Why Has SMITE's Meta Been So Stale Recently?

It feels like every meta God in SMITE has been there for months and months with little change, why?
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[@bobgumkowski9595]

2 major reasons: 1. Hi Rez is painfully committed to their "class" system and the roles they want those classes to play in conquest. 2. Not enough item variety. All the best items are stat bloated and there is little reason to try out other items.

[@San-cb9mj]

finallyyyyy someone said it, Smite 1 needs more items ASAP, new trees and stuff instead they are only giving us items but taking out others, we need whole ass trees for every role, i would say 1 for tanks, 2 for ADCS (the most boring class rn), more items for magical ADC'S etc (assuming a tree is 4 upgrades)

[@narwhals6465]

Any god in any role would make smite infinitely more replayable. Unfortunately a change like that would require an entirely different game design perspective, from the ground up. It's too bad there's no plan for an entirely new MOBA from hi rez any time soon.

[@HarbingerOfTruth1]

I've said for years that Smite needs more items as building items in Smite is braindead and counterbuilding is garbage.

[@silverYolo]

agreed. more items and more specifically, more counter build items. so weird you basically only get like 2-3 options for counter builds in specific roles for specific things like anti-heal, anti-crit, etc. and even worse, the counter item might be like conceivably unhelpful in every way except its anti-status also need to update the item category system (for console). aside from their own categories, basically have to know offhand what item you want for something already and too many items for that, especially if youre just getting into smite (even worse since they constantly change items)

[@dakotajasper2274]

Completely agree on the roles thing. It bums me out when we get characters that SEEM like they could flex off role, and instead, they just, try and reinforce their role. Things like, hunters and mages that could be jungle, guardians that could be bruisers, etc. They'll suggest that these gods COULD be played off role, and then their choice of balance doesn't seem to support this.

[@Roume1995]

I think they are putting all the efort into smite 2 and i m fine with that!! Also a reminder is that smite is the only game that changes meta so much ( which is a good thing for me ) unlike dota that i ve played so much where you have to wait months for an update! So i dont think that half a year of a stable meta is so bad especially with their focus being on smite 2

[@eightlights4939]

The problem with low ranks is when people see a top banned god not banned they will lock them in without actually knowing how to play them. I climb my way through the lower rankes only quing support and the first few weeks are painful because of this.

[@oc8473]

Hadn't thought about this but my friend group has stopped playing smite over the last few months. Just moved on to other games after 4+ years of consistently playing smite.

[@ravensirony8415]

no Kukulkan mention in the stale meta summary at the beginning?

[@Frindy360]

I do love me some kukulkan

[@tvlovesme3364]

I feel like a lot of these top bans are more for comfort than their actual strength. For instance, Thor is a decent pick, but that’s not why he’s banned. He’s banned because I cba to deal with getting cross map ulted and 100-0’d because my beads are down. A lot of these bans are just gods that people don’t want to have to deal with playing into.

[@markmc5112]

Yeah that's true, dealing with a Thana is a pain. If you play as the Solo or supprt it feels even worse because if his exe

[@GothPaoki]

Smite has been the definition of stagnation for years. I've barely played in the past three years and mostly watched the pro scene which was also extremely disappointing in terms of quality, schedule, organisation etc. Which us exactly why we needed smite 2. I really hope this succeeds I'd rather have them dedicate all their efforts in that instead of just trying to reanimate a corpse.

[@brennan0979]

It got so stale that my group and I went back to Overwatch😭

[@HiHi-yk1mv]

It’s always been stale since day 1

[@Mr_Friday96]

Hey :D where do you find that stats? Kinda new to smite and I wanted to know where to look for the meta.

[@King0fS0RR0W9]

Short answer because of smite 2.

