Paladins Grover Gameplay Revealed During Patch Notes Stream

The first character from SMITE is finally making his way into Hi-Rez's free-to-play shooter/MOBA Paladins. Grover -- buddy of the god Sylvanus and all around nice tree -- was announced as the next upcoming character in the team shooter during SWC. Now, we're finally getting a look at the character in game.

Last week, Hi-Rez dropped an ability video for the character -- which you can see below. Yesterday, during the patch notes livestream, Grover took center stage with Drybear highlighting everything players will want to know about his gameplay (viewable above).

One thing you might notice right off the bat here is that Grover is not carrying a lantern, as it was previously stated he would. Instead, the development team has decided to go with an ax-like weapon, making him more of a melee character. According to Drybear, Grover carries an ax because he took it off a "wild lumberjack" who was foolish enough to think Grover was just an ordinary tree -- and tried to chop him down. Things ended poorly for the lumberjack and Grover found himself with an ax he really liked.

Playstyle, Grover is a DPS tank with a high-mobility kit -- including a grappling hook. He also features an aura-swap ability that both damages and heals as his basic, and his ultimate is a spinny, whirlwind axe attack.

Another thing discussed during the patch notes are changes made to the game's card mechanic. No longer is standard deck building a thing. Rather, players will be given time to choose 5 cards in the lobby at the beginning of a match -- with those cards being active as soon as the match starts. Every card will have 4 ranks associated with it and players can put points into them to build up the ones they need most.

More details on both this new deck building system and Grover can be found in the video above.