Game Modes
- Starters in other modes
- Duel and Joust
- Death’s Toll, Death’s Embrace, and Death’s Temper are now Banned
- Arena
- Now allow the buying of all starter items except eye of the jungle and its upgrades – as arena has no jungle
- Other modes
- Now allow the buying of all starter items
Items
WIND DEMON
Sometimes the rigorous schedule of game development can be more troublesome than usual. In this case, we had already locked all bonus balance to be tested and shipped before the weekend. Over that weekend we had our first SPL games as well as a lot more gameplay data stream in. These two factors have led us to implement a few more nerfs that will go live in the main 8.5 Update.
Wind Demon is seeing a large decrease to the Movement Speed it provides, as well as smaller loss of Attack Speed. The Crit meta came back in a big way with SPL – with this item being the main catalyst. Rage is also a key factor, but that item requires a lot more time to get online and provides only power and crit, so Wind Demon is being nerfed instead.
- Decreased Movement Speed from 20% to 10% and Attack Speed from 20% to 15% on the passive effect
UPGRADED MAGIC SHELL RELIC
This Relic has been the premier defensive choice for almost 2 years now. Shell provides a large amount of health swing in a fight when used at the right time, but its the block stacks on the upgrade that have really begun to warp the meta. Many Gods are heavily weakened by the blocks, so those are being removed and replaced with a more fair basic-attack counter that should affect a different set of gods. This change should bring back many new options to Junglers, especially in the pro league.
- Upgraded Shell no longer provides block stacks
- Instead – The buffed gods takes 50% less damage from basic attacks for as long as they have the health shield
(UPGRADE) THE ALTERNATE TIMELINE
This Timeline only grows in power. The Alternate Timeline’s passive looks potentially strong on paper but the revive time, feedback, and overall health restore gives enemies a strong opportunity to secure the kill on the revived target. This item was previously statted with the idea that this passive was stronger than it really ended up being in practice. We are bringing the Magical Power up on this item to better reflect its true strength.
- Increased Magical Power from 45 to 70
(STARTER) ARCHMAGE’S GEM
Archmage’s Gem still has moments of play but we have seen the Mage starter items really open up from the Conduit and Archmage’s Gem rushes at the start of the season. Some extra Mana will not only give this item a solid +1 that isn’t raw damage, but will let it synergize with other Mage items that care about Mana.
(UPGRADE) GEM OF FOCUS
Similar to Archmage’s Gem, we want to ensure that this tree remains competitive with Sands of Time (the most popular choice in SPL) and other Mage starts. A bump to its power should help it evenly across any mage who may want to try out Gem of Focus.
- Increased Magical Power from 90 to 100
(UPGRADE) BUMBA’S SPEAR
Bumba’s Spear has not only felt weak since the start of Season 8, but it had to compete with the arguably strongest starter in the same tree. Even with the nerfs coming in Bonus Balance to Bumba’s Hammer this item still needs some extra kick to make it feel worthwhile. CDR and Mana will make this more attractive in general, but we are swapping the gold generation with raw Power when slaying Jungle Monsters, Bosses, and Structures. Bumba’s Spear holders can now use that 10s window to make some strong power plays.
- Added 10% CDR
- Removed 200 Mana
- Passive now provides a 10% Power buff for 10s duration after Jungle Camps, Structures, and Jungle Bosses
- No longer provides bonus gold on Jungle Camps, Structures, and Jungle Bosses
(UPGRADE) MANIKIN HIDDEN BLADE
Manikin’s Hidden Blade was another Jungler Starter Upgrade that really struggled to make an impact. The proc didn’t feel worthwhile considering the difficulty to apply it regularly in combat and most Assassin’s couldn’t convert Basic Attack Power into meaningful damage output late game. Basic Attack Power is being converted to simple Power while the proc is getting some love to alleviate both these issues.
- Removed Basic Attack Power
- Now Provides 60 Physical Power and 90 Magical Power
- Increased Bonus Damage on the passive from 15% of the target’s current health to 20%
(UPGRADE) SEER OF THE JUNGLE
You didn’t think that was all Junglers, right? We also have Seer of the Jungle to discuss. The idea of becoming a Ward destroyer was something we expected to have high value but the duration combined with the strength of other Starter Upgrades left this item behind. We are giving it some extra stats to help it compete more evenly with other options while increasing the window players can slay wards in.
