What Are the Problems of Polynomicon?

I'm curious. I honestly don't know why they nerfed it like they did. I mean, if they are going to nerf it, I'd have lowered the contributions, maybe added some base damage, to prevent already strong mages from becomes even stronger.

True, I feel that increasing the delay doesn't really address the fact that it still contributes insane damage. One Polynomicon hit usually eats away a good 1/3rd of any squishy's health when you're fully built, with Rod of Tahuti and all that jazz.

I thought the nerf made sense. It's still a high burst item, but it makes it a lot harder to keep adding sustained damage. On a 2 second cooldown, you could do things like stun with Eset' Spirit Ball, add an auto, use Wing Gust, auto again when you're done. You've got your damage off at this point, so start falling back. If they come at you, you still have your 3 and another Poly proc to keep going.

Freya was even sillier being able to activate her 2, proc the slow and a Poly hit, wait a second, then pop 1 and annihilate anyone.

On a 4 second cooldown, you're better off just using your whole kit, getting the 1 proc, then resetting and maybe coming back in 10 seconds when your stuff is up again. Hanging around and staggering your stuff for 4 seconds is a good way to get blown up.

Poly is super strong... but so is everything late game. Sure it chunks 1/3 health of a squishy, but so does He Bo's 1 (or 3, or 4, still waiting for his 2 to be buffed to chunk you,) an ADC's basic attack, Merc's 1, a tank's ult, pretty much anything. It's Smite, if you're in a bad position late game with no defense, you're getting blown up in 1 second. That wasn't the problem with Poly, the problem was being able to proc it too often.

I think Polynomicon was supposed to give burst to those without it, but it ended up being a "general DPS" item. The cooldown nerf made it give less DPS, but I don't think DPS was the problem. IMO, the problem wasn't really it procing often, it was the fed Agni dealing even more burst damage than any one god should.

How would we change Poly to help give burst, but more add some more to those with already high burst?

I think lowering % and adding base would prevent the all-MP burst mages from getting too strong, while the utility oriented (and sustained damage-ish) mages like Ra or Eset or Aphrodite, who typically get a few tank items anyway, would get a buff.

Hmmm, maybe it could have a formula like ((GodLV*7.5)+(MPower/3)), and revert the procs back to two seconds? This would give it a good power for support/bruiser mages without it being too powerful on burst mages.

I was thinking more like 50-75%, about 100-150 base damage*, rather than 33%, and if it is 33%, I think the base could stand to be upped a bit. But yeah, I agree with you for the most part.

*This increases it's strength early game, and about when it starts to fall off, Rod of Tahuti could pick up the slack.

There is one more change I think should be implemented: Make the first basic deal the bonus damage, and remove the buff. I don't think people should be able to just spam basics until you hit.