SMITE Version 7.4.5984.3

# 7.4 - Witch of the Woods | April 21, 2020

## New Slavic Mage: Baba Yaga - Witch of the Woods

###  Creeping Cabin

Baba Yaga's Cabin accumulates up to 100 essence over time, when it moves, and if enemy gods get too close. Baba Yaga can approach the Cabin and use this essence to gain evolving item stacks. Items with a low stack count take more energy. If Baba Yaga has no stacking item this essence heals Baba Yaga for 0.8% max health per tick.
* Item Stack Cost: 400 / Item Max Stacks
* Heal Cost: 4

###  Wild Witchcraft

Baba Yaga throws forward magic imbued with chaotic qualities. The magic will travel in the path of a random shape (Left Corner, Right Corner, Split, or Oval) and leave behind a random magical field on the ground it flew over for 4s. The fields can boost friendly Protections, boost friendly Movement Speed, lower enemy Movement Speed, or Silence enemies.
* Damage: 100/150/200/250/300 (+70% of your Magical Power)
* Protections: 15/20/25/30/35 for 1s
* Movement Speed: 20/22.5/25/27.5/30% for 1s
* Slow: 20/22.5/25/27.5/30% for 1s
* Cost: 70/75/80/85/90
* Cooldown: 12s

###  Baba's Brew

Baba Yaga throws together random ingredients to brew a Potion. Each Eye of Newt increases the Potion's Damage by 7.5%. Each Dragon Scale adds a 12.5% slow to enemies hit for 2.5s. Each Wolf Tooth adds a 7.5% Attack Speed slow and Power reduction to enemies hit for 5s. Baba Yaga can store a single Potion in her consumable slot refiring/canceling this ability. She can pull it out at any time to throw it.
* Damage: 55/95/135/175/215 (+60% of your Magical Power)
* Ingredient Count: 3/3/4/4/5
* Cost: 60/65/70/75/80
* Cooldown: 16/16/15/15/14s

###  Blast Off!

Baba Yaga crawls inside her Mortar for protection. While inside the mortar she gains Damage Reduction, Knockup Protection, and begins to build up explosive magic. After 1s the magic explodes, launching Baba Yaga and her Mortar in the direction she is facing. Enemies near the Mortar when it explodes take damage.
* Damage: 80/125/170/215/260 (+85% of your Magical Power)
* Damage Reduction: 25/27.5/30/32.5/35%
* Cost: 60/65/70/75/80
* Cooldown: 16s

###  Home Sweet Home

Baba Yaga calls down her Cabin, causing it to crash onto her and launch nearby enemies away. Baba Yaga commands the cabin for up to 8s, using it as a protective shield to create and throw 4 Witchfire Bolts from the inside. When the thrown Witchfire lands, it explodes dealing damage to enemies in the area while leaving behind a creeping patch of fire that chases nearby enemies. Enemies caught in the creeping fire take burn damage every 0.4s.
* Landing Damage: 100/145/190/235/280 (+50% of your Magical Power)
* Burst Damage: 60/85/110/135/160 (+30% of your Magical Power)
* Burn Damage: 12/17/22/27/32 (+7.5% of your Magical Power)
* Shield Health: 100/180/260/340/420
* Cost: 60/70/80/90/100
* Cooldown: 90s

## New God Skins

* **Grim Mother Baba Yaga**
Standard - Recolor
* **Ascended Baba Yaga**
Limited - Season Pass 2020
* **Aesir Mulan**
Standard - Grim Omens
* **Rocky Road He Bo**
Standard - Grim Omens
* **Syndicate Da Ji**
Standard - Grim Omens
* **Valkyrie Bride Thor**
Exclusive - Esports & Live Streams
* **Shadow Speaker Hel**
Exclusive - Shadow Spirit Chest
* **Kitty Cafe Artemis**
Unlimited - Grim Omens
* **Mastery Skins - Baba Yaga**
Mastery

## New Voice Packs

* Baba Yaga
* Aesir Mulan
* Rocky Road He Bo
* Syndicate Da Ji
* Valkyrie Bride Thor
* Shadow Speaker Hel
* Kitty Cafe Artemis

## Update Release Schedule

* **April 21**

* Baba Yaga
* Aesir Mulan
* Rocky Road He Bo
* Syndicate Da Ji
* Kitty Cafe Artemis
* Valkyrie Bride Thor
* Shadow Speaker Hel

* **May 5**

* 7.4 Bonus Update Content – More info here!

