Spear of magus and shield of thorns combo? :: Lukatomic's Blog

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So about 2 days ago I was playing an arena game and we were winning over the other team. I was playing ganesha and I was building "genjis guard, shoes of the magi, gauntlet of thebes, jade emperor crown, soul reaver, and spear of the magus.

As I was fighting a chernobog, I activated my shield of thorns and DELETED HIS HEALTH. After looking at it I did 1066 damage with that one relic. So I think I may have found a new meta or it was just pure luck that the damage he did to me was pushed back by his own damage. So I have to ask this question, does spear of the magus go along with shield of thorns or is it just my imagination that this was never a thing?

Full clip:
https://gamerdvr.com/gamer/zero-x-deadfang/video/75538851
Go to 1:00 to see the thorns part

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(105) |

While it wouldn't be op since thorns has a damage cap (150*lvl*40%) it does reflect the damage as magical so yeah pen items will improve the damage it does.

(105) |

Or at least I think pen items would.
Otherwise only protection reduction items will

(3) |

Thats what I thought, since spear of the magus increases magical damage after you hit an ability, I think if was after I hit that chernobog that the damage increased from that + his own damage.

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(400) |

Damage reflection items (e.g. , ) apply based on the attacker's own protections. So, whatever base damage is dealt by the attacker, the amount considered in a single hit would be that 40% reflection of that base damage, minus the damage blocked by protections/mitigations of the attacker.

At that point, the only mitigations applied would be any magical protection or general mitigation (e.g. , , , etc.) the attacker had. Also, the damage reflection of Thorns doesn't count as the Thorns user attacking the enemy. Magus' 10 penetration is only for when you attack the enemy, and the up to 50 protection reduction is only applied when you damage the enemy with abilities.

Now, the way that could apply and increase the damage reflection from Thorns would be specifically if the Magus stacks were applied at the time of reflection. Now, besides the fact that is generally an awful choice to build on , if you had dealt any damage from abilities to the enemy god, then activated Thorns, the stacks of protection reduction, which temporarily reduce the actual magical protections of the enemy hit, would increase the reflected damage.

Is getting Magus worth it to help apply more damage? Hell no. You're better served getting (especially in Arena), which helps your entire team deal more damage, and is easily applied by your 2, 3, and ult. Also should be considered. Those are both better options compared to , which should never be considered on Ganesha.

(3) |

Well, you didnt explain why so much damage was dealt in that instance, plus, spear of the magus goes along with his ult, over powering the enemy.

(400) |

True, specifically when you can catch them in the ult for multiple hits. It's not always reliable for that, and dedicating 1 of 6 items lots to a full offense item when you don't normally get that much use out of it isn't something I'd prefer to do.

Honestly, I didn't bother looking at the video. I've done so now. I'm glad you're using the right skin. The best skin. The ONLY skin.

Here's the breakdown using maths.

At level 20, with his build of , Wind Demon, , (full stacks), , and , his base damage is 88 (@ level 20) + 263 (item power contribution), for a total of 351. You had Jade Emperor's, so that reduces his damage by 30, so 321. When he crits, the base damage would be 321 * 2.3 = 738.3.

With no protection items, his base magical protection at level 20 is 48 (like every god in the game). Now, you hit him with both and before activating Thorns. This provided 2 stacks of Magus, meaning his base protection is now 28. At 28 magical protection, he mitigates 21.88% of incoming magical damage.

NOW...it looks like all 4 hits he nailed you for were crits after you activated Thorns. This means the base damage should be (738.3 * 4), or 2953.2. 2953.2 * 0.4 (Thorns reflection) * 0.7812 (21.88% mitigated) = 922.8 damage...the remainder of the damage (1066 total damage per in-game death stats) is probably due to the O-Bow proc (30 + 60% scaling = (30 + 157.8) * 0.4 * 0.7812 = 58.78...922.8 + 58.68 = 981.48? But you can see my calculations are close. It's possible Chern was affected by 10 more pen/protection reduction somewhere (I don't know how), but that gets the total damage within 10.

Without Spear's 2 stacks, he would have mitigated around 32% instead of ~22% (or ~15% if he had 3 stacks of Magus applied). Using the calculation of my value of 981.48, it would be 854 damage instead. The difference here, due to the Magus stacks, was worth 127 damage. That's not worth it IMO. Granted, you got the kill (I think you would have gotten the kill anyway without the 2 Magus stacks but I'm not sure), but in the end, I will maintain my opinion that:

1) I'm not sure why you were attacking the enemy Chern near his own base where Hel (coming back from healing at the base) could finish you, when the rest of your team was behind you continuing to fight the enemy and (and as a tank/support, you could have helped peel for them)...granted, you did distract the Chern, who could have come in and done damage to your teammates...but my suggestion for gameplay here would have been for you to distract him for a bit, then get back to help your team.

2) You would have been better served IMO with a tankier build. No , no . Instead, if you wanted some more offensive pen function for you and your teammates, while giving you more tankiness... for further pen function (while again also giving more pen function for teammates), and better physical protection than provides (the 30 power drop aura isn't much, especially late-game).

You got lucky (as lucky as you can be when you still die) because the Chern built 0 pen (at which point if he'd gotten he would have finished you before he killed himself)...and because even when you popped Thorns, he kept attacking. He could have just turned around and healed at base, and you wouldn't have been able to stop him...and then Hel likely would have finished you off anyway.

(3) |

I read all of this and I have to say those calculations are almost on point, I think it was bad luck on his side for all of the crit damage. I was mostly trolling at the end of my build but was getting damaged by alot of damage, so I build genjis guard as a replacement for my starter.

And yes, the skin was my very first REAL limited skin, and I love it so much.

Back to the point at hand, looking at how that chernobog attacked me, his O-bow did do 156 as my soul reaver may have also been a cause to the backfire, I would need to do more testing in this as this was a very weird experience for me.

(400) |

Suggest getting Magus only when the god really can take advantage of it. DoT abilities (e.g. Zhong, Baron) and AOE ticking abilities (e.g. Anubis, Poseidon) allow for quick stacking, making it efficient. It can be a very fun item for Ares. I just wouldn't get it for Ganesha in almost all cases.

Thorns can be very effective, especially against crit damage...but often, it's not worth it, at least against decent competition that knows not to continue attacking once it's activated.

(72) |

Thorns is efficient against heavy burst damage abilities that once casted cannot be interrupted as , , Zeus and Vulcan ulti...

(400) |

Good point.

(4) |

I'm pretty sure Thorns only dos more damage based on the opponent and doesn't work with any form of pen. Could you link the match so we can see what the Chernobog was building?

(3) |

Match details:
https://smite.guru/match/938259972
The clip:
https://account.xbox.com/en-us/Profile?xr=mebarnav&rtc=1&activetab=main:mainTab4

(Go to captures, the second smite clip is the full clip)

(72) |

An easy link to your clip: https://gamerdvr.com/gamer/zero-x-deadfang/video/75538851

Also the Thorns part is at 1:00 until 1:18

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(3) |

Thank you, I am on mobile so it's much harder

(72) |

You're welcome ;)

(3) |

(72) |

First of all, Why did you have and on a ?
Also, didn't stopped hitting you due ?

(4) |

Becasue Arena.

(72) |

This answered all my questions

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Spear of magus and shield of thorns combo?

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