Well, isn’t that an aptly timed release of the latest deity for the god-based MOBA SMITE. Following the recent unveiling of Sylla, Hi-Rez Studios has patch in Ullr – The Glorious One. Hailing from the Norse pantheon, Ullr is the nordic version of Artemis, the pantheon’s Hunter deity. The stance-based Ullr is another ranged physical character that features high sustainability, making him far less squishy than his Greek counterpart.
The latest patch contains something unheard of in SMITE, potentially by any MOBA, at least by my ears. Hi-Rez Studios has refunded any player that purchased the Nightmare skin for Hades. The 400 Gem purchase has become his default skin – with updates to the Legendary and Golden skins to reflect this – yet not removed from the game. Any incoming player can purchase the Classic skin. Anyone with Hades is grandfathered in.
Aphrodite received a 3D model overhaul. Still as sexy as ever. Meanwhile Nemesis received the Golden treatment. In what could be the final patch before next week’s launch tournament, Hi-Rez Studios focused its efforts on small balance changes, a lot of General updates and a variety of bug fixes.
Full patch notes after the cut. Oddly, the team must be quite busy, as there was no God Reveal video with the patch notes.
New God: Ullr (Norse Hunter)
- Passive – Weapon Master
- When Ullr uses an ability in either stance his cooldowns in the opposite stance are reduced. Cooldown Reduction: 1s.
- Bladed Arrow / Thrown Axe
- Ranged: Ullr fires a bladed arrow in a line, dealing damage and passing through all targets it hits.
- Melee: Ullr throws an axe in a line, hitting a single target dealing damage and stunning it.
- Damage (Bow): 80/135/190/245/300 (+70% of your physical power).
- Damage (Axe): 70/100/130/170/200 (+60% of your physical power).
- Stun Duration (Axe): 1/1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8s
- Cost: 60/65/70/75/80
- Cooldown: 14s
- Expose Weakness / Invigorate
- Ranged: Ullr gains bonus physical power for 5s.
- Melee: Ullr gains bonus move speed for 5s.
- Physical Power (Bow): 10/20/30/40/50
- Move Speed (Axe): 20/25/30/35/40%
- Duration: 5s
- Cost: 60/65/70/75/80
- Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14s
- Hail of Arrows / Glory Bound
- Ranged: Ullr fires a volley at his target location, dealing damage.
- Melee: Ullr leaps to his target location, dealing damage in an AoE on arrival.
- Damage (Bow): 80/120/160/200/240 (+24)
- Damage (Axe): 50/80/110/140/170 (+10)
- Cost: 70/75/80/85/90
- Cooldown: 15s
- Wield Axes / Wield Bow
- Ullr changes stance.
- Ranged: Ullr uses his yew bow, gaining additional attack speed. Attack Speed (Bow): 5/10/15/2025%.
- Melee: Ullr uses his axes, gaining additional physical lifesteal. Physical Lifesteal (Axe): 5/10/15/20/25%.
God Model Updates and Visual Makeovers
- Aphrodite
- General
- Updates have been made to her 3D Model.
- General
- The Nightmare skin for Hades has been switched to the default model for Hades. Gold and Legendary skins have also been updated to use this model as their base.
- The “Classic” skin is still in the game and has been given to everyone that owned Hades up until this patch. New players can purchase the classic skin for 200 gems or 9500 favor. Players that previously purchased the Nightmare skin have all been refunded 400 gems.
Player Icons
- A new “Beta Tester” icon is available to view (but not buy) in the Player Icon Store. This icon will be given to all players that have reached Level 10 or greater when the beta ends (by ~9:00AM GMT March 25, 2014).
Skins
- Strider Ullr
- Golden Nemesis
- Dark Lord Sun Wukong
Items
- Recommended items have been updated for many gods.
General
- Several small changes have been made to the Recommended Items system:
- Some consumables may now have a quantity of greater than 1 recommended.
- There is no longer a separate list and grid view for Recommended Items, but formatting now scales dynamically based on whether there are 3 or 4 recommended items in a category.
- The Character Role dropdown has been centered and is more obvious.
- The display of pricing information has changed some.
- Killing Sprees have been updated to be every other kill, and will not repeat past the top goal. Naming has been adjusted. This change does not affect Multi-Kills.
- Killing Spree! (x3)
- Rampage! (x5)
- Unstoppable! (x7)
- Divine! (x9)
- Immortal! (x11)
- Godlike! (x13)
Spectator
- Fixed an issue in which Net and K/D/A were not populated on the lower info panel for the blue team.
- Made some backend changes to improve handling around stassis events.
Gods – Balance/Updates/Fixes
Note: Balance-affecting item and god updates are being minimized until after the $200,000 Launch Tournament.
- Anubis
- Grasping Hands
- Fixed an issue with some Stargazer skin FX persisting for too long.
- Tornadoes
- FX updated to more clearly indicate active damage time
- Broodlings
- Can no longer hide her eggs in towers
- Confound
- Fixed an issue in which taunted targets that were then stunned would continue to move.
- General
- New loading screen card.
- Ragnarok
- Fixed an issue in which jumping would cancel this ability. However, he can no longer jump during this ability.
- General
- Fixed an issue in which his inhand streak FX were not showing for the Golden/Legendary skins.
- World Weaver
- Now triggers Hydra’s Lament.
- Tidal Surge
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes result in the wave not being visible
- General
- Auto-buy items have been updated.
- General
- New loading screen card.
- Shards of Ice
- Addressed an issue in which Ymir could remain in crouching position when fired too early. Please report if this issue still appears.
- Recall Demons
- Fixed an issue in which jumping would cancel this ability.
- Fixed an issue in which Zhong Kui was sometimes unable to use basic attacks during ability. As a result, he will no longer be able queue up and have another ability ground target ready when Recall Demons is finished.
- Fixed an issue with Polynomicon passive not working.