Majority of players undervalue movement speed, misunderstanding the strength. More speed means quicker rotations which opens up more farming opportunities. Allows players potential ganking opportunities. Leaps or dashing allows players to avoid incoming damage if timed correctly. Walking faster allows the same thing, able to dodge incoming attacks. Rather frustrating watching somebody dodge everything just from movement. Haste effect which removed basic attack movement speed penalties caused major balance issues. Changes around general movement speed increases the list goes on. Two types of mobility hard or soft, soft mobility is movement speed, hard is anything that quickly moves you. Weird thing most players value both yet don’t fully understand how much it can shape the game.

Mobility with clear is problematic, designers understand this have made changes in the past around this. Increasing general clear or decreasing clear based on how mobile somebody can be. Recent example was golden blade mercury who could one hit camps. High soft movement speed with high hard mobility causes big problems with high clear. Currently smite has very high clear in general, high jungle clear and lane clear. Combine that with high movement speed you don’t have that much risk. Throw in some hard mobility, things start to power creep. I feel like the game has been creeping towards this for some time now. Limited weakness on various gods which just dominate. Strange thing the game has reached weird state of balance around it. I find it rather frustrating to play against high level players who abuse it. Lower level average player is unaware.

Recent changes have reduced the amount of power from Talaria, traveleers shoes or boots. Reducing the power from 20 to 15, should make minor impacts on the middle of the game. Other item players have been abusing is bumba mask. Couple minor price increases for certain movement speed items.

This that enough I don’t know yet…

Been playing Orolrun for last two days, on the face of it the kit is rather simple. Line projectile ability charging it up increase the range, attack speed steroid with stacking element. Heal with knock-up plus protections. Opponents are slowed down, you speed up within a giant square.  

Amount of depth hidden away is quite awe inspiring. Enjoying newest magical attack damage carry or ADC. Last ADC physical hunter released smite 2 years ago. Designers wanted to bridge that gap, magical ADC was designed. One of my biggest complaints for the whole class, similar formula is often used. Leading to each class feeling similar with little to no depth. Often creating cookie cutter formula which is boring. Other games have different attack ranges, various buffs which change everything. I be honest not sure what else they do. Even mage attack damage carries are similar to physical carries. Designers have decided to release new mage ADC. Orolrun freatures new effect which slows down time. Apart from that freatures many older mechanics blended together.

I enjoy playing him which is weird normally hate ADC role. Orolrun requires some serious decision making to play well. Stacking ammo mechanics are nothing new, rama freatures this idea. Linking the idea together with some steroid charge is new. Increasing ability ranges is nothing new, Toth can increase his range. Don’t forget the heal with protection buff with small slow and knock back. Result is Orolrun who forces you to think about every decision. Maybe that a result of the current meta over design. Orolrun makes me think of Skadi, need to think about every decision. Need to be aware how each ability can be used when to use it. How best to control your opponents using the ultimate. Looks simple yet loads of depth across the board. 

Difficult to play in the middle lane due lacking lane pressure. Lack pressure is super important at the moment. Weakness of him immobility mixed with very weak lane clear no crowd control no self peel. Together deadly combo which lets any jungle or mid match up walk over you. Carry role the support can help babysit and patch up any weakness. Still have to be careful but much safer.  Hunters can outbox him until the middle game. Magical carries still don’t win against critical strike hunters. 

Do think some balancing is required mainly fixing the damage bugs which exist. Some minor improvements with some minor changes downwards. Been playing around with various builds focused on attack speed. 

First impressions are good who knows what everybody else thinks. 

Smite picked and banned gods season 6

Decided to queue more ranked with friends over go solo. Climbing back towards platinum, after couple rough games. I been enjoying the grind even with the bad games. Top bans at the moment, King Arthur solo, Merlin Mid, Bakasura jungle, Pele jungle. First two are certain to be banned away. Sometimes Bakasura or Pele goes past the first ban stage. Certain gods I feel are currently underrated examples include Fenrir in the jungle.

King Arthur requires the jungle to camp solo. Forced to buy anti heal forced to invade the blue. Forced to apply pressure making the lane period difficult. One death is not good enough, couple are required to set him behind. Rise of AA junglers maybe this why people don’t like him. Quite frustrating to play against given his sustain and damage output. Team fights can be annoying dealing with him on the back.

