Season 5 Starts: A Guide with Trixtank

The vast changes that happened at the start of Season 5 have affected every aspect of the game, but especially in the way the game flows. Something that was criticized last season, HiRez made sure that for Season 5 the amount of snowball present in the game was decreased and that the game felt more even at all points. However, this does mean everything you knew about the flow of the game is out of date, which could lead to nasty situations where your enemy outmatches you just by having a better understanding of how the game works right now.

One of the most important factors is how your games start. No matter what lane and role you choose, the way you start any game of Smite very often dictates how that game will go. To help with this guide on Season 5 starts, we asked our star support Jeppe “Trixtank” Gylling to give some insight and to provide us with the best tips to help you stay on top.

Laning and Stacking

The main thing Season 5 has provided in almost all aspects of Smite is variety. As Trixtank puts it, “There is way more starts because there is more farm on the map, which not only creates more starts but it also removes the snowball that came from winning lane with high pressure gods."

So not only has the main strategy from Season 4 been dethroned, but many others have become more viable. This is due to the vast amounts of farm present on the map, as mentioned by Trixtank. This, combined with the fact that leveling in the early game has been significantly slowed means that there is a lot more time spent in the early game and therefore a lot more leeway for you to explore new strategies.

Gods like Athena really suffered in Season 4, as they couldn't keep up with the pace of the game. The slower pace of Season 5 has brought them back into the meta.

For example, in the duo lane, hitting level 2 can take up to 3 waves, which means that level 1 fights which previously only lasted about 30 seconds now last minutes, putting more emphasis on your positioning and ability to fight with just one ability at your disposal.

The addition of a large amount of stacking passives to items was made to incentivize laning and to extend the mid game. This is also evident in the replacement of starter items with Blessings, which feature quest-like passives requiring you to build stacks.

Starter items changed into blessings with Season 5, mostly staying the same except gaining stacking passives to promote staying in lane. Mage's blessing is one of the strongest, and is picked up in multiple roles, not just in mid

While these may seem like a big change Trixtank doesn’t think so. “It has not really changed anything, but they were way too good early and the fact that you have to stack them makes it worse early game but better mid game.”

So overall, these “starter items” are just like the old ones except they’re more valuable for longer. Out of all of them, Trixtank values one above all else. “Guardian’s Blessing is insane. It is actually better than before and it was already good in Season 4. You get more gold, the protection is great, and the fact that you don’t have to do anything for the gold once you have it fully stacked is crazy in my opinion.”

The Jungle

The starter items combined with how many other items now have stacking passives means that the laning phase has been extended significantly and early game rotations are becoming rarer and rarer.

As well as this, the vast amounts of farm in the jungle allows the jungler to remain almost exclusively in the jungle, especially as the camps are also on ridiculously short respawn timers now.

Season 5's camps are stronger and spawn a lot more, so while they are harder to kill they also grant a lot more experience overall

This also benefits every other lane, as Trixtank says, “Finally the duo lane is a real duo lane and you get some proper 2v2 action. Furthermore, the jungle is more like a jungle: you want to stay in the jungle rather than farm in solo for 50% of the time like you did in Season 4”.

The bounty in the jungle has even opened up potential double jungler strategies, with supports picking more damage based characters and farming from the duo side of the jungle in the early game, letting your ADC have valuable solo farm to get them ahead. This new kind of supporting is still in its infancy and its experimental nature makes it a risky but fun choice.

Aggression

A common misconception is that with laning being so dominant, early game aggression would take the back foot. However, this is simply not true. Trixtank says, "Early game aggression is stronger than ever. The solo lane is a real solo lane, where the jungle isn’t there for 1000 years, which means they are actually brawling again. It’s the same for the duo lane, so even though the early game and getting levels online are slow, there is still more aggression."

