General

• The Dragon King briefly showed up during the peak of the Hecate meta, but then disappeared as quickly as he had risen up. Ao Kuang’s passive rewards him for timing his engagements in between jungle rotations, but the current value was simply too slow to be reasonably stacked. We are speeding that up while also reverting a nerf to dragon call which brings back his ability to opt into basic attack focused builds.

Dragon King’s Sword

• Decrease power-up time from 20s to 12s

Dragon Call (Revert)

• Increase Attack Damage 30/45/60/75/90 to 35/50/65/80/95

General

• Ao Kuang went from a solid and often played pick to really struggling across all modes. The reduced control from Dragon Call and the increased Cooldown on Wild Storm led him to struggle in the Jungle, failing to keep up with others. We are reverting these two nerfs which pushed him down too far.

Dragon Call

• Increased Slow on ranged attack from 20% to 30%.

Wild Storm

• Decrease Cooldown from 9s to 7s.

General

• Season 6 has progressed with many changes to the Duo Lane, but Ganesh has failed to find a spot in the meta. He is receiving a few different targeted adjustments to help him feel more impactful in a few different ways. The power buff from Turn of Fate is an interesting effect, but the duration being so short made it hard to make use of the buff. Ohm often caused confusion, where players often expected a protections buff to apply to all types of damage, yet Ohm only provided physical protections. Finally, Remove Obstacles is a narrow skill shot, and its damage is being increased to make sure it feels rewarding to hit.
• Fix text on final swing – its a full 1s, just has short prefire.

Dragon Call

• Decreased Slow on ranged attack from 30% to 20%.

Wild Storm

• Increase Cooldown from 7s to 9s.

General

• Ao Kuang has seen a large rise in play count with his passive rework. The high base damage of his abilities like Dragon Call combined with a more reliable way of restoring health has allowed him to really get into a fight and trade positively. We are reducing his top end Base Damage when he is allowed to get multiple hits of Dragon Call out.
• This should curb his early boxing potential and jungle clear speed.

Dragon Call

• Decrease Attack Damage: 35/50/65/80/95 to 30/45/60/75/90.

General

• Ao Kuang's passive was reworked a while back because of technical and clarity issues.
• The problem was, his reworked passive didn't meet our usual definition of a passive ability. Since the old passive only interacted with his Ultimate, we are reworking it again.
• Ao Kuang tends to be very frustrating when he does too much burst, so we are looking to breath new life into the god in a different way.
• With the new design on Dragon King's Sword, Ao Kuang will be more evasive and stronger in longer engagements. The bonus cooldown reduction and self healing encourages
• Ao Kuang players to make multiple gank attempts on enemies.

Dragon King's Sword

• Every 20 seconds Ao Kuang gets a stack of Dragon King's Sword. As long as he has a stack, his next non-ultimate ability that deals damage to an Enemy god will consume a stack to have its cooldown reduced by 2s and heals Ao Kuang for 5% of his Maximum Health. Successfully executing an Enemy god with King of the Eastern Seas fully charges Dragon King's Sword.
• This effect can stack up to 3 times.

General

• Fixed an issue where Ymir wall could cause issues with Ao Kuang's ultimate.

General

• Ao Kuang is one of the most consistently powerful gods in SMITE. He has remained strong even through recent adjustments and through all of the Season 5 mage item changes. We are decreasing the damage he deals on the ranged attack portion of Dragon Call. This will pressure Ao Kuang players to focus more on the true assassin playstyle he was meant to have. It should also make his poke damage more manageable, especially in Ranked Conquest.

Dragon Call

• Decreased the Ranged Dragon Throw's Magical Power Scaling from 90% to 78% (from 15% to 13% per dragon).

General

• Ao Kuang has immunity frames during his Execute animation. This feature was mostly causing confusion because the timing was so short and the visuals didn't match the effect. Many players couldn't utilize these effectively so we have removed them. Ao Kuang's enemies can now constantly damage him while he is on the ground.

King of the Eastern Seas

• Removed the brief window where Ao Kuang is untargetable during this abilities casting time.

General

• This is a slight nerf but also a tweak for theme. Ao Kuang Heals himself for quite a significant amount upon executing an enemy, but this effect happened very early in the animation. Now Ao Kuang will heal as he chomps his prey, rather than immediately on hitting.

King of the Eastern Seas

• Self heal on this ability now only triggers after Ao Kuang has executed a target and flown up into the air.

