Talons of Tyranny | 8.3 Update Notes (w/ 8.2 Bonus Update)

By: TitanCupcake | 2021/3/3



Source (8.2 Bonus Update): https://www.smitegame.com/news/8-2-bonus-update-notes-live-march-9/
Source (8.3 Main Patch): https://www.smitegame.com/news/talons-of-tyranny-8-3-update-notes/
Bonus Balance Patch scheduled to go live: March 9
Main Patch scheduled to go live: March 23

*NOTE* For full patch notes, please visit the source. Only Update Schedule, Item and God Balance will be listed here.

UPDATE RELEASE SCHEDULE

MARCH 9

• 8.2 Bonus Update – Get all the details on Balance and new content here.

MARCH 23

• 8.3 Talons of Tyranny Update
• Heroes of the Wild Battle Pass
• Plushiemax Chest
• Birthday Bash Event
• Talons of Tyranny

APRIL 6

• 8.3 Bonus Update – more info coming soon!

Please note that these dates are tentative and subject to change.

BONUS UPDATE LIVE MARCH 9

GLOBAL HEALING REDUCTION AURA

"Healing rose up the meta through the end of Season 7, and we introduced a new rule to combat that in Season 8. The 8.1 changes focused on nerfing out of combat healing and actually slightly buffed healing in combat through the nerfing of anti-healing items. We have gathered a lot of data and feedback on 8.1 and seen that healing has continued to be a very powerful strategy, so we are taking further steps to nerf it. First, we are buffing the Global Healing Reduction Aura by making the duration even shorter, making sure players are healing in combat and not short windows after it. Out of combat healing was a large concern from player feedback, but it statistically is not the bulk of healing done in matches. That is done in combat. So we are also reverting all of the healing reduction percentage nerfs from 8.1. This will be watched closely throughout the next update and we will consider nerfing individual gods or healing in other ways if the issue persists."

• Decreased the time window where full healing is allowed after successfully Brawling with an enemy god from 4s to 3s.

ITEMS



DIVINE RUIN

• Increased Healing Reduction from 35% to 40%

TOXIC BLADE

• Increased Healing Reduction from 17.5% to 20% per stack

PESTILENCE

• Increased Healing Reduction from 20% to 25%

CONTAGION

• Increased Healing Reduction from 20% to 25%

SHADOWSTEEL SHURIKEN

• Increased Healing Reduction from 35% to 40%

Caduceus Shield

CADUCEUS SHIELD

"An additional nerf to healing items that doesn’t quite fall into the previous categories is the cost of this item. This was unintentionally lowered a while back when some Tier 2 items were being rebalanced. It wasn’t as much of a concern at first but as healers like Guan Yu and Camazotz started rising in popularity we wanted to fix this, which also nerfs the item."

• Increased cost from 2250 to 2500

FAIL-NOT

"Another topic that’s a large part of the current meta is Hunter balance. Hunters are pretty commonly regarded as the most impactful role right now, and some stats back that up. A few key items are rising well above the rest. Fail-Not offers pretty much everything a Hunter could want, so we are toning down its base stats while bringing up the effect of its passive slightly."

• Decreased Physical Power from 45 to 40
• Decreased Critical Strike Chance from 20% to 10%
• Increased the Critical Strike Chance on marked enemies from 15% to 20%

BERSERKER'S SHIELD

"This shield was pivoted to be more aggressive, and it looks like it was clearly over-statted. Hunters were picking this up at the same rate as Warriors or Assassins, but instead of restricting its class usage we are bringing it down a small amount in a way to affect multiple roles."

• Increased Cost from 2500 to 2600.
• Decreased Physical Power from 50 to 40.
• Decreased Attack Speed from 20% to 15%.

SPECTRAL ARMOR

"Instead of nerfing more Crit items, we are buffing the counter crit item, Spectral Armor. This item has potent base stats but wasn’t quite enough to keep hunters in check, so its seeing a buff specifically to its passive that counters crit."

• PASSIVE – Decreased the amount of damage that Critical Strikes deal from 50% to 40%

ARCHMAGE'S GEM

"This item has been tweaked a few times, but high burst mages are still making big impacts in the late game through the additional power scaling on this item. We are decreasing that bonus scaling even further while also giving this a bit more base power to help it apply to a wider subset of mages instead of a specific few who abuse it like Nu Wa."

