SMITE Season 3 Round 1 Patch Notes Revealed

Our first taste of Hirez Studios’ season 3 for SMITE is nearly upon us. While changes are vast and wild, it seems they will be restricted to the private test servers for the time being before unleashing their unholy wrath (read: Cloak of Unrelenting Sorrow) on the masses! We’ve summoned up a few highlights of the lengthy notes that took nearlyl 90 minutes to explain on today’s livestream. For the full watch check out this Twitch Replay.

Gentleman Kukulkan.

Itemization

Oh things they are a changing. Changing all the time. Season 3 marks a massive overhaul of itemization in relationship to the exchange of active purchases for free trinkets. With beads reduced to the less impressive form ‘purification,’ players will need to invest a bit more heavily in CC immunity or else make due with a 160 second cooldown on use. A new active known as Sunder also makes an appearance, offering assassin’s a focused assault against an enemy by reducing their defenses greatly. Most other actives are making roughly the same appearance, with a few notable instances such as curse offering both attack speed reduction and healing reduction, sprint always giving allies a speed boost, and combat blink no longer being a thing.

Actual defensive items have gotten a bit pricier, but with far higher bang for the buck. Nearly any style of defensive stats you might need has an answer for it with the multiple new trees introduced. Glowing Emerald Tree for health and health regen, Iron Mail Tree for health and phys defense, and the Enchanted Kusari Tree for magical protection and mp5. Many existing items have also received reworks.

On the offensive side we see mostly gold balancing to make various out of favor items more tempting to pick up. Health is being removed from items that are meant to be used on more glass cannon characters. Plus there are some new vanity items at outrageous prices to help characters tear through enemy tanks in the extreme late game.

Scifi Sol.

God Balance

SMITE has decided to throw bells on Amaterasu to nerf her. If she catches you, you’re pretty much dead anyway! But at least now you’ll hear bells while she ultis, bringing back PTSD in beta players who still remember Guan Yu’s Bongos. Bellona’s Bludgeon and Scourge take solid hits to bonus damage and utility respectively, hoping to bring her in line. Also Chiron seems a minor nerf in the form of extended cooldown on Masterful Shot and no more stacking healing from his passive. Thor is also brought in line with other assassin’s by nerfing his Warrior’s Madness so he doesn’t flat out wreck early game teamfights.

Rare movement speed changes are hitting as well, with Guan Yu and Vamana sucking the speed out of that nasty little scorpion Serqet. Xing Tian also gets a bit of damage nerf done so he isn’t hitting for more player damage than the rest of his team while playing the role of guardian. And Sol is at last receiving a nerf… to her ulti which now no longer slows. It’s a start, but with the new items coming into play I’m unsure if its going to be enough. Speaking of beast mode gods, Ramana is getting toned down a bit prior to his reemergence into the competitive scene!

Side notes include the long overdue change of Hades’ classification from Guardian to Mage. And Nemesis returns from the land of Jetpack Fighter with a lower cooldown on her ulti, and a new passive that reduces enemy power and amps her own power by their respective current stats rather than a straight drain 1:1.

Sumo Ymir.

Skins!

This patch seems some truly gorgeous skins including Amaterasu’s Tier 2, a oni/sumo looking Ymir skin, bear hat Ullr, Cyborg Sol, Fancy Pants Esquire Kukulkan, and full bad ass mode Athena!

We imagine much of this will be changing before it hits the live servers, but it’s fun to freak out in the meantime!