- Increased Attack Speed from 15% to 30%
- Increased the duration of the buff on the passive that allows you to see wards from 10s to 15s
(STARTER) WARRIOR’S AXE
In our last update we buffed Bluestone Pendant which has been a point of discussion for the community. We did that buff due to Bluestone Pendant struggling on the data side but it looks like we missed how players actually felt and utilized these items. Not only did they feel it was powerful but it highlighted the feeling that the other starters were underwhelming. Rather than just nerfing Bluestone Pendant and leaving everything as is, we want to look at bringing Warrior’s Axe and Warding Sigil up to better compete with Bluestone Pendant. We want Warriors to feel like they have 3 powerful options rather than 3 not terrible options. Warrior’s Axe will now steal more health more often, really encouraging you to trade when this passive becomes available.
- Increase Health Steal on passive from 25 to 30
- Decreased cooldown from 10s to 8s
(STARTER) WARDING SIGIL
Warding Sigil originally had an identity of being a Magical God counter but this felt too narrow. We are increasing it’s Physical Protection to make it a more compelling choice against all gods who do ticks of small damage rather than being a Magical god counter.
- Increased Physical Protection from 10 to 15
(STARTER) BENEVOLENCE
There was an issue where this item was splitting its reward among nearby allies rather than providing it to a single nearby ally. This caused some players in conjunction with a rounding up rule we added in a previous patch to generate quite a bit of extra gold and XP when stacked. This should no longer be the case.
- This effect now gives only one nearby ally the bonus gold and XP
(UPGRADE) COMPASSION
Unlike other Starter Upgrades where any extra gold can be a nice bonus, losing the Gold generation from Benevolence at 17 felt particularly rough. Keeping hold of some GP5 will ensure Supports who pick Compassion have that much extra funds to play with in games that go long.
- This item now provides 8 GP5
(UPGRADE) SENTINEL’S BOON
Sentinel’s Boon is much closer to Sentinel’s Embrace in power than it was at the start of the Season, but it still could use more. Increasing the amount restored from 3% to 4% will provide Supports up to 24% of their Health and Mana back each wave which can really enable a successful Phoenix siege or defence.
- Increased Health and Mana restored from the passive from 3% to 4% per assist
CHARON’S COIN
It’s time to flip and coin to see what item will get our next buff! Charon’s Coin found a strong place in Mage’s builds during Season 7 but has since dropped out of favor. The high cost investment and low immediate impact made it difficult to place into any builds. A lower cost and boost to power will alleviate those two pain points.
- Decreased Cost from 2500 to 2400
- Increased Magical Power from 80 to 90
BOOK OF THOTH
One other often considered start is Book rush. This start (or early buy) is for Mages looking to really pack on the Power and supports the Mana Build as a whole. The base version of this is getting a bump to ensure that that build path remains an option for Mages who want to work towards it.
- Increase mana contribution on book of thoth by 1%
- Increased MP5 from 15 to 20
SPEAR OF THE MAGUS
Spear of the Magus and Spear of Desolation often feel like two sides of a similar coin, where one becomes the go to over the other based on Math. While they have their niches outside of that we wanted to further highlight Spear of the Magus as having a different application. This item now provides lifesteal which note only makes it an attractive high DPS Lifesteal item, but bolster Lifesteal builds as a whole.
MAIL OF RENEWAL
Mail of Renewal Buff
The new Mail of Renewal has many players itching to try it out, but feeling underwhelmed by the impact of this team based heal. At a small cost of personal tankiness this item will now heal in half the time making it much more impactful during a fight.
- Decreased Health from 300 to 250
- Decreased the time the heal takes to complete from 20s to 10s
STONE OF FAL
Stone of Fal also has unique applications for quite a few gods in SMITE but the cost was prohibitive. Supports often didn’t have the gold to experiment while more offensive minded players found more raw Power value at this cost threshold. Reducing the cost should open it up for additional experimentation.