• Decreased Magical Scaling per stack from 2% to 1.5% (40% to 30% at Max Stacks)
• Increased Magical Power from 100 to 120

GODS



APOLLO

"When looking for top meta nerfs, this one was clearly written in the sky. Apollo has some exceedingly high metrics, currently as the absolute most played god in ranked conquest. Apollo’s global pressure lets him make plays that many other Hunters can’t and that is the nerf we are looking to apply. Some other buffs have happened recently to help Apollo’s laning but we would rather not revert those, as many players expressed a high amount of frustration with trying to get him through the early lane phase."

ACROSS THE SKY

• Decreased Power Scaling from 40% per tick to 30% per tick.

DANZABUROU

"This small fellow packs a big punch. Danzaburou received a few nerfs already and his win% has come down, but his pick and ban remain extremely high. We are decreasing his primary damage ability as well as the stun duration on his ultimate to nerf him in both damage as well as CC."

FOOL'S GOLD

• Decreased Base Damage from 70/120/170/220/270 to 70/115/160/205/250

UPROARIOUS ROCKET

• Decreased stun duration from 1/1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4s to 1s at all ranks

CU CHULAINN

"The solo lane is raging over this god. He is the perfect example of high aggression early game, which can snowball the lane and even entire matches. He got a big boost from the 8.1 item changes and is performing well in the meta as a whole, and these nerfs counteract that and help stabilize the role."

BERSERK

• Decreased Physical Power per Level from 3 to 2 when transformed

BARBED SPEAR (GROUND SLAM)

• Decreased Base Damage (on both forms) from 75/135/195/255/315 to 65/125/185/245/305

SCYLLA

"When you win a world championship with Scylla people don’t soon forget it. This goddess has spiked in popularity ever since the PK Squad showed us how to play her. The 8.1 meta was also quite favorable toward her, with some new items smoothing out her usually rough early game. We are looking to scale down her late game slightly to even out this boost from itemization."

SIC 'EM

• Decreased Scaling from 80% to 75% of your Magical Power

CRUSH

• Decreased Scaling from 90% to 85% of your Magical Power
• Decreased Magical Protection Reduced from 25% to 20%

BALANCE LIVE WITH THE 8.3 UPDATE LIVE MARCH 23

ITEMS



SAGE'S STONE (REWORK)

"Sage’s Stone stats were adjusted to smoothly build into the reworked Stone of Fal. Health combined with both Protections gives Support players a solid Tier 2 that gives them a bit of extra power to maintain pressure and Protections so that they can take increased damage from both magic and physical gods during the laning and roaming phases of a match."

• Cost: 1400g
• +50 Health
• +20 Magical Power
• +15 Physical Protection
• +15 Magical Protection

STONE OF FAL (REWORK)

"We felt that Stone of Fal’s Passive and stats provided strong tankiness to Supports but it was very hard to feel that tankiness in a fight. In our rework we wanted to push Stone of Fal into the direction of being an active Support item where the player is able to actively weave in basic attacks to increase their Mitigation and Crowd Control Reduction in order to stay engaged in a fight. The item now also provides both Protections giving the item increased versatility for Support builds to fight a variety of team compositions in the early and late game. We wanted to move the item away from its niche application and reliance on friendly player proximity and Protections in order to pave the way for a more well rounded item that the Support player actively engages with."

• Cost: 2500g
• +150 Health
• +35 Magical Power
• +30 Physical Protection
• +30 Magical Protection
• PASSIVE – When you hit an enemy god with a basic attack you gain a stack of Fal’s Blessing giving you 2% damage mitigation per stack. At 3 stacks you gain double the damage mitigation and 20% CCR. This effect lasts for 10s.

