Possible Artemis Changes:

I think that 90% of the Smite players in the world can agree that Artemis is underpowered to some degree. This thread is dedicated to identifying the problems associated with Artemis, and possible ways to change her abilities to fix those problems.

I suppose there are multiple ways to change her, so let's simplify things by organizing posts into two categories: Tweaks, and Reworks.

Tweaks are all about the numbers. Having her attacks deal more damage, changing her starting health, increasing her movement speed, etc.

Reworks, major and minor, are about modifying entire abilities. For example, changing her passive from a stacking crit chance boost to a speed boost.

First, let me categorize her weaknesses:

- Little to no burst: All other gods have some bursting potential without their ultimates. The closest thing Artemis has to a burst is using her 3.
- Lack of an escape. This one should speak for itself.
- Negligible Passive: While it may come in handy when your unmodified crit chance is 15-25%, at early and late levels, it becomes effectively useless. Just 15% is too unreliable for early levels, and 15% ceases to make a difference with Deathbringer + Rage.
- Relies on basics for damage: This is the biggie. Every other ranged carry, literally every other ranged carry has a way to inflict serious damage without their basic attacks, or at least make hitting with basics easier. Freya has her banish and slow, Anhur has his pillar stun, Apollo has a mesmerize and a damage dealer, Neith is disgusting, Cupid has his own stun, etc, etc. Artemis must hit with her basics to have her DPS remain competitive. So what if it's laggy, and you can't aim for ****? What if they purchase something like Witch Stone, or Hide of the Neamean Lion? What if they're Zeus, with his frankly badly-designed Aegis shield, or someone with high CC, like Ymir? You are screwed, with no way to counter them. Without CC, you can always dodge a ranged basic. You can't dodge a cone of darts, or a melee character in your face, you can't dodge a homing attack, or some other area damage effect.
- Underpowered Ultimate: The most recent patch seems to have a typo. The boar does not remain invincible until it stuns, it becomes invincible until it hits something. Don't get me wrong, this buff removed a few of the problems with her Ult, but it does not fix the fundamental problem with it.

It sucks. It really, really sucks. Just because its invincible doesn't change how one could simply hear the boar being called before tapping Aegis. It doesn't change how pretty much every ultimate in the game renders them immune to crowd control. It doesn't change how the boar still deals negligible damage, it doesn't change how the boar still has a shorter stun time than some non-ultimates, it doesn't change the huge* delay before it fires, and it doesn't change how utterly terrible it is in a team fight.

Yeah, it stuns people for a few seconds. But it's slow, it's weak, and only acts as a mild annoyance. Poseidon's ultimate can scatter, if not stun an entire team (and that's not even mentioning the ridiculous damage), Neith's can hit for splash damage, stun an enemy, and deals more damage to boot, even Ares, when you have rank 3 beads, can still force them to spend their beads, while you can just leap away from the boar.

* In a game as fast-paced as this one, the one second between activation and results make it easy to use an escape or active.

Possible Tweaks:

- Increase her base movement speed to offset the downside of lacking an escape, possible make her as fast as Ne Zha.
- Increase the speed buff on her steroid, same reasons as above.
- Increase the maximum number of wards, for the heck of it.
- Increase the maximum number of stacks for her passive.
- Her wards now silence as well as root.
- Increase her defenses, dammit. Artemis should not die to Ymir's standard combo.

Possible Reworks:

- Make her 3 a ranged cone attack, and make her dash backward as she fires. This solves her lack of an escape, makes her have more area damage, still slows people down, and can still be used to chase. There is no need to tweak damage or scaling with it, either.
- Make her passive do something else. I favor slowing the enemy down by 8%, debuff stacks to three or four(after all, its called STILL target). Or for another alternative, call it Lone Wolf, and have it buff her movement speed or attack speed or something if an allied god isn't within 50 feet. Something like that.
- Make her ultimate attack deal decent repeated damage, slowing enemies, and make it target and chase whoever Artemis last attacked. That way, instead of being a one-hit wonder, it will continue to be useful for its duration.

What do you think?

I agree with you completely. As someone who has been playing Artemis since I started playing this game, I know that she is underpowered. However, she is one of the hardest Gods to find a way to balance.

One reason that she is underpowered is not necessarily her, but rather the post-30 Gods being far superior to older Gods like her. It is clear that all 30+ Gods, starting with Neith, are far better because Hi-Rez finally learned how to make a MOBA.

Aside from that, she is clearly lacking something. As to what that is, I have never been able to say. I was overjoyed when they increased the range of Transgressors Fate, as well as the movement speed buffs and the pseudo-invulnerability on the Boar, but those were not good enough.

I think she needs a better early game scaling, because they is where she falls compared to every other God, especially Neith. This is what I suggest:

1. An increased slow on Suppress The Insolent.
2. 1.5-2 Physical power added per stack of her passive as well as the critical strike chance.
3. Give the damn Boar more health, the thing is so easy to kill. At times, it is virtually worthless, so maybe an increased stun there as well.

