4/20 PBE Update: Dark Star Orianna Tweaks & Continued midseason testing

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the hefty midseason / 7.9 PBE cycle, tonight's update includes tweaks for Dark Star Orianna and more tentative balance changes.
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Continued Midseason Testing
• Dark Star Orianna Tweaks
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

Continued Midseason Testing

Friendly reminder that all sorts of midseason content is currently testing on the PBE - Rift Herald Changes, Maokai, Sejuani, and Zac update, new items, and much more! Look for continued polish, tweaks, and changes as the larger than usual cycle continues.
Read up on the latest by browsing our larger 7.9 cycle post or with these context links below:

• Midseason 2017 OVERVIEW
• Midseason Rift Herald Update from Riot Sotere
• Midseason Support Item Update - Live on PBE! from Limely and Riot Colin
• Midseason Update - Utility Contribution from Ququroon.
• Vision Score Details by Riot GMang
• Intro to Midseason 2017 - Maokai, Sejuani, Zac

Dark Star Orianna Tweaks

The upcoming  Dark Star Orianna skin has received W and R tweaks in today's update!

Dark Star Orianna's W now has designs inside the W area of effect:

"Hiya, ya'll! 

We've been gathering feedback from you all, and so far we've put in some VFX changes to her W and R. They should be hitting PBE with the next deploy, so we'll be looking for more feedback from you when that hits. :] We're also currently looking into changes for the non-VFX stuff you've posted here as well."

Sejuani
[Reminder: Sejuani has a larger update currently testing on PBE. Changes are relative to PBE, not live.]

• From Sejuani PBE Feedback thread -
• "W should be easier to hit, especially in jungle"
• "Casting E resets autoattack timer"

Knight's Vow

• [tracker for damage redirected and healing received added to inventory tooltip.]

Redemption

• [tracker for healing done and damage dealt added to inventory  tooltip. ]

Ancient Coin line 

(changes only show on inventory tooltip atm. confirmed in game value.)

• Ancient Coin - Favor gold lowered from 22 to 20

• Upgraded items - Favor gold lowered from 32 to 30

• Quest Complete/Emperor's Favor gold lowered from 32 to 30

Context & Notes

(and that is the bottom line cuz stone context wip austin said so.)

1) Here's Meddler with another edition of his quick gameplay thoughts for 4/20:

"Morning all, 

Mid-season work's going through it's final phases at the moment. We've got all the content on the PBE now from memory, though some of it still needs final balancing, bug fixing or asset polish still. 

Rift Herald 

Speaking of ongoing polish there's a lot currently going into the updated Rift Herald. As a heads up there'll likely also be a bit of further polish that comes in 7.10 as well. We've got some finishing touches that probably won't be ready for 7.9, so we'll be looking to get those in quickly after as a result. 

Ivern 

Unless anything significantly changes we'll be doing a balance pass on Ivern in 7.10. As mentioned previously 7.9 won't contain many individual champion balance changes, given both that the systemic changes will affect balance on most champs to some degree and that we're still very focused on finishing mid-season itself. We are starting to line up likely projects for the following patch however. 

Starting Items for Passive Support Playstyles 

One of the concerns we've seen expressed since we revealed the changes to the Ancient Coin line is that it's no longer a good option for a really passive playstyle. In terms of how you get rewards as a support that's very much intended, we want reward to be tied to action with a meaningful difference between good and poor choices, something old Coin didn't have. We certainly do want to ensure Coin feels like a good option on squishier ranged champs though, so will be tuning things like coin drop position and pick up radius to ensure trying to get them isn't suicide for non tanky champs. We'll also be watching champs like Soraka and Janna who often aren't great fits with Spellthief's to ensure they're not just left without a good starting item. 

Non Gameplay Impacting: Feeney Art for Rakan and Xayah 

A while back we put up a dev blog talking about Feeney art (light hearted temporary loading screen art for champions in development). More about it at the link below. Now that they're out we can also share the Feeney art for Rakan and Xayah for anyone interested, which was what we see loading into playtests for many months before the final splash art was done. As with the final splash art for duo the Feeney art was also made as one piece, then cut in half with that intent it would be shown side by side. That had the added little benefit of being a fun way to test that some code changes to ensure Xayah and Rakan were positioned appropriately on the loading screen worked as intended too. 

http://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/2017/02/before-theres-splash-art-theres-feeney-art/