- Decreased Cost from 2500 to 2350
Persephone Rework
Persephone’s Rework changed a significant portion of her abilities. As such, she will be unavailable for Ranked Play until 8.6.
The Persephone rework has many changes with specific goals in mind. To read up on all those details and goals we encourage you to check out our Persephone Rework Criteria and Goals Blog
here.
In a more brief summary Persephone’s rework has a few major goals. First is enemy frustration. Her Passive combined with strong zoning and high variance in the outcome of her plants made her frustrating to fight against. On the flip side Persephone boasted one of the worst win rates in the entire game at all skill levels (even high end Ranked). She lacked a way to impact fights that didn’t go exactly as planned and the control she could exert on her own minions to make up for it was also limited, often falling to the enemy misplaying than her herself making a great one. With stronger control over her kit, more immediate impact in moment to moment gameplay, and better opportunities for enemies to counterplay she should feel better to play as and play against as an opponent.
POMEGRANATE SEEDS (REWORKED)
- When Persephone dies she travels to the plane of death where she can place 6 Harvest Seeds that will sprout when she respawns. Each time one of her Harvest plants wither she gains a Pomegranate Seed. Extra Pomegranate Seeds are sold at the fountain for 3 gold a seed. Persephone can hold 100 seeds.
- Major Changes:
- Persephone no longer revives in a state where she can deal damage or apply CC. She instead enters this state to plan for her next life.
BONE RUSH (MAJOR ADJUSTMENT)
- Ability : Line
- Affects : Enemies
- Range : 65
- Persephone calls forth a Skeletal Warrior from the underworld. This warrior charges forward, damaging minions and stopping on gods. Enemy gods hit are slowed for 2.5s. Whenever it stops its skull falls, becoming a Harvest Skull.
- Damage : 100/150/200/250/300 (+90% of your Magical Power)
- Slow : 20/22.5/25/27.5/30%
- Cost : 60/65/70/75/80
- Cooldown: 12/11.5/11/10.5/10s
- Major Changes:
- This ability no longer has a ‘topple’ AoE but now has a much larger charge range.
- Persephone can now continue to aim this ability right up until the moment it fires the projectile, improving the control over this ability.
- This ability now slows, helping set up for her Harvest Flowers.
HARVEST (REWORK)
- Ability : Circle
- Affects: Enemies
- Range : 50
- Radius : 12.5
- Persephone summons an explosion at a target location that places 3 Harvest Skulls. She can activate these Harvest plants with her Basic Attacks. When the Skulls are activated she restores health to herself. After 4s the Skulls turn into Harvest Flowers. When activated these Flowers charge forward in the direction hit, biting any target that gets close. Enemies recently bitten take reduced damage from other bites, stacking 3 times. She can have up to 5/5/6/6/7 Harvest Plants out at any time.
- Explosion : 90/140/190/240/290 (+80% of your Magical Power)
- Heal : 22/29/36/43/50 (+10% of your Magical Power)
- Bite : 40/80/120/160/200 (+50% of your Magical Power)
- Reduced Damage : 40/64/78%
- Cost: 60/65/70/75/80
- Cooldown: 14s
- Major Changes
- This ability now deals AoE damage upon cast and places multiple plants at once.
- The plants themselves now only have 2 states, Skulls and Flowers.
- Persephone can directly aim the charge direction of the Flowers, improving how she can utilize these flowers.
- Enemies can see a clear AoE indicator, giving them something clear to avoid.
FLOURISH (BALANCE ADJUSTMENT)
- Ability: Leap
- Affects: Enemies
- Radius: 20
- Persephone floods the ground with necrotic energy that propels her from the ground directly forwards or backwards; based on the direction she is moving. Harvest plants inside the area immediately become Harvest Flowers and activate, charging in the direction Persephone is facing. Enemies caught in this area take damage.
- Explosion: 65/105/145/185/225 (+65% of your Magical Power)
- Range: 45
- Cost: 70
- Cooldown: 15/14.5/14/13.5/13s
- Major Changes
- This ability no longer generates a Pregerminated seed as the Sprout seed is gone.