If she got those, I think her performance in battle would be much, MUCH more viable.

I like her traps - very very unique. I like her AS steroid - it's what makes her able to 1v1 any of the other carries. I like her poke, it's nasty and hard to avoid unless constantly moving. I like her ult - it's unique, and is easily the best ult out of the carries. I don't know what to change, but she has no escape. THAT is her fault - she's effectively the squishiest carry, not due to ease of killing, but because she has to sit there while you pound on her.

I don't know what ability to remove - it'd have to be Transgressors Fate, which I hate, because it's truly unique, but I don't see any other option.

As for the boar, Jararo, I disagree It's immune to either CC or damage now for a second or two after released, and WILL hit a few, if not all, of the enemy team. The boar's rework in the most recent patch is a welcomed one.

Less squishy
Escape ability
Make her walk at least decent (it seems to me that her walking/running is looking stupid)
Increase her mana/ make her abilities require less mana

Artemis' main weakness is the power creep in this game. Ever since around, say, Anhur, the power of physical carries has been pushed up because Anhur brought so much to the table. This is both a good and bad thing, as it allowed for more stronger and possibly even more creative designs, but it will inevitably leave some gods behind in the dust.

And that's what has happened to Artemis.

However, I must question the validity of the points you bring up.

Artemis has little to no burst: Physical ranged carries specialise in DPS, not burst. However, this is why I believe Smite has flawed god design, as most of the top ADc picks have some form of burst, which is not what carries are supposed to specialise in. However, what is baffling to me is the fact that Artemis has a lower base physical power and lower physical power per level than a majority of the physical power carry gods in Smite. I believe this is the root of her problem, and not the fact that she lacks a burst ability.

Lack of escape: This comes back to the topic of power creep. Artemis has no escape because she was one of the first physical power gods that came out. In fact, when Smite was first released, she was the only ranged physical carry. The next physical carry, Cupid, contained a dash, and from then on, each ranged carry came with some form of escape. However, Hi-Rez definitely acknowledges this, as they are adding many mobility buffs within her kit, most notably, the changes to her ultimate.

Bad Passive: I must agree with you here. Her passive falls of sharply late game, as you'll have enough crit chance to make her passive completely worthless. I reckon a damage buff with each successive auto-attack on the same target would be an amazing passive for her.

Relies on auto-attacks: Alright, this is a pretty dumb statement. All carries rely on auto-attacks. And the statement about her not being able to land her attacks is also incredibly stupid; She has 3 forms of cc. Anhur has 2, Cupid has 2, Apollo has 1 etc. She has equal to or more cc than a majority of gods, and she can land her attacks just as well as any other god. Regarding your statement about things such as Aegis Shield and Hide of the Nemean Lion, well, they're simply meant to counter ranged physical carries. Also, I hope you realise Suppress the Insolent has a lower cooldown and damage higher than or equal to Apollo's So Beautiful, Anhur's Impale and Neith's Spirit Arrow.

Underpowered Ultimate: Yes, I agree, her ultimate is not the greatest, but it does have destructive potential in certain scenarios. Then you consider someone like Neith's ultimate, which is far less useful in teamfights than Artemis' ultimate.

Finally, your proposals are not that great. Your rework for Suppress The Insolent is almost a carbon copy of Neith's Backflip; Slowing the enemies down with each auto-attack is not going to solve any problems except make a problematic and almost broken passive; your change for the ultimate will not fix the fact that the boar simply dies too fast. I'd rather have a 1.5s stun on 2+ members than a slow on 1 enemy.

Yes, I agree that Artemis is underpowered, but you are not grasping (and fixing) the problems that she has, but you are more so thinking up of things that you would simply like to see on her kit.

Clearly her passive should be something jungle based. She is goddess of the hunt...why shouldn't she join the ranks of the jungle gods :-p

HiFromBuddha: Yes, I completely agree with you that her stats are wonky. But as for the "relies on basics..."

Artemis has a 25% slow for two seconds, a root that is rather difficult to hit with, and a stun that is her ultimate. Again, none deal major damage, nor do they prevent enemies from avoiding your basics.

Anhur's slow deals no damage, but has a much wider radius, lasts longer, has an eventual more effective slow, and boosts his damage. And again, non-ultimate stun.

Cupid has a non-ultimate stun. Even disregarding his ultimate, this is freaking powerful, not even mentioning how his 100 x 2% physical power can shred anyone with low defense. If Artemis had a non-ultimate stun, she would definitely be overpowered.

Apollo's mesmerize equates to a free hit. I often use his So Beautiful, exchange a few attacks, then mesmerize, wait for So Beautiful to get off cooldown, before finishing them off. It's essentially a free hit. Combined with how his passive brings his attack speed to levels even Artemis cannot match, he has a much easier time of hitting things than Art.

