Hi-Rez Releases the Kraken With the Addition of Poseidon in SMITE Patch 0.1.1376

Update: The Patch has gone live, so I’ve made changes below in bold.

People have ravenously requested it – and Hi-Rez Studios finally delivered. They have released the Kraken with Poseidon in this week’s patch in SMITE.

Along with this week’s patch adding a new Mage – they’ve also made an announcement about the Ultimate God Pack: Poseidon will be included in the God Pack.

The Ultimate God Pack has been adjusted so that it now includes all gods in the game, including any future released gods. Those that purchased the Ultimate God Pack previously will receive new gods automatically (there is no need to upgrade). The Ultimate God Pack remains at a special beta price until the game is officially released.

In addition, when the Ultimate God Pack is purchased, players will now receive a FAVOR refund for any gods purchased prior to buying the Ultimate God Pack. Those that have already purchased the Ultimate God Pack will receive a favor refund upon first login after the patch goes live.

This One Time purchase option looks to be HiRez Studios’ new business model, as they did something similar with Tribes: Ascend. They’ve stated the price will remain what it has been throughout Beta, but once it goes live, they price will most likely go up. Get your Ultimate God Pack now before it’s too late for $29.99 (£20.99 or €23.99)!

From what I’ve seen of the patch notes, I’m looking hopeful at the changes in the competitive scene. Here’s what I feel like is some of the most significant changes:

• New status effect added: Cripple – Movement abilities (such as leaps & dashes, but not movement speed increases or teleports) cannot be used for the duration of this effect.
• All gods labeled as “Tank” have had their base & per level attack speeds reduced.
• Players in teams of up to 3 may now join the “Practice Arena” on the Practice tab.
• Vamana has the 2nd Epic Skin added to the game

After the jump, you can find the full patch notes & the SMITE God Reveal video for Poseidon, God of the Oceans.

Poseidon Abilities:

PASSIVE (Changing Tides): Poseidon’s movement speed increases and his abilities do additional damage as his Tide level increases. Successful basic attack hits increase his Tide, and using abilities decreases it.

Tidal Surge: Poseidon summons forth a wave that travels in a line, dealing damage and pushing back all enemies in his patch. Damage: 80/120/160/200/240 (+70% of your magical power). Cost 70/80/90/100/110. Cooldown 12s. Tidal Meter: -35% Tide.

Trident: Poseidon activates his Trident, granting move speed and making his basic attacks fire 2 additional shots in a spread for 6s. The shots deal magical damage plus 20% of Poseidon’s Magical Power. All shots increase Poseidon’s Tide on successful hit. Base Damage per Hit: 30/40/50/60/70. Movement Speed: 15/20/25/30/35%. Lifetime: 6s. Tidal Meter: -35% Tide. Cost 65/70/75/80/85. Cooldown: 20/18/16/14/12s.

Whirlpool: Poseidon summons a whirlpool at his ground target location that cripples targets, preventing movement abilities, and pulls targets toward the center dealing magical damage every .5s for 3s. Reduces Poseidon’s Tide by 30% when cast. Damage: 10/15/20/25/30 (+10% of your magical power). Tidal Meter: -30% Tide. Cost: 80/90/100/110/120. Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11s.

Release the Kraken: Poseidon releases the Kraken, damaging and slowing targets in its radius. Enemies in the center of the effect when it spawns take additional damage and are stunned and bounced into the air. Damage: 120/150/180/210/240 (+30% of your magical power). Damage (center): 180/220/260/300/340 (+60% of your magical power). Slow: 30%. Stun (Center): 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2s. Tidal Meter: -50% Tide. Cost: 100/110/120/130/140. Cooldown: 90s.

New Skins:

• Vamana Lil ‘Mana (Epic Skin, 600 Gems)
• Poseidon Earthsaker (Re-skin, 200 Gems/11,000 Favor)

Match Making:

• A new option has been added that allows players to choose to only receive matches for their preferred region. This may lead to longer wait times and/or less evenly matched games. Note that this feature will work only for the Casual Arena, Conquest, Domination and MOTD queues at this time (support for additional queues should be added soon).
• The timers have been removed from the queues on the Casual menu, and a new algorithm has been implemented. Note that we may revert back to the timed queues if this experiment is unsuccessful.
• The Novice Conquest Queue has been removed and re-merged with the regular Conquest Queue.

Domination Changes:

• If minions make it to their goal and are removed from the map, they will heal 3% of the maximum health of any friendly Sand Guardian in their lane.
• Sand Guardians take only half damage if they do not have a current target to prevents player AOE chipping. Minions count as a target.
• The respawn time of Sand Guardians is accelerated for each friendly standing in the radius.
• The Point Capture radius has been increased to cover the entire water area around the capture point. If you are on the water or inside it, you will be on the point.

