3/22 PBE Update: Tentative Balance Changes

Following yesterday's late night patch, the PBE has been updated! As we continue the 8.7 PBE cycle, today's small patch includes more tentative balance changes!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

Ahri
[Full changelist from ricklessabandon - see context or this tweet chain for more information.]

• Essence Theft (Passive)
• [Changed Effect] "Whenever Ahri's spells hit a champion, she's refunded 15% of its cost."

• Orb of Deception (Q) 
• [Removed] no longer grants movement speed 
• [New Effect] "Casting Orb of Deception builds stacks. At 2 stacks, Ahri's next Orb of Deception will restore x (+x) health for each new enemy hit."

• Fox-Fire (W) 
• Cooldown lowered from 9/8/7/6/5 to 6/5.5/5/4.5/4
• initial Delay increased from 0.25 to 0.4
• [Changed Effect] Cooldown begins on cast instead of after the last fox-fire attacks/expires 
• Damage changed from 40/65/90/115/140 (30% AP) to 40/65/90/115/140 (40% AP) 

• Charm (E) 
• Damage changed from 60/95/130/165/200 (+60% AP) to 60/90/120/150/180 (+40% AP)
• [New Effect] When Charm deals damage to an champion, Ahri's abilities deal 20% more damage to them for 5 seconds 

• Spirit Rush (R) 
• Cooldown increased from 110/95/80 to 120/105/90 
• Damage changed from 70/110/150 (+25% AