What this page covers
- Every core stat, what it does, and the mistake players make with it
- How stats multiply rather than add — the idea that changes how you build
- What each item slot in a build is actually for
- Where to get current per-item numbers
Why there are no item numbers here
Most item pages are a snapshot: a table of costs, stats and passive values scraped at some point and gradually drifting out of date. That format has two problems. The first is practical — SMITE 2 rebalances items regularly, and a table nobody is maintaining becomes actively misleading rather than merely stale. The second is that the numbers were never the useful part.
What decides a build is the relationship between stats, and those relationships are stable across patches. Penetration will always outperform raw power against a target who has built protections. Aura items will always be more gold-efficient on a god positioned near their team. Anti-heal will always need to be on the field before the enemy's sustain starts deciding fights. Learn those and you can build correctly through any rebalance; memorise a table and you have to relearn it every patch.
Offense stats
Power
Raw damage added to your abilities and basic attacks before the target's mitigation is applied.
Power is the baseline offensive stat, and it is the one most players over-buy. It scales every source of your damage, which makes it feel universally good, but it is also the stat the enemy's protections directly subtract from. Against an opponent with no defensive items, power is excellent. Against an opponent who has built two protection items, each additional point of power delivers noticeably less than the point before it — which is the reason experienced players pivot toward penetration in the mid game rather than continuing to stack power.
Buy it when
- You are ahead in the early game and the enemy has not yet bought defensive items.
- Your damage comes from one large hit rather than many small ones — burst mages gain more from power than sustained-damage gods do.
- You already have sufficient penetration and are looking for the next damage increment.
Skip it when
- The enemy frontline has stacked protections — penetration will outperform it by a wide margin.
- You have no sustain or survivability at all and are dying before you use the damage you bought.
Penetration
Reduces the target's protections before your damage is calculated, making every point of your power worth more.
Penetration comes in two forms and they behave very differently. Flat penetration subtracts a fixed amount of protection, which matters most against squishy targets with low protections — it can represent a large fraction of what they have. Percentage penetration removes a proportion of the target's protections, which scales with how much they have, making it the correct answer to a stacked frontline. The practical rule is that flat penetration is an early and mid-game stat aimed at backlines, and percentage penetration is a late-game stat aimed at tanks.
Buy it when
- The enemy has started building protections, which is usually around the fifteen-minute mark.
- You are an ability-based god whose damage arrives in several ticks — mitigation taxes each tick separately, so penetration compounds.
- You need to threaten the enemy frontline rather than only their backline (percentage penetration specifically).
Skip it when
- It is the opening minutes and nobody has protections worth penetrating — raw power does more in that window.
- You are stacking percentage penetration against a team that has bought no defensive items at all.
Attack speed
Increases how frequently you basic attack, which multiplies every on-hit effect you own.
Attack speed is deceptively powerful because it does not just scale your basic attack damage — it scales every effect that triggers on a hit, including lifesteal, on-hit item passives, and critical strike chances. That makes it a compounding stat rather than a linear one for basic-attack gods. It is also close to worthless on a god whose damage is entirely ability-based, which is why it is one of the most role-dependent stats in the game. The exception worth knowing is a small number of mages whose passives convert ability usage into basic attack damage, for whom attack speed is a primary rather than secondary stat.
Buy it when
- You are a hunter or any god whose damage comes primarily from basic attacks.
- You own on-hit effects — lifesteal, slows, item passives — that each attack triggers separately.
- You are playing a god whose passive converts ability usage into basic attack damage.
Skip it when
- Your damage is entirely ability-based, where cooldown reduction and penetration do the same job better.
- You have high attack speed but no penetration, and your attacks are being fully mitigated.
Percentage-health damage
Damage calculated as a proportion of the target's maximum or current health rather than as a flat number.
Percentage-health damage is the specific answer to a health-stacking frontline, because unlike flat damage it scales with exactly the stat the enemy is buying to survive you. It is a counter-purchase rather than a general-purpose one: against squishy targets with small health pools, a percentage of their health is a small number and a flat damage item would have done more. Whether the effect keys off maximum or current health also matters for timing — maximum-health effects are consistent throughout a fight, while current-health effects are strongest at the start and weakest when finishing a target.
Buy it when
- The enemy has two or more high-health frontliners you cannot burst through with flat damage.
- Your team lacks any other answer to a stacked frontline and fights are stalling out on it.
- You are a frontline god whose job is threatening the enemy frontline rather than reaching their backline.
Skip it when
- The enemy composition is squishy across the board — flat damage and penetration will outperform it.
- You are an assassin whose job is reaching the backline, where percentage damage is the wrong tool.
Defense stats
Protections
Reduces incoming damage of the matching type. Physical protection reduces physical damage; magical protection reduces magical damage.
