With the release of Susano’o and the Ratatoskr rework this past month, I have seen many complaints about bloat in smite. First off I should explain what bloat is. Bloat is the overuse of mechanics and abilities on newer characters. Bloat generally goes hand in hand with the term power creep. Power creep has come to represent the inability of older characters to compete with newer ones due to the introduction of new mechanics. Now that you know what these terms mean we can get right into it.

Does Power Creep exist?

With the introduction of new characters, it is almost a given that certain characters are going to be similar in some form or fashion. This leads to power creep since older characters mechanics are well, old. The example I will use for power creep will be Anhur and Hou Yi.

They are both relatively similar gods, Anhur has penetration in his passive, a knockup on his leap, a stun on his impale if his target hits a wall and he deals increasing damage in his ultimate depending on how many spears he hits. He also has the added mechanic of his Pillar which slows enemies and makes them take more damage in its radius.

Hou Yi has the mechanic where if his target is marked, he gets a stun on his ricochet, a knockup on his leap, and penetration on his second ability, which also deals increased damage the more a target has been hurt. These characters sound very similar already, right? However this is where power creep takes effect, Hou Yi still has his Ricochet mechanic where it can bounce off of walls to deal double or even triple its base damage, and his Mark where once it hits rank three it acts like a ward for the player it attaches to. This is without including Hou Yi’s ultimate or anti-crit passive

Does this make power creep bad?

No, I chose this example because both characters are extremely potent right now, being two of the best hunters in the game. The concept that power creep makes older characters less useful than new characters is sorely mistaken. the only difference is that the mechanics for older gods seem to be standard since you as a player have been exposed to them longer. If they had added Hou Yi without the added mechanics of the Mark and Ricochet, he would just be a reskinned Anhur, which would be no fun whatsoever. So the added mechanics make the character more interesting and more complicated if you compare it to characters that you have grown accustomed to.

Power Creep is the introduction of new mechanics. Say Raijin were to have been around since beta and the next god to come out were to be Agni, people would cry that the ultimate not using mana on a 20 second cooldown would be broken and that Raijin with his burst wouldn't be able to compete. Since that isn't the case, we could never be certain but I can almost guarantee the new mechanics would be seen as much more potent than the old mechanics. This leads to the psychology of power creep due to the inexperience around the newer mechanics.

Does Bloat exist?

The entire notion of bloated characters fascinates me as a player of Smite. I've played this game for years and still every month I see the same posts on Reddit and social media that X character is broken because of X mechanic. Some of those posts I can entertain, such as the case of release Bellona who was the ultimate mix of both old and new mechanics. So in that case I can say yes, bloat does in fact exist. New characters are inherently going to have similar mechanics to their predecessors with their own inherent mechanics as was the case when I went over Hou Yi and Anhur.

However this doesn't mean that bloat is as far reaching and as much of a problem as the community says it is. I will use the new rework of Ratatoskr as my example. The community has dubbed him Rathortaskr due to the similarity between the new Rat and Thor. However I will focus on a different character; I will be comparing Ratatoskr and Guan Yu.

The Ratatoskr rework happened in season three. The rework included giving him a slow on his dash, protection shred on his flurry, a stun on his acorns, and a knockup on his ultimate. It has the added bonus where Rat’s cooldown gets lowered on his dash every time he hits an enemy god with his other abilities.

The Guan Yu rework on the other hand happened all the way back in Beta. His rework gave him a slow on his dash, a protection shred on his Taolu Assault, a group heal, and his ultimate giving him a speed boost, slowing enemies, and doing increased damage for every time an enemy is hit in his ultimate. With the added bonus that every time Guan Yu uses his heal on allies or hits his enemies with his dash, all of his cooldowns are lowered.

So now I ask you which of these two characters is more bloated. They have very similar kits, they both lower their cooldowns when they use abilities, and they both have insane amounts of CC. So what makes Ratatoskr more bloated than Guan Yu? The only answer is that Ratatoskr is newer. As a player, you have had the opportunity to learn how to play against Guan Yu for upwards of three years, whereas Ratatoskr has only been around for almost a month. This inexperience leads to the psychology that Ratatoskr is "bloated" even though mechanically he does the same thing Guan Yu has for years.

I want to get it out of the way that both bloat and power creep exist mechanically, that is a given due to the nature of multiplayer games, but I hope that I have cleared up the reasoning behind the misuse of these terms. I wish you happy hunting with your newfound wisdom and learning new mechanics.

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