*Please note that these dates are tentative and subject to change.*

## Project Olympus Live Now

The list of changes can be found here: SMITE Version 7.3.5945.6‎

## Project Olympus Live with 7.4 Launch

### Improved Anti-Toxicity Measures

* Customer Support Policy – Increased response to Hate Speech/Real Life Threats.

* First-Time Offenders confirmed by Support will receive 7-day suspensions (up from 3).
* At the Support Team's discretion, egregious Offenders may be permanently banned without warning.
* Repeat Offenders will be banned permanently.

* Automated Detection / Punishment points.

* Improved detection of teammates AFKing during the match.
* Improved detection of teammates intentionally feeding.

### Revised Learn Tab Videos

* Streamlined the instructional videos with an entirely new set. New categories are:

* Introduction
* Game Modes
* Beginner God Breakdown
* Community

### User Interface

* Updated the Lighting settings in God Screens, Order Lobby, Chaos Lobby, and special promotion areas like Battle Pass Screens. This should make the 3D God and Skin Models look more like they do in-game.
* God Preview in Match Lobby – players can select the god portrait in match lobby to preview the gods abilities, stats, and more.
* Added % Penetration to the Stats screens in-game.

## Bug Fixes

### General

* Grim Omens Chapter Rewards Skins will now be unlocked and playable to players who own the entire event on day 1 of the update.
* Fixed an issue where Primal Fury buff icon wasn't stacking correctly.
* Fixed an Issue where Totem of Ku tooltip wasn't displaying correctly.
* Fixed an issue where Co-Op Conquest: Easy bots would not lock in.

### User Interface

* Fixed an issue where console users were unable to report players in the end-of-match lobby. – Hotfixed on March 27
* Fixed an issue where new patches would reset mouse sensitivity settings.
* Fixed an issue where console players were unable to open God leaderboards.

### Gods and Items

* Fixed an issue where gods with self-executes could reflect that damage with Thorns.
* Vulcan

* Fixed an issue where Vulcan's turret FX persisted too long after being killed.

### Skins

* Fixed a variety of issues with Hou Yi – Totem Caller skin including:

* Burrowsaur not showing beads fx when used.
* Pets not teleporting upon recall.
* Pets showing on the minimap.
* Miscellaneous other issues.

# Balance Live with the Witch of the Woods Update April 21

## All Modes

* Jungle Camp Timers will now appear on the mini-map for all camps at the start of each match.

### Conquest

“*Pro play has not officially started, but from our communications with pros and early reviewing of scrims, we have clear evidence that the invade meta has persisted into Season 7. Our goal as a design team was to discourage invades, but not make them impossible. Invading can be a high risk strategy that can be exciting to play or watch, and the Season 7 changes did a good job of slowing this strategy down in normal and ranked games.*

*However, we do understand that there was a significant amount of frustration toward this meta and we want to take bigger steps toward shifting the meta elsewhere. In this update we will be introducing a new mechanic to the Conquest map: Invader's Curse. If an enemy god enters the area around their opponent's back harpy / speed buff area they will be significantly debuffed. This will be active for the first minute of the match.*

*Invades might still occur on other parts of the map. We have gotten word of 2v2s for purple or blue at the start of the match. These invades are unaffected for now because they often result in kills or camp secures that move the game forward. We wanted to specifically discourage the type of invade where one players essentially sacrifices their progress to slow the progress of another, which we feel is inherently unhealthy to the pro meta.*”

* The Jungle Shrine now emits a protective aura around each team's respective Speed and back Harpy camps.

* Invader's Curse

* Only lasts for the first 1 minute of the match.
* Debuff continuously refreshes on enemies in the area.
* 30% Reduced Healing. (standard SMITE healing reduction applies to all ability and item healing, including potions, relics)
* 30% Reduced Movement Speed.
* 30% Reduced Attack Speed.

