[S180] Fenrir, the Unbound

Fenrir Rework: The Concept:

I want to make Fenrir into an assassin-bruiser while fixing the problems with his kit. Mainly, how his kit clashes with itself by offering lifesteal in an ability-based kit, how his kit has hard counters that completely destroy you, offering no outplaying potential on both sides, and above all, making him viable and balanced without destroying the unique parts of his kit.

Passive: Unbound Runes

Whenever Fenrir hits with a basic attack, he gains a Rune, up to five. Using a damaging ability consumes the runes, granting an additional effect if five are consumed. Whenever Fenrir consumes runes, he is healed for 10 + 15 per level + 10% of his physical power for each rune consumed.

A unique healing system to replace the lifesteal, one that relies on power, holds up his assassin-bruiser-y-ness. It's also preserving one of the few really cool things about him.

1: Unchained

Fenrir leaps forward, dealing 65/105/145/185/225 (+60% of your physical power) damage in a target 15-foot radius circle. If this hits an enemy god, this ability's cooldown is halved. At full runes, Fenrir stuns enemies hit for 0.75 seconds. Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 seconds

This ability was both buffed and nerfed. Firstly, the stun duration has been lowered because frankly, 0.75 seconds is enough, and 1 second would make his potential initiation too powerful, given that he's now a bruiser. The damage was also reduced sharply, but this was to compensate for the lowered cooldown. As an ability that would have potentially a 5 second cooldown with no CDR, it was important to limit its possible damage.

The mechanics were changed to encourage longer fights, being a bruiser, which also means more triggers of his passive and more stuns and more healing and such. Synergy. Gotta love it.

2: Seething Howl

Fenrir howls enthusiastically, resetting his basic attack cooldown and empowering his next basic attack to deal 40/65/90/115/140 (+50% of your physical power) as bonus damage. If this basic attack hits an enemy god, Fenrir gains two runes instead of one and this ability's cooldown is halved. Channel Time: 0.4 seconds Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6 seconds

This ability is a steroid, and unaffected by his passive. This lets me better balance the other abilities that are affected.

Lifesteal and power has been removed, since I hate generic buffs. Now, this ability lets Fenrir still deal burst damage as an assassin, lets him still basic attack (and therefore gives synergy with his passive), lets him deal significant sustained damage as a bruiser AND doesn't distract from his abilities.

3: Brutalize

Fenrir pounces to his ground target location. If there was an enemy in the radius, he strikes them 4 times over three seconds, dealing 35/55/75/95/115 (+50% of your physical power) with each strike, dealing 50% damage in a 15-foot radius of the primary target. At full runes, Fenrir becomes immune to CC while casting this ability. Cooldown: 15 seconds.

This ability has way, way less base damage than before, from over 600 damage at max rank to 460. It's now a much less bursty skill overall, dealing its damage over 3 seconds instead of 2, as well as dealing less damage in general. Because frankly, his old damage was overpowered on the 2 gods it worked on.

However, that is balanced out by its upgraded bonus: CC immunity. Brutalize is now no longer countered by every viable god in the game. BUT, for counterplay, you're essentially stuck for 3 whole seconds, plenty of time to reposition yourself.

Now, this skill is more about chasing and AoE damage, and less about nuking a target to hell. Don't get me wrong, this is still Fenrir's signature ability that deals massive damage, but it still has counterplay while being more reliable to boot.

3: Ragnarok

Fenrir grows massive in size, gaining 300/450/600/750/900/1050 (+100% of your physical power) bonus maximum health, 20% move speed, 20/30/40/50/60 protections, and 75% crowd control reduction and knockup/back (and Banish/Portal) immunity. Your ability and basic attack ranges and radii are increased by 30%. Cooldown: 90 seconds.

The end of the world is here, and he is no longer beads-or-die. The old ultimate, like all other beads-or-die ultimates, had the problem of being completely ineffective with the press of a button. In fact, its most effective use was running people down when they were at low health or if they spent beads. And that is what I ran with, here.

Keep in mind that Fenrir does not gain any damage with this ultimate, and he also loses some burst damage from the old one. Instead, this new ultimate is your all-purpose tankiness. You can dive towers with it. You can use its increased ranges for tower diving. You can use its sudden burst of health for dueling. You can use it to chase, you can use it to escape, it's your everything in one ability, albeit with a long cooldown. It turns an assassin into a bruiser and a bruiser into a tank.

It is, however, not completely lacking counterplay. Your hitbox is far larger, your healing is less effective in terms of percentage health and you also become more vulnerable to CC like Fear No Evil or No Escape. Your Brutalize can still be interrupted and it is virtually impossible to avoid being hit, even with the increased move speed.

