Problems with Zeus :: SmiteFire

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1. He takes very little skill to play. He takes a little more skill to master. Seriously, he can apply three charges with one chain lightning, and that's just from hitting a nearby minion. Why the hell does it do so much for so little effort? If it could only bounce to a specific god once, it would reward skillshots and prevent stupid autohitting. If you're going to make it that easy for him, why not just give him autoattacks? Screw basic attacks, remove his need to aim at all!

2. His Aegis is poorly designed. Seriously? Apply a charge on all basic attacks? Well, that screws over 30% of the gods in the game.

3. He takes little skill to play. I cannot emphasis this enough. Just spam basics until you get three charges, then stun them, then apply more basics, and with cooldown items you can just keep spamming this all ****ing day. His basics are even meant to be spammed! Just look at his stupid 1/1/.5/.5 attack chain!

4. Most ridiculous ultimate in the game. It deals decent damage, which is the problem. An ultimate like this, with very little skill involved and an incoming detonate, should not deal decent damage when it already has high utility. Why not give Artemis and Ares good damage on their ults as well? Or make Ao Kuang's ult a huge area attack? Or make Thanatos' ult become global and automatically hit? Why make this ult so difficult to counter?

5. He takes very little skill to play. I cannot emphasis this enough. I mean, at least Ne Zha's white ring of death needs a bit of aiming, and doesn't give a ridiculous stun.

I think he needs a complete rework. As in, the whole 'charge' system is broken. It makes him too strong in a one-on-one fight, and the only thing that might beat him in such a fight, carries, are easily countered with Aegis*. He can deal a stupid amount of damage, has stupid CC, and just rewards way too much for the skill needed to play him.

If his weakness is in multiple opponents, his damn Chain Lightning takes care of that, as well as his ult. I'm just grateful there isn't some magical version of the Golden Bow.

*The problem with his Aegis is that it's unlimited. Athena's block is similarly useful, but it is quite limited, maxing at three blocked attacks, and can be countered with enough attack speed. You just can't counter Aegis Shield at all, and it is way more effective than Athena's .

Renowned (112)
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zeus has never been without problemes but i think he his better then before. back before his reworked skills he would instakill you given any chance which wasn't that often but if he did you better have an aegis ready.

he doesn't have the most redicouless ult in the game. its easy to escape and maybe gets him 1 more charge.

his chain lightning is fine. hard to hit and very usefull in teamfights.

nezha also has a stun.

he is deadly in 1v1's which is why you never attack him directly alone. flank him or gang up and cc him. he has no escape.

his aegis doesn't block basic's it just gives him a speed and protection buff and if he gets hit by a basic attack there is a % chance that you get a charge.

never forget dawngate and never forgive EA. Freia will hunt them for eternity.

Distinguished (54)
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Zeus isn't broken. At all. If he was this overpowered, easy-to-play uncounterable monster you claim he is he would see more use in competitive play. Currently he's rarely picked up and doesn't do much out of the ordinary when he is.

Compare him to Agni. Zeus can stack charges and stun? Cool. Agni can deal a large amount of burst damage with much faster than Zeus can, and if you combo it with you also get a stun off earlier, guaranteeing another hit with , all in a decent AOE. With a damage over time effect from if you play it right. And a proper escape. Plus another offensive move in should three shots of the ult not be enough. Not to mention his ults are much easier to land and take full advantage off.

Zeus's generally doesn't do too much other than zone people out unless you combo it with , and even then people can just jump or combat blink out. Zeus's skillset will in general give you more time before the big damage is dealt, it has less utility in teamfights, and many gods can simply avoid him until the Aegis Shield is down and then turn on him. Unless they use their own abilities instead of basics and avoid the entire problem of getting charges.

Zeus has a poor escape, is easily collapsed on and is a prime target every time is on cooldown. He certainly has a lot of damage potential, and he works out very well in modes like Arena and Assault, but for your average conquest match I don't see how he's so much stronger than the other burst mages in the game.

Memorable (10)
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To start with his passive, it makes him do nearly double damage when all three charges stacked on someone with basic attacks. His hit progression is there just to add more stacks onto people.

His chain lightning unlike Ne Zha's ring doesn't get less powerful the more times it hits people and it applies a charge. Bouncing between two gods hurts.

The aegis... Is there anything bad about it? Giving him a 125% speed boost and immunity to slows allowing him to escape most ultimates. Increasing protections. If you are a basic attack god you're pretty much screwed when he uses it for 6 seconds while he can pound you with charges. A 10% damage reflection from basic attacks as well? So apply charges, speed boost, slow immunity, reflect damage, protections. Five pro's from one ability that cannot be stopped with a cripple.

Detonate charges isn't that over powered by itself, but when you add that all of his abilities and basic attacks add charges it tends to spiral out of control. While you are applying charges with basic attacks you're allowing your basic attacks to do more damage as well, then you stun for one second. Rinse and repeat?

His ultimate isn't overpowered as well, it certainly hurts but it's comparable to other gods.

All I'm saying here is that none of his abilities have cons, like jumps being crippled etc. His damage late game destroys anyone in a couple of seconds that isn't a tank. And it doesn't matter whether or not professional players use them a lot. I don't see this as a professional game only. This is a casual game for those who want it to be.

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wrote:

The game is supposed to be balanced for competitive play, so yes, it matters. A lot.

doesn't deal lower damage per hit, true, but it has fewer bounces once is leveled a bit, the bounces are pretty slow and it lacks the armor shred and speed buff/debuff of the rings, giving it lower utility overall.

