Last week, we talked in-depth about the three pillars of god design: visuals, gameplay mechanics, and synergy. This week, we’re going to dive into discussion about Smite’s newest addition to the battleground of the gods, Baron Samedi of the Voodoo pantheon. From release, Baron has performed incredibly well and has been recognized for his unique and surprisingly fun kit. HiRez certainly knocked it out of the park with his design, but maybe sending the ball to space is going a bit too far. This week, we’ll talk about what makes Baron Samedi’s design good, what makes him broken, and what could be done to bring him back down to size.

Let’s start with the first pillar, visuals. Many were skeptical that Baron would be pretty boring visually because his design is so well established within his pantheon’s lore. A considerable number of gods have very little to work with in terms of visual descriptors within their lore, so HiRez has been able to take a number of creative liberties to make the god really come to life. This time, however, HiRez stuck almost entirely to Baron’s canon visuals, which certainly isn’t a bad thing, but just means it’s entirely what the public expected. While Samedi lacks an original model design, he has incredibly unique and vibrant animations that add that spark of life to the character.

To achieve the spring in his step, HiRez implemented a new technology, stretchy bones, when modeling him. In 3D modeling, a model is made up of bones which are simply guidelines on which a character can be animated. A model can be made up of just a few or even several hundred bones depending on how complex it is. They can be manipulated in a number of ways, but before the implementation of stretchy bones, a model was locked into the original dimensions of their bones, making it challenging to make animations fluid and natural. Since Baron’s bones are stretchy, their dimensions can be adjusted at will. This allows Baron’s animations to work much like traditional animation from the past in that they follow a principle called squash and stretch.

Check out this cute explanation of Squash and Stretch by AlanBeckerTutorials

Certain aspects of a character. In terms of his lore, Baron is known to be boisterous and the life of the party. By having quick and exaggerated animations in this regard, he embodies those traits. For instance, in his out of combat jump, Baron twists around in the air while his legs become stretched out. Also, in his taunt animation, he first squashes down and then stretches up as he animates a coffin from the ground. These little semblances of detail are only possible thanks to the technology of stretchy bones. So of course, even despite ripping directly from lore, we have to rate Baron’s visual design a ten out of ten.

Check out the first few seconds of this God Spotlight by Noobable to see examples of Baron's animations

Next up comes gameplay design, and once again, HiRez did an excellent job of making a kit that looks pretty plain on paper feel fresh and fun. First, let’s take a moment to go through his kit and talk about his strengths and weaknesses both in general and within his class.

His passive is called Hysteria and works two-fold: one aspect functioning to benefit his team and the other working against his enemies. The first part of Hysteria is Baron’s Brew, a consumable that is only available to the team the Baron is on. The chalice costs only 150 gold and gets refilled each time its owner returns to base. The potion itself heals 140 health and 100 mana over 20 seconds, working as a slightly weaker yet cost-efficient multi-pot. The second part of Hysteria is a stacking debuff that applies to enemies hit with Baron’s basic attacks and abilities. Each of Baron’s basics applies 2 Hysteria, and the debuff wears off at a rate of X Hysteria per second. Once an enemy reaches 70 Hysteria, Baron’s abilities will do 20% additional damage, down from 25% at release.

Baron’s first ability, Vivid Gaze, is a double line attack that forms an X. Its center crossing can be adjusted much like Kali’s second ability, Lash. Each beam applies 10 Hysteria, and if an enemy god is hit by both beams, they will take only 15% of the damage on the second hit. If an enemy god is above 30 Hysteria when hit by the ability, they will have their physical power, magical power, and attack speed reduced. This ability is surprisingly good at clearing and can hit most, if not all of the wave.

Next is Baron’s second ability, Consign Spirits. This AoE ability damages, provides flat and percent missing health healing, and conditionally provides additional movement speed and slow immunity if the target hit is above 30 Hysteria. Getting hit by Consign Spirits applies 20 Hysteria, which is a pretty big deal considering most of Baron’s abilities take only 30 Hysteria to garner bonus effects.

