A Look at Smite Patch 4.2

Smite+Console+League+Open

Smite Console League Open

Season four of Smite started in early January. This heralded in many changes that have turned the meta-game on its head, much to the disdain of a lot of competitive players. The reason for this is that things that worked before now simply can’t work. Towards the end of season three, Hi-rez had managed to balance the game well, but going into season four, things are horribly unbalanced. Patch 4.2 aims to remedy that as well as introducing new things.

 

The Patch

The first thing that is being introduced is the long anticipated Japanese guardian. This means that there’s now a Japanese god in each role bringing the total to five. The new god is Kuzenbo the King Kappa.

And as all patches do 4.2 introduces several new skins including Dread Lord Fafnir, Heartbreaker Nox, Swarm Sentry Ah Muzen Cab, Mini Metal Jing Wei, and mastery skins for both The Morrigan and Xbalanque. The patch also includes a clap and wave emote for Kuzenbo and a dance emote for Jing Wei.

On the new map for clash they buffed the jungle boss as well as the phoenix. They also decreased the effect of most buffs on the map.

As for items, there’s not many changes eight pointed shuriken and wind demon both cost 200 more gold (1500-1700 and 2600-2800 respectively). This change was also applied to poisoned star, but in addition to that they also decreased the physical power it gives by 10 (2200-2400 gold 30-20 power).

The first god they made changes to was Aphrodite. The mana regeneration has been buffed, from sharing 30% of all mana regeneration to 70%. This is a pretty substantial buff, but without it Aphrodite probably would be among the worst gods in the game especially considering how much healers got nerfed going into season 4.

The next buff was a long time coming. They buffed Chiron so that his charge grants up to 50 bonus physical power for its duration and increased the base damage on his homing arrow by 30 at all levels. The buff on his homing arrows will make his strong early game a little stronger, and I see the bonus physical power making him very threatening late game. I don’t think any hunter has a chase down that effective especially with the recent removal of fatalis effects. This buff might well make Chiron a high tier ADC.

The next buff was for Chronos. With the removal of his fatalis effect he fell from top tier into obscurity, and this buff is made in an attempt to remedy that. On his passive they made made him able to get 5% (20%-25%) more magical power from it as well as increasing the basic attack buff he can get from it from 35% to 45%. They also increased accelerates initial movement speed bonus to 25% up from 20% as well as giving it better scaling early in the game. They also increased the damage of stop time by 10 at all levels. The first and last buff they gave him seems to be aimed to help him in the late game. Without his boxing and kiting ability, he needs something else to make him able to compete and so they decided to give him better outright damage. They also give him better mobility as that used to be one of his strongest assets. I don’t foresee Chronos being top tier again with the buff he was given this patch. While they gave him more damage to work with and made an attempt to give him some mobility back, it’s just not enough to make up for the loss of mobility he suffers from his lost fatalis effect. I think he’ll be viable, but nowhere near as strong as he was.

The next god adjustment is a nerf to Nike. She’s been very strong since her release and therefore has been nerfed every patch, only for her to still be top tier. This time around they’re nerfing her bonus movement speed by 1% at all ranks and her bonus power by 2% at all ranks. In addition her the cool down on her rend is two seconds longer (12s-14s). While this is a decent nerf, I can’t imagine it will make her much worse. I think we’ve got two or three more Nike nerfs inbound.

Skadi was the next god to be adjusted. The only change they made to her was her speed boost now lasts three seconds after she leaves her ice circle. One of Skadi’s greatest weaknesses has been lack of mobility and this helps remedy that some. I could see this bringing Skadi up from lower mid tier to upper mid tier.

This next change took me a little off guard. They decreased Sylvanus’s base power from 38 to 35. I can’t see this changing anything so I’m a bit perplexed by this change.

The next nerf is pretty big. Instead of Tyr’s Power Cleave being able to heal off three targets it can now only heal off of two. As of now Tyr is one of the strongest solo laners and one of his strongest assets is his potent self heal. This will likely put Tyr into upper mid Tyr.

So with these rebalances I foresee a more balanced meta game, but it’s gonna take a few more patches for things to be as even as they were during season 3.