The newest addition to the ever-growing pantheon of playable gods in Smite is Bellona and she absolutely wrecks everything she touches.
Starting off strong
The first thing I did as Bellona was queue a joust (3v3) to test out her kit and see how high her teamfight potential. I had heard her survivability and sustain in teamfights was her main strength, so I did what any self-respecting player would do and ran straight at the enemy team, flailing my weapon wildly.
Turns out she’s pretty powerful, because I got a kill and almost secured two more. Is this balanced? Let’s find out.
Her kit
Before we discuss what I think of her balance, let’s look at her abilities. Check out the god reveal below if you want the literal definitions, otherwise read on to discover the screaming Roman eagle of destruction that is Bellona.
- Passive – when she hits or receives an autoattack, she gains 6% movement speed and +5 protections per stack, max of 5. So at max stacks (easy to get in a teamfight), she becomes 30% faster and gets +25 protections until she’s out of combat. Basically she turns into a zippy tank that ruins your dreams.
- 1 – She dashes a short distance and does damage and slows in a medium-sized arc. After using the ability she gains a stack of block for each enemy hit by the dash. This nullifies the damage from a single autoattack but still counts for her passive. So this means she gets free protections and speed if you hit her after using the ability. In addition, after using the ability you use a sword and shield (this is a trend with her, you’ll see), and for every three autoattacks you hit, you get another stack of block. The sword and shield last until you’re out of combat. I should mention that the block also reflects 30% of the damage around her.
- 2 – Bellona swings a hammer around, doing damage in a circle. Then she swings it over her head to do damage in a line. The damage on the slam is increased by 30% for each enemy god hit, so if she uses it in a teamfight that slam could do a few hundred damage. But wait there’s more! After she uses this ability, she keeps the hammer, similar to the sword and shield ability. Her autoattacks now gain a cleave effect, meaning they hit any enemy in melee range. So if she pops this ability, it makes it incredibly easy to kill a minion wave or clear a jungle camp. It’s super powerful.
- 3 – Whip it good! This ability is the best in her kit by a mile. She busts out a huge whip and does damage in a line. Any enemy god hit by the initial whip smash thing takes a good amount of damage and is disarmed for a few seconds, rendering them unable to autoattack. That’s right, she can make any enemy god who relies on autoattacks to do damage completely useless. GG, hunters. If that wasn’t enough, she keeps the whip for a while (until she’s out of combat, like all her other weapons). This whip attack chain heals her every third attack for a pretty good amount and she gets a range boost to her auto-attacks. If you build attack speed on her, this lets you be incredibly tanky in team fights as well as do crazy damage.
- 4 (ultimate) – And finally we come to her ultimate ability which is also crazy powerful. Bellona leaps through the air like a Roman goddess eagle of destiny, planting a flag at the target location. Allies near the flag gain increased physical power and protections, which is incredible in a teamfight. Enemies directly under the location of the flag take a decent amount of damage and are stunned for one second.
Bellona, more like bologna!
In case you didn’t notice, her kit is pretty cool. She gets a different weapon that has a unique effect after using each ability, which is a mechanic we haven’t seen in Smite before. The only problem with this is that she’s just a little bit too effective at doing what she does. I love the idea of a god that completely shuts down hunters and some assassins and warriors like Bakasura and Osiris, but when she’s able to shut down the most powerful damage output on an enemy team for a few seconds all while dealing incredible damage and being ridiculously tanky, it causes some balance issues. If she goes in and pops her abilities in the right order, there just isn’t anything anyone can really do to stop you from ruining their day.
One size fits all
It isn’t just her stats that make her good, it’s her ability to chameleon her way into any team composition that makes her overperform. As an AD carry she can shut down the enemy hunter and establish lane dominance with her ability to be crazy aggressive early game. As a support in duo lane, she can disable the enemy hunter and allow her lane partner to get easy farm. In mid she can put the pressure on very early, although this is her weakest position. In the jungle is where she performs best in my opinion. What she brings to a fight is just impossible to beat, and if she can gank and gain control of the fight then it’s game over. As a solo laner she can shut down any warrior and win the sustain fight, or bully a mage and close the distance with her ult to secure a kill.
If you want to see what a pro player makes of Bellona, check out Weak3n’s guide on her below.
So what does she need to be balanced?
Honestly not that much. She’s one of my favorite gods to play and she still will be, she just needs a slight numbers tweak to some abilities.
Her passive is a little ridiculous. Reduce the stacking amount from 6/+5 to 4%/+4. This will give her 20% movement speed and +20 protections at max stacks. A very good amount, but not overpowered.
Her third ability is the main one that needs to be changed. The disarm is fine, I like that this mechanic has been introduced in Smite. It’s one of the only ways to counter the insane late game that Hunters have, and I like that. I think the heal should be tweaked by reducing the scaling. Right now at max rank you can heal 110 HP every three attacks. With the build that I used she had an attack speed of around two per second. So every 1.5 seconds she’ll get 110 HP, not counting any additional lifesteal she can build. I propose that in this mode, she can only heal from the attack chain, not any additional lifesteal she builds. That way she is still effective but not overly effective.
That just about does it for this edition of OP Plz Nerf, check back soon to see more!
Liked my thoughts on Bellona? Hate that I think she’s a little too good? Leave a comment and let me know!
