There has been so many versions, I'm not even sure which version that was... Was it the one where you got more physical power as passive, depending on your physical defense stat? I remember of sometimes building it on Vamana, because of how it doubled its own passive (a bit like Kukulkan with Book of Thoth).
Jean-François Briard I'm sure the physical defense to physical power conversion was the one they were talking about. It was so good and frankly I remember that version being the only strong one unless there's another one besides the current version and the bonus magic damage version.
Well, the current Rune was just 2000 gold for like 4 weeks. 2000 gold for 40 power is very cost efficient, so it became core for cc jg in that time, even for some hunters and solo laners
Luc Homan ah, no-no, the're def talking about the prot to power conversion one. It became core on warrior solo and let them rule the solo meta. It was a good item but too restrictive to keep around. I was just saying that another version of Rune had its time in the spotlight as well.
How i abuse this tree: Ability base AMC runeforge, blackthorn, jotun, brawler's then 3 2 combo massive hit on enemy bakasura Frostbound, runeforge = more true damage + haven't tried the new change to his leap that increases it even further. Ama if you going to lose your lane and mana blackthorn stay in tower forever, can be use well with oth self healing solo if you got bad match up. love runforge on osirus for his multi cc abilities, not only can you stick to them hard but do even more damage. few other ways but to lazy to type. I know it is unpopular tree but dang they are good for me.
Recently I absolutely LOVE blackthorn on my junglers, because I have been building bruiser recently. I build it first item after boots and here's why: the stats themselves are good, despite health not being SUPER desirable early on. 30 power is alright. Here is the main reason I build it: The passive 10% cd above 50% mana +50mp5 below 50% mana. This is why I build it first item. While it isn't the most efficient start item for clear, you have INFINITE mana. As long as you have some health (which you usually get from camps or if you are fenrir with life steal) you can stay out forever. Not popular, not the most efficient, but FAR from bad. Especially for bruisers.
I always love to pick 2 hammers on chaac, if you go 1 into 3 and frostbound? You essentially root and disarm your opponent. Try it out for yourself (do skip blackthorn as chaac doesnt have that much mana problems)
I personally love Runeforged Hammer on Chaac. Decent power and a nice chunk of health. That passive is where the fun begins tho. Throw your axe at an enemy and then teleport to it. (Torrent) Then hit your Rain Dance and destroy squishies all day with basics lol. (Your slow from Rain Dance activates the +15% dmg passive.) Or you can Blink to an enemy, Rain Dance, then Torrent (to gain protections) and then throw your axe and basic attack until dead. And if they're still alive - Ult. If you use the Blink method, make sure you don't throw your axe before you Torrent. Last thing you want to do is Blink, Rain Dance, axe throw and then while the enemy is running from you......teleport back to where you threw your axe lol
I like building Blackthorn, and Runeforged hammer on guan; it actually makes your damage insane for the amount of health you have and prots you can buy, cause with just those its like 400-500 health or somthing like that and some power and then the rest of your items can be prots and cooldown, especially when your gaurdian has aura prots. Maybe its not super good but its definantly fun
Interesting video, I thought it was the Magic Shield tree you were going to say with Ancille and Runic Shield. Ancille works in niche situations but otherwise I think it's in a similar spot as the Hammer tree. Also, I think you could build Frostbound Hammer on ANY Warrior, not just the auto attack ones. Bellona and others can utilize it better, but for the other more ability-based ones, after you cast your abilities you are often left with nothing to do but auto attack. Hmm, which item adds another cc to auto attacks? Frostbound Hammer! I wouldn't recommend it first for those Warriors, get what you really need first, then get Frostbound like last or second to last item to add more crowd control for you team. Also I think Hi-Rez doesn't allow Runeforged Hammer to apply to Knock Ups and Knock Backs because abilities with those affects tend to be really strong anyway so (Hercules, Tyr, etc) and deal a lot of damage so Runeforged would be a must have on those gods.
runic shield is a real pain in the back for the enemy solo laner if he is magical and building on more defence then power. that power reduction give you the upper hand both on waveclear and on boxing potential in those cases
Runic is in an interesting spot. Without looking at the passive, on paper it's useless. However, the passive itself is situationally busted as heck. Reducing the base magical power of a God cuts into their scaling, which is a good chunk of their damage. Back when Tahuti was still able to increase magical power all the time, Runic even cut more into that power by cutting the amount that the item provided bonus power on. It's great in early solo against a mage/solo guardian and early assault if the enemy has 3+magical damage dealers. That said, ever since it had the attack speed reduction on it (a couple seasons back as a counter item exclusively for Freya and her double-scaling on pulse+irradiate) removed much of the public eye turned away from it until it got the health buff, and even then, it is still a situational grab.
I build blackthorn hammer on Assualt when I play as a mana hungry Warrior. I like the boost to HP, free CDR and MP5 when I need it and a decent chunk of power. Plus it is cheap enough to build blessings or p1. boots (and not feel bad about lack of power)
Factors I look for are do ults use health effectively (Sun Wukong, Erlang, Vamana), also Frostbound slows enemies for your whole team to attack, Hastened Katana only speeds YOU up...so if I can kill by myself I get Katana but if I'm tankier, Frostbound is good.
I use to use Frostbound with combination of Midargian in a chaac build. the entire kit also had shield of growth and the build focused on activating my rain when 1 v 1 someone and as they constantly get low in speed i increase in speed.
I used to build blackthorn hammer when it had its old passive. I built it on Sun Wukong since it stacked with his passive. Rune forged Hammer was also fun on Thor but I don't see much of it anymore.
I always finish my Ravana build with Runeforge, I just think it’s a great item specifically for Ravana. More survivability and more damage with your main attacking tools/CC. Helps both for assassinating and escaping
Also the hammer tree was used when hastened fatalis was there for that hot frosttalis and when I speak of the tree I’m talking about it’s star hammer frostbound
Back in the day i said that each of these items could become very useful with 1 more stat to each. Frostbound - 5% movement Runeforge - 10% cdr Blackthorn - 20% ccr But in S5 there already are items with a similar, or even better combination of stats that make the hammers not have a place in any build. like hasten katana, new Transcendence, or the new Lonos Mask.