[@ButFirstHeLitItOnFire]

I think a good change would be that all the shards were made into proper relics that could be upgraded, and that Relics in general could be reworked to have passive, manually activated and/or triggered abilities respectively. Like an upgraded horn shard that works like a diet spear of desolation and passively gives the user a cooldown reduction on kills and assists, in addition to its activated effect. Or have it so the Wing Shard upgrade can activate for free after you escape a state of hard CC, and the Study shard upgrade lets you trigger the effect on demand instead of just under CC.

[@IAmOctober]

they've clearly reduced a lot of smite 1 staff to work on smite 2, if this is the price for a better smite 2 then i'd pay it any day

[@boltsquad6445]

In my opinion its not because thanatos is too strong (I play gold-plat rn, peaked diamond), its because people don't know how to play around them so they get banned more. I don't know how to play against thor that well, so I usually ban him.

[@FluxCrush]

This… I ban thana every game because people feed their brains out to him.

[@Inters3ct]

That argument holds when you think about him lacking SPL play but he does actually have higher win rates in masters+ compared to low ranks where you would expect more people can play around him well. But yeah the lack of communication and easy tilting in ranked compared to SPL definitely makes a difference.

[@FluxCrush]

@@Inters3ct it’s the communication part, especially in low ranks. People don’t want to use voice coms or vgs so if you’re even a slightly above average thana, you can run the game

[@megamert2848]

@@Inters3ct I mean I would also expect that a god such as thanatos which has quite specific use cases/strengths, good early game and such could have a higher winrate in higher elo because they are picking him in better team comps/matchups.

[@Frindy360]

the 8,000 gem cost of the 'coolest' skin is why that character stays at top of meta.

[@DylansAmusement]

Ik you have already did a video on Hecate and her kit, but the community seems divided, and I wonder where your head is at either her lore implementation/kit design. I’ve seen a lot on Reddit and Twitter about how people are underwhelmed/disappoint that they moved away from the “witch” aspect of her lore. Might be an interesting video idea, seeing as we’re talking about stagnation.

[@andrewtownes5390]

Welp must say I am still enjoying the game lol. Still excited for smite 2 tho

[@YeshuaEnjeru]

It thinks it’s because they are not releasing gods no more , releasing gods would shake every meta , because certain gods/items/ abilities/ can counter the new gods

[@SirLexion]

Meta is unimportant and not necessary to have under any circumstance

[@MaybeT0XIC]

Especially in low ranks

[@akaj2013]

I am all for YOLO balancing for this last year of Smite 1. Frankly I don't play this game seriously enough to care what the meta is. There's too many gods I like to play the same one every time I turn the game on.

[@ishyameru6232]

The absolute refusal to address power creep and lack of item variety because Hi-Rez feels the need to remove an item for every new item they put in the game.

[@mamspugeti6931]

They did mention at some point recently that there actually *is* a cap on how many items can be in smite... Smite 2 save us bro

[@ishyameru6232]

@@mamspugeti6931 Didn't know that, I wish they'd make a separate comp mode where we can have Ranked 5v5

[@cybzer0560]

I never understood how teleporters indirectly nerf Athena. It's super telegraph, sometimes it's easy to avoid teleporter ganks because it wards enemy. It's nowhere near the presence Athena's ult has. Not even close. There can be a fight, say, enemy blue, you're trying to invade. Athena is instantly there in the fight. If you take tp, you have to wait for tp to charge, you still have to walk to the fight, and the enemy knows your coming. If anything, it buffs Athena. If Athena is close to a teleporter, and there's a fight on left or right, Athena can use tp and save her ult for later.

[@dynesaurus8264]

Why is there no SPL right now

[@OldToasted]

I'm just waiting for Smite 2

[@DavidPatMathis81]

Thanatos is the new Loki. Tell me I’m wrong.

