900

+50 Physical Power
+10% Movement Speed

Melee Basic Attacks decrease enemy Physical Protections by 10, and increase your Physical Protection by 10 for 3s. Maximum 3 Stacks.

+50 Physical Power
+10% Movement Speed
+30 Physical Protections
-30 Enemy Physical Protections

There is one more item on the Katana tree:

• Masamune provides +50 Physical Power, +10% Movement Speed and you deal additional Physical Power damage against Gods with more maximum Health than you (1 Physical Power per 10 Health difference, to a maximum of 50 Physical Power)

Heartseeker is useful on heavily auto-attack based Gods such as Mercury. It also provides bonus movement speed, making is useful on other Assassins, too.

Yet, for other Gods that do not rely on auto-attacks, Heartseeker can be seen as useless. Even on Hunters, it is uncommon as other items are more favourable in the current meta.

Stone Cutting Sword gives you Physical Protections and decreases your enemies Physical Protections. This makes it effective against enemy tanks.

Unfortunately, Stone Cutting Sword does not give any flat penetration, meaning that you will need to build this in addition to deal damage to enemy structures. However, it is important to note that the item's Passive only affects melee basic attacks, meaning that this items is not recommended for use on Hunters. Arguably, it can be picked up on Ullr due to his melee stance, however this will mean sacrificing other items from your build.

Item

Full Cost

Base Statistics

Passive

Fully Stacked Statistics

Rage

2400

+30 Physical Power
+20% Critical Strike Chance

If your Basic Attack does not Critically Strike, your Critical Strike Chance increases by 10%. Maximum 6 Stacks, resets on successful Critical Strike

+30 Physical Power
+80% Critical Strike Chance

From the Hidden Dagger tree, Rage gives the highest Critical Strike Chance (Crit):

• Deathbringer provides +50 Physical Power, +20% Critical Strike Chance and increases Critical Strike Damage by 40%
• Malice provides +50 Physical Power, +20% Critical Strike Chance, and when you deal a Critical Strike, you deal an additional +75% of your total Physical Power as Physical Damage over the next 3s

Rage is a useful item, letting you Crit more often giving you the highest Crit chance at full stacks. However, your Crits might still be doing low amounts of damage, despite how regularly you are Critting. It is important to note that this item is ineffective against Hou Yi, due to his passive only allowing him to be hit by a Crit once every 3 seconds.

Hybrid

Item

Full Cost

Base Statistics

Passive

Fully Stacked Statistics

Reinforced Greaves

1400

+10% Physical Power
+75 Health
+20% CC Reduction
+18% Movement Speed

Every time you are damaged by a God, you gain a stack that provides +3 Physical and Magical Protections. Stacks up to 6 times. Lasts 6 seconds.

+25 Physical and Magical Protections

Reinforced Shoes

1400

+20 Magical Power
+75 Health
+20% CC Reduction
+18% Movement Speed

Every time you are damaged by a God, you gain a stack that provides +3 Physical and Magical Protections. Stacks up to 6 times. Lasts 6 seconds.

+25 Physical and Magical Protections

Reinforced Greaves/Shoes provide the player with bonus protections for a short period of time, however they sacrifice some statistics that other Boots or Shoes can give you. It is vital to decide what you need more in your build. Physical Gods must choose from Physical Power, Attack Speed, Bonus Protections or HP5 when out of combat; whilst Magical Gods must choose from Penetration; Cooldown Reduction and Bonus Mana; Bonus Protections or HP5 when out of combat.

The advantage of Reinforced Greaves/Shoes is that it gives you some protections alongside other statistics. This means that without having to sacrifice an item from your build, you can have some protections. This is ideal for naturally less tanky Gods, but can also be picked up on Warriors and Guardians to give you even more protections.

Item

Full Cost

Base Statistics

Passive

Fully Stacked Statistics

Hide of the Urchin

2400

+35 Magical Protection
+35 Physical Protection
+250 Health
+250 Mana

You gain +3 Magical Protection and +3 Physical Protection for each God kill or assist. Maximum 10 Stacks.

+65 Magical Protection
+65 Physical Protection
+250 Health
+250 Mana

Other items on the Cloak tree:

• Spirit Robe providing +40 Physical Protection, +40 Magical Protection and giving you 15% Damage Mitigation for 3s when hit with a hard Crowd Control (CC) effect
• Mantle of Discord providing +60 Physical Protection, +60 Magical Protection and releases a shockwave that stuns all enemies for 1s if you take damage below 30% health, also giving you 1s of CC immunity for 1s
• Magi's Blessing providing +15 Physical Protection, +15 Magical Protection and absorbs a single hard CC effect or root once every 70 seconds.

Hide of the Urchin provides a good amount of Protections, with some bonus Health and Mana to help with your sustain. It provides you with a large amount of Protections, especially when compared to other items on the same tree.

Other items on this tree provide Protections as well as other passive effects to help protect you. They might provide less Protections, but the additional Passive effects can be incredibly strong! Unfortunately, Hide of the Urchin only provides protections.

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