A new god enters the arena of SMITE: Erlang Shen will appear this week – with his dog.
Erlang Shen – The Elevated Sage
In time for the start of summer, there is a new Chinese god in SMITE. Erlang Shen takes up the spear as a warrior and leads his dog into battle.
Let’s take a brief look at his abilities:
- The passive ability Howling Celestial Dog describes the dog that permanently accompanies Erlang Shen. Whenever Erlang performs an auto attack, the dog also strikes for 15% of his master’s damage. The dog can land critical hits and trigger item effects, but only at 15% of their original strength.
- Spot Weakness is a powerful self-buff. For 5 seconds, all of Erlang Shen’s attacks deal additional damage, and the attack penalty on movement speed is ignored. As long as the ability is on cooldown, each auto attack reduces the cooldown – allowing it to be kept active permanently, given sufficient mana.
- Pin lives up to its name. Erlang Shen pins his spear into the target area, dealing damage. Enemies in the center of the effect are briefly immobilized and crippled.
- 72 Transformations allows Erlang to dash forward quickly, triggering one of two effects – Ferret or Turtle. Ferret: All enemies he touches take damage. Upon contact with the first enemy god, he transforms back and gains additional attack speed for 6 seconds. Turtle: All enemies he touches take damage and are knocked up. Additionally, Erlang receives a shield for some health points.
- The ultimate ability 9 Turns Blessing taunts all enemies before Erlang Shen for a short time – they are forced to attack him. For 4 seconds, Erlang Shen takes less damage (up to 15%). If he is still alive at the end of the effect, he will be healed for a large amount.
Erlang Shen already appears to be the bane of any squishy character, capable of competing with assassins like Loki effortlessly. Especially with items that grant additional attack speed, he slices through mages and hunters in seconds.
New Skins and Balancing Changes
Of course, new skins are also on the way, as Bellona, Khepri, and Fenrir will receive new looks that can be earned through the event “Summer of Smite”.
Alongside the patch, there will also be some changes to existing gods. Aphrodite will enjoy a new passive ability that grants her additional protection, based on the number of allies nearby. Vulcan will now receive a mana and speed buff whenever he hits an enemy with an ability.
A full list of all changes can be found in our sources. The patch will be released this week if no major bugs are found.
For more news and articles about the god MOBA, visit our SMITE game page.
