Nu Wa Patch 5th December 2013

Nu Wa, Guardian of Heaven by Hirez Maria | Dec 05, 2013 New God: Nu Wa Play Video Elemental Crystals Elemental Crystals (Passive) Nu Wa draws upon the power of the five-colored elemental crystals. When she uses an ability, it activates its corresponding crystal for 10s, granting her an additional bonus. When all crystals are active, Nu Wa transforms into her true snake form, refreshing the duration of all crystal bonuses for another 10s. Earth Crystal Bonus (always active) - +10 HP5 Fog Fog Nu Wa condenses moisture into fog at her location which follows her at 95% of her movement speed for 8s. She and all allies are stealthed while inside the fog. Attacking breaks the stealth effect. Enemies caught inside the fog cloud are slowly choked for 10/20/30/40/50 (+10% of her magical power) magical damage every second. This ability also activates Nu Wa's Water Crystal, granting her an increased move speed aura. Water Crystal Bonus - 10/15/20/25/30% Move Speed Cost - 70, Cooldown 14s, Fog Radius 20 ft Clay Soldiers Nu Wa conjures clay minions from the earth. These minions have health equal to 200 plus 20% of Nu Wa's maximum health and will push lanes and attempt to attack nearby structures. Using this ability also activates Nu Wa's Earth Crystal, granting her a physical protection aura. Minions Summoned - 1/2/3/4/5 Minion Damage - 20 per hit Minion Lifetime - 8s Earth Crystal Bonus - 10/15/20/25/30 Physical Protection Cost - 60/70/80/90/100, Cooldown 18s Flame Strike Flame Strike Nu Wa conjures an intense burst of flame at her target location dealing 60/100/140/180/220 (+60% of her magical power) magical damage, stunning enemies and enemy structures for 1s and igniting them for additional 5/10/15/20/25 (+10% of her magical power) magical damage every second for 2s. The damage increases the closer Nu Wa is to the source when cast, up to 1.5x at point blank range. This ability activates Nu Wa's Fire Crystal, granting her basic attacks splash damage that applies on-hit item effects. Fire Crystal Bonus - Basic attacks hit targets within 15 ft for 50% damage Cost - 70/75/80/85/90, Cooldown 12s Pillars of Heaven Pillars of Heaven Nu Wa summons the pillars of heaven to imprison her enemies. Four metal pillars create a square with an electrical field. Enemies who pass through the field take 100/150/200/250/300 (+50% of her magical power) magical damage and are slowed by 35/40/45/50/55% for 3s. This ability also activates Nu Wa's Metal Crystal, granting her basic attacks increased damage. Metal Crystal Bonus - 2x Basic Attack damage Cost - 80/90/100/110/120, Cooldown 60s New Skins: Amethyst Nu Wa Golden Thanatos Golden Zhong Kui Voicepacks: Nu Wa General: - The Friends list has undergone a major UI overhaul. It is now accessed through a new user interface on the bottom right side of the main menu screens. The Party menu is accessed from the PLAY Screen. Expect future improvements to the Party and Play systems in the future. - The new-user Tutorial has been revamped. - Preliminary support for DirectX 11 with Anti-Aliasing has been added to the SETTINGS menu under the VIDEO tab. Users may discover some visual oddities in this mode. Please report any discoveries. Improvements will be made in future versions. - The background on the God Screen and Home Screen has been modified. - Jump is now enabled on all gods. For this patch, the following jumps were added: Arachne, Artemis, Kali, Loki, Nu Wa, Sobek, Vamana, Vulcan, Xbalanque - Deployables like Ymir's Wall should no longer collide with player cameras. Instead you will see red or blue overlay meshes for characters hidden behind them. - Fixed an issue with "Featured Videos" not showing on the landing page widget when first loading in. - Changed the wording of store bought actives from "Abilities" to properly say "Actives" on the Scoreboard. - When in a party AND in queue, you will no longer be able to change your Loading Portrait. This is subject to change at a later date. - The default tab on the Profile screen has changed. - Fixed a rare issue in which someone could be assigned an unreleased god in Assault. - Several minor bug fixes and cleanups to bot AI in practice matches. - The free god rotation is now Bastet, Hades, He Bo, Tyr, and Xbalanque Spectator: - Tweaked the height and view angle of the overview camera in assisted mode. - Made some minor art adjustments in the Conquest map based on the new height and view angle. Future patches will have further refinements. - While in assisted or directed mode, clicking on a player's in-world avatar with the mouse cursor will set that player as the view target and move the camera to their position. - Added a zoom feature to assisted and directed mode, bound by default to Z for zooming in and C for zooming out. - Improved audio quality; more sounds from the play-space should be audible in directed and assisted mode. - Fixed an issue where a synced spectator's camera view could get reset when the sync master rewound. Active Items: - Aegis Amulet's highest tier has been split into two tier 3 variants - Aegis Amulet Using this item makes you invulnerable to damage for 2s, preventing you from taking action. After the invulnerability fades, you gain a 20% damage reduction buff for 4s. This can be