Latest SMITE Update Unveils First Mayan God (v0.1.1267.0)

Never one to miss a marketing gambit, Hi-Rez Studios released the God Reveal of Xbalanque, The Hidden Jaguar Sun. The official treatment of the first god from the Mayan pantheon couldn’t come at a more applicable moment. What with pop culture claiming the Mayans predicted the world would end today.

The impossible to pronounce Xbalanque (Shib-a-lan-que) is a short-ranged physical hero capable of poisoning and blinding his foes. In addition to unveiling the Mayan pantheon with their hunter god, Hi-Rez Studios has added a new medieval themed map to the Joust game mode.

Various aspects of SMITE’s basic gameplay has been modified (once again). For instance, a new mechanic, Focus, has been added to the MOBA. Focus affects the utility of each god in different ways, from increasing crowd controls to healing power. Focus caps at 100 Focus. As a result of the new mechanic, every god has had its abilities modified, in addition to every item. Passive gold spooling has been reduced in Conquest and Domination and our lil’ cherub Cupid is physical once more.

Long story short, read the notes after the cut.

Hi-Rez also got into the holiday spirit with two new skins, Jingle Hel and Father Chrismash (Bacchus).

Full patch notes and Xbalanque’s God Reveal trailer after the cut.

Special Game Mode of the Day

• Have you ever wanted to play a match with all Arachnes? Or settle the debate of which Pantheon is better — Greek or Egyptian? Or any other of scores of other unique match ups? Each day, a Special Game Mode of the Day will be featured with its own unique parameters and twists. The mode gives its own First Win of the Day bonus, as well as other normal favor and experience rewards.
• The Special Mode of the Day will run every 12 minutes. Domination will also run every 12 minutes, and the two will be on offsetting rotations (so you can play one of the two every 6 minutes).

New Skins

• Father Chrismash (Bacchus)
• Jingle Hel (Hel)

New game mechanic – Focus

• A new game mechanic has been added to the game, called Focus.  This new stat affects the utility of each god in a variety of ways, in some cases increasing the duration of your stun and in other cases increasing the amount of healing an ability does.  Your god starts with 0 Focus and is able to purchase up to 100.  Any additional Focus purchased after that will no longer affect the abilities that scale off of Focus.
• Item changes:
  • As a result of this new game mechanic, every item in the game has been modified.  This includes items that you knew of having certain stats and benefits may no longer provide those same things.  Many items have had Focus added to their offerings.  Many new items have been added as well, with new passives and benefits to them.
• God changes:
  • All gods have had their abilities adjusted as well.  Where we intend for the utility of a god to be driven off of Focus, we have made modifications to their abilities accordingly.  As stated above, these abilities can be modified for scaling of healing amounts, slow percentages, stun durations, etc.

Items

• A new tab has been added to the In-Match Item Store called “Stats”. From this tab, you can improve your stats directly using in-game gold. In general, though, it is still more cost efficient to buy items instead of using the stats tab, so it is recommended to buy stats directly only when using a targeted strategy or once maxed on your item build.
• Nearly every item in the game has changed to some degree. Please review the items in the game for the latest details.

Conquest Map

• The Conquest map has undergone significant revisions. The outside lanes have been removed and the jungle interiors and lanes modified.  The health and shield jungle buffs have been removed. There are also additional new jungle camps that do not give buffs, but can be farmed for experience.  The trees turn into Fall colors when you move into enemy territory.

General Features:

