Smite: Odyssey 2018 T5 Community Skin

Even though the Angelic Awilix skin hasn’t even hit our screens yet, Hi-Rez are already holding another community skin vote for the next T5 skin which will be the ultimate Odyssey 2018 reward. This will be a Limited skin and will only be available during the time of the Odyssey, which will arrive sometime later this year.

*Edit: Odyssey 2018 T5 skin WINNER has been announced!

*Edit: Voting on the Top 3 has opened. Check out my Odyssey 2018 T5 Skin Vote: Top 3 post to see the skin concepts!

*Edit (28/6/17): The T5 skin will be announced in 2 weeks at Dreamhack. The skin concepts (probably one for each hunter) will be open to vote on from 8th – 11th July and the winner will be announced at Dreamhack – probably on the Patch Notes show on 12th July. I will post again as soon as I hear about the opening of the skin vote.

*Edit: Voting on the class has now closed and Hi-Rez has announced that the next T5 skin will be for a HUNTER! Voting for the 3 hunters has now also closed and the top 5 hunters have been chosen.

*Edit: The Top 5 hunters have been chosen! You can now submit your concept ideas for Hou Yi, Jing Wei, Medusa, Skadi and Ullr! There are some Rules and Regulations to be aware of and all submissions need to be submitted here as a new thread. Here is an Information page about submitting if there’s anything you’re unsure about. I’m so happy Jing Wei has been selected, she is my favourite hunter and I can imagine some great things could be done with Hou Yi and Medusa too so I’m looking forward to having a look through the submission threads!

Last year Demonic Pact Anubis won the vote and made it into the game as the final reward for the Odyssey 2017 for reaching 73500 Odyssey points. In order to get the points for the reward you had to purchase in game content with gems, and the new addition last year where you could earn some Odyssey points by completing some in game quests.

This is what last year’s winning Anubis skin looks like, which unfortunately is no longer available, but for those of you that don’t know it has 4 forms. At levels 5, 10 and 15 the skin will change form, changing into the picture above for the final form. It’s very over the top with lots of visual effects, and to me it’s quite distracting when you change to the final form as the model gets bigger and just obstructs more of your view.

But anyway, the winning skin will be something similar to this. The only T5 skins are Archon Thanatos (2015), Ragnarok Force X Thor (2016) and Demonic Pact Anubis (2017). You, the community, will decide on the next one!

So here are all the dates you will need for when all the voting will take place:

• CLASS: 26th – 29th May. Vote for either Guardian, Warrior, Hunter, Assassin or Mage. Winner – HUNTER
• GOD: 29th May – 1st June. Vote on the God you want to see the skin for from the winning class. Vote for 3 hunters each, top 5 will go to next round.
• SUBMISSIONS: 2nd – 19th June. Design a concept for the chosen God/s and submit them to the Hi-Rez team (I believe last year there were 3 Gods chosen – Anubis, Sol and Kukulkan).
• CONCEPT VOTE: 8th – 11th July. Vote on your favourite skin/concept design from the submissions (I believe last year 1 submission for each of the 3 Gods were chosen to vote on).
• WINNER: Announced 12th July!

GW2: Awakening The Druid Stone

Awakening The Druid Stone is the 2nd stage to the Druid Stone Achievements. If you haven’t completed stage 1 yet, click here:

GW2: The Druid Stone – Draconis Mons

Once you have complete stage 1 The Druid Stone achievements, you have now unlocked stage 2. It is similar to stage 1, but there’s a lot more needed to be done.

Here is the achievement in the achievement panel. These collections are kind of grouped into 4 small sections within the achievement, so although it looks a lot it’s not too bad. But it does require you to do it over 3 days.

1. This is the backpack you unlock for completing stage 1 The Druid Stone.
2. Once you have this achievement unlocked, you need to go and kill the Greater Wardbough, located at the Eternal Pool (shown below). This will award you with the Element of the Wardbough.

3. You now need a complete Lodestone to combine with the Element of the Wardbough. You need 5 pieces to create a complete lodestone, you buy 4 for 1050 karma each from heart vendors and 1 from the unbound magic vendor for 1000 unbound magic and 1 gold. These can only be bought once per day per account.