OMG I never thought of that xD I hardly play Assault but never considered that. It's value is so much better because you can't base. I figure it's better than Stone of Gaia when you have healers on your team.
I just said that it works when your tanks which include guardians and warriors don't pick auras which is important in assault as there is no backing or in assault your team doesn't get any tanks which happens often. I just said that the items helps the assassin or hunter in the context of having the said option. I don't know how that makes me an non-aura hater as you put it as I'm just saying that the item helps. I pick it up on neith or ullr in assault as with out aura you burn your mana fast to poke our dmg the enemy team and med cant pick up all of the slack.
I got super far ahead in an Assault game, with my main man Chuck, and managed to pull of a Runeforged/Frostbound/Regrowth build. It was actually glorious.
I find Blackthorn Hammer pretty useful on any ability based gods. Generally it will be a companion item to Transcendence. Both offering CDR mana and power. If and when I need to play solo I end up going SWK and works wonders with his kit and a flexible play style.
I agree with Amaterasu and frostbound hammer being a team setup than a buff specifically for her, and I want to say that I am in no way a competitive player and haven’t crunched the numbers so am only speaking from personal experience but when I play Amaterasu or any warrior in mid alongside a mage I find it helps in confirming the ability for the mage and helps our poke and bullying out of lane
relic dagger is still being picked up in even competitive on supports and sometimes even solo laners, book of the dead is being played a lot in pts next patch people will use it more.
chaac is pretty good with runeforged passive right now, his giant slow and silence gives a nice damage boost on top of his heals he also gets a big health bonus from the item, but its really hard to build runeforged on most builds because you sacrifice either defense , cooldown,and sometimes attackspeed, if there was a seventh item spot, runeforged would almost always be there for me when it comes to certain gods, it adds a huge increase to burst damage and can be used for prolonged fights with certain team comps and gods
They could very well go about some of the items and classes abusing them is to restrict the buyers based on *whether they are ranged or melee* like in League: in League there are certain items which are restricted as to being able to be purchased only by melee champions or ranged champions for this very same reason - there used to be a problematic meta in the past where ranged ADC champions would instead of lifesteal just build *two physical power items* , which were ironically aimed towards *fighters and melee champions* to give them durability to initiate and survive ranged poke/burst and longated skirmishes - both had *very similar but unique passive effects* that gave the holder a shield *when dropping to low HP* , one was just a flat damage shield that also gave you % bonus physical power and attack speed for the duration of the shield, the other gave you a magic damage shield which gave you a lifesteal effect that healed you from both autoattacking and use of damaging abilities, and the effect lasted *indefinately as long as you were in-combat and kept on attacking* even if the shield you expire - what happen is that ADC's became basically unkillable because both of these passive shields with their buffs would activate simultaneously and turn them into *ULTRA BUFFED SUPER SAIYANS* who would proceed to bulldoze through any opponent with the amount of shields and raw stats they gained - some times people would purposely walk into the enemy fire to take free damage so the buffs would trigger - after this they changed these two items so they gave the same stat buff, give the shields certain priority requirements in order to trigger and if one of the passive shields activated the other one couldn't, and most importanly made these two items *MELEE ONLY PURCHASABLE* - also for another example there's an item-line called *Tiamat* which is a physical damage item that can only be purchased by *MELEE* champions and provides a small passive and an actively castable *AOE splash effects to their basic attacks (similarly to Golden Bow)* - This small aoe splash had its own small healing effect and the damage only benefits from bonus stats provides by the player and doesn't proc any on-hit ability or item effects - It's created mainly to give some melee champions mix of wave clear, sustain and added bursts damage - it upgrades into two other items, a more aggressive version which focuses more on the active bursts damage of the item - another more tanky version that gives you hp and regen, and it turns the splash into a trapezoidal frontal cleave - Then on the other side there's a specific item created for to for ADC's and *RANGED ONLY* called *Runaa's Hurricane* , which basically gives the champion a small *navi-looking wisp* to follow them around - when a ranged champion basic attacks moving enemy units like minions monsters or champions, this little wisp fires two additional weaker basic attack bolts at the two nearest valid enemy targets using the ADC's own autoattack range - these bolts can proc crit, lifestesal and MOST of the item and ability effects in the game with few exploitable exceptions - This item was created and is used by ADC's with long range, heavy reliance on autoattacks, ability effects and buff/steroid abilities that can be procced through the additional bolts, and when they need the additional pushing power and wave clear - these items also have taken into consideration *form changing/stance swapping champions* that can transform from melee to ranged and vice versa, by making it so the item purchase restriction is decided by the *base form* of the champion from which they change into the other form, for example a stance swapping wild cougar-woman champion called *Nidalee* swap stance between a magical damage ranged assassin and a melee cougar form - so she's considered a ranged champion and so can't buy the *MELEE ONLY* items even when having a melee form - I think something like *Shifter's Shield* could be balance this way and make it available to the two physical classes melee gods, since there are no.... *Melee hunters....*
Runeforged and blackthorn can change your game, if you know how to play items more on the combination effects rather than base stats you would be surprised how much it can change tactically. I don't know if any of you played league but shaco stacking the sun capes was game changing.
Talking frostbound, I usually get it on amaterasu if I have to play more supporty. Sadly, ama is not the easiest warrior to play support, so the slow helps out my allies more than me.
I think runeforged hammer with artemis is very fun to play, it allows to build more tanky since you get a 30% damage increase, and a tanky artemis would help her survivabiltiy. I played around with it on pts and practice, but did no numbers or see how efficient it is to build. Tho I'd think you want to build it as third item after you finished your first item and boots. rushing it doesnt seem to be good, especially when you can go into devos or trans
I use Runeforged on Arachne as my 5th item in my main build after Heartseeker, Boots, Katana, and Qin's. I always drop my 3 on the enemy first which slows the enemy 4 to 6 seconds, then go in with 1 and 2 active. It increases damage on the 1 (both tics and initial damage), basic attacks, and any damage from Qin's and Hearteseeker. I can't think of another god I would use this on though.
