Definitive SMITE Assault Guide for Beginners: How to Play Assault in SMITE like a Pro (2023)

This article is long overdue and it’s really important for both new players of the Assault game mode in SMITE, and the more seasoned ones so that they can pass the basics to the newcomers more easily. This article will be divided into subsections that will explain Assault game mode from top to bottom, and we hope that this will lead to a better experience for every SMITE player that likes playing Assault (which was at some point in SMITE’s history the most popular game mode!).

Complete SMITE Assault Game Mode Tutorial for Friends and Family

The guide will be updated and expanded as time passes, so make sure to bookmark and check it from time to time.

God “Selection” Phase

So, you’ve queued up and have received your randomly assigned God. It’s time to take a quick look at what you have as a team. As a team, you’re looking to have 1 or 2 Tanks (Warrior or Guardian), 1 or 2 Mages, 1 or 2 Hunters, and MAYBE an Assassin that’s good for Assault. In this phase, it is extremely important to be present in the Lobby Chat and not be AFK. You need to help your team arrange the team’s line-up, reroll your own God if it’s bad, and help someone else reroll their own God if they rerolled into an even worse God…

Also, when the countdown clock drops to 10, you can no longer reroll, just trade, so keep that in mind as well. Realistically speaking, everything can be arranged long before then if people are co-operative enough. Offer your God for trade before rerolling unless your God is absolute garbage.

Gods to Always Reroll vs Gods to Never Reroll in SMITE Assault

This is somewhat of a Tier List for Assault, yes. You can’t reroll Healers in Assault, so you’re stuck with them. If your team has a healer, opponents will also have a healer. If you have 5 Magical or 5 Physical Gods in the team, you need to sacrifice 1 or 2 just to diversify your damage output, so that the opponents cannot easily counter your team. Reroll costs 125 favor, which will be easily earned back, so do not worry.

Related: Best Gods in SMITE: SMITE Gods Tier List

Loading Screen and First Minute of Assault in SMITE

During Loading, you will be able to see what you are playing against, and you may already start planning on different strategies.

You are looking for their healing capabilities (so that Divine Ruin, Brawler’s Beatstick, or Tainted Steel may be immediately introduced to your team) and for their damage type (so that you can see which protections to build), and to check if they have Ares, Cerberus, Xing Tian, or anything worth buying Beads against (if you do not have a CC Immune ability).

Related: SMITE God Release Dates Sorted Chronologically

Best Relics for SMITE in Assault

Usually, the first Relic is Meditation for most Gods, because your team will need some sustain since returning to the fountain is not possible. Some players buy Chalice of Healing and/or Chalice of Mana as well because it pays itself off after your 2nd death (please try not to die a lot). Alternatives for Meditation are usually Blink (when you need to engage with Ares, for example) and Beads (when you do not want to get pulled back by Ares, for example).

Ankh is good at ruining the enemies’ heals during a fight, Phantom Shell is great at running away from Odin’s ulti, and you can also get Aegis if you want to stop yourself from being bursted down.

Before using Meditation, try to ask people to group up (VVVG). The same goes for healing orbs on the map.

First Item to Buy in Assault Game Mode in SMITE

There’s always a lot of fighting regarding item purchase choices some people make in Assault because some players have not yet adopted the concept of how Assault works (inability to go back to the Fountain to heal and buy new stuff without dying).

Buying the right items at the start can significantly help your team to prevail in the first few team fights (which are very important early game), and buying the wrong items can literally hand over the game to the enemy team because you’ve left yourself without a fighting chance intentionally, whether it’s knowingly or unknowingly.

It’s time to stop making excuses. Every team should have both Heartward Amulet and Sovereignty at the start (sometimes even in cases where one damage type doesn’t exist on the other team). If you do not have two tanks, usually an Assassin picks up the slack and buys the item that the tank does not buy, or instead, a Healer Mage picks up Heartward so that the heals can be cast more frequently.

• Heartward Amulet provides some protection from Magical Damage and highly valuable Mana Regen (MP5)
• Sovereignty provides some protection from Physical Damage and highly valuable Health Regen (HP5)

So, let’s say that you square off in a small clash 5v5, nobody dies, and you all fall back to your towers. The team without these two items is now at a disadvantage because time does not work for them.

Buying Gauntlet of Thebes before these two items is incredibly selfish and are bad for the team. Yes, it protects the team when it evolves, but one or two team fights will happen before that point. Naturally, Gauntlet of Thebes is a great third-priority item for tanks. Talisman of Energy is also very useful due to the MP5, Movement Speed, and Attack Speed bonuses, but only after the other three listed items. Other auras, such as Shogun’s Kusari can significantly help your Hunters (and Freya, Chronos…) later down the line, so consider these too if you’re a tank. Pestilence/Contagion is a must when the Healers are in play. Just don’t duplicate auras because they DO NOT STACK.

Tanks usually buy Watcher’s Gift, Warrior’s Axe, or War Flag as their Starter Item, but you can adjust this according to the situation, in agreement with your team.