4. Give this combined Lodestone to Kodama (see below for her location).

5. For this section you need to travel to Seraph Observers Waypoint in Brisban Wildlands. Talk to the Restless Arboreal Spirit (the hero challenge) and he will give you the Element of the Arbor.

6. You will need another complete Lodestone to combine with the Element of the Arbor.

7. Give the combined Lodestone to Kodama.

8. Next travel to Phinney Waypoint in Queensdale. Here you will need to kill the Rotting Ancient Oakheart (you might have to wait a few minutes for the event to start). This will award you with the Element of the Oakhearts.

9. Again you will need another complete Lodestone to combine with the Element of the Oakhearts.

10. Give this combined Lodestone to Kodama.

11. Give 3 Fire Orchids to Kodama. These Fire Orchids will need to be in your inventory to be able to give them to the Druids. They cannot be given if they are stored in the bank.

12. Give 3 Fire Orchids to Liriodendron.

13. Give 3 Fire Orchids to Broadleaf.

14. Give 3 Fire Orchids to Rosebud.

Pictures/Diagrams for the Druid’s Locations:

Kodama: Kodama can be found below the Heathen’s Hold Waypoint. Just run directly West of the waypoint, drop down a level to a ledge with a cave opening. If you drop down you should be directly above this platform. She is at the far end of the cave marked with the “Druid’s Grotto” POI.

Liriodendron: Start at Heathen’s Hold Waypoint, again go directly West and drop off the end but this time open your glider as soon as you can and glide directly East. You can land on this level at any time, but keep going East and turn at the last moment to find the Peace Grounds and Liriodendron.

Broadleaf: This is probably the most awkward one to get to as Broadleaf is all the way over the other side of the map. Start at Heathen’s Hold Waypoint and use the Thermal Tube directly North of the Waypoint, this will put you by the Volcano entrance. Turn around and glide into the updraft and then glide South-West without dropping otherwise you won’t make it… just keep gliding and leaning when you can. See the photos for more detail.

It was difficult to see the dots on this one so I added some arrows to show where you need to go.

Rosewood: Travel to Ancient Hollow Waypoint, slightly to the North you will find a Bouncy Mushroom sending you up a large branch to another Bouncy Mushroom. This will take you to a mossy platform with a large rock next to it. Rosewood is at the end of the rock.

Use these mushrooms to get to the platform I’m stood on. Rosewood is just off screen to my right in the 2nd picture.

When all of these achievements have been completed, the stage 3 achievement Sprouting The Druid Stone will now be unlocked and you will also be given the next tier backpack which looks like this:

Smite: 4.9 Patch Notes

Smite’s 4.9: Nine Tailed Terror patch has been announced for release next week on May 23rd (PC).

*Edit: This patch will be released on PC on the extended date of Wednesday 24th May. They are having some issues with the patch so please be patient as I expect the game might be down for the majority of the day. Console is usually 2 weeks after the PC release.

As always, if you haven’t seen the official patch notes yet, click here: https://www.smitegame.com/new-in-smite-nine-tailed-terror-4-9-pts-patch-notes/

The new Chinese Assassin, Da Ji, will be released with this patch and honestly she looks really awesome. 4.9 is a well timed patch for this god seeing as her model has 9 tails… I don’t know if someone picked up on this or whether it was a happy accident! She looks somewhat similar to Serqet and has the same kind of playstyle but without the ridiculous movement abilities.

Firstly, her passive: Torture Blades: applies a stack of bleeding on every basic attack causing damage over time ever second for 2 seconds (this can by stacked multiple times).

First ability: Horrible Burns: this ability adds fire to Da Ji’s next basic attack which applies burning, deals instant bonus damage and damage over time every second for 3 seconds (this can stack with the bleed from her basic attacks rather than replacing it).

Second ability: One Thousand Cuts: Da Ji gains increased movement speed and immunity to slows while in this ability. She lashes her claws 4 times over 2 seconds, dealing damage and adds the passive bleed to enemies hit and also gains damage mitigation from any damage received from enemies behind her.

