Ao Kuang Patch Notes 2014-11-19

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13gMvgT1VD17XH7hyXZoJgB1qtasQEJxinI7gNP6tWhc/pub

Here are the patch notes. Discuss. :)

New God: Ao Kuang

Ao Kuang

King’s Sword - Passive
Ao Kuang's sword can hold up to 3 Energy Charges, and regenerates charges while out of combat. Each time Ao Kuang casts an ability, an energy charge will be consumed if available, increasing the damage of the ability by 5%. If Ao Kuang is out of mana, he will use Energy Charges to cast abilities instead.

Water Illusion
Ao Kuang teleports forward into stealth, leaving behind a watery form of himself. He remains in stealth for 5s or until he attacks or takes damage. Ao Kuang may activate this ability again to detonate the watery form, dealing 90/140/190/240/290 +70% of his Magical Power as damage to nearby enemies. Cost: 70. Cooldown: 15s.

Dragon Call
Ao Kuang summons 6 dragons to his side. For every successful basic attack Ao Kuang makes, a dragon will dive to the target dealing 40/60/80/100/120 +30% of his Magical Power as damage. This ability ends after all dragons are used, or after 10s. Ao Kuang may activate this ability again to send forward any remaining dragons in a ranged attack, dealing 50% damage per dragon and Slowing 30% for 1s the first enemy hit. The slow duration increases +.25s for each remaining dragon that was sent forward. Cost: 60/65/70/75/80. Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11s.

Wild Storm
Ao Kuang unleashes a storm of lightning from his sword, damaging all enemies in front of him for 90/140/190/240/290 + 50% of his Magical Power. This hit is considered a basic attack, and will activate item effects and send forth dragons from Dragon Call. Cost: 60/65/70/75/80. Cooldown: 5s.

King of the Eastern Seas
Ao Kuang selects a single target in melee range and grabs them, dealing 90/140/190/240/290 +50% of his Magical Power as damage and knocking them up into the air. If the target is under a health threshold of 23/26/29/32/35%, Ao Kuang will instead reveal his true form, becoming a Dragon and executing them. After transforming Ao Kuang remains in the air, and may then pick a new location to land, dealing 100/150/200/250/300 +50% of his Magical Power as damage to enemies within range 20, and fully recharging King’s Sword. Cost: 90/100/110/120/130. Cooldown: 90s.

New God Skins

Tempest Ao Kuang

Lil’ Red Scylla

Gold, Legendary, and Diamond Sylvanus

Sock PuppeTyr Tyr
This is an exclusive skin available through our new Friend Referral system.

Tyr Convention 2015
This is an exclusive skin available through various events in 2015.

New Voice Packs

Ao Kuang

Scylla Lil’ Red

Tyr Sock PuppeTyr

Adjusted Voice Packs

Anubis
Recent changes have been reverted due to popular demand.

Nu Wa
Nu Wa’s base voice has been re-recorded for quality improvements, using the Voice Actress who originally performed our launch version of Nu Wa. While we hope that everyone will love and appreciate this change, we’ve also refunded all voice-pack purchases of Nu Wa.

New Ward Skins and Player Icons

60th God Icon was added to the game!

Ao Kuang Icon

New country flags - Bolivia, Slovakia, Panama

Promotional icon - Fall Harvest

New Emotes

Nox Clap and Wave

Updated Cards

Aphrodite

New God Rotation

He Bo

Sylvanus

Artemis

Osiris

Kali

Friend Referrals

A new system has been implemented for Friend Referrals that adds numerous rewards and benefits for you and your friends! You can link a new Account to a reffering friend via our new in-game interfrace, during account creation, or on the www.smitegame.com website. Once you link your account to a friend the following rewards and goals will be available, and can be tracked using the new friend referral menu:

Milestone Rewards: These rewards are granted to a Referring player as each friend they refer reaches level 15!
1 Friend: 1000 Favor
2 Friends: 2000 Favor
3 Friends: 3500 Favor, Exclusive Skin (Sock PuppeTyr)
4 Friends: 4000 Favor
5 Friends: 200 Gems
10 Friends: 400 Gems

