SMITE — What Your Teammates Will Love About You If You Main Guardian

Note that this is aimed at beginners.

Smite has 5 distinct roles;

• The middle laner — Typically a mage. Can die very quickly but has potential to kill opponents in quick burst with their abilities.
• The Jungler — Typically an assassin. A very deep role but what essentially boils down to consistently travelling around the map providing assistance to all other allies. Most ideal jungler characters can also die quickly but deal high amounts of damage at close range.
• The DPS — Typically a hunter character. Same deal. Low health, but high damage in the form of fast and consistent basic attacks at range. Is normally paired with the guardian at the start of the laning phase.
• The Solo laner — Typically a warrior character. These guys are tanky and can dish out good amounts of damage, while sustaining their health and mana consistenly.
• The Guardian — The role of the hour. They are meant to be pure tanks and played as a support role.

The guardian tends to be a very misunderstood role. In my 9 years of playing SMITE, I have seen many who dispised having to play this very essential role. I have seen others who rejoice in getting this role, yet miss some very essential principles one should follow when playing this tank role.

And this is the first mistake.

Thinking of guardian as a tank role. No, you are the support of your team. The backbone. The one keeping the others alive. Remember, there are typically going to be 3 allies who can die very quickly.

So why is it wrong to think of yourself as the tank? After all, your build should be primarily focused on increasing your armour and your health. But primarily, thinking of yourself as the tank, you might be opting for a style of play which includes you heading head-first into the fight to tank the incoming abilities and attacks from your allies, using your crowd control abilities to stop your enemies in place as soon as you reach them, allowing your allies to unleash hellfury upon them.

Of course, that’s the plan in your mind. It won’t always go as planned though. And if your allies didn’t follow through, you’re now a sitting duck, no abilities to save you if you get targeted. And if you don’t get targeted? The enemies can just rush past you and head for your squishy teammates, leaving you helpless and blamed as everyone dies around you.

The best way to utilize yourself is to think of yourself as the support. Your solo laner — the warrior — should be the one who thinks of themselves as the tank. They can not only resist damage almost as well as you can, but once they are deep into the enemies comfort zones, they can dish out enough damage to be considered the main threat or forcing them to back up a bit.

As the support, your main priority should be to stick close to your mage, hunter, or assassin, following their lead. Your tankiness should be used to shield them from incoming attacks when they GET attacked, not in order for you to SET UP an attack. Furthermore, you should keep your abilities on hold to use them in situations where you are keeping your allies safe rather than wasting them on an attack you’re hoping your allies follow up on.

Think of Khepri. His first ability allows you to dash forward and grab an enemy, pulling them back slowly. Think of what he says. “Get off of them”. This voiceline wouldn’t make much sense if you’re pulling someone you’re chasing. But if your ally is attacked and you manage to pull the enemy off of them? It was meant to be.

Yes there are situations where you need to be more on the offensive side. However as a beginner guardian, those should be thought of the exception. Otherwise you will end up in many situations where you charge forward during the laning phase, successfully stun the enemy, only to have your hunter behind you get ganked by the enemy jungler. You have nothing to save your ally with now. No stun, no dash, no offensive attack to scare the enemy off.

For the main takeaway, you want to focus on thinking of yourself as the support of your allies. Someone who stays close to your allies and uses their kit to protect them, not someone who can withstand all types of attacks and should therefore be first in line. There’s the warrior for that. As a guardian, your main mission is to keep your allies alive. Once this principle is cemented into your reflexes, you’ll notice a lot more praise from your allies, and a lot more fun playing this role.

With this principle in my mind, I’ll be making a list of my top recommended guardians with further insights for beginners and more experienced players who want to delve into this role. Kindly leave a follow so you don’t miss it!