Image via Hi-Rez

Smite update 8.3 adds new Sobek appearance, Heroes of the Wild battle pass – Full patch notes

There are several magical items that are receiving new updates.

Zack Palm

Published: Mar 3, 2021 02:04 pm

The patch notes for Smite’s 8.3 update have gone live, and we get to see the game’s new take on Sobek’s new appearance. The new outfit will go live later in March, and all players will gain access to Sobek’s new look moving forward.

Battle Pass: Heroes of the Wild (600 gems)

Battle Pass: Heroes of the Wild Plus (1200 gems)

Paid Track Items:

Heroic Husky Fenrir Skin
Chibi Inu Amaterasu Skin
Nekomancer Zhong Kui Skin
Heroes of the Wild Loading Frame
Nekomancer Announcer Pack
Chibi Inu Loading Screen
Doggo Playtime Recall Skin
Heroes of the Wild Music Theme
Kitty Tears Death Stamp
Nekomancer Loading Screen
Doggo Snacks Level Up Skin
Corgi Butt Jump Stamp

Free Track Items:

Nekomancer Avatar
Oh Lawd He Comin! Global Emote
Heroic Husky Avatar
Bandit Kitty Ward Skin
Sushi Neko Bacchus Skin
Cat Lover Title
Dog Lover Title

QUALITY OF LIFE

NA-West Server Region

NA-West Server Region
- We will be testing this again in PTS
- A new UI Element will prompt NA players to choose between East and West has been added to help people be aware of the region
- Live launch of this region in 8.3 will be considered after PTS testing

General

Isis is being renamed to Eset (Ee-set) to decrease concerns of demonetization of content videos and to remove content algorithm confusion issues
- This is an ancient Egyptian alternate spelling
- This spelling has appeared in Encyclopedia Britannica, Museums, and Universities
- This Goddess has many other names that could have been acceptable
Uses of the word “Mayan” are being fixed to “Maya” which is the proper term
Updated queue images to use art from the current maps.

BUG FIXES

UI

Fixed an issue where if players had the item store open when the enemy team called for a pause, the player would be unable to close the Item Store.
Fixed an issue where Ranked Reward screen is not showing the correct progress
Fixed an issue where new started items had no text in the console item builder
Fixed an issue where the Babylonian Pedestal was facing the wrong direction in the god lobby
Fixed an issue where players sometimes could not trade in Assault lobbies
Fixed an issue where Arena and Siege Juggernauts had unintended large yellow outlines

General Gameplay

Fixed an issue where minions would sometimes ignore players
Fixed an issue where MMR gains and losses were inconsistent between game modes
Conquest
- Fixed an issue in Duo lane where the first Brute minion was spawning one wave too early
- Fixed an issue where some abilities could damage the HP of “downed” lane scorpions. This is intended to only take damage from basic attacks.
- Fixed an issue where god health bars would sometimes disappear as gods entered/exited lanes
- Fixed an issue where some MOTDs were on the previous versions of the Conquest Map or not working at all

Gods

Thoth
- Fixed an issue where the Book of Nightmares skin was missing the deep voiced warmup audio on Thoth’s Ultimate Ability
Tiamat
- Fixed an issue where her serpents would not take damage from certain gods who had recently stance-swapped
- Adjusted Tiamat’s passive description for more clarity
- Fixed an issue where the icon would show “?” when Tiamat used Spead of the Magus
Tsukuyomi
- This god can no longer go through Janus portals while firing his ultimate. This could cause Tsukuyomi to get into a broken state
Danzaburou
- Fixed an issue where FX could attach the the wrong part of his body in some occasions
Persephone
- Fixed an issue where her ultimate vines would not be visible to all players sometimes
Kumbhakarna
- Fixed an issue where Warlord Kumbhakarna could get in a broken state while walking and using the VXG
Anubis
- Fixed an issue where the Jackal tech skin would spawn a single FX particle outside the ability areas
Agni
- Fixed an issue where Agni’s passive was providing more than 1 stack on items like Soul Gem and Blood Soaked Shroud
Thanatos
- Fixed an issue where his scythe would clip through his body when going into his out of combat animations
Xbalanque
- Fixed an issue where his lobby animations and FX didn’t line up as intended
Sobek
- Fixed an issue where the Dragon’s Light skin had no AoE FX on ability 3, sickening strike
Merlin
- Fixed an issue where the Flicker ability could be lit up in the UI as if it was usable even when it had no point ranked in it

