Why SMITE 9.7 Bonus Balance 2 Is A Bad Approach. Aka Sphinx's Bauble Rant

SMITE Patch 9.7 Bonus Balance 2 comes with a variety of god nerfs, for example Eset and Ullr. It also comes with a buff to Griffonwing Earrings, which is a very good idea. But it also comes with a nerf to Sphinx's Baubles, which makes a least one guy out there very unhappy: me.

Timestamps:
0:00 Patch notes
4:00 Old man yells at... bauble
8:15 More patch notes

#SMITE #Sphinx #Bauble

Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe.. or don't, if you don't feel like it... really. It's up to you. It's a sloth life after all.
--
MORE SLOTH:
--
Songs:
Paul Leonard-Morgan - Bells of Laguna Bend
--
Congratulations, you made it to the end of the description. You are now one of the chosen few.

[jacobobos]

They basically made Chronos pendant with -20% damage nerf. Good job Hi-Rez

[chadbanner]

I mean if they really thought baulble was that much of a problem, why not nerf it in any other way first (less damage, less power, less healing), instead of nerfing the fun and interessting part?

[scalpingsnake]

The thing with 60% CD meant you had to build around it completely. You literally had to think from the start of the game how to fit all the CD into your build.

Now it will either be, build normally and replace one item for bauble or (more likely) don't build it.

It really does feel like it's the players perception of the item that made them do this over how good it actually is. That isn't necessarily a bad thing as just because something isn't good that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't fun to play against.

I just can't believe they went this route already so quickly. Someone said on the reddit they should nerf it like this and I was adamant that was the wrong thing to do, they should have reworked it before reducing it to 50% imo.

[Ro-fwlc]

They really killed the only non meme item in the new tree. Like christ man, why even implement bauble if you're just gonna ruin the entire point of it?

Edit: Duke made a good point, balance/safety isn't fun. Especially with very unique ideas like bauble (which was more of just a fun thing than an op thing)

[chewy]

"Lets take bauble away". Yeah wouldn't want the supports (least popular role) to have a (fun) late game item that isn't just haha protections go The only people that complained about Bauble were the ones who don't play around important CD's in team fights. Can't get mad at a Kephri for using his abilities, fine nerf kephri, but not him and what made him oppressive to those who don't play around him correctly. They made DR better, gave us a bigger pool of CDs if we build 1 build centered around it.

[LostCoin]

They took bauble and made it less situational. Before you bought it in certain situations and now you dont buy it in any situation.

Side note: i only like this from the mental perspective that it grants 10% cdr and allows 10% extra cdr. Having a downside while also not fulfilling its own passive felt awkward to me

[vineveer]

I imagine bauble was nerfed specifically because of kumbakarna.

I'm still not sure if griffonwing earrings needs the damage penalty. The projectiles aren't THAT much faster, and otherwise just feels like. . . "Yea. That's. . . what a tier 3 item passive should do."

You don't see Hastened Katana or Hastened Ring giving you -5% damage for haste, for example.

[tubbisaurusrex]

I think theyre listening to Twitter crybabies too much nowadays. Its such a fun item. I made support anubis viable last night in joust because of this item. Hopefully they change their mind

[CAFEkatArt]

I really don’t see how anyone could value bauble now. 10% extra cdr just doesn’t seem worth it for the dmg reduction

[clintcook]

Yea I'm not ever building bauble after the patch. I loved the fact I could spam abilities while not doing damage.

I think the casual player base is upset about the fact that once someone reaches 60% they have the potential to nearly lock you down with CC if they get a good chain going on you. Which in my experience not many people but it to begin with.

[dionjones]

The way I saw bauble is that it's 50% more abilities at a cost of 20% of your damage/healing. They could have just lowered the damage dealt/healing. Or, if need be, made it so you had to stack the item somehow. It was really fun, really wacky. Id have even accepted taking more damage over losing the cdr. We had it less than a month, and in that time, it was unusable for nearly 2 weeks.

[fleshanbones]

The bauble already wasn't good on basically any mage. The power reduction wasn't worth it for like 1 more second off a basic ability. But it was definitely a fun meme item. Having ra or nox or Vulcan ult on a like 20 second cool down was fun

[SynderFGC]

Only use I've found for Manticore's Spikes is on like Thor Support to up his combo damage when you're building mostly tanky with just like a Glad Shield in there and even there Runeforged Hammer is giving maybe 40-60 less damage for more consistency since you don't miss the item drop

[abdielrodriguez]

Bauble was really just not good on most gods, tanks like it but they lose tankiness, mages like it but they lose dmg, healers like it but they lose healing. Honestly it just never felt like a great item on anyone

[benchii]

Saw everyone complaining and whining about bauble on twitter, and i knew they would nerf it because of the community overreacting, this item is decent it was never broken or terrible and yet they are nerfing it just cause everyone complaining that they get cc by kumbha over and over, let tanks have their fun for just one time!

[lowkee]

As someone who was frustrated by the bauble, these changes are really stupid IMO. It was annoying on characters like nox because her CCs can't be DRd, and she still wound up dealing a shit ton of damage. As frustrating as it was to play against sometimes, it was also the item I was most excited about.
What they should have done IMO, is either stack, or replace the 20% reduced damage with a 10-20% damage taken debuff. This way 1 on 1 fights aren't as frustrating, but the bauble still has use for team-fights.

[DanilegoPlays]

Thank you! For a second I thought this was gonna be yet another rant about how Bauble is bad and how it should be removed...
Of course the community for asking for the item to be removed instead of adapting to it, and yeah, the nerf is 100% because of that

[ajzorger]

I'm convinced the developers that do nerfs and buffs to items have never actually played the game. I don't think they know what's happening at all

[YourHomieJC]

The issue with bauble wasn't in conquest but in casual modes, where gods like nox could have their combo up permanently while also being untouchable with dashes on a couple second cooldown. However, I do think nerfing the cooldown cap was the wrong approach. I think if it instead got +20% damage taken it would be good, but hirez seems to often make the weirdest choices for balance

[kanyunrodriguez]

I feel like this change was unnecessary it's such a drastic change when the vast majority of us haven't even seen what it can really do yet. This nerf feels very targeted like certain people with this feel extremely oppressive (nox for example) and they didn't like that but instead blamed it on something dumb. They do this all the time they add something New then remove it because it's game changing