Merlin is one strange ban given how the top pick junglers are the moment counter him. Guessing people don’t want to deal with his constant control and damage. Once any jungler sticks to Merlin he can find it difficult to escape.  Quite unsafe compared to certain mages at the moment. Some respects bit like Zeus and Ah puch together.

Bakasura and pele have great matchups against most mid mages at the moment. Result most people end up banning these two gods.  Pele can be countered by anti heal, bakasura hates any crowd control. Can be difficult to stop the snowball given eat minions. Weird world which Ao kuang not picked often at all.

Top picked jungle

• Ratatoskr
• Arachine
• Pele

Name of the game early pressure, arachine weak team fight forces her to pick people off. Build hybrid on Ratatoskr, pele can go hybird making them excellent team fight gods.

Top picked middle lane

• Agni
• Poseidon
• Raijin

Some early pressure with decent middle and excellent control late game in team fights.

Top picks solo lane

• Achilles
• Bellona
• Vamana

Early pressure and enough control for team fights. Main goal is jumping towards the back line.

Top picked supports

• Bacchus
• Kumbhakarna
• Slyvauns

Once again early pressure enough control later on.

Top picked carries

• Xbalanque – Often banned from my experience
• Cernunnos
• Hachiman

Not highest pressure in lane but most are safe enough.

Loads of pocket good picks which exist but the above are common ones.

Smite mages in season 6

At the start of season 6 mage, itemization was changed. Certain core items from the past had big changes. Builds started to see more variety, choices made early had big impacts later. Book of thoth rush now became the mana build. Massive magical power builds disappeared with mages forced to make choices. Separate archetypes now exist very clearly burst builds, cooldown, hybrid and attack speed.  Specializing in whatever strength each mage has to offer. Class now has a home within solo or middle lane. At the moment only two bad choices warlock staff, stone of fal. Warlock staff suffers from lacking value taking long time to stack. Stone of fal just outclassed by other options.

Very brief time playing ranked people like to play.

• Agni
• Anubis
• Hera
• Ra
• Kukukan
• Poseidon
• Scylla
• Vulcan
• Zhong Zui

Traditional burst mages which have some self peel. Odd one out is Zhong zui who likes more hybrid style build. I prefer playing Agni, Kukukan, poseidon and Scylla. Merlin is banned most games with Ao kuang. Jungle offers Ao kuang a home, sometimes solo like morrigan.  Style of play centered around burst and pressure. Not played against hunters yet who are difficult to lane against. Only downside is lacking burst from a traditional mage. Zeus lack of mobility means many don’t touch him. Couple hidden gems like Raijinn, who is not bad at the moment. Most top picks don’t have any form of crowd control immunity. Healing focused mages sort of suck, battle mages do okay. Aphrodite gets bullied in solo, need a team around her.  Jungle likes to pressure solo hard at the moment sometimes. Warriors provide so much pressure. Solo mainly about pressure with certain mages not coping to good against it. The morrigan has a surprising good solo match up. Utility offered by the ultimate outclasses most warriors in terms of team fight. Traditional battle mage Zhong zui offers pressure having sustain to cope. Don’t forget carry mages in duo having quite a bad time. Most being unable to provide pressure or be safe enough. Can still get away with it sometimes. Pressure is the name of the game across most lanes at the moment.

Jormungandr – Smite

Jormungandr newest guardian in smite, world serpent from Norse mythology. Scale of this god not be underestimated, model is massive. Terms of play style aggressive bruiser guardian who causing back line chaos. Passive is interesting combined with strong area of effect crowd control. Crowd control on offer slow, knock ups and some sort of fear. Briefly played solo lane with some arena, feels like natural fit for solo over support. No sustain within the kit which is one weakness. Don’t think his early game is strong enough for duo lane, more a front line bully. Hard to judge how strong the god going to be. Kit wise knock-ups are super valuable with decent team fight powers. I love the general style, audio is fantastic. Designers have made this snake feel interesting.  Much more than just a monster serpent. Minor things which make require a degree of learning.

First impressions are good nothing like the lane terror that is king Arthur. Completely different beast compared to Merlin late game control mage. Worth the wait I would love to thank whoever worked on him.