[@jettblade]

I do agree that it is not evolving as fast as normal but that's not necessarily a bad thing. When the meta shifts fast it can be hard to keep up or make changes. With a little lull you can actually take a look at the individual gods and find out exactly if there is a core flaw to their design with changes to see if they get fixed. I honestly don't think that the quality of life changes recently made to better sync attack animations would have been done if there wasn't a lull. Another good thing is now instead of a trickle down effect where the pros make the strategy and everyone follows them, people have to find stuff out themselves which potentially could improve their game. The only reason why a meta gets stale is because the majority of players aren't contributing to it, they're waiting to be told what to do. Hopefully there is a shake up to keep interest in the game.

[@xrain90]

1. Matchmaking is a complete crap. 2. Warriors going through an identity crisis in season 10. 3. Catering to noobs. 4. Lackluster items. 5. Matchmaking is a complete crap.

[@Ballard_Muscle]

I only ban than so I can run around in my jungle with low hp clearing camps with ease

[@chillpengeru]

Smites been boring AF for a while. New game is so needed.

[@sawyerknight_hs20]

If you solo Q, then yeah I’d agree, but I still think playing with friends is really fun

[@markmc5112]

100%

[@nathanblanchard7861]

i wouldn't say smite is boring it's just repetitive. they should let us max out our accounts in a way while smite 2 comes

[@markmc5112]

Talking about a stale meta. What about the beads and ageis for damage dealers every game. It sucks. Predecessor has a better system with everyone having combat blink by default. And no ageis or beads until the 10 min mark.

[@mythmakroxymore1670]

i only play casual, almost never conq, and mainly cthulhu too. may the Squiddy hit the Griddy 🦑🕺I think thanatos is fine, he's a jack of all trades so if you nerf him, nerf his hp or one of his other core stats. his silence is annoying, but that's just me picking ability based characters, so the silence is probably fine as is. the execute is fair too, i just meditation to escape if i'm in the meditation mood, or i have a relic/dash check/mindgame. however something about me disagrees with athena. maybe the taunt duration. you nerf that, and her primary identity in a teamfight is gone. The ult is just a stim and an aoe teleport while you self-root, meaning there's time to kill her. i don't know how you nerf athena tbh

[@dragonwren1893]

Honestly, I ignore the meta because playing by it is boring to me, but I also don't play 😅conquest. So take that information with a grand of salt

[@POWDERPACKS]

Really enjoy this high pressure meta makes support and duo fun !

[@MattGS22]

Because you can’t buff mages without buffing guardians, you can’t buff hunters at all, and you can’t buff assassins without buffing warriors. Every buff to one role indirectly buffs someone else not intended to be buffed

[@TheSket]

Smite meta so stale because you get everything you want. Assassin builds pull of high power max pen or tons of flat pen sometimes even all of the above. Hunter builds get max AS, crit, and enough power to get their autos into high triple and sometimes even quad digits. tanks get over 3-4K health, max prots, and op aura items. Mages get CD, almost or over 1k power, with pen. Remember when you wanted to go crit on adc and it was either 1.8-2.1 AS max and you got MAYBE exe as pen and that’s it. Remember when mages got either max cd 400-600 power or 10-20% cd 800-1000 power? Remember when solos could actually kill backline…… (rip solo s1-s9.5) remember when jungles hated percent pen because you noticed that you did less damage to squishies with 40% pen over some additional flat pen and power. These days you get all the stats you can ask for and more, on top of additional op passive. Like I get it you gotta keep adding in new stuff and new stuff is gonna end up being op eventually but like you’ve gotta realize just how silly it is that every class gets everything they want in terms of stats.

[@AmericanIlluminati]

1.) CC is overpowered in Smite. Idk why HiRez likes CC the way they do, but they do. (Thena’s CC especially can be really oppressive when played right) 2.) Base stats are off & have BEEN off. That makes both item balances & other characters virtually irrelevant. Doesn’t matter how you shift the items around for the most part, cause Thana/Thor is still going to use them better than Camazotz. Giving characters crazy buffs to “get them in the meta” is not the proper response either. 3.) The smite community is too obsessed with Metas. They don’t expirement & find new, fun, and sometimes busted synergies because they care too much about min/maxing every little detail. So, they end up copying what they think is the best from others & you get raged at for doing anything else. Which makes #2 a more prevalent flaw. In short, the game doesn’t encourage flexibility & the players don’t make it better.