* The Skybox art has been updated. Yggdrasil is barely clinging to life. Surely this is a sign of something grim.

### Joust

“*Lots of data and feedback has come through since the new map launched in 7.1. This map introduced more strategy to the map as well as a new art set. With the addition of more jungle lots of concerns about pacing and snowballing have been brought up, and those are the primary issues we plan to address with this update's changes. There is also a good set of QoL adjustments.*

*Minions were not scaling in the intended way, and will now scale in XP reward similar to how they do in Conquest. These fixes will prevent player levels from stagnating out in the late game. It will also make it easier for the losing team to stay in the game as long as they can clear their minion waves. You'll also get that minion XP from further away.*

*Red buff is being made tankier and receiving a more clear pre-game timer to ensure the fight over it is an interesting one. At the same time the other jungle buff camps are getting squishier to speed up rotation times.*

*Finally, lots of adjustments are being made to structures and objectives. These were too squishy leading to quick clean sweeps of the map. It will now be harder to kill the Phoenix, Titan, and Demon King. There are some specific changes unique to Joust or Duel for these.*”

* Environment

* Adjustments made to lighting and shadows.
* Decreased volume of various crystal hums around the map.
* Slightly increased the width of the lane, up to 10ft in certain areas.

* Bug fixes

* Fixed an issue where lane minions were scaling every 3 minutes instead of every 1 minute.

* Lane Minions

* Increased minion kill reward distance from 80ft to 120ft.
* Added XP Reward scaling: +2.5 XP every minute.
* Increased Max HP scaling of Archer minions from +5 to +10 every minute.

* Buff Camps

* Increased Max HP scaling on all minions.
* Increased base HP of small camp minions.
* Damage Buff Holder (Red)

* Increased base HP.
* Increased base Magical Protection.

* Mana Buff Holder (Blue)

* Decreased base HP.
* Decreased base Physical Power.

* Speed Buff Holder (Yellow)

* Decreased base HP.
* Decreased base Physical Protection.

* Phoenix

* Increased base HP from 1750 to 2000.

* Titan

* Increased Magical Protection from 45 to 60.
* Joust 3v3 – Increased base HP from 6000 to 8000.
* Duel 1v1 – Increased base HP from 6000 to 7000.

* Demon King

* Increased Max HP scaling from +310 per minute to +340 per minute.
* Joust 3v3 – Increased Max Health from 1750 to 2250.
* Joust 3v3 – Increased Physical Protection from 25 to 45.
* Joust 3v3 – Increased Magical Protection from 25 to 30.

## Item Balance

###  Hand of the Gods

“*Along with the invade changes, we are buffing HoG slightly to ensure a smooth experience. This buff should allow junglers (with Assassin's Blessing bonus) to clear the mini's in buff camps or harpy camps through the early game with HoG alone, speeding up their initial clear times.*”

* Increase Damage from 150 to 170.

###   Heartseeker

“*Although many changes this update are protecting Junglers, we have received persistent feedback that Heartseeker feels overtuned. This item allows for a huge power spike in the mid to late game for Assassin's, and we have seen data to confirm they could be brought down slightly. Similar tech that Soul Reaver uses is being applied to Heartseeker to reduce the bonus damage when fired on a single target in rapid succession.*”

* Subsequent hits from the passive on the same target do 75% the bonus damage for the next 3s.

###   Mantle of Discord

“*Mantle of Discord has been your one stop shop for the best all around defenses, and that may still be the case after this change, but we plan to introduce more counterplay to the item. The stun will now fire on a delay after the CC immunity with an additional visual FX cue in between. This should allow opponents of the Mantle to avoid, cleanse, or play around the incoming stun in more ways.*”

* Now has 0.4s cast time before the stun hits.
* CC immunity still happens instantly on trigger.

###  Ring of Hecate

“*Mage ADCs are on the way up after a few targeted buffs and item buffs, but still not quite rivaling their physical counterparts. Ring of Hecate is a new item that has not yet found its way into their builds, and is feeling a little lackluster all around. We are decreasing the cost and making a big change to the passive to help this item fulfill the role it was meant to.*”

* Decreased Cost from 2600 to 2500.
* Passive now gains stacks from any target.

## God Balance

###  Ares

“*Ares received a pretty intense buff a few months back but was quickly forgotten about in the Conquest meta. Ares is a uniquely aggressive guardian so he can struggle to play the support role. To give Ares a little more control in difficult team fights we are decreasing the self slow he applies to himself while ulting. This will allow him to better avoid incoming attacks and will also give him more control of where he pulls enemies to if they fail to avoid the pull.*”

* **No Escape**

* Decreased self slow from 50% to 30%.

###  Discordia

“*The Goddess of Discord has caused quite a debate in the SMITE community, which is exactly where she wants us. Many players are convinced that Discordia is not as strong as she needs to be to compete in the current meta. Generally people perceive her Ultimate to be the weakest part of her kit, as the warmup and travel time are both quite slow and easily avoidable. We are making the apple travel much faster to help it hit its target.*”

* **Golden Apple of Discord**

* Increased Projectile Speed from 80 to 100.
* Increased range from 150 to 190. (This keeps the lifetime of the ultimate similar.)

###  Horus

“*Horus has fallen off pretty hard in most levels of play. This god has the potential to be a top support, yet is still struggling in the metrics. We are decreasing the cooldown of his primary engage and lockdown ability, which should make a big impact. Additionally, we are speeding up his movement speed while flying in his ultimate. This number here looks insane but diminishing returns apply harshly during the effect. The speed increase should be noticeable but not overly shocking.*”

* **Fracture**

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

* **To The Skies!**

* Increased from 35% to 135% Horus now moves faster in the air while selecting a target.

###  Kuzenbo

“*The King Kappa has a gun now, but with his treasured Hide of the Nemean Lion being nerfed the big guy has struggled. We are looking to make him a more reliable support, by making his defense passive stack for much longer and for giving him more control over where he takes enemies hit by Sumo Slam. In addition to those defensive changes, we are removing the cap on NeNe kappas spawned. Kuzenbo's kappa army will finally be realized!*”

* **Water Bowl**

* Increased Duration from 10s to 30s.

* **Nene Kappa**

* Kuzenbo can now spawn multiple NeNes.

* **Sumo Slam**

* Adjusted turn radius to allow for more control over turns.

###  Mulan

“*New gods are always an interesting balance project. Of course, there is always a lot of feedback about them being OP, even when stats clearly suggest otherwise. Mulan has been relatively balanced, and near the middle of the pack. Feedback about her being OP has been a bit more quiet than usual, and her stats are low but not alarmingly low. We have heard clear feedback that her Ultimate feels underwhelming, so we are adding a new component to it to reward Mulan's who have built defenses already.*”

* **Spear Thrust**

* Increased speed of the rollout hit area of this ability.

* **Divine Mastery**

* While firing this ability, Mulan's protections are increased by 30%.

###  Ra

“*The Egyptian Sun God hasn't seen the light of buffs in quite a while! This god still hold a special place in many player's hearts, but he has struggled in the metrics lately. We are bringing back an element of Ra that his kit actually had in closed beta SMITE, where his Solar Blessing will give his allies a Power buff while they are inside it. This encourages Ra to use this ability in combat, and gives him some interesting strategies around structures or jungle bosses.*”

* **Solar Blessing**

* This ability now provides 10/15/20/25/30 physical power and 20/25/30/35/40 Magical Power to allied gods who while standing in the area.

###  Scylla

“*Our final balance change is more of a QoL or bug fix, but it will certainly have a balance impact. First we fixed a small bug around Scylla's max rank protection debuff on Crush, but that's not the big news. Scylla will now be able to refire crush even while CC'd or dead, this is a long-time request and since we have applied it to some other gods we feel that it's only fair Scylla gets it too. We will also continue to look at this concept for any other gods who might need it.*”

* **Crush**

* Fixed an issue where Crush would not apply protection reduction to slow immune targets.

* Only impacts last rank.

* Scylla can now refire this ability even while under the effects of crowd control, or while dead.

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