For players more used to always having backup, this experience might be a bit of a shock. Being forced to fight alone means outplaying and positioning are put at the forefront of the Season 5 early game, so mastering these skills are more important than ever before. However, the good news is that kill and assist bounties mean a lot less now, so dying won't put you as far behind as it did in previous seasons. Overall, if you enjoy early game brawls, this meta is for you.

Furthermore, ganks in general are less prevalent according to Trixtank. "The map is way bigger, so this makes it harder to predict ganks but it also makes ganks more uncommon, because they have to rotate so far."

Season 5's map is vastly bigger, so rotations and ganks takes a lot longer. Wards are just as important though if not more, due to the fact that there are more pathways

This does not diminish the strength of early game wards, however, as the bigger map makes it even more important for you to know where your enemy is going, especially during the volatile early game.

This volatility is contributed in part by the delicate balancing act of lane pressure and clearing your jungle. This is especially true for the duo lane, as leaving the lane at the wrong time could lead to huge consequences. With the buffs taking longer to kill in the first few levels, good timing is key to make sure you farm efficiently.

As Trixtank says, "The jungle camps early game are pretty weak, so it has not really changed anything other than you rarely get buffs. You pretty much only get them when you have the pressure or if your support starts in the jungle."

Starting as Support

Moving on to support specific tips, as support starts have always been the most complex and Trixtank has always been known as a master of them. At the end of Season 4, the meta heavily favoured supports rotating off early and moving all around the map, collecting farm as they went. This was made possible by the small size of the Season 4 map.

However, with the enlarged map and the slower game, this has changed drastically. Trixtank says, "Right now rotating [...] is never worth it and you have to get Gauntlet online ASAP. Camping and babysitting your adc is usually the thing you want to do, but every time you have to ward up, it is fine to show some presence in the mid lane." 

Trixtank mentioned it already, But Gauntlet of Thebes is the support item right now. "Gauntlet of Thebes is something you want to get as early as possible, since getting it fully stacked is super important and a HUGE power spike. That would be the one item I would get online as quickly as possible."

 Thebes has so many stats and its stacks are so valuable that not building it first is a huge waste.

The days of building aura items first every time is long gone. Season 5 has really diversified the support build and Gauntlet of Thebes is at its core, with its good all round stats allowing you to branch out into any kind of support build.

Objectives

Another point of interest when it comes to starts is map objectives. In the early game, a big map objective like the gold fury can give you a commanding lead. However, that has changed drastically.

Trixtank says, "Early Gold Furies are not really that good to go for. They don’t give too much and it is a big risk to lose your jungle or players for it, which will not be worth it. So you want to wait until later on when the gold earnings are bigger as well for the Gold Fury to go for it."

The Gold Fury received huge changes, becoming harder to kill and less valuable in the early game, deincentivising snowball.

Simply put, the Gold Fury is a big risk and right now, the reward is not great enough to warrant going for it early. However, if your ADC rushes crit and lifesteal early on, it can definitely become a possibility, but should still be treated with care.

A map objective that's become a lot more complicated since Season 5 is the Gold Fury Oracles. According to Trixtank, "They are one pain in the ass and almost impossible to clear in the early game, so if you don’t have insane clear in the duo lane and win it super hard, you don’t want to go for them in the first five minutes of the game."

The Gold Fury Oracles used to be easy pickups that guaranteed Gold Fury vision throughout the early phases of the game. However, with these changes, they're becoming an actual objective to fight over and as Trixtank mentioned, not really viable before the five minute mark.

As well as their new scary look, the Oracles became scarier in general, as they are now tankier and harder to take.

Final Words

According to Trixtank, the main cause of losing early game is not knowing your matchup.

"If you will lose pressure HARD and possibly lose your red buff to the duo lane, you need to do a different start. Losing two buffs and Oracles will put you really far behind, so either start mid or jungle as support."

By far the most important component to any start is looking at the enemy team and adapting to what they can do. If your start directly counters what they're attempting to achieve, victory for you is almost guaranteed.

I hope you found this guide helpful and I hope it makes you win more games. Thank you to Trixtank for his vital input and thank you for reading!