They are situational items, but most people only build a generic meta build without even knowing what they are buying those items for. Videos like this just make that mentality stronger.
Have to disagree with part of this, I have found so far a few non-Warriors where I have used Hammers on them. Runeforged Hammer has a better candidate than Artemis, his name is Cernunnos. His 1 Shifter of Seasons can be put in Winter mode that makes every Basic Attack proc a Slow on the target, this makes every Basic after the first hit proc Runeforged's Passive for extra damage. This damage never wears off until you stop attacking because each Basic hit resets the clock on the extra damage. Tested, used successfully in matches. Blackthorn's I have at times used on certain Assassins such as Thor and Hun Batz where both parts of the hammer Passive benefit them. The extra cooldown allows more ability spam, the mana buff is needed for more ability spam, the stats are not bad on them. Not tried but Frostbound would be useful on certain gods like Arachne, drop a Slow on a target with her 3 then Slow through Basics to keep hitting and procing her Passive for more damage. The problem is Frostbound has the worst Power buff of all 3 hammers.
Actually, I would like to argue a case for the Black Thorn Hammer. In the current adventure map medusa's death match, one game yesterday I got Neith. For fun I decided to build her as ability hunter and got BTH first so i would not have to worry about mana for the first few rounds. In the end my team did win and I did fairly well. the reason I went for BTH and not transcendence is because of how hard it is to build stacks in that game mode and if you spam too much you can still run out of mana at a bad time.
Blackthorne Hammer is actually very, very good in Assault (only) because of its weird passive, especially on sustain gods such as Guan Yu. It's an alternate and (slightly) more aggressive version of Heartward Amulet, because it switches protections for power... and you get cooldown reduction, when above 50% health. I wouldn't buy it in any other mode though.
That’s rune forge’s passive? You think you’d see it on Loki or fenrir. Gods who do cc before heavy burst. I’d like to see a warrior fenrir with runeforge and midguardian maybe. Want to try that, maybe in duel against an adc.
Now that I think about it artemis could benefit greatly from the two hammers since she basically has runeforge as her passive who knows it might be interested to see
I'd like to see them make Blackthorn hammer a true early game item for laning phases. Give it its item tree back, but instead make it a tier 2 item like Asi or Dynasty plate helm reduce its health and power stat and you have a pretty solid option for aggressive solo laners or solos that aren't getting their blue.
How about if they made frostbound prock with abilities instead of basic attacks like gem of isolation. Lower the hp to about 200 or 250 and add 10% cool down reduction. With Runeforged they can add 10% cool down as well since most of these items are usually used with warriors and warriors heavily depend on cool down reduction. These items with cool down can even be used by assasins and/or hunters.
i don't know about the rest of you guys but i love blackthorn hammer. i usualy take it in assault when i know i'll need the extra health and mp5. i have even taken it with neith in assault when the guardian didn't take heartward and people opted for beads instead of meditation and it actualy helped me way better than any other starter item could. i had infinite mana and healing thanks to her broken weave and 2 and i let the tower get me when i had around 8k gold. but that mp5 is simply godly, it helps you sooo much. don't forget i'm talking about assault tho.
Runeforge has some situational use on some gods. Some people build it on arachne, as she can use some tankiness and also almost always has people cc'd when she's attacking them. If I'm dumpstering and snowballing hard on chaac, I'll build it 2nd or 3rd item sometimes. The 6 second slow with runeforge from ahead lets you just 100-0 people. Generally not a good option against good players, but if I'm bullying the shit out of somebody and get a kill or two on them early I'll go into runeforge. Puts me even further ahead, and I can sell it late game.
blackthron hammer ullr if you want to go into late game crit builds with out spending more on trans for mana. i build it first so that i can spam abilities at lvl 5 with out stacking and it allows you to spam your 2 so that 25 from skill and 30 from items gives more power then boots at lvl 5. hunters blessing plus tier 1 hammer. it also makes you tankier so that you can soak up 350 extra dmg burst hunter ultimates and also give you 10 cdr if above 50% mana.
Yo Duke, when we gonna get a vamana jungle video? You always use these for background viewing while you talk about topics which I like, but seeing a full gameplay video would be great because they always look killer. Keep up the amazing content
I use items from this tree sometimes on Wukong cos he is able to pull off slightly janky builds, but it's more for the purpose of experimenting or being unpredictable rather that actually making an 'optimised' build :/
I saw iceicebaby playing ne zha transcendence with blackthorn hammer and it seems pretty good on him: warrior tabi, crusher, transcendence, regrowth, blackthorn and titans bane. A lot of health and good damage
There's also a reason that midguardian is a much better item for warriors and does not require you to be in their face to have a effect while also having the possibility of applying it to multiple gods that are using aa against you.
Warriors aren't even that popular when comparing with guardians. You can do 2 things in smite: deal dmg or soak dmg. Lane pushing, structure pushing, objective securing, tfing, kill securing, whatever, comes down to one of those 2. The threat of the dmg or the wasting cooldowns on a tank or secure objectives and kills and whatever. You CAN'T DO both effectively (unless you're broken Achilles). So why wasting slots on items that do not benefit your dmg or your tankyness? Power and health (together) are SPECTACULARLY USELESS in higher tiers for solo laners. If you're a phys jungler you need mov speed, pen, sheer power, whatever. ADCs I won't even explain. Warriors need defense, DEFENSE, DMG SOAKING, dmg MITIGATION. Did I mention defensive stats? Why build health and power if the solo laner can buid health and defense? Within the context high level smite, the cudgel tree is dead for good. For lower levels is just too much fun to build them, but conquest is a fun-killer anyways
I was guessing the hammer tree or the magical defense shield tree- with ancile( popular) and that other shield that decrease magical power( forgot the name. Had my money on the hammer tree so I’m happy
There's not really a point to artemis having frostbound hammer since poison star also serves the purpose. The only way i'd see it is if you werent opting on going into crit at all, going for a health or attack speed build
So we actually tried the build with frostbound and rune forged on artemks, she was doing up to 300 a hit, but her attacks speed was super low I don't think it's worth it
Okay the reason I clicked on this video was not for the most dead item tree because that’s pretty obvious , but I clicked to see the most slept on(underrated)item tree. Have not seen the video so let’s see if this is useful:) gl duke
I remember the days of pure stupidity you could get away with using Frostbound. Back in Season 2 I would use it on Rama due to the stacking slow with it and Astral Arrows making him inescapable or unchasable depending on the situation. At least, it worked until the Unicorn build just murdered it.
