1/12 PBE Update: Skin Tweaks, Leveling Reward Emotes & More

[Note: A second PBE update went out late Friday evening, new content is marked!]

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 8.2 PBE cycle, today's patch includes skin tweaks for Sweetheart Xayah and Rakan, new Leveling reward emotes for level 200 and beyond, new and tweaked esports icons & more!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Skin Tweaks
• Leveling Reward Emotes
• [New] Tweaked Summoner Icons
• [New] New and Tweaks Esports Summoner Icons
• [New] Ult Pings on the Scoreboard
• Miscellaneous
• [New] Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

Skin Tweaks

As noted by KateyKhaos, Sweetheart Rakan and Xayah have tweaks to clothing and hair in today's PBE update! YBourykina also provided some context on the Sweetheart Rakan changes:

"hey! for the heart glove it felt weird if it was pink when he is holding that pink mirror all the time. as for the hair, we wanted to make it look like he is growing pink hair (from the roots) and not just dyed xD"

Sweetheart Xayah

Sweetheart Rakan

Leveling Reward Emotes

Four new leveling reward emotes were added to the PBE; these are noted in the files as "Legend 8" for level 200, "Legend 9" for level 225, "Legend 10" for level 250, and "Legend 11" for level 275.

Tweaked Summoner Icons

During a second PBE deploy, the Sweetheart Xayah and Rakan icons were tweaked to match the in game changes we saw in today's first PBE deploy [previous versions here and here:

New and Tweaked Esports Summoner Icons

A stray esports summoner icon was added, joining the 46 icons from the 1/11 PBE Update:

Two icons were also tweaked [previous versions here and here]:


 In a second update, a third icon was tweaked slightly [previous version here]:

Ult Pings On the Scoreboard

[Missed in an earlier update!] You can now ping ultimates and see ult cooldowns on the scoreboard! This doesn't effect the cooldown counters on the right of the screen. 

Miscellaneous 

• The Sweetheart Rakan emote was tweaked to match the changes to his skin that should be in today's PBE update [previous version here]:

• Riot Orphyre posted the bugs & feedback thread for the Lunar Revel chroma:

"Hey everyone! 

Sorry for the wait! To make it up to all of you, we’ve got a bunch of Chromas coming out this patch! We’ll have Chromas coming out for Lunar Empress Lux, Lunar Guardian Nasus, Lunar Guardian Warwick, as well as a set of Golden Chromas for previous Lunar Revel skins (incl. Guqin Sona, Warring Kingdoms Garen, Lunar Wraith Caitlyn, Warring Kingdoms Katarina, Dragonwing Corki, and Dragonblade Riven. Whew!) 

Lunar Empress Lux Chromas: 

• New textures: “Shine bright!”
• Ruby - A little red for good luck
• Peridot - I’m not jaded at all~
• Rose Quartz - Peachy as ever
• Amethyst - The lotus blooms pure and untainted
• Turquoise - For a vivid new year

Lunar Guardian Nasus Chromas: 

• New textures: “The cycle of life and death continues. We will live, they will die.”
• Ruby - My infernal brother’s going to be jealous
• Meteorite - “The sky was naught but dying stars”
• Pearl - True ascension has never felt better
• Turquoise - “More souls for the pyre”

Lunar Guardian Warwick Chromas: 

• New textures: “You hurt them, I hurt you.”
• Ruby - “Blood brings rage”
• Meteorite - The darkness consumes, the monster emerges
• Pearl - Such extravagance... delicious
• Turquoise - A new year, a new beast 

Golden Chromas: Will be available through loot 

• New textures: From rags to riches!
• Guqin Sona - Listen Summoner, to my new etwahl
• Warring Kingdoms Garen - For glory and Demacia!
• Lunar Wraith Caitlyn - The golden gun
• Warring Kingdoms Katarina - Let’s get these gold daggers dirty
• Dragonwing Corki - Ever ride a gold dragon before?
• Dragonblade Riven - Just wait till you see my golden blade reforged!

The Chroma sets are now available on PBE! However, there are currently a few notes:

• Final Names: The names in-game are not up to date, the final names are the ones you see above
• Legacy: These Chromas will be Legacy skins, meaning they will, at some point in time, become unavailable for purchase

We hope you all will enjoy the new sets, but we’re also looking forward to hearing your constructive feedback. I’ll do my best to answer and reply to your questions and feedback!

Thanks!

Riot Orphyre"

Riot Mort also noted that it would not require a pass to be able to get the Golden Chroma during the event:

"I can confirm these are not through a pass. I can also confirm they are not random, and you will be able to pick the one you want if you get one.

Also while passes aren't in this event, I wouldn't say they are off the table in the future. If we find a more satisfying way to do them, they may return."

They also confirmed you should be able to get all six chroma:

"It will be possible to get all 6."

