Introduction
In the latest patch notes for the popular game, players can expect some exciting changes and improvements. One of the notable updates is the addition of highlighted text for all tier 2 relics, making it easier for players to see their upgraded features. Additionally, the Esports and Live Streams Hub for Season 9 will introduce a Viewer Store with rotating legacy skins and cosmetics. Players can also purchase a Viewer pass to unlock a new skin and earn double points for the year. Speaking of rewards, a new Welcome Pass has been introduced for new players, offering a unique 30-day timeline to complete various challenges and earn exclusive rewards, including a free god of their choice from the entire roster. In terms of gameplay improvements, the end-of-match lobby has been revamped to display acquisitions as a full-size screen, allowing for a seamless requeue experience. The lobby will also feature a new rewards section, showcasing earned items and progression in the battle pass or Welcome Pass. The patch also includes bug fixes, such as addressing issues with console navigation, mastery cards, and health bars. Various optimizations have been implemented to decrease the likelihood of framerate drops. Conquest mode has also received attention, with fixes for freezing and crashing issues, as well as adjustments to camp spawns and item behavior. Overall, this patch aims to enhance the gaming experience and provide players with exciting new content and improvements.QUALITY OF LIFE
General
- Added highlighted text for all tier 2 relics to show their upgraded feature (which is always cooldown)
Esports and Live Streams Hub Season 9
- Viewer Store
- In the Season 9 Viewer Store will continue to have rotating legacy skins (75k) and cosmetics (10k)
- There will be a Viewer pass purchasable for 600 gems that will give owners double points for the year and to immediately unlock a new skin
- There will be a new skin to unlock for a long term gain of 500,000 viewer points
- Viewer Points will be soft reset with the release of the 9.2 Update. Players who have more than 75k Viewer Points will be set to 75k. Players with less than 75k Viewer Points will be unaffected.
- Match Voting and Esports
- Added functionality to this system to allow for voting on matches that involve teams from the SCC
Welcome Pass
-
- This is a new reward system designed for new players that will be immediately available to all players.
- The Welcome Pass lasts 30 days from the time a player first logs in (or creates their account) after this update launches. Each player has their own unique 30 day timeline to complete their Welcome pass from the point they start it.
- During the Welcome Pass you will earn a reward for completing Normal or Ranked matches. Each match played progresses one level and unlocks one reward.
- There are 20 levels of rewards, the final one being a free god of your choice from the entire roster.
- Other notable rewards include Nu Wa, Cerberus, Kukulkan, and Medusa exclusive recolor skins, Gems, and Boosters.
- Rewards
-
- Unlock Nu Wa, Cerberus, Medusa, exclusive cosmetics, Gems, and boosters by completing 20 matches of Normal or Ranked.
End of Match Lobby Updates
- The acquisitions are getting a rework for 9.2 to now be displayed as a full size screen, this will not slow the requeue experience for the players because they will be able to requeue from this screen.
- A new rewards section will be added, this will display all the items players earned in a match as well as their progression in either the battle pass or welcome pass.
New Player Experience Adjustments and Fixes
- Fixed an issue where bots not buying items in co-op queues and solo training queues
- Fixed an issue where new players were not getting conquest auto-builds
BUG FIXES
UI
- Fixed an issue where the console navigation of the new Commendations screen was not working as intended
- Fixed an issue where the Cliodhna mastery cards showed the wrong art on the Commendation screens
- Fixed an issue where detailed health bars for Bull Demon King and Apophis were not appearing on the HUD
- Fixed an issue where the chat window in client would automatically close or minimize when a new message appears
General Gameplay
- Slash
- Greatly smoothed the movement of the traveling teleport orb
- Fixed an issue where Juggernauts could be eaten by Bakasura (hotfix is live already)
- Fixed an issue where the Shadow of Apophis buff belt was overlapping other Jungle buff belts
- Fixed an issue where Janus could place portals inside the teleport entrances while the doors were closed
- Fixed an issue with pets not teleporting to their owners after they traveled through the base teleports
- Applied various optimization passes that should decrease the likelihood of framerate drops
- Conquest
- Fixed an issue where Xbox players would have issues with freezing or crashing on this map (hotfix is live already)
- Fixed an issue where Nagas would drop Offerings while the Obelisks were inactive
- Fixed an issue where two of the single Harpy camps in Duo lane were spawning Elder Harpies instead of Alpha Harpies
- Fixed an issue where Indra’s Scepter would rapidly teleport short distances to reach its owner
- Fixed an issue where Indra’s Scepter would follow flying Gods while they were in the air
- Jungle Practice
- Hand of the Gods will now properly affect the jungle camps in this mode
