Why Terra and Fafnir are currently top tier supports

In the past few weeks, the role of Support has been mainly filled by two gods: Terra and Fafnir. When it isnt filled by them, it's probably because they got banned in the first phase. So why is this? This question is much hard to answer for supports, as you cant measure their success by their kills and accolades. The impact supports bring is much more underlying and therefore takes a lot of analysis to get to. In this article, i'm going to go through their abilities, the strengths they share, and some fundamental properties they both have that make them great supports.

Fafnir

Fafnir was a mediocre support upon first release, but after a few buffs he is now dominant in the meta. Let's take a look at the dwarf's abilities in detail and find out what makes him tick.

PASSIVE - Endless Greed

 

Fafnir's passive is what gives him his character (apart from the huge dragon of course). As cute and lore friendly as it is, this passive is actually deadly in lane. 2 extra gold for every action Fafnir does means that he gets a free version of Watchers gift. It may not be as good as watchers gift, but it's completely free! Plus, buying watcher's gift on fafnir as well will give him ridiculous gold gain, meaning Fafnir does not have any issues building his core items extremely quickly. In a fair, even situation, no other support will make as much gold as Fafnir. Furthermore, 30 protections at 1000 gold should not be ignored. To put this into perspective, Fafnir gets the protections of Hide of the Urchin, a 2400 gold item, just for staying in lane for a long period of time. Now, obviously he doesn't get Urchin's passive, but he only has to invest 1000 gold anyway and it doesn't even take up an item slot. No other support benefits from staying and sustaining in lane as much as Fafnir.

1ST ABILITY - Cursed Strength 

Fafnir's first ability is a fairly simple line stun that does a fair amount of damage, but it's strength is in its ability to affect both gods in the lane due to it's AoE slow and AoE slow plus protection shred in dragon form. The pulse it eminates means that this fairly thin line ability has massive implications for both enemies. Stunning the enemy adc means they are set up for your adc to deal damage to them, and their nearby support is slowed and possibly squishier, making them less likely to be able to defend their adc. Stunning the support makes them open to be picked off, and slowing their adc in the meantime means they stick around so that when the support is dealt with you can still harass the adc. This makes the ability terrifying to see in lane, especially with it's long lasting effects, with the 1.5s stun and the 3s slow.

2ND ABILITY - Coerce

This ability singlehandedly can decide fights between the friendly and enemy adc. The amount of raw attack speed is absolutely insane, up to 50% lategame and in draconic form he can apply it to his entire team. Furthermore, the healing that Fafnir receives further pushes his ability to remain in fights for a long time. Simply put, fighting into a god that has been coerced by Fafnir is a losing fight.

3RD ABILITY - Underhanded Tactics

One of the longer jumps in the game, featuring a rare and powerful CC, disarm, Underhanded tactics is a fearsome ability. It's massive range means that it can be used both to gapclose offensively and to disengage defensively. The disarm and stun in draconic form can set up a kill for your team perfectly, which combined with its massive range means that kills can come quickly and unexpectedly. Further adding to this ability's usefulness, it can be used at point blank range, at which point Fafnir doesn't jump but simply executes the disarm/stun. This means Fafnir can use the ability in a close range skirmish without having to change position unnecessarily, which means he can stay in the frontline.

 ULTIMATE ABILITY - Draconic Corruption

Fafnir's ultimate is his identity, lore wise and gameplay wise. Completely refreshing his cooldowns, applying an AoE damage over time and buffing all his abilities and basic attacks, Fafnir's ultimate can be a complete fight changer. Completely reseting his cooldowns means that Fafnir can exhaust everything frontlining for his team, ult (during which time he cannot be targetted and is therefore immune), and be ready immediately for another full ability rotation. His ult is the final piece in the puzzle in making Fafnir a god that excels at extending fights for his team and making sure the enemy team can't fight back.

Terra

 

Terra is the newest support in smite at the time of writing, and she was instantly popular upon release for many reasons. Let's take a look at her abilities as well.

PASSIVE ABILITY - Standing Stones

Terra's passive is also one like Fafnir's where it occurs in the background, but hers is much more noticeable and impacts fights in a different way. Terra's 2nd and 3rd abilities generate Standing stones, and being immune to knockup and being able to slow enemies while they stand is absolutely ridiculous. While a knockup immunity may seem trivial in lane, consider how many supports use a knockup as their main initiation tool. Sobek, Bachus and Geb all get hard countered in lane by a Terra, not to mention one of the best adcs right now, Jing Wei. It causes confusion and can completely disrupt your enemy's plans, leaving them out of position trying to pick you off, now open to being picked off themselves. The slows on her basics also aren't to be ignored. Combined with her second ability and the speed boost on her ult, escaping a chasing Terra can be a nightmare.

1ST ABILITY - Force of Nature

Used alone, this quite an underwhelming dash, doing minimal damage and having a fairly short range. However, this is an ability designed to be used mainly with Terra's third ability. Dashing through the stone of her third ability changes its aura to damage instead of healing and allows you to dash again. We will discuss the 3rd ability further below, but knowing that you can dash twice is extremely important. This means that early game, Terra can drop a stone, dash through the wave, activate the damage aura and dash back through. This combo can give her decent waveclear early on, which makes her a good pairing with lategame adcs.

2ND ABILITY - Crushing Earth

This ability singlehandedly makes Terra a terror to face in lane. Not only is it a 1.5 second stun at all ranks, which is a long time in smite, but placed laterally in the lane it can be used to block enemy movement. It's useful in both offense and defense, as it can be used to set up kills and to stop advances. Furthermore, even if you miss with the positioning, it can still be useful, as dashing through it with your first ability blows up the stone, doing damage in a cone to all enemies in front of the stone.

3RD ABILITY - Monolith

Terra's third ability is what gives her so much flexibility in lane and in fights. The heal is nothing to be scoffed at, being comparable to a Sylvanus heal except slower. This can really make the difference and help you and your adc mitigate some of the lane poke and gain pressure. Furthermore, dashing through it roots all enemies and creates a damaging aura instead of a healing one. The damage aura lasts for 5 seconds and can really help clear the wave early on. The root is also significant, as it can be an easy setup for the stun from her setup ability. This ability perfectly encapsulates Terra: equally offensive and defensive

4TH ABILITY - Terra's Blessing

Terra's ultimate is quite a complex one that has many uses. It provides movement speed, free abilities and a conditional heal. It can be used offensively, using the free abilities and movement speed to initiate, with the threat of a heal stopping the enemies from hitting back. It is just as good used defensively, as the movement speed makes your allies almost impossible to catch and giving them their escape abilities even if all their mana was expended earlier. Overall, this gives Terra the ability to,help her team, no matter where she herself is on the map.     

So now that we've looked at both gods, what can we deduce? For a fairly basic overview of each ability, there is a lot of information. If we take a comparison between Fafnir's first ability and Athena's taunt, both are comparable in role, but Fafnir's ability is so much more complex and with many more uses. And in essence, that is why Terra and Fafnir are so successful currently. Sure, Sylvanus can heal, Athena can engage safely and Geb can protect his teammates. But Terra can do all three with relative ease, due to the many things each of her abilities can do. Fafnir is the same, and both of them are extremely adaptable and can fit the situation.

In a meta where situations can change on the dime, you need gods that can respond to each change and be useful in the most possible situations. This is why Terra and Fafnir have taken over the support scene and will continue to rule it for as long as this meta remains consistent.

Thanks for reading, I hope you learnt something about Terra and Fafnir, and why they are so relevant and dominant now.

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