[ Updated ] PBE Context Post - Patch 3.09

"Hey Summoners, 

As you know, we use the PBE servers as a testing ground for a lot of our experimental changes, but we’ve run into situations where sometimes a change requires a bit more nuance to understand. As a result, we’ll be driving these PBE context posts when we can offer some more context. 

Also note that these changes are tentative, like anything else on the PBE, so they are all very subject to change. 

Brand 

Pillar of Flame

• Mana cost reduced at later ranks from 70/80/90/100/110

• Delay normalized from 0.5s ~ 0.75s

Conflagation

• Mana cost increased from 60/65/70/75/80

Pyroclasm

• Mana cost reduced at later ranks from 100/150/200

Draven 

We wanted to lower Draven’s high early game damage output from his passive, as it was not adding much in terms of real gameplay. Unfortunately, to get the numbers right we realized we would need to reduce his passive damage to a point where it would be even more unsatisfying. We instead opted to rework Draven’s passive into something that reinforces his current gameplay and can be appreciated by both him and his opponents. Welcome to the League of Draven. 

League of Draven (New Passive)

• Draven gains a stack of Adoration when he catches a Spinning Axe or kills a minion or monster. When Draven kills an enemy champion, he cashes in half of his Adoration stacks, gaining gold per stack consumed. Draven loses up to a certain amount of stacks of Adoration upon death.

Elise 

Spider Form / Human Form

• No longer counts as a spellcast for the purposes of items like Tears of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.

Jayce 

Transform: Mercury Hammer / Mercury Cannon

• No longer counts as a spellcast for the purposes of items like Tears of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.

Kennen 

We’ve tuned down some of Kennen’s early game lane harass, especially given how much teamfight potential he has.

• Base Attack Damage at level 1 reduced from 54.6

• Attack Damage gained per level increased from 3.3

Mark of the Storm

• Mark duration reduced from 8 seconds

Leblanc 

Leblanc's Mimic was less a decision point and more of a tool to one-shot someone with Sigil of Silence. These changes are aimed at improving the patterns and decisions around using Mimic. Our most obvious adjustment is the fact that mimicked abilities will now deal their own base damage instead of amplifying the base spell. This means players will be able to use Mimic in more creative ways at level 6, rather than holding it for Sigil of Silence. Additionally, Sigil of Silence will now deal less damage up front but more damage on detonation in order to better promote LeBlanc’s multi-skill interaction. 

Mirror Image

• The Mirror Image will now attempt to run instead of standing still

Sigil of Silence

• Mana Cost reduced from 70/75/80/85/90

• Impact Damage decreased from 70/110/150/190/230

• Impact AP Ratio decreased from 0.6

• Mark Damage increased from 20/40/60/80/100

• Mark AP Ratio increased from 0.3

• Silence duration reduced from 2 seconds

Distortion

• Cooldown now starts on cast rather than after returning to your Distortion

Ethereal Chains

• Slow duration (and time until root) reduced from 2 seconds

• Root duration standardized across all ranks from 1/1.3/1.6/1.9/2.2

• Cooldown increased at earlier ranks from 10/10/10/10/10

Mimic

• Mana Cost decreased at early levels

• All mimicked abilities now deal their own base damage instead of amplifying the base spell. In all cases, the mimicked spell will deal higher damage than the base spell (due to higher base damage or higher AP ratios).

Leona 

Solar Flare

• Delay normalized from 0.5s~0.75s

Nidalee 

Aspect of the Cougar

• No longer counts as a spellcast for the purposes of items like Tears of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.

Shyvana 

We’re repositioning Flame Breath as a core tool for objective control and faster jungle clear while also emphasizing its use as a “burn down” ability to be followed up with auto attacks against more tanky fighters. We’ve also increased Shyvana’s Fury gain at higher levels of Dragon’s Descent to help her engage in team fights more consistently at late game. Lastly, we’ve moved Shyvana’s old passive effects to the actual ability tooltips to help centralize information. 

Fury of the Dragonborn

• Remade. All Fury of the Dragonborn effects are now located on the ability tooltip rather than the passive.

*NEW PASSIVE*: Dragonborn

• Gains bonus Armor and Magic resistance. This bonus is increased per level. These bonuses are doubled in Dragon Form.

