Pele - A Closer Look

Forum » News » Pele - A Closer Look 8 posts - page 1 of 1

WHO IS PELE?

Pele is the goddess of Fire, of Dance and Wind, and most importantly, Volcanoes. She is highly regarded in Hawaiian culture, and often referred to as Madame Pele out of respect.

OUR VISION

Pele is respected, strong, and caring, but she is not flawless. Her lore is filled with violent tales of her battling her siblings and acting hastily. She has many human qualities, and although she is a powerful creator, she also must grapple with difficult emotions like jealousy and judgement-clouding passion.

Theme – Fire (Specifically Volcanic)
Visuals – Hawaiian Heroine
Personality – Confident yet emotional[/b]
Perspective – Viewed as a savior or protector

Pele created the Hawaiian Islands herself. These islands flourished with life and became incredibly beautiful.

Pele's lore and themes clearly dictate an explosive playstyle. We have fire gods already, but we wanted to add a twist to this one, so we decided to make her an Assassin. Both her lore of shaping the land and her Hawaiian culture felt aligned with her being more "hands on" in battle, as opposed to just hurling flames from range.

To make a female, fiery, magma, rogue we focused on a few key elements. Light armor that allowed her to be flexible incorporated lava rock, and had clear Hawaiian influence. Accent pieces like symbols and her headdress to feature her culture even more. And finally, Magma blades to solidify her role and theme.

We revealed her early concept to the community and we got a lot of feedback. Many people were extremely positive about her visual design but her culture and lore elements weren't quite what some of the community was expecting. We shared this feedback with the art team and checked it against our personal goals for Pele and made a few changes.

Removed her magma boots for bare feet
Added Hawaiian inspired tattoos
Made her headdress more floral in shape
Adjusted her arm bands

Pele's kit focuses mostly on fire and lava. We brainstormed and tested many abilities that incorporated dance, lightning, and creation into her kit but we found this just pulled her in too many different directions. Her kit is mostly damaging fire, with subtle references to dance and lightning.

Her unique gameplay elements are:

Abilities that scale in new ways, gaining additional strength per rank rather than just damage increases.
A movement ability that is "fuel based" not cooldown based
A non-ultimate ability that has multiple charges (like Agni ult)
New AoE damage area shape, concentric circles

Pele's kit is quite explosive. As would be expected with an Assassin. She is designed to close in on enemies and then, after a series of fiery attacks, leave them as smoldering ashes around her. Pele can hurl magma at enemies from afar, but her true nature as a volcano goddess comes from her explosive AoE abilities that scorch enemies nearby. She can also imbue her blades through her passive or her ultimate to cut enemies down while her abilities recover.

Her movement ability is unlike any other in SMITE and has some very interesting applications for an Assassin. It makes her ganks feel different from other junglers, and it gives her more flexibility to use the ability on the approach or the escape, or split it 50/50, which a normal dash or leap can not do.

Pele is eager to join the battleground of the gods. After laying dormant for so long the time has finally come for the 3rd new pantheon of Season 5 to arrive!