General Changes:

• Players in teams of up to 3 players may now join the “Practice Arena” on the Practice tab of the PLAY menu. You will be pitted against 3 bot enemies in this Arena format gamemode. If you join solo or in a party of two, the rest of your side will be filled with friendly bots to compete on your side.
• The GUIDES menu has been significantly upgraded. In addition to having better visual presentation of videos and website links, the Guides area now includes a “Character Builder” that allows users to configure different Item and Ability builds on a god and then view the stats for that god for that build. The current Character Builder is an early rendition and further improvements are expected in future patches (including the re-introduction of the Video Guides and Website Guides, which have been temporarily removed)..
• Changes have been made to the target indicator when in Instant Casting mode. The bar now shows “tick marks” at different lengths, making it easier for you to learn at what distance certain abilities on gods will fire.
• On Challenge Match creation, there is now a “Random Pick” option under “God Picking Method.”
• Minor visual adjustments have been made to the Item tooltips.
• Several bugs with deserter status have been fixed.
• Made a variety of sound priority changes, which should better ensure that the more important audio cues play during busy gameplay.
• Dead minions now sink into the ground when their bodies clean up.
• Wards now have better visual indicators of friendly versus enemy.
• The Tutorial has had an artistic makeover to better fit with the art style in the new Conquest map.
• When lane minions die, they will play a variety of different kinds of deaths depending on the god ability that killed them.
• The trees in the Conquest map have undergone visual adjustments.
• Fixed a bug in which users would not be able to use the Free Rotating Gods in some instances.
• You can now view the profile/stats of persons that have requested to be your Friend on the FRIENDS tab under the SOCIAL menu.
• Stealthed players should no longer be revealed outside of the base interior.

Spectator Changes:

Added a Spectator Options tab in the settings menu including the following:

• Ability to rename the Red Team and Blue Team. There is now an overlay with the team names beneath the in-game scoreboard and team messages will use the customized team names.
• Ability to toggle visibility for numbers representing gold, damage, healing, XP, and critical hits.
• You can toggle a team-colored outline around gods to better see team membership.
• Ability to remap spectator keybindings.

• Fixed an issue where players on the red team were having their nameplates invisible when they were not in line-of-sight to the spectator.
• When Loki is stealthed and on the red team, his character mesh is now visible to the spectator.
• In-game clock on the scoreboard now is synchronized with the playback clock.
• Fixed an issue where the game could crash when spectating Neith.
• Clicking the end-match time on the playback bar will hide the time. This is useful for spectators who want to keep the end-match time unspoiled.

Jungle Camps:

Gold Fury:

• Starting health has been reduced from 3500 to 3000.
• Additional health per minute has been increased from 230 to 240.

Abilities and Consumables:

(New Ability) Motivate:

• Using this ability grants 30 physical and magical protections and doubles the health of allied minions in the radius for 10 seconds. Cooldown – 90s.
• Note: There is a known issue in which health bars on some minions may be incorrect after the ability duration ends.

Aegis Amulet:

• The cooldown on this ability has been increased from 150s to 180s.

Purification Beads:

• This ability now removes roots as well. It also removes the new Cripple status.
• The cooldown on this ability has been increased from 150s to 180s.

Sprint:

• The cooldown on this ability has been increased from 150s to 180s.

Hand of the Gods:

• Now kills any Jungle Monster (including Fire Giant and Gold Fury) when they are below 10% health.

Wards:

• Price has been increased from 50g to 75g.
• Wards can now detect players and enemy wards at the same radius.
• The maximum number of wards that you can carry has been reduced from 5 to 3.
• Wards now only detect things that are in line of sight of the ward.

Items:

Death’s Toll:

• Physical power has been increased from 10 to 15.

Fatalis:

• The passive now makes it so that you no longer move slower when you are moving backwards.

Hide of the Nemean Lion:

• The price of this item has been increased from 1950g to 2250g.

Mark of the Vanguard:

• Health has been reduced from 155 to 100.

Vampiric Shroud:

• Magical power has been increased from 10 to 20.

General Balance Changes:

• Base and per level attack speeds have been reduced for all tanks.

• Gold spooling has been reduced from 3 gold per second to 2 gold per second.
• For each enemy tower destroyed, players get a +5% gold bonus stacking up to 30%.
• After a player engages the Minotaur, if the Minotaur resets he will gain 15% of his maximum health.  The Minotaur can no longer be kited outside the temple.

Gods (Balance Changes):

Anhur:

• Attack speed increased slightly.

Ares:

Shakles:

• This ability now also applies the effect Cripple.

Artemis:

Transgressor’s Fate:

• This ability now also applies the effect Cripple.

Cupid:

• Attack speed increased slightly.

Hades:

Pillar of Agony:

• The strength of the pull from his ultimate has been adjusted to be stronger initially to reduce the frequency of players being able to walk out of it.

Hercules:

Driving Strike

• The base damage of this ability has been increased from 80/130/180/230/280 to 85/155/225/295/365.
• The physical power contribution of this ability has been increased from 60% to 90%.

Loki:

Assaininate

• Addressed an issue with Loki not always arriving behind the target.Addressed an issue with Loki not always arriving behind the target.

Odin:

Ring of Spears:

• Odin is now immune to all crowd control while inside his ring. (Used to be able to be slowed & knocked-up)