With his placing from Season 1 giving him an automatic place in Season 2 of the SPL, SMITE World Champion Support, Cloud 9's Rosario 'JeffHindla' Vilardi, is getting ready to take to the Battleground of the Gods once again to remind everyone why he was able to help his team win over $1.3 million in January when they were flying the COGnitive Gaming banner. You can change the ground beneath his feet, you can tinker with his toys, nothing will stop JeffHindla from stealing objectives, generously gifting kills to carries and telling you about everything without stopping to breathe. I managed to grab a chat with everyone's favourite coffee and nicotine fuelled Support about Season 2, this weeks' Patch Notes and the secret to winning ranked. Raise your Hindlas!

First off, huge congratulations for winning the Smite World Championships! I can't imagine the excitement and pride you felt when standing in front of 1 million people live and on stream, holding high the championship trophy.

JeffHindla: Thank you, thank you! It was, by far and away, the biggest accomplishment of my life.

Season 2 introduced a new map for Conquest. Having had a couple of months to familiarise yourself with it, do you feel it's an upgrade to Season 1's map?

JeffHindla: The map itself? Absolutely, it looks beautiful; I like the animations that they've done with the camps, I like the changes map-wise to the Gold Fury and the Fire Giant. I like that FG is more of a fight instead of just, you know, this super-powerful boss that you can just tank and spank and there's not much to it, I mean now you have to at least pay attention whilst you are doing it. I like it a lot.

Is there anything that you dislike about it?

JeffHindla: About the map itself? No, not really. All of the issues that were there where, you know, you couldn't hit camps and stuff, they changed it all so now it's solid.

Yeah, they've ironed out the spawning-in animations of the GF and FG in this next patch, so that's all good.

JeffHindla: Yeah, exactly!

A couple of weeks ago, I read that you made the comment that it is "impossible to come back as Support if you fall behind" in Season 2. Please elaborate on this, and let us know if there is anything in particular that you would like to see changed to help the situation?

JeffHindla: A lot of it's to do with dropping the Gold-Per-5 items from Season 1, so if you are behind and you still have to, you know, fight, then you are just always behind and you will just lose because you are always behind. If you have a lead, then you really shouldn't be throwing it in a real game.

So it's really just down to the loss of GP5 items?

JeffHindla: Well, uh, yeah... There is just not a way to come back into the game. Like, I was playing a ranked game earlier where I spawned and I had to go and fight because that's, you know, what was happening, and I die, pick up a couple of assists getting x amount of gold per assist, and I come back with Wards, and then go and fight again. You just can never do anything off of it, you just kinda stay where you are, and if you are behind then it's really often that that happens. I mean, it's generally okay, I just don't like the range and the leeching changes from Season 1. I haven't liked them since they came out and I still don't like them. It's really rough.

There seems to be a bit of a resurgence of Warrior Supports recently, like Sun Wukong and Odin. Are they coming back? Are they going to be as prevalent as they were before the Warrior blanket nerf last season?

JeffHindla: If there has been, I haven't really seen it. Personally, I love playing Wukong, I think he is by far and away the most enjoyable out of the Warriors to play because, you know, you're moving around the whole teamfight, you're spinning around, you're ulting, repositioning, your Cudgel spins around, your Ox- you know, when you Ox through four people, it's fun! I think he's a really fun God to play, but I haven't seen a ton of them [Warriors], and I haven't played a ton of them either, so I don't see a ton of it happening at all... It'd be cool, it's just that I prefer the Guardians.

Similar to warriors, it seems that Assassin Supports have also seen an upsweep in viability recently, predominently Fenrir. Why is this?

JeffHindla: Fenrir's fun! I think that's probably the biggest reason! Uh, Fenrir beats Cupid early game really hard because he [Cupid] can't dash away from the 3 [Fenrir's Brutalize ability], and he also just catches Xbalanque and does really well against him... I would assume these are the biggest reasons since you see a ton of Cupid and Xbalanque now, and you know, Fenrir just does well against both of them.

Have you played Bellona at all? Do you think that she will see any play in the Duo lane?

JeffHindla: I really haven't. Like with Gods that come out, I wait for the actual balance changes which, you know, is this next patch, to come out to really invest my time into it. But from what I've heard, she is very strong, and I have heard that she can do pretty well with Support, but I haven't really tried it.

With the new map came new items and changes to existing ones, including Sovereignty being split into a new version of Sov and Heartward Amulet. It seems like Hirez have just split one core item into two core items, locking out one further slot from supports and with Boots, Winged Blade and Magi's Blessing, it only leaves one slot for counterbuilding. Do you feel this is the case?