MAIL OF RENEWAL (REWORK)

"We felt Mail of Renewal provided a strong heal but far too niche of condition to trigger the Passive. This was especially true for the early game when kills occur less frequently. By the time we reach the late game where kills are more frequent, Mail of Renewal would be overshadowed by well rounded items that did not rely on kills from your team to gain the benefits of the passive. The goal of this rework is to clearly shift Mail of Renewal in the direction of Support players while giving them more rounded Protections to encourage picking up the item in the early or late game. The item retains its Healing properties for the player while also providing healing to their allies by taking hits from enemy gods for their teammates. This allows players to either maintain a frontline by receiving more Protections when gaining stacks and a heal that is useful when laning or in the teamfight stage."

• Cost: 2400g
• +300 Health
• +15 HP5
• +20 Physical Protection
• +20 Magical Protection
• PASSIVE – When you are hit by an enemy god you gain a stack, up to once a second, increasing your protections by 4. Max of 5 stacks, lasts for 5s each. At max stacks, upon being hit you are immediately healed for 15% of your maximum health. Allies within 35 units heal for 15% of their maximum health over 20s. This effect can only occur once every 60s.

ATTACK SPEED ITEM CHANGES

"Attack Speed Slows should not stack with other Attack Speed Slow effects, but many items such as the newly introduction Manikin Scepter and Mace ignored this. The stacking nature of these effects were especially tricky in how these stacked with each other and which should win. In 8.3 these effects will no longer stack, instead choosing the strongest Attack Speed Slow to apply. In the case where you are effected by Witchblade and a single stack of Ichaival you will be slowed only by the Witchblade. If Ichaival gets to 3 stacks however it will take over as the slow being applied while Witchblade will be ignored until Ichaival falls off. This will prevent players from stacking these effects to fully shut down Basic Attack reliant gods."

• Players may only have one attack speed slow from items applied to them at a time. The debuff icons can stack on a player for tracking purposes, but only the current strongest debuff (high atk speed slow%) will be active at one time.
• This affects: Ichaival, Manikins, Midgardian, Witchblade, Frostbound, etc

BENEVOLENCE

"We want to encourage our players to be more benevolent. With the efficiency of Sentinel’s Gift combined with some situations where gold and experience were being tossed away it made it difficult to be. With a few adjustments this item will better compete as a Support starter item."

• Increase Health from 75 to 100
• Increase GP5 from 2 to 3
• This item now has a minimum bonus gold and bonus XP value of 1

MANIKIN SCEPTER

"Manikin Scepter and Eye of the Jungle provided a choice. Tradeoff sustain for different tools as a Jungler. While sound in principle it often made gods going this item have to play quite passive early on as they didn’t have enough health to play with to utilize these tradeoffs. Even though they were well statted (including seeing use outside of the Jungle) the tradeoff was too severe. Bumba’s Dagger will still triumph as the safe Jungle starter but Manikin and Eye of the Jungle are getting some sustain to help them compete. Manikin Scepter specifically is losing its flat damage reduction in favor of sustain from defeating Jungle Monsters. This further addresses Manikin Scepter controlling many solo lane matchups while keeping it strong as a Jungle choice."

• No longer provides 3 flat damage reduction
• When you defeat Jungle Monsters who are burned you restore 15 Health and 15 Mana

EYE OF THE JUNGLE

"Eye of the Jungle is seeing a slew of changes. First, the Magical Power provided didn’t bring enough for Mage Junglers to really feel it. The Base HP5 and Attack Speed pushed this item well outside of the Jungle role as we have seen a rise in many roles (including some mid picks) to prioritize it. These tweaks better focus its identity as a Jungle start while the new sustain while in the Jungle solidifies that focus."

• Increased Magical Power from 20 to 25
• While in the Jungle you gain 15 HP5 and 10 MP5
• Decreased HP5 from 15 to 10
• Decreased Attack Speed from 15% to 10

PROTECTOR OF THE JUNGLE

"Protector of the Jungle as a whole was also too efficient. The raw Power, Attack Speed, and Protections provided were often solid even before considering the boost while in the Jungle."

• Decreased Physical Power from 65 to 55
• Decreased Magical Power from 100 to 80
• Decreased Attack Speed from 35% to 25%

SANDS OF TIME

"Sands of Time suffered from a Jack of All Trades, Master of none situation. Sands of Time should allow mage players to cast often and worry less about their Mana pool, but even as low Mana it struggled to keep up. A cost reduction and boost to MP5 puts it closer to its promised playstyle."

