What will mages build now?

My biggest concern about season 7 is the changes to magical pen items. Will mages need to run more pen or focus more on killing squishies rather then tanks?

A mage's main job has always been more about killing other squishies. The best Tank Killer should always be the carry. And honestly the issue for mages isn't even about tanks. Outside of Spear of the magus, which was basically too overpowered for certain gods, they've mostly lost early flat pen items. They now have more options than ever with regard to percent penetration, which means tanks will likely a bit scared in the late game.

Ya I guess i was a bit too worried. After all, this is the my first time that a new season comes in so it feels like I have to relearn everything lol. Another thing, how viable is the new ring? I feel like it would give Poseidon the opportunity to go ADC, especially since he can land multiple hits, but thats just my theory.

Hey Revenant, don't worry, when it's your first new-season patch, everyone gets a bit crazy cuz the changes always seem really significant, to say the least. I remember when smite went from S0 (beta) to S1 and I felt like I had to relearn the game too! After a couple of matches, you'll notice it's the same old smite but with some changes. Meanwhile, this patch will be one of the more interesting ones BECAUSE of the pen change to mages. The meta will end up dictating if mages will still try to build as much pen as possible early of it we'll see a more diverse item build trees (Bran's nightmare lol) and yeah.

Also, about the ring, while Poseidon is already played by some ppl (mainly poseidon mains) as ADC, I don't think people will go straight to him to use this item, not while we have a lot of mage ADCs that will benefit even more than this item, and ofc will do the same job as Poseidon could do but better.

Pos has always been able to function as an off-meta ADC, sort of like Zeus.

The new ring in a general sense should be very strong, as it gives the mages something like a magical version of Asi, but I think it's better more for the traditional mage ADCs.

Pos and Zeus remain as at least semi reliant on abilities even when having fun with their basics. But Freya gets direct damage enhancement due to her abilities basically damage-steroiding her basics. Sol gains stacks of her passive and full stacks absolutely destroy objectives. Olorun gets quicker stacks of his 2 from the AS. And Chronos has his steroids.

Honestly, I think this will not be as big of a nightmare for bran as the normal season changes. he only has to tweak item stats (of all the changes) and descriptions for the major changes.

(it's gonna be more of a nightmare for my planned guide XD)

Mages should be prioritise building to killing tanks because by lategame they will automatically kill squishies with a tank busting build.

That should be fairly easy, due to the significant increase in % pen options for them, while also adding utility. They won't have to try too hard to add some of those items into their build.

Well thanks for the info. I'm feeling more confident about the new season.