Items

Seer of the Jungle
- Fixed an issue where this buff could be gained permanently
Fixed an issue where Blessings and Blessing Upgrades were not showing stats on console item builder.
Fixed an issue where Popular Items were showing some items multiple times.

BALANCE LIVE WITH THE 8.3 UPDATE LIVE MARCH 23

Items

Stone of Fal and Mail of Renewal Rework

We saw that Stone of Fal and Mail of Renewal were often overlooked in builds and we wanted these items to carve out a stronger identity and feel like solid options specifically for support players.

T2 SAGE’S STONE (REWORK)

Sage’s Stone stats were adjusted to smoothly build into the reworked Stone of Fal. Health combined with both Protections gives Support players a solid Tier 2 that gives them a bit of extra power to maintain pressure and Protections so that they can take increased damage from both magic and physical gods during the laning and roaming phases of a match.

Cost: 1400g
+50 Health
+20 Magical Power
+15 Physical Protection
+15 Magical Protection

STONE OF FAL (REWORK)

We felt that Stone of Fal’s Passive and stats provided strong tankiness to Supports but it was very hard to feel that tankiness in a fight. In our rework we wanted to push Stone of Fal into the direction of being an active Support item where the player is able to actively weave in basic attacks to increase their Mitigation and Crowd Control Reduction in order to stay engaged in a fight. The item now also provides both Protections giving the item increased versatility for Support builds to fight a variety of team compositions in the early and late game. We wanted to move the item away from its niche application and reliance on friendly player proximity and Protections in order to pave the way for a more well rounded item that the Support player actively engages with.

Cost: 2500g
+150 Health
+35 Magical Power
+30 Physical Protection
+30 Magical Protection
PASSIVE – When you hit an enemy god with a basic attack you gain a stack of Fal’s Blessing giving you 2% damage mitigation per stack. At 3 stacks you gain double the damage mitigation and 20% CCR. This effect lasts for 10s.

MAIL OF RENEWAL (REWORK)

We felt Mail of Renewal provided a strong heal but far too niche of condition to trigger the Passive. This was especially true for the early game when kills occur less frequently. By the time we reach the late game where kills are more frequent, Mail of Renewal would be overshadowed by well rounded items that did not rely on kills from your team to gain the benefits of the passive. The goal of this rework is to clearly shift Mail of Renewal in the direction of Support players while giving them more rounded Protections to encourage picking up the item in the early or late game. The item retains its Healing properties for the player while also providing healing to their allies by taking hits from enemy gods for their teammates. This allows players to either maintain a frontline by receiving more Protections when gaining stacks and a heal that is useful when laning or in the teamfight stage.

Cost: 2400g
+300 Health
+15 HP5
+20 Physical Protection
+20 Magical Protection
PASSIVE – When you are hit by an enemy god you gain a stack, up to once a second, increasing your protections by 4. Max of 5 stacks, lasts for 5s each. At max stacks, upon being hit you are immediately healed for 15% of your maximum health. Allies within 35 units heal for 15% of their maximum health over 20s. This effect can only occur once every 60s.