General

• Ao Kuang's performance was largely tied to a single item, Polynomicon. It's ability to pair with Wild Storm created sudden moments of burst that had little room for counterplay. We are removing Wild Storms ability to proc Basic Attack items or effects, but are bringing up his damage on Wild Storm and the Ranged version of Dragon Call to compensate for this loss and improve his early jungle clear.

Dragon Call

• Increase Ranged Dragon Damage from 15/20/25/30/35 to 20/25/30/35/40.

Wild Storm

• No longer triggers basic attack items or effects. Will still trigger charges of Dragon Call.
• Increased Base Damage from 80/125/170/215/260 to 90/135/180/225/270.

General

• Ao Kuang's old Passive was a bit clunky when it came to generating Stacks (such as it not following out-of-combat rules) and didn't help Ao Kuang in fights that went longer than his initial opening. :*His new Passive rewards successful executes that will give him additional potency throughout the rest of the game and in extended fights. His base stats have also been adjusted to allow Ao Kuang to have a bit more staying power when it comes to his Mana pool.
• Increased Mana from 200 -> 240.
• Increase Mana per Level from 36 -> 38.
• Increased MP5 from 4.5 -> 4.8.
• Increased MP5 per Level from .2 -> .41.

New Passive - Dragon King's Sword

• Each time Ao Kuang successfully uses his dragon form to execute an enemy god he gains a stack of Magical Power and Lifesteal. Stacks up to 3 times, stacks are permanent.
• Magical Power per Stack: 15
• Magical Lifesteal per Stack: 5%

General

• Ao Kuang, Izanami and The Morrigan are all receiving a change to their stealth mechanics. While they both drop minion aggro, a stray arrow could instantly cancel the stealth effect and limit the use of these skills. These characters stealth will now only break from non-minion damage.

Water Illusion

• Minion Damage can no longer break the Stealth from Water Illusion.

General

• Ao Kuang can burst down gods in a variety of situations. With a full set of damaging abilities and an execute, it is important that players have some time to react to him. Dropping the damage on his easiest to confirm ability will help in that goal.

Wild Storm

• Damage decreased from 90/140/190/240/290 to 80/125/170/215/260.

General

• Water Illusion functions as a great escape tool that can punish enemies who get close, but in many cases the offensive use of this ability in conjunction with the damage from Wild Storm was giving him a bit too much damage. The base damage and scaling for this ability is receiving a hit to both adjust the early game and late game use of this ability.

Water Illusion

• Damage reduced from 90/140/190/240/290 to 70/120/170/220/270.
• Magical Power Scaling reduced from 70% to 60%.

Dragon Call

• Fixed an issue where this ability would incorrectly hit non-highlighted targets.

General

• Ao Kuang has been suffering since his last nerf. We've chosen to focus his Season 3 on being a stronger Late game pick, and as such have adjusted his base scaling on several stats.
• Increased Health Scaling from 74 -> 82 per level.
• Increased starting HP5 from 7 -> 10.
• Increased HP5 Scaling from 0.48 -> 0.7 per level.
• Increased Magical Protection scaling per level from 0 -> 0.9.
• Increased Magical In-Hand Scaling per Level from 1.7 -> 2.4.

King's Sword

• Updated description to clarify when energy regenerates.

General

• Ao Kuang was seeing very positive performances at the highest levels of play, but struggled in the hands of less experienced players. One of the biggest strengths at higher level play was the low Cooldown nature of Wild Storm. We have shifted some of the power away from this skill in favor of increasing the strength of Dragon Call. The goal is to balance out Ao Kuang over the multiple skill ranges he was being played at.

Dragon Call

• Increased base damage from 30/45/60/75/90 to 35/50/65/80/95 per Dragon.

Wild Storm

• Reduced Magical Power Scaling from 50% to 40%.
• Increased Cooldown from 5s to 7s.

Wild Storm

• Fixed Polynomicon Passive activating on target when cast at max range.

King of the Eastern Seas

• Fixed issue with Restricted Camera.

King's Sword

• Fixed issue where casting an ability while out of Mana could consume two charges.

King of the Eastern Seas

• Fixed several cases where landing the ability would not properly knock up or Execute the target.

King's Sword

• Fixed 2 energy charges being consumed when out of Mana and using King of the Eastern Seas.

Water Illusion

• Fixed the ground target highlight range being too short.