Third Ability: Spirit Link: Da Ji selects a single ally or enemy god and teleports to them. If the target is an enemy she will deal damage and add the passive bleed as well as dealing damage to any other enemies stood close to the target. This also happens if she teleports to an ally who is stood next to an enemy.

Ultimate Ability: Pao Lao: Da Ji summons a large pillar (the Pao Lao, her signature torture device) and hovers above it. She can then shoot up to 3 enemies who will take damage from the shot and become chained to the pillar. When the time runs out on Da Ji’s shots, she will return to the ground where the enemies will be pulled to the Pao Lao, stunned and take additional damage. Any CC immunity will break the chain and the enemy will be free to go.

This is her recolour which I do like, but I actually think I prefer her original skin as I’m not a fan on the purple tails. The card art isn’t as good either.

There have been some other great skins this week, and not only that but most of them are actually directly purchasable!

This is probably my favourite skin of the patch, even though it’s only a T2 250 gem skin. It uses the original effects and voice pack but I really love the dark style… however I think I still prefer the Mini Metal skin. I love Jing Wei and I’ve been playing her a lot recently, making her my 4th Mastery X so I love that she’s getting some love from Hi-Rez with her recent buffs and new skins!

Carrying on with the Hunter theme, Medusa is the next to get a new skin (finally)! This skin is awesome and it seems Hi-Rez are continuing with this Cosmic theme on a few Gods since it was Sol that got a similar one last patch. I like this skin a lot; it has some great ability effects and it’s also directly purchasable which is great!

Kuzenbo also has a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed skin which will also be directly purchasable. I was surprised at the announcement of this skin since he only had a new skin last patch and he’s a fairly new god. Ganesha mastery skins have also been included in this patch.

A gargoyle style skin has been shown for Camazotz. I really like this skin and even though the voice packs wouldn’t work on the Twitch Patch Notes show, it seems a decent one from the preview on the official patch notes page. This one will be in a chest (probably a new 55 item chest as the Astral Assassin chest expires when this patch will be released) which is a bit disappointing but I don’t really play Camazotz anyway. He also has a new dance emote.

“Balance”: There have been quite a few changes to early levelling in Conquest. I’m not going to go into this as it’ll explain it better in the official patch notes, so follow the link at the top if you want to know more. *Edit: I believe these changes are no longer coming with patch 4.9 and are still being looked at before release.

Item changes:

• Chronos Pendant’s power has been increased from 60 – 80 which is a huge buff as I still see mages building this all the time.
• Gauntlet of Thebes’ health has been reduced from 400 – 350.
• Stone of Fal has had a price reduction from 2800 to 2700.
• Shifter’s Shield has had quite a big change. Now when you are over the health threshold you will gain more power and less protections and when you are below the threshold you switch to have more protections and less power. This could be quite an interesting change and possibly a new favourite pick for assassins.

God Changes:

• CERNUNNOS IS GETTING A NERF FINALLY! Why did this take so long to happen? The power scaling of Summer Heat has been decreased from 20% to 10% and the Bramble Blast has an increased cooldown from 13 seconds to 15 seconds.
• Susano’s Ult has been nerfed so now it’s easier to get out of it rather than being majorly sucked into it.
• And obviously Odin has been buffed… because why not, it’s not like he’s powerful enough already. Gungnir’s Might now does 45-125 power instead of 35-95 and the 2nd swing now slows……..

From May 19th – 21st players will be awarded a chest for 3 FWOTD:

• Friday 19th – Enigma Chest
• Saturday 20th – Cutesy Avatar Chest
• Sunday 21st – Enigma Chest

There is also a new Cutesy Scylla coming in this patch, so if you want a chance to roll this avatar then hold onto your chest until the patch release, likewise for a chance at getting the new direct purchase skins in the enigma chests!

*Enigma chests have a chance of unlocking any non-exclusive item such as a T1 (recolour)and T2 (250 gem) skin, voice pack, ward, avatar, a 3-day booster or a rare chance of a T3 (400 gem) or T4 (600 gem) skin.

GW2: The Druid Stone – Draconis Mons

Draconis Mons is the new area brought to Guild Wars 2 with the 5th Episode of Living World Season 3: Flashpoint. I didn’t get chance to play this as soon as it came out, so over the past few days I’ve spent a fair amount of time completing the area and working towards the achievements – particularly The Druid Stone achievements.