ATTACK SPEED ITEM CHANGES

Attack Speed Slows should not stack with other Attack Speed Slow effects, but many items such as the newly introduction Manikin Scepter and Mace ignored this. The stacking nature of these effects were especially tricky in how these stacked with each other and which should win.In 8.3 these effects will no longer stack, instead choosing the strongest Attack Speed Slow to apply. In the case where you are effected by Witchblade and a single stack of Ichaival you will be slowed only by the Witchblade. If Ichaival gets to 3 stacks however it will take over as the slow being applied while Witchblade will be ignored until Ichaival falls off. This will prevent players from stacking these effects to fully shut down Basic Attack reliant gods.

Players may only have one attack speed slow from items applied to them at a time. The debuff icons can stack on a player for tracking purposes, but only the current strongest debuff (high atk speed slow%) will be active at one time.
This affects: Ichaival, Manikins, Midgardian, Witchblade, Frostbound, etc

BENEVOLENCE

We want to encourage our players to be more benevolent. With the efficiency of Sentinel’s Gift combined with some situations where gold and experience were being tossed away it made it difficult to be. With a few adjustments this item will better compete as a Support starter item.

Increase Health from 75 to 100
Increase GP5 from 2 to 3
This item now has a minimum bonus gold and bonus XP value of 1

MANIKIN SCEPTERManikin Scepter and Eye of the Jungle provided a choice. Tradeoff sustain for different tools as a Jungler. While sound in principle it often made gods going this item have to play quite passive early on as they didn’t have enough health to play with to utilize these tradeoffs. Even though they were well statted (including seeing use outside of the Jungle) the tradeoff was too severe. Bumba’s Dagger will still triumph as the safe Jungle starter but Manikin and Eye of the Jungle are getting some sustain to help them compete.Manikin Scepter specifically is losing its flat damage reduction in favor of sustain from defeating Jungle Monsters. This further addresses Manikin Scepter controlling many solo lane matchups while keeping it strong as a Jungle choice.

No longer provides 3 flat damage reduction
When you defeat Jungle Monsters who is burned you restore 15 Health and 15 Mana

EYE OF THE JUNGLEEye of the Jungle is seeing a slew of changes. First, the Magical Power provided didn’t bring enough for Mage Junglers to really feel it. The Base HP5 and Attack Speed pushed this item well outside of the Jungle role as we have seen a rise in many roles (including some mid picks) to prioritize it. These tweaks better focus its identity as a Jungle start while the new sustain while in the Jungle solidifies that focus.

Increased Magical Power from 20 to 25
While in the Jungle you gain 15 HP5 and 10 MP5
Decreased HP5 from 15 to 10
Decreased Attack Speed from 15% to 10

PROTECTOR OF THE JUNGLE

Protector of the Jungle as a whole was also too efficient. The raw Power, Attack Speed, and Protections provided were often solid even before considering the boost while in the Jungle.

Decreased Physical Power from 65 to 55
Decreased Magical Power from 100 to 80
Decreased Attack Speed from 35% to 25%

SANDS OF TIME

Sands of Time suffered from a Jack of All Trades, Master of none situation. Sands of Time should allow mage players to cast often and worry less about their Mana pool, but even as low Mana it struggled to keep up. A cost reduction and boost to MP5 puts it closer to its promised playstyle.

Decreased Cost from 800 to 750
Increased MP5 from 5 to 10

SENTINEL’S GIFT

Sentinel’s Gift was clearly the go to option for Supports. Cheap, efficient, and solid stats made this a clear winner. This was OK as we want to ensure Support players feel solid in their choices but we do want to give Support players options to play around with the new Starter system more freely. With Benevolence and War Flag improvements we feel safe in making this item a little less efficient to better match the other items.

Increased Cost from 500 to 600

TAINTED STEEL

Tainted Steel is a counter matchup item. In fights against gods who rely on sustain to win their lane this should be a solid go to but most players found themselves better off sticking to the more traditional starters. This item was simply too inefficient even in its best matchup scenarios. Some extra power and more gold to play with at the start will help here.

