SMITE Patch Notes | 8.8 Bonus Update & Next 8.9 Update Notes

Item Changes

FIGHTERS MASK

Fighter’s Mask is a staple of the Solo lane. It’s strong clear combined with delaying your starter choice brings unique flexibility that most of our Solo laners seem to be enjoying. We want to ensure other routes are viable however so we are looking at adjusting Fighter’s Mask along with its most powerful pairing; Sundering Axe. Our goal is to keep this strategy as a viable and interesting option but temper it so other builds can get their chance in the spotlight.

• Decreased Physical Power from 35 to 30
• Decreased Magical Power from 65 to 60

SUNDERING AXE (UPGRADE)

Sundering Axe allows Warriors in the late game to have a strong mix of burst pressure, extra sustain, and strong tankiness that makes this choice incredibly potent. Reducing the base should bring this upgrade into a solid spot.

• Decrease the base bonus damage from the item’s passive from 5% to 3% of the target’s current health
  • (2% of the owners protection scaling is unchanged)

SOUL GEM

Soul Gem’s power, utility, and survivability make it a strong core in the current mage builds. We are reducing the burst heal this item provides to tone down the survivability aspect.

• Decreased the Heal from the item’s passive from 40% of your Magical Power Scaling to 30%

ICHAIVAL

Ichaival rush has become the go to choice and it is easy to see why. With our Mid Season update we expected items like Ichaival to see more play since they no longer had to compete with boots and this provided a strong source of Attack Speed for Hunters. In this bootless world the raw stats provided by this item are too potent and so we are reducing the passive steal this item applies.

• Decreased the Power Increase from this item’s passive from 15 to 10 per stack

ODYSSEUS’ BOW

The bow meta has largely been enabled by the combination of Ichaival’s high power but also the raw Attack Speed Odysseus’ Bow provided to synergize with that power. In the long term a reduction in Attack Speed on this item will help it fit into builds in a more healthy way; and in the short term reduce the raw effectiveness of the current bow builds.

• Decreased Attack Speed from 40% to 30%

VOID SHIELD

Jungler’s are going to see a large slew of adjustments in 8.9 with a goal of bringing damage focused Assassin’s back as a strong option compared to Tanky Warriors. Void Shield is a core enabler of the tankier playstyle. As a hybrid item it was providing too much defense making it difficult for more damage focused Assassin’s to brawl effectively.

• Decreased Physical Protections from 60 to 45

STONE-CUTTING SWORD

Stone Cutting Sword similarly enabled some Tanky Warriors to bolster their defenses and limit the option for damage Assassins to fight back. Similar to Void Shield the focus is on reducing the protections provided.

• Decreased the Physical Protection Buff from the item’s passive from 7 to 5 per stack (from 21 to 15 total)
• The Physical Protection shred debuff is not changing (staying at 7 per stack)

WINGED BLADE

Winged Blade is the final item to round out the Tanky Jungler changes. For its cost it was simply too efficient and fit well in bolstering a Warrior’s already tankier stats.

• Decreased Health from 250 to 200

Gods

CHARYBDIS

Charybdis has been a whirlpool of feedback! Her array of unique strengths and weaknesses are something we expect players to learn how to leverage over time and as such she will likely rise in the win rate without much intervention. Due to this we are currently focused on resolving core bugs and issues that are hindering her gameplay. Looking forward we will evaluate if she needs additional buffs after players have obtained additional mastery with this goddess.

• Fixed an issue where she was not getting the intended Movement Speed from her Whirlpool Form ability
• More bug fixes are planned for the main patch release – see the Bug Fix section of the update notes

GILGAMESH

Gilgamesh continues his strong spree, showing that our nerfs are not hitting the mark. Winds of Shamash is a potent teamfight ultimate, one that is worthy of a longer cooldown and a reduction to its ability to trap people inside. Dropkick’s high scaling enabled bruiser and offensive builds that really let him bully his opponents and quickly kill squishies. Finally, Hero’s Advance creates a large field of increased movement that really enables his team to follow him wherever he goes. These strengths are all being reduced.

WINDS OF SHAMASH

• Decrease Wind Wall Slow from 50/55/60/65/70% to 50% at all ranks
• Increase Cooldown from 90 to 110s

DROPKICK

• Decreased Initial hit Physical Power scaling by 50 to 40%
• Decreased Burst hit Physical Power scaling by 55 to 45%

HERO’S ADVANCE

• Decreased the vision range that allies become buffed within from 150 to 110

MORGAN LE FAY

The Dark Enchantress has continued to weave her powerful sigils. The frequency at which she can get her damage and control out combined with the safety of the heal from her Ultimate can make her difficult to approach. We are offsetting these nerfs with a boost to a lesser used Sigil; Soul. The clone will now survive longer and deal more damage over its lifetime.