Leveling Rewards: Both the Referring player and their Referred friend gain rewards as the Referred friend levels up to 30. The Referred friend gains 3x the base reward.
Level 10: 500 Favor
Level 15: 1000 Favor
Level 20: 1500 Favor
Level 25: 2000 Favor
Level 30: 2500 Favor

Play Together Bonus: Being grouped and playing with your Referred friend gives both of you the following rewards.
At 1 hours Played with referred Friend: 1-Day Booster
At 5 hours Played with referred Friend: 1000 Favor
At 10 hours Played with referred Friend: 15-Day Booster
At 20 hours Played with referred Friend: 200 Gems
At 30 hours Played with referred Friend: 200 Gems

Any new tracking systems will start fresh on the update. However, we will keep track of the amount of friends you have referred before on the old system.

Match Ratings


We’ve implemented two new systems to assist in helping us better track quality control for server performance, user connectivity, and matchmaking.

Both of these are optional for players to participate:
*There is a new “Server Report” button on the End of Match Lobby that allows players to rate the performance of the server in the match they just had.
*Players will occasionally be prompted, in the end of match lobby, to rate their opinion of the quality of the Match Making in the match they just completed.


Misc

Fixed the Austria flag icon.

Girdle of Support tooltip has been updated to reflect the correct behavior.

Fixed various grammatical errors in odyssey item descriptions.

Fixed God trade icons not showing under certain conditions in Random pick.

Surrender UI no longer shows bots as teammates in Co-Op or Custom Matches.

Fixed a rare issue causing trading icons to not show up in Assault.

Exclusive and Limited items now display their type even when they are on sale.

Fixed a bug causing party invites to now show at the end of match lobby.

Party Leaders are now able to promote other players.

There have been some visual upgrades to Minion Health Bars in all game modes.

If you have an active chat tab with a friend, you now get a message when they go offline
or log back in.

New options for UI Nameplate targeting have been added into the game.

Added UI support for Safe Mode and queue open windows.

The Basic Tutorial has been improved with new imagery and clearer instruction steps.

Spectator now self recognizes team names, based on majority clan name of team.

General Gameplay

All gods with a Leap, Dash, or Teleport have had their tooltips updated to clearly state which movement type the ability is.

Items

Midgardian Mail

Fixed an issue where removing the slow effect would also remove the Attack Speed reduction.

Gods - Balance/Updates/Fixes

Arachne
Night Crawler
Fixed a tooltip description error where it stated her duration on web was 7s instead of 5s.

Bakasura
Regurgitate
Fixed an issue where removing or becoming immune to the slow would also remove the cripple effect of this ability.

Cupid
“Cupid has been performing fairly well in comparison to other Hunters but the long animation on his ultimate meant that he was being interrupted more often than he should. While a small adjustment, this change is to help Cupid land his ultimate more reliably.”
Fields Of Love
Casting time reduced from 0.5s to 0.3s.

Chronos
“While Chronos is designed as a late game magical carry, his early game tends to be a bit too weak in comparison to other Mages. Both of these changes are designed to help him in the early part of the game, and we think the adjustment to Wheel of Time will also increase the enjoyment and clarity of using that Section.”
Wheel of Time
Section II Mana refund increased from 75% to 100%.
Accelerate
Mana cost reduced from 70/75/80/85/90 to 60/65/70/75/80.

Freya
“Freya is designed to be a late game single target burst Mage. She accomplishes this in many ways, but due to her hyper late game carry potential we felt the number of hits she could confirm on targets falling from banish should be addressed. By decreasing how long it takes to fall after banish ends, we’ve reduced the number of shots the target takes before they regain control. This is a fairly substantial adjustment to Freya, and one we’ll be watching closely going forward.”
Banish
Increased the rate enemies fall back to the ground after being banished.

Hercules
Earthbreaker
Fixed a bug that created strange interactions with this ability and other knockbacks.