Water Illusion

• Now automatically detonates at the end of its duration if Ao Kuang did not manually detonate.

Dragon Call

• This ability can now be activated in Stealth without revealing Ao Kuang.

King of the Eastern Seas

• Increased cast range from 15 ft to 17 ft.
• Increased kill threshold form 23/26/29/32/35 to 30% at all ranks.
• Now restores 10/15/20/25/30% of Ao Kuang's maximum Health upon successful execution.

General

• Fixed some popping animation issues when moving and using abilities simultaneously.

King of the Eastern Seas

• Added timer on the ground targeter indicating when the ability will expire and Ao Kuang will be forced to land.

General

• Golden/Legendary/Diamond skins now properly using correct skin at the end of match lobby.

Water Illusion

• Fixed water clone not showing at High and below video settings.

Dragon Call

• Damage reduced from 40/60/80/100/120 to 30/45/60/75/90 per Dragon.
• Increased Magical Scaling on Basic Attacks from 28% to 30%.

King of the Eastern Seas

• Fixed ability not going on cooldown when Ao Kuang uses Aegis just before ascending.

King of the Eastern Seas

• Fixed passive not consuming energy from using this ability.
• Updated tooltip to reflect that he replenishes his passive meter after landing from Dragon form.

King's Sword

• When using energy to cast an ability in place of mana, it will no longer consume two energy charges. One charge will provide the casting and also the damage increase.

Dragon Call

• Magical Power Scaling of melee damage reduced from 30% to 28% per Dragon.
• Ranged damage when re-activating the ability and sending Dragons forward reduced from 20/30/40/50/60 to 15/20/25/30/35 per dragon.

King of the Eastern Seas

• Fixed a bad interaction with this ability and Kumbhakarna's Sleepy. Kumbhakarna is no longer executed if his passive is available, but Ao Kuang still enters Dragon Form.

General

• New Ao Kuang released.

General

• Ao Kuang has been artistically reworked into the Mayan god Kukulkan. Kukulkan has a new model, new animations, a new voice pack, and new special FX. His base kit and ability design has remained unchanged.

Spirit's Tempest

• Fixed a bug where knocked up or jumping opponents wouldn't be hit by Spirits Tempest, if they timed the jump correctly.

Tornadoes

• FX modifications.

Tornadoes

• FX updated to more clearly indicate active damage time.

Squall

• Slow reduced from 50% at all ranks to 30/35/40/45/50%.

Tornadoes

• Fixed an issue with the deploy FX where the ground circle was cutting out momentarily.

Squall

• Time before projectile fires reduced from 0.5s to 0.4s.
• Time after projectile fires, before another ability can be used, reduced from 0.5s to 0.1s.

Slither

• Time after activation, before another ability can fire, reduced from 0.25s to 0.1s.

Tornadoes

• Time after the tornadoes appear, before another ability can fire, reduced from 0.5s to 0s.
• Tornado lifetime reduced from 5s to 4s.

Tornadoes

• This ability can now be placed inside of walls and other blocking geometry.

General

• Some FX have been updated for visuals and performance.

Spirit’s Tempest

• The cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 90s to 80s.
• The delay between the time that the ability is fired and the spirit starts hitting has been reduced by 0.2s.

Squall

• The slow on this ability has been increased from 25% to 50%.

Tornadoes

• Fixed an issue in which Tornadoes would tick its tornadoes an additional time. This does not affect the number of times the tornado ticks on a player once they are affected. It only affects the amount of time that a player could have a tornado applied to them.

Spirit’s Tempest

• The amount of delay between the time that this ability is activated and the Spirit Dragon appears in the sky and begins flying has been reduced from .5s to .2s.

Slither

• Fixed an issue with animations on some abilities not playing correctly if fired while using the Slither ability.

General

• Updated FX and animations on some abilities.

Squall

• Slow by 25% for all ranks.

Slither

• Movement speed is increased by 20/25/30/35/40%.

Slither

• Additional movement speed based off of nearby enemies has been removed.
• Focus contribution has been increased from up to 35% to up to 50%.
• He is now immune to slows for 1s after activation.

Squall

• Now properly hits all targets up close

Squall

• Base damage increased from 35/75/115/155/195 to 60/105/150/195/240.

Slither

• Base movement speed buff increased from 5/8/11/14/17% to 15/19/23/27/31%.
• Additional movement speed buff based on nearby enemies decreased from 3/4/5/6/7% to 2/3/4/5/6%.