This is where the new area is located within Tyria on the map and what it looks like:

It includes 4 replayable Renown Hearts (daily reset), 3 Waypoints, 22 Points of Interest and 5 Vistas. It is set on multiple levels similar to Bloodstone Fen so it can be difficult to navigate at first, especially as there’s only 3 waypoints, but it seems smaller than it looks and it’s fairly easy to glide to the places you need to get to.

Now you’ve seen the area I will move onto one of the achievements called “The Druid Stone”. This is a tiered achievement so I will tell you about the first step in this post. This will unlock a backpack which as the tiers progress will unlock on ascended backpack.

If you have completed the first stage, click here for the Awakening The Druid Stone guide: https://gamergalexe.wordpress.com/2017/05/26/gw2-awakening-the-druid-stone/

Firstly you need to complete the story… I won’t talk about that because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but I found it somewhat disappointing and slightly random considering I’ve waited over 12 weeks to play it.

So this is The Druid Stone achievement log in the achievement panel:

You will need to do 7 things for this achievement, the first being completing the story… so that’s 6 more to go!

1. Complete the story instance “Heart of the Volcano” (the last part).
2. Create a Druid Runestone: Combine 5 Runestone fragments to create a complete Druid Runestone. 4 of these fragments are bought from the Heart vendors after you have completed each one and cost 1050 Karma. The other is bought from the Unbound Magic Vendor for 1000 Unbound Magic and 1 Gold.
3. Give the Completed Druid Runestone to Kodama: Kodama can be found the level below Heathen’s Hold Waypoint. She is at the far end of the cave marked with the “Druid’s Grotto” POI (see pictures below).
4. Bring a Fire Orchid to Kodama: Harvest a Fire Orchid and keep it in your inventory to give to Kodama. You cannot give a Fire Orchid that has been deposited. Interact with her to give her the Orchid.
5. Bring a Fire Orchid to Liriodendron: Liriodendron can be found at the “Peace Grounds” POI on the very East side of the map (see pictures below).
6. Bring a Fire Orchid to Broadleaf: South West of the map, high on a ledge – you will need to see the pictures below for this one as it’s hard to explain and no so easy to get to.
7. Bring a Fire Orchid to Rosewood: Near the Ancient Hollow Waypoint (see pictures below).

Pictures/Diagrams for the Druid’s Locations:

Kodama: Kodama can be found below the Heathen’s Hold Waypoint. Just run directly West of the waypoint, drop down a level to a ledge with a cave opening. If you drop down you should be directly above this platform. She is at the far end of the cave marked with the “Druid’s Grotto” POI.

Liriodendron: Start at Heathen’s Hold Waypoint, again go directly West and drop off the end but this time open your glider as soon as you can and glide directly East. You can land on this level at any time, but keep going East and turn at the last moment to find the Peace Grounds and Liriodendron.

Broadleaf: This is probably the most awkward one to get to as Broadleaf is all the way over the other side of the map. Start at Heathen’s Hold Waypoint and use the Thermal Tube directly North of the Waypoint, this will put you by the Volcano entrance. Turn around and glide into the updraft and then glide South-West without dropping otherwise you won’t make it… just keep gliding and leaning when you can. See the photos for more detail.

It was difficult to see the dots on this one so I added some arrows to show where you need to go.

Rosewood: Travel to Ancient Hollow Waypoint, slightly to the North you will find a Bouncy Mushroom sending you up a large branch to another Bouncy Mushroom. This will take you to a mossy platform with a large rock next to it. Rosewood is at the end of the rock.

Use these mushrooms to get to the platform I’m stood on. Rosewood is just off screen to my right in the 2nd picture.

After interacting with all the Druids and giving them the Orchids, The Druid Stone achievement will now be complete. You will be rewarded with the unlock for the next tier “Awakening The Druid Stone” (which I will talk about next time) and the backpack which looks like this:

Smite: Angelic Awilix – WINNER of the Community Skin Competition

This year’s community skin vote has now come to a close with the winning skin being Midnight Dove Awilix by Oreo! The original design can be seen in the featured picture and the Hi-Rex concept is shown below.