Decrease Cost from 750 to 700
Increase Physical Power from 10 to 15
Increase Magical Power from 15 to 20

DEATH’S TOLL

Death’s Toll and Vampiric Embrace offer high sustain at the cost of lane pressure or damage. While a solid idea these items provided too much base sustain and as we have watched players healing overall believe they create too much safety. We are shifting these items to focus more on offense and less on defense. They still bring their sustain as a strong strength but we would expect players to more often find themselves not quite maxed out on HP each minion wave.

Decreased Cost from 750 to 650
Decreased Health Restore scaling from 0.75% of your Maximum Health to 0.4%
Decreased Mana Restore scaling from 1.5% of your Maximum Mana to 1%
Increased Physical Power from 10 to 15
Increased Magical Power from 20 to 25
No longer heals off of towers and phoenixes.

DEATH’S EMBRACE

Late game Death’s Embrace allowed split pushing with little risk. While slower than committing to a siege a slow and steady push even without minions would eventually topple over enemy defenses. This change will require players to be more thoughtful about their health as they engage in split pushes.

No longer heals off of towers and phoenixes

VAMPIRIC SHROUD

As stated above we are shifting Vampiric Shroud to focus more on offense and less on defense. Mage players who are worried about Physical Damage or need a little extra sustain will find this item more attractive due to the lowered cost and better clear while opponents can better create damage that sticks. –

Decreased Cost from 850 to 750
Decreased Health restore from 6 health to 4 health
Decreased Physical Protection from 15 Physical Protection to 10 Physical Protection
Increased Magical Power from 15 to 25

WAR FLAG

War Flag and War Banner provide strong offensive capability. The window to utilize this power was shorter than a similar effect making them not stack cleanly. This will make similar effects even and allow players more time to get use out of their power play window.

Increased buff duration from 8s to 10s

WAR BANNER

Increased buff duration from 8s to 10s

CUPID

The god of love is getting a long awaited quality of life change. Cupid’s Heart Bomb ability will now have a different audio and visual treatment on the ticking bomb and AoE FX to indicate to all players that it’s going to be a stunning bomb. This added clarity should be a big improvement to the decision making processes that surround the ability.

HEART BOMB

This ability now has an added audio and visual elements on the AoE to signify if the Heart Bomb will stun the hit target. This information is shown to all players.

HACHIMAN

Hachiman and Rama received changes to ensure they landed and players their animations correct when going from their ultimate to their movement ability. Hachiman however still felt clunky even if it was ‘accurate’. We are lowering the time it takes for him to exit his ultimate while doing some tweaks to make sure the transition from ulting to dashing looks and feels good. –

MOUNTED ARCHERY

Decreased the post-fire of his Ultimate from 0.73s to 0.4s
He still needs to complete his post-fire animation before he can take further actions

SET

Set and Bumba’s Hammer paired VERY well together. With a multi-charge rapidly regenerating ability combined with the ability to further amplify how often the cooldown returned Set could reliably trigger Bumba’s Hammer on all of his Basic Attacks. Given how unique Spawn of Set’s situation is, we are removing this ability from triggering Bumba’s Hammer and other similar items. While many other gods can utilize it very well (Looking at you Tsukuyomi) this case was a step above the rest.

SPAWN OF SET

This ability will no longer trigger item effects that activate “after using an ability” (Hydra’s Lament, Bumba’s Hammer)

MULAN

Mulan has undergone further training to master her weapons. Spear Thrust slows enemies for longer, she can reload her bow faster for Grapple, and she learned the mystical art of ‘stop swinging your weapon and RUN you are doing to die if you don’t’ in her Ultimate. These combined give Mulan more control over her combat at all stages of the game.

SPEAR THRUST

Increase slow duration from 2s to 3s

GRAPPLE

Decreased Cooldown from 16s to 16/15.5/15/14.5/14s

DIVINE MASTERY

This ability can now be canceled early

ATHENA

Athena was a force to be reckoned with…a few years ago. While memories of her dominance still remain strong she has struggled to compete in the last few seasons after many rounds of nerfs. Confound in particular has moments of power but requires a heavy team setup. We are increasing the taunt duration early while giving it some small damage to give her more agency on her own and contribute just a hair more when with her team.

