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Smite's Next Patch Adds a New God and an Awesome Tier 5 Skin
Smite update 3.23 has been revealed, and it's a big one, introducing a new character, numerous balance changes, and a rare Tier 5 skin.
The new god is Nike, a Warrior-class character. Her passive is an interesting one: It presents the team with a series of three goals over the course of the match, and as each one is met, the team receives a buff. The goals are to kill 10 gods, kill 200 minions, and have two players reach level 20. Completing them provide the team with additional physical/magical power and movement speed.
Plan of Action provides Nike with an HP5 boost at all times. When activated, it buffs the next ability she uses. Rend sends out fissures that do damage two times; enemies hit by both lose protections for five seconds. With Plan of Action activated, Rend strikes three times, and those hit by all three are disarmed. Valiant Leap sees Nike jump to a targeted location, doing damage and knocking up enemies. Plan of Action causes her to move to the spot more quickly.
Finally, there's Nike's Ultimate, Sentinel of Zeus. Using this causes Nike to transform into an armored sentinel, sending out a damaging shockwave and slowing affected enemies by 30 percent. While in this form, she also gains a shield equal to 40 percent of her max health. With Plan of Action activated, the Slow and shield both jump to 60 percent.
On the skin side, Hi-Rez has unveiled this year's Tier 5 skin, which will only be available for a limited time through the Odyssey. As voted on by fans, Demonic Pact Anubis turns the character into a hellish-looking demon. Each of his different forms has four different models, with four unique voice packs and ability effects to go along with each form. He's also got a custom emote, recall effect, and music pack. Hi-Rez also teases "hidden features," one of which is that his final form's Ultimate changes the map's skybox, which sounds fantastic.
Along with updated mastery skins for Bacchus, 3.23 adds two all-new ones. Jurassic Camazotz gives the bat the look of a dinosaur. Chilling Grasp Ah Puch, on the other hand, seems to be a not-so-subtle take on Game of Thrones' White Walkers (or the Others, if you're a snobby book reader like me). Both of these, as well as the Anubis skin, will be released as the final batch of Odyssey content along with a Chaac announcer pack.
Item balance changes aren't terribly dramatic. Obsidian Shard loses some power (going from 70 to 60) to make it the less obvious choice for penetration, while Hydra's Lament loses five percent of its cooldown reduction (now 10 percent). Celestial Legion Helm also gets a nerf, losing some physical protections (from 90 to 80) and going up in cost 100 gold to 2400.
Characters are where the bulk of the balance changes come in. Jing Wei has been deemed too safe to play, so the cooldown on Agility is going up, while Explosive Bolts' is going down at the cost of some critical strike chance. Erlang Shen loses the Fatalis effect on Spot Weakness, with it now being activated when using the mink form of 72 Transformations. Both that effect and the turtle mode's buff now last for five seconds, down from six.
Hades receives some improvements, as Shroud of Darkness no longer knocks back minions. Blight lasts longer (increasing from five seconds to eight), and his Ultimate provides him with more protections, making it more difficult to kill him while he stands still. Thoth receives another buff, reducing the mana cost of Glyph of Pain, increasing the radius of Evade and Punish, and increasing projectile speed with Hieroglyphic Assault.
Among the smaller changes: Khepri gets more health; Nox's candle lights (her passive) will only go out when attacked by gods, not minions; Osiris gains one percent magical damage reduction per stack of Fragmented; Terra's Ultimate cooldown increases to 110 seconds at all ranks; and Tyr receives the ability to use Change Stance even without putting a skill point in it.
For the full patch notes, head over to Smite's website.
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The new god is Nike, a Warrior-class character. Her passive is an interesting one: It presents the team with a series of three goals over the course of the match, and as each one is met, the team receives a buff. The goals are to kill 10 gods, kill 200 minions, and have two players reach level 20. Completing them provide the team with additional physical/magical power and movement speed.
Plan of Action provides Nike with an HP5 boost at all times. When activated, it buffs the next ability she uses. Rend sends out fissures that do damage two times; enemies hit by both lose protections for five seconds. With Plan of Action activated, Rend strikes three times, and those hit by all three are disarmed. Valiant Leap sees Nike jump to a targeted location, doing damage and knocking up enemies. Plan of Action causes her to move to the spot more quickly.
Finally, there's Nike's Ultimate, Sentinel of Zeus. Using this causes Nike to transform into an armored sentinel, sending out a damaging shockwave and slowing affected enemies by 30 percent. While in this form, she also gains a shield equal to 40 percent of her max health. With Plan of Action activated, the Slow and shield both jump to 60 percent.
On the skin side, Hi-Rez has unveiled this year's Tier 5 skin, which will only be available for a limited time through the Odyssey. As voted on by fans, Demonic Pact Anubis turns the character into a hellish-looking demon. Each of his different forms has four different models, with four unique voice packs and ability effects to go along with each form. He's also got a custom emote, recall effect, and music pack. Hi-Rez also teases "hidden features," one of which is that his final form's Ultimate changes the map's skybox, which sounds fantastic.Along with updated mastery skins for Bacchus, 3.23 adds two all-new ones. Jurassic Camazotz gives the bat the look of a dinosaur. Chilling Grasp Ah Puch, on the other hand, seems to be a not-so-subtle take on Game of Thrones' White Walkers (or the Others, if you're a snobby book reader like me). Both of these, as well as the Anubis skin, will be released as the final batch of Odyssey content along with a Chaac announcer pack.
Item balance changes aren't terribly dramatic. Obsidian Shard loses some power (going from 70 to 60) to make it the less obvious choice for penetration, while Hydra's Lament loses five percent of its cooldown reduction (now 10 percent). Celestial Legion Helm also gets a nerf, losing some physical protections (from 90 to 80) and going up in cost 100 gold to 2400.
Characters are where the bulk of the balance changes come in. Jing Wei has been deemed too safe to play, so the cooldown on Agility is going up, while Explosive Bolts' is going down at the cost of some critical strike chance. Erlang Shen loses the Fatalis effect on Spot Weakness, with it now being activated when using the mink form of 72 Transformations. Both that effect and the turtle mode's buff now last for five seconds, down from six.
Hades receives some improvements, as Shroud of Darkness no longer knocks back minions. Blight lasts longer (increasing from five seconds to eight), and his Ultimate provides him with more protections, making it more difficult to kill him while he stands still. Thoth receives another buff, reducing the mana cost of Glyph of Pain, increasing the radius of Evade and Punish, and increasing projectile speed with Hieroglyphic Assault.
Among the smaller changes: Khepri gets more health; Nox's candle lights (her passive) will only go out when attacked by gods, not minions; Osiris gains one percent magical damage reduction per stack of Fragmented; Terra's Ultimate cooldown increases to 110 seconds at all ranks; and Tyr receives the ability to use Change Stance even without putting a skill point in it.
For the full patch notes, head over to Smite's website.
More...