SIGIL MASTERY

• Increased Cooldown from from 12s to 13s
• Increased the HP the Clone has from 10% of Morgan’s to 30%
• Increased the Power the Clone has from 50% of Morgan’s to 75%

SHROUD OF WILDFIRE

• Increase Cooldown from 13s to 14s

CONSUMING POWER

• Decrease Health Heal per hit from 6/8/10/12/14% to 6/7/8/9/10%

OSIRIS

The Broken One has lived up to his name in recent patches, showing himself to be a strong all around Warrior. Sickle Strike and Spirit Flail provide consistent pressure that can be overbearing; especially from ahead. The extra second we are adding should provide that extra breathing room when fighting into Osiris.

SICKLE STRIKE

• Increased Cooldown from 5s to 6s

SPIRIT FLAIL

• Increased Cooldown from 10s to 11s

PERSEPHONE

With the rework of Persephone we watched closely to see where she would overall fall. Since then her overall stats and ban rate have remained high but are much closer to a healthy range. A reduction in the flower speed and base damage will make her less of a thorn in the side and move her towards a more balanced point.

HARVEST

• Decrease Movement Speed of the Flowers by 10%
• Decreased Flower Bite Damage from 40/80/120/160/200 to 40/75/110/145/180

YEMOJA

Yemoja has remained one of the most contested gods this Season. River’s Rebuke has the potential to split teams apart and shape the flow of a fight. For something so strong, especially when the rest of her kit is piloted by an expert, a longer cooldown feels appropriate. Additionally we are removing the healing bonus provided by her healing Basic Attacks. This is an additional source of her strength that we think she doesn’t need to bring to a team to be effective.

OMI

• Remove 10% bonus healing buff she can apply from basic attacks

RIVER’S REBUKE

• Increase Cooldown from 120s to 140s

YMIR

Ymir told Ajax no! No more nerfs for Ymir! Ymir makes puny gods cold! Too cold to hurt Ymir and Ymir’s friends! Frozen in place! Oh well, Ymir will still be picked. Right?

FROSTBITE

• Decreases the damage reduction debuff Ymir applies to enemies from 15% to 10%

Assault

• Assault
  • Increased lobby duration during the re-roll/trading phase from 55s to 65s for this mode and MOTDs that use Assault format
  • New Feature – Healer Tiers
    • Healers in assault will now be assigned to tiers
    • If a team gets a healer, the other team will also get a healer of the same tier
    • Healers are no longer allowed to be rerolled by any player, but they can be traded
    • Tiers are:
      • Tier 1
        • Hel
        • Aphrodite
        • Yemoja
      • Tier 2
        • Sylvanus
        • Chang’e
        • Ra
        • Guan Yu
        • Terra
        • Horus
      • Tier 3
        • Olorun
        • Cupid
        • Baron Samedi

Conquest

The removal of boots items created a large change in the pace of SMITE matches. Players are gaining these movement speed stats for free now instead of spending gold from the map, so endgame builds are being reached faster than ever.Along with this effect, there also has been a lot of metagaming and map optimization that is causing junglers to fall behind in experience when compared to the rest of the roles. Supports are also feeling a similar effect.We are implementing some intense gold and experience changes to the Conquest map in this update to address the above issues. We are decreasing the base XP, scaling XP, and scaling gold earned from killing minions. While also increasing the XP gained from Buff holders, their minis, and from harpies. This is a clear decrease in gold in the map, and a shift in XP away from lane and into the jungle. As most of these effects are scaling, these changes will be felt more in the mid to late game, and the early game will feel mostly the same.There are some additional changes to help individual roles. The “Lowest Level XP Bonus” is being increased to help Supports (or anyone on the team who falls behind). The movement speed effect from the Speed Buff is being increased to help Junglers. And finally, all of the key jungle camps that players clear before wave 1 are being spawned even earlier to make sure players have time to get to lane or to potentially find new starting routes. One specific change contrary to the previous point is the green buff, which is now going to spawn even later to help communicate to players that they should not be killing this camp as part of their starting route.This is a huge set of changes for Conquest, and there are more exciting changes coming to the map in future updates. We hope this update has a strong effect on making each role feel impactful.

