Patch 5.13 "Mid Season" - Bran's Thoughts

Full thoughts completed.

HOLY HELL. BIG CHANGES. Freya REWORK. MASKS. STUFF.


Patch notes are found here: https://www.smitegame.com/news/5-13-mid-season-update-notes


Project Olympus (Continuous Improvement) - Player Behavior




Changes to Gamemodes




Freya Rework




MASKS




Item changes:

@#)(*$^#@)$(#*^ THE CHANGES

• Elixir of Power (buff): increased duration and bonus 25% structure damage, and no longer removed on death. Now a truly functional late-game item.
  
  
• Elixir of Defense (buff): increased duration and bonus 25% damage mitigation vs. structures, and no longer removed on death. Also nice.
  
  
• Soul Reaver (shift): now has the old Ethereal Staff passive. Good. I hated you anyway, Soul Reaver.
  
  
• Ethereal Staff (shift): NEW PASSIVE - Whenever you damage an enemy god you steal 8% maximum mana as well as 4% maximum health from the target. The Stats remain stolen for 45s and targets affected can have multiple Buffs and Debuffs at once. This can only occur once every 15 seconds. Mana and health steal that adds to your base pool for 45 seconds? Weird!
  
  
• Book of Thoth (nerfs): From 2,650 to 2,800 gold. From 100 to 80 power. From 125 to 250 mana. 5% mana conversion to power once fully stacked. That's an interesting change. See this being picked up a little less, perhaps...or combined with a later Book of the Dead for an interesting survival function instead of picking up Warlock's Staff.
  
  
• Book of the Dead (buff): No longer gives base HP, but shield is now calculated on total mana instead of current...increased passive mana shield from 15% to 20%, and a reduced HP threshold for triggering the shield from 50% to 40%. This is a huge buff for survivability purposes. Combines extremely well with high mana builds...that's like a 500 health shield for some builds!!! Proposed build... Shoes of the Magi, Book of Thoth, Chronos' Pendant, Rangda's Mask, Book of the Dead, Obsidian Shard? LOL I have no clue.
  
  
• Warlock's Staff (nerf): Loses mana, from 400 to 200, to more clearly separate it as a stacking item from Book of Thoth. Turns more into a pure base survival/safe item. Even though it's just mana, this hurts the item a lot.
  
  
• Typhon's Fang (shift): drops magical power from 100 to 80, but notes say "doubled bonus magical power from lifesteal."
  
  
• Bancroft's Talon (nerf): Increases from 2,400 to 2,500 gold. Good. It's too common of an early-game item.
  
  
• Chronos' Pendant (nerf): Decreases power from 100 to 90. Drops from 25 to 20 MP5. Fairly minor. This is okay.
  
  
• Rod of Asclepius (nerf): Bonus healing now only affects abilities. This is probably a good move, to stop the trend into the healing meta.
  
  
• Oni Hunter's Garb (buff): Gets increased damage mitigation, from 2% to 3% per stack...so now gets up to 9%. Fairly minor. This is okay, and might see a bit more use. Still not that interesting to me, but might pair well with Lono's Mask for tanky gods.
  
  
• Midgardian Mail (nerf): Slight 50 increase in gold, and a reduced MS/AS slow per stack, from 10% to 8%. It's been a strong item. This is okay.
  
  
• Silverbranch Bow (buff): The attack speed buff gets double duration, from 3 seconds to 6 seconds. It needed it.
  
  
• General price buffs (just grouped together cuz lazy and these notes are loooong): Stone Cutting Sword, Wind Demon, Shifter's Shield (all 100 gold less than before). These are all okay.
  
  
• Toxic Blade (buff): Attack speed increase, from 20% to 30%. It needed it. Don't know if it makes it get picked up more. My guess is no.
  
  
• Poisoned Star (nerf): Damage reduction reduced from 20% to 15%. I personally like this.
  
  
• Spectral Armor (nerf): Increased crit damage taken from 50% to 60%. Minor nerf. So specific of an item though. Not that exciting.
  
  
• Warrior's Blessing (nerf): Slight health reduction, and less health/mana returned on hitting an enemy god with an ability. Solo laners are sad.
  
  
• Sundering Spear (buff): CD reduced from 140 seconds to 110 seconds. Maybe gets picked up more?

God changes:

Major passive shift...all gods with passives that had some form of crit bonus have been changed to get rid of the RNG factor.

• Ah Puch (buffs): Undead Surge gets 2 zombies at all ranks (WTF). Empty the Crypts gets 20% healing reduction on hit, stacking 3 times, lasting 5 seconds, and spirits pass through everything creating more hits overall...and persists even if he dies. Wowzers. That's a buff, it is.
  
  
• Anubis (buffs): significantly reduced mana costs for Plague of Locusts and Grasping Hands. This is nice and needed.
  
  
• Artemis (NEW PASSIVE): Called Still Target. Her basics deal 30% more damage to enemy minions and 15% to enemy gods if they are affected by CC. Does not include knockbacks, blinds, or grabs (crits on these targets deal 130% / 160%). WOW. That makes her dangerous. Less early game luck, but geez.
  
  
• Bakasura (buffs): Take Down no longer decreases physical protections...instead, causes enemies to take 10% increased damage from all sources (holy hell, this applies to his true damage too!). Eat Minion gets a reduced post-fire animation time, and gives an additional targeter for targets that can be instantly devoured (nice). Regurgitate increases projectile speed, and he can now eat the minions created by the ability. This is a nice shift for him. I see Baka rage in my future.
  
