The Skill Involved in Smite's Skill Shots

While there are a lot of skill shots in Smite, there are also lots of non-skill shot abilities to help balance everything out. If there were only skill shot based abilities, gods would be too difficult to play. What are the effects of non-skill shot abilities on Smite gameplay?

Let’s first take a look at what makes a skill shot a skill shot. A skill shot is comprised of two parts: the size of the target and the speed at which the attack deploys. An easier skill shot will have a larger targeter and a faster response time. Gods who are easier to play, like Neith, Arachne, and Chang’e, have abilities that are very easy to hit or non skill shot abilities. Gods who are harder to play, like Chronos, Ne Zha, and Anhur, have more difficult skill shots that require more coordination. Their skills will typically have smaller targeters, have delayed or different response times, or need to be used in combination with their other abilities in order to land.

Chronos's Time Rift has a small radius, and a delayed effect. Typically Time Rift is used in conjunction with his Stop Time ability.

 

There are quite a few non-skill shot abilities in Smite as well. There include healing abilities, radius abilities, self buffs, pet abilities, global ultimates, and AOE abilities.

 

Healing
None of the group healing abilities are skill shots, including Cupid’s Spread the Love, Hel’s Inspire, Guan Yu’s Conviction, among others. This is possibly to increase the likelihood that the healing will actually heal allies when needed, as the healing ability will not be a difficult skill shot that needs to be aimed. While most of these healing abilities do not benefit from also dealing damage to the enemy, Chang’e’s Moonflower Dance and Hel’s Inspire/Repulse are the exceptions. Aphrodite’s Birds of Love also deal damage to enemies, but because Chang’e and Hel’s abilities are not skill shots, Aphrodite cannot keep up with them. Birds of Love is a harder to land than either of those two abilities. 

 

Radius
Radius abilities, such as Apollo’s Serenade, Zhong Kui’s Recall Demons, Ares’s No Escape, and others originate around the god itself and are not skill shots, as the enemy needs only to be near the god to be affected by those abilities. These abilities can make a god very strong or help the god become more of a competitive pick. The radial quality of their ultimates is what makes Zhong Kui and Ares such strong picks, as aiming is not needed while channeling their ultimates. Having an ultimate ability a guaranteed hit is extremely powerful.

Self Buffs
Self buffs are abilities that increase a god’s movement or attack speed, defenses, or damage. These types of abilities are typically given to characters who have many more skill shots, such as Ne Zha, Thanatos, and Chronos.

 

Global Ultimates
Global ultimates, such as Neith’s World Weaver, Athena’s Defender of Olympus, and Xbalanque’s Darkest of Nights are not skill shots and activate directly on enemies and allies. Both of these abilities are a guaranteed to hit unless the target dies before the effect is applied.

Pets
Pets are also another form of non-skill shot abilities. These include Arachne’s Broodlings, Artemis’s Calydonian Boar, Nu Wa’s Clay Soldiers, and Bastet’s Cat Call, which automatically target an enemy when placed. Because of the autonomous nature of these abilities, these abilities are typically a guaranteed hit. In team fights, these abilities can be extremely useful, as they will move from target to target and can continuously affect the team fight.

Large AOE Abilities
Finally, there are AOE abilities: an ability that a god places that covers a large area. These abilities include Ao’s Tornados, Agni’s Rain Fire, Zeus’s Lightning Storm, among others. These abilities do not have to be aimed as much as some of the other abilities do, as they rely on covering a large area for the ability to be affective. In team fights, these abilities can give a large advantage and zone out the enemy team without need for aiming.

 

Part of what makes a god viable can be the difficulty of the skill shots in the kit. Arachne was made a viable god primarily by making her ultimate, Cocoon, an easier skill shot. Making her ultimate much easier to hit combined with her other non skill shot abilities, Broodlings and Drain Life, allowed her to soar to the top of the pick and ban charts. Her two non-skill shot abilities are guaranteed to hit, and allow Arachne to isolate a single target into two guaranteed abilities with high damage and sustain. Counting the amount of abilities that are guaranteed on a certain god can help determine the strength of a god.

