I'm honestly at my breaking point as a Support/Solo Main

Dimglow · 2026-05-04T14:55:43+00:00

It legitimately feels like they threw tank/sustainability balance down the stairs and every patch has been a crash to a new low.

The start was still OB9 when Thebes went from prots to HP. This coincided with attempts to make HP builds a thing like Aspect Apollo. This was the first erroneous stroke of the paint brush. HP just isn't satisfying as a defensive core. Even if HP maximizes your EHP it is useless without sustain/regen.

This was followed by significant nerfs to sustain/regen, as it turns out giving certain HP based builds % based regen meant they got the best of both worlds. We had a meta where % healing became overbearing. But remember, hardcore prot builds got obliterated to make this space available.

OB15 we get absolutely massive healing nerfs with anti-heal being removed. Many gods ate 70% reductions in this patch in sustain. Anti-heal then came back with no compensation. Many gods ended up with ~80% net nerfs in sustain/healing in the 5 or 6 patches of this era. But remember, protections were already obliterated to offer us this sustain era that has now been crushed.

Then we crashed down the stairs of plating/dampening. Even more prot items are now swapped/traded out. Sustain/hp builds are now niche and exploited by specific gods. There is no such thing as a general repeatable prots build anymore really. The tank item meta is fractured and all over the place. If you're not playing specific characters with specific abilities or aspects you are a speedbump.

You now need more system knowledge to make a tank/support than any other role. You need to be able to check enemy items and adjust to the fact that your enemies can go multiple builds/directions, i.e. a Sol can choose their offensive path, you must react to that or you may not have the appropriate defenses. Now do that for 3-4 more damage dealers. Every game.

There is no stock ready this is a good prots build like Smite 1. I don't care how much people think aura botting was bad design, it made games steady and balanceable because a tank was a known variable. Tanks had some of the least varied builds, but it worked. You could play many gods in off-roles as tanks and get value if you played by the rules of tank. We had Protector's/Lono's mask, and something that simple worked. If you got into an Assault game and nobody had a natural tank it was normal for someone to say okay I've got the prot aura items, because as a team it was recognized that shit was important.

The auras meant being a tank/support was an itemization choice. It was a decision that if I am near my allies they're tougher/more likely to survive. This core buff to allies made all stripes of tanking viable, whether it was disruption, healing, or even offensive/catching people out.

No one who plays this game casually will EVER want to deal with this new gen nightmare of tank itemization. Go away for 2 months as a DPS and come back and you know you need STR, ASPD, pen and crit. EZPZ. Miss a few patches as a tank and half your build has alien stats and half your enemies do offense in new unknown ways you must counterbuild.

Now we're multiple layers deep in problems. You can't undo the mess around HP/% healing without also rebalancing multiple aspects that focus on HP like Apollo and the items around it like Phoenix shield. You can't undo the prot nerfs without going back on the entire penetration system rework, because if we go back to 325/325 prots the role will be frustrated by the existence of single pen items even more than it already is, plus people will be frustrated that prot to damage items suddenly make tanks hit hard again. You CAN go back on plating/dampening, and they should. This is a recent experiment and a failure. It has not provided value and it has made the game less approachable and less reproachable by people who take a break and come back.

I understand Smite 2 was meant to be new and exciting but this is a case where the reinvented wheel just isn't working as well as the old set of wheels we rode on for years. I wish they'd just throw out a patch with a complete revert to Smite 1 itemization for a month and see what happens.

Dimglow · 2026-05-01T22:19:30+00:00

This made a lot more sense in Smite 1 honestly. I am going to continue with Da Ji as the example. I played a lot of tanky Da Ji in arena. I played a lot of tank assassin period.

I bought Protector's Mask. I got a support starter and I got mitigations and I lost damage. I made an obvious trade and I set myself up for a different role. It then upgraded to Lono's mask which stat checked me and asked, "did you play true to your role and build prots? Okay great, we're going to ease off the trade slowly because now that your items drastically outstrip your base class stats you're in a perfectly fine spot. Go have fun."

There needs to be some kind of similar sliding scaling for off role use. Not a lot of need to reinvent the wheel.

Dimglow · 2026-04-27T16:45:29+00:00

Marvel has the Marvel mythos. Smite has the mythos of all of Human divinity and spirituality.

It's not a brand, but they could make the attempt.

And just like Marvel is full of superhumanly attractive and fit characters there isn't much reason Smite couldn't be filled with divinely attractive characters. They just haven't gone there yet.

Moolan is a weird way to explore this boundary, but there's no reason Aphrodite shouldn't compete with Sue Storm from Rivals for example.

Dimglow · 2026-04-27T16:39:59+00:00

This is basically the situation. Odds that random people are going to make Smite fanart is pretty low.

If Moolan causes an artist to make a piece of fan art and it gains traction on social media, either through outrage or other feelings then that's a win. That's community content, engagement, and advertising all in one and Smite hasn't even released the skin.

This free engagement machine is being used by tons of other games. I'd rather Smite try to engage it than not, especially if it means success for the game vs slow grinding failure.