Does current runeforges passive apply with frostbounds slow? I look it up and cannot find the answer for the life of me and everyone I ask doesn't know for sure.
I may be the outlier here, or maybe just behind, but I run runeforged on a lot of God's. My buddy and I run this items a lot. Like on Ratatoskr and Loki. I use it on a lot of my ability based carries I like. Ex Cupid, and Skadi.
Can you do a video on the most potent/dominating items of all of smite history? (Excluding necessary items like boots, starter items, and wards) If you don’t do a video on this and still read this.... Hiii Duke Sloth :)
So im in no way good at builds for gods. Kinda just say "hey hope this works" and i was curious if a frost bound runforged bakasura would be any good? Testing you only get like 11 extra true damage so in no way a lot but its true damage so its something. Sorry rambling. I dont know anyone else have thoughts?
What are you talkin about Blackthorn Hammer is amazing!? 450 health, 10% cooldown while over 50% Mana, while under 50% Mana I think it's 50 MP5. Also when I play Warrior I'm not looking to kill I'm looking to harass.
before it’s nerf to Hunters I loved buildint frost bound on Rama😂 you slow them so much it’s like their speed drops to like 100 points but it’s really only to troll and be a support like hunter. Other than that, I see it on Chaac and nobody else. nobody needs it. If the item had no health more power and maybe 10% movement speed it would be picked up. or even 10% attack speed.
Rune forged hammer with Arachne is still pretty strong and op... if I'm playing her I always build this with dmg and mid to late game can make pretty strong Ganks sometime even one hit...
Blackthorn stats are great and passive is great for the ability based warriors, i fear if they try to change black thorn too much it will be too strong.
mah boi thinks the same about artemis tho i gotta ask: why not get posion star instead of frost. I understand it is better early but u would waste gold for frost and poision would be better for lategame :o
I liked the one of the previous Runeforged versions better- the one where anyone within 30 units of you had a damage amplifier if they were slowed. It was such a cool item to use on Chaac and Osiris then, because slowing and sticking to an enemy caused your allies to also deal more damage. It turned slows from those gods into way scarier lockdown and setup tools.
It does, but it doesn't cause the target to take increased damage from your allies, which was the biggest thing. I remember running a three-man Freya/Chaac/Fafnir combo where the Chaac would pick it up to amp up the Freya damage, who'd already been buffed by Fafnir. It was unreal. I also heard of Chaac using it to help Scylla players hit their ults for more damage, which I never got to try myself.
_From your allies_ I said. Currently, Runeforged passive only amplifies the damage that _you_ deal to CC'd targets. Previously, if you slowed someone with a Runeforged Chaac, a Scylla on your team could deal the bonus damage.
Gotta remember the good ol days where tier 2 Frostbound slowed
FishSticks fun times
FishSticks jg bellona with t2 frostbound start invade and kill everyone
FishSticks don’t give me ptsd
after release bellona (quadra before 0 seconds on the clock dm brandon) that item got hit so hard
Those free camps for baka because you couldn't defend them as you died to that item and his 3
The original Runeforged Hammer was such a good item RIP.
There has been so many versions, I'm not even sure which version that was... Was it the one where you got more physical power as passive, depending on your physical defense stat? I remember of sometimes building it on Vamana, because of how it doubled its own passive (a bit like Kukulkan with Book of Thoth).
Jean-François Briard I'm sure the physical defense to physical power conversion was the one they were talking about. It was so good and frankly I remember that version being the only strong one unless there's another one besides the current version and the bonus magic damage version.
Well, the current Rune was just 2000 gold for like 4 weeks. 2000 gold for 40 power is very cost efficient, so it became core for cc jg in that time, even for some hunters and solo laners
Zefo No oh okay gotcha. Wasn't playing during that. I see why now.
Luc Homan ah, no-no, the're def talking about the prot to power conversion one. It became core on warrior solo and let them rule the solo meta. It was a good item but too restrictive to keep around.
I was just saying that another version of Rune had its time in the spotlight as well.
How i abuse this tree:
Ability base AMC runeforge, blackthorn, jotun, brawler's then 3 2 combo massive hit on enemy
bakasura Frostbound, runeforge = more true damage + haven't tried the new change to his leap that increases it even further.
Ama if you going to lose your lane and mana blackthorn stay in tower forever, can be use well with oth self healing solo if you got bad match up.
love runforge on osirus for his multi cc abilities, not only can you stick to them hard but do even more damage.
few other ways but to lazy to type.
I know it is unpopular tree but dang they are good for me.
Blackthorn is actually usefull on assault w Guan/Herc but Duke doesn't typically refer to anything but Conquest metas so...
Recently I absolutely LOVE blackthorn on my junglers, because I have been building bruiser recently. I build it first item after boots and here's why: the stats themselves are good, despite health not being SUPER desirable early on. 30 power is alright. Here is the main reason I build it: The passive
10% cd above 50% mana +50mp5 below 50% mana.
This is why I build it first item. While it isn't the most efficient start item for clear, you have INFINITE mana. As long as you have some health (which you usually get from camps or if you are fenrir with life steal) you can stay out forever.
