12/16 PBE Update: Morgana and Volibear texture rebalance, Updated Summoner icons, and more!

Posted on at 2:29 PM by Moobeat
The PBE has been updated! Morgana and Volibear have both received a texture rebalances, we have updates to four of the classic summoner icons, a new object in the recently added Summoner's Rift base openings,  tweaks to a few of Alistar's updated skins, several tentative balance changes, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and iterative - what you see may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers! Manage your expectations accordingly. )

Table of Contents


Updated Summoner Icons

Four of the classic summoner icons have been updated!
In case you are having trouble recognizing  them, here are the new vs old comparisons:

Texture Rebalances

Today's update includes another batch of texture rebalances, a project aimed at bringing older champion textures and colors closer to the current art style. These are not meant to replace visual updates.

Morgana

[Old vs New]

Exiled Morgana

Sinful Succulence Morgana

Blade Mistress Morgana

Blackthorn Morgana
Here's a comparison turnaround video for Morgana's texture rebalance:

[There are no updates for Ghost Bride or Victorious Morgana. ]

Volibear


Thunder Lord Volibear

Northern Storm Volibear

Here's a comparison turnaround video for Volibear's texture rebalance:

[There are no updates for Rune Guard or Captain Volibear]

SR Terrain Update: New Base Openings

In an earlier update, two new entrances were added to each of the bases on Summoner's Rift, one between each side and  the middle entrances. As reminder, you are able to move through your own base's opening but not either of the openings in your enemies base.

As of today's update, there is now a new object that sits in the middle of these new openings.

Currently, this is ONLY on BLUE SIDE, regardless of which team you are on. I assume the RED SIDE version just hasn't been enabled or added in yet.

Alistar Visual Update Tweaks

We also have a tweaks to several of Alistar's visually updated skins.

Infernal Alsitar has received color tweaks to his armor, which is now a bit brighter.

Unchained Alistar's horns are also now slightly bigger.

As the Alistar visual updates include a new model, Sweeper Alistar's feet have been correctly shaped to his fancy new hooves.
Check out the rest of the Alistar visual update in our earlier PBE coverage!

Zz'Rot Portal Color Tweaks

Zz'Rot Portal, an upcoming item that spews out voidspawn, has also received minor updates; the actual void gate is now much brighter.

Recent Jungle Experimentation Context Post

Here's Fearless with a few comments on all the recent jungle changes that have been going on and off the PBE over the last several updates:
"Hey all, 
Way over due on this. As you've all noticed, we've been trying some very quick iteration cycles on the jungle camps to reduce the benefit of bot lanes poaching jungle camps at level one. The two iterations that were tested on PBE were Krug and Gromp having their own buffs until smote, and after that, a buff to the base stats of the camps, with machete buffed to compensate. 
The results of our testing in both cases led us to believe that the impact on the jungler from these changes was much too high, and in the second set of changes, might not have even pushed the lanes away from the level one poaching. 
The end result is that we aren't happy with the solutions so far, but we've been really happy to throw changes at PBE at a rapid clip, and be able to get your reactions and play testing. It's been incredibly useful for us to work at this pace and get the very quick feedback. Mainly wanted to do this post to say we're likely to keep this up for this project, as well as others in the future. Thanks everyone for the testing time and the thoughtful feedback!"
He continued:
"Generally looking to not do anything too heavy handed. One of the reasons we keep having similar issues with poaching is because we do very specific, heavy handed changes, and when we have to fix another part of the game that changes some of the details, very specific fixes break down. 
We're currently wondering if the cost of leaving the lane alone is just too low. Making the cost of poaching higher seems to be misguided, as we've never really been able to fix poaching this way before, we've just made it impossible (by making the camps spawn so late its not an option). We're almost out of time this year, so there's not likely going to be any more changes going to the PBE in 2014, but we'll continue to test some options internally. The explorations for now will likely be seeing if we can make the cost of leaving the lane higher if the other lane takes action, to offer more counter-play to poaching."


Balance Changes

* Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.

Champions
Corki
  • Valkyrie (W) mana cost increased to 100 from 80 at all ranks
  • [Context: Follow up to a change seen in an earlier PBE update. Current live mana cost is 50 so this is still a nerf.]
Hecarim
  • Rampage (Q) mana cost decreased to 20/23/26/29/32 from 24/26/28/30/32

Nautilus
  • Titan's Wrath (W)  shield values have changed!
  •  Base shield value lowered to 65/70/75/80/85 from 100/150/200/250/300
  •  Shield now scales on 7/9.5/12/14.5/17% of Nautilus's TOTAL Health from 15% of his BONUS Health.
Skarner
  • Fracture (E) cooldown increased to 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 from 12/11/10/9/8
  • [Context: Follow up to a change seen in an earlier PBE update. Current live value is 12 seconds at all ranks so this is still a buff.]

Items
Hunter's Machete
  • Passive - Jungler reverted back to 30 magic damage on hit to monsters over 2 seconds from 44.
  • [Context: Just a revert to a previous change as the accompanying jungle camp changes were also reverted. Damage back to live values.]


Skirmisher's Sabre, Ranger's Trailblaizer, Stalker's Blade, Poacher's Knife
  • Passive - Jungler reverted back to 45 magic damage on hit to monsters over 2 seconds from 60.
  • [Context: Just a revert to a previous change as the accompanying jungle camp changes were also reverted. Damage back to live values.]
Jungle
Summoner's Rift
  • Camp spawn times have been reverted back to 1:55 from 2:00
  • All of the camp HP / base stat changes from the 12/15 PBE Update have been reverted. 
  • Crimson Raptor, Raptor , Greater Murk Wolf , Murk Wolf , Ancient Krug , Krug , Gromp , Blue Sentinel, and Sentry back to live values.
  • Additional context on these and the other recent jungle changes available here. 

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