Manticore



The Manticore was the original opponent in the Training game mode in SMITE. He was replaced by a Ra bot AI with SMITE Beta Version 0.1.1316, the patch released on January 24th 2013.

Description
The Manticor acted as a sort of AI controlled dummy that players would fight to test their abilities.

Its behavior in practice was:
 * It would retreat if only 1 normal minion remained in its current wave.
 * It would never initiate a fight against a player.
 * It would mostly use abilities to damage the player's minions.

The Manticore used to be affected by several bugs, some of them being:
 * Arachne's old Cocoon ability wouldn't work on it as it wasn't classified as a god before.
 * For the same reason, it would not appear on the scoreboard either.
 * It could easily get stuck, and remain stationary for several seconds.
 * It was able to recall while still moving, attacking or under the effects of Crowd Control.

On January 16th 2014's patch, the Manticore was temporarily reintroduced as an escort minion for a new Arena map. It was eventually removed from the game once again on January 29th 2014 and replaced by a mobile siege tower.

April Fools 2016
On April 1st 2016, the Manticore was announced to be reintroduced as a new ranged mage god for the fake 3.5.5 update as "Manticore, The Forgotten Blight".

Lore
Long ago, in times past, the Battleground of the Gods was met with a creature most foul: The Manticore, residing in the depths of the pyramids, struck fear into the hearts of god and mortal alike. With the torso of a lion, the tail of a scorpion and the wings of a demon, the twisted beast was an enemy the likes of which had never been seen.

Locked in an endless battle, and unable to defeat the Manticore, the gods banded together to cast the beast into an eternal darkness by deleting him from the practice map.

Though consumed by darkness, he lie in wait for his moment to return to the battleground.