Third is Wrap It Up, a line shot with a pretty significant slow that increases over 1.75 seconds, then turning into a 0.75 second root. This ability also deals a small bit of damage every 0.5 seconds for 4 seconds. Each tick of damage adds 5 Hysteria, totalling a whopping 40 Hysteria. If a god is above 30 Hysteria upon the initial hit of Wrap It Up, any target within a small radius around that god will also receive the same effects, should that target remain within the radius for one second.

Finally, Baron’s ultimate, Life of the Party, is a real showstopper. Baron becomes crowd control immune and takes 35% less damage for a maximum of 3.5 seconds while he pulls and damages all targets within a cone in front of him. Each target getting pulled also has 8 Hysteria applied to them per tick of damage. Damage is applied once every 0.33 seconds, so a max of 80 Hysteria can be applied to a single target. If an enemy gets too close to Baron while he is pulling, he will stun them for 1.5 seconds and cancel the ultimate preemptively.

Taking a look at his kit as a whole, you might not think that it works in practice as well as it seems to in theory. You’d think these skillshots would be fairly difficult to hit, but considering how good the crowd control on Wrap It Up is, one should have little trouble aiming his other two main abilities. That’s where we return to the question of his mechanics and whether or not they make his design good.

As a character, Baron Samedi has a pretty unique playstyle among his peers. He has high burst damage, a number of buffs and debuffs, as well as a huge teamfighting ultimate. He’s somewhat torn between spam-oriented and hybrid builds, seeing as maintaining a constant state of Hysteria on his enemies is central to his kit. Gods like Ah Puch, Morrigan, and Nox all greatly benefit from a build heavy with cooldown reduction, but what makes Baron different than them is that his kit has a large number of team-oriented abilities rather than just raw damage. In that way, he also closely resembles hybrid gods like Zhong Kui, Hades, and Hel; on their own, they are pretty good, but they succeed the most when they are surrounded by teammates they can either buff or work together with. By finding that right spot that perfectly complements his constant need to be in the thick of things, he will certainly function at his best.

Finally, we’ve crossed the threshold into territory under the pillar of synergy. As a character, Baron Samedi has some incredible synergy within his kit and with his allies. On his own, Baron is a master trapper, being able to snare his enemies into the rest of his kit. If your Wrap It Up is on the mark, you’re then given the option of using Vivid Gaze to slow down your enemy’s offenses or Consign Spirits to buff yourself and your team. Even beyond that, using Life of the Party can be inescapable in a one on one fight, especially since it outlasts Purification Beads.

Considering the fact that Baron Samedi has no outright mobility, Consign Spirits is a huge help when getting chased. Just by throwing down Consign Spirits at your feet while running, you may be able to gain an extra burst of speed to slip right out of your aggressor’s clutches. At the same time, an unsuspecting squishy chasing you down might just end up getting burst down, should you have Soul Reaver, Soul Gem, or some other item’s passive available.

When it comes to team synergy, Life of the Party is, once again, an amazing tool to burn beads, group enemies up, and knock them down. That’s why, as I mentioned before, going a hybrid build is going to help out significantly; since you’re pulling everyone in, you may be the focus of the attention of the enemy. By that same token, because you’re the focus, your team can easily jump in and eliminate any distracted enemy. Also, Wrap It Up is a great tool to follow up onto Athena taunts, Ganesha knockups, or really anything that holds enemies down for a short time. Putting that sneaky snake on an enemy makes it that much harder for enemies to help their afflicted friend, since getting close is a dangerous game.

Taking all of these different advantages into account, Baron Samedi certainly hits the nail on the head for being overpowered on release. So then what steps have HiRez taken to tone him down, and where should they go from there? Make sure to check out next week’s article, God Balance, to learn more about the process that goes into adjusting the game’s stars.

Like our content? Support us by getting our merchandise in our shop