• Decreased Cost from 800 to 750
• Increased MP5 from 5 to 10

SENTINEL'S GIFT

"Sentinel’s Gift was clearly the go to option for Supports. Cheap, efficient, and solid stats made this a clear winner. This was OK as we want to ensure Support players feel solid in their choices but we do want to give Support players options to play around with the new Starter system more freely. With Benevolence and War Flag improvements we feel safe in making this item a little less efficient to better match the other items."

• Increased Cost from 500 to 600

TAINTED STEEL

"Tainted Steel is a counter matchup item. In fights against gods who rely on sustain to win their lane this should be a solid go to but most players found themselves better off sticking to the more traditional starters. This item was simply too inefficient even in its best matchup scenarios. Some extra power and more gold to play with at the start will help here."

• Decrease Cost from 750 to 700
• Increase Physical Power from 10 to 15
• Increase Magical Power from 15 to 20

DEATH’S TOLL

"Death’s Toll and Vampiric Embrace offer high sustain at the cost of lane pressure or damage. While a solid idea these items provided too much base sustain and as we have watched players healing overall believe they create too much safety. We are shifting these items to focus more on offense and less on defense. They still bring their sustain as a strong strength but we would expect players to more often find themselves not quite maxed out on HP each minion wave."

• Decreased Cost from 750 to 650
• Decreased Health Restore scaling from 0.75% of your Maximum Health to 0.4%
• Decreased Mana Restore scaling from 1.5% of your Maximum Mana to 1%
• Increased Physical Power from 10 to 15
• Increased Magical Power from 20 to 25
• No longer heals off of towers and phoenixes.

DEATH’S EMBRACE

"Late game Death’s Embrace allowed split pushing with little risk. While slower than committing to a siege a slow and steady push even without minions would eventually topple over enemy defenses. This change will require players to be more thoughtful about their health as they engage in split pushes."

• No longer heals off of towers and phoenixes

VAMPIRIC SHROUD

"As stated above we are shifting Vampiric Shroud to focus more on offense and less on defense. Mage players who are worried about Physical Damage or need a little extra sustain will find this item more attractive due to the lowered cost and better clear while opponents can better create damage that sticks. –"

• Decreased Cost from 850 to 750
• Decreased Health restore from 6 health to 4 health
• Decreased Physical Protection from 15 Physical Protection to 10 Physical Protection
• Increased Magical Power from 15 to 25

WAR FLAG

"War Flag and War Banner provide strong offensive capability. The window to utilize this power was shorter than a similar effect making them not stack cleanly. This will make similar effects even and allow players more time to get use out of their power play window."

• Increased buff duration from 8s to 10s

WAR BANNER

• Increased buff duration from 8s to 10s

GODS



CUPID

"The god of love is getting a long awaited quality of life change. Cupid’s Heart Bomb ability will now have a different audio and visual treatment on the ticking bomb and AoE FX to indicate to all players that it’s going to be a stunning bomb. This added clarity should be a big improvement to the decision making processes that surround the ability."

HEART BOMB

• This ability now has an added audio and visual elements on the AoE to signify if the Heart Bomb will stun the hit target. This information is shown to all players.

HACHIMAN

"Hachiman and Rama received changes to ensure they landed their animations correctly when going from their ultimate to their movement ability. Hachiman however still felt clunky even if it was ‘accurate’. We are lowering the time it takes for him to exit his ultimate while doing some tweaks to make sure the transition from ulting to dashing looks and feels good. –"

MOUNTED ARCHERY

• Decreased the post-fire of his Ultimate from 0.73s to 0.4s
• He still needs to complete his post-fire animation before he can take further actions

SET

"Set and Bumba’s Hammer paired VERY well together. With a multi-charge rapidly regenerating ability combined with the ability to further amplify how often the cooldown returned Set could reliably trigger Bumba’s Hammer on all of his Basic Attacks. Given how unique Spawn of Set’s situation is, we are removing this ability from triggering Bumba’s Hammer and other similar items. While many other gods can utilize it very well (Looking at you Tsukuyomi) this case was a step above the rest."