Overall, this ability is the platonic ideal of Fenrir: A massive, terrifying, unstoppable wall of pain and meat and claws that will run you down and deliver bloody vengeance. But only for a few seconds. Fenrir's still a mortal wolf thing.

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Overall, Fenrir is more bruiser-ish than before. He's tankier, has better healing, but also significantly less overall burst and more sustained damage. He's countered by different things, and both easier and harder to counter, but he also plays practically the same. I think this is truly an improvement over the old one.

Somewhat ironically, this Fenrir relies on damage more than the old one did, who relied more on his CC.

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Additional Notes:

For jungling, you'd level Seething Howl at level one for the damage, and then max out Brutalize for the clear. Then you'd prioritize your ultimate, then Brutalize, then Unchained, and lastly Seething Howl.

However, Fenrir can work as a solo laner. His clear isn't bad now, with his constant AoE damage, and he can trade well with his innate sustain. You'd max his leap first for clearing and harassing, then Brutalize for overall damage.

I like the rework. It's subtle - still very similar to old fenrir - but the changes are very noticeable. Couple things.

1) Is Seething Howl instantaneous, or does it have a cast time? Because 'resetting basic attack' would have to be a REALLY quick effect, and barely any skills in smite have actually 0 cast time, most are short. Even Accelerate and Pulse have delays iirc. But not criticizing, just clarifying nonetheless.

2) No rune effect on his ult?


3) I'm worried about the lack of counterplay. Let's say he has 300 physical power, which is decently strong but attainable, especially with base stats. His ult gives him 1350 health as an assassin with 99% CDR. His Brutalize initiation is obscene with CC immunity, his seething howl with a Hydra's Lament would be a RIDICULOUS nuke, which builds up runes high enough for an unchained to heal him for, what, 400 MORE plus a .75 second stun? I'm just worried with how much mobility, healing, nuke damage, and CC immunity he has, that he's just not able to be played against. You can't kite him whatsoever, and if you can't kite, you can't live.

I understand it's preliminary, but figured I'd toss some suggestions out there to see if you can either state why it is what it is, or contemplate what to change. Either way, I like the direction you took, just worried about the overtuning.

(Trying to theorycraft if during his ult, being unable to use other spells would make it useless or balanced. I'm tired though so I can't think too far in)

My vote's for useless. I remember when Zhong had something similar and it made his ult a liability rather than something that you could actually feel good about using (or maybe I'm just crazy and that never actually happened, just discussed)

I feel like adding CC immunity onto Brutalize will make it really unfair to play against, especially considering the amount of damage it does.

Also, I like the idea of making him a 'super-bruiser' with his ultimate. Can you use abilities with it? The comments somehow came up with the theory that you can't so I'm a tad confused...

No one said he can't, I'm wondering if you should make it that he can't. I'm worried about a 99% CC immune 2800 health oneshot assassin tbh.

1) Updated, cast time is 0.4 seconds. Might seem useless, but Ronan is proof that a fairly long basic reset can still work.

2) Yup. Counts as a steroid, along with his Two.

3) Don't forget that his healing becomes less effective with bonus health, along with his 0.75 sec stun being his only CC now. I updated the ult section, basically.

But yeah, the inability to escape him is a problem, but not an insurmountable one. At least you'll be able to see him coming, and he'll be in melee range.

Reduced base damage of Brutalize, not sure if I did it enough. 45/75/105/135/165 per hit to 35/60/85/115/140 damage per hit, or rather, 180/300/420/540/660 to 140/240/340/440/540.

And yes, you can cast. Clarified.

He won't quite be so tanky, not without building some protections, and then he'll lose some damage. Not to mention his brutalize is still weak to leaps and such. He'll be pretty much on par with junglemir with no protections.

But yeah, the reset is definitely of some concern. Hard to theorycraft with there being zero auto resets in Smite, but it isn't too bad, judging from Moya in Dawngate, who has two near-instant resets and similar scalings, as in, her resets also have empowered basics.

(Also, more like 3500 health. Man, that sounds hilarious.)

I'm just throwing out theories so you don't have to take them on board, but perhaps, and just perhaps, make the runed up Brutalize have additional swipes and remove the CC immunity. Make it something like 2 or swipes normally and then 4 or 5 swipes when runed up. The rune system is actually pretty good imo. If you want to use your runes to deal extra damage, then you're giving up an AoE stun for extra single target damage. It's a very fair trade off and allows for decent decision making potential.

As for removing the CC immunity, the ult already covers this in a way, so adding full cc immunity to this is superfluous. Plus, you still need some way to counter it.

I have a solution: 50% CC reduction, BUT, you gain 30/40/50/60/70 protections. You're now officially "resistant" to CC, instead of nearly immune, and get some tankiness to compensate. The instabruiser ult.