Aegis Shield has a disadvantage: it is merely a weak speed boost with slow immunity. As far as escapes go it is fairly mediocre, and is really more of a dueling tool than anything else. Not that it is too effective, most basic attack-reliant gods can deal with it easily enough. Anhur can simply you away, Neith can root with , Apollo can mesmerize with . All of them also have jumps or dashes to get away. Most other basic-attack reliant gods can also stay away with little issue until the Aegis is down and/or use abilities instead of basics for a while.

is powerful, but also absolutely integral. I don't fear a Zeus whose detonate is on cooldown. As soon as it is down, there are tons of gods who can attack him without fear.

is, as you seem to realize, pretty impractical and hard to use effectively.

Zeus hurts, yes, but he really isn't as bad as people want him to be. Again, this is conquest I'm talking about. His clear is fairly poor, his options for escaping are limited, and he struggles to find effective uses for his ult. When I hear people complain about him I get reminded of people complaining about Ares. The guy hurts a lot and the ultimate, when it works out as intended, is absolutely devastating, but he has definite issues and can be played around. Zeus is more powerful than Ares obviously, but the same principle applies. People are overestimating him a lot.

Like I said earlier, compare him to Agni. Now that's a powerful and reliable burst mage right there.

Memorable (10)
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Agni is annoying, but he can't make himself become effectively invincible for a short time. Aegis is not "just a speed boost," it eliminates a huge source of damage from any physical god. I have played Zeus, and the standard tactic is to wait for Xbalanque or Apollo to use his "bursty" skills before popping the shield. Cue 6 seconds of uninterrupted attacking.

And Chain Lightning may not apply a debuff, but it leads up to a stun, which leads to another stun (and debuff from Demonic Grip, Gem of Binding, etc), which leads to another stun, rinse repeat. You can't run from Zeus. You can't duel Zeus. You can only try to burst him down, which is impossible for many gods.

It's always easy to say, oh, just escape with [active item here]. Have you ever tried it in practice? Combat Blink is meant to be used for when you make a stupid mistake. If you actually need combat blink to survive normally, the problem is with the player, not the god. You can't CB out of everything and anything, so don't you dare use it as a cure-all.

By that argument, you could say, oh, [problem here]?, just Combat Blink out of it! That statement is so anti-logical, I can't type coherently because I am shaking with rage. Combat Blink has a cooldown of 180 seconds. Zeus often uses cooldown items, with max cooldown, his ultimate recharges in 54 seconds. Detonate Charge is 6 seconds.

*snarls* And Agni is a whole other ball game. Unfortunately, I haven't played him, but I will tell you this: He is even more broken than Zeus, because anyone with decent aim can at least stun someone, even if they don't hit with the first fireball itself. Agni players, you probably know what I am talking about, the "throw-a-fireball-before-placing-a-fumes-right-beneath-it-instantly-stunning-anyone-within-a-large-radius-and-being-nearly-impossible-to-dodge-tactic."

You can counter Ares. Ares can't make himself invincible, and you can actually dodge his shackles, and counter his ult with a universally useful active item. Try dodging a Chain Lightning, or countering Aegis Shield as a carry. Anhur and Neith are terrible examples, as both have unusual access to lots of CC. Apollo would be a better example, or Freya, or Artemis, or Bakasura, or Cupid, or Fenrir, or Hercules, or Hun Batz, or Ne Zha, or Odin, or Thanatos, or Arachne. I know not all of them were carries, but the point is, a smart Zeus can easily counter them all with his stupid Aegis Shield.

I know that this post isn't very coherent, but I'm to pised too thin kstriaght.

Renowned (112)
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Zues is definitely one of the most annoying gods and I often say the things he can do aren't fair but he isn't quite as good as Agni, He-bo, or Poseidon so....Idk. Really I would say just get rid of his ****ed up hit progression and buff his survivability some how, maybe make his passive so that he takes 10% less damage per stack of lightning on enemy gods instead of the current passive.

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The one caveat I have here, is he's a god in assault in arena, but he is horrific in Conquest, hence his relatively nonexistent percentage of picks. He has no waveclear at ALL, and it results in him getting shoved to his tower, and losing gold to the tower. There's nothing he can do about it either - no matter how fed he gets, he will NEVER have waveclear, ever. You beat him in the laning phase to beat him in the rest of the game.

He's the 2nd best dueling mage in the game, only behind Chronos (Which interestingly, zeus counters), so you're not going to beat him going after him with Aegis. But he has 0 escapes, and can't detonate when he dies, so the trick is to pounce on him coordinately, to secure an easy kill. Additionally, unless he has good synergy, his ult is one of the easiest things to avoid in the game, and does little if he's been building the Fatalis/Demonic Grip/Polynomicon I've seen recent ones doing. Only if he stacks a LOT of magic power is it lethal, and even then it's easy to avoid, as all the ults that are scary with it - Odin, Ares, Hades, etc) can be countered by either Purification Beads or Combat Blink - making 2 ults useless with 1 active.

-Demolibium

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Eminent (158)
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wrote:

Team him up with an Odin in Conquest and then you will know pain.

Notable (1)
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zeus NEEDS aegis shield back, in this meta he is completely outdated. i understand people had a problem with this ability in the past but now times have changes and it wouldnt be a hard to get around, zeus suffers GREATLY from being able to sustain himself for even a second when ganked and then teamates always ping you like its your fault. this is leading to noone playing zeus anyone even long time fans of him like me. the sad state of zeus now, not even being able to solo one god because he is all damage and all you have to do is build alittle protection and he's dead, is laughable.

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