Eset
Dispel Magic
Updated tooltip for clarity.

Nu Wa
“We are happy with Nu Wa’s playstyle but she is slightly over tooled for damage given all that she brings to a team. These adjustments are intended to bring her a bit more in line.”
Shining Metal
Base damage reduced from 90/140/190/240/290 to 90/130/170/210/250.
Fire Shards
Magical Damage Scaling reduced from 40% to 30%.

Mercury
“Similar to Freya, Mercury is a hyper late game carry that could confirm several hits on targets thrown by Special Delivery. We’ve adjusted how high targets are thrown, while not affecting the distance they are thrown, as a way to reduce the number of confirmed hits without affecting his ability to displace targets. Like Freya’s adjustment, this is a fairly substantial change, and we’ll be watching it closely and adjusting as needed.”
Special Delivery
Decreased the amount of time thrown targets are airborne when tossed from special delivery. This does not affect the distance thrown.

Rama
Astral Strike
Fixed an issue where Astral Strike could be disabled during Astral Barrage.

Serqet
“Serqet is one of our most mobile goddesses and we are very happy with the way her timings have worked out and the way she feels in play. Her damage potential on Deathbane was a bit too high, and we’ve brought it down to bring her in line with other Assassins.”
Deathbane
Physical Power Scaling reduced from 50% to 45% per hit.
Physical Protection Reduction reduced from 20% to 15% for 3s.

Sylvanus
Verdant Growth
Fixed an issue where this ability was not contributing to lifesteal correctly.
Wisps
Fixed an issue where this ability was not contributing to lifesteal correctly.

Ullr
General
Fixed an issue which caused his stance change to be awkwardly interrupted by a stun.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

This. So much this.
+rep

Freya: I think even one free hit on top of a suppress is ridiculous.

Nu Wa: This was clearly due to the multitude of ignorant heathens complaining about five Nu Was ulting in succession in today's MOTD. In any case, this is a poor decision that makes the ultimate incredibly useless. If they wanted to nerf it, they should have increased its cooldown.

Mercury: Still lacks counterplay.

Serqet: They may as well have not nerfed her at all. Serqet's problem is in her mobility combined with her massive burst damage and ridiculous CC, not her armor shred and one of her many damage skills.

Little Red Riding Hood is such a tired, stale trope by now. I'd have liked to see some originality (see LRRH Annie) for once. Like on Bastet - she already wears a hood, and she can summon wolves instead of cats.

The server report is a fantastic addition, however. And I still cannot believe the drivel that was the new Anubis voice pack ever made it out of the testing phase.

I'm disappointed to see that HiRez once again guts their own attempts at originality. Not only do they take a, for them, fairly unique mechanic and ruin it by making it insignificant (because 5% is nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.), but the new Ao is an overpowered mess. Not only does he have a stealth (lacking in counterplay yet again, not only does he have a blink (again, lacking in counterplay), but his two, upon recast, deals up to 360 + 120% of your magical power.

He has a skill with a 11 second cooldown that has 120% AP scalings.

He has a skill with a 11 second cooldown with the contributions of Kukulkan's ultimate.

That's not even getting into his no-counterplay ultimate, or his tired old burst combo based kit, or how they removed any bruiser aspects to turn him into a pure assassin.

Ao could have been great. They removed the RNG, which was good, but they removed much of what made his kit unique. So now, he feels like a Freya with Loki's Stealth, but with the option to turn Freya's basic attacks into one massively damaging ability.

He'll be fun to play. He won't be fun to fight.

Well. Time to make 3 accounts. Sock Puppet Tyr here I come!

Throwback Chronos skin confirmed....

I legit had to double take when reading that in the patch notes.

Then I had a very good laugh, kind of like yours.

Just wow...

Like I said, I feel the skins concepts team literally is just a bunch of guys sitting in a room trying to think up of the worst puns that they can make up.

I would literally stake money on that chance

After that He Bo Uranus joke. I also would get a beef stake on that.