Soul Eater or Soul Bleater?

Patch 4.20 (arriving on PC October 24th) is introducing yet ANOTHER revamp of your favorite item and mine, Soul Eater. Here's the writeup on the change, straight from the mouth of babes:


Oh yes, HR, we're all "excited" too. We're with you 100%.

Let's take a look at the stats.

Old Stats:	New Base Stats:	New Evolved Stats:
Total Cost: 2200 Gold +20% Physical Lifesteal +200 Mana +20% Crowd Control Reduction PASSIVE - Successfully hitting an Enemy god with a Basic Attack restores 2% of your maximum health per hit.	Total Cost: 2400 Gold (+200) +30 Physical Power +10% Physical Lifesteal +10% CDR PASSIVE - Each time anything dies near you, you gain a Stack. Gods, large Jungle Monsters, and Jungle Bosses provide 5 Stacks. Max 100 stacks.	Total Cost: 2400 Gold (+200) +50 Physical Power +10% Physical Lifesteal +10% CDR PASSIVE - In Evolved form, your Abilities heal you for 10% of the Damage dealt.

Although it was designed for physical basic attackers, in its current iteration, Soul Eater sees almost 0 play. Understand some basic concepts:

• Physical lifesteal only applies on basic attacks. Ability users don't want this stat.
• The item has mana...everyone uses mana, but mana is a stronger draw for ability users.
• Basic attackers like to see any of attack speed, power, and penetration. This has none.

The one niche use it saw was for Erlang Shen. Howling Celestial Dog counts as a 2nd hit, so ES could see some significant lifesteal/healing from the item from the passive (restores 2% of max health per HIT).

HR's attempt at reviving the item seems a bit underwhelming to me, but solves at least one of the main issues...it now has power, and a pretty decent amount at that, once fully stacked. However, it drops the lifesteal in half, still doesn't add any pen (not even a bit of flat pen), and doesn't address attack speed. Instead, it trades one ability-focused stat (mana) for another (10% CDR), completely drops the CC reduction, and changes the ability's application from basic attack hits to ability damage output. This, then, puts it firmly in a hybrid role.

Before we go farther, let's examine that passive ability. Gain 10% of your ability damage dealt in healing.

• Taking a strong ability, Bastet's Razor Whip deals 420 base damage (what a coincidence!) (+100% scaling) at rank 5. Let's say she has 270 power (from Warrior, Jotunn's, Hydra's, Titan's, Shifter's, and SE). Damage before mitigation is 690, and I'll assume for now that the actual healing will be applied from this value, rather than the mitigated value. 10% of 690 is 69 health. Now tell me...do you consider that a lot? Seems a bit underwhelming to me.
  
  
• Then again...if you deal that damage in a teamfight, or if it applies on a full line of minions...now that possibly changes things. Does anyone know this?
  
  
• And maxing those stacks will be EASY. Get 100 stacks gotten from enemy AND friendly minions? That's basically 8 waves if you're close enough, and that doesn't count in 5 stacks each from large minions, and friendly/enemy god deaths. That's going to be a non-issue.

So...which gods would even consider looking at this item? The basic attack lifesteal and ability healing portions will help with overall sustain, but the most appealing parts of this are really the CDR and power. But physical gods have so many options when it comes to these items. Maybe this item as a standalone handles the combination of these stats better than some (somewhat similar items would be Jotunn's Wrath and Hydra's Lament]]). But at the same time, other items offer what feels like so much more. Masamune provides some nice teamfight protections and added movespeed (and 30% CDR vs. 40% CDR isn't all that much, TBH).

If we look at using this as a lifesteal option for Hunters, well, sorry, but this doesn't beat out Devourer's Gauntlet, which offers higher end power and lifesteal. If Hunters want that little bit of CDR, well The Crusher just got buffed, and the CDR effect does apply in a way when using basics, with a better balance of stats that Hunters prefer (power, pen, attack speed).

I do see some Assassins being able to use this effectively, but it'll depend on how that passive applies. I haven't had a chance to go into PTS, but would be curious if the healing applies per hit on abilities such as Butcher Blades (which is applied when you use basics, but has its own added damage). I can also see it being possibly nice for Ne Zha
with Universe Ring Toss or Wind Fire Wheels. I've seen others talk about using it for Thanatos.

Hybrid Warriors could appreciate the power, CDR, and sustain functions. Hybrids that rely on both basics and abilities, such as Bellona, Erlang Shen, Vamana, and Osiris, might find use...but I don't know if I see it replacing another, somewhat similar item in Gladiator's Shield, or other pure tanky items that most of them like to get these days.

SO...All that being said, what are your thoughts?

I think it has potential, especially if it hels of multiple targets at once. And still, even if it's not that good, HR can buff it much more easily than the previous version.

This r/Smite post about Soul Eater is very informative.

Also, Duke Sloth has his video about the topic.

I wonder how it will work with Da Ji. I doubt it would proc off the tic damage of her one or her passive, but I think it might work well with her 2 and 3.

Did anyone say sustain Loki?
decoy with HS proc on the wave, should be a decent amount of health.
No idea how much damage it is, but lets say: (600 × x)×0,10
So a full wave would be 360 health.

And if my math is correct that would be with a 162,5 power build. (600-275)÷2

Damage: 75 / 125 / 175 / 225 / 275 (+100% of your Physical Power)

If you take a build with:
HS, Titan's, Jotunn's, Hydra's, W-tabai and souleater you will be at 230 power.

Which ends up being 735 damage with hs proc. And that equals 441 health which again equals 23% of Loki's total health at lvl 20.

Seems interesting.
50 power for 2400 gold. Seems pretty good if you ask me. And cdr which will fit into pretty much every assassin build giving max cdr without going over 40.

And the lifesteal makes up for not having the protection from Mantle or Robe at least a little bit.

I think it has potential, but time will tell :)

Just watched this and hopefully HiRez fixes the item "bug" for Bluestone, Qin's etc.

And fixses the item for pets as well. Cats could lifesteal on towers? Oo

But I can't really see it beeing good on anything except cdr reliant assassins like loki, hun etc but I also see it more as a solo item.

And not counting overkill damage makes the decoy damage on the wave heal for less I guess.
Dont know how much health minions got?