SPAWN OF SET

• This ability will no longer trigger item effects that activate “after using an ability” (Hydra’s Lament, Bumba’s Hammer)

MULAN

"Mulan has undergone further training to master her weapons. Spear Thrust slows enemies for longer, she can reload her bow faster for Grapple, and she learned the mystical art of ‘stop swinging your weapon and RUN you are doing to die if you don’t’ in her Ultimate. These combined give Mulan more control over her combat at all stages of the game."

SPEAR THRUST

• Increase slow duration from 2s to 3s

GRAPPLE

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

DIVINE MASTERY

• This ability can now be canceled early

ATHENA

"Athena was a force to be reckoned with…a few years ago. While memories of her dominance still remain strong she has struggled to compete in the last few seasons after many rounds of nerfs. Confound in particular has moments of power but requires a heavy team setup. We are increasing the taunt duration early while giving it some small damage to give her more agency on her own and contribute just a hair more when with her team."

CONFOUND

• Increase duration from 1.0/1.25/1.5/1.75/2.0s to 1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8/2.0s
• Now Deals 50/80/110/140/170 + 30% Scaling

HORUS

"Horus’ wings are now ~8% more aerodynamic! Updraft and Fracture will be available more frequently, giving Horus some much needed additional control in teamfights."

UPDRAFT

• Change Cooldown from 16/16/15/15/14 to 15/14.5/14/13.5/13

FRACTURE

• Change Cooldown from 16/15.5/15/14.5/14 to 15/14.5/14/13.5/13

AH MUZEN CAB

"Ah Muzen Cab deserves to at least exist in “Bee” tier, but many place him much lower. This god lives and dies on his ability to create distance between his enemies. We are increasing the amount of Hives he has available while making his honey stickier. These two changes will give strong Ah Muzen Cab players that extra bit of control to stay safe in teamfights."

HIVE

• Increased max hives from 6 to 7

HONEY

• Increased slow from 20% at all ranks to 20/22.5/25/27.5/30% per rank

XBALANQUE

"Xbalanque is a potent Basic Attack Hunter but his abilities lack a similar punch. Poison Darts in particular have large blind spots and don’t deliver much damage even at close range. We are increasing the maximum amount of Darts that can hit and the maximum amount he can fire to make this ability more reliable in combat and more deadly at close range."

POISON DARTS

• Increased Max Darts enemies can be hit by from 3 to 5. This affects “hit” damage only and is reduced on extra hits, poison still does not stack.
• Increased Max Darts fired total from 10 to 15. This creates much smaller gaps between darts at max range, and higher likelihood of more hits at close/mid range

THOR

"Thor remains a solid choice but can fall out of the sky when it comes to late game. Often having to build closer to a bruiser to really contribute in fights late game we want to encourage Thor players to invest more into damage. Berserker Barrage’s final hit will provide that extra bit of damage to help finish off enemies and secure the kill."

BERSERKER BARRAGE

• Increased Physical Power Scaling on final hit from 50% to 60%

SOL

"Sol has learned to control the laws of Thermodynamics, slowing the decay of her heat! This extra delay will give Sol more flexibility on when she wants to cast her abilities and how long she can stay disengaged from a fight before joining back in."

UNSTABLE MANIFESTATION

• Heat now takes longer before it starts to decay from 4s to 6s.

AH PUCH

"The Horrific God of Decay has struggled to make his impact felt in Conquest. We are focusing on what we can improve in his kit to assist while not pushing him too far in other modes. Some extra sustain with Hollow Ground will give him a stronger niche among laners while Corpse Explosion will be more impactful when used with few or no corpses; a situation that can occur very easily in a moving teamfight."

HOLLOW GROUND

• Increase Healing from 5% of max health to 7%.

CORPSE EXPLOSION

• Increased Initial Damage Scaling from 10% to 20%

LOKI

"Loki’s Flurry Strikes often demand that Loki players find windows where they can channel to get maximum damage, but even when the perfect situation happens the damage doesn’t feel rewarding enough. We are adding scaling to the initial Flurry hits, not only raising his top end damage significantly but frontloading the increase helping him out even when he is interrupted."

