Patch 5.8, "Lord of Darkness" - Bran's Thoughts

Patch notes are found here: https://www.smitegame.com/news/lord-of-darkness-5-8-pc-update-notes


Blah blah skins cutechibiFenrir! blah blah


New God: Chernobog

• Passive - Heart of Cold (nyuk nyuk): So...at level 20, that passive damage will activate for 35% of your total basic attack power? Guess that's a decent boost, akin to the passive from The Crusher or Odysseus' Bow.
  
  
• Skill #1 - Crystallized Curses: Wave clear. Seems sort of on the strong side, at least for minions. Generally unlikely to get both the initial and explosion on enemies unless they're CCd and trapped inside the radius. Provides a short root with the explosion. Can be triggered by Vicious Barrage too, so in that sense, yeah, you can get both hits. Combining those 2 abilities seems pretty damn powerful.
  
  
• Skill #2 - Vicious Barrage: changes the look of your basic attack and makes it pierce enemies, so even that can be used for wave clear...similar in some ways to Izanami if I'm not mistaken. Wonder how that works with Hunter's Blessing's added damage...hoping it's not broken. AND it has a somewhat brief attack speed steroid attached to it?
  
  
• Skill #3 - Into Darkness: short dash that is too short to be a reliable escape in the open, but can be used offensively for its 2 second 25% slow. Can get you out of trouble temporarily if there's a bunch of incoming damage, but shoots you right out where you came from, so in some ways can just be delaying the inevitable. Have to see this in action, but seems like it could be pretty powerful.
  
  
• Ultimate - Living Nightmare: stacking slow at the location of all enemies for 8 seconds...during this time he can fly to any of the shadows and take its place, basically becoming a global Athena ult if I'm not mistaken. Refreshes his CDs, gains crazy damage mitigation, 30% MS. Each attack applies Heart of Cold. Seems really bloated.

Well, we'll have to see how he plays out.


Item changes:

• Warrior's Blessing (nerf): Evolved form decreases protections gained from 15 of each to 10 of each. This is fine...solo laners are already tough to kill.
  
  
• Soul Reaver (nerf): just a price increase to 2,750. Still fine, I don't particularly care for this item all that much.
  
  
• Stone of Fal (buff / shift): price decrease from 2,500 to 2,300 gold. New passive...Anytime you would be dealt more than 20% of your Max Health by a single Magical ability, that damage is instead reduced by 10%. This effect has no cooldown. Hmmm...no CD but the passive damage reduction doesn't prevent you from taking more than 30% anymore...if it took 50% before and got reduced to 30%, now it'll only reduce to 40%. I like this adjustment. Gives it more flexibility in my mind.
  
  
• Oni Hunter's Garb (shift): For each enemy god within 55 units of you, you gain a stack of 2% damage mitigation. This caps at 3 stacks. Before it was only triggered by 3 enemy gods being near, at 5% mitigation. This stacking helps it be better even if only facing 1 or 2 enemies, with a bit higher peak at 3. Item still sorta sucks in my opinion. I never get it.

God changes:

• Achilles (nerfs): Damage reductions to Shield of Achilles and Combat Dodge. This is good.
  
  
• Aphrodite (buff): CD of Kiss after hitting an ally is only 1 second (was 3), which is great if you meant to hit one teammate and another got in the way...can immediately switch again. She's gotten some nice quality of life changes lately.
  
  
• Guan Yu (buffs): the 3rd basic now cleaves (nice). Last hit has 50% increased range (nice). Painless gets a holyhell buff that's amazing. So...if you stay in combat, and you have full stacks, you can spam your abilities, and they ALL have the full painless stack effect, until you fall out of combat. Oh man, boosted healing, 40% slow from Warrior's Will, and more protections stolen via Taolu Assault (not to mention increased CC from the ult), all at the same time? This is a solid, solid buff.
  
  
• Khepri (buff): Solar Flare gets some love, with slightly increased root duration and damage. This is nice for him.
  
  
• Kuzenbo (buff / shift): Water Bowl gets increased damage reduction, while Shell Spikes gets what I would consider a shift...although it now has decreased reflection %, mana cost doesn't increase with levels, and now also decreases the CD of Sumo Slam, which is nice.
  
  
• Nemesis (nerf): Slice and Dice gets a damage nerf. This is actually pretty significant...it loses 20 damage in the middle of the cone. I'm thinking it's okay, but that definitely makes things harder early.
  
  
• Terra (nerfs): Monolith now only takes 3 hits to destroy (5 hits was BS), while Earthen Fury gets decreased damage mitigation/amplification. These are good.
  
  
• Thor (buff): Mjolnir's Attunement gets a buff to minions to help his clear, which allows him to pick this ability up at level 1 (to also give him better mobility) instead of Berzerker Barrage. That's a nice change for him.
  
  
• Vamana (buffs): His 3 non-ult abilities see mana decreases, which is very nice for him and these are definitely needed changes.
  
  
• Xbalanque (buffs): Dead of Night now stacks off player damage, so he won't need to get kills to get the passive up. Rising Jaguar gets a top end mana cost decrease. Also nice.

Another good patch overall. Better on the gods than the items. Mostly excited about Guan Yu. I want that T5 Bellona skin but don't want to pay as much as they're going to make me pay to get it. Nope.

Yay! Bran's Thoughts are back!

My reactions to your thoughts:

Oh look, HiRez made another new OP god... I kind of wish they would stop...

Soul Reaver is a pretty solid item right now imo. I'll still build it.

I agree Stone of Fal is nice now.

Oni Hunter's Garb is kind of slept on in my opinion. You have to remember it is only 1900 gold, and the base stats are pretty solid for that imo. I'll build it slightly more often now.

Glad they finally nerfed Achilles a bit.

I've been waiting for them to give Guan Yu cleave, but that passive buff is kinda crazy. I'll have to see it in action, but reading it now... he just jumped up there, lol.

They adjust Khepri so much, lol.

For Nemesis, this might not be enough. But it is something. She was due a nerf.

Terra most definitely needed a nerf. This is aight.

For Thor, I agree this is a nice change.

Agree Vamana change is nice.

Xbalanque change is nice too. More viable now for sure.

HI-REZ! Y U NERF NEM? I was mad at that nerf at first but thinking in it more, it’s not that bad. Still kind of annoyed by so many nerds back to back though. I feel like the Achilles buff might not be enough. I’ll have to see how it plays out. The terra nerf seems decent. Should make her less ridiculous. Will probably see more Guan and Kuzen this patch. And the Xbalanque buff is something he’s needed for a while. Fun god, but the old passive if you didn’t get it stacked made you feel so useless.

Also, looking forward to trying out Chernobog. Seems like he’ll be interesting to use if not a bit harder to use at first.

Chernobog's ultimate smells a little OP to me, just like I thought about Shield of Achilles that still OP for me.
Items are okay, nothing too exciting and Gods are also nice, I was just expecting some buuf to my Cupid but wss not this time (but I won't let my hope dies, he will be buffed/remodeled some day, I trust on Hi-rez). The most exciting is Guan Yu, maybe now people remember he exist :v

It was needed. She was over performing. You should talk about it in that community spotlight interview that I nominated you for. Hopefully you'll get picked.

**** yeah


double **** yeah