Smite patch 0.1.1705 change list and discussion

It’s that odd Wednesday again; Smite has been patched, this time adding in yet another bloody mage with an unpronounceable name. I shall dub him “John, Pusher of Lanes.” Either way, let’s have a look at what changed in the update.

God & balance changes

• Artemis
  • Calydonian Boar
    • The boar is now immune until it stuns its first target.

When you pull an ult, you expect it to do something, right? This change is only reasonable. After all, what use is there to an ultimate that only summons animals that’ll die in the next AoE fired into the teamfight cluster? *cough cough* Buff that fucking cat already.

• Chang’e
  • Crescent Moon Dance
    • The cooldown on this ability has been increased from 4s to 5s.
  • Moonlit Waltz
    • The amount of time that this ability fires, and that she evades, has been reduced from 1.4s to 1s.

After weeks of fiddling around with dem jukes, it looks like Hi-Rez has finally nerfed Chang’e’s damage potential by 25%. I can confirm that it’s quite noticeable and stings, but she deserves it. At least they can keep the jukes alone now. Wait, what was that second change again?

• Chronos
  • Rewind
    • You can no longer cancel this ability during its build up time.

Rewind that, clock boy! There are very, very few situations where you would’ve have wanted to cancel it anyway, so this is mostly protection from accidentally doing so.

• Tyr
  • Fearless
    • This ability will no longer knock someone up that is immune to crowd control.
  • Fearless (Guard Stance)
    • This ability will now knock back half the distance.
  • Power Cleave
    • This ability will now knock back half the distance. 

These changes only do him justice, since he previously had absolutely no difficulty carrying you across the map into his own well. Screw Tyr.

Item changes

• Fatalis
  • The additional movement and attack speed on a successful basic attack has been increased from 3% to 5%.
  • The maximum stacks have been reduced from 4 to 3.

Stacks up faster and hits slightly harder. Freya definitely needed that, snark snark bleakly ironic undertone. Because no one except Freya ever builds Fatalis.

• Gauntlet of Thebes
  • The passive has changed from +5 Health to +8 Health per minion kill.
  • The max stacks has changed from 100 to 50.

Doing the math, you lose 100 net health at max stacks, but it’s now actually possible to stack it up to full if it’s not your first item. Overall, this IS a buff to it, despite the numbers.

• Transcendence
  • The passive has changed from +10 Mana to +20 Mana per minion kill.
  • The max stacks has changed from 50 to 25.

Same as above. No change at max stacks, but that point is much easier to reach.

• Winged Wand
  • The mana has been removed from this item and 4/7/10% cooldown reduction has been added.
  • The passive has changed from 10% to 20% movement speed when hit by a slow and the duration has changed from 2s to 4s.

“Will you PLEASE build Winged Wand already, playerbase? Look, we’ll give it useful stats! Isn’t that something? Please, I have a warehouse full of those things that need to pay for themselves!” Notably, this allows you to build penetration boots plus a 25% CDR item and not have to feel like you’ve wasted money by going 5% CDR over the cap. I’m sure there is someone out there who can use it. Someone.

• Witch Stone
  • The physical power has been removed from this item.
  • This item now provides 5/10/15% movement speed.

A bit of a random change, but okay. You would likely prefer more movement speed when building Witch Stone, anyhow. Also, since the last patch prevented magical gods from buying it due to its physical power, it is now once again possible.

• New item – Bloodforge
  • Price – 2725G
  • +40 Physical Power
  • +20% Physical Lifesteal
  • PASSIVE – Each successful hit on an enemy grants you +5 Physical Power and +2% Physical Lifesteal for 4 seconds (max 5 stacks)

Bloodforge? Nope, you’re called “That Jungler Item”. Beautiful addition, will make squishy killers slightly more deadly and less dead at first glance. It should be noted that Lifesteal is capped at 65%, but if you want to build Bloodforge + Devourer’s Gloves + Soul Eater + Eye of Retaliation, who am I to stop you? That totally sounds like a build, actually. Add in some ability-based lifesteal and you can literally finish teamfights with more health than before.

General changes

• [Several visual changes have been made, including the Arena map, the main menu, and the loading screen. Also, several gods now use targeting indicators fitting their art style and Sobek no longer tries to hide that he’s a fucking crocodile.]

In earlier times, Smite had a very simple built-to-function art style. Now it’s gorgeous. Personally, I think that the new indicators are a tad hard to see in some cases, but they’re more like guidelines anyway; When you’d really need them, you won’t need them. This is a clear signal of Smite’s business model working out as it now rises above finished full-price games despite still not even talking about a release date. Maybe we can all come together and build a better world. Wait, that’d include working with those LoL people. Fuck that.

New Skins:

• Kali Golden
• Fenrir Golden
• Freya Golden
• Zhong Kui King of Ghosts

Voicepacks:

• Zeus
• Guan Yu
• Zhong Kui

I hate golden skins. If you’re good with somebody, let that be known through your prowess on the battlefield, not by covering yourself in butter. But if we’re going that route, could we please get a golden Aphrodite already? Aside from that, Zeus, Guan Yu, and that new guy now joined the party of people whose voice you can spam to your entire team, so let’s gather around the campfire for a lovely game of Guess The Accent!

• [Guan Yu has received a massive overhaul in art style and abilities, as if to show that monkey that you don’t have to get patched out for that.]

Three things are important about the new Guan:

1. He now uses physical power and damage for all of his attacks
2. His passive has been changed. Now, whenever he takes damage, he gains about 5% additional healing on his next heal, up to a x2 multiplier after taking 20 hits, regardless of how much damage they did. He also has an escalating swing chain, because swing chains are cool and everybody has to have them.
3. Instead of jumping around like a sissy, his ult now has you jump onto a horse and chase down your enemies from horseback, slowing them and dealing more and more damage. I literally cannot imagine an ult that would be more awesome than that. Except maybe throwing a kraken at your enemies, but for that to happen Hercules first has to apologise for hanging out with the Roman kids and misspelling his name.

• Zhong Kui has been added, fighting as a mage with high sustain and extreme burst potential, but very short range.

As I said, John, Pusher of Lanes. Every one of his skills has the potential to wipe out a wave, but he can run out of mana fast and he’s rather squishy at first considering how close he has to come to his enemies. Regardless, he is an incredibly deep god, so look forward to watching competitive gameplay of him. I assure you it will be a blast.

Interested in Smite? Check it out through this link and start playing for free! If I happen to be online when you are, send me a message and we might play together! (Username is, obviously, Toraka.) This message is not sponsored, unless you count giving me favor and being an awesome game as sponsoring.