Patch 4.15 Patch Notes (Mid Season, Part 3) - Bran's Thoughts

Official patch notes are here: https://www.smitegame.com/news/new-in-smite-corrupted-arena-4-15-patch-notes/

Skins: Okay, lots of nice ones. That Ama skin looks like it'll be really beautiful. Also Skadi's dragon thing...newbiemj is hyped. Stuke, you like the SWK skin? Chiron..."the full package" lol. Good "job," Pon Pon.

Gameplay changes:

• Arena Gold Spooling: 8 to 10 per second. Nice. Good.

Item changes (aka the "Hunter" patch):

• Ichaival: decrease attack speed to 25% and power stack/power swing to 7 per stack. Good. Good.
  
  
• Silverbranch: decrease attack to 25% and power stack to 7, but keep the magical power reduction at 15...good. Dude. Smart, HR!
  
  
• Devourer's Gauntlet: (T2 50 cheaper). Base power to 30, power stack from 0.4 to 0.5. 70 stacks total. Minor lifesteal stack reduction of 1%. Better early, this is a great adjustment. Wow. I'm really happy so far.
  
  
• Asi: 50 gold cheaper (1,700), and increased lifesteal. Nice.
  
  
• Bloodforge: 50 gold cheaper. Okay.
  
  
• The Executioner: +5 power buff. Eh...it's already strong. Not needed...not a huge change, but not needed, I think.
  
  
• Deathbringer: 3,000 cost?!? Errr...guess Qin's got too popular?
  
  
• Poisoned Star: Crit chance to be the same as other crit items. Okay, this is fine.
  
  
• Titan's Bane and Obsidian Shard: Down to 2,150 gold...errr...oh, okay, Pon's explanation w/ towers makes sense...but...geez. That's so cheap. "Mages underwhelming" what?!?
  
  
• Stone of Gaia: new passive, regens 10% of health from specific types of CC instead of preventing that CC to begin. WTF, that CD was already really long...this is ****, except is sorta nice maybe in Assault...lol what a joke.
  
  
• Shifter's Shield: removed the base 15 magical protection...but WHY???
  
  
• Gladiator's Shield: decreased to 35 physical protections. Okay, makes sense because it has so many different stats...but maybe instead of 45 to 35, maybe 45 to 40?
  
  
• Heartseeker: price decrease, power increase from 25 to 30. This is okay.

God changes:

• Artio: Energy Surge / Maul Prey: increase CD is probably good. Entangling Vines / Ferocious Roar: Okay, that CD change is good. It could basically be up all the time with high CDR.
  
  
• Camazotz: slight early game nerf. I don't know how he's been acting, but this seems okay?
  
  
• Freya: slight revert on 4.14 buffs. Eh...it's reasonable. Still not used to the new Fatalis effect, lol. Need to play her more.
  
  
• Rama: nerf to Astral Strike: okay, this is okay. He's a late game god.

Smite Adventure: Corrupted Arena. OOOOOH. LOL, pit. Evolves? Nice!

Project Olympus:

• New SmiteGame.com website. Okay lol "Huge!" It DOES look nice, and it has a builder...but wait, I can't find the builder. Presentation is pretty, but not sure I fully like their item list and whatnot.
  
  
• Controller adjustments: Okay. Ulting didn't affect me even in Savage control scheme. Might have to play with sensitivities. Like the stats being easily seen.

Dearest Stuke,

We know you're not happy with the amount of CC in our game. By way of compensation, we think the Hel buff (a few patches ago) and the Sun Wukong skins will make your nethers wiggle a bit.

Love,

Hi-Rez

My thoughts at a glance:

Wow @ Titan's Bane and Obsidian Shard. That's major!

The Executioner and Deathbringer is pretty crazy too.

I'm okay with everything else, though I think Gladiator's Shield got nerfed pretty hard. This is interesting when we consider other bridge items. Dynasty Plate Helm just got a big nerf, now Ichaival and Silverbranch Bow received slight debuffs. I wonder if Stone of Binding is going to see some changes?

Also, with that Artio Entangling Vines nerf...here's my proposal.

I think the adjustment was necessary to have CD start counting down after the effect is finished. Having the ability last up to 6 seconds, with max CDR of 40% decreasing the CD to 8.4 seconds, means that it would only have a downtime of 2.4 seconds before it could be up again (as long as she stayed in Druid form). That cripple is a powerful form of CC, so this was just absolute BS.

Anyway, first step is changing that CD effect. Only after the AOE effect stops (4-6 seconds depending on level) will the CD start. This is a good move.

But that 14 second CD at that point seems a bit long...? Also, maybe the 6 second effect is also long.

• Change 14 second CD to 12 seconds.
• Change duration to flat 4 seconds. This puts it right in line with the Bear form self buff, which will make for a more cohesive ability.
• This is a pretty powerful ability, and I know my suggestions are nerfing it even more, but it should really be a situational thing, not something you spam whenever it's up. If the power debuff goes up to 25% (which is pretty significant at high level), and the bear form gives up to 50 protections (which is basically like a Shifter's Shield in defense mode, or between the protections of Hide of the Urchin and Spirit Robe), that's big. So...increase the mana cost as well. 50/60/70/80/90. Don't nerf early game, but make late-game more costly. That'll make it more situational.

You don't say, HR...maaaaaybe because it was ALREADY CORE FOR HER???

Granted, I sort of guessed it would happen.

Yeah...thing is, Dynasty was a strong early item but didn't really see all that much use, and definitely fell off late. Gladiator sort of does the same (in terms of falling off), but I'm sort of okay with the nerf...maybe only 5 protection less though, instead of 10.

Ichaival definitely needed a bit of a nerf since it was still pretty viable late, and was super strong early. I think Stone of Binding is fine where it is.

Can't lie, That Devo's buff is making me wanna shuffle it back in to my Iza build. I could some life steal earlier and won't have to rely on death's toll alone for life steal till late game.

I like the patch, but that Gaia nerf tho...

Happy as a Xing Tian and Sobek player, sad as a Gaia user.

Shifter's Shield though ;-;

Actually the gold spooling is now 10