- This ability now deals damage to compensate Persephone for the loss of the follow up place/explode Persephone players were used to.
GRASP OF DEATH (BALANCE ADJUSTMENT)
- Ability: Line
- Affects: Enemies
- Radius : 55
- Persephone conjures Entrapping Vines that she throws forwards, entrapping the first enemy god or wall it touches. Entrapped gods are crippled, rooted, and have reduced Attack Speed. Vines then spawn from the Entrapped target, seeking nearby enemy gods. Gods bound are crippled, can no longer move further than 55 units away and are slowed while running away from the center. Entrapping vines are destroyed if hit by 5 Basic Attacks(3 if it trapped a Wall), ending all effects.
- Damage: 175/245/315/385/455 (+75% of your Magical Power)
- Vine Damage: 65/90/115/140/165 (+30% of your Magical Power)
- Attack Speed Reduction : 15%
- Slow: 15/17.5/20/22.5/25%
- Duration: 5s
- Major Changes
- This ability no longer constricts movement the closer you get to the Entrapping Vines, allowing enemies more options to fight inside the effect or while trying to free an ally.
- Players can move up to 55 units away at all times, but will move slower when running away from the center.
Gods
Wait, didn’t I just write about nerfs for this guy? Oh, nerf him some more? Ok then. Well Gilgamesh continued to rise in the data over the weekend, likely as people learned how to play him better over time. Some gods level off after a few days but Gilgamesh continued to rise. We are adding two more nerfs. Sun-Forged Scimitars initial damage is coming down at the later ranks, and Drop-kicks stun is coming down at the later ranks. It will be a small increase to the Stun at low ranks but this ability is a common choice to rank quickly.
SUN-FORGED SCIMITAR
- Decreased Burst Damage from 65/100/135/170/205 to 65/95/125/155/185
DROP KICK
- Adjusted Stun Duration from 1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4/1.5s to 1.2s at all ranks
Many suspicions were confirmed when we finally saw Tiamat picked in a single SPL game. Her ability to split push is still too strong. Although her nerfs have been effective, these basilisks have continued to be too alluring of a choice for her ultimate. We are nerfing them pretty substantially to make this a more fringe and situational option.
BASILISKS
- Decreased the lifetime of the deployable from 21s to 11s (results in only 4 basilisks spawning in total instead of 6)
Who’s hungry?! Bakasura is ready for a buff! He showed some potential at the start of the season with a larger map and his quick jungle clear, but he has started to fall behind the rest of the pack. The god often suffers from mana issues in the early game, so now Eat Minion will have a mana heal attached to it that helps Bakasura stay ready for combat, as long as he stays well fed. Butcher Blades is also seeing a cooldown decrease to make sure he is ready to fight when the moment arises.
EAT MINION
- Decreased Mana Cost from 55 to 40
- This ability now restores 60/65/70/75/80 flat mana upon successfully eating a minion
BUTCHER BLADES
- Decreased Cooldown from 14s to 12s
It’s a high pressure solo lane, and even with the upcoming buffs it’s looking like Bellona is being left behind. Even when Manikins was insane for warriors she only showed a glimpse of meta play. We are giving her a small bonus to her early lane clear, as well as some more consistency to her Ultimate CC which should help the goddess to better perform across a variety of situations and skill levels.
BLUDGEON
- Increase Spin Damage from 30/60/90/120/150 to 45/75/105/135/165
EAGLE’S RALLY
- Increased Stun from 1s to 1.25s at all ranks
It’s time to ride! Chiron has had a few buffs and is starting to perform quite well (although player perception clearly isn’t sold on this yet). We are applying one small buff to make it even harder to interrupt his dash, a key part of his kit. The real Chiron mains know that Giddyup can be a total game-changer, and now its even more likely to be effective.
GIDDYUP!
- Chiron is now knockup immune while galloping.
This goddess herself fell victim to the death by one thousand cuts. She had a series of nerfs, then the meta just seemed to fall out of her favor season after season. The Shell change will certainly be helping her but we still felt like she could use a bit more. These two abilities often feel less impactful than they should, especially with their restrictions in place like long channel times. We are going to be upping the damage so enemies feel the pain Da Ji likes to bring.
