Thoughts on Soul Reaver?

I forgot they presented this as a new item a few patch notes back. What is the strength of the item and what gods benefit from this greatly?

The problem with this item, as in all smite, is smite doesn't have 'active items' like League of Legends does, for example. This item is effectively a Deathfire Grasp, but you can't choose when to activate it, and as such, something as simple as a Ra's Solar Blessing could trigger it, and then it's on CD for 60 seconds with no way to choose.

As such, the benefit is an all-in type of god. A god who, when you use your abilites, you're going for the kill. Champions that would benefit from this are Anubis provided you don't poke with your Grasping Hands, as when they are coccooned into a Plague of Locusts or Death Gaze, it's basically a kill, Freya, because freya, and Chronos, because his ball will trigger the item, then they're stunned while you have the speed to catch anyone and everyone, just to name a few. Basically, if it's going to be triggered by poke that you don't want it to -- Tornadoes, Whirlpool, Chain Lightning, Solar Blessing -- you probably don't want it.

The only exception to this is assault, if they don't have a healer, as all damage becomes permanent, and putting down a very easy Solar Blessing is an instant 15% damage on someone that is effectively permanent. If they have healers, I caution this strategy, as the healing may undo this 15% damage and make your item a useless 100 MP and that's IT, item, compared to a 100 MP item with a nasty active.

TL;DR Choose for all in gods, never gods with poke unless assault with no heals.

i like how powerfull it is even though its very expensive. its kinda like the second cataclisme item for mages right behind Rod of Tahuti.

it works best of instant damage abilitie gods like hebo (which is why i use it in my first guide). but for those gods with ticks i like it less exept on gods who put a tick on the enemy and then do something burst (think of agni and overgrown fish boy).

on gods who soly have ticks like anubis i is just a bit of extra damage hidden somewhere in your ticks and there are items who can help you better in that case.

that are my 2 bucks on it.

It's a very strong item, it's an ideal item for bursty mages such as Agni and Zeus. It may have the long 60 second cooldown, but that's because the passive is insanely strong on bursty mages if the active was always on, mages would be pretty over powered.

Let me do some math though, as some people take this over things like Polynomicon

Assuming 500 magic power, and this is a VERY LOW number at full build (note that as Magic Power increases, Polynomicon scales, whereas Soul Reaver scales off health).

Polynomicon Auto attack = 100% + (.35 x 100%) = 1.35x your magic power.

This is 675 damage on an auto attack, at a very weak build.

Assume 2k health for Carry/Mage (very generous), 4k health for tank (very, very, very generous)

.15 x (2,000 // 4,000) = 300/600.

This means that no matter how much health you have, a Polynomicon, on a 2 second cooldown, will always do more damage than Soul Reaver, on a 60 second cooldown. This is not even factoring in the ability to waste it on a dot like Tornadoes, the ability to scale even harder than 500 MP (which with Rod of Tahuti is ridiculously possible]], the fact that it's very rare to achieve these health numbers, and the fact you can't choose when to activate it.

IMO, Soul Reaver is simply not as viable a pick up as other items, as the damage applies to only one singular target, whereas other abilities, such as Polynomicon, can apply to many.

Now obviously some people will be taking both of these items, but it's just an example to show how futile this item is in comparison to others. 300 damage on a carry is not worth a 60 second cooldown. Note that this is bonus damage, and not true damage, so this doesn't even factor in protections, which make this number increasingly useless as compared to other, constant effects.

How long does Soul Reaver Last for? It doesn't tell you the duration.

For example if you are Anubis and do ticking damage does it only do damage for one tick then it stops?

It doesn't really say how long the effect last.

The way I look at it, the Soul Reaver works best if you're going for a tanky mage/magical bruiser build, since it's bonus damage is always the same 15% off the enemy's HP, no matter how much magical power you've built. A Polynomicon, however, relies on the user having lots of magical power to be effective, and pretty much demands a Rod of Tahuti to be dangerous.

What do you mean, how long does the effect last? It occurs on your first ability damage on a god. If you use Grasping Hands and it did 1 damage, it would proc the Soul Reaver. And then it goes on CD. It's always 15% no matter what.

True enough, but most mages, no matter how tanky they are, will have a Rod of Tahuti and some magic power - or they're practically useless as a mage. The only exception I can think of is Hel, who isn't made for her damage anyway, so I suppose she's a good fit with it.

I'd argue against it with any full mages, though. It's just my preference, personally.