Congrats to Oreo for getting their skin concept in the game! Hi-Rez have announced that this skin will be coming into Smite with patch 4.14 (but knowing Hi-Rez it’s likely it will be delayed a few patches).

For those of you that are new to Smite, Fallen Lord Chronos was last year’s winner which is 400 gems in game available for direct purchase, so I’m hoping this will be similar… although I can see it being 600 gems.

Hopefully Hi-Rez will review more community skins on a more regular basis as I have seen so many skins (mainly on Reddit) that really should be created in game. Some of the new skins are just becoming too cheesy in my opinion so looking at some that the community have made would be such a great idea.

Plus it would also be nice to have some more skins for direct purchase as the majority are now being put in chests… and releasing a new 55 item chest every few patches is just irritating… I WANT SKINS! And I’m still waiting for Nox’s updated mastery skins…

Smite: Top 3 Angelic Awilix Community Skin Vote

*Edit: This competition has now closed and the winner has been announced. Check out my post about the winning skin concept here:

https://gamergalexe.wordpress.com/2017/05/12/smite-angelic-awilix-winner-of-the-community-skin-competition/

It’s that time again everyone. It’s time for the next stage of the Awilix community skin vote. Here is the link you need to place your vote which will be active until May 11th:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/M2SG7TT

Here are the top 3 skins as voted by you, the community (these pictures are the Hi-Rez concepts so this is the closest to what they will look like in game):

1. Midnight Dove (by Oreo)

2. Immaculate Moonlight (by DaGipsyKing)

3. Angelic (by Julia Brand)

If you’ve seen my previous post you will know how much I love the Midnight Dove skin since I first saw it. I think all 3 concepts have come together nicely and I like the Angelic (skin 3) a lot more after seeing the Hi-Rez concept than I did before.

I can see Midnight Dove working as a 600 gem skin and Angelic as a 400 gem skin, but I can’t place the Immaculate Moonlight skin… I think out of all 3 it looks the least like Awilix.

Congrats to the 3 artists who got this far and good luck in the next stage. Make sure your vote for you favourite to increase the chance of seeing it in game. The winner of the competition will be announced May 12th!

Smite: 4.8 Patch Notes

I’ve been super busy this week and haven’t even had time to watch the patch notes show on Twitch… but I have read through the official patch notes which you can read here if you haven’t seen them yet:

https://www.smitegame.com/new-in-smite-happy-trees-4-8-patch-notes/

So we’re now on 4.8 – Happy Trees… Season 4 has gone fast. It doesn’t seem 2 minutes since the summer split was announced, and that was over 2 weeks ago! I’ll try and keep this short since I’m not as clued up on this patch as the others.

Starting with skins… I love the Cosmic Sol skin, but I much prefer her original voice pack. Honestly I’m not keen on the other skins. I just find the Queen’s Guard Erlang skin way too cheesy (maybe because I’m English) and I don’t understand why Thoth has yet another skin since he had one in 4.5. However since I’m an Obey fan, I do like the Thanatos skin, even though I’m not a Thanatos player. I’ll get onto the Sylvanus one later…

I’m so so so pleased that Jing Wei has had another buff! I think she’s strong after her previous buff, so with this extra power and movement speed after her dash (agility), this will just make her so much stronger. The power scales from 10 – 30 with 20% movement speed, or when used in the air 20 – 40 power scaling and 30% movement speed. This will just be so much more rewarding for playing a little bit riskier.

Serqet is another god I like to play at the moment so I was sad to see she will be nerfed. She will now only have 10% more damage on people inflicted with 2 poisons instead of 15% and he ultimate won’t do as much damage early game.

Now onto the Bob Ross event… I’m sorry everyone but I just don’t get why this is appealing. This is a bundle that will cost 700 gems and will contain the Bob Ross Sylvanus skin, a loading frame which paints your card art as you load, a jump stamp (which shows Bob Ross’ face) and a loading screen skin.

Lastly, it’s almost time for the next stage of the Awilix Community Skin vote which will start on May 9th. I’ll be sure to post as soon as that is announced, so stay tuned for more info!