• Increased Lowest Level XP split bonus from 0.25 to 0.35
  • A reminder of how this mechanic works:
  • Originally implemented in the 5.13 Mid Season Update
  • After 2m on the game clock, Lowest Level XP Bonus will turn on
  • This rule will give the Lowest level player on each team a 35% increase to their shared XP only, not solo XP
  • This means a 2 way split, yielding 120% XP total to both players, would yield 60% to the higher level player and 60 * 1.35 = 81% to the lower player
  • 3 man split – also yields 120% which would give 40% to each player, and 1.35*40 = 54% to the lowest player
• Speed Buff
  • Increased base Movement Speed bonus from 5% to 8% on this Jungle Buff
• Initial Spawn Times
  • Damage, Mana, Speed, Void Camps
    • Moved up from 00:20 to 00:15
  • Support Camp (Green Buff)
    • Moved back from 00:20 to 00:35
  • Back Harpy Camps
    • Moved up from 00:25 to 00:20
• Minion Balance
  • All Lane Minions
    • Decreased Scaling XP Reward from 5 to 4.5 per 3 minutes
    • Decreased Scaling Gold Reward from 0.75 to 0.5 per 3 minutes
  • Swordsmen and Brutes
    • Decreased Base XP Reward from 45 to 44
  • Archers
    • Decreased Base XP Reward from 25 to 24
  • Jungle Buff Camp Monsters (Buff Holder and Both Minis)
    • Increased Scaling XP Reward from 9 to 12 per 3 minutes
      • (Mana Camp: 27 to 36)
  • Harpies (Small)
    • Increased Base XP Reward from 22 to 24

Items

BELT OF FRENZYRelics offer a way for gods to really push for a specific strategy and this flexibility often exists for our tanky support players. In recent patches however most of these relics have seen very little play and are often replaced with safer choices like Purification Beads. Our goal this patch is to bring up the power of these relics and see if they can bring an incentive to forgo the safety of beads. Belt of Frenzy is getting a boost to its Attack Speed, letting your team shred through the enemy team or objectives that much more quickly.

• Increased Attack Speed Buff from 15% to 25%

BELT OF FRENZY UPGRADE

• Increased Attack Speed Buff from 15% to 25%

HEAVENLY WINGSHeavenly Wings offers strong utility against heavy slow teams. Its cooldown however made it an unreliable tool for those cases. A reduction here (combined with a Relic Dagger) puts it below the standard 90s ultimate cooldown making it quite the reliable answer to slows.

• Decreased Cooldown from 140s to 120s

HEAVENLY WINGS UPGRADE

• Decreased Cooldown from 140s to 120s

HORRIFIC EMBLEMHorrific Emblem offers a way to put the brakes on your enemies advance and offensive power. We are making it a stronger counter to Basic Attack focused comps and lowering its cooldown to help it be a reliable tool during teamfights.

• Decreased Cooldown from 130s to 110s

MAGIC SHELLMagic Shell has a strong place but we felt the base version of it felt underwhelming. It will now have some Basic Attack mitigation upfront which should help it feel more potent before its upgrade comes online.

• Added the effect – all allies take 20% reduced damage from Basic Attacks for the duration
• The upgrade still has this same effect at 50%, unchanged

MEDITATION CLOAKMeditation Cloaks redesign promised some interesting gameplay but the healing and cooldown utility wasn’t quite enough to compete with more offensive minded options. A reduction in cooldown and a doubling of its cooldown reducing capabilities can make it a solid option to plan around.

• Decreased Cooldown from 160s to 140s

MEDITATION CLOAK UPGRADE

• Decreased Cooldown from 160s to 140s
• Increased the Cooldown per tick from 0.5s to 1s

BENEVOLENCE REWORKBenevolence has been reworked! From the go to Support starter to the go to everyone starter it has been a wild year for this item. Benevolence was always focused on rewarding the more roaming style of support and we hope to preserve that feeling in the rework without introducing an incentive for all gods to build it. New Benevolence will now be focused around gaining stacks of Benevolence and then bestowing the teammate of your choice with a powerful health restore. For your Benevolence you will gain some gold. With stacks being accumulated over time as well as from Assists you can wait for the right time to roam and feel like you are gaining some benefit as you go to help your team.

• +100 Health
• +10 MP5
• +7 HP5
• Passive : Every second you are not near an ally you gain 1 Stack of Benevolence, stacking up to 50 times. For each assist you gain 4 stacks. While near a damaged ally you spend stacks to restore yours and their health equal to 0.15% of your Maximum Health. For each stack consumed you gain 1 gold.

BUMBA’S DAGGERBumba’s Dagger has started to see some play but we still think it has some room to go. While it does offer high sustain and clear speed, the early levels of this item feels roughly even with the other options without the added benefit of stats you can bring into a gank. A boost in flat power should round out this early game slump.