Not popular, not the most efficient, but FAR from bad. Especially for bruisers.
it can be good in the bruiser slot, but if you want mana as a jungler usually trans or hydras will do the trick and make your job better
I always love to pick 2 hammers on chaac, if you go 1 into 3 and frostbound? You essentially root and disarm your opponent. Try it out for yourself (do skip blackthorn as chaac doesnt have that much mana problems)
I personally love Runeforged Hammer on Chaac. Decent power and a nice chunk of health. That passive is where the fun begins tho. Throw your axe at an enemy and then teleport to it. (Torrent) Then hit your Rain Dance and destroy squishies all day with basics lol. (Your slow from Rain Dance activates the +15% dmg passive.) Or you can Blink to an enemy, Rain Dance, then Torrent (to gain protections) and then throw your axe and basic attack until dead. And if they're still alive - Ult. If you use the Blink method, make sure you don't throw your axe before you Torrent. Last thing you want to do is Blink, Rain Dance, axe throw and then while the enemy is running from you......teleport back to where you threw your axe lol
I like building Blackthorn, and Runeforged hammer on guan; it actually makes your damage insane for the amount of health you have and prots you can buy, cause with just those its like 400-500 health or somthing like that and some power and then the rest of your items can be prots and cooldown, especially when your gaurdian has aura prots. Maybe its not super good but its definantly fun
Interesting video, I thought it was the Magic Shield tree you were going to say with Ancille and Runic Shield. Ancille works in niche situations but otherwise I think it's in a similar spot as the Hammer tree. Also, I think you could build Frostbound Hammer on ANY Warrior, not just the auto attack ones. Bellona and others can utilize it better, but for the other more ability-based ones, after you cast your abilities you are often left with nothing to do but auto attack. Hmm, which item adds another cc to auto attacks? Frostbound Hammer! I wouldn't recommend it first for those Warriors, get what you really need first, then get Frostbound like last or second to last item to add more crowd control for you team.
Also I think Hi-Rez doesn't allow Runeforged Hammer to apply to Knock Ups and Knock Backs because abilities with those affects tend to be really strong anyway so (Hercules, Tyr, etc) and deal a lot of damage so Runeforged would be a must have on those gods.
Luc Homan pros build magical shield tree a lot and overall it is a good tree to counter sololaner mages
wolfie I guess, I definitely think Ancille has a place in the game but I've heard so many TH-camrs bash on Runic Shield
Luc Homan runic shield is built often and so is ancille
runic shield is a real pain in the back for the enemy solo laner if he is magical and building on more defence then power. that power reduction give you the upper hand both on waveclear and on boxing potential in those cases
Runic is in an interesting spot. Without looking at the passive, on paper it's useless. However, the passive itself is situationally busted as heck. Reducing the base magical power of a God cuts into their scaling, which is a good chunk of their damage. Back when Tahuti was still able to increase magical power all the time, Runic even cut more into that power by cutting the amount that the item provided bonus power on. It's great in early solo against a mage/solo guardian and early assault if the enemy has 3+magical damage dealers. That said, ever since it had the attack speed reduction on it (a couple seasons back as a counter item exclusively for Freya and her double-scaling on pulse+irradiate) removed much of the public eye turned away from it until it got the health buff, and even then, it is still a situational grab.
I build blackthorn hammer on Assualt when I play as a mana hungry Warrior. I like the boost to HP, free CDR and MP5 when I need it and a decent chunk of power. Plus it is cheap enough to build blessings or p1. boots (and not feel bad about lack of power)
Factors I look for are do ults use health effectively (Sun Wukong, Erlang, Vamana), also Frostbound slows enemies for your whole team to attack, Hastened Katana only speeds YOU up...so if I can kill by myself I get Katana but if I'm tankier, Frostbound is good.
I use to use Frostbound with combination of Midargian in a chaac build. the entire kit also had shield of growth and the build focused on activating my rain when 1 v 1 someone and as they constantly get low in speed i increase in speed.
This video was so good, even though we aren't currently in this meta I was still so interested in it. Enjoyed it a lot 👍
I used to build blackthorn hammer when it had its old passive. I built it on Sun Wukong since it stacked with his passive. Rune forged Hammer was also fun on Thor but I don't see much of it anymore.
I always finish my Ravana build with Runeforge, I just think it’s a great item specifically for Ravana. More survivability and more damage with your main attacking tools/CC. Helps both for assassinating and escaping
Also the hammer tree was used when hastened fatalis was there for that hot frosttalis and when I speak of the tree I’m talking about it’s star hammer frostbound
Back in the day i said that each of these items could become very useful with 1 more stat to each.
Frostbound - 5% movement
Runeforge - 10% cdr
Blackthorn - 20% ccr
But in S5 there already are items with a similar, or even better combination of stats that make the hammers not have a place in any build. like hasten katana, new Transcendence, or the new Lonos Mask.
Gone but never forgotten - Golden Bow, RIP
And now we have Golden Blade...
blackthorn hammer is very good in assault but you probably are doing this only for conq but still its my favorite in assault
Miodrag Ignjatović Absolutely, I pick it up on all Assassins and Warriors after or sometimes instead of Stone of Gaia
OMG I never thought of that xD I hardly play Assault but never considered that. It's value is so much better because you can't base. I figure it's better than Stone of Gaia when you have healers on your team.
oh yeah really great when your team doesn't have tanks or when your tanks don't pick up auras.
Jeez another non-aura hater. The Guardian will still pick them up most likely, only physical damage gods can pick up Blackthorn anyway -_-
I just said that it works when your tanks which include guardians and warriors don't pick auras which is important in assault as there is no backing or in assault your team doesn't get any tanks which happens often. I just said that the items helps the assassin or hunter in the context of having the said option. I don't know how that makes me an non-aura hater as you put it as I'm just saying that the item helps. I pick it up on neith or ullr in assault as with out aura you burn your mana fast to poke our dmg the enemy team and med cant pick up all of the slack.
I got super far ahead in an Assault game, with my main man Chuck, and managed to pull of a Runeforged/Frostbound/Regrowth build. It was actually glorious.
Got to say that vamana was going off with that hammer build
I find Blackthorn Hammer pretty useful on any ability based gods. Generally it will be a companion item to Transcendence. Both offering CDR mana and power. If and when I need to play solo I end up going SWK and works wonders with his kit and a flexible play style.
