Items that are only used on one god are not good. This can limit the god’s success unless players do an excessive amount of research and it also needlessly complicates the item store. We could have just removed it and buff the specific gods at the start, but both of these items had fun and interesting effects that we wanted to see used on a wider range of gods.

In both cases, having the item on a wider range of gods created unhealthy game states. If stats are overwhelmingly showing a specific class or strategy is too strong (at casual, ranked, and SPL level), or if there is overwhelming negative community feedback, then we have an unhealthy game state. This occurred in both occasions. Golden Bow showed hunters skyrocketing to the top of the stats, and Hastened Fatalis created constant community turmoil.

At this point we knew that these items’ unique characteristics were bad for the game. The things they specifically were designed to do were actually hurting the overall god diversity and causing frustration. This means the items were bad designs, and should be removed. We had a choice to revert each item back to their “one god” states, but there is good reason why we want to avoid “one god” items. Instead, its much better to remove the problem item and adjust the god individually. Mercury received a large set of buffs in 3.13 after the Removal of Golden Bow. Freya, Sol, and Chronos received a strong alternative to the item that we are still in the process of balancing, but initial stats show all 3 gods are quite powerful in Season 4.