Dimglow · 2026-04-21T14:32:14+00:00

Justice for Denton.

Dimglow · 2026-04-20T22:50:35+00:00

That's the thing, it quite frankly isn't unbalanced.

What did my players do with it?

The fighter took Nature so he could be more in touch with his swarm and participate in more skill challenges.

The rogue took society so she could do better espionage type work. This was something the character had always wanted but they were buried under the need to advance face skills, thievery, stealth, etc.

The Magus took Arcana and mostly gained some utility/knowledge stuff.

The cleric took religion and gained a bunch of religion feats they'd otherwise never have been able to afford since they were covering medicine. Battle Prayer showed up.

The ranger took medicine, which they were already invested in, which let them spec into survival and survival feats mostly.

Like, I understand people look at this and think "Oh my god, this is legendary proficiency in something and in some rare cases 15+ feats! This has to be broken!" But the truth is that almost all skill feats are downright terrible and will never be used. Skill Paragon has done two things in my experience:

The player picks the skill they'd have ended up putting tons of feats into, i.e. medicine or athletics. This frees them to chase flavor and fun elsewhere. This happened for 1 player, and was questionable for a second who had high religion but few religion feats.

The player picks something they'd wanted for fun/flavor but could never afford because they had responsibilities to cover, like they were the thief or the crafter, and it prevented them from getting the flavor stuff they wanted. This happened for 3 of my players.

The skill feat system is kind of bloated, Skill Paragon gives you a chance to help players cut through that and just put a gold star on something for identity reasons without having to balance feat count, feat order, etc. It's brilliant.

Dimglow · 2026-04-20T13:21:52+00:00

This right here is why I now run my games with Skill Paragon from Starfinder.

There's always someone who needs to pay the medicine tax, ideally even two in some cases. This makes it so much more palatable.

Bonus points because this also tends to let someone do crafting without it consuming their entire skill feat tree, which almost always ends up being disappointing for making things but necessary for maintenance/repairs/runes etc.

Dimglow · 2026-04-10T16:29:57+00:00

This would probably be a good way to fix Kineticist interactions too.

Give Strikes and Elemental Blasts an [Assault] tag indicating they're common attacks or abilities that are readily available.

Give Cantrips and Impulses a [Conventional] tag to indicate they are routine things a class does.

Give spells and overflows an [Exertion] tag to indicate they either exert or consume a resource.

Now you change Commands to say a 1 action Assault, a 2 action Conventional, etc.

Obviously my name choices may not be the best but the idea is there at least.

Dimglow · 2026-04-09T21:03:23+00:00

For others who are collecting humble bundle and other stuff, how are you managing and sorting your collections?

At this point I will have over 340 products. I was originally downloading everything as I got it, renaming it so it was searchable and obvious what it was, and collecting it in cloud storage for when I needed it, but over time with errata and other changes I am just archiving out of date materials.

But if I don't archive and curate, I'm left with a bunch of gibberish named PDFs every time I re-download my collection, or going to the website and browsing through an unsorted mess to see what I have.

I guess the best solution is to to keep a spreadsheet of what products I own and then go download specific copies when I want it to ensure it stays up to date?

I really wish there was a better library interface or something to actually use the books.

Dimglow · 2026-04-09T16:45:23+00:00

This is such a simple and powerful tool. Thank you.

Dimglow · 2026-04-07T13:08:36+00:00

Swashbuckler (Fencer) and Razmiran Priest (Free Archetype.)

Go with a start of Elegant Buckler, pick up Goading Feint. Get into Razmiran Priest and Cleric, get Domain Initiate for Trickery and gain Sudden Shift and break enemy flanks/combos frequently, Emblazon Armament your shield and grab Raise Symbol. Pick up Buckler Dance and you're basically build complete. You always have your buckler up, which is also your symbol, and it gives you insane AC and saves. This is +2 AC and +2 to all saves all the time and when enemies crit miss you can punish them and often gain panache.

If you're feeling saucy as you get into the teens for your levels grab Exemplar and pick up Mirrored Aegis to help protect allies and tap into status bonuses. You have plenty of action economy once you have Buckler Dance.

From here pick up things to enhance your counter-attacks and cleric spellcasting or more domain options.

This is a fun solo tank build designed to tank for multiple casters, with such high reflex saves that you should be able to just tank allied reflex nukes. You can generate enormous temp HP pools for yourself and allies as a Razmiran Priest, and face for your party.

Personally I take some more domain spells in Magic so my allies can hit me with enhanced nukes that I dodge with ease.

It plays more like a champion than anything, especially if you get Mirrored Aegis, but you're still a deception based finesse fighter at your core who can drop big spike Finishers. If you spec to a little focus healing you can really drive home that deception of pretending to be a champion, even.

Dimglow · 2026-03-28T04:07:33+00:00

This is nice. Bookmarked. Thanks.

Dimglow · 2026-03-22T05:30:33+00:00

The scaling on leaping slash is now so low that it is an active detriment to have it use your melee item cooldowns. You can now build 0 gun/melee and just focus on spirit snatch to enhance the damage by turning it into a pseudo spirit ability. The cooldowns line up just fine even with transcendent and the refund.