• Lowbo provided a bugs and feedback thread for the Sightstone changes:

"Sightstone and all of its upgrades will be removed from the store.
Support items will gain Sightstone’s active as their quest reward.
Support Tier 3 items now build out of Tier 2 and a Ruby Crystal, and give you the same stats as their respective line’s “Eye of the __” upgraded Sightstone on live. 

NOTE: Current names and icons for Tier 3 are temporary. We’ll have new names and icons for all three lines for Tier 2 after quest completion, and Tier 3 both pre and post quest completion. 

Please send any feedback and bugs you may have noticed playing with these changes on the PBE!"

• Puppy Warwick Ward Skin Spotlight

• Lunar Guardian Warwick Chromas

[** Note: Added after second deploy on 1/12!]

**Jinx

• Base AD lowered from 63 to 61
• AD growth increased from 2.5 to 2.7

Kha'Zix
[Kha'Zix has other changes already in testing on the PBE!]

• Taste Their Fear (Q) 
• Evolved Reaper Claws cooldown refund reverted from 60% to 45%

Context & Notes

1) KateyKhaos and YBourykina provided a look at the updates to Sweetheart Rakan and Sweetheart Xayah which should be showing up in today's PBE update:

[1] "Here's a side by side comparison of the changes made to Sweetheart Rakan. These updates will be in the next PBE build."

[2] Here's a side by side comparison of the changes made to Sweetheart Xayah. These updates will be in the next PBE build.

[3] "What the lovebirds now look like in the latest #PBE patch, post feedback review."

YBourykina also provided gifs of the changes here and here.

2) Riot Maple noted some Turret changes coming sometime this cycle:

"Some turret tuning going out in 8.02 - likely more work to follow in future patches (not necessarily on Turrets)."

3) Riot Sirhaian noted some small tweaks coming for Arctic Ops Gragas' barrels:

"Super glad you liked this skin!! 

I'm making the change for the Q's red brightness. It'll be a lot closer to his other skins very soon. :) 

Little preview:

Feel free to give me your thoughts once the change hits PBE~!"

4) Here's Meddler with his quick gameplay thoughts for January 12th, including thoughts on the Sightstone changes, vision score, adaptive damage, and more:

"Hi folks, 

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 

Sightstone Changes 

As we mentioned earlier in the week we've got changes coming where the support items will give the Sightstone active as a reward. Goal there's to open up support item choice and flexibility, versus the current degree to which that's locked behind an early sightstone purchase. We've seen a number of concerns expressed about that approach, and while we've talked about that in some threads already visibility's been low and/or our plans have got a bit more concrete since. Some related points below as a result:

• Overall power level of supports after this change isn't intended to change. If this ends up being a noticeable buff or nerf to the position as a whole we'll adjust things.
• Goal is that Sightstones should still become available around the same time in lane. Amount of gold needed to complete the quest has been reduced as a result to keep that timing.
• We'll be moving the Frost Queen's and Talisman actives onto new items, with a goal of finding costs and build paths so that they're accessible to both supports and non supports.
• We'll be considering something like Face of the Mountain's active for a new item, though aren't as certain about that one. Certainly possible there's a need for a single target (ish) protective item like that that Knight's Vow, Mikael's, Locket don't meet. Purchase rate of FotM has also historically been quite low (versus Eye of Targon), and use of the active lower again. We're less sure that it makes sense to port the active over just like Frost Queen's/Talisman as a result.
• Active item CDR on an item might come back at some point. It's a decent concept for an item certainly, in terms of what sort of play it enables and the item choices it creates. Would almost certainly need to be paired with a cap on active item CDR though. The lack of an active item CDR cap's an oversight, given until 7.22 there weren't any other sources, and it's leading to issues balancing items.
• The support items won't give the Sightstone active on Twisted Treeline. For now at least they'll continue to have their old rewards on TT instead.

Vision Score on the Scoreboard 

On a somewhat related topic we're planning to add vision score to the tab screen as a field that's shown all the time, not just something visible on trinket mouseover. Goal there is to better reflect how important vision is, and how much individual players are contributing to their team via vision/vision removal. Should be in 8.2 or 8.3. That will be much more awareness of vision score than there's been in the past, so possible this also reveals oddities in how it's calculated (e.g. is it overvaluing deep wards versus their actual contribution, or undervaluing killing wards with red trinkets?). Feedback on that sort of stuff much appreciated, whether off vision score as it is on live or after it goes out on the scoreboard as well. 

Adaptive Damage Defaults 

We'll be taking a look at each champion in terms of whether they get AP or AD by default from adaptive runes if they don't have any of either stat yet. For most champs that's not a problem, because their starting item either lets them define what they're after or there's one stat that's consistently better for them that they're getting already. For some champs though, particularly tankier ones who may never build any AP or AD, or junglers who'd really like a particular stat for their early clears, the current defaults may be problematic. 

Our plan is to look at the list of defaults and, if there are any that aren't the appropriate choice at present, change them. We haven't made a list of champs to be changed yet though and I figured this was a really good question to open up widely. If anyone's got thoughts on champs with the wrong adaptive default would love to hear them in the comments here."