• Added 15 Magical Power
• Added 10 Physical Power

WAR FLAGWar Flag has not quite hit the mark in encouraging a different playstyle compared to safer alternatives like Sentinel’s Gift. The effort in gaining gold combined with stats that can make it hard to stay engaged make it feel like high risk for moderate reward. We are making it easier to gain gold while also replacing Power with protections, allowing for that early spike in protections that can let you box directly with your enemies.

• Decreased Stacks Required to turn on bonus gold effect from 4 to 3
• Removed 10 Physical Power and 20 Magical Power
• Added 10 Physical Protections 10 Magical Protections

ARONDIGHTThis item begins a long list of buffs to damage focused Assassins. Our goal this patch is to ensure that damage focused Assassins feel like they have the items needed to be a strong threat late game and stay competitive against their tankier counterparts. This paired with the shift in Conquest experience should help Assassins reclaim their spot on the team. Arondight provided strong power and cooldown reduction; but it’s flat base power favored tankier gods. We are shifting the procs damage to focus more on scaling, rewarding high power builds more directly.

• Decreased the Base Damage from 40 to 20
• Increased the Physical Power Scaling 30% to 40%
• Now Reads:
  • When first striking a revealed target they take an additional 20 + 40% of your Physical Power

BRAWLER’S BEAT STICKBrawler’s Beat Stick is a common counter to healers but lacks the stats to make it not feel like a detriment to pick up. An extra 10 Power will help it along. Additionally, the Mace tree as a whole is seeing a solid buff. With the T2 Mace not offering the same level of spike it did previously we feel the tree as a whole needs more reward when finishing items.

• Increased Physical Power from 40 to 50

HEARTSEEKERHeartseeker should be a strong option for Assassins to get that extra damage in on tankier targets but the scaling isn’t quite enough to get that impact. We are reverting a previous nerf to help it find a slot in Assassin builds.

• Increased Bonus Damage from the item’s passive from 2%-5% to 3%-6% (revert)

JOTUNN’S WRATHJotunn’s Wrath trades raw damage output for Cooldown Reduction, and at its current cost that tradeoff isn’t quite worth it. A reduction here should really let Assassins get their abilities back much more quickly when it is called for.

• Decreased Cost from 2350 to 2200

THE CRUSHERThe Crusher is about to start crushing it again. An extra 10 Power will help at all stages of the game and help it compete with other choices.

• Increased Physical Power from 30 to 40

TRANSCENDENCEFinally we are also buffing Transcendence. With the pace of Conquest changing without boots this stacking item saw a large falloff for both Assassins and Hunters alike. 10 Extra Physical Power upfront will help it compete with other fast starts like Ichaival or the newly buffed maces.

• Increased Physical Power from 35 to 45

Gods

AWILIXAwilix can feel strong given the right team composition but in other cases she has to commit everything to stay relevant. Increasing the base damage on Summon Suku and Moonlight Charge will give her extra clear to farm and extra options when she cannot safely commit to getting a fully powered Feather Step off.

SUMMON SUKU

• Increased Base Damage from 80/130/180/230/280 to 80/135/190/245/300

MOONLIGHT CHARGE

• Increased Base Damage from 90/130/170/210/250 to 90/140/190/240/290

BACCHUSBacchus is limber and ready to flop. Reducing his cooldowns will round out his ability to set up for his team and give him more flexibility to engage for poke or to all in commit.

BELLY FLOP

• Decreased Cooldown from 16s to 16/15.5/15/14.5/14s

BAKASURABakasura was expected to be quite strong in Season 8 and even stronger with the removal of boots but we have yet to see that pan out. Late game especially he lacks tools to commit to a fight and threaten a team before being locked down and deleted. Some extra time on the CC Immunity and duration on the Cone Attack should give him that extra flexibility he needs to serve as a carry in the late game.

REGURGITATE

• Increased CC Immunity Duration from 1s to 1.5s (revert)
• Increase Cone Attack Buff duration from 5s to 6s (revert)

CHAACChaac can really make it rain, at least in the early game. While his laning phase is quite solid most other Warriors either bring stronger control or more consistent pressure. Some extra base stats combined with a large decrease on Torrent should help him get into a fight more effectively, deal more damage while he is there, and stay there longer with the extra Protections provided.

GENERAL

• Basic Attack Speed Per Level Buff from 1.0 to 1.2

TORRENT

• Decreased Cooldown from 13s to 13/12/11/10/9s

ESETEset is nearly fully reverted from her initial rework. While it was deemed quite strong at the time, players have both learned to play around these strengths and the meta has shifted in a way where her strengths aren’t quite as strong. A return of the damage mitigation on Circle of Protection highlights her ability to provide a massively strong area for her team to fight in, whether it is defensive or offensively used.

