Smite patch “Odin” 0.1.1705 change list and discussion

Oh HiRez, are you ever content with Smite. Of course not. Once you have achieved your masterwork, what else would there be to make? Aside from more and more patches to make it more perfect, of course. They certainly aren’t afraid of changes, I can tell you. Changes like those discussed below.

God & balance changes

• Fenrir
  • Ground targeters modified.

Some gods got the invisible end of the ground targeters with the last patch, and Fenrir was definitely one of them. Not that you’d really need targeting indicators since his whole strategy is “press 3 and kill people”. But it’s nice to have them be actually visible.

• Guan Yu
  • Taolu Assault protection buff and debuff now scales 6/7/8/9/10 per rank, rather than being 10 at all ranks.
  • Guan Yu’s basic attack progression now uses the same standard hit cone on the final hit as the first three. This should remove inconsistencies in target selection between hits.

(Deservedly) nerf his early game, but fix his damage output to work correctly all the time. I doubt that this will suddenly make Guan not be a top-tier god, so it’s only fair for someone who felt that he had to run away and hang out with the cool physical kids.

• Hun Batz
  • Sacred Monkey no longer allows Hun Batz to teleport out of Fenrir’s mouth during Ragnarok.
  • Infused Strikes increased from +20% physical power scaling to +25% physical power scaling.

Bug fix, not nerf. If someone was actually able to fire the monkey just in time so that it would hit an enemy god last while being omnomnomed, I think they deserved to go free. In other news, his autoattacks will now carry significantly more bang.

• Ne Zha
  • Fixed an issue with his Ult where players could get caught on top of map walls.

• Athena
  • Fix for bug that would make Athena go invisible.

• Anubis
  • Model has undergone visual improvements.

Nothing to see here, just polishing. So pretty, oh so pretty…

• Odin
  • Odin has undergone a significant revision of his 3D Model, FX, animations and loading screen card. The Huntsman skin has also been reworked. The Mountain Man skin will be improved in future releases.
  • Odin’s basic attacks now use a hit progression with a 1/1/1/1.5x timing and damage scale.

• Gungnir’s Might:
  • Now hits twice in the same time period, dealing its original damage distributed across both hits. The first hit occurs 0.4s sooner than previously and inflicts the slow, and the second hit does the majority of the damage. Hit damage values are 40/65/90/115/140 (+40% of physical power) and 50/80/110/140/170 (+60% of physical power).
  • The slow amount was increased from 25% to 30%.
  • The Cooldown was adjusted from 15/14/13/12/11 to 12 across all ranks.

Swing chains really are hip these days, aren’t they. It’s a bit hard to see why Odin of all people would need one though, since his damage output is only slightly above that of global warming.* As his fabulosity rises, as does he gain a slight edge in the early game together with an even smaller nerf past level 9. However, his damage output should technically remain the same thanks to enemies being slowed earlier and harder. I say technically because the net difference made by these changes should amount to a few percentage points, if even that. Odin can’t cast more than three abilities without running out of mana anyway, so only a whole lot of nothing has been shifted around.

• Tyr
  • Power Cleave
    • The physical power scaling was reduced from +80% physical power to +50% physical power.
    • Increased the Knockback from 200 to 300. (Was 400 before the previous nerf).

• Fearless
  • The base damage was reduced from 50/110/170/230/290 to 40/90/140/190/240.
  • Increased the Knockback in guard stance from 200 to 300. (Was 400 before previous nerf).

• Fixed a bug with Tyr’s passive stance icons not displaying correctly.

As it turns out, Tyr knocking you across the known universe without even switching stances wasn’t the problem. Well it was, but he managed to barter for himself to get some of it back, in exchange for a hefty damage nerf of about 40% and 20% respectively. Maybe I’m biased because I hate people instalocking 5 carries, but just maybe this change will put Tyr where he belongs. That is, playing tanky so that those who also instalocked carries can actually deal their damage.

• Zhong Kui
  • Expose Evil
    • The duration of the mark has been reduced from 6 to 5s.

• Book of Demons
  • The magical power contribution was reduced from 70% to 50%.

Yeah, new god nerf, as expected. Expose Evil now also hits for significantly less as it lost a tick; It will not tick faster instead. Considering Zhong’s lane clear and not looking at people dying like the cool guy he is, resonable. The second change is not quite as relevant since you wouldn’t want to use the book unless completely necessary. When it is, however, the damage reduction will certainly be notable. Be glad they only nerfed the active skill, I suppose; They could also have reduced the almighty +50% autoattack damage.

Item changes

• Girdle of Might / Girdle of Inner Power
  • Cooldown reduced to 60s on every tier.
  • Radius increased to 70ft.

Bang for your buck, now whenever you feel like it. 60 seconds is an almost negligible cooldown, so pop your Girdle whenever it will be useful. Multiples do not stack, though.

• Sprint
  • Speed buff changed to 30/35/40% increase per tier.
  • Lifetime per tier reduced to 3/4/5s.
  • Slow immunity now lasts the entire lifetime.
  • Cooldown reduced from 240/180/120s to 60s.

• Heavenly Agility
  • Reduced to a 40% speed buff.
  • Radius increased to 70 ft.
  • Cooldown on this tier remains at 90s.