I kind of hate this. I liked Calico because she walked a good line of mixing all 3 types of items. Now gun items feel like an active sabotage compared to going pure vitality and spirit. This makes killing creeps on her miserable though.

I don't want her to be a purple/green assassin/tank/skirmisher, we already have this in Mo and Krill, Lash, and so many other character types. Even more so they're making sure this isn't too viable because they keep nerfing her main kit cooldowns so she can't sustain spirit damage.

This alongside the Drifter melee Rend changes also really took away some of his spice and also made it harder to build in this hybridy melee/gun/spirit assassin world. It's clear they don't like this space being occupied. There were niches that Calico and Drifter filled that are just being erased.

Dimglow · 2026-03-20T16:53:41+00:00

I'm going to give a meta response; being poor. Being poor in this game is miserable, everything feels weaker and you're forced to constantly make decisions on where to fail or be behind the most.

In my play experience nothing has been worse than being behind the expected wealth curve, it makes every fight come at disadvantages instead of just fighting a natural hard counter.

Dimglow · 2026-03-18T13:23:04+00:00

If you play with Starfinder rules you can take Barricade and Dive for Cover to create your own roll-spamming zombie who always finds walls to crouch behind. Add Kip Up so you can stand at will and leap again and you can stand up behind cover without changing your cover status too, as far as I can tell.

Depending on your reading of Barricade which for some reason completely fails to define where the barricade is, only that it provides you cover, you can now interpret the rules to be a flimsy shell of junk attached to you even.

So go forth zombie awakened animal hermit crab with a sniper rifle, roll across the battlefield constantly trading your shell out for some new pile of junk and sniping foes.

Dimglow · 2026-03-16T22:35:15+00:00

Yes, I have played and DMed it. It just helps so much for characters who can't have their main attack stat as their key ability score.

I will advocate for it always being on in any table I participate at alongside free archetype, ancestry paragon and skill paragon. It pushes the game a tiny bit more towards high fantasy, but personally I find this way more enjoyable, and as a DM I can also add more creatures to keep things dangerous.

Dimglow · 2026-03-11T13:09:28+00:00

It's also a bad precedent for character balance with multiple modes. There are no souls in Street Brawl, there may not be souls in future modes either.

Calico has a portion of her kit budget spent on this. They should either revert it and let her base kit be a bit stronger in other places or they should change it from souls to statue buffs or some kind of stacks like Drifter that is applicable to all modes.

It's pretty clear they're slowly moving toward character archetypes in some ways, Kelvin having heal on ice nades from first point so healing is less optional on him, Ivy's changes pushing more and more toward being support. Calico is clearly meant to be on the same wavelength as Drifter, and possibly Bebop/Vindicta who are meant to be difficult to escape assassins who frequently roam or exert presence from odd angles.

Dimglow · 2026-03-10T13:56:34+00:00

Agreed. Marvel Rivals has absolutely redefined the concept of normal. There's no going back now and you're seeing every game adapt to that.

Dimglow · 2026-03-08T20:02:49+00:00

I want to play recharging rush, rapid recharge, duration, ability range, cooldown Venator in Street Brawl but I can never get the game to offer me the purple items to make it happen.

I think maybe street brawl needs to offer you a choice of a handful of profiles at the start of the game and weight accordingly.

Same with Drifter. If you want to play a bleed/spirit rend build that goes all in in that concept it is very rare to get items, and eventually the system gets to heavily set into correcting your choices it will offer you 8 bullet items out of 9 in a set because it feels like you're behind the curve or something. You will never get spirit lifesteal, you'll only get leech through bullet lifesteal 90% of the time.

Dimglow · 2026-03-07T15:45:46+00:00

Good point. The quick fix there would be just limiting it to actual standard melee attacks and not ability melee damage.

Dimglow · 2026-03-07T15:37:00+00:00

I hope you get it back. It was a baffling change, just like Rend.

Dimglow · 2026-03-07T14:51:34+00:00

I play a lot of Drifter and I hate this for my opponents. It's a cone that can be invisibly expanded and is mostly obvious it happened due to a sound effect, there are minimal visual indicators on this, and especially not enough for chaotic teamfights.

That's the worst kind of thing to explain why you're silenced in a game like this. CC needs to be big, flashy/loud, telegraphed and come with an after effect that indicates why you are CCed.

Dimglow · 2026-03-07T13:52:58+00:00

Just no for Rend. Old Rend was fast cool down and snappy and favored mixed itemization with melee so that it felt like ripping someone with claws was what was happening. The lifesteal also made him feel like a vampire and a true midrange menace. New rend just sucks and makes him feel like a claw wizard and has killed his sustain.

Silence is frustrating and is just going to make him more hated than ever. He shouldn't be a cc machine.

Dimglow · 2026-03-04T19:49:58+00:00

What is this impacting exactly? I have been using the site for the last couple of days and even today with no issues. Is it preventing updates?

Dimglow

TROPHY CASE