ONE THOUSAND CUTS
- Increased Base Damage from 25/45/65/85/105 to 30/50/70/90/110
TRICKSTER SPIRIT
- Increased Base Damage from 70/110/150/190/230 to 80/120/160/200/240
It’s Fafnir buff time, but don’t get too greedy! We know that Fafnir can quickly take over the pro scene when he is strong, but it’s been quite a while and we haven’t seen much of this shapeshifting god. Fafnir brings a strong setup, a stim for allies, and a lot of evasion but his cooldowns were very restrictive. These are being relaxed so that the god can be sure to make an impact on each fight.
CURSED STRENGTH
- Decreased Cooldowns from 15s to 15/14.5/14/13.5/13s
- This cooldown also applies to his Ability 01 in Dragon Form
UNDERHANDED TACTICS
- Decreased Cooldown from 18s to 15s
- This cooldown also applies to his Ability 03 in Dragon Form
The Queen returns! Hera was top of the meta for a while, but a seemingly small nerf to her Divine Shroud took her down further than expected. The map and meta changes have done her no favors so we are looking to buff her directly. Hera’s going to be dealing some more damage in the late game, as well as gaining back part of the strength of her health shield, but with even less emphasis on the need to rank it up.
POLYMORPH
- Increased Magical Power Scaling from 75% to 80%
DIVINE SHROUD
- Increased Health Shield from 50/100/150/200/250 to 70/110/150/190/230
- Increased Health Shield from 15 to 17 * Hera’s Level
- Total shields are: 65 to 550 vs 87 to 570 based on lvl1 rank 1 and lvl 20 rank 5 min and max
The Noodle is back! Kukulkan finally got his classic skin, but he’s missing some of that classic strength. The god tends to be a popular casual pick yet quite rare at higher levels of play. We saw a few matches with him in the SPL but this was likely due to personal preference or players playing from remote locations with higher ping. This buff should help him to excel in more areas without pushing him over the top.
SLIPSTREAM
- Decreased Cooldown 15s at all ranks to 15/14.5/14/13.5/13s
Don’t look into her eyes! But we do want you to look again at picking Medusa. Her dash is often described as her weakest ability. It has some unique rules to how it hits and applies damage to enemies which we aim to keep for now. However, there are some numbers to tune. The debuff change will help ensure Medusa wins trades after dashing aggressively, and the cooldown change will make her a generally safer late-game god, which is quite valuable for hunters.
LACERATE
- Increased healing debuff duration from 3s to 4s.
- Decreased cooldown from 15s to 15/14.5/14/13.5/13.
Recently we tried to add some oomph to this goddess, but those buffs have shown to not be enough. We looked at more ways to make Mulan feel impactful, and noticed many of her mains felt underwhelmed by the duration of her self buffs. These will now last longer to make sure she makes use of them. She will also be stunning enemies slightly longer when hitting them with Grapple, which is sure to make a big impact.
CROSS STRIKE
- Increased the Buff duration from to 4s to 6s on the “(Skilled) Attack Speed” buff effect
GRAPPLE
- Increased the Buff duration from to 4s to 6s on the “(Skilled) Protections” buff effect
- Increased Stun Duration from 0.8s to 1.0s on all ranks
Monstercat Battle Pass (700 Gems)
Monstercat Battle Pass Plus (1300 Gems)
Paid Track Items:
- Sullivan King Gilgamesh Skin
- Slushii Hades Skin
- Koven Chang’e Skin
- Crab Rave Khepri Skin
- Khepri Crab Avatar
- Monstercat Loading Frame
- Crab Rave Music Theme
- Koven Loading Screen
- Slushii Recall Skin
- Monstercat Global Emote
- Monolith Ward Skin
- Koven Level Up Skin
- Crab Rave Jump Stamp
- Sullivan King Music Theme
Free Track Items:
- Monstercat Growl Avatar
- Sullivan King Announcer Pack
- Slushii Music Theme
- Monstercat Death Stamp
- Koven Music Theme
- Monstercat Player Title
