Following the PC release of Smite, a new patch for PS4 and Xbox One has been released, called Patch 3.18. The patch doesn’t include any new characters or changes in game play. Instead, the patch comes with new skins. For example, there’s a steampunk-style skin for Ao Kuang and a Fire Lord skin for Ne Zha. The skins for Kuang and Zha are available through Odyssey as Odyssey items, which earn you Odyssey points when you purchase them.
The most amusing skin is the Monster Trainer skin for Erland Shen. It’s skin that looks like Shen is a Pokémon trainer, which is what the developers at Hi-Rez Studios were looking for. It’s not a direct depiction of Pokémon protagonist Ash Ketchum or any other Pokémon character. His companion is still a dog that can turn into the same turtle or mink, but it has a different color, akin to the differently colored Shiny Pokémon, in the anime and game, which are extremely hard to find. During the livestream release last month, one of the developers sarcastically said it was a completely unique skin that they had come up with and another said that it was completely original.
The Monster Trainer skin comes with new ability effects and new voice pack. Shen talks about going on an adventure. A major part of the skin is the use of puns. One example of a pun made is koala-fications instead of qualifications. Anyone who has seen the Gen 1 anime of Pokémon knows that seemingly every episode had several puns being made.
Patch 3.18 even adds new achievements and trophies for the player to earn. The new achievements and trophies are for Chronus, Sylvanus and Ne Zha, which receiving two, respectively. There are new balance changes. The most noticeable affect changes to characters are for Cupid and Terra.
Cupid’s Heart Bomb has a larger radius, but has a longer cool down. Share the Love doesn’t use stacks from his passive anymore. Flutter no longer provides attack speed when cast, but provides passive attack speed. The slow from Terra’s Crushing Earth has been removed. The root of her Monolith has been reduced and her Ultimate now has a longer cooldown, returning to 90 seconds once it’s completely leveled up.