Smite's Next Patch Introduces a Giant Walking Bat and a Halloween Map

The details of Smite's next patch, update 3.19, have been revealed, and the major addition is a new character: a giant walking bat who can "drink the essence" dead players leave behind. (It's less gross than it sounds, I promise.)

Camazotz is an Assassin who's referred to as the Deadly God of Bats. The drinking business comes from his passive, Essence Drinker: whenever any god (be it a teammate or enemy) dies, they leave behind a pool of essence that lasts for a few minutes. By standing in it, Camazotz consumes it over the course of a few seconds, recovering health and mana. This can be done while in combat, but recovery is twice as fast when done outside of combat. Essence Drinker also provides Camazotz with a constant vampirism bonus, which translates to a five percent bonus to lifesteal and healing.

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As with another recent character, Terra, Camazotz's abilities appear to be straightforward, but several have additional layers. Devour is the simplest, jumping to a target location, dealing damage, and healing himself based on the number of enemies hit.

Screech is more involved; it's a line attack that pierces through minions and deals damage. If it hits an enemy god, it causes an echo to shoot out in several directions, which bounces off of walls (like Hou Yi's Ricochet arrow). If Camazotz is able to collect one of those, he gains vision of that enemy and bonus physical power against all enemies for 15 seconds.

Vampire Bats is another line attack, but a shorter range one than Screech. It hits a single target, dealing damage, slowing them by 30 percent, and healing Camazotz. However, if used on a jungle buff monster (it has to be the one that drops the buff), it marks them, healing Camazotz and giving him an additional vampirism buff, providing three percent additional lifesteal and healing for 210 seconds. This can stack up to three times, in addition to the base vampirism buff he has at all times.

Finally, his Ultimate, Bat Out of Hell, sends Camazotz up into the air, where he flies for three seconds. He's immune to crowd-control effects during this and can swoop down up to three times, dealing damage to all enemies hit. Hitting additional enemy gods increases the damage by 10 percent per on each subsequent god.

Also in this patch are a bunch of new skins. Neith gets the Scarlet Dangerfield skin (which, amazingly, uses the real name of a Hi-Rez employee) that gives her an evil spy type of look, complete with an eyepatch and guns. Fenrir gets a wolfman look that gives him a ripped shirt, a gem-ified version of Agni, and Plague-Bearer Izanami, who looks like a plague doctor. You can see all of these in the gallery below.

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The Arena map has been decorated to have a Halloween theme, and the Scary Potion is making a return. This time it has a "brand new formula." Using last year's caused faces to flash on-screen whenever you or a nearby character died.

Additionally, there are new achievements for Zhong Kui, Kali, Ne Zha, and Cabrakan, as well as a number of balance changes. Runeforged Hammer is dropping in price from 2400 to 2000 and losing 10 physical power, but its aura now provides a 15 percent buff, up from 10. Ritual Dagger also drops in price (2000 to 1850) but loses half of its attack speed buff (going from 20 percent to 10). Gem of Isolation gains some magical power (increasing from 70 to 90) to make it a more viable choice.

The character side is also limited to just a few gods, but there are some significant changes. Medusa's are the least significant, with two abilities (Acid Spray and Lacerate) now costing less mana to use. Chaac gets some quality-of-life changes: Torrent can be used while he's crippled as long as he doesn't have an axe deployed, and the ability should more reliably hit the enemies within its range. Storm Call, his Ultimate, now doesn't provide a bonus when used within range of his axe, but it deals more damage and has additional power scaling.

Scylla also gets a change involving cripples; Sentinel can be cast while crippled, though she can't jump to it until that effect wears off. Crush now costs more mana, but it also deals more damage and scales higher. Hi-Rez says this is to improve her in the early game, giving her the ability to deal more damage while needing to be smart about how and when it's used.

Finally, Susano is again being tweaked. Hi-Rez previously nerfed him and feels he's now balanced, but it acknowledged he can be frustrating to play against because of how mobile he is and how much damage he can do. His Ultimate has been dialed back slightly so it only knocks enemies up when it's fully charged. And it now takes more time before Storm Kata's first hit is cast, while both the first and second hit each do less damage. However, the third part of it--the dash--now deals some damage. Previously, it only allowed him to move, but not deal damage.

You can check out the full patch notes on Smite's website. It should be released on the live game on PC and consoles in the coming weeks.