My Overly Complicated Priests

I would like to preface all of this by saying that I recognize that this is a kind of dumb and totally unnecessary idea that would never be implemented into the game. I'm only posting this because I think it's fun to think of ideas like this and think it would be fun to hear other people's ideas as well. Also be warned that I have been thinking about this for a couple of days now and have had a ton of thoughts floating around my head to this is going to be a VERY long opening post.

Alright so, I'll start out by giving a little background to this idea. I was playing in a round the other day and a teammate told me that minions' attacks actually count as physical damage and as such physical defense will actually help to reduce their already minimal damage output. While I don't know if this is actually true I did find it interesting and began thinking that if it is true then there should be a minion that deals magic damage as well to balance it out. I thought it could be this robed priest guy that spawns in every wave and just fires these magic orbs.

Then I thought, what if the priests actually had some kind of special power of their own, since they are basically supposed to be the mages of the minions. But THEN I thought, what if there were a bunch of different kinds of priests, each associated with their own god. Every playable character in the game would have their own priest with its own distinct characteristic/power and possibly special look. One of the reasons I say that these priests are completely unnecessary is because they are intentionally weak. I think it makes a lot of sense, while they may be the most powerful mortals out there they still shouldn't be able to hold a candle up to a god.

My thoughts on the basics of how priests would work: Priests would not spawn with every wave. Instead only one spawns every three waves in a single lane, meaning every nine waves one priest will have spawned in each lane. Only the priests of the five gods currently in your team can spawn. The order in which these five types of minions spawns is selected randomly at the start of the round. By default, the priests will have mostly the same stats and traits of an archer but with slightly further range and significantly higher attack damage, I was thinking between three and five times (which is still very weak when compared to a god). When a priest spawns the god that that priest worships will be alerted. While most gods won't have any connection to their priests they will receive gold as a form of tribute whenever that priest kills an enemy.

Below is the list of priests that I have thought of so far. My hope for this forum is that people will come up with ideas for the rest as well as comment on the ones I have thought of. I realize a lot of these suck so please do think up better ones.

God: Agni
Name: Fire Starters
Power: Once every fifteen seconds a priest of Agni will throw his arms into the air and couse a small AOE explosion to occur under the targets feet, dealing minor damage. Taking after Agni's ult, however, the power will have surprisingly far range and despite the priests running in the very back of the line the priests of Agni will be able to hit the enemy minions with his power before the swordsmen even begin clashing. This will also help him to hit enemy gods with his power, though it will probably be a pretty negligible amount of damage.

God: Ah Muzen Cab
Name: Bee Keepers?
Power: Has a large ranged aura of bees. When an enemy enters this aura they will have bees applies to them which will function in every way like AMC's Bees! passive ability. This counts as a separate effect as AMC'S bees and thus can be stacked onto each other.

God: Aphrodite
Name: The Beautiful
Power: While not in combat, though while running, a priest of Aphrodite will form a bond with nearby, injured minions and rapidly heal them.
Note: This one is possibly my least favorite and would really like for someone to come up with something better for this one most of all

God: Arachne
Name: Web Spinners
Power: If a priest of Arachne kills an enemy minion they "plant an egg" inside of its body and three seconds later a spiderling will spawn and begin attacking enemies. While there is no cool down for this ability a priest may only have one spirderling at a time. Unlike most priest powers these spiderlings are not an actually special power of the priests and are more just entrusted with the eggs by Arachne. As such, the spiderlings will count exactly like Arachne's other spiderlings, growing in strength as she upgrades the Web ability or buys items and kills that the spiderlings get, but not the priest, count as though Arachne had killed it, giving her the full gold, xp, and adding to ehr stacks.

God: Ares
Name: Warlords
Power: Taking after the God of War the warlords whip the other minions into a bloodlust frenzy granting all nearby minions +50% movement and attack speed.
Note: While most minions would be long range spell slingers I was thinking that the warlords might be melee and look more like a minion commander. They would still deal magic damage.

God: Athena
Name: Generals or Commanders
Power: Generals would ride in the back chariots. While they would still move at the same speed this would grant them the ability to move while attacking. Once they have selected a target they will begin to ride in circles around the selected target. While this wouldn't do much to help battle minions it would probably make it harder to be targeted by enemy gods.
Note: This one is pretty bad as well. Also, I was thinking that the Generals would throw spears instead of shooting magic. It would still be magic damage.

God: Bacchus
Name: ?
Power: If Bacchus is in the area then once every twenty seconds the priest will make him an offering of wine. This will cause Bacchus to immediately use his Chug ability without any cooldown or mana cost.

God: Bakasura
Name: The Hungry
Power: Similar to Bacchus, if a Hungry kills an enemy minion and Bakasura is in the area it will "offer" the corpse to Bakasura as a sacrifice. This will cause Bakasura to use his Devour ability without any mana cost, cooldown, or need to actually target and enemy minion. This power has no cooldown but the priest must land the final hit for it to activate.

