SMITE: The Best Start of Year 10 Conquest

Year 10 Conquest comes to SMITE, bringing a lot of changes to all the modes, and they almost always change up the starts of Conquest matches.

On Tuesday, January 24^th, the SMITE Year 10 changes hit the live servers! This means that Surtr, the Fire Giant, has become playable for everyone, alongside the new items, the new balance changes and the new Conquest map!

Year 10 Conquest Changes

One of the most important aspects of any Conquest map is the start of the match: where to go, who takes what buffs and in what order, and where everyone starts to lane after the first camps have been cleared. However, the new map has changed things significantly:

• the lanes have become longer, but the distance between the outer turrets got shorther,
• some camps have been removed, such as the small Harpy camps, the Scepter Naga camp and both types of Scorpion camps,
• the Oracles have been promoted to a bigger objective, spawning at the 10-minute mark alongside the Pyromancer,
• and the most important change: the monsters on your side of the map can now be pulled out of their respective camps, and if the aggro is kept up, they will follow you almost indefinitely.

This has opened up new ways to start the matches. Initially, the old Conquest start was the way, as people were a bit slow to test things out in the PTS. This meant that the Support and ADC took the Green, then went to Purple before lane, getting both the buffs before the first wave of minions clashed. The Solo laner took his Blue buff alone, going to lane straight after, and the Jungler and Mid took Speed and Red in any given order, before the Jungler went ahead and helped push some waves in the midlane before contesting the Side Harpies. But players were quick to realize that the longer lanes meant that they had to wait for minions on the sidelane, while the Jungler were bound to midlane for almost a minute before the Side Harpies spawned, doing nothing but playing Support for their Mids.

Some days after the start of the Year 10 Public Test, players have started to exploit the new “pull” mechanic of camps. This led to a far more efficient method of starting out the game, which leads to every member of a team with Level 2 before the minions clash on the wave.

The new best start of Conquest looks something like this:

• On the Solo side of the map, the Mid laner pulls the Red Manticores, the Jungle pulls the Speed Centaurs and the Solo pulls the Blue Satyrs to the Harpy camp in the middle of the triangle, taking them at the same time
  • Make sure to not kill any of the monsters while pulling, but also keep the aggro up, as if they reset, you won’t get Level 2 and the start becomes suboptimal.
  • After the start, the Jungler either makes a quick gank on the Solo lane then immediately goes to Mid to contest the Midlane Side Harpies, or goes straight to mid to get some minions before the Side Camps spawn.

• On the Duo Side, the Support pulls the Green Spirits to the Harpies, while the ADC pulls the Purple Chimaeras to the EXP camp as well, taking them at once, so they get Level 2 before minions.
  • There’s also a variant where the Support pulls the second Speed Centaurs instead of the Green Camp, as that Speed camp falls out of the routes of Junglers, but that means that the Green Buff goes to waste and the Jungler can’t reset his speed, so the main variant is more widely used.

With this start, you can get to your respective lanes with two abilities instead of one, which means twice the tools to defeat your opponents! Make sure to spread the word about the Year 10 Conquest start so more of your teammates will be ready to achieve victories on the Battleground of the Gods!