JeffHindla: I don't think that's true. I think that, with how, uh... When you split Sov, which used to be the end-all be-all of defense items in Season 1, it was far and away the best defense item in the entire game, you know, numbers-wise and what it did value-wise was just insane, and now I think you actually have way more room to build than you used to. You don't go Midas' Boots into Sovereignty every single game any more; you'll probably buy Sov a lot first, but a lot of games I have been going into Heartward first. I think you have a lot of room to build depending on their team composition. Winged Blade's great, Midgardian Mail's great, sometimes just rank two Silver Talisman does wonders, it really depends... I think every single game, you build differently. I think that there are core items that work out for most games, but I don't think that you build the same every game, it's pretty rare that I do.

So you're saying that the core works, but it's better to be smart about what you are building?

JeffHindla: Yeah, yeah exactly. That would probably be a better way to put it... If you go Sov into Heartward, it's not like it's wrong, that's generally what is looked at as the core build for Supports, but I don't think that it's always correct.

Would you like it to be more common for you to pick up one of either Sov or Heartward, and for your Solo laner to pick up the other? Like if your Solo laner was a Warrior versus a Mage, they could pick up Heartward and you could grab Sov?

JeffHindla: Sure, yeah, actually that happens a lot in ranked. Twice today, I actually got asked by two people in Solo who were playing against Mages, "Hey, Jeff, are you going to pick up Heartward this game? And if you're not, could I pick it up?" and I'm just like, "Yeah, you can pick it up," and I'll just go like Silver Talisman and get my magic defense from that and we're all good. I mean, if that's going to help you out, then feel free to build it.

That sounds great! That sounds like the kind of thing that Hi-Rez were thinking of when the made this change.

JeffHindla: Yeah, it's nice. I'm not going to tell you not to build it, you know what I mean? It works out for everyone on the team... Frees up some money for me, I'll take it!

Speaking of Winged Blade, how do you feel about the changes made to Boots? They're cheaper now, but people have been shying away from them in some cases and buying Winged Blade instead. How do you feel about that?

JeffHindla: When the PTS first came out, and they took away Midas's Boots, I was like, "Okay..." So I've used Midas' since they came out for the most part, and they're taking it away so if I just look at it like I no longer have Boots any more, and I rush Winged Blade to Witchblade, or Witchblade to Winged Blade, whichever combo was better at the time, I have full movespeed, they're weaker, I am stronger, I can't be caught. But then they nerfed Witchblade by removing the move speed from it, which kind of killed that build. There was a lot of stats in it, and I think that everyone was kind of liking that a little bit more; it's because you got stuff. Now with just Winged Blade being good... I think that starting Winged Blade is great; if the team comp calls for a Winged Blade and you want to do that, then you probably should. It does great against Cupid, it does great against Slows... It's just a really good item. I'm okay with Boots being cheap.

So, again, you feel like Hi-Rez have done a good job of spreading out builds so you're not building the same thing every game?

JeffHindla: Yeah, I think, like I said earlier, I am loving that you build differently every game. You see a lot of the core items, like, you see similar builds, but that's just because they fit a lot of situations, not because it is right one hundred percent of the time.

How come nobody picks up the Talaria Boots or Travellers Shoes? The out-of-combat movement speed and HP5 seem perfect for Supports.

JeffHindla: I have thought about that a lot too, but when you have Reinforced Greaves, the 30% CC reduction saves you so often, you pretty much build those Boots for that reason. For a lot of Supports, having damage or cooldown Boots is really nice too. I think that there might be a time and a place for those Boots, but I don't think that anyone's found the right spot for building them to be correct. I don't think that they are absolutely horrendous, I'm just not sure where they would be better than the alternatives.

In what situations would you pick up which Starter Item? This can include Bluestone Pendant and Death's Toll on physical Supports like Guan Yu.

JeffHindla: How I have looked at it is that Mark of the Vanguard is if you want to mash your face into the lane and fight in creeps and stuff, Watchers's Gift is for if you don't want to do that, and Bluestone Pendant- I haven't been playing a ton of Warriors, but it's really nice. A lot of the reason that it's really nice is obviously because of the passive; it's just really good throughout the game. I don't think that anyone really underestimates how strong that that percent mana regen is, it's just really solid on Warriors. I still don't really build it a lot, but I think that it's strong.

In your stream earlier today, you were saying that Mark of the Vanguard is not as strong as Watcher's Gift. Is that anything to do with the buff that Watcher's is getting in the next patch?

