General

Mages

The design choice to withhold Magical Protection Scaling from DPS mages was made at the very earliest days of SMITE development. Although many of those goals are still upheld now, this strange rule seems to no longer have a place. As we looked at mages as a class and adjusted their items heavily, now became the best time to adjust this. This will allow Mages to better fight against Guardians without requiring any specific Itemizations. It will also help traditional DPS mages and the hybrid mages to be more consistent in their base stats, which will match their consistency in itemization.

Now all mages have magic prot scalings of .9 per level

Passive Abilities

General Note

ALL gods who have passive abilities that can deal damage should trigger items. These abilities will trigger ability based passives by default. (Mage's Blessing, Spear of the Magus)

Many gods who fit in the above character have their bonus damage listed as basic attack damage. Those will trigger basic attack items. (Hunter's Blessing, Telkhines Ring)

Any gods that are not listed here should adhere to the rules above.

Some gods have their own item trigger effects that should be described in the abilities

Cernunnos Passive triggers no items.

Izanami Triggers them only on first target hit.

Erlang Shen applies debuffs 2x and damage at a reduced fraction.

General

Increased Movement Speed from 350 to 355.

Combustion

This damage dealt by this ability now triggers "on ability hit" effects.

General

AMC has been a superstar in pro play as well as Ranked play. Early in Season 4 this god was thought of as completely unviable but some balance changes and meta shifts brought him to the absolute top of the charts by the end of the season. His ability to create a Hive network and boost his movement speed for long periods of time will mean he could be even stronger in S5. Because of these two factors we are making some specific nerfs to Hives to help bring him in line with other Hunters.

Bees!

This damage dealt by this ability now triggers "on ability hit" effects.

Hive

Decreased Attack Speed Buff from 10/20/30/40/50% to 10/15/20/25/30%.

Decreased Movement Speed Buff from 10/15/20/25/30% to 5/10/15/20/25%.

Sorrow

Passive description update.

Change Sorrow bonus lifesteal from item stats to bonus healing from lifesteal.

This has been changed to be more consistent with Typhon's.

The cap is still 65% lifesteal but anubis can get additional healing beyond that through his passive.

General

This is a slight nerf but also a tweak for theme. Ao Kuang Heals himself for quite a significant amount upon executing an enemy, but this effect happened very early in the animation. Now Ao Kuang will heal as he chomps his prey, rather than immediately on hitting.

King of the Eastern Seas

Self heal on this ability now only triggers after Ao Kuang has executed a target and flown up into the air.

General

Increased Movement Speed from 360 to 365.

Reach

This ability has been adjusted to deal only basic attack damage, and thus only trigger basic attack item effects.

General

Recent adjustments to Cu Chulainn in 4.19 and 4.22 have gotten him much closer to a balanced state. His showing at HRX was strong but not as dominant as other gods on this list. We are reducing his base HP5 which will make trading with him more impactful and we are increasing the cooldown on Spear of Mortal Pain. This ultimate has many strengths in that it provides CC immunity, can CC multiple enemies, and gives CuChu a good chance of going Berserk aftward. In the future players will need to rely more on constant Rage management instead of relying as heavily on the ult.

Reduced Base HP5 from 9 to 7.

Icons CuChulainn A04B

Increase Cooldown from 90s to 100s.

General

Fafnir has proven himself to be a strong Guardian through multiple aspects. He can stim his team mates, he has multiple evasive abilities, and he can also lockdown enemies. Lockdown is often frustrating and happens to be a part of Fafnir's kit that is more scalable without making core design changes. Cursed Strength in both Dwarf and Dragon form are having their Stun duration reduced by .5, lowering the amount of time Fafnir can lock down a single player.

Cursed Strength

Decreased Stun Duration from 1.5s to 1s in both Dwarf and Dragon form.

General

Increased Movement Speed from 350 to 355.

General

General

Increased Movement Speed from 360 to 365.

General

Increased Base Health Per Level from 95 to 100.

General

With the upcoming changes to Conquest, Junglers are much more reliant on Assassin's Blessing to clear effectively. Loki's Decoy does not benefit from this item as it is a pet, resulting in his clear speed being heavily reduced compared to other gods. We are reducing the cooldown and increasing its damage to help him compete in the jungle, or in lane, Season 5.