CONFOUND

Increase duration from 1.0/1.25/1.5/1.75/2.0s to 1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8/2.0s
Now Deals 50/80/110/140/170 + 30% Scaling

HORUS

Horus’ wings are now ~8% more aerodynamic! Updraft and Fracture will be available more frequently, giving Horus some much needed additional control in teamfights.

UPDRAFT

Change Cooldown from 16/16/15/15/14 to 15/14.5/14/13.5/13

FRACTURE

Change Cooldown from 16/15.5/15/14.5/14 to 15/14.5/14/13.5/13

AH MUZEN CAB

Ah Muzen Cab deserves to at least exist in “Bee” tier, but many place him much lower. This god lives and dies on his ability to create distance between his enemies. We are increasing the amount of Hives he has available while making his honey stickier. These two changes will give strong Ah Muzen Cab players that extra bit of control to stay safe in teamfights.

HIVE

Increased max hives from 6 to 7

HONEY

Increased slow from 20% at all ranks to 20/22.5/25/27.5/30% per rank

XBALANQUE

Xbalanque is a potent Basic Attack Hunter but his abilities lack a similar punch. Poison Darts in particular have large blind spots and don’t deliver much damage even at close range. We are increasing the maximum amount of Darts that can hit and the maximum amount he can fire to make this ability more reliable in combat and more deadly at close range.

POISON DARTS

Increased Max Darts enemies can be hit by from 3 to 5
- This affects “hit” damage only and is reduced on extra hits, poison still does not stack
Increased Max Darts fired total from 10 to 15
- This creates much smaller gaps between darts at max range, and higher likelihood of more hits at close/mid range

THOR

Thor remains a solid choice but can fall out of the sky when it comes to late game. Often having to build closer to a bruiser to really contribute in fights late game we want to encourage Thor players to invest more into damage. Berserker Barrage’s final hit will provide that extra bit of damage to help finish off enemies and secure the kill.

BERSERKER BARRAGE

Increased Physical Power Scaling on final hit from 50% to 60%

SOL

Sol has learned to control the laws of Thermodynamics, slowing the decay of her heat! This extra delay will give Sol more flexibility on when she wants to cast her abilities and how long she can stay disengaged from a fight before joining back in.

UNSTABLE MANIFESTATION

Heat now takes longer before it starts to decay from 4s to 6s.

AH PUCH

The Horrific God of Decay has struggled to make his impact felt in Conquest. We are focusing on what we can improve in his kit to assist while not pushing him too far in other modes. Some extra sustain with Hollow Ground will give him a stronger niche among laners while Corpse Explosion will be more impactful when used with few or no corpses; a situation that can occur very easily in a moving teamfight.

HOLLOW GROUND

Increase Healing from 5% of max health to 7%.

CORPSE EXPLOSION

Increased Initial Damage Scaling from 10% to 20%

LOKI

Loki’s Flurry Strikes often demand that Loki players find windows where they can channel to get maximum damage, but even when the perfect situation happens the damage doesn’t feel rewarding enough. We are adding scaling to the initial Flurry hits, not only raising his top end damage significantly but frontloading the increase helping him out even when he is interrupted.

FLURRY STRIKE

Increased Flurry Hits scaling from 18% to 25%.
(Increased Scaling total from 160% to 195%. (7% over 5 hits for +35% scaling))

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Author

Zack Palm

Zack Palm is the Senior Writer of Gamepur and has spent over five years covering video games, and earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Oregon State University. He spends his free time biking, running tabletop campaigns, and listening to heavy metal. His primary game beats are Pokémon Go, Destiny 2, Final Fantasy XIV, and any newly released title, and he finds it difficult to pull away from any Star Wars game.