Gods
- Danzaburou
- Adjusted the audio on the Space Scoundrel skin to make the fool’s gold ability sound less like other abilities in the game
- Merlin
- Fixed an issue where his Flicker ability would appear to be ranked up even if it had no point in it
- Tiamat
- Fixed an issue where certain glyphs would not trigger during her ground stance
- Morgan Le Fay
- Adjusted Morgan Le Fay’s animations when strafing and attacking at the same time
- Hera
- Fixed an issue where Hera’s leg would clip through her dress
- Chang’e
- Fixed an issue where her foot would clip through the dress if jumping immediately after basic attacking
- Gilgamesh
- Fixed an issue where Gilgamesh could sometimes receive no item for completing his passive quest
Items
- Emblem of Increasing Peril
- Fixed this items core functionality and the item has been re-enabled
- Emblem of Trembling Terror
- Fixed an issue where this item was not displaying the intended visual FX
- Nimble Rod of Tahuti Glyph
- Updated description to state that this item has a cap
- Jotunns Ferocity Glyph
- Updated description to state the duration of the mark debuff
- Hide of the Nemean lion
- Updated description to more clearly state that this items stack count is calculated off of Physical and Magical Protections from Items and Abilities (which includes buffs and consumables)
- Stacking Glyphs and Relic issues
- Fixed an issue where Heartward Amulet and its two Gylphs could stack and provide a team with up to 3x the magical protection aura
- Hastened Wings no longer stacks its movement speed with other Relics in the same tree
BALANCE LIVE WITH THE 9.2 UPDATE – FEBRUARY 22
Game Modes
- Conquest
-
The new Season of Conquest has begun! Players are getting to work on optimizing the map and a few things are going to need adjustment. First, we will be addressing the Jungle start by changing one key timer. Both camps of “back harpies” will now spawn later in the rotation. This is to prevent Junglers from quickly leveling up to 2 before other roles and ganking mid. That strategy does not seem to be a popular way to start on the map, but we don’t want to leave this option available at all. The next change is to the Duo side. The Draugr pit harpy trio was too easy to kill and worth too much which could quickly snowball the lane, this is being changed to a single Alpha Harpy to reduce that effect. It will also spawn one wave later.” And last but not least, we are making some adjustments to the Obelisks. Overall the reward provided by this new objective was too much so we are bringing down the team gold reward a significant amount, as well as making Indra’s Scepter deal less damage and making these harder to invade.
- he Draugr Harpy Camp trio is now a single Alpha Harpy
- Jungle Spawn Timers
- Delayed the initial Back Harpy Camp spawns from 0:15 to 0:30
- For reference, the popular start seems to be:
- Jungle and Mid start at Speed camp, go to red, then mid wave together
- Duo and Support start at green camp, then to purple, then duo wave together
- Solo starts at blue camp then goes to solo wave alone
- For reference, the popular start seems to be:
- Delayed the initial Draugr Harpy Camp spawn from 1:05 to 1:35
- Delayed the initial Back Harpy Camp spawns from 0:15 to 0:30
- Obelisk
- Decreased the Team Gold and XP Rewards per Offering from 25 to 10 (max 175g to 70g gained for a filled obelisk per loop)
- Decreased Indra’s Scepter damage to Gods from 3% to 2% of Max Health
- Increase damage dealt by the Obelisk to enemy Gods stealing Offerings in the area from 10% to 15% of their Max Health
-
- Slash
-
For the first time in years SMITE has a new permanent game mode, and the launch has definitely been exciting. A huge amount of players have tried the mode and early numbers are showing many indicators of success. We plan to closely monitor this map and apply balance changes as needed. The first topic we are tackling is the Jungle Objectives. These are dying too quickly which does not give teams a chance to contest. We are scaling these up to ensure that more team fights take place over securing the Juggernauts.
- Increased the Wild Juggernauts’ stat scaling values to match their counterparts in the lane:
- Health: Increased from 150 per stack to 250
- Physical Power: Increased from 4 per stack to 6
- Physical Protection: Increased from 0 per stack to 4
- Magical Protection: Increased from 0 per stack to 1
-
Items
PERSISTENT TELEPORT
We aim to get most of our nerfs into the bonus balance, but a few changes required us to collect a little more data before a decision was made. We have now seen a pattern of increasing split-pushing strategies and we will take steps to discourage that. Persistent Teleport is giving a viable teleport option to the Solo lane and rewards players for participating in team fights. We are increasing the base cooldown which will slow this relic down, especially when its owner avoids fights.
- Increased Cooldown from 90s to 110s
AEGIS OF JUDGEMENT
This is the other half of the change discussed within the Chaotic Beads section of the Bonus Balance. These damage dealing relics create some scary possibilities, so we want to have the proper tools to balance them as needed. Aegis’ max damage will now be based on the opponents % Health, which is a significant nerf and allows for easier nerfing in the future.