Neith....is Neith. No explanation required. Oh, and your little aside about cooldowns? Neith has far too many damage skills to worry about **** like that. She can poke with her backflip, she can poke with her spirit arrow, she can poke with her unravel, she can use her backflip to double her damage, etc. There is no need for a low cooldown.

As for their damage skills? They all have higher scaling. I repeat, they ALL have higher damage scaling, making them useful late game. Even Neith's Unravel has higher scaling. Anhur's impale has more damage, and its a freaking stun. Cupid's stun hits twice, dealing (170 + 100%) x 2 (not counting def) of his p.power, while Art's deals 350+30% (and that's not even counting the damage boost from his passive). Neith's spirit arrow is, again, higher scaling. They all have higher scaling, which means that they will be superior any time it isn't early game. A 30-20 difference on base damage won't make up for anything.

Artemis has possibly the worst ability set out of the carries to assist with landing basics. It's not always a question of if you can aim or not. Sometimes, they dodge just so to avoid 80% of your basics. Or maybe it is very laggy (it has been for me for the past few months, dunno why). The point is, sometimes, **** happens, and you need a way to guarantee a hit. Artemis cannot outside of her ult.

And I did put a bit of thought into my proposals, thank you very much. My weird dash-backward-cone thing isn't a copy of backflip, but perhaps I should've clarified. I was inspired by Ashe's Volley. A small, narrow cone attack, nowhere as wide as some of the other cones in the game, that fires actually avoidable projectiles, and dashes, not leaps backward. Probably since the idea of Artemis doing a backflip sounds ridiculous and rather undignified, but also because she shouldn't be able to escape through everything. Keep in mind that you can tweak this as you wish, give it a cooldown of 15 seconds, make sure it cannot hit one target with multiple arrows, etc.

An automatic slow, capped at a reasonable level, seems alright to me. Let's say it caps at 20%, two stacks, lasts 3 seconds. A 20% slow won't break the game. It will help against escaping enemies, and if you combine it with frostbound hammer, a quick backwards shot at a chasing enemy might secure an escape. It also definitely synergies well with Fatalis, is more useful that it currently is, grants her more CC, and lets her land her basics easier, like seemingly every other physical carry can.

As for her ultimate...it always seemed like a "fire-and-forget" kind of ultimate to me. If it can last six seconds but can potentially just sit there while you die, why bother capping it at six seconds? It fits with the recent trend of longer-lasting ultimates, encourages the player to stick to a single target, and deals good damage. And again, dying too fast is a nitpick on your part. I am discussing the rework of entire concepts of her abilities, not how much defense her boar has, which is a simple matter. I am more concerned if having a powerful partner that can highly increase her DPS, can chase across huge distances, and sticks to one target and lasts 6 seconds might be overpowered. There is no need to discuss by exactly how much her DPS increases, or other things like that.

I hope you didn't think that I plan for all my suggestions to be implemented at once, at the same time! That would be truly ridiculous.

Ryvik: That sounds pretty neat, actually, though I hope Artemis won't be in the position of one of the gods who is always expected to jungle. Any ideas?

I recall my first competitive solo queue, people got pissed that i picked artemis. I thought they were going to come through the screen and kill me. Turns out, I did okay.

Passive wise. She could get a stealth move similar to loki and the night elves from warcraft. In other words, if Artemis stands still she turns invisible. Hunters are renowned for ambushes, afterall. This could have a stat similar to blink so that you can't vanish in combat or maybe so you can't vanish while the enemy could see you? This could have a bonus in that if you can't vanish you know an enemy ward can see you...thus she could, in theory, hunt wards.

Then again, maybe this would be too powerful of a passive.

JararoNatsu: I like number 1 and 3, but is 4.5-6 physical power really worth anything? A single purchase of any other physical power item gives more power. Maybe if it was capped at 15-20 physical power, 5 per stack, it would be good.

And yes, I agree 100% with her lackluster starting (and ending) stats.

Raventhor: Uh, you hate Transgressor's Fate because its unique? I would appreciate an explanation for that.

I disagree with the "hit the whole enemy team" thing. In my experience, after it stuns the first god, they all focus the boar to death. Yeah, sometimes it hits two, especially in smaller groups, but unless the team is lacks synergy, it doesn't really do much.

Also it's kinda hilarious to use it on groups in unranked matches. One or two enemy gods immediately start focusing on it, while the others just ignore it and become stunned.

Romanians: Anything a bit more, uh, concrete? Oh, and I don't think her mana or costs need any adjustment, since pretty much every carry also has those problems.

I mean I love that transgressor's fate is unique, but I hate how useless it quickly becomes, not I hate it because it's unique. As near as I can tell, it is the only trap in the game, hard to see, and grants vision. However, I hate it because the inclusion of this means there is no true escape present, and this one, while unique and fun, is not enough to survive a gank.

And I think the ability to notice and react to the boar is overestimated, it's very easy for it to hit several people - maybe not a full team, but it can't be focused easily that quickly consider how hard it is to hit the moving boar, as the 1/2 second window between charges is too small to adequately handle.