Disclaimer: This article series is to ask if some of the unpopular picks in Smite are viable or not. One thing that needs to be understood though, is that not every god needs to be viable. There will always be better picks no matter how many different gods get buffed.

This week on Is It Viable, we're featuring the Roman pantheon’s goddess of the night, Nox. Nox was released with many people thinking that she was a lackluster mage. After a single buff she was one of strongest mages of Smite’s history and was consequently nerfed to the ground. After receiving a few small buffs after, we ask the question. Is she viable?

Now first let’s introduce Nox’s current kit because it has been changed several times and most people might not even know what her kit does.

Flame of the Night: Every time you use an ability you gain 4% damage mitigation, up to 16% at max.

Shadow Barrier: Nox creates a barrier of night around herself for 2s that mitigates 80% damage from the next hostile ability that hits her. Basic attacks are also mitigated for the entire duration that the shield is up. Nox cleanses roots and slows while this ability is active. Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14. Cost: 70.

Nightfall Raven: Nox launches a raven that spreads night along its path. Every enemy it touches takes 70/120/170/220/270 damage +70% of your Magical Power, is silenced for 2s, and is Shrouded in Darkness. The Shroud of Darkness lasts for 5s. Cooldown 15s. Cost:70/75/80/85/90.

Siphon Darkness: Nox targets the ground and attempts to consume all darkness in that area. Enemies who are standing in the target area take 90/110/130/150/170 damage +50% of your Magical Power. If a target is Shrouded In Darkness then it takes double the amount of damage. Cooldown: 4s. Cost: 50

Night Terror: Nox launches her shadow forward, hitting up to 3 enemy gods, dealing damage and shrouding them in darkness. While under the effect of Night Terror, enemies take 75% of this ability's damage every time they use an ability. 150/160/170/180/190 (+75% of your magical power) (Also dealt each time an enemy casts an ability while affected by Night Terror) and Nox's other ability cooldowns are reduced by 5s. After the Terror ends, enemies will take 75% of this ability’s damage and are stunned for 1s. Nox is also cc immuned during the activation and launch of her ultimate.

You may be asking yourself after looking at what her kit does, why isn’t she picked that often?

Well let’s compare her to the normal mid picks currently. All the mages currently in mid either have some kind of hard cc or can 100 to 0. Both of these aspects are EXTREMELY important for the mid harpie fights. This is the same reason why gods like Aphrodite & Hel are not used in the middle because they don’t have consistent hard cc or 100-0 damage for said fights.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only problem that Nox suffers. Nox is extremely immobile which makes her an even easier target for ganks than gods like Hel or He Bo. The mid lane is an extremely chaotic place in this meta where there’s always at least two people in the lane at once. Not having any sort of movement ability or peel to shake someone off is extremely awful for a mage in the mid lane.

With all the negatives aside, what does Nox have going for her?

Well to start, she has one of the best if not THE best poke in the game. With an extremely low cooldown and low mana cost damaging ability in her Siphon Darkness, her poke is beyond annoying. With this consistent poke she can send people to base or have them pushed back for her team to do an objective or possibly invade their jungle buffs. She also currently has a two second silence at all ranks on her Nightfall Raven, but why is that so important? Two seconds is extremely long for how fast paced the game is. Two seconds could mean either living or dying at any moment. What makes her silence particularly important is it’s always two seconds, meaning even at level two when she’s poking an Agni out in lane and the jungler comes around from solo that Agni can’t dash for two seconds, which could mean an easy first blood.

Finally, we get to her ultimate which is one of the most interesting mage ultimates in the game. Most people think while looking at Nox’s ultimate “oh I can just not use abilities and I’ll be fine”. This is what most people don’t understand. Just the whole aspect of forcing people to not use their abilities makes the ultimate alone absurd. With this aspect of the ability it sort of acts as a five second silence with a stun at the end. Another thing that people overlook is that this ability will do damage TWO times no matter if you use abilities or not. Actives even proc the damage of the ultimate.

The Verdict: A-

Nox is in a particular place right now because of the way her kit is designed. A few buffs could just tip her towards the broken state that she was previously or even worse. I personally feel she’s completely fine the way she is and shouldn’t be changed. Not every god needs to be completely viable. However, I do think she’s a bit more undervalued than she should because of all that she brings to the table.