[@markmc5112]

I wouldn't say CC is overpowerd when every carry has beads ageis. And can turn a fight easily because of it. Beads and aegis suck

[@AmericanIlluminati]

@@markmc5112 Beads is on a 170s timer & Athena’s 2 is on an 18 second timer. So, theoretically, Athena can pull you 9 times by the time your beads comes back up. Now factor in all classes/most characters have some form of CC. You’re getting CC’d at one point or another, and when you do, you’ll most likely be CC chained & die. It matters less for tanks, but is hyper-relevant to everyone else. The CC chaining is the real problem about CC. It’s a required mechanic because almost everyone has CC & need their abilities to be relevant in a team fight. They have diminishing returns, but as a squishy, you die before that even becomes important. Because, CC chaining is so broken, certain characters will almost always dominate the meta. It’s just a fact about smite that we as players need to just acknowledge & accept. In smite 2, they’re giving you a free beads because they understand how relevant it is. In smite 1 beads consumes a relic slot, so these other relics they want to be used, but never get picked, will never get picked up. Because, beads aegis, beads blink, beads horrific, or beads teleport will always be the smarter choice. Sunder, Thorns, Heavenly, Divine Barrier are trolling items. Design flaws are easy to spot because they have cascading effects. As far as aegis goes, it has no purpose in the game. It’s a get out of jail free card for making a bad play. Shell is the best we should get as far as mitigating mistakes go.

[@AmericanIlluminati]

@@markmc5112 Like having to rationalize, do I beads this Thor wall/Ult, cause if I do, Agni might root & bomb me, or Thena might taunt me, or maybe I’ll get hit by a herc knock up & won’t be able to beads the push, that’s insane. It’s a skill issue for sure & I like skill mechanics, but it’s excessive. Pair that with Athena’s ability to be everywhere, and it’s highly unlikely she’s falling out of Meta.

[@markmc5112]

All very valid points, but I would love to see beads and ageis as a level 10 or 12 item. Or have it's cooldown, Doubled. Late game team fights damage dealers perma have relics up. There is no need for a heavy CD reduction on Tier 2 and 3 Beads/Ageis .

[@StreetChamp184]

This Console peasant talks a lot🤡🤡🤡 Get a life earn and stop being jealous of PC owners👻🤏🏻

[@isuckatgames661]

They have basically cut their dev team in half. Smite 1 in general is in a bad state with super crashing. I know the game crashes but it's gottin kind ridiculous. The bps aren't that good and I still don't know if we will get any new gods for smite 1.

[@MrJmoney726]

Game is feeling stale simply because for years they have made way too many changes catering to noobs. With changes they make to gods and the trash item variety along with bloated items/gods that rule meta it allows for little to no real skill expression in the game. You try to do something off meta you get screwed for it leaving about half of the roster of smite unplayable. The cherry on top of all of this is that this game has some of the worst matchmaking that you will ever see. Ranked now is just a crapshoot of "will I have decent teammates or feeders" and that pretty much determines how much you win no matter how good you are, especially since they made they ranked cross platform.

[@przemysawbrzeczyszczykiewi1211]

Don't need to watch the video, simple answer: They're working on smite 2

[@toasty6943]

Been playing the game for 6+ years and it’s just bland lately. There’s 0 incentive to play and nothing to grind for. I don’t see smite 2 surviving long

[@mattgibney4085]

Eh, smite is one of the few games that actually changes metas after their patch notes. That’s a good thing, currently a lot of players aren’t playing smite since smite2 is around the corner.

