A lot of Smite games lately, ranked or otherwise, have been taking a lot longer than they need to. One team gets an early lead but then fails to close out the game and it drags out past the 40 or 50 minute marks and they end up losing anyways. Not only is this frustrating for the team that got ahead, but games that last this long simply aren’t fun for either party. This can happen for any number of reasons. Maybe the team doesn’t group up at key moments or a few players get caught out while split pushing, but one thing seen all too common is teams that don’t know when to get Fire Giant and don’t understand just how powerful it is.

The Fire Giant's Might

Killing the Fire Giant grants each member of your team (unless they’re dead) a buff called Fire Giant’s Might. It gives you 50 physical power, 70 magical power, it regenerates 0.8% of your maximum HP and mana per second and increases your damage against structures by 20% for 4 minutes.

To make this a bit easier to understand I'll break this up into its 3 basic components the first being an increase of 50 physical power and 70 magical power. This alone makes Fire Giant worth taking, as it is going to give your entire team a damage increase comparable to each member having red buff and make each member's teamfight presence skyrocket. Because of this, once you have Fire Giant it's going to be very difficult for the enemy to take the game back, especially if you stay grouped up.

Now for the regeneration, 0.8% of your maximum HP and mana per second. That means if you have 1500 HP (and you're going to have more than this at the stage of the game you’ll be taking Fire Giant) you’ll be regenerating 12 health every second, or 2880 health over the entire duration of the buff. In comparison a health potion regenerates 10 health every second for a total of 250 health over the duration. This means Fire Giant's buff is healing you faster than a health potion, for much, much longer. This doesn't even take into account the mana regen which when added on to the health regeneration makes it less necessary to recall, gives you slightly more sustain in fights and lets you keep sieging that much longer.

And finally, the reason Fire Giant is going to help you close out and win the game: 20% increased structure damage. This means you do 20% bonus damage to towers and phoenixes for free. This damage increase is huge, whether you see it or not. To put it in perspective, 20% extra damage means every 5 basic attacks you land on a tower or phoenix do the equivalent of 6 autoattacks without the Fire Giant buff. This along with the flat damage increase also gained from Fire Giant allows you to take down phoenixes in a few seconds when your team is grouped up and makes split pushing a breeze.

When to Kill the Fire Giant

Now you know why you’d want to take Fire Giant but I believe the main reason teams don’t take Fire Giant often enough has to do with the “When”. A common misconception a lot of people have is that Fire Giant requires a deicide to be taken properly when, in reality, it’s possible to take Fire Giant in a 5v5 situation, especially when you are ahead in gold and XP.

As for the when in regards to the game clock, depending on how far ahead you really are, you can take Fire Giant as soon as it spawns but at 10 or even 15 minutes it is going to be very difficult and risky to do and will most likely drop a few of your teammates to very low health, even if they aren’t the ones tanking. This is when you need to be the most decisive about when to take Fire Giant, as there aren’t many circumstances where the risk is worth the reward this early in the game. If you manage to force the enemy team back to their base or even kill a majority of them you may be able to catch them off guard with Fire Giant, but keep in mind it is very doubtful you will be able to take it by the time they respawn and get back into lane, so you’ll still want to have a lot of wards up to detect a potential fight or steal.

Anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes into the game is the most optimal time to take Fire Giant when you’re ahead. Anything before 20 is too risky and anything beyond 30 means that if they enemy catches you and manages to win the fight they will be more than capable of taking it themselves. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to do it after 30 minutes, it just means there will be an added risk. Of course, the optimal time can change a little depending on the compositions of both teams. That’s part of the reason I made the timeframe so broad, but in the end it’s all about seizing any opportunity you see to take the Fire Giant.

But what exactly are the opportunities? When your team is ahead by a large margin, you’re for the most part free to force out Fire Giant any time you want after 20 minutes provided you have decent ward coverage and teamfight potential, but in particularly close games where you’re looking to take Fire Giant to secure a lead, it becomes a lot less clear of when you can and cannot take it. Obviously in this case waiting for a deicide seems to make the most sense but if you can get a deicide and have your team healthy enough to fight Fire Giant the game probably isn’t that close.

For these situations, you’ll want to make sure they are down at least 1 player, preferably more. Whether they are dead or at low health and need to recall, you want to make sure you are never going to get thrown into a 5v5 situation while Fire Giant is attacking you. Team communication is huge here as well. Making sure you all save your high damage abilities for when the Fire Giant gets low. This is not only so you can burst it down and minimize the possibility of getting it stolen but so you have them ready for a potential fight. In some cases, using an ultimate or two to secure Fire Giant can be more than worth the reward of landing the killing blow. If you’re the support, you are going to have the hardest job. You should not only be tanking Fire Giant and making sure his line attack doesn’t hit your damage dealers but you’ll also want to be on the lookout for anyone attempting to steal the buff and CC them as Fire Giant goes down as well as be ready for a fight to happen so you can safely disengage if needed. Wards can help with this job a lot but sadly, as a support, it will probably be up to you to provide those as well.

Playing from Behind

Now I’ve talked about taking FG while ahead to push your advantage, I’ve talked about how to take it when teams are even in gold and XP but what about if you’re playing from behind. In short, there is no reason for you to seek out Fire Giant when your team is behind. Trying to sneak it is too risky, trying to force it will get you killed and possibly give them the buff. You really just want to keep playing the game and hope that they forget about it all together.

However, if they do decide to go for it, you shouldn't just sit back and let them have it. There are a lot of ways you can try to get them off of it or even end up getting the buff for yourself if they get too cocky and end up throwing. Stealing it is one option but that requires you to be extremely lucky or for the enemy team to make a lot of mistakes so I’ll go over the more reliable methods. If you aren’t too far behind the enemy team, you could try to fight them on it. Fire Giant can do a surprising amount of damage for your team if you time the fight correctly. With enough timing and communication, you can initiate the fight by stunning one or more of them on top of molten pools which can take them out of the fight immediately as the pools deal 225 magical damage every second and stack with multiple pools. But if they have a substantial lead, the best thing you can do is be as annoying as possible and try to either scare them off it or goad them into chasing after you instead. This can be done with poke abilities and CC but try not to get close unless you have an escape of some kind.

Otherwise, just keep it warded and draw as little attention to it as possible. Because 9 out of 10 times a fight at Fire Giant is going to end in favor of the team currently in the lead and that 1 time it doesn’t probably won’t make much of an impact in terms of giving your team the lead.

Get your own AKRacing Chair here and support our players, all profit goes towards the teams!