- Changed the damage cap from 30% of your max health to be 20% of the target(s) max health
CALAMITOUS ROD OF TAHUTI
We are seeing a LOT of players pick up the new meteor rod, although we hear constant feedback that its impact is inconsistent. We have sped up the warmup time to help this item hit its target more often, but are pairing that with a small damage nerf as Mage’s have benefitted from a variety of boosts this season and are in a much stronger place than the end of Season 8.
- Decreased Warmup time from 1.5s to 1s
- Decreased Magical Power Scaling from 40% to 35%
BLUESTONE PENDANT
Shortly after the Axe nerf in bonus, we will be applying a small Bluestone buff in the main update. The axe nerf might be enough to bring this item up into a place where it’s considered meta, but we can see in the data that the Solo gods who most benefit from this item are still struggling significantly, so we wanted to give it a small boost. We are looking forward to seeing a variety of starter options in Solo this year.
- Increased HP5 from 10 to 15
STONE OF BINDING
As we go through these first few updates of the new season we want to continually look for ways to shake up support itemization and make more options viable. Stone of Binding provides a lot of stats for its price, as the only remaining T2 item in the game, so it’s difficult to add too much while keeping the cost so low. A boost to both types of protections should make this item compete with the other options in the Support build.
- Increased Magical Protection from 30 to 35
- Increased Physical Protection from 30 to 35
TITAN’S BANE
As we shift some power away from Crusher in the bonus balance, we want to make sure that Assassin’s still have strong late game penetration options. Titan’s bane seems to have fallen off, so we are adding a small amount of power and lowering the passive cooldown to help this class persist into the late game.
- Increase Physical Power from 40 to 45
- Decreased Passive Items Cooldown from 10s to 8s
RELIC DAGGER
This item was heavily discussed during PTS, with all the powerful Relics on their way into the game, it was only logical that Relic Dagger would be a strong choice. We wanted to make sure players got the chance to test this first and prove its worth, which has been verified. We are nerfing the Cooldown Reduction effect this item has on Relics.
- Decreased the cooldown reduction on relics from 40s to 30s
Gods
JING WEI
The nerf to Crit damage in 9.1 was quite significant, although it seems that in most cases the buffs to hunter items did a great job compensating for it, and a large portion of the class is doing well in the new season. Some gods were even more vulnerable to the changes, though, like Jing Wei. We are buffing the cooldowns on her 2 primary damaging abilities to make sure she’s got the lane presence she needs to compete in the role.
PERSISTENT GUST
- Decreased Cooldown from 14s to 12s
EXPLOSIVE BOLTS
- Decreased Cooldown from 14s to 12s
HERA
The Queen of the Gods seemingly has not graced the battleground in ages. Hera brings a unique skill set to a team, with her massive pet and self shield instead of the traditional ranged poke and mobility that is present in the top Mages. We are giving Hera some more poke damage attached to her powerful polymorph CC, and increasing Argus’ late game protections to make sure he lives long enough to see a team fight.
POLYMORPH
- Increased Base Damage from 80/120/160/200/240 to 90/135/180/225/270
ARGUS, THE DEFENDER
- Increased Argus’ Protections from 25/30/35/40/45 to 25/35/45/55/65
BAKASURA
This hungry little god needs a lot of help. Bakasura has a storied past of being able to clear the jungle faster than any other god and snowball games with his terrifying ultimate, but we haven’t seen that Baka recently. We are looking to provide him with even more utility within god vs god combat by adding a new component to Eat Minion. He will now be able to shorten the cooldowns of Take down and Butcher Blades when he successfully eats a minion, giving him powerful re-engage potential.
EAT MINION
- Now subtracts 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2s from Take Down and/or Butcher Blades cooldowns when he successfully eats a minion.
RATATOSKR
The Squirrel god has some shiny new acorns, but one seems to struggle to keep up with the rest and the Crit changes certainly complicate things further. We are applying a set of buffs across multiple stats on this acorn. Let’s see if full damage Ratatoskr can live again!
BRISTLEBUSH ACORN
- Increased Critical Strike Chance from 20% to 25%
- Increased Passive self buff after hitting with Dart from 15% Physical Lifesteal and 15% basic attack damage to 20% Physical Lifesteal and 20% Basic Attack damage
KUMBHAKARNA
You’re finally awake. Kumbhakarna is known for his strong CC by putting gods to sleep, among other things. There is a unique effect on Mighty Yawn that continues to CC enemies if they are woken up from the mez. With this new buff it will now be more beneficial to wake targets up early, especially if the mez functioned as a well timed interrupt. Kumba might even be able to buy Mystical Mail now! (NOT actually advised)
MIGHTY YAWN
- Increased “wake up early” slow and attack speed slow debuff duration from 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2s to 2s at all ranks
TERRA
When we fixed Terra’s interaction that allowed her to Shatter a Standing Stone for 2 different effects at the same time, her priority did go down, especially in high ranked play. This goddess is still far from weak, so we are being careful with her buffs and starting with an ability that has an overly long cooldown as a result of her top-of-the-meta days.