used even while under the effects of crowd control. Cooldown - 120s. - Aegis Pendant Using this item makes you invulnerable to damage for 2s, preventing you from attacking but allowing you to move. Crowd control effects will still apply. After the invulnerability fades, you gain a 20% damage reduction buff for 4s. Cooldown - 120s. - This item has undergone significant changes: - The price of the item remains the same. - Tier 1 Cooldown increased from 60s to 90s - Tier 2 Now spawns a standard Ward instead of Sentry Ward, which cannot see through stealth or reveal other wards. - Tier 3 Now spawns a Sentry Ward instead of Super Ward, which respects Line of Sight and can't see through walls. Gods: Rain Fire -The warmup hit area indicator FX now shows 0.5s earlier for both friendly and enemy players. Note: The warm up did not get longer, the FX are visible earlier (more warning). Swarm - Fixed an issue where the projectile could explode if it hit an enemy deployable. Back Off! - The explosion for this ability now goes off at both Aphrodite and her target's location. Any targets within the overlapping area are hit only once by the explosion originating from Aphrodite, applying Knockback but no Slow. - Updated the description to indicate that the knockback applied always pushes enemies back to a set distance away from her (25 ft). General - Now gains 0.9 magical protections per level, to be consistent with all other Assassins Broodlings - Fixed an issue where sometimes the spiders would spawn underneath the map. General - Fixed an issue where he could still cast Bolster Defenses while continuing to recall. General - Magi's Blessing was not properly referencing the highest tier in her Recommended Items Drunk-O-Meter - Fixed typo in the passive meter. We were a bit "Tipsy". Cat Call - The Ground Targeter should now properly indicate when this ability can't be used General - Fixed the rabbit getting stuck near the Phoenix in Joust. - Fixed an issue in which some of her Recommended Items were not properly referencing the highest ranks whereas Sprint and Meditation were incorrectly using the highest ranks. -No longer gains magical protection with each level, to be consistent with other mages Moonlit Waltz - Reduced the invulnerability duration and fire time by 0.2s on the tail end Moonflower Dance - Reduced damage and healing from 50/80/110/140/170 to 50/75/100/125/150 General - Improvements made to jump for the Lil' Devil skin. Share The Love - Improved the visual treatment when the ground targeter is in an invalid location. Ragnarok -Targets that are stealthed when grabbed are now revealed while held General - No longer gains magical protection with each level, to be consistent with other mages Repulse / Inspire - Increased move speed granted from 10/12.5/15/17.5/20% to 15/17.5/20/22.5/25% Earthbreaker - Fixed an issue where targets could jump to avoid being tossed. General - Her 3D targeting meshes have been turned back on. General - Removed a few random characters in his description. Made You Look -Now correctly indicates that it scales off of Basic Attack damage rather than Item-based Physical Power Sonic Boom - Hydra's Lament and Hydra's Demise no longer proc when the targeter is canceled. Wind Fire Wheels - Ne Zha is now immune to root effects while dashing Odin's Shout - Fixed typo showing % physical power in the K screen. Lurking in the Water - High Seas Skin - Fixed an issue in which the canons were not playing their FX when damage occurred. General - Sprint and Meditation were incorrectly using the highest ranks in his Recommended Items Undefeated Body - Reduced the health threshold at which the protection and critical strike bonuses apply from 50% to 35% Somersault Cloud - Cooldown increased from 90s at all ranks to 110/105/100/95/90s Death Scythe - Increased healing on successful hit from 50% of damage dealt to 75% Hovering Death - Bonus move speed while flying increased from 100% to 150% - Fixed an issue with his landing animation playing twice. Mjolnir's Attunement - Reduced cooldown from 14s to 12s General - Meditation was incorrectly using the second rank in his Recommended Items Fearless - Enemies caught in the pushback that are stealthed will be revealed Backfire - Fixed an issue in which Vulcan could be stuck moving backwards. - Fixed an issue in which Vulcan could sometimes get stuck in hunchback pose under some circumstances Inferno Cannon - Fixed an issue where it would target towers. Magma Bomb - Updated the targeter to be more clear where the center of the blast will be. Branching Bola - Toggling this ability will no longer interrupt basic attack refire times. - Right-click no longer cancels the toggled on status. - Fixed an issue with multiple buff icons showing up. Shards of Ice - Updated visual FX during buildup. This should also fix an issue where the FX were playing to completion even if this ability was interrupted early. General - Basic attacks will now apply an electrocution death to minions they kill Chain Lightning - Now applies an electrocution death to minions it kills Lightning Storm - Increased the buildup time from 0.6s to 0.9s - Reworded the tooltip to indicate each hit applies a charge Demon Bag - Buff tooltip text updated to show correct value of 2 protections per stack