JeffHindla: No, it isn't, I still just think that Vanguard is only good if you want to mash your face into lane, but unless you're picking up kills then you will always get outpaced. It's not that Vaguard is bad, I mean, obviously it does have its place, like if you are against a double DoT lane, then Vanguard is probably correct, but I just like Watcher's. I am also really not that great at farming, so it helps me out more.

This week's patchnotes feature buffs to three Guardians, Bacchus, Cabrakan and Kumbhakarna. Do you think these changes will help them become more relavent?

JeffHindla: I am super excited for Bacchus, it's super awesome! I think that these buffs are quality of life changes that pretty much needed to be done with Bacchus forever ago. This God has been known to have problems and everyone who plays Bacchus knows it, like why use his 3 [Bacchus' Belch of the Gods ability] when I start channeling it and it gets interrupted every single time? So, I'm really excited because it helps his lane phase out a pretty good amount against Geb and Sobek since you now have a usable ability in lane, you know what I mean? Like, before the buff, you just didn't and you got completely blown out of the lane because of it. You're working with your 1 [Bacchus' Chug ability], your jump [Bacchus' Belly Flop ability] and your 3... Your 1 doesn't do anything for the wave, your 3 didn't do anything for the wave because you could never use it and so you would have to jump in, which would put you in a really weird spot every single time. So, I'm super excited for the knockup change, I want to see how it actually pans out, you know maybe it does enough, maybe it doesn't, but I am so happy that this is happening. With the Drunk-O-Meter change, it's pretty cool, I like it a lot... I don't think you really level your Meter superduper early so I don't think that it was a crazy problem, but it is such a quality of life change that is just so nice.

Well, at rank one, it makes it so that you can fill your Drunk-O-Meter with three Chugs, rather than five, so it's pretty significant.

JeffHindla: Yeah, huge quality of life change, definitely good.

So, Crabrakan, I know he's not played much in the Support role, he's more often seen as a Solo laner, and that is as I understand it because his CC is not very confirmable. With him not being affected by the Basic Attack movement penalty any more when his 1 [Cabrakan's Seismic Crush ability] is active, does this help him in the Support role at all or are we still not really going to see him?

JeffHindla: It definitely helps him, it's not a bad thing. I don't know if it will necessarily change where he is played, but it is nice to see because, I don't play a ton of him but I have played him, and I find that if I miss his 1, so I miss his 2 [Cabrakan's Refraction Shield ability], so I miss his 3 [Cabrakan's Tremors Ability] and I am punished for missing my first ability. So it's pretty cool.

I am just terrified of a Jungle Cabrakan coming for a gank, activating his 1 and just waving his arms at me knowing that there is little to nothing that I can do to stop him.

JeffHindla: Haha, yeah! Just, like, full move speed, "I'm comin' for ya!" haha!

And finally, Kumbhakarna, another sub-par support. He got the radius of his 3 [Kumbhakarbna's Mighty Yawn ability] reincreased to what it was at release. How do you think that this will help him?

JeffHindla: Of course it will help him, I mean, he is getting a buff which is awesome, but I don't necessarily think that it will change where he is. The God is still the same God that he is, he still has the same problems. It is nice to see that he's getting turned up a little back to where it was, it's pretty awesome.

You play a lot of ranked. Do you have any pet peeves that you appear to encounter a lot? What can people do to stop annoying you?

JeffHindla: Yep: join Curse! Talk! You know... Speak words! Tell people what you're doing, what your game plan is. Curse is so important to ranked games that it blows my mind when people don't have it. I feel like at this point everyone knows what Curse is and, if you're playing ranked, you should be playing to win and if you don't have it, then you are just putting your team at a disadvantage. Curse for Supports is actually the dream. Just being able to talk in any MOBA and actively make game plans and say where you are going and give information on your cooldowns, it's just so important that I barely know how you play the game without it.

In my own ranked experience, people have real trouble with playing from behind, with 90% of games going to whoever gets first blood. Do you have any advice for coming back from a deficit?

JeffHindla: You have to take smart fights and you have to make the correct plays. It's hard playing from behind, so you really need to identify good fights and take them.

Thanks a lot for chatting with me! Do you have any shoutouts?

JeffHindla: Thank you so much for asking me, I love doing interviews, I really appreciate it! I want to give shoutouts to my team, everyone on Cloud 9 and our sponsors, thank you guys so much, you've been treating us great and we can't wait to start playing again!

To see Jeff in action, be sure to check out his Twitch and follow him on Twitter. Jeff has also started posting videos on his new Youtube channel, so throw him a sub if you want to see him and his lane partner John 'BaRRaCCuDDa' Salter deal out the sickest plays NA!