[@winterbourne2343]

Because hirez oversimplified the fuck out of the moba aspect in smite? I genuinely hate how fucking boring lane phase is with, push lane, kill wave, go get x,y,z buff with no chance to have small plays in the laning phase to have a real fun and interesting push and pull. Doesn’t help itemization if you play the game enough, it’s usually build the same shit with a change to an item if needed. Predecessor’s laning is fun and interesting with last hits and I think smite 2 should get last hits to make laning fun and interesting instead of it being so dull imo

[@DavidPatMathis81]

Speed is WAY op and crit is a joke. When I’m fighting a team of squishies you’d think crit is the way to go. Nope! Crit is complete trash that demands deathbringer. Meanwhile speed Bellona USED to me a niche build, now it’s maditory. The items suck and so does the over complicated conquest map.

[@steven68033]

24s ago!

I have to disagree. I've been playing smite since the release of xbalanque. Every major patch changes the meta slightly. and the very big changes are most often at the beginning of each season and then in the middle. Example - 11.4 make Osiris almost in every match. And the other AA warriors as well.. Changes to Lovecraft octopussy's channeling bring back him drasticly to games, etc. Although I agree that Hirez needs to start treating the classes as a suggestion rather than rules.

[@ypg.glizzzy5472]

Yooo first again Edit: I definitely was not first lmao

[@clc6502]

you are not first lol

[@manusan1014]

I guess that the early hp and defenses patch demolished the kill potential and made the lane phase hella boring. Specially for solos (they also removed hybrid shields for them, so no damage in the late game, just a second guardian)😢

[@Kaiohmygod]

Hachi ishtar anhur has been the most boring duo experience for months

[@japanaman2]

Odin Well once you understand his passive and stop bird bombing and use the shield as a combat shield he makes more sense. If anything Odin could do with a different passive. And the stun buff helped him a lot. Thoth the most boring god but his range threat is still effective. Athena globally there for you. But the win rate is low because most do not know how to fight as her. Thor well it is Thor and he can catch you off guard outside of the entry way ward range. the sweeping spotlight ward would need to be brought back to fight him effectively. Bellona's problem is she does not actively visually show her block stacks on her 1 to the god she is fighting against. Ares forces beads which restricts builds always has always will taking away choice is his most effective tool. Thanatos is overall just good. due to being a big suggest for beginners on learning how to play the game that is why he gets lower win % in early ranks. --- Also because the main builds have yet to be changed in the last few patches. The following items are currently to blame. --- For psychical. Bracer of brilliance can be bought at lv 1. Warriors axe / Animosity. + vibrant shard. The burst from this item is worth more then the anti hp5 ticks you would get from blue stone. Deepening on just how much you are moving or if you have a aggressive dash in this paired with a with vibrant shard make it worth it. Also has early defense boost. Rage. Is giving to much base power. Asi. Is giving to much base power The crusher. Needs a nerf to its penetration for other items to be more relevant. Red pot. Restricted time to build needs to be increased by 5 levels to 15 up from 10. Oni hunters garb. Provides mitigations of both damage types in 1 item and is the only option for this stat. Berserker's shield. Overall rounds out a build nicely, and provides a burst should the enemy retaliate. --- For magical. Bracer of brilliance can be bought at lv 1. Warriors axe / Animosity. + vibrant shard. While sands of time does more overall damage it does so in 2 ticks meaning more chances to mitigate the damage. Deepening on just how much you are moving or if you have a aggressive dash in this paired with a with vibrant shard make it worth it. Overall it is up more often at full power. Also has early defense boost. Spear of desolation has better cool down and penetration then Chrono's pendent. Stop building Chrono's pendent. Calamitous rod of tahuti (the meteor one). it is a 200+ damage burst meteor that is up every 15 sec that is easily confirmed if you have cc. Polynomicon. You hit like a mack truck on your next basic attack nuff said! Also triggered from non damaging abilities. Red pot. Restricted time to build needs to be increased by 5 levels to 15 up from 10. Oni hunters garb. Provides mitigations of both damage types in 1 item and is the only option for this stat. Berserker's shield. Overall rounds out a build nicely, and provides a burst should the enemy retaliate.

