8/16 PBE Update: Neo PAX Sivir Splash Art and More Tentative Balance Changes

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 7.17 PBE cycle, today's update includes the Neo PAX Sivir splash art and more tentative balance changes!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Neo PAX Sivir Splash Art
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

Neo PAX Sivir Splash Art

The full splash art for Neo PAX Sivir is now on the PBE:
Malphite
[Malphite has other changes to Q and W already on the PBE] [Context from Riot Axes, noting they will be pulling the changes this patch]

• Seismic Shard (Q) movement speed steal lowered from 25% to 20%

Ornn
[Context]

• [R now correctly shows 20% AP ratio]

Context & Notes

WIP

"He has a .2 AP ratio for both hits now."

2) Riot Axes commented on the Malphite changes and what they want to accomplish:

The buffs are testing as very powerful, something has to give. That said, I hear you on the concern that this isn't the Malphite that people are attached to, and I'm raising that with the team. Most likely outcome is we go live with this, maybe with a bit more tuning, but keep an extra close eye on reaction (and not just metrics) once Malphite players get to play with it. 

Feel free to throw whatever insults you want at me in the meantime. 

EDIT: Just so we're clear, I understand the concern that the power level is off as well. We've done quite a lot of internal validation on that, but internal validation is never as good as seeing what happens on live and we could easily be wrong. That's the simplest problem to have; if it turns out he's less powerful, it should show up in our data quickly, and we'd then either hotfix or buff on the next patch, depending on severity."

He goes on to note that they will pull these changes and we will likely see them back next cycle:

Update: 

Talked it over with the team. We're pulling the changes from this patch. We believe that it is still a good overall direction, but we're going to do a further tuning pass on the Q. Expect it back on PBE with some tuning next week, but it's now unlikely to ship before 7.19 because 7.18 is the Worlds patch. 

We feel the W changes are a good direction because they amplify an identity that has significantly deteriorated (tank vs physical) while rewarding good play in nuanced ways without making his spells much more complex - it rewards him for being able to ult in without having been poked out first (his wombo damage is amplified by the armor boost while his shield is active, due to the armor ratios on W and E), for good target selection for quick kills on targets that are more threatening to his shield, and for finding ways to leave a fight briefly when situationally correct. 

I do think we're going to ship some amount of reshaping of the Q - mainly because Q as a first max creates a play pattern of "Q them over and over" whereas Q as a second or third max where it gives most of its movement control up front creates a pattern of using your Q to set up melee range combo trades with W/E. That said, we are not firmly committed to that kind of change, we'll be aiming to preserve his ability to rank up Q to deal damage as much as possible, and you'll certainly see that iteration on PBE before we attempt to ship it. 

EDIT: Holy crap I write too many run-on sentences. "