• When you mouseover other players’ stat bars on the in-match Scoreboard, you will see a tooltip with additional statistics for that player. The “P” Screen has been removed, as it is now redundant to this functionality.
• Gods now have a outline effect around them. You can disable this effect through the Video Setting menu.
• The Solo Practice map and Joust Mode now utilize a new art set, with a Medieval theme.
• Players can now queue the Joust gamemode solo and be match-made into another Joust match. In order to Joust against a friend, you should form a party of two and then join the “Joust Challenge” queue under the Challenge tab.
• Gold is now spooled at 3g per second in Conquest (previously 4g/s) and at 6g per second in Domination (previously 8g/s).
• Higher deserter penalites (30 minute minimum)
• The Conquest queue now accepts teams of 4 and 5. The 5-person Pre-Made queue and the Novice queue have been removed. All users simply queue Conquest and match-making will attempt to put new users with new users and teamed users with teams as well as it can with the groups in queue. Note that the ability to queue teams of 4 and 5 in the same queue as solo and smaller team members may be removed at a later date if the test reveals significantly worse match quality.
• The FX that play around your player while buffed have been changed.
• Fixed an issue where the Sand Guardian in Domination could be spawned off-center from the capture point.
• Movement speeds have been adjusted down from the previous patch.  The new movement speeds are 15 units higher than they were before the last change (~5% increase from the original speeds) and you hit the level of diminishing returns at a higher value.
• Fixed an issue where the win condition was not being considered after a kill in Domination.
• Lowered the spectator camera height when pinging the map.
• Spectator color changes for enemy/friendly health and mana bars.
• Spectator camera motion is smoothed out when viewing from the player’s perspective.
• The additional damage done by ranged and melee minions to structures has been reduced from 100% to 50%.
• The additional damage done by cyclops minions to structures has been increased from 50% to 70%.
• Joust and Solo Practice now start the player at Level 3 and spool more gold per second (akin to Arena).
• Players without line of sight to other relevant players now see those gods with an outline effect through walls and barriers.
• The Conquest map colors the enemy side in autumn tones.
• The Ba (Fury) in Domination that used to award a protection buff now awards a speed buff instead.
• Invulnerable towers have been added to protect the spawns in Domination and the minion spawn positions have been spread further apart.
• Buff camps in Domination and Arena have been updated. Protection and Health buffs are no longer available.
• Fixed an issue where gods with charge-ahead abilities, such as He Bo’s wave, could get stuck in minion despawn areas.
• Fixed an issue in which some players would not get chat in the match lobby.
• Made modifications so that most players will go directly into a match lobby after accepting an invite on timed queues (less waiting in MATCHING status).

UI Changes:

• The God Screen has undergone significant revisions and changes. Further improvements are planned for future releases.
• The Home screen has undergone modifications. There are now callouts on the left-hand side to alert you of important game information, including the current Match of the Day, the current list of free gods in rotation, and other information.
• Some items on the Settings screen have been re-organized to different tabs.
• Changes to match lobby to make it more obvious where the teams are in the god banning phase and how much time is remaining.
• Added the ability to view individual player stats while Spectating (use ‘P’ key)
• Several other bug fixes and minor cleanups.

Active Items:

• All active items are now priced at 250g.
• The passives have been removed from the active items.
• Sprint and Heavenly Agility
  • Both of these items now protect you from new slows for 3s after using the active ability.
• Purification Beads
  • Immunity to slows and slow protection has been added to this ability on use.

Jungle:

• Jungle camp XP has been increased by ~50%.

Gods:

• Bacchus
  • Chug
    • Using this ability no longer gives Bacchus additional physical power.
    • Using this ability now gives Bacchus +5/10/15/20/25 protections, increasing with Focus up to 50.
• Cupid
  • Cupid has been shifted back to physical scaling and physical damage on his abilities.
  • Cupid’s attack speed has been reduced from 1 attacks/sec to .92 attacks/sec.
  • PASSIVE – Lovestruck
    • When an ability is used that consumes 10 stacks, Cupid no longer gains a 20% to his physical power for 6s.
  • Heart Bomb
    • Damage type has been changed from magical to physical.
    • Base damage has been decreased from 60/100/140/180/220 to 50/80/110/140/170.
    • Damage contribution has been changed from 100% magical to 60% physical.
  • Share the Love
    • Base healing has been decreased from 45/70/95/120/145 to 30/50/70/90/110.
    • Damage contribution has been changed from 30% magical to +1.2 per Focus.
  • Flutter
    • No longer consumes stacks again.
    • This ability no longer gains an advantage based on the number of Lovestruck stacks at the time it is used.
  • Fields of Love
    • Damage type has been changed from magical to physical.
    • Base damage has been decreased from 225/290/355/420/485 to 175/225/275/325/375.
    • Damage contribution has been changed from 120% to 100%.
• Freya
  • Irradiate
    • Freya now gains 10% physical lifesteal for 5s.
  • Pulse
    • Freya now gains 10% magical lifesteal for 5s.
• Hel
  • Switch Stance is now available at level 1.
  • Decay/Restoration
    • Decay (Dark Stance)
      • Base damage has been reduced from 80/140/200/260/320 to 60/125/190/255/320.
    • Restoration (Light Stance)
      • Base damage has been reduced from 80/140/200/260/320 to 60/125/190/255/320.
  • Repulse/Inspire
    • Inspire (Light Stance)
      • Focus conversion has been reduced from 3.6 per Focus to 2.5 per Focus.
• Thor
  • Tectonic Rift
    • Damage has been removed from this ability.