Decoy

Decreased Cooldown from 14s to 12s.

Increased Damage from 75/125/175/225/275 to 90/140/190/240/290.

General

Nike's balance is quite the interesting topic. Since her release, Nike has been one of the most winning gods in the game, at every skill level; even after multiple nerfs and adjustments. This includes both casual conquest and at high levels of ranked, but she does take a hit at the very highest, where she is only in the top 20 gods. The likely explanation is that Rend, although it seems easy to interrupt, is often allowed to deal its full damage to enemies, hitting for near ultimate levels of damage. At the highest level of ranked this is heavily mitigated by skilled interrupts.

With this in mind we want to make two adjustments. First, we want to reduce the damage this ability does which should impact her performance at all levels and bring her win-rate closer to the rest of the gods. With this however, we are allowing Rend to be knockback immune, giving players more reliable access to this damage which is an important factor at high level play.

Since her case is so unique (being statistically strong, but most players not feeling this level of strength) we are going to watch this change very closely over the next few patches.”

Rend

Nike is now knockback immune while channeling this ability.

Decrease damage from 50/85/120/155/190 to 50/80/110/140/170.

General

Increased Movement Speed from 350 to 355.

General

Raijin had a dominant performance at Worlds, with teams showing the strengths of his kit to its fullest. His ability to safely poke, clear wave, and control team fights were all contributing factors to his success. We are reducing the potency of his Poke and Clear by decreasing damage on Percussive Storm and Raiju, while Taiko Drums is seeing a cooldown increase. This change also encourages smart usage of his passive to ensure Taiko Drums is off cooldown in time for fights.

Percussive Storm

Reduced Base Damage from 30/45/60/75/90 to 25/40/55/70/85 per shot. (120/180/240/300/360 to 100/160/220/280/340 total).

Raiju

Reduced damage to targets beyond the first to from 15/25/35/45/55 +13% scaling to 9/15/21/27/33 + 8% scaling per tick.

Taiko Drums

Increased Cooldown from 90s to 100s.

General

Ratatoskr is one of the few gods we are adjusting in anticipation of Season 5. Ratatoskr's global presence combined with his ability to upgrade his Acorn out of base allows him to exert a lot of pressure in Season 5. Rather than nerf these unique aspects of him, we targeted Dart's cooldown (which helps with his overall mobility) and increased the cost on Acorn Blast. Ratatoskr players will need to manage their mana more carefully.

Dart

Increased Cooldown from 12s to 14s.

Acorn Blast

Increased Mana cost from 60 to 60/65/70/75/80.

General

Decreased base Health from 470 to 450.

Mystic Rush

Decreased Damage Mitigation buff from 20/25/30/35/40% to 10/15/20/25/30%.

General

Increased Movement Speed from 350 to 355.

Increased Base Health Per Level from 68 to 75.

Gathering Storm

This damage dealt by this ability now triggers "on ability hit" effects.

Standing Stones

This ability has been adjusted to deal only basic attack damage, and thus only trigger basic attack item effects.

General

Thoth, like Nike, has a rather complex balance situation. These two are polar opposites. For Nike, players largely thought of her as weak, while her stats skyrocketed. Thoth, on the other hand, was often thought of as OP, while his stats were absolutely dismal. In the late stages of Season 4 we finally saw the pro prioritization of Thoth dwindling. This helped spread the news that he maybe wasn't as strong as most players thought, so his Ranked prioritization dropped soon after. He can now finally get another slight buff which he surely needs. As one of the lowest damage mages we plan to increase his core damaging ability to help him clear and poke a little better.

Hieroglyphic Assault

Increased Base Damage from 35/55/75/95/115 to 40/60/80/100/120.

General

Even through a few adjustments this year, Tyr struggled to stay relevant compared to other Warriors at all levels of play. His struggle began when we adjusted his heal which was potent in both one-on-one scenarios and for a burst of healing from minions. While it did reduce frustration, it caused him to be poked out of teamfights too quickly. We are bringing some of the potency back to his heal, but are gating it behind Physical Power scaling. In normal builds it will heal a bit more, but to increase sustain further Tyr players will need to sacrifice some bulk.

Power Cleave

Increased Heal Physical Power scaling from 0% to 20%.

General

Increased Movement Speed from 360 to 365.