This patch will be an interesting one.

The new god, of course, will be fun to try out. Definitely want to see how OP she'll be starting out because she's sounding pretty intense.

Chang'e got smacked down pretty good, but curious to see if it'll really be that much of a hindrance when actually playing.

The cooldown change on Sun Wukong's ult seems pretty fair.

I'm not sure how I feel about the speed increase on Thanatos' Hovering Death. Seems a bit unnecessary to me, but I'm sure it's nice for people who play him a lot.

Everything else seems pretty good.

Chang'E shall henceforth be known as Irelia

It's nice that Nu Wa looks so good, because everything else about this patch is just terrible. I thought HiRez was starting to put forth a serious effort to balance the game after the last patch (which was a step in the right direction,) and then this one comes out and just falls back into the same trap of trying to change the game around low level casual outcomes and adding OP stuff for flash.

I don't know why there's absolutely no effort to balance the game around competitive play. They won't even add extra bans to ranked to make up for the fact that there are almost ten gods that should be banned. The lack of nerfs to gods like Agni, He Bo and Mercury just shows either complete cluelessness, or a set of priorities that worries me about the future of the game. Who wants to play a game that's all about adding new stuff, and not about creating a balanced environment? It's a bad trap to fall into when you just care about the instant gratification. The new god looks great! it'll be loads of fun to have 'another' god that needs banned or played in every match.

I know they want to fall back on the beta excuse, but I'm starting to fear that Smite just isn't going in the right direction.

Edit: Also, I can't tell what looks more broken, Nu Wa's 1, or the new Aegis. An 8 second long team wide stealth on a 2 second cooldown or a 2 second invincibility that you can activate while you're stunned. Good luck ever killing a Wukong again.

Im glad they are buffing Aphrodite so much, i don't play her, but i wanna see more aphro's =)

I'm so ****ing hyped for Nu Wa. Although I wanted her to look like a true snake, not a half one... Anyway, seems that she'll have an interesting system. Her ult reminds me of Thresh's from League, which is not a bad thing( I actually love it). And finally, she is another god with Stealth. Loki is not alone anymore. Expect me to instalock her for a while.

Good buff on Hel, although she didn't need one.


I'm waiting for next week's Kali rework.

You are the people I let die in a fight...

Really? Good team mate you're.

So, guys, I screamed for about a good 5 minutes upon seeing these notes.

Like, really... expect so much love for Nu Wa from me.

I like this patch. The changes are really good. I'm so glad that Arachne finally gets magical protections scaling (Sunfall is happy too, no doubt).

I'm actually scared to play until I see a Nu Wa nerf 0-0