God: Chang'e
Name: Moonlight Dancers
Power: While moonlight dancers have a basic attack they will not use it on enemy minions. Instead, when targeting a minion she will begin to dance. She will move so elegantly that enemy minions will stop fighting to watch her and thus, if no gods interfere, they would be able to wipe out enemy waves without taking any damage. The minions will only stop watching if they die, a nearby friendly god is attacked, or the dancer stops dancing. The dancer will not dance once all the enemy minions are dead, she is stunned or killed, or a nearby friendly god is under attack.

God: Freya
Name: Warriors of Ragnarok
Power: This one is pretty unique. When a Warrior of Ragnarok dies it is taken to Valhalla (either implied or maybe a special death animation where a Valkyrie swoops down to their body and flies off). After three Warriors have died this way Ragnarok is activated. This causes the next priest that spawns, regardless of who the priest would have belonged to, to be replaced by the three previously slain Warriors. They spawn in all three lanes simultaneously and behave as normal. When they die this time they do not add to Ragnarok so three new Warriors will have to spawn and die for it to activate again.
Note: It would require 45 waves to spawn for any one god to receive three priests so I don't know how many times this would happen in a round as I have no idea how quickly they spawn.

God: Hades
Name: Servants of the Dead
Power: Whenever a nearby minion dies there is a 20% chance that they will resurrect that minion as a shade. Shades will look exactly like their human counterparts except they will have no color. They also are the same class as they were when they were alive (archer minions will be shade archers and swordsmen will be shade swordsmen) but have all of their stats excepts movement speed reduced by 50%. A Servant can have five shades at a time. All shades will disappear if their creator dies.
Note: This power could also go to Anubis instead I think.

God: Janus
Name: Transitioners
Power: Every fifteen seconds a Transitioner opens a small portal under the feet of a single target. This will instantly kill a minion but deal minor damage to a god.
Alternative power: A transitioner can detect that Janus is in danger from anywhere on the map. When they detect he is in danger they open a minion sized portal and run through it appearing directly beside Janus to help him fight. Should they survive the encounter they open a second portal and port back to where they were originally. They can only do this once.

God: Kali
Name: Destroyers
Power: They are essentially super weak siege juggernauts, gaining a +500% damage bonus against towers and phoenixes.

God: Neith
Name: Weavers
Power: Every thirty seconds a Weaver will leave a weave on the ground for Neith to use.

God: Nemesis
Name: Balance Seekers
Power: For every additional enemy in the area than allies a Seeker will gain +20% damage. Max 5 stacks

God: Nu Wa
Name: Elementalists
Power: There are five different versions of these priests, one for each of the Chinese elements. When it's Nu Wa's priest that spawns which of these five is selected is chosen at random.
Wood: After five successful hits the next hit will root. Identical to Nu Wa's passive. Mostly for stunning enemy gods.
Water: After five successful hits she will become invisible for 3 seconds. Can attack during this time.
Earth: After five successful hits she will cast Clay Armor on a friendly minion, increasing his protection for 5 seconds.
Fire: After five successful hits she will throw a fire ball which gives +50% damage and a small AOE effect.
Metal: After five successful hits she will whip the weapon out of an enemy minions hands, reducing their damage down to 1 and turning archers into melee units.

God: Sun Wukong
Name: Disciple of Sun Wukong
Power: Disciples fight in melee range using their hands. They still inflict magical damage. They have a 50% change to dodge/deflect incoming attacks, including basic attacks from enemy gods.

God: Thanatos
Name: Death Dealers
Power: As Thanatos is death itself simply spreading death is a form of worship to him. Every kill or assist that a Death Dealer gets counts in every way as though Thanatos killed that person giving him the gold, xp, adding to his stacks, and healing him the amount appropriate for his passive.

God: Zeus
Name: Olympians
Power: They would throw lightning in place of their basic attack. These lightning bolts would deal %50 more damage than ordinary priest attacks.

So that's all the one I have so far. I would like to restate at this point that I recognize that this is super unnecessary and would never be added to the game. With that being said balancing these power isn't THAT important to me but I would like it so if anyone has any balancing notes for mine that would be great. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to reading everyone else's suggestions and ideas so have fun!

P.S I warned you that this post was going to be WAY too long

As soon as you typed "Robed Priests" I was thinking about those kind of robed priests in Empires of Sand lmao

It's a nice idea.....

But at the same time it would be really difficult to implement to the game.

I'm with Ferrum on this one. Great idea, well thought out, but the actual gameplay usage is limited and it would be near impossible to implement.

the only thin I would see what should be possible is to make them a standard minion and spawn 1 of them instead of one of the archers (like the brute minions) and that they deal magical damage instead of physical.

I've actually had a similar idea rolling around in my head for almost as long as I've played Smite, but that would apply to all minions instead of a specific one. The team composition would determine the selection of minions your team gets, if you had a team of 5 Norse gods your minions would all be the Assault Viking minions (possibly with some specialty minions tossed in based on gods who historically had distinct followers), but if you had a team of 4 Norse and a Hindu then you would have mostly Vikings but have an Indian support unit or something (plus the specials). It would take a lot of resources to implement, but I think it would be awesome.

That would make for an interesting meta, where not only do you have to worry about your gods vs there gods, but your type of minions as well.

That would make the game really interesting, like make some tankir and others deal more damage