FLURRY STRIKE

• Increased Flurry Hits scaling from 18% to 25%. (Increased Scaling total from 160% to 195%. (7% over 5 hits for +35% scaling))

My thoughts bonus balance looks good. they missed their goal of nerfing healing by nerfing the anti heal items a bit. still, dont like the anti heal aura but I don't really notice it often.

Spectral Armor buff I do not know how much effect it is going to have as we are still dealing with 1 less item slots for each role. with the adc meta looking to be crit it is a viable item but hard to fit in.

skisn for both overall pretty good also yay sobek remodel (even though cupids was more needed) and the ra one is funny

god buff and nerfs not really much to say about that some were obviously needed.
do have to say the athena gaining damage was a bit unsuspected and finally mulan can cancel her ult. also xbal more darts was unexpected.

now for items. I am going to have to say for the starters some nerfs expected, however I did not expect them for the sustain starters. also did not expect the sustain buffs for the jungle starters that much.

the support starters are going to see a shift with the sentinels nerf I think Benevolence might become a bigger thing now.

the 2 new support items HR made by the reworks not too enthusiastic about. Stone of Fal will still be too niche and is more looking at solo lane for me.
Mail of Renewal actually might see a lot of use as it seems decently strong.

not happy about the attack speed slow not stackign nerf.

I like the general nerfs overall. I know that HR was thinking the global anti-heal aura would be impactful enough that they didn't want to hurt healing too much, hence the nerfs to the anti-heal items. I'm glad they're reverting the nerfs to the % but not the time, I think that's fair.

Fail-Not has seemed like an over-statted item for a long time. When even non-ability-based ADCs will sometimes pick it up mid-game (and at the 2800 price is getting close to Rod of Tahuti level, another item that was/is over-statted), that tells you something. I do think the drop from 20% crit chance to 10% is a doozy, and that the power on this item probably could have stayed at 45 instead of 40. I think this pushes it out of being purchased sometimes after stacking item + Tabi. I think Rage takes over that spot, or maybe we see Wind Demon there. Fail will get picked up late-game as a Tabi replacement, situationally.

Berserker's Shield definitely hurts Qin's builds, but that's also okay. But yeah, another over-statted item, this nerf seems right on the money.

As for Spectral Armor, even though they have the Fail-Not nerf, they're pushing for crits (recent nerf on Thorns, buff on WD, buff on Shadow, less itemization making it harder to go full AS / Silver). I already feel crits are currently better than Qin's, and this is pushing Qin's further away for hunters.

The Stone of Fal rework is interesting but weird to apply for most guardians. Ymir might get a stack or two, Yemoja can at least hit from range, Cthulhu has increased range and added function on his. Not sure about any others, as Jorm doesn't get basic attack function from his basic attacks anymore. Still fairly niche, and the stats otherwise aren't that impactful.

Mail of Renewal is more interesting. A bit of added protections is nice, and at the start of a teamfight, the Supp should easily reach 5 stacks (applied by any type of damage, not just abilities). That said, 15% of max health over 20s for teammates, and they have to be within 35 units...that's a bit small IMO. Think it'll be picked up some.

I think that the starter changes are interesting. I don't think 100 gold increase on Sentinel's Gift pushes Benevolence (which got buffs) to be that much more commonly used. The Bene upgrades are both very unique, while Sentinel's Embrace remains a strong Supp item.

I didn't like Eye Of The Jungle being an ADC starter option. I like those changes a lot. I also like that the Jungle starters now all have some sustain. Makes sense.

It's funny that Ah Muzen Cab gets a buff. I just watched Zapman on his Twitch stream dominate with him.

Uhm Bran, spectral getting buffed to let crits hit for 40% instead of 50% does not suite up with saying qins build getting pushed away. it mostly is that if crit continues it will become a more mandatory item.

I think a lot of people are slightly sleeping on Benevolence and Compassion. Benevolence is a lot less punishing to use and will generate a decent amount of gold but the exp is more the thing that makes it strong. meanwhile compassion will provide similar tankyness for teammates especially against single target damage.

Ooooh hahahaha I read that incorrectly, in my head I was thinking it blocks 40% instead of 50%, but that's reverse of how it's always read. Brain fart.

All I know is that cupid got an excellent skin and we will have a furry bp. Best patch ever <3

Ewww furries