Smite gets Bob Ross skin in Happy Trees update
It’s no accident: Bob Ross is now in Smite. With today’s Happy Trees (also known as Patch 4.8) update to Hi-Rez Studios third-person MOBA, a series of cosmetics featuring everyone’s favorite public broadcasting painter are out.
Most importantly, Sylvanus is getting a Bob Ross skin, which turns the Roman god of the woods into a happy little tree with Bob Ross himself riding on top. Also included are a Bob Ross jump stamp (which splatters Ross’ face on the ground when leaping), a Bob Ross loading frame, and a loading screen featuring one of the painter’s famous mountain landscapes. The full bundle costs 700 gems or $9.99 if purchased through Twitch.
The update doesn’t bring just cosmetic changes, though. Balance tweaks are included, as well. Notably, Hi-Rez is testing out some changes to the way that the early game works. To help slow down snowballing, they’ll be decreasing the experience required to hit level 2, but increasing the amount needed to hit level 3 and 4. What’s more, Gold Fury will be harder to kill in the early game, ensuring that pushing lanes can’t take it to gain a massive bump in experience early on.
These changes won’t be hitting the live server right away, instead spending a few days on the public test server for Hi-Rez to keep an eye on. If they go well, they’ll be implemented into the game during the current patch.
Three items are getting tweaked. Emperor’s Armor is getting buffs to physical protections and its tower attack speed buff. Hastened Fatalis now costs more but gives more attack speed. Shogun’s Kusari costs less, gives less Magic Protection, but grants 10% more attack speed than before
As for the gods themselves, Ares now has more base physical protection, Chronos’ Stop Time does more damage and Rewind has a lower cooldown, Izanami’s Fade Away costs less mana at early ranks, Jing Wei’s Agility has a lower early level cooldown and is more powerful when used while jumping, Kukulkan’s Whirlwind now costs less mana at later ranks, Ravana’s 10-Hand Shadow Fist does less damage early and Mystic Rush carries less damage reduction, Serqet’s Catalyst and Last Breath both deal less damage early, Sun Wukong’s Magic Cudgel and Master’s Will now scale harder with physical power, and finally, Terra’s Blessing grants less movement speed. Whew.
Head over to the Smite page for the full details on Patch 4.8 and everything in the Happy Trees update.
Follow Taylor Cocke on Twitter @taylorcocke.