When it comes to Hunters and Assassins, your first item might be something along these lines:

• Jotunn’s Wrath (Cooldown, Mana)
• Asi (Attack Speed, Lifesteal)
• Qin’s Sais (When there are like three tanks across the board)
• Bloodforge (Poke damage, Lifesteal)
• Rage (When you need that Crit % early)
• Brawler’s Beatstick (When you want to distribute your anti-heal debuff from minute 1)

The starter item is also subject to change, depending on the situation. Still, usually, it might be Bluestone Pendant if you have a lot of poke abilities, Hunter’s Cowl if you want some more Attack Speed, or Warrior’s Axe…

When it comes to Mages, you will mostly build one of these items as your first one:

• Chrono’s Pendant (MP5 and 20% Cooldown Reduction are probably the reason why Chrono’s Pendant is the top pick for most Mages)
• Divine Ruin (When you want to hinder their healing)
• Bancroft’s Talon (For Anubis mostly)
• Pythagorem’s Piece (A fun choice that helps your teammates)
• Soul Gem (Works wonders on Zeus, for example)
• Charon’s Coin (Brutal on Baba Yaga)

In most cases, the Starter Item for Mages can be either Bluestone, Vampiric Shroud, or Conduit Gem. Sands of Time are good on paper, but this item does not pay off in the long run.

Ok, we have arranged our God picks, went and bought our first items and relics; now what?

Assault Early Game Strategy in SMITE

Try to make your purchases as fast as possible and get to the front tower. Often, fights happen before minions spawn, so be ready. Do not leave your teammates hanging by endlessly choosing your first item. It is also obligatory to mention a phenomenon called “Assault Jump Party”. Players often jump repeatedly into the center of the map without damaging each other until minions spawn when everyone starts their peaceful retreat.

This is a character litmus test. Be ready for sudden and underhanded attacks by people who are not accustomed to this tradition, especially from Ares, Xing Tian, and Cerberus, who can’t wait to get an easy pick-up. We’ve seen situations where the Assault Jump Party Pooper™ gets singled out, focused the entire game, and set up for a feed report after the game, so don’t be that person. When minions arrive, everyone’s free game.

• If you are a Tank, hold the front and look for an opening to initiate a fight. If an enemy DPS is out of position, go for it.
• If you are a DPS, sit in the back, try to poke when your abilities are on cooldown, and look for bad positioning of enemy team members.
• If you are a Healer, sit way back, max your Heal abilities (YES, CUPID, THIS MEANS YOU TOO), and look after your teammates.

At 2:00, four Healing Orbs spawn. One is on the main lane wall, the second in the off-lane, and the two between the two towers. Use your VGS to signal a retreat or a group up so that the teammates know what’s happening.

From the moment of picking up the Orb, it will respawn after 2 minutes. This might be hard to track, so try to focus on two middle Orbs. The Pie Chart icon that replaces the Orb icon when Orb is picked up will fill in eight increments of 15 seconds, so you can also spot the last eighth of its cycle and then understand that the Orb is coming in 15 seconds or less.

The philosophy is pretty simple in hindsight, but for someone new to Assault, this might be a nightmare:

• Try to go for the Tower when you win an early-game team fight. Remember: Objectives win games, not kills.
• When you lose an early-game team fight, try to turtle around your Tower until reinforcements arrive.
• If you are getting pushed a lot, or the enemy team is turtling, and you need to tower dive, buy Emperor’s Armor. It’s dirt cheap. If the enemy team is turtling around their Tower/Phoenix, you should Freeze Lane (do not attack minions, wait for the XP). This will either force them to abstain from the camping strategy or lose out on XP and Gold.
• You can identify who you need to focus on by seeing the scoreboard and top player damage.
• If someone in the enemy team is at 0 deaths and has a lot of Gold earned, try not to kill them if possible because they will come back with new items.
• If you are the person with a lot of Gold (3000+) try to die to Tower or Minions when enemy Gods are not nearby (so that you do not give them a kill, accompanied with Gold and XP)
• Let your teammates lifesteal off Minions when there’s the opportunity for this.

Mid and Late Game Strategy for Assault

• If your team did everything right and there’s about 5000 Gold or more in difference in your favor, you will have little problems closing out the game. However, be aware that respawn timers are horrible when the game becomes long (let’s say, over 20 minutes). If your team dies on an enemy Titan, the opponent team may have enough time to sprint to your Phoenix, kill it, and then kill the Titan by the time your first ally respawns. This leads to a lot of comeback wins that seem undeserved, seeing that the winning team has made one mistake and lost the entire match despite dominating for 20 minutes, but it is what it is.
• If you are losing, it’s not the end (until your Titan dies or four people press F6). You can turtle around the Tower/Phoenix and “invite” the enemy team to tower dive you and wait for an opportunity to commit a Deicide and push their Towers and Phoenix. Remain steady and vigilant
• Keep an eye on the Phoenix respawn timers so that you can attack the enemy Phoenix immediately when it respawns, if possible, or jump to your defense and give it time to regenerate.
• If your team is hampered by enemy damage, it’s ok to retreat and grab the Orbs. If you are pushing your opponents, you have three Orbs relatively close to you, which are obtainable by the time the next Minion wave comes.
• If you enter their base and start fighting the Titan with just a few enemy Gods alive: ignore them and focus on the Titan. It is possible to kill Titan and end the game, do not chase kills in that situation; they are worthless. A lot of teams throw a game by chasing kills in such situations.

Related: Top 5 Smite Esports Players of All Time

That’s… Generally it. Even though it looks like a science article (over 2,600 words), these are some of the basics. We hope this helped and that you will find great enjoyment in this crazy random mode in SMITE!