Patch 5.19, "Queen of the Gods" - Bran's Thoughts

Link to the official patch notes is (going to be) here:


This is another very tame patch, as they're gearing up for the upcoming tournament. Though, I completely missed the part about Hera being released this patch.

A shout out to some of those skins...the Scylla dino costume one is rad, as is the Merc anime one.


Hera: Queen of the Gods


Passive: Commanding Presence

• Each time Hera deals damage to gods while Argus is inactive, Argus’ cooldown is reduced. While Argus is active, each time Hera deals damage to gods Argus is healed for a flat amount, scaling based on Hera’s Level.
  
  Cooldown per hit: 1s
  Argus Heal: 20 + 5 per level
  
  70 second CD, with 1 second reduction per damage on enemy gods = freaking low. Guess Argus' damage isn't all that much per hit (though the scaling is pretty strong), so maybe it's okay (it's not, this is a release god).

Ability 1: Royal Assault

• Hera damages enemies in a cone in front of her before opening a portal for Argus to attack through. Enemy minions hit by this cone are knocked into Argus’ path. Argus then slams his fists at the target location dealing heavy damage. If both of his fists connects with an enemy, it deals 15% extra damage.
  
  Ability: AoE
  Affects: Enemies
  Range: 45
  Cone Damage: 30/40/50/60/70 (+15% of your Magical Power)
  Fist Damage: 75/120/165/210/255 (+75% of your Magical Power)
  Cooldown: 10s
  Cost: 55,60,65,70,75
  
  Wave clear ability. Very nice if comboing with a teammate's CC to get that fist damage.

Ability 2: Polymorph

• Hera weaves magic in front of her before sending it out. Enemies hit by this ability take damage. If this ability hits a god it causes their form to shift into a monster.
  
  Ability: Line
  Affects: Enemies
  Range: 80
  Damage: 60/105/150/195/240 (+75% of your Magical Power)
  Polymorph Duration: 1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8/2s
  Cooldown: 14s
  Cost: 60
  
  Basically a light version of Cernunnos' ult, but cast in a line instead of a circular AOE. In DV-8's words when he was checking this out: "hahaha, wwwwhAT is THIS?"

Ability 3: Divine Shroud

• Hera shrouds herself in her divine power, granting her a shield from damage and temporary movement speed that lasts as long as the shield remains. If Argus is active, Argus shines with the same Divine power as Hera, causing him to deal radiant damage and move at an increased rate.
  
  Ability: Shield and Buff
  Affects: Self
  Shield Health: 50/100/150/200/250 +15 per Hera’s Level
  Shield Duration: 5s
  Movement Speed: 15%
  Argus Aura Damage: 7/11/15/19/23 (+7.5% of your Magical Power)
  Argus Speed: 50%
  Cooldown: 16s
  Cost: 45/50/55/60/65
  
  A sort of Nemesis-y shield (no healing thank goodness), with a boost of speed for the duration it's up, and a nice Cu Chulainn / Mystical Mail damage aura interaction with Argus. Argus is starting to sound OP.

Ultimate: Argus, the Defender

• Hera brings Argus crashing down at a location, damaging and knocking up enemies. On landing Argus will attack the nearest target. Hera can control where Argus moves through refiring this ability onto an enemy or if he has a target, to recall him. While recalled Argus will defend Hera and attack anyone that gets close. Argus has a hit chain that starts with a normal basic attack, into a ground circle AoE slowing enemies by 20% for 1s, into a line attack.
  
  Ability: AoE
  Affects: Enemies
  Radius: 20
  Damage: 100/150/200/250/300 (+35% of your Magical Power)
  Argus Lifetime: 40s
  Argus Initial Hit: 40 (+30% of your Magical Power)
  Argus Second Hit: 40 (+30% of your Magical Power)
  Argus Third Hit: 60 (+40% of your Magical Power)
  Cooldown: 70s
  Cost: 80/85/90/95/100
  
  Knockup. Damage. 40 second lifetime. 70 second CD. Basically her own Kaldr. Judgment withheld for now, but the concept is cool.

Well, at least she doesn't have a true escape ability (aka dash / leap / teleport). 3rd in a row!

Item changes:

• Oni Hunter's Garb (nerf): 200 gold cost increase. Makes sense, it was super cheap. The mitigation has also been used well.

God changes:

• Amaterasu (nerf): Divine Presence gets a minor aura power buff decrease of 5 per level. Not a big deal.
  
  
• Freya (nerf): Decreased MS base from 375 to 370. Fine.
  
  
• Mercury (nerf): Made You Look gets a CD increase from 8 to 10 seconds. This is very fair. Also, I hate Golden Blade. I hate the concept and the people that thought this would be a good idea.

