SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ upcoming MOBA.

Lore: Hercules is a demi-god of the Roman pantheon, spawned from his mortal mother, Alcmene, and her “fling” with the womanizing God of the Sky, Jupiter. Hercules is renowned for his incredible strength, which repeatedly aided him during his string of oft-repeated adventures. The sheer number of his adventures have delivered a smorgasbord of content, character flaws and inconsistencies for popular culture to pull from.

The range of his feats are best captured in the Bibliotheca. After Juno caused him to murder his own children out of madness, Hercules sought redemption, which King Eurystheus used to his advantage. Seeing an opportunity to rid himself of Hercules, Eurystheus assigned the demi-god to the Labours of Hercules, twelve impossible tasks. The dozen challenges included capturing the Erymanthian Boar, slaying various feared mythological creatures, obtaining beloved items from the likes of Artemis and the Queen of the Amazons and bringing back Cerberus. Each tale unveils a different side to the demi-god, from cunningness to raw power. Each accomplished. Continue Reading

SMITE patched to include the Ladies’ Man, Hercules, yesterday. The update brought mostly balance changes with the new god. Some of them I felt were unnecessary, but we’ll see as time goes on if the changes are for the better or worse.

Things of note are Bakasura’s changes to his eating ability, giving him movement speed on kills as a passive, and not his eating ability; and the eating ability gaining a buff to its healing. Again. Freya no longer receives a 50% damage reduction when both Pulse (#1) and Irradiate (#2) are active at the same time, and Kali’s Frenzy ability now breaks CC.

New God: HERCULES!

• Strength From Pain (Passive): As Hercules takes damage, he gains 20 (+2 * your level) physical power based on a percentage of his missing health.
• Driving Strike: Hercules delivers a mighty strike, driving all enemies back and stunning them for .8/.9/1/1.1/1.2s if Hercules is at or below 50% health, increasing with Focus up to 1.7s. Anyone hit by the blow takes 80/130/180/230/280 (+60% of your physical power) physical damage. Cost – 60/65/70/75/80 mana. Cooldown – 14s.
• Earthbreaker: Hercules smashes the ground, sending a shockwave forward that does 60/110/160/210/260 (+50% of your physical power) physical damage to all enemies. Enemies at the end of the shockwave are thrown into the air towards Hercules. Cost – 70/75/80/85/90 mana. Cooldown – 15s.
• Mitigate Wounds: When Hercules activates this ability, 30/55/80/105/130% (+1% for every 2% health missing) of the damage taken in the next 4 seconds is returned to him as health over the next 10 seconds. Cost – 60/65/70/75/80 mana. Cooldown – 12s.
• Excavate: Hercules rips a huge boulder from the ground. Throwing the boulder does 200/300/400/500/600 (+100% of your physical power) physical damage and knocks back all enemies where the boulder lands. The boulder continues rolling, doing 50% damage to all enemies in its path. Subsequent hits on the same enemy do 50% less damage per hit. Cost – 100 mana. Cooldown – 90s.

Note: Hercules will be 11,000 favor for the first approximately 2 weeks after launch, then drop to 5,500 favor. The gem price is not expected to change in the near term. Continue Reading

Keep looking for that code!

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ upcoming MOBA.

Lore: Unlike everyone’s favorite cherub, Bacchus is not the better known of the Greek versus Roman gods. The renaming of Dionysus by the Romans is so little known that Wikipedia, purveyor of topics important and mundane, doesn’t even have a unique page for the Roman incarnation. That’s not a knock on the importance of the God of the Grape Harvest, Wine, Ritual Madness and Ecstasy. After all, aside from military prowess and early democracy, we all know how important parties were to these cultures.

Bacchus was viewed as a liberator of those that followed him. Freeing them from social norms, stigmas and oppressive restraints through his bakkheia frenzy. Wielding his thyrsus, a staff tipped by a honey-dipped pine cone and wound in ivy, Bacchus used the staff for beneficial and combative purposes. Through his imbibed female followers, the maenads, Bacchus was viewed as a divine communicator between the living and the dead planes. Swarmed by his female followers and their male counterparts, the rotund and bald Sileni, Bacchus was a traveling party. Continue Reading

Teased yesterday before HiRezBart’s SMITE streaming session, Hi-Rez Studios has now fully unveiled the Roman god Bacchus. Only the second god to enter the battlefield from the Roman pantheon, Bacchus was worshipped as the God of Wine. Doing battle with his trusty thyrsus staff *cough* a leg of meat and jug of wine, the plump Bacchus is a melee magical tank.

His abilities rely on his state of intoxication. Each normal ability gains additional effects, including debuffs, disables or buffing himself. Given the art style, character design and combat effectiveness, I couldn’t have been more incorrect in my three lore-based design guesses.

Expect Bacchus to be playable soon, possibly as early as tomorrow, November 15, 2012. Hit the jump for the official God Reveal and ability details of Bacchus.

We’ll have a lore treatment for you next week. Odd that his namesake pine-cone-topped staff wasn’t used…

Continue Reading