 

Comparing a few other gods with very similar kits can also illustrate the importance of skill shots.

Ra and Ao Kuang have almost identical kits; each kit consists of a straight line skill shot, a self buff, an circular AOE ability, and a long straight line ultimate. Ao Kuang however, is seen much more in both ranked and casual and is considered viable, while Ra is not considered viable, even when all his abilities do damage and he has a heal. However, what keeps Ao Kuang ahead is the cast times and recast times on his abilities are far superior to Ra's. Ra’s Celestial Beam travels slower than Ao Kuang’s Squall does, and the cast time for his ultimate does not have a similar linear quality to it like Ao Kuang’s Spirit’s Tempest does. Because the cast times on Ao Kuang’s abilities seem to be more responsive and reliable, Ao Kuang is generally considered more viable than Ra is.

Another god who has fallen out of favor partially because of skill shots, or the rather the lack thereof, is Aphrodite. Before considered a great pick for dual lane support, Hel and Chang’e have outshone her both in the role of the healing support and as a solo laner. Chang’e and Aphrodite have remarkably similar kits as well, consisting of a self/group heal, invincibility, a stun, and a damaging ability. However, where Chang’e outshines Aphrodite is in Chang’e’s cooldowns and lack of skillshots. In order for Birds of Love to do damage, Aphrodite has to aim them at an enemy while accounting for the travel time of the doves. To heal someone, she has to aim her Kiss at the friendly god, and has to stay connected with her ally while she casts her heal. This is much more effort than Chang’e’s Moonflower Dance, which is an huge AOE around Chang’e, which heals any ally (including minions) and damages any enemy standing near her. Chang’e benefits from her Moonflower Dance having the characteristics of a non-skill shot heal, while still dealing damage to any enemies around her. Chang’e’s one ability seems to have qualities of both Aphrodite’s Back Off and Birds of Love, as well as being a much more convenient way to heal and damage multiple units, while also being on a much shorter cooldown.

Comparing these three goddesses' healing and damaging abilities, Hel and Chang'e's abilities have a much larger radius than Aphrodite's, making them easier to hit than Aphrodite's. As such, Hel and Chang'e are widely considered a much more viable pick than Aphrodite is, and can be more effective in team fights. 

It seems that one good way to balance gods is simply to balance the amount and variety of skill shots and non-skill shots a god has. Changing the way an attack is deployed can drastically change a god’s strength, as shown with Chang’e and Aphrodite. Another way Hi-Rez can reintroduce slightly outdated gods is by decreasing the cooldowns durations on their abilities. This will allow a higher chance of connected abilities, which will increase the damage output of that character. For some gods, like Thor, decreasing the amount of cooldowns on his abilities helped make him a more competitive pick. Determining the abilities that a god relies on the most and then reassessing the cooldown, the size or speed of the targeter, or the skill involved in a skill shot can make overpowered gods less strong and underpowered gods strong again.

Non-skill shot abilities do make Smite easier to play. They make certain characters strong and other characters a viable pick. While non-skill shot abilities do take some luck out of the game, they are nonetheless useful, and typically counterable with Purification Beads or Aegis Amulet or Pendent. Choosing mages with more non-skill shot abilites and large AOE abilities can help your team win teamfights, like Zeus, Agni, Ao Kuang, etc. Popular assassins who have less skill shots include Fenrir, Arachne and Mercury. Tanks who also have less skill shots include Athena and Bacchus. One common factor with all of these top tier picks is that they have less skill shots than the other characters of those classes. Because these characters are slightly easier to deal damage on and are generally more consistent, these characters are either banned or top priority picks. It is not to say that other characters are not as powerful in the right hands, but it simply takes more skill to use them. 

Who truly puts the skill into a skill shot however, is the player behind the screen itself. A talented player can change the tides of a team fight no matter which god he plays. Sometimes it is the most unlikely characters who carry the game, it is the moments of beautiful execution that turn the game around.

As always feel free to leave me comments below or tweet me @SunniZepha on what your opinion on Smite’s skill shots are! Thanks for reading and please feel free to check out my other articles!

Cover artwork by Kala.