Hera seems interesting. Still no Zhong skins. Baron still strong.

Any idea of when the patch hits PC? Tried looking at original patch notes but didn't see anything.

2 Tuesdays from now, I believe.

Okay thanks.

i font understand why people think Hera is op she has good damage and is put down if out of place if anything shes the most balanced character hi rez has released.

This was based on my thoughts just looking at the abilities before her actual release (see post date October 5). She's been considered since release to be underpowered.

Yeah I saw that in the 5.20 patch notes. Looks like Hi-Rez will be giving all her skills a buff such as dmg increase to Royal Assault, slow to Polymorph, increased shield health for Divine Shroud and argus got a buff as well.

Just wondering what your thoughts were on that. I'm not saying that she wasn't underpowered on release, but from what I saw playing against her was that her success seemed to be greatly influenced by player skill. Sometimes she carried her team while other times she just fed us like crazy.

Just wanted to hear the thoughts of a more experienced player because from my point of view (my point of view being a very inexperienced one still) these are a lot of buffs to give in one patch to a god who seemed to be able to do just fine in the right hands.

Sounds a lot like Mercury before the addition of Golden Blade.

There are a ton of variables to consider with a new god. What are her results at various skill levels, e.g. how is she in pubstomps (low skill) vs. high skill (pros and high ranked)?

How does familiarity play into her successes and failures? Like, facing her for the first time, you might see her pop Argus and get scared and run away...Argus is still hitting you, so your health is going down, and she pokes you once or twice and forces you under tower, then back to base, and she wins early lane. Instead, a couple quick abilities from He Bo (1, 3, 1) might destroy Argus at level 5-6 cuz Argus' health is pretty low at that point. If you had more confidence in that, you might be okay. Or maybe you overestimate how much damage she can even deal in unloading her full kit (minus Argus). Familiarity in countering a god can be a game changer.

Same when playing her, right? A high skill player researches her kit, knows automatically what her strengths and weaknesses are (at least with regard to mobility, CC capabilities and weaknesses, etc...feeling out builds and her damage potential do take some actual playtime). Maybe that player can make the most of her kit...or is playing with friends with lower rating and thus is playing weaker players. A less skilled player might go all in and get destroyed.

I honestly haven't played her, or against her, to give you appropriate feedback. But I will say that yes, as a whole, those are a lot of buffs. But let's look at them a bit more.

• Commanding Presence adds reduced CD of 0.33s for Divine Shroud when connecting with Assault/Morph. At most, you might see a 1 second CD from a base of 16, so that's not all that huge.
  
  
• Royal Assault got a buff at all ranks, higher at end rank. This is a nice buff, and fairly significant, because if you get both the cone and fist damage, you're talking 110 +95% scaling at rank 1, and 350 +95% scaling at rank 5. That's a pretty powerful ability...if you hit both. But given that you can only really control both hits against someone on top of you, or against minions, that's not necessarily an OP buff.
  
  
• Polymorph gets a 20% slow for those 1.2-2 seconds. That's not an overpowering slow, and it's not for a super long duration, and this ability ends up being her only form of CC, so I think this is a good addition for her.
  
  
• Divine Shroud gets a very significant buff at the top end rank...well, 100 HP difference is big depending on your point of view.
  
  
• Argus, the Defender is where the massive changes come in. This is where I feel maybe they overshot things. 10 range increase on deployment. Maximum leash range from 85 (close to max range for a ranged ability) to 125, which is very far...this is a 30% increase.
  
  More of both protections, more specifically for magical, though this is arguably not a huge change, as long as people are building penetration as they should.
  
  Top end health increase is 500 health. That's huge.
  
  Crash landing scaling up from 35% to 55%. That's fairly significant.
  
  Attack targeter range increased from 65 to 80. Sic Argus on people from outside their range.
  
  2nd attack in hit change has reduced movement penalty, allowing him to hit more easily, and slow duration increase from 1 to 1.5 seconds...this one is minor, all things considered.

But altogether? I dunno. Seems a bit much to start. I haven't looked to see what people are saying about her in PTS. Hi-Rez seems to take a long time to be able to hone gods into a balanced state. Look at how many nerfs Baron has gotten and he's only now falling into balance.

Thanks for the feedback, informative as always. It will be interesting to see how things are after the patch because familiarity as you said, can be a game changer.

While I still think this is a lot of buffs all at once, after your evaluation it seems like the buffs may not be as massive/significant as I previously thought. Sounds like all the buffs aren't going to be a massive power spike, an increase for sure, but not some jump that would boost her from A tier to S+ (used those tiers simply as an example for comparison, not saying that's what her ranking should be).

Argus will be more of a pain no doubt but overall I think this patch will make things a bit more interesting.