6/30 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes

[UPDATE @ ~9 PM PT: Second PBE patch went out including more balance changes!]

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 7.14 PBE cycle, tonight's update includes more tentative balance changes for Cho'Gath, Diana, Singed, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Miscellaneous 
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

Miscellanous

Diana**
[ricklessabandon shared full changelist as of 6/30 PBE update #2a]

• Moonsilver Blade (P):
• Passive changed from [Diana gains 20% attack speed] to [Diana's spell casts grant her 20% attack speed for her next 3 attacks]

• [new] Restores (+15% AP) mana when Moonsilver Blade cleave activates

• Crescent Strike (Q) cooldown changed from 10/9//8/7/6 to 8/7.5/7/6.5/6

• Pale Cascade (W) mana cost lowered from 60/70/80/90/100 to 40/55/70/85/100

• Moonfall (E): [new] Passive: Increases the attack speed gained from Moonsilver Blade to 50/60/70/80/90%.

Cho'Gath

• Rupture (Q) :
• Mana cost lowered from 90 to 60.
• Damage changed from [80/135/190/245/305 to [80/135/190/245/300].

• Feral Scream (W) silence duration changed from 1.5/1.625/1.75/1.875/2 to 1.6/1.7/1.8/1.9/2.

• Vorpal Spikes (E)  [reworked]

"Mana Cost: 30 at all ranks
Cooldown: 8/7/6/5/4  

Cho'gath's next 3 basic attacks launch spikes that deal 20/35/50/65/80 (+30% AP) plus X% (4% + 0.5% per Feast stack) of enemies' maximum health as magic damage and apply a 30/35/40/45/50% slow, decaying over the next 1.5 seconds."

Garen
[note: Garen also has a larget set of P & W changes testing on PBE from an earlier updates this cycle.]

• Courage (W):
• Active's initial Tenacity bonus increased from 50% to 60%.
• Active's initial damage reduction lowered from 50/60/70/80/90 to 60 at all ranks.

Udyr
[context]

• All previous PBE changes reverted. 

Context & Notes

the most electrifying context in wip entertainment

1) UPDATE #2:  Following the second PBE deploy of the night, here's ricklessabandon's tweet sharing the last iteration of Diana's PBE changes - these are now on the PBE, earlier than expected.

[1] "next diana iteration will probably hit pbe next week -- should be closed to locked down now -- mana restoration no longer requires champ hit"

[2] "(pbe secretly already has the 'not needing a champion hit' part, but this now includes a couple other adjustments i wanted along with that)"

2) ricklessabandon also mentioned the PBE Udyr changes will be reverted and likely return in future.

[1] "btw, going to pull the udyr changes from the 7.14 cycle -- didn't get far enough along on iterations to be able to reasonably finish in time" 

[2] "will try to get them finished up for 7.15 though, so udyr changes will reappear on the pbe for the next dev cycle"

3) Here's Meddler with his most recent gameplay thoughts for June 30th, covering topics such as continued Diana changes, context on the Garen changes we've seen so far this cycle, and the warded ping:

"Morning all, 

Lighter post today, lot of work on long term stuff not ready to be talked about going on right now. 

Usual Disclaimers 

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get put delayed or even stopped.
If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: 

https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler 

Diana 

As you'll see on the PBE today we're continuing to explore Diana changes in testing. Those aren't intended to be a full fix for Diana's issues (we still expect to do a small update to her gameplay at some point), but are instead intended to put her in a better spot until then. We think it's likely the eventual direction for Diana includes auto attacking as a meaningful part of her kit, so one of the things we're looking it is ways to make that higher impact later in the game. 

Garen 

Speaking of champions we're doing smaller stuff on now and plan on giving larger gameplay changes later, Garen's in the same boat this patch. We're testing a W change where it's got a short window where it's much more effective when first cast. Goals there are to both give him a bit more power but also a bit more skill expression, with the timing on that cast mattering more. Garen's always been difficult to balance for different skill ranges and part of that's because his kit doesn't give the same degree of reward for mastery over many of its elements that other champs do. This won't fix that by itself of course, but expectation is it'll help somewhat and we'll look for similar changes for the larger changes coming later. 

Warded Ping 

Is still coming, looks like 7.15 at this point (another casualty of that shorter than usual 7.14 development cycle, with other engineering work that's higher priority pushing it back a patch). 

No Posts Next Week 

Due a combination of 4th of July having us out of the office and some other stuff going on I won't be able to do these posts next week. Next one should be on the 10th or 11th of July as a result. One thing worth watching out for next week though's that we should be getting a more regular series of Runes posts going, starting next week, with a goal of showing off at least a new thing or two each week until close to pre-season when the full system hits the PBE. 

Kayn/Darkin 

Non gameplay sidenote, but wanted to call out that a bunch of us, myself very much included, have very much enjoyed the ongoing discussion about what the deal is with the Darkin based off the new info associated with Kayn's reveal, including speculation on future possibilities, whether any other Darkin are already in the roster besides Aatrox etc. Some theories that are pretty out there, or speculative, and some ideas that are pretty accurate. Makes for fun reading."

On the Statikk  Shiv changes being reverted, Meddler explained:

"Some concern on the team that Shiv's good for too many different things at once. Don't think we'll be shipping changes in 7.14, testing though to understand options for possible future changes."

4)  Our upcoming champion KAYN remains on the PBE for testing throughout the 7.14 PBE cycle. Additional information available in his champion reveal and PBE boards bug report thread. An automated PBE livestream can be found [here].