Rising to the Top: The State of Xbalanque

Xbalanque is one of the strongest gods in Smite. He is a Hunter with power throughout the game. Xbalanque brings pressure in the early game as well as an amazing teamfight presence later on. The Mayan Hunter has a global ultimate and hard-hitting basic attacks. Xbalanque is a very popular god in professional play and this article will examine what makes the Rising Jaguar Sun such an appealing pick.

Xbalanque is insanely popular in the Smite Pro League. He has been picked or banned in every SPL game across the first three weeks of competition. Xbalanque’s ban and win rates rose each week, showing that the pros are learning his potential. At 100% pick and ban presence, Xbalanque is joined only by King Arthur as a permanent fixture in pro drafts. Xbalanque is also very popular in the other competitive leagues, proving to be one of the most important gods in the game.

Xbalanque showed up in every SPL draft of the first three weeks of the Season 6 SPL

Contrary to popular belief, Xbalanque has a good early game. At level 1, he has access to Branching Bolas to increase the damage of each basic attack and have each basic attack splash some damage to other minions. This has the potential to quickly drain Xbalanque’s mana, but ever since Hunter’s Blessing was introduced in Season 5, mana has not been a problem at level 1. Each Branching Bola costs 3 mana to throw, and with Hunter’s Blessing, Xbalanque has just under 15 mp5 at level one. At just about 1 attack per second, this means the Branching Bolas can be permanently active without Xbalanque losing any mana. This adds up to more ability damage than most Hunters can dish out at the start of the game. With Branching Bolas and Hunter’s Blessing, Xbalanque gets good lane pressure in the very early game. In the pro games, Hunters are sometimes left to fend for themselves in the early game and Xbalanque does just fine on his own. Xbalanque pairs great with an aggressive Guardian to quickly clear the first wave and invade the enemy jungle.

At level 2, Xbalanque players will typically grab Rising Jaguar. This is Xbalanque’s dash and best way to get out of ganks or unfavorable trades. Poison Darts is a cone ability that slows enemies. Both of these abilities not only have defensive uses, but do good damage in the early game and can be used to set up for Xbalanque's empowered basic attacks.

Xbalanque has abilities that let him both push lane advantages and get to late game safely.

Xbalanque’s ultimate, Darkest of Nights, is one of the strongest abilities in all of Smite. It greatly limits the vision of all enemies for three seconds, regardless of where they are on the map. Any enemies caught moving at the end of the duration are stunned for 1.5 seconds. In addition, the move grants Xbalanque a few temporary buffs, giving him up to 60% additional movement speed and 40 units of extra range on his basic attacks for the duration of the blind.

Xbalanque can make use of his increased range to attack and kill opponents without threat of counter attack in a 1v1. However, Xbalanque does not need to be in a fight to impact it. If a fight breaks out on the other side of the map, Xbalanque can ult to scare the enemies away and force them to stand still for a brief moment.

Darkest of Nights is even stronger in professional games. Players talk to each other in the competitive leagues and the blind and noises from Xbalanque disrupts their communication. Players have less information and tend to either say nothing or too much, giving Xbalanque another edge at the highest levels of play.

By the mid game, Xbalanque should deal enough damage to fully stack his passive. For every 1500 player damage Xbalanque deals, his Dead of Night passive gives him 5 power, stacking up to six times. 30 power is a decent amount of damage and the earlier Xbalanque can unlock it, the more able he is to leverage that power to his advantage.

Darkest of Nights is an incredible ultimate for team fights.

Xbalanque is a Hunter based around his basic attacks. His abilities are more supporting tools and most of his damage comes from throwing out the bolas. Because of this, Xbalanque prefers attack speed and crit builds over more caster-oriented styles. Devourer’s Gauntlets and Transcendence are both good stacking items to build on Xbalanque. Lifesteal is a great stat on Hunters in general, but the power and mana from Transcendence is more popular on Xbalanque.

The Executioner is core to most Hunter builds, but after that, Xbalanque’s builds are open. He can afford to build a lot of attack speed because without a steroid, Xbalanque has trouble overcapping on the stat. Also, the damage from Branching Bolas and Dead of Night can make up for some missing power from items. Even though Branching Bolas increases the damage of Xbalanque’s basic attacks, they do not increase the basic attack damage stat, which Odysseus’ Bow uses in its bounces. However, the power from Xbalanque’s passive does factor into the basic attack stat, increasing the bounce damage by 18 at max stacks. A small amount, but any damage is welcome and Odysseus' is just a good item in general.

Branching Bolas may not interact positively with Odysseus’ Bow, but it does like critical hits. The ability increases the damage of basic attacks themselves, so it factors into calculations for critical strike damage. This means that with Branching Bolas active, Xbalanque can hit especially hard. Xblanque does not have the highest DPS among Hunters, but between Branching Bolas, Dead of Night, and critical hit multipliers, he can do the most damage per basic.

Patch 6.3 reworked Asi and it is a good item for Xbalanque. The older Asi was often picked up as a third item in Transcendence builds, and the new version continues this trend. Asi provides lifesteal, attack speed, and penetration to complement the power of Transcendence. Asi is just a good item after its rework and is even getting picked up early in Devourer's Guantlets builds as well as in place of stacking items in a new build by Dignitas’ own Ataraxia.

Xbalanque builds focus around his basic attacks.

Xbalanque is a powerful Hunter. He has shown up in every SPL game so far, either being picked or banned. With Hunter’s Blessing, Xbalanque can permanently sustain Branching Bolas, giving him a very strong level 1 and early game in general. Xbalanque also has abilities that can get him out of danger or set up his hard-hitting basic attacks. Darkest of Nights is a super disruptive ultimate and is a great tool in team fights. Because of his strong showings, Xbalanque is a candidate of nerfs in Patch 6.5. Until then, the great Mayan Hunter will continue to turn the lights out on his opponents.

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