MONOLITH
- Decreased Cooldown from 18s to 16s
HERCULES
Many of the Solo Lane Warriors are doing fine right now, the main exception being those who rely on Bluestone, and Hercules. Like Terra, this god has strong potential to take over with even small buffs, so we are playing it safe. Hercules relies on a strong combo of burst damage and CC, and we are buffing the damage on this key skillshot to make sure that he is effective when he does hit all his buttons.
EARTHBREAKER
- Increased Physical Power Scaling from 60% to 70%
SPECIAL THANKS + NEW SKIN VOICE ACTORS
Special Thanks To:
- Krishnaa Bova
- Cultural Consultant – Shiva God Development
- Krishnaa participated in conference calls and feedback review sessions with the SMITE dev team at every stage in Shiva’s god design process. She helped verify that our reference material was accurate and provided thoughts on Shiva’s art, gameplay, and personality. She’s a military linguist with a passion for analysis, editing, and foreign languages. She spent her childhood in the U.S. and India, allowing her to give input from a multicultural background.
- Ravi Deo
- Composer – Hindustani Music Theme
- Ravi specializes in Hindustani music and generally creates specifically for dance scenes in films. He performed some instruments within this music pack, but also worked with a team of musicians.
- https://www.facebook.com/ravideo
- https://soundcloud.com/ravi-deo
- http://ravindradeo.com/
9.2 Voice Actors:
- Shiva: Harish Bhimani
- Lunar Moth Discordia: Kristen Mcguire
- Mystic Moon Tsukuyomi: Blythe Melin
- Oni Huntress Artemis: Chloe Eves
- Crystalline Chaos Nu Wa: Eleanor Caudill
- Shadow Prowler Bastet: Rebecca Davis
- Big Gun Khepri: Stephen Elkins
PTS BALANCE
Conquest
This new season provided a lot of shakeups on the Conquest map, some of which heavily impacted the pacing of the game. In the first few days after the update we saw some concerning stats and feedback regarding heavy snowball effects, but those have gradually recovered each day that players continue to optimize the 9.1 map. In light of this new data as well as plenty of helpful comments from PTS players, we are going to ease back on some of our planned changes. The start time change will be reverted, so there will be no noticeable change from 9.1 to 9.2, and the Obelisk gold reward is being partially reverted to make sure it keeps its value. The Duo Lane change will go through however, as we still see ADCs gaining more gold and xp this season than other roles.
- Back Harpies
- The start time change to both back harpy camps has been reverted
- Back Harpies will continue to spawn at 15s
- Obelisk
- The team gold reward has been partially reverted
- Increased gold reward from 10 to 15 per offering per player
- Fixed an issue where the new Alpha Harpy in Duo Lane did not have the proper leash radius
Gods
SHIVA
- Fixed an issue where the amplification step in the ultimate was multiplying the next step by more than intended
- Fixed an issue where the ultimate was restoring more mana than intended
- Fixed an issue where Shiva could trigger his own Spirit Robe
- Shiva will be considered an Assault healer in the lowest tier (tier 3)
Items
AMULET OF SILENCE
- The stacks can now only be consumed when you successfully damage a god
FRENZY RELICS
- Fixed an issue where all types of Frenzy Relics were dealing more damage than intended to structures
JADE EMPEROR’S CROWN REWORK
This PTS change might come as more of a surprise. As we saw, Warriors have been performing very well and took a good amount of nerfs to their items in 9.1 and top gods in the latest bonus update. To prevent Guardians from taking over that lane and encouraging a stalemate meta, we are reworking Jade Emperor’s Crown so that it will be significantly weaker when rushed in lane. Instead this item will now be a more potent late-game item, with higher cost, stats, and a percentage based reduction effect (although in a shorter range). In this way it can still be bought against Physical heavy comps, without having as much impact on the Solo lane. Runic Shield is a symmetrical item but it does not create the same issues as we rarely have aggressive Guardians being countered by full tank Warriors, so we will be taking more time in considering our plans for that item.
- 2600 Gold
- +40 Magical Power
- +50 Physical Protection
- +300 Health
- +10% CCR
- Passive Effect: AURA – Enemy gods within 40 units have their Physical Power reduced by 10%
Bugs
- Players can no longer use autobuy to buy multiple of the same relic or glyph item (fixed in bonus already live)
- Fixed an issue where sorting the item store by MP5 in PC didn’t work
- Fixed an issue where Jungle Practice monsters weren’t dropping buffs
- Fixed an issue in Slash where an invisible wall could block movement and projectiles
Responses (0 )