By How Much Should We Reward Skill?

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Let me tell you a few facts.

1. Some gods/abilities in SMITE take far more skill to use than others.

2. Some gods/abilities in SMITE take far less skill to use than others.

3. High skill is not always rewarded with high effectiveness.

4. Low skill is not always punished with low effectiveness.

Take, for example, Neith's backflip. Just her escape, mind you, not the goddess herself. It is the longest escape in the game, it deals damage in a cone attack, and can go over player-made walls, like Odin's or Ymir's.

This ability takes almost no skill to use. It is simple to hit, simple to escape with, and the only thing that requires any amount of skill is using it to chase. And yet, it is one of the best escapes in the game.

Now, my fifth point: Ideally, we should reward players who can use their abilities effectively. For example, an Anhur who can pillar-stun is far more dangerous than one that needs a nearby wall. However, if we do this too much, there is risk of the game becoming stagnant and dull. Everyone in the higher ELOs would pick high skillcap gods. Also, we need a limit on the rewards of skilled playe, lest they dominate the battlefield too easily.

I cannot think of a better goddess who embodies this than Hel. You can't deny that she's at least fairly powerful, and I think everyone can agree that she takes more skill to use than Neith. However, I believe she is overpowered, because a skilled Hel can have near constant CC immunity on her team, heal them more than Chang'e, and still deal great damage.

I guess my question is simple: Where is the limit? At what point do we put our foot down, point at a god, and say, "That's it, he/she gets a nerf/buff?" Is Neith/Hel/??? at our threshold, or has she gone past it?

Renowned (112)
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I would love to see 'jump attacks' fail to scale walls if they aren't positioned right. I.E. if you are too close or too far you hit the wall and fall rather then clip through it -_-

Remarkable (7)
Posts: 176

I believe that all gods should be balanced the same way, no matter what skill cap. What I believe though, is to allow for harder gods to have more opportunities for impressive/clutch plays. Sorry for making the comparison, but I feel like this is done well in LoL, but not done well in Smite.

A well-played Zed or Orianna in LoL will just make people gawp at how amazing what they just witnessed was. In Smite, I feel like there is not much opportunity for these scenarios. I have never seen a Smite play that has just made me sit there and just stare in awe at how amazing something was. In fact, I'd go as far as to say there are no gods with complex mechanics at all as of right now. There is no orb-walking, no last hitting (arguable) and no hard mechanics that will take a while to get the idea of.

In all honesty, I feel like Smite is easy to pick up. If you pick any god, then you can play him/her decently after 2 or 3 games.

Relating back to the topic, I feel like difficulty should not be a factor of how good a god is. Like you stated, if difficult gods were better than easy gods, then all we'd be seeing is difficult gods in competitive play. In all honesty, it's a hard topic to discuss, but to put it simple, I feel like harder gods to play simply deserve better recognition, but in no way should be better than easy gods.

However, I feel like an ability should never do too much of different things. Neith's Backflip is a huge offender of this, as it offers and escape, soft cc and damage in one ability. It's basically a get out of jail free card, and while I don't mind abilities being simple to use, they should never be braindead as to how easy they are.