I agree with Amaterasu and frostbound hammer being a team setup than a buff specifically for her, and I want to say that I am in no way a competitive player and haven’t crunched the numbers so am only speaking from personal experience but when I play Amaterasu or any warrior in mid alongside a mage I find it helps in confirming the ability for the mage and helps our poke and bullying out of lane
I used to love this tree
At first I thought u were talking about relic dagger or book of the dead
I’mADiscrace2MyFamily winged blade sees way too much use for that
relic dagger is still being picked up in even competitive on supports and sometimes even solo laners, book of the dead is being played a lot in pts next patch people will use it more.
Usually tell a new player because they build relic dagger lol
I like building frostbound and runeforged together on Artemis when I'm going a qins/pen build. I change frostbound for poisoned star on crit builds.
I love picking up runeforged on Rama since it works well with his 1 and increases his damage so much
chaac is pretty good with runeforged passive right now, his giant slow and silence gives a nice damage boost on top of his heals he also gets a big health bonus from the item, but its really hard to build runeforged on most builds because you sacrifice either defense , cooldown,and sometimes attackspeed, if there was a seventh item spot, runeforged would almost always be there for me when it comes to certain gods, it adds a huge increase to burst damage and can be used for prolonged fights with certain team comps and gods
They could very well go about some of the items and classes abusing them is to restrict the buyers based on *whether they are ranged or melee* like in League: in League there are certain items which are restricted as to being able to be purchased only by melee champions or ranged champions for this very same reason - there used to be a problematic meta in the past where ranged ADC champions would instead of lifesteal just build *two physical power items* , which were ironically aimed towards *fighters and melee champions* to give them durability to initiate and survive ranged poke/burst and longated skirmishes - both had *very similar but unique passive effects* that gave the holder a shield *when dropping to low HP* , one was just a flat damage shield that also gave you % bonus physical power and attack speed for the duration of the shield, the other gave you a magic damage shield which gave you a lifesteal effect that healed you from both autoattacking and use of damaging abilities, and the effect lasted *indefinately as long as you were in-combat and kept on attacking* even if the shield you expire - what happen is that ADC's became basically unkillable because both of these passive shields with their buffs would activate simultaneously and turn them into *ULTRA BUFFED SUPER SAIYANS* who would proceed to bulldoze through any opponent with the amount of shields and raw stats they gained - some times people would purposely walk into the enemy fire to take free damage so the buffs would trigger - after this they changed these two items so they gave the same stat buff, give the shields certain priority requirements in order to trigger and if one of the passive shields activated the other one couldn't, and most importanly made these two items *MELEE ONLY PURCHASABLE* - also for another example there's an item-line called *Tiamat* which is a physical damage item that can only be purchased by *MELEE* champions and provides a small passive and an actively castable *AOE splash effects to their basic attacks (similarly to Golden Bow)* - This small aoe splash had its own small healing effect and the damage only benefits from bonus stats provides by the player and doesn't proc any on-hit ability or item effects - It's created mainly to give some melee champions mix of wave clear, sustain and added bursts damage - it upgrades into two other items, a more aggressive version which focuses more on the active bursts damage of the item - another more tanky version that gives you hp and regen, and it turns the splash into a trapezoidal frontal cleave -
Then on the other side there's a specific item created for to for ADC's and *RANGED ONLY* called *Runaa's Hurricane* , which basically gives the champion a small *navi-looking wisp* to follow them around - when a ranged champion basic attacks moving enemy units like minions monsters or champions, this little wisp fires two additional weaker basic attack bolts at the two nearest valid enemy targets using the ADC's own autoattack range - these bolts can proc crit, lifestesal and MOST of the item and ability effects in the game with few exploitable exceptions - This item was created and is used by ADC's with long range, heavy reliance on autoattacks, ability effects and buff/steroid abilities that can be procced through the additional bolts, and when they need the additional pushing power and wave clear - these items also have taken into consideration *form changing/stance swapping champions* that can transform from melee to ranged and vice versa, by making it so the item purchase restriction is decided by the *base form* of the champion from which they change into the other form, for example a stance swapping wild cougar-woman champion called *Nidalee* swap stance between a magical damage ranged assassin and a melee cougar form - so she's considered a ranged champion and so can't buy the *MELEE ONLY* items even when having a melee form - I think something like *Shifter's Shield* could be balance this way and make it available to the two physical classes melee gods, since there are no.... *Melee hunters....*
Runeforged and blackthorn can change your game, if you know how to play items more on the combination effects rather than base stats you would be surprised how much it can change tactically. I don't know if any of you played league but shaco stacking the sun capes was game changing.
Talking frostbound, I usually get it on amaterasu if I have to play more supporty. Sadly, ama is not the easiest warrior to play support, so the slow helps out my allies more than me.
gotta admit, i forgot so much about this tree that i couldnt figure it out until you told me, even though i paused the video to think about it.
I think runeforged hammer with artemis is very fun to play, it allows to build more tanky since you get a 30% damage increase, and a tanky artemis would help her survivabiltiy. I played around with it on pts and practice, but did no numbers or see how efficient it is to build. Tho I'd think you want to build it as third item after you finished your first item and boots. rushing it doesnt seem to be good, especially when you can go into devos or trans
I use Runeforged on Arachne as my 5th item in my main build after Heartseeker, Boots, Katana, and Qin's. I always drop my 3 on the enemy first which slows the enemy 4 to 6 seconds, then go in with 1 and 2 active. It increases damage on the 1 (both tics and initial damage), basic attacks, and any damage from Qin's and Hearteseeker. I can't think of another god I would use this on though.
I think runeforge not procing on knockbacks is probably to prevent some caracters like tyr to get a huge damage buff during their whole combo
They are situational items, but most people only build a generic meta build without even knowing what they are buying those items for. Videos like this just make that mentality stronger.
I shot you not I just saw a ULLR start with blackthorn and all I could think of was "did that passive change? That's genius!"
