Balancing Discussion: The Real Deal

We have to get through the buffs and nerfs first friend, he's in the "Tweaks" category :P

Mercury needs a change. He has the problem of being an excellent god early game, while also having one of the most devastating late games in the game.

His passive needs a damage reduction, by either increasing his physical power by 25%, or adding 50% of his physical power to his next basic attack as bonus, rather than innate, damage, because this is the source of his insane crit damage late game. You can easily reach 1.2k damage with a full build, more with things like Red Buff or FG Buff or Speed Buff.

His Made You Look is again, one of the best ranged skills in the game. There are concerns about its range, damage, width, or the fact that a melee assassin gets one of the best ranged skills in the game.

Suggestions:
- Reduce range from 75 feet max to 60 feet max. Or 55 feet max, ideally.
- Reduce damage?
- Reduce radius, although I personally think 15 feet is alright, comparing it to other skillshots. Maybe 10 feet?

Maximum Velocity: Some have also suggested nerfing this ability, in order to reduce his late-game scalings. I'm a bit iffy on that.

Suggestions (Nerfs):
- Reduce attack speed to 50% at max rank.
- Reduce to 60% at max rank.
- Duration is 3 seconds at all ranks.

Suggestion: (Compensations):
- Make Merc lose unit collision with this.
- Passive move speed bonus is doubled.
- Duration is flat 5 seconds at all ranks.

Special Delivery: This ability is just so, so strong early game. It is what makes his ganks incredibly effective at any point in the game, and is just an incredibly strong ability.

Suggestions:
- Rework into a straight stun.
- Reduce stun duration and increase post-hit delays.
- Make it blockable by minions.
- Make Merc slowed when he hits minions.
- Reduce dash length.

There is also a rework idea for Made You Look; converting it into a melee skill (8/11/14/17/20 feet). Compensation Suggestions:
- You teleport to the last god hit.
- You are untargetable for 0.3 seconds.

I got a small why on this. but on the other side I get why the silence and the heal (and maybe the axe damage early game) still when this happens other warriors need to get uffs I only see hercs tyrs chaacs and osirises in conq

Oh sorry, I misunderstood how we went about the order.

np, but I would like to suggest that we do Guan next, since he seems like a character that would be fun to change.

I have the perfect idea for Guan Yu: Make him a Guardian again, give him his old scalings (not release scalings cause that was ridiculous), and replace Cavalry Charge with Tactician's Advantage.

Nope. Jordon uses **** block:

Its super effective!

Can we do Cupid next then? You did skip him after all.

So since we have to wait for him to come back for Guan Yu the current order will now be:











I'm assuming?

Yup. Sorry about the delay.

So...Cupid. He's somewhere between the worst and the most mediocre ADC.

His problems are:
- Low Damage. Cupid does not deal a lot of damage compared to other ADCs. This point cannot be overstated. His ability burst is only average now, his attack speed steroid is tied to his escape, limiting its use, and, like, seriously, he deals pathetic damage in comparison to other ADCs at any point except early-mid game.

- Everything Falling Off: NOTHING but ability damage scales with this guy, and even that is average or above-average, at best. None of his CC gets stronger, and therefore, Cupid can be seen as the worst late game ADC, bar none. Even Neith is better than him late game, due to her utility NOT falling off, NOT being easily countered, and generally having higher ability damage to start with. And speaking of which...

- Easily Countered: Sprint just hurts him badly. Cupid MUST use his ultimate as part of his burst, as he has no other damaging abilities. Which means, like magi's blessing against Artemis, Cupid is completely shut down by this one item.

- Poor Waveclear: In the push-dominated duo lane of Smite, Cupid has worse waveclear than Artemis, on top of no poke, which makes him bad at his own niche; the laning phase.

His Okay Points Are:
- Has an Escape: But since pretty much every ADC has an escape now, this isn't as much of a pro as it is a "certification of not complete worthlessness."

- Sort of Safe Laning Phase: Like, he does have a stun, healing, and a good escape, but only the latter is instant and Cupid is outclassed in all but sustain nowadays.

His strong points are:
- Good Ability Damage: Despite having only two damaging abilities, combined with his passive, that is enough to give him a significant amount of ability burst, a massive 941.2 (+312.4% of your physical power). Unfortunately, this pales in comparison to the more recent ADCs due to the influx of Power Creep in the game; compare to Ullr's possible 860 (+300% of your physical power) (+50 power from steroid) or AMC's burst, which is impossible to record due to the passive, but deals a **** ton of damage, or even Neith's possible 1540 (+600% of your physical power).

- Sustain: Cupid gets a lot of both health sustain, and the only mana sustain in the game for ADCs. Unfortunately, this falls off rather badly mid game, but it serves its role of in-lane sustain admirably.

- Early CC: Sadly, Cupid has fallen from the glory days of being the only ADC with hard CC in their basic kit. However, this is still a strong point, albeit conditional: All of Cupid's hard CC has a significant delay, which means he can't peel for himself and enemies can reposition themselves, especially with Improved Sprint.

This is just a bad passive. It's less of a damage boost and more of a limitation Cupid needs to bypass in order to deal any sort of damage or CC at all. It's a gate which needs to be turned into a REAL bonus. Also, the stun time needs to scale.

It's an okay ability, I guess, but it contributes to his poor waveclear, and while its damage as GREAT for ONE skill, the main problem is that he has no other damage skills besides his ultimate, which puts a damper on things.

This is actually a good ability that does its job right, but it falls off drastically, and sharply limits its utility because HiRez apparently has no idea what a buff is.

An escape with nothing significant attached other than a barely meaningful attack speed steroid and move speed buff, that would only apply if you, for some reason, pop an escape and then turn around to fight back or chase. It's effectively a dash that does nothing else.

This is the source of Cupid's feared level 5 burst. It also provides him with a good amount of teamfight utility and AoE damage, but both the damage and the CC fall off, not to mention how everyone gets Sprint, (not to mention how people can just walk out of it) making this ultimate virtually useless late game exceot for the AoE slow and cripple. I kid you not, the slow and cripple become the best part of this ability.

How about his heart bomb goes through minions and only sticks on gods?