When you pop Sprint, it’s usually because you are in a situation you’d prefer you weren’t. I think we can stand a slight duration nerf in exchange for half the cooldown. Okay, let’s face it, Freya players (and only they) rejoice this day, for they can melt faces twice as often. Still, if somebody else accidentally builds Sprint or even Agility, at least they will now more reliably do their job. In fact, even more often than the cooldown implies, as they will now be used without fear of wasting them.

• Salvation
  • MP5 buff increased to 45%.

It seems logical to assume that they mean 45 mp5, which would bring Salvation to the same level as Meditation as for mp5, for the owner only. I don’t think anyone will complain about having more mana in Assault.

• Purification Beads
  • Cooldown reduced to 180/135/90 per tier.

In the same notion as the other active item changes, this item is now actually usable below level 3. Well, it’s still about two eons of cooldown unless fully built, but at least it came down from three eons.

• Shard / Restoration Shard / Static Shard / Shell / Spiked Shell / Shell of Absorption
  • Pricing reduced to 250/300/350 gold per tier.

This price reduction applies for all actives listed below this point, but not those above it. Maybe someone will actually build actives which aren’t Beads or Ægis. Notably, this price nerf affects most active items commonly picked up by supports or tanks, who tend to be a little short on money either way. For those, getting a rank 3 for 900 gold rather than 1100 can mean a world of difference.

• Hand of the Gods / Fist of the Gods
  • Radius increased to 15ft on every tier.
  • Cooldowns set to 60s on every tier.

Makes waveclearing as a tank easier and more frequent, now that you don’t have to hug up against enemies, smell their chest hair, wonder what it’d be like to be held by those strong – I mean, poke them! To death! Because what else did you think would be the Hand of the Gods?

• Eye of Providence
  • Cooldown reduced to 90/60/60 per tier.

Illuminati! Illuminati! Uh, anyway. I like this item for being able to pick it up early (at rank 1) and just warding all the time. So I guess I like items that suck. With the cooldown buff, you’ll be able to constantly keep at least one ward up. Would be quite nice to warrant using an active slot, wouldn’t it? If they hadn’t buffed all other actives with it!

• Blink
  • Cooldown reduced from 180/90/45s to 60/45/30s per tier.
  • You now must be out of combat 5/4/3s, changing per tier, to use Blink.

• Combat Blink:
  • Cooldown reduced from 240s to 120s.

Ares likes. Ares really likes. Even without upgrading it, this is an enormous buff, allowing you to blink whenever you feel like it. If you have a decent escape ability, it’s often possible to go for a few seconds during a chase without taking damage, so the new blink will only ensure your survival even more. Plus, if you don’t, you get to escape “I don’t want to be in this place any more” situations twice as often. Blink definitely moves up the ranks with this upgrade, perhaps so far as to be taken into the array of items you take when you have nothing better to do, together with Beads and Ægis.

• Creeping Curse
  • Radius increased to 55ft on each tier.
  • The slow has been reduced from 30/40/50% to 20/30/40%.

• New branching option: Enfeebling Curse
  • Reduces enemy ground speed by 40%.
  • Reduces enemy attack speed by 30%.

Where Creeping Curse reduces healing, Enfeebling Curse reduces damage. Without extensive testing, it’s hard to see whether Creeping Curse got nerfed or buffed, but gut feeling says that a bigger range is worth a slightly smaller effect. As with Blink, this item is now slightly more attractive for anybody but the team’s facepunchers.

• Shielded Recall / Protected Recall
  • Cooldown reduced to 120/90/60s per tier.

While everybody else enjoys their shiny buffs, Shielded Recall cries itself to sleep. Much lower cooldown, lower cost, still useless. No sympathy, Shielded Recall, because that’s only due to your own incompetence!

• Teleport
  • Price increased to 150g.

Could be worse. Teleporting in now sets you an additional 25 gold behind, but I doubt that it’ll change much about its use. Pros will use it with every recall because a second of not being in lane will lose the game, other players will ignore it.

General changes

• [Several visual changes have been made to the main menu UI, the spectator UI, and the Arena map. Yay art!]
• Poseidon, Anhur, Ne Zhe and Chang’e are now available as potential Bot Enemies in Practice Arena.
• The free god rotation is now Fenrir, Freya, Neith, Vulcan and Zeus.
• A new video has been added after login that briefly promotes the state of Georgia. We love tax breaks! Left click to progress past the video immediately.

While the AI is only slightly better than a random button press generator, at least now there’s some diversity in the faces that you stomp.  Also, I don’t claim to understand the USA’s tax system, so I won’t comment on that last change. Except for a healthy wat, that is.

New Skins:

• Loki Infiltrator
• Chang’e Golden
• Aphrodite Golden

Voicepacks:

• Odin

We hate gold skins, we hate them, they’re only for people who can’t let their skills on the battlefield itself speak for themselves, and it’d be best if they didn’t exist… My money, it cannot be thrown at the screen fast enough! Since everybody and their bird will be playing Odin now, what better time to give you the option of having him speak all of your voice commands for you? While not putting him into the free rotation, of course. HiRez, you sneaky bastards.

*If you deny that Odin is the tank, he may have to come over and have words with you. Do you wish to risk that?

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