The active item Hand of the Gods, or Wrath of the Gods in its fully upgraded form, was long seen as a staple active for junglers to build. For a time, it even saw popularity amongst solo laners and supports as well. Unfortunately, due to a series of changes, Hand of the Gods in its current state is simply a far less valuable version of its former self, resulting in a near complete abandonment of the item entirely. Although you may still encounter the item on rare occasions, Hand of the Gods is certainly long past its heyday. What led us to this situation, and is there any hope of seeing the item even partially restored to popularity? To truly understand the history of Hand of the Gods, one must look at it in three different phases of its lifespan.

Original State

To find Hand of the Gods (hereafter referred to simply as HoG) in its original form, one has to travel all the way back to the days of beta. This was a time before actives, or items in general, had the three tier levels that we all know today. Likewise, this was also a time when the functionality of HoG was completely different to both of its later versions. With the introduction of the item Bumba's Mask, HoG became a traditional item for all junglers to utilize, as the combination of the two items resulted in incredibly fast clear times and decent sustain while clearing camps. While you would normally only see it used on junglers at this stage, you may have occasionally seen it on solos as well, due to what I'm about to describe.

The original form of HoG hit ALL minions in its AoE radius, effectively making jungle camp and minion wave clearing effortless. For this reason, you would see solo laners pick it up, as they could pick up aggro on every second or third minion wave, round up the minions into a nice circle, and be rewarded with an instant wave clear, after which they would most likely look for a kill attempt on their lane opponent, a roaming opportunity, or both. Due to it complementing the bruiser meta of the time, in addition to HoG's high efficiency for junglers, the devs at HiRez determined that HoG was contributing to the problems of early snowballs and that it needed a change. Around this time, right around the time of the Smite launch tournament, the three tier levels were also added to regular and active items as a further attempt to curb snowballing. This meshed well with the need to change HoG, thus giving us its second and probably most renowned form.

HoG 2.0 (aka Frustrate HoG)

As part of the wave of major changes after the conclusion of the launch tournament, HoG underwent a complete overhaul. The AoE mechanic was changed in two key ways, the first being that it now only hit THREE minions in the radius instead of all. While this had no real effect on junglers, it did cause a shift in how laners utilized it, as it was now used as a way to quickly clear the archers (and only the archers) at the back of every minion wave. Though this wasn't any issue. The second mechanical change, however, certainly was.

In order to keep the item relevant, someone decided it would be a good idea to give HoG an execute mechanic. Essentially, this meant that once an objective such as Gold Fury or Fire Giant reached a certain percentage of health, signified by a change of color on the health bar to yellow, you could instantly kill it with HoG. This made it an attractive active for solo laners AND supports, as it allowed them to contest objectives on either side of the map. Doesn't sound so bad, right? That's until you read the example below. Here's a hint:

Credit to sleepyanarchist

This resulted in a major pain point for Smite players everywhere, professional or otherwise. Without good vision around objectives, particularly the Fire Giant, an enemy Geb (the example we all know and hated) could wait until the threshold was near, easily blink over the wall, Cataclysm most of your team, effortlessly steal the objective, and then spam VEL on the way out. Needless to say, this kind of situation would cause entire teams to baby rage....hard. Additionally, if there was ever a situation where you had a phoenix down and your titan was badly injured, it was not recommended to leave your base, period. If you did, that same a-hole Geb could just walk into your base and kill the titan with a full HoG + Cataclysm + Shock Wave combo, spamming VEL all the way. After a long period of frustration from constant objective steals, HiRez finally reworked the item again, leading to the current form we see today.

Current HoG

Around the time of the first Smite World Championship, the second major overhaul of HoG was put into place. Similar to the first rework, this also had two major mechanical changes. First and foremost, the execute threshold was removed entirely. HoG now does 480 damage at all tiers, but does still get a nice 1000 damage on bosses (i.e. Gold Fury, Fire Giant, Titan) once it's upgraded to Wrath of the Gods. However, the change that made it no longer viable is that HoG now only hits ONE minion per tier upgrade. For clarity, the first tier hits one minion in the radius, the second hits two, and the third and final tier will hit three minions like the days of old. While it is important to note that the current HoG will always hit the healthiest minion in the AoE radius, HoG is no longer considered a worthy investment, as paying 300 gold just to kill a single minion faster just kind of....feels bad. Hence, Smite players seldom ever see this active item purchased today, as there are simply too many better actives that you could purchase instead. Blink, Aegis, Girdle, Curse, Heavenly Agility... the options are near limitless, and not picking up HoG also provides you with the flexibility of picking up a second active depending upon your situation, as you no longer have to automatically assign one active slot to HoG if you're a jungler/support/solo.

Credit to Marsalinapocalypse

Jungle Meta Shift

Due to the heavy nerfs on HoG over the years, this has honestly become a somewhat limiting factor on junglers. Without HoG, or at least a fully upgraded version, junglers have to rely on their natural ability to clear and sustain far more than ever before, which has limited the number of junglers that are now competitively viable. For instance, you are now forced to either stick with a jungler that has good camp clear (Thor, Hun Batz, Serqet, Awilix, and maybe Ymir) or good jungle sustain (mainly Ne Zha and Thanatos). While you can certainly use more gods than what I've listed here in the jungle, the lack of clear and/or sustain on some of those other picks causes them to fall behind in experience, gank less, and all around have a harder time in the jungle.

So what could be done to make HoG a worthy active again? In my opinion, it's as simple as allowing it to hit three minions within the radius once again. Altering the damage values to scale with tier level would be an acceptable counterbalance to this suggested change, so long as the AoE still connects with three minions. However, I would still leave out the execute mechanic from previous versions, as this maintains competitive integrity and makes the game more fun to watch, as it currently takes far more skill/timing to steal an objective than during the reign of HoG 2.0. These changes would alleviate the investment versus reward problem that HoG currently faces, while still keeping some level of balance for the item. What do you guys think about the current state of HoG and its fall from grace?