Smite’s Hunting Season Patch Adds Latest God Cernunnos

It’s Wednesday once again and for the Smite community this means one thing, the latest patch notes for the free-to-play MOBA have been revealed. Which sees the usual stuff for the game be added such as skins, a new round of character balances to be introduced that sees both Xbalanque and Zhong-Kui receive a much needed buff.

Though, with the latest patch being an even number this also means that a new character is introduced into the game which is none other than Cernunnos. Who is the second god to be introduced for the recently added Celtic pantheon and will fall under the hunter role. Although falling under the hunter role, Cernunnos has some pretty interesting traits in his kit as his glaive is capable of being a ranged attack and hitting multiple with it if they happen to be in melee range at the same time.

Check out Cernunnos kit below:

Cernunnos:

• Passive – Heavy Glaive: Cernunnos wields a glaive as a weapon. His Basic Attacks deal additional damage to all enemies in melee range while he is throwing it.
• Shifter of Seasons: Cernunnos imbues his glaive with the power of the 4 seasons. Activating this ability rotates him through 4 different bonuses to his Basic Attacks:
  •  Spring Growth: Bonus Physical Lifesteal
  • Summer Heat: Bonus Damage
  • Autumn Decay: Debuff for 5s
  • Winter Chill: Slows for 1s

• Bramble Blast: Cernunnos fires a thorn forward in a line that deals damage and roots a single enemy it hits. When it hits an enemy, a wall, or reaches max range it explodes dealing damage and spawning an area of thorns at the location. This area deals damage every .5s and slows enemies inside it persisting for 5s.
• Horn Charge: Cernunnos charges forward, damaging and crashing through all types of enemies.
• The Wild Hunt: Cernunnos selects an area where The Wild Hunt will begin. After a 1s casting time, enemies in the area will be damaged and polymorphed into wild boars. Polymorphed targets are Silenced and Disarmed. Polymorph is not affected by diminishing returns.

Aside from Cernunnos being included, here’s what you can expect to see in terms of skins for Smite. That sees Chronos receiving a very special skin courtesy of the two-time world champions “NRG”. However, with St. Patricks Day looming around the corner Hi-Rez are getting in the spirit by adding a Leprechaun skin for Loki.

Check out the full list of new skins below:

• The Morrigan – Twisted Metal
• Izanami – Dreadful Doll
• Loki – Loki Charms *
• Chronos – NRG Champion
• Kukulkan – Breezy Chibi
• Bellona – Pro League
• Cernunnos – Samhain
• Kuzenbo – Mastery Skins

*Available in the St. Patrick’s bundle that will also come with the Pot’o gold ward and Shower’o gold recall skin.

As per usual with every patch, here’s some of the character changes you can see to be implemented once the patch goes live. That see’s both Xbalanque and Zhong Kui receives both to help them out:

Xbalanque

• Branching Bolas: Reduced Mana Cost from 6/8/10/12/14 → 3/6/9/12/15 Mana per Shot
• Rising Jaguar: Increased Physical Power scaling from 20% → 30%. Increased Bonus Damage on Poisoned targets from 20% → 30%.

Zhong Kui

• Expose Evil: Increased the remaining damage dealt from 40% → 75% when Expose Evil is removed by Exorcism or Book of Demons.
• Exorcism: Reduced the time it takes for Demons created by Exorcism to reach Zhong Kui and heal him.
• Book of Demons: Updated Tooltip to make it clear that when Book of Demon removes Expose Evil it deals 75% of Expose Evil’s remaining damage.
• Recall Demons: Increased the Travel Speed of the Demons released by Recall Demons.

For the full list of character and items changes feel free to check out the official patch notes here.

Finally, for those console players wondering where the Valley To Victory patch is. Hi-Rez Studios has announced that the patch is set to arrive sometime next week due to them wanting to make sure the patch releases without any issues.

However, they’ve also announced due to the inclusion of adventure mode every odd number patch will be releasing at a much later date than usual. Despite this bad news for the console players, Hi-Rez also mentioned there won’t be any changes for when the even numbered patches are released meaning that when an odd number patch is released you can expect the next patch to be released the following week.