Protections have diminishing returns in raw numbers but increasing returns in effective health, which is the thing that confuses new players. Going from 0 to 50 protection is a much bigger proportional damage reduction than going from 200 to 250 — but because your health is also growing, the amount of actual damage you can absorb keeps rising. The practical consequence is that protections and health multiply each other: a large health pool with no protections and heavy protections with no health are both inefficient. Buy items that carry both, or buy them in alternation.
Buy it when
- You are taking meaningful damage from a specific damage type — check which enemy is actually killing you before choosing.
- You are a frontline role, where survivability is your contribution rather than a compromise.
- You are ahead and want to convert the lead into being unkillable rather than into marginal extra damage.
Skip it when
- You are stacking one type while the damage killing you is the other — the most common wasted item slot in the game.
- You are a carry with no farm, where a defensive item delays the damage spike your team is waiting for.
Crowd-control reduction
Shortens the duration of stuns, roots, slows and other disabling effects applied to you.
Most deaths in a coordinated game are not caused by a damage deficit — they are caused by being unable to act for two seconds at the wrong moment. Crowd-control reduction attacks that directly, and it is the reason many players find their survivability improves more from one CC-reduction item than from a straight protection item of the same cost. It matters most on gods whose entire contribution depends on executing a specific action at a specific moment: a support who must land a peel ability, a warrior who must stay in a fight, an assassin who must complete a dive.
Buy it when
- The enemy has two or more hard crowd control abilities, which is most standard compositions.
- Your kit depends on a timed action — a peel, a channel, a transformation — that a stun cancels.
- You are dying while unable to act rather than dying to raw damage output.
Skip it when
- The enemy composition is genuinely low on hard crowd control and relies on raw damage instead.
- You have no protections at all — CC reduction does not help if you die instantly regardless.
Sustain stats
Lifesteal
Converts a proportion of the damage you deal into healing for yourself.
Lifesteal is what turns damage output into staying power, which is why it is a lane-phase item on gods who need to survive a losing matchup and a teamfight item on gods who deal damage continuously. It scales with how much damage you deal and how often you deal it, which means it is excellent on sustained-damage gods and much weaker on burst gods who deal all their damage in two seconds and then have nothing to heal from. It is also the stat most directly countered by enemy anti-heal, so its value drops sharply once the enemy adapts.
Buy it when
- You are a carry or a sustained-damage god who needs to farm through a lane you are losing.
- Your kit requires you to be in a fight for its full duration rather than entering and leaving.
- You need lane sustain without giving up an item slot to a purely defensive purchase.
Skip it when
- The enemy has already bought anti-heal — at that point a protection item usually delivers more effective survivability.
- You are a burst god whose damage window is too short to heal meaningfully from.
Utility stats
Anti-heal
Reduces the healing and lifesteal the enemy receives. It is the single most under-bought stat in the game.
Anti-heal is a counter-stat, which means its value is entirely determined by the enemy team's composition rather than by your own. Against a team with a healer, a sustain bruiser, or a lifesteal-stacking carry, one anti-heal item is frequently worth more than any damage item you could buy in the same slot. The timing rule matters more than the item choice: anti-heal has to be on the field before the enemy's sustain starts deciding fights, not after. Buying it reactively after losing three fights to a healer is buying it too late.
Buy it when
- The enemy has any dedicated healer, sustain warrior, or lifesteal-heavy carry — which is most games.
- Nobody else on your team has bought it. Check, rather than assuming somebody else will.
- You are the player most reliably in range to apply it — usually the support, the solo laner, or an area-damage mage.
Skip it when
- The enemy genuinely has no healing at all, which is rarer than it sounds.
- Two teammates have already bought it — the reduction does not usefully stack far enough to justify a third slot.
Cooldown reduction
Shortens the time between ability uses, which effectively increases your total output over a fight.
Cooldown reduction is a damage stat on ability-based gods and a utility stat on everyone else, and its real value is easiest to see on gods whose abilities do something other than damage. On a jungler with a wall, more cooldown reduction means more fights he can start. On a support with a shield, it means covering the second engage as well as the first. On a mage whose ultimate is their contribution, it can mean two impactful ultimates in a teamfight window instead of one. It scales with fight length, so it is worth more in extended teamfights than in short skirmishes.
Buy it when
- Your damage or utility comes primarily from abilities rather than basic attacks.
- Your key ability is a utility tool — a wall, a shield, a cleanse — where availability matters more than magnitude.
- Fights in your games are running long, which multiplies every rotation you gain.
Skip it when
- You are a basic-attack carry whose damage comes from attack speed and critical strikes instead.
- You are already at the cap and additional sources are doing nothing.
Aura items
Items that apply their effect to nearby allies or enemies rather than only to the holder.