CIRCLE OF PROTECTION

• Increased Damage Mitigation in the circle from 20% to 25% (Revert)

GANESHATurn of Fate’s long cooldown made it difficult for Ganesha to consistently boost his team or clear something on his own in a reasonable time. This extra bit of utility and damage aside from Ohm and Dharmic Pillars should remove an obstacle stopping him from seeing more play.

TURN OF FATE

• Decreased Cooldown from 16s to 14/13.5/13/12.5/12s

GEBCataclysm functions unlike nearly any ability in SMITE, working entirely off Current Health to deal its damage. While unique, even the best case scenario for this ultimate saw it as not quite as effective as other teamfight ultimates and in worst case scenarios fell far short. We are now making Cataclysm deal a base amount of damage and then deal additional damage based on Current Health. We think the unique aspect is worth preserving but this should help the Ultimate feel impactful whenever it is used and have that extra oomph when used to start a fight.

CATACLYSM

• This ability now deals base damage in addition to the % Health scaling. It will not have any magical scaling
  • 120/270/420/570/720
• Now deals 15% Current health damage at all ranks (decreased from 15/20/25/30/35%)

HELThis god has recently started showing up in the solo lane. Can one god create a “healing meta” on their own? Maybe not, but Hel is sure trying her best. We are applying a shift to Hel. The first change is a fix to her kit to make her passive work the way that players have expected it to from the text. For some amount of time Hel has only been healing herself for more in light stance, which will now be fixed to apply to her healing of herself or allies. However, as she is performing quite well, we are also decreasing this amount of healing she can gain. The final result will be that Hel will heal herself for less, but her allies for more. We will keep a close eye on this goddess for future nerfs if needed.

STANCE ATTUNEMENT

• Fixed an issue where this was not providing Hel with increased healing to her allies while attuned to Light Stance
• Decreased the amount of Healing Hel provides to herself an allies when fully attuned to light stance from 20% to 10%

HOU YIMark of the Golden Crow can be thought of as Hou Yi’s stim, and when viewed in that way it doesn’t keep up with other Hunters. A lower cooldown to highlight its sight utility combined with some extra damage scaling should help this feel more competitive with other stims when directly boxing his enemies.

MARK OF THE GOLDEN CROW

• Increased Damage Increase for every 10% of missing health from 1/2/3/4/5% to 3/4/5/6/7%
• Decreased Cooldown from 18s to 18/17/16/15/14s

HORUSThis Rightful Heir has struggled to find his rightful spot as either a Solo laner or support. By focusing on Updraft and Protector’s Surge’s base either option should feel a solid boost to their early gameplay. With his strong lockdown and potentially game shifting ultimate some extra early potency will go a long way.

UPDRAFT

• Increased Bonus Damage of the Gust attack from 14/23/32/41/50 to 20/30/40/50/60

PROTECTOR’S SURGE

• Increased Healing from 50/100/150/200/250 to 70/115/160/205/250

SYLVANUS – MINOR REWORKSylvanus has outgrown his RNG passive and something new has flourished; A passive that he is in direct control of. Nature’s Bounty will spawn a seed pod whenever he hits any enemy with an ability or where his abilities are deployed. For each Seed he picks up he will gain some mana and Cooldown reduction to help him continue the fight. In super late games this gets even further boosted to really help his team close out a game.

NATURE’S BOUNTY (NEW PASSIVE ABILITY)

• When Sylvanus’ abilities hit or are deployed a seed pod appears at that location. When Sylvanus picks up this seed pod he restores 2.5% of his Mana as well as lowers his cooldowns by 0.25s. At level 20 this Cooldown Reduction is increased to 1s

ULLRThe Glorious One has been anything but in recent patches. While he can be quite strong if he can get a lead; his late game has left him underwhelming and on the lower performing end of most hunters this Season. We are reverting a scaling adjustment on Bladed Arrow to help this out but are also boosting the passive stats provided by his stance switch. The extra Attack Speed and Lifesteal will give him some extra flexibility early and that raw scaling in the late game.

BLADED ARROW

• Increased Physical Power Scaling from 70% to 80%

WIELD AXES (WIELD BOW)

• Increased Attack Speed (Bow) from 5/10/15/20/25 to 10/15/20/25/30%
• Increased Physical Lifesteal (Axe) from 5/10/15/20/25% to 10/15/20/25/30%