PTS Round 2 sees some adjustments to the masks and Freya's kit. Check it out.
Item Balance
Masks
Masks are intended to be a unique item for gods who want to flex into other classes/roles. We saw in Phase 1 of the PTS that masks were very rarely being used for this reason. Masks were overtuned in some ways (really?), which increased their problems on the PTS (hmmm, go figure), but the SMITE design team feels strongly that we should push Masks further into their intended role let's hear it for the design team!).
For this reason, Masks will now be strictly class locked to be only purchasable by gods who normally do the opposite role of the Mask. For example: Only tanky gods (warriors/guardians) will be able to buy the damage Mask (Rangda's) (time to nerf Cu Chulainn and Achilles again...). Although we might be sacrificing the widespread applications Masks had, we feel this is a safer and more interesting design direction (I guess it sort of is).
This may seem counterintuitive, but this is what enforces the class shift design. We feel that these masks would not be interesting additions to the game, even with their negative stats, if they became core damage items on damage gods. (Or core tank items on tank gods, etc) There are already plenty of items in SMITE that fit that role and we want Masks to be something distinctly different.
To compliment this design. Masks have had their stats and passives heavily adjusted. Please continue to share your feedback about these items as we move through the 5.13 PTS Testing Phases.
Protector’s Mask - Mage/Hunter/Assassin Only
1200g
50 Health
15 Magical Protections
15 Physical Protections
10% CCR
Lono’s Mask - Mage/Hunter/Assassin Only
2500g
100 Health
50 Magical Protections
50 Physical Protections
20% CCR
-25% Damage Dealt
+15% Damage Mitigation
(Had fun the other night playing Nox support in Conquest...this might work out okay.)
Fighter’s Mask - Warrior/Guardian Only
1200g
10 Penetration
20 Physical Power
50 Magical Power
Rangda’s Mask - Warrior/Guardian Only
2500g
15 Penetration
35 Physical Power
70 Magical Power
+25% Damage Taken
+15% ability damage, +20% basic attack damage
(A part of me breathes a sigh of relief, that we won't see insanely OP assassins and mages. That said... Bacchus is whispering in my ear right now that he wants to play really badly.) But does anyone else feel that the stat adjustment is a seriously heavy shift where the positives don't really make up for that negative? And no more triangle of weakness, huh? Now makes you take more damage while boosting your own. Dropped the pen and power down significantly. Eh, this isn't nearly as exciting. How long did it take the design team to think of that triangle, only to have it completely shot down in the first round of PTS?
Messenger’s Mask - Available to all Classes
1200g
10 Physical Power
30 Magical Power
10% Movement Speed
10% CDR
Bumba’s Mask - Available to all Classes
2500g
20 Physical Power
50 Magical Power
20% CDR
+10% damage taken
-10% damage dealt
+35% movement speed
God Balance
Freya
Freya's rework went out a bit...bursty. We love the interaction with Aurora Blades pass through creating multiple explosions when paired with Northern Lights. It provides a solid increase in Wave Clear while allowing well positioned Freya players to find opportunities to punish opponents. However, the explosions dealing full damage was simply too much. Freya players can still deal more damage to enemies around minions, but the extra damage will be much more reasonable.
Additionally, we have a few fixes that should also help her perform more as expected. Outside of fixing some animation and FX issues, Aurora Blades now properly applies effects like Demonic Grip and does not proc items like Soul Reaver.
Mystic Warrior
Now heals off maximum mana / maximum health.
This is better, depending on the %. Guessing the % values stayed the same for now, so this is a nice increase in sustain function.
Northern Lights
Each explosion past the first that hits a god will deal 25% of its total damage.
If hit by 3 explosions, a god would take full damage and then 2 hits that deal 25% of that full damage.
This one confuses me a bit. The explosion radius shouldn't be all that big, and it's a one shot with a decent cooldown. What about any other god with a strong AOE that can hit multiple gods without seeing a decrease in its effect?
Aurora Blades
Fixed an issue where this ability could get into a bad state and fire incorrect animations / FX.
This ability will no longer proc ability based item passives, and will properly proc basic attack based item passives.
Tlaloc, here's the part where that reference of someone's comment has been patched out, as I expected it would. No more proc-ing Mage's Blessing's passive on every hit of ranged Aurora Blades (which would have been absolutely stupid and broken if they kept that). Guessing it's Blades plural, rather than Blade. Meh, will have to adjust that in my Freya guide.
Bug Fixes
Issues with Ethereal Staff mana/health regen now work as intended.
The extra Neith bot has been removed from Jungle Practice Bot area.
Jungle Practice now has the correctly updated buffs
Kaldr now behaves correctly in Jungle Practice
Fixed an Issue with Freya's Ability 2 getting stuck in a bad state
Fixed an issue where red buff was healing too much
Ethereal Staff description updated
Ne Zha passive description updated
Sundering Spear description updated
Lono's Mask description updated
Freya's Passive text description updated
God mode in Jungle Practice now works with more than one player.
Jungle Practice lane minions no longer become immune after time has increased to above 30 minutes.
Unevolved Book of Thoth now gives the correct percentage of mana conversion.
Known Issues
Freya's Ability tooltips are missing updated information
Jungle Practice lane minions will spawn whenever the player leaps
Voodoo pedestal is missing its model
Commendation system is still in progress and will have issues.
Friends Lists, Match History, etc. are missing Queue Names
New skin portraits are displaying as placeholder images
Evolved Book of Thoth grants 1000 mana, but the store UI only shows 100.
From what it sounds like, no. Seems like Aurora is considered a basic attack toggle. You'd have to use Banish or Northern Lights first, then Aurora in ranged or melee could get the bonus damage.
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