What a fitting way to use vamana for this type of video
Have to disagree with part of this, I have found so far a few non-Warriors where I have used Hammers on them.
Runeforged Hammer has a better candidate than Artemis, his name is Cernunnos. His 1 Shifter of Seasons can be put in Winter mode that makes every Basic Attack proc a Slow on the target, this makes every Basic after the first hit proc Runeforged's Passive for extra damage. This damage never wears off until you stop attacking because each Basic hit resets the clock on the extra damage. Tested, used successfully in matches.
Blackthorn's I have at times used on certain Assassins such as Thor and Hun Batz where both parts of the hammer Passive benefit them. The extra cooldown allows more ability spam, the mana buff is needed for more ability spam, the stats are not bad on them.
Not tried but Frostbound would be useful on certain gods like Arachne, drop a Slow on a target with her 3 then Slow through Basics to keep hitting and procing her Passive for more damage. The problem is Frostbound has the worst Power buff of all 3 hammers.
Actually, I would like to argue a case for the Black Thorn Hammer. In the current adventure map medusa's death match, one game yesterday I got Neith. For fun I decided to build her as ability hunter and got BTH first so i would not have to worry about mana for the first few rounds. In the end my team did win and I did fairly well. the reason I went for BTH and not transcendence is because of how hard it is to build stacks in that game mode and if you spam too much you can still run out of mana at a bad time.
alexander that's match of the day. He's talking mainly about conquest
Blackthorne Hammer is actually very, very good in Assault (only) because of its weird passive, especially on sustain gods such as Guan Yu. It's an alternate and (slightly) more aggressive version of Heartward Amulet, because it switches protections for power... and you get cooldown reduction, when above 50% health. I wouldn't buy it in any other mode though.
That’s rune forge’s passive? You think you’d see it on Loki or fenrir. Gods who do cc before heavy burst.
I’d like to see a warrior fenrir with runeforge and midguardian maybe. Want to try that, maybe in duel against an adc.
Now that I think about it artemis could benefit greatly from the two hammers since she basically has runeforge as her passive who knows it might be interested to see
I'd like to see them make Blackthorn hammer a true early game item for laning phases. Give it its item tree back, but instead make it a tier 2 item like Asi or Dynasty plate helm reduce its health and power stat and you have a pretty solid option for aggressive solo laners or solos that aren't getting their blue.
How about if they made frostbound prock with abilities instead of basic attacks like gem of isolation. Lower the hp to about 200 or 250 and add 10% cool down reduction. With Runeforged they can add 10% cool down as well since most of these items are usually used with warriors and warriors heavily depend on cool down reduction. These items with cool down can even be used by assasins and/or hunters.
i don't know about the rest of you guys but i love blackthorn hammer. i usualy take it in assault when i know i'll need the extra health and mp5. i have even taken it with neith in assault when the guardian didn't take heartward and people opted for beads instead of meditation and it actualy helped me way better than any other starter item could. i had infinite mana and healing thanks to her broken weave and 2 and i let the tower get me when i had around 8k gold. but that mp5 is simply godly, it helps you sooo much.
don't forget i'm talking about assault tho.
Don't you think runeforged hammer fits well in Awilix? I always build it for her 2.
Runeforge has some situational use on some gods. Some people build it on arachne, as she can use some tankiness and also almost always has people cc'd when she's attacking them.
If I'm dumpstering and snowballing hard on chaac, I'll build it 2nd or 3rd item sometimes. The 6 second slow with runeforge from ahead lets you just 100-0 people. Generally not a good option against good players, but if I'm bullying the shit out of somebody and get a kill or two on them early I'll go into runeforge. Puts me even further ahead, and I can sell it late game.
You should make a vid on when to buy different anti auto attack items and which situation is best for each time.
blackthron hammer ullr if you want to go into late game crit builds with out spending more on trans for mana. i build it first so that i can spam abilities at lvl 5 with out stacking and it allows you to spam your 2 so that 25 from skill and 30 from items gives more power then boots at lvl 5. hunters blessing plus tier 1 hammer. it also makes you tankier so that you can soak up 350 extra dmg burst hunter ultimates and also give you 10 cdr if above 50% mana.
Yo Duke, when we gonna get a vamana jungle video? You always use these for background viewing while you talk about topics which I like, but seeing a full gameplay video would be great because they always look killer. Keep up the amazing content
I use items from this tree sometimes on Wukong cos he is able to pull off slightly janky builds, but it's more for the purpose of experimenting or being unpredictable rather that actually making an 'optimised' build :/
I saw iceicebaby playing ne zha transcendence with blackthorn hammer and it seems pretty good on him: warrior tabi, crusher, transcendence, regrowth, blackthorn and titans bane. A lot of health and good damage
There's also a reason that midguardian is a much better item for warriors and does not require you to be in their face to have a effect while also having the possibility of applying it to multiple gods that are using aa against you.
Do you think runeforged hammer could be viable if there were other people on the team playing characters like osiris and artio?
I started playing smite right after the joust map was changed and I can confidently say I have NEVER ever seen blackthorn built ever lmfao
Warriors aren't even that popular when comparing with guardians. You can do 2 things in smite: deal dmg or soak dmg. Lane pushing, structure pushing, objective securing, tfing, kill securing, whatever, comes down to one of those 2. The threat of the dmg or the wasting cooldowns on a tank or secure objectives and kills and whatever. You CAN'T DO both effectively (unless you're broken Achilles). So why wasting slots on items that do not benefit your dmg or your tankyness? Power and health (together) are SPECTACULARLY USELESS in higher tiers for solo laners. If you're a phys jungler you need mov speed, pen, sheer power, whatever. ADCs I won't even explain. Warriors need defense, DEFENSE, DMG SOAKING, dmg MITIGATION. Did I mention defensive stats? Why build health and power if the solo laner can buid health and defense? Within the context high level smite, the cudgel tree is dead for good. For lower levels is just too much fun to build them, but conquest is a fun-killer anyways
Can't you just combine frostbound with runeforged? Frostbound perma slows so runeforge passive keeps activating.
