Two weeks have passed again, during which the developers of Hi-Rez had plenty of time to develop new content for SMITE. Even though the new season just started recently, they are now bringing a new goddess to the battlefield: Bellona, the Mistress of War!
Bellona: Because everything else wouldn’t be complicated enough!
The Roman goddess of war loves – how could it be otherwise – nothing more than battle, and this is reflected in all her abilities. She takes on the role of a warrior, but will be counted among the more offensive variants.
Her passive “Master of War” grants her +5 protection and +6% movement speed for 5 seconds with every received or executed attack, stacking up to 5 times. Normally, Bellona fights with her two-handed sword, but depending on the ability used, her weapon changes.
- With “Shield Bash”, she charges forward and deals low damage. For every god hit, she receives a “Block” stack, which is consumed by received autoattacks. As long as she has stacks remaining, she takes no damage from autoattacks and instead reflects 30% of the damage taken in an area around her. After using this ability, she retains the shield, and every 3rd autoattack grants her a new “Block” stack until she leaves the fight.
- “Bludgeon” swaps her current weapon for a massive war hammer. She deals damage around her and then in a straight line in front of her. As long as she remains in the fight, she retains the hammer, and every autoattack hits all targets in melee range.
- Activating “Scourge” swaps Bellona’s weapon for a scourge (a type of whip) and deals damage in a straight line in front of her. Hit targets are affected by a new mechanic called “Disarm” and cannot use autoattacks for a short time. Bellona retains the whip until she leaves the fight, has increased melee range, and every 3rd whip strike heals her for a small amount.
- Her Ultimate “Eagle’s Rally” summons a war standard at the target location. Directly hit enemies take damage and are briefly stunned. The flag remains for several seconds and grants allies in a large radius both protection and physical power.
As you can see, Bellona has a variety of attacks that will surely take a lot of time to master. Perhaps just the right challenge for bored MOBA players? (Honest opinion: Mechanically, they could have made Bellona into 3 different gods!)
New Skins: Hercules, Scylla, and new Ymir model
The new patch brings, of course, as usual, new skins. Hercules gets his “La Roca” skin, which is obviously meant to resemble a wrestler. Instead of a mace, he now wields a (more or less) threatening, bent folding chair as a weapon.
Scylla also gets a new look, her “Daisy Despari” skin is probably not for people with weak nerves or those who have developed a phobia of dolls. She still looks damn cool.
The two mentioned skins, of course, come with a new voice pack each.
Lastly, the beloved Frost Giant Ymir is being revamped. His appearance has been thoroughly polished and now more closely matches the graphical standards of the newer gods. These enhancements affect both the normal and a variety of his special skins (TwitchYmir, Nuclear Winter, Golden, Legendary, and Diamond). To celebrate the enhancements, the frosty fellow now also has a dance added so he can show everyone who is the coolest on the field.
Balance change (Yes. Exactly one.)
There seem to be no major injustices on the battlefield of the gods at the moment. Only Hou Yi is receiving a tiny little overhaul. With his ability “Dive Bomb”, he can now also jump over obstacles created by players, such as Ymir’s ice wall or Anhur’s obelisks.
Otherwise, the patch contained a lot of bug fixes. However, the issues only occurred for a very small percentage of players, so most improvements are unlikely to be very noticeable. Unless there are any problems, the patch will go live next Tuesday, or at the latest Wednesday. If you want, you can try out the new goddess on the test servers this weekend.
If you enjoy playing SMITE but want to learn more about it first, we recommend our SMITE review.