  
• Baron Samedi (nerfs): Vivid Gaze sees lower damage and scaling. Consign Spirits gets reduced healing. Wrap It Up has a new CC term, "Ramp to Root." Considered a root for CC immunity purposes, and if cleansed, means no root. Has a Hysteria AOE duration decrease, and SIGNIFICANT damage reduction as well. Wow...okay, so I know he needed nerfs, but maybe this is a bit much.
  
  
• Chang'e (nerfs): Crescent Moon Dance gets a 1 second CD increase, to 6 seconds. Waxing Moon gets a base damage reduction at higher ranks. These are fine.
  
  
• Hades (buff): Blight now has a debuff effect that lowers the target's power by 5%. It's minor, but functional.
  
  
• Hun Batz (NEW PASSIVE): Infused Strikes no longer provides 30% crit chance. Instead, guarantees 20% bonus damage on the next basic after using an ability. This is a nice Hydra's Lament type effect, and I like the move away from crit RNG. (Also, Fear No Evil can now be deployed in walls if you're in tight...)
  
  
• Kali (buff): Marked for Death sees an increase in heal on assist, from 15% to 20%. Okay.
  
  
• Kukulkan (buffs): Slipstream gets a higher MS buff at lower ranks. Spirit of the Nine Winds gets the Ra ult spamming treatment, now with 70% base CD. Yeah, this is okay...I think.
  
  
• Ne Zha (NEW PASSIVE): Righteous Spirit stacks no longer provide crit chance. Instead, provides 0.5% MS and 1 power per stack, still max 20 stacks. That's up to 10% MS and 20 power. I like this. Even more MS is nice, and it persists longer than the MS boost he gets from Universe Ring Toss.
  
  
• Ravana (NOW AN ASSASSIN): Base stats all shift from Warrior-type, to Assassin-type. Means more damage potential and less tank potential. Chain of Blows can now stack on damaging structures, and are gained per target hit. 3% bonus MS per stack. Stacks lost on death. Ten Hand Shadow Fist gets increased power scaling. Overhead Kick gets an adjustment to CD at all ranks. This is probably a good move. He never felt much like a warrior to me.
  
  
• Serqet (nerfs): Catalyst gets reduced bonus damage when consuming poisons. Last Breath gets reduced base damage at all ranks. Deathbane gets a nice QoL adjustment to the targeter. Yeah, she's way too mobile and strong in this meta. Good adjustments.
  
  
• Zhong Kui (nerfs): Demon Bag gets reduced protections per stack, and Book of Demons gets a slightly reduced stun duration. This is fine.

I've got a lot of work ahead of me =( So do all of you. This should create a big shift in the meta overall. More build variety than ever before. I honestly don't know what to think of all these changes.

Man, Hi-Rez was inspired in this patch. They should do more patches like this :v

> Cupid mentioned in patch notes :)
> (I thought: Now they finely will buff him or rework)
> It's just an adjustment on the camera :(

What an awful patch, what were they thinking with those masks and the new Ethereal Staff?. Im happy they buffed Ah Puch though (just a bit too much though).


Warlock's Staff absolutely did not need that nerf in it's current state.

Also Freya re-work im wondering if it will change her itemisation slightly due to the high mana costs on ranged basics.

On first sight, not a fan of the masks. Seems like a classic case of game designers looking for some new/exciting/edgy way to make gameplay more interesting which ultimately proves to be too hard to balance or ends up forcing everyone into buying one of them, which reduces overall build diversity.

Fingers crossed that's not how this one works out.

The masks seem interesting. I hope they go well cause it would be a nice shakeup to Smite. Freya rework seems cool. I’ll have to try her out when the patch drops. Biggest one for me is Ravana officially becoming an assassin. He was played as an assassin all the time anyway so I’m excited. Not sure if he’ll have the same effectiveness as a jungler with assassin stats now, but we’ll see.

FYI original post is completed.


I'm so confused about Ethereal Staff. And yeah, I'm wondering about Freya's mana costs...and the need to be up close to regen that mana...I dunno...interesting, needs some experimentation.

They seem a bit on the strong side for the things that are buffed. The increased damage taken seems pretty reasonable though. Hope these are okay, but my feelings on the masks are mixed overall.

Project olympus looks like the new rating system of overwatch combined with the old one (from overwatch, that at the end of the match you can vote on the best players, and now you can give positive feedback about the players).

All game modes were okay too, mainly the fountain healing.

Masks are welcome but I guess they are somehow unbalanced, so they will be "core" items in a lot of builds. I can't wait to test Rangda's Mask on my Ratatoskr and Cupid, see how it works :P

Ethereal Staff got pretty weird passive that I can't even imagine in game how this will work.
Rod of Asclepius had a good nerf too.
What is Sundering Spear? hahahaha

Hi-Rez really don't want make people dependent of luck, removing the % critic passives, such as Artemis, Ne Zha and Hun Batz. Also Ravana doesn't make difference because people almost always use him as an Assassin so...whatever. And last but not least finally they nerfed Baron Samedi and Zhong Kui, I hate both :)

Wayne, will you be able to get the new items (masks) in place soon?

I'll keep an eye on the PTS updates, and will do my best to update everything that doesn't clash with the live servers this weekend (so for example, while it's probably ok to add the mask items a bit early, I won't be reworking any of Freya's abilities in the database until the patch goes live).

I know its a shift, but is it more of a buff? Or a nerf for freya?