I usually buy runeforged hammer for Chaac. Am I playing the game wrong or something?
Figured out which tree you meant as soon as I saw your starting build...but yeah rip hammer tree
Does chaac gets the bonus damage from runeforged with his rain slow?
The mask tree is gonna be the dead tree when it release at the moment. They have turned them into some thing a very small amount of gods might use.
I was guessing the hammer tree or the magical defense shield tree- with ancile( popular) and that other shield that decrease magical power( forgot the name. Had my money on the hammer tree so I’m happy
Panda'sBass ruined shield?
Nathaniel Wilson Runic Shield*
magical defense/power tree is stupid op on bruiser junglers
There's not really a point to artemis having frostbound hammer since poison star also serves the purpose. The only way i'd see it is if you werent opting on going into crit at all, going for a health or attack speed build
some people started using runeforged on artemis now for obvious reasons of doubling her passive. not half bad if you get your crits
I actually use all three of these on a lot of builds (black thorn on medusa with atlanta's bow and typical penetration items is fantastic)
Also I build Runeforged on Neith, (plant your CC then blast away)
i usally use frostbound when it a pain to catch up to the enemy team and they are always getting away before dieing.
So we actually tried the build with frostbound and rune forged on artemks, she was doing up to 300 a hit, but her attacks speed was super low I don't think it's worth it
Isnt her steroid like 70%? Sure you're not getting it up all that often, but that is a loss to gain utility and (some) tankyness
Runeforge complements amc so well
Okay the reason I clicked on this video was not for the most dead item tree because that’s pretty obvious , but I clicked to see the most slept on(underrated)item tree. Have not seen the video so let’s see if this is useful:) gl duke
Black thorn is okay. I don't think it's worth picking up though especially in a Bruiser build you're better off going with crusher or some other item
It would be awesome if you had the time to make a new Artemis video on where she'll be next patch
I remember the days of pure stupidity you could get away with using Frostbound. Back in Season 2 I would use it on Rama due to the stacking slow with it and Astral Arrows making him inescapable or unchasable depending on the situation. At least, it worked until the Unicorn build just murdered it.
I would say a tree that almost never gets used is the tree with Winged blade ritual dagger ect.
Frostbound is a good utility/light peel item for Amaterasu and thats about it.
If Cernunnos builds Runeforged Hammer, his winter basics does more dmg than his summer basics.
Does current runeforges passive apply with frostbounds slow? I look it up and cannot find the answer for the life of me and everyone I ask doesn't know for sure.
So,ravana got a slow and root,does runeforged goes well on him on both solo and jg situations?
Oh shit! Duke knows about Beneath the Sky
I may be the outlier here, or maybe just behind, but I run runeforged on a lot of God's. My buddy and I run this items a lot. Like on Ratatoskr and Loki. I use it on a lot of my ability based carries I like. Ex Cupid, and Skadi.
Can you do a video on the most potent/dominating items of all of smite history? (Excluding necessary items like boots, starter items, and wards)
If you don’t do a video on this and still read this.... Hiii Duke Sloth :)
I been playin around with runeforge hammer on anhur with his pillar
So im in no way good at builds for gods. Kinda just say "hey hope this works" and i was curious if a frost bound runforged bakasura would be any good? Testing you only get like 11 extra true damage so in no way a lot but its true damage so its something. Sorry rambling. I dont know anyone else have thoughts?
kevin riddle bakasura benefits so much more from other thige
@dukesloth , what about jungle Osiris or erlang with new rangdas and runeforged?
What are you talkin about Blackthorn Hammer is amazing!? 450 health, 10% cooldown while over 50% Mana, while under 50% Mana I think it's 50 MP5. Also when I play Warrior I'm not looking to kill I'm looking to harass.
before it’s nerf to Hunters I loved buildint frost bound on Rama😂 you slow them so much it’s like their speed drops to like 100 points but it’s really only to troll and be a support like hunter.
Other than that, I see it on Chaac and nobody else. nobody needs it. If the item had no health more power and maybe 10% movement speed it would be picked up. or even 10% attack speed.
Thought you were gonna talk about the tree with Ancile in it
Rune forged hammer with Arachne is still pretty strong and op... if I'm playing her I always build this with dmg and mid to late game can make pretty strong Ganks sometime even one hit...
Runeforged is still a beast item on Bellona, still buy it on her from time to time.
Blackthorn stats are great and passive is great for the ability based warriors, i fear if they try to change black thorn too much it will be too strong.
mah boi thinks the same about artemis tho i gotta ask: why not get posion star instead of frost.
I understand it is better early but u would waste gold for frost and poision would be better for lategame :o
This could have been the tree with poly or magical books as neither are played much.
I build frost bound and runeforge for my ability build ullr because I can't find anything else for my last 2 items
Inb4 it’s the blackthorn tree
yess i have requested hi rez 2 buff the cudgel tree for months
Imagine runeforge with the ranga's mask.
i see frostbound used alot but its just because its a "warrior" item, even if the warrior isnt an auto attack god.
Red the thumbnail, thought hammer tree, get predicted
Blackthorn is a godsend on Assault tbh
I liked the one of the previous Runeforged versions better- the one where anyone within 30 units of you had a damage amplifier if they were slowed. It was such a cool item to use on Chaac and Osiris then, because slowing and sticking to an enemy caused your allies to also deal more damage. It turned slows from those gods into way scarier lockdown and setup tools.
dragontyron its applies to slows currently as well
It does, but it doesn't cause the target to take increased damage from your allies, which was the biggest thing.
I remember running a three-man Freya/Chaac/Fafnir combo where the Chaac would pick it up to amp up the Freya damage, who'd already been buffed by Fafnir. It was unreal.
I also heard of Chaac using it to help Scylla players hit their ults for more damage, which I never got to try myself.
dragontyron they do take extra damage if slowed it procs the passive
_From your allies_ I said.
Currently, Runeforged passive only amplifies the damage that _you_ deal to CC'd targets. Previously, if you slowed someone with a Runeforged Chaac, a Scylla on your team could deal the bonus damage.