[2022] Hi-Rez when healers inevitably make their way back into the meta due to the 'Time to Kill' changes despite the global antiheal debuff...

It wouldn't be that large of a surprise... we did specifically write in the 9.5 patch notes that these changes might buff healers.

The brawling rule was never intended to take all healers out of the meta, its intended to decrease out-of-combat healing which creates less interesting gameplay and is often a big complaint point for when healers do become meta.

We know that a group of people in this community aren't very keen on the brawling rule and how it was implemented, but the more we look at the more successful we think it was.

Brawling makes sure that high sustain gods need to fight against other gods to get the most out of their sustain. When we implemented brawling we also were very mindful of the various types of healing, and brawling was in fact intended to nerf all of them. Self healer and Lifestealers are also very powerful archetypes in SMITE history, even though they generally draw less rage to them than group healers.

The brawling rule nerfed all of these aspects in a way that feels fair and still gives players ways to play with and around it.

We will be closely watching healers in 9.5 and we do have nerfs prepared to launch if we need them. We also have some more healer balance planned to roll out over time. In all of the possible futures we still expect to keep Brawling in place and we are quite happy with it as a game mechanic.

pets arent gods

We can discuss it!