General

• The final Basic Attack of her hit chain will now Cleave

General

• Athena tends to be a solid option in competitive play but more on the fringe everywhere else. Her Ultimate, Defender of Olympus highlights skilled Athena players, and we want to better reward Athena players who really know when to help their teammates caught in a bad situation.

Defender Of Olympus

• Increased Damage Mitigation given to the targeted ally from 20% to 30%.

General

• In this patch we are adjusting some Guardians who have been sitting low in performance for some time. Athena has been a potent pick in previous seasons, but has been lackluster for Season 6. Rather than further increasing her strengths (looking at you, Confound) we are bringing up her base capabilities of her other abilities. Shield Wall will get more damage on the front, while dealing the same damage overall making it more useful without needing to combine it with Confound. Preemptive Strike will now always slow for its full duration, giving more offensive potential and control early on.

Preemptive Strike

• Slow duration increased from 1.25/1.5/1.75/2.0/2.25s to 2.25s.

Shield Wall

• Increased Initial Damage from 60/95/130/165/200 to 70/110/150/190/230.
• Decreased Explosion damage from 80/150/220/290/360 to 70/135/200/265/330.

General

• Athena is one of the most undisputedly strong Guardians of Season 5. Her setup is amazing and she can rotate across the entire map in a matter of seconds with her Ultimate. Her recent domination of the pro scene has prompted some further adjustments. Specifically her ability to charge into the enemy team and set up kills. The current cooldowns allows her to do this extremely often in the late game, leaving very little window for counter attack. We are adjusting the cooldown of her Preemptive Strike to lower her late game strength.

Reach

• Now properly benefits from Lifesteal at 33%.

Preemptive Strike

• Increased cooldown from 15/14/13/12/11s to 14s at all ranks.

General

• Fixed an issue where Athena could activate and cancel her Ult warm-up to basic attack faster.

General

• Athena's taunt (Confound) will now properly highlight enemies in the area.

General

• Athena is the most contested god in the entire SMITE Pro League. She has been picked or banned in almost every game, with a relatively balanced performance. Athena is a popular pick but not necessarily a dominant one, so we want to be careful with her adjustments. One key aspect of her kit that pros seem to use more often than the average player is her late-game ultimate. They will often dive with Athena, drawing out a lot of cooldowns and poke damage, then return to base, heal, and ult back into the fight. We want to slow down this specific strategy to help curb her power level only at the highest levels of play.

Defender of Olympus

• Decreased Base Damage from 350/450/550/650/750 to 350/430/510/590/670.
• Increased Cooldown from 110/105/100/95/90 to 110s at all ranks.

Reach

• This ability has been adjusted to deal only basic attack damage, and thus only trigger basic attack item effects.

General

• Reach is a unique Passive that allows Athena to assist in clear and damage as a Guardian. We have increased the scaling this receives, which will help Athena Support players assist in poking and clearing, while more aggressive builds with Athena will get a nice amplification.
• This Magical Power scaling also works off the God's Basic Attack Power, meaning Athena will feel this increase right out of the gate, even with 0 Magical Power.

Reach

• Increased Magical Power Scaling from 5% -> 15%.
• Fixed description error that was miscalculating the Magical Power Scaling contribution for Reach.

Shield Wall

• Updated the description of this ability with the correct radius for this ability

General

• Fixed an issue where using Athena's Ultimate could cause her to gain collision against allied units.

General

• Athena is known for her great map presence but we felt this ability was coming up too often in the early game, especially with cooldown reduction. Teams should now have more opportunity to play around Athena while this skill is on an increased cooldown.

Defender of Olympus

• Increased Cooldown from 90s -> 110/105/100/95/90s.

Shield Wall

• Fixed shield wall getting destroyed by Gold Fury in some cases.

Preemptive Strike

• Fixed being able to reset her Basic Attack progression when spam cancelling ability.

Defender of Olympus

• Fixed her arrival fx persisting on Ally after her death.
• Fixed audio from ability persisting after death.

Preemptive Strike

• Fixed the ground target highlighting enemies behind the first target.
• Fixed block fx not playing if hit with Basic Attacks twice in a row.

Defender of Olympus

• Fixed Liberté skin playing Standard Athena voice when casting ability.

Reach

• Fixed the spear throw graphic not appearing.

General

• Fixed her soldiers not disappearing after her death. Thier watch has ended.

Preemptive Strike

• Fixed a bug causing certain item procs to not trigger from this ability.

General

• Fixed an issue in the store which prevented her from purchasing consumables from her Support role in the Recommended tab.

Confound

• Fixed an issue in which taunted targets that were then stunned would continue to move.

General

• Updated targeters for Red Star and Winter Olympian skins to use the correct model and spear.

Confound

• Fixed an issue where the taunt would sometimes not make the victim fire their basic attacks if they were finishing firing another ability when taunted.

Confound

• Post-Hit delay reduced from 0.3 to 0.1

Shield Wall

• Post-Hit delay reduced from 0.41 to 0.1.

Reach

• Fixed incorrect tooltip description.

Defender of Olympus

• Can now use while crippled.
• Updated visual fx.

Defender of Olypmus

• Reduced damage from 350/500/650/800/950 +100% of your magical power to 350/450/550/650/750 +90% of your magical scaling.
• Reduced allied damage mitigation from 25% to 20%.

Confound

• Fixed an issue where a victim of Athena's Confound could continue firing if the victim's player released the fire button while being taunted.

Shield Wall

• Fixed an issue where she couldn’t use ability when she was against collision.

Preemptive Strike

• Fixed a bug where Athena would complete her dash when CCd during the dash.

Confound

• Fixed a bug where enemies would not auto attack while taunted.

General

• New ground targeters (Ult coming soon).
• Updated loading screen card

Defender of Olympus

• Friendly players that are in the process of being grabbed (such Fenrir grabbing a friendly or Arachne grabbing an enemy) are now valid targets.

General

• Fix for bug that would make Athena go invisible.

Defender of Olympus

• The damage mitigation on Athena’s target has been reduced from 50% to 25%.

Shield Wall

• The base damage for the initial hit has been increased from 40/75/110/145/180 to 60/95/130/165/200.

General

• The target FX on Athena's Defender of Olympus no longer scales with its target. If Athena targets Fenrir or Vamana with the attack while either is giant, the ground indicator does not grow with them.
• Athena cannot use other abilities while using Defender of Olympus. She cannot use other abilities until she lands.

General

• Fixed an issue where her basic attack emotes from anywhere on the map could be heard in mid-lane.

General

• Fixed a bug with her passive spear being blocked by friendly minions.

Preemptive Strike

• Fixed an issue where this ability could hit targets behind her.
• Can no longer fire when silenced.

Defender of Olympus

• The visual presentation when targeting a friendly player has been improved.
• If the targeted player uses a charge, Athena will no longer drop them as a target.
• While using the Defender of Olympus, Athena continues to automatically update her location to her target until she physically lands.
• If Athena's current target becomes invalid e.g from leaping, performing a special move, etc., but then valid again before she leaves the ground, she will travel to the target's location.

Preemptive Strike

• The magical lifesteal handling for this ability has been reduced from 100% to 33%.
• Fixed an issue in which players could get into a state where they were invisible to themselves only.

Shield Wall

• The magical lifesteal handling for this ability has been increased from 0% to 33%.

Defender of Olympus

• Fixed an issue where players could get into a state where they could move while this ability was active.
• The magical lifesteal handling for this ability has been increased from 0% to 33%.