Aura items are the reason support itemization looks so different from every other role. A protection aura on a support gives its value to four other players simultaneously, which makes the same gold buy several times more total survivability than it would on a carry. The corollary is that auras are only efficient on a god who is reliably near their team — an aura item on a split-pushing assassin is close to wasted gold. Enemy-facing auras follow the same logic in reverse: they need you inside the enemy team to function, which is a positional commitment, not just a purchase.
Buy it when
- You are a support or frontline god who is reliably positioned near teammates during fights.
- Your team has multiple squishy damage dealers who benefit from the shared protection.
- The aura's effect is one your team otherwise lacks entirely — anti-heal auras being the clearest case.
Skip it when
- You are a split-pusher or roamer who is rarely near the teammates the aura would benefit.
- A teammate already carries the same aura — most do not stack usefully.
What each build slot is for
A build has a stable part and an adaptive part, and most players treat the whole thing as stable. The early slots address your god's structural needs, which are properties of the god and can be planned. From the fourth slot onward, a build that ignores the match in front of it is leaving value on the table.
- Starter item
- Solve the first ten minutes: sustain, clear speed, or lane pressure. Starter items are role-defined rather than god-defined. A jungler wants clear speed, a support wants a way to generate gold without taking farm, a solo laner wants sustain, and a carry wants enough of both to survive a lane they do not control. Choosing a starter that fights your role's actual problem is worth more than choosing one with better raw stats.
- First core item
- Fix your god's primary structural weakness before you improve their strength. This slot is where players most often go wrong by buying damage on a god whose problem is not damage. An immobile mage's first item should usually address survivability or sustain; a hunter's should address farming safety. The build's job at this point is to get you to the mid game with your farm intact, not to win a fight at minute eight.
- Second and third items
- Convert the god's identity into game impact — this is the real power spike. By the second and third items your god should be doing the thing they are for: a burst mage should be able to delete a squishy, a guardian should be able to survive an engage, a carry should be threatening in a teamfight. This is also the point where penetration should be entering the build for damage dealers and where protections should be entering for frontliners.
- Fourth item
- Answer the enemy composition specifically. The fourth slot is where a good build stops being generic. Look at what is actually killing you and what is actually surviving you: anti-heal against sustain, crowd-control reduction against lockdown, percentage-health damage against a stacked frontline, an anti-crit item against a crit carry. A default fourth item is a wasted opportunity.
- Fifth and sixth items
- Maximise the thing your team is winning with, or cover the thing it is losing to. By the late game your role in the team's win condition is clear. If your team wins by protecting a fed carry, the last slots should protect them. If you are the fed carry, the last slots should let you survive the focus you will receive. Late items should be decided by the game state, not by a build guide written before the game started.
- Relics
- Cover a gap your item build cannot. Relics answer problems items do not: escaping a lockdown, closing a gap instantly, cleansing a crowd control effect, or reducing incoming damage for a moment. The most common relic mistake is holding the default choice into a game where a different one was clearly correct — against a god whose ultimate is a single hard crowd control effect, a cleanse is frequently the highest-value button in your loadout.
Frequently asked questions
Should I buy power or penetration first?
Power first while the enemy has no protections, penetration once they start building them — usually around the fifteen-minute mark. The two multiply rather than add, so one of each almost always outperforms two of either. If you are unsure, look at whether your damage on the enemy frontline has noticeably dropped off; that drop is the signal to pivot to penetration.
When is anti-heal worth an item slot?
Any time the enemy has a dedicated healer, a sustain bruiser, or a lifesteal-stacking carry — which covers most games. The more important question is when to buy it, and the answer is earlier than feels comfortable. Anti-heal has to be on the field before the enemy's sustain starts deciding fights. Check whether a teammate already has it before committing a second slot, because it does not usefully stack.
Why do supports build aura items instead of damage?
Because an aura applies its effect to four teammates at once, the same gold buys several times more total value on a support than it would on a carry. A protection aura on a support who is reliably positioned near their team is one of the most gold-efficient purchases in the game. The catch is positional: the aura only pays off if you are actually near the people it is meant to help.
Is crowd-control reduction worth building over protections?
Often, yes — particularly on frontline gods. Most deaths in a coordinated game come from being unable to act for two seconds rather than from a raw damage deficit. If you are dying while stunned rather than dying while fighting, crowd-control reduction will improve your survivability more than an equivalent protection item.
How do I know which protection type to buy?
Check the damage breakdown on the death recap rather than guessing from the enemy composition. The most commonly wasted item slot in the game is physical protection bought because the enemy jungler looks fed, when the damage that actually killed you came from their mid laner. Buy against what is killing you, not against what looks threatening.
Do these concepts change every patch?
The specific numbers do — item costs, stat values and passive effects are adjusted regularly. The interactions described on this page do not: penetration will always outperform power against a built target, auras will always be more efficient on a god positioned near their team, and anti-heal will always need to be bought before it feels necessary. For current per-item numbers, check in-game or the official patch notes.