Flame Breath

• No longer reduces Armor by 15%

• Now passes through all units hit instead of stopping at the first

• Debuff duration increased from 4 seconds

• Damage decreased at higher levels from 80/125/170/215/260

• On-hit magic damage to debuffed targets changed to a % of the target's Maximum Health from 15% of Flame Breath's damage.

Dragon's Descent

• Passive Armor/Magic Resistance component removed

• Fury Gain per hit increased at later ranks from 2/2/2

• Passive Fury Gain increased at later ranks from 1/1/1 per 1.5 seconds

Swain 

Nevermove

• Delay normalized from 0.75s~1s

Veigar 

Dark Matter

• Delay normalized from 1.2s~1.5s

Ziggs 

We wanted to make it easier and more rewarding for Ziggs to use Satchel Charge offensively, whether he’s detonating it immediately or leaving it down on the battlefield to zone. We also wanted to make Satchel Charge noticeably easier to use for players with a moderate or higher amount of latency. 

Satchel Charge

• Can now be reactivated while in flight, causing the Satchel Charge to detonate on landing

• Missile speed increased from 1600

• Increased knockback distance from 350

• Cooldown now starts when spell is cast, not when Satchel Charge detonates

Items 

Wards 

We’ve changed the reward structure for killing wards to alleviate the gold pressure that can accumulate on supports as they push for vision dominance around key locations. With Oracle’s Elixir already on a timed duration, no longer making it expire on death means players can be more aggressive with oracles, rather than passively clearing warded areas they know to be safe. We want the focus of Oracle’s Elixir to be more of an opportunity cost rather than a safety liability for the Oracle user.

• Vision and Sight Ward are now worth slightly more gold, up from 25

• Wriggle's Lantern Ward is now worth slightly more gold, up from 15

• Reward structure for killing wards has been changed to the following:

• The killer of the ward gains 50% of the ward's base gold value

• Nearby allied champions with Oracle Elixir or allied champions that have placed Vision Wards nearby split 50% of the ward's base gold value

Oracle’s Elixir

• No longer expires on death

• Sightstone and Ruby Sightstone now display the number of placed Ghost Wards in their inventory tooltips

Tear of the GoddessWe feel like players were able to build tear items up too quickly, especially in the case of Manamune with its fairly cheap cost.

• Mana gain per spell cast or Mana expenditure reduced to 3 from 4

Manamune

• Mana gain per basic attack, spell cast, or Mana expenditure reduced to 3 from 4

Black Cleaver 

Previously, characters like Jarvan who applied multiple physical damage sources on a single attack could apply multiple stacks of Black Cleaver's shred. We're cleaning up the item to make it more understandable. Character's like Shyvana or Renekton that apply more than one basic attack at the same time will still stack up multiple shreds as normal.

• Can no longer apply more than one stack of Armor Shred per basic attack.

Maw of Malmortius 

We’ve made Maw of Malmortius’ passive bonus easier to understand at a glance. Now Maw will grant its maximum AD when the shield procs, so players will know exactly when they’re at their peak power.

• Now grants 60 Attack Damage up from 55

• Now grants 40 Magic Resistance up from 36

• Passive now grants 1 Attack Damage for every 2% Health you are missing, up from 2.5%

• Passive now capped at 35 Attack Damage, down from 40"

"Just updated the Oracle elixir stuff with the secondary set of changes

Oracle Elixir
* Now persists through death
* Reveal Radius reduced to 600 from 750
* Duration reduced to 4 minutes from 5 minutes
* Now has a particle denoting the radius of effect 

We are aware that making Oracle's elixir persist through death decreases the risk involved in the item and reduces the overall skill in using Oracle's.
The question is whether or not the skill involved in using Oracle's is the right skill we want to encourage for the game - the answer right now seems to be no: It promotes camping the Oracle's wielder and oracle users not participating in team fights. It also funnels the responsibility of Oracles only in champions that either cannot die or do not fight. 

We also wanted to stop the snowball factor from influencing Oracle's as much because frequently Oracle's is only an option for champions who were not at risk of dying - something that is much more likely for the winning team than the losing team. While the counterplay to the current Oracle's is clear - it is not actually doable in most settings when Oracle Elixir is in play - we want the decision points around Oracle to be 'How do I use this effectively? When do I use this?' rather than 'Man - How can I avoid participating in anything that might murder me for the next 4 minutes?' 

Note: I just put in these changes now, so they won't be reflected on the PBE build that is there currently but will happen with the next PBE build."