[@MaouVallkur]

It’s stale because the game is dead, I’ve left years ago because it’s not fun anymore

[@Eon2137]

Yeah, it's tank meta for like few years now after deleting hybrid items and nerf every single offensive item.

[@imgonnacream]

late game tanks still get blown up by the jungle mid and adc but you can end games at 20-23 minutes if tanks are running wild just because how strong the tanks are mid game

[@promane557]

Its better then predecessors meta rn😂

[@markmc5112]

But at least that game is fun

[@promane557]

@@markmc5112 oh it definitely can be, a lot of fun characters it just needs some major balancing

[@ratinc.t3748]

Stale meta? I like the company.

[@stormraingreen7543]

Guardian are barely balanced for start... they used to be balnced via provided best CC and aura utility via buffing and debyffing. All that is gone so of course only a few that were good when that was true have remained the best. The same goes for the rest of the meta where item balnce and power creep have killed off many types of charachters and builds. i.e. so many items provide utility or make up for a weakness normally within such a build. Such as high power builds used to suffer from mp5 and now every powrr item has it etc etc.

[@donovanarredondo2293]

Because smite characters are boring and honestly uninventive. When you play any other moba and return to smite it baffles you how boring champ designs are. They're so scared of making a god "broken" that they forget to make fun and interactive abilities. They either have 0 counter play, or are countered by items. Theres so few interactions between gods that actually feel like genuine match ups. Half the time its just "Oh that god has knock up immunity and im tyr guess my lanes over". Only a small handful of gods have meaningful skill shots that aren't also front loaded out the ass. It doesn't help that items are just frankly boring in this game. Something as simple as giving an item 10 power makes gods all of a sudden broken and its usually because of some lazy passive that works well with it. Or they're just so scared to make items broken that just like the gods, they forget to be creative. Everything is either "get hit 3 times and do something" or "heres a flat stat block" Don't even get my started on relics. There are characters that are borderline unplayable after certain time frames because everything and their grand child has cc immunity. Ne zhas fun until theyre 15 minutes in with 40% cdr with ugraded beads and magis.

[@domiansso]

The way half of these comments are so angry at Smite. Don't get me wrong, I hate the current top picks, but damn like take a break. Hopefully, soon enough, they do more items because I know it's somewhat irrelevant, but with the addition of Stormseeker and removal of Golden Blade. I'm excited to see if they replace more items just because.

[@nickdavid1846]

I switched to predecessor ngl. I like the macro game in it more than smite

[@DarkMarkGaming94]

Recently checked out Pred and I was pleasantly surprised! It's pretty fun. I have a feeling imma go back to Smite when Smite 2 drops 😅

[@nickdavid1846]

@@DarkMarkGaming94 I just hope pre can stick around this time

[@nathanblanchard7861]

that shits ass lowkey

[@Ace....]

Dead game

[@jtdarelli2362]

Let mages, assassins, and hunters build tank effectively and let guardians and warriors build damage effectively. Stop chaining classes to specific roles and let us have some freaking fun.

[@CussionTR]

Well at this point it's just time to accept that smite, at least smite 1, is dead. There's nothing interesting in the game after Hi-Rez "balanced" all the fun out of the game. Everything is stiff and rigid in smite from items to gods to roles. No interesting macro in conquest either. Honestly, if I want to play a moba right now, I just boot up Predecessor. At least there you're allowed to have fun. Plus hero kits are a lot more interesting in that game (with the exception of argus). And if Hecate's kit is any indication, it's another 10 years of boring shit with smite 2 by the looks of it.

[@wetamuh4130]

In conclusion: the game is bad

[@nakedsnake468]

Neat

[@yoursexycookie]

Thanatos suffering at 47%??? GURL PERSEPHONE HAS A 40% OF WINRATE AND THEY WON'T TOUCH HER WITH A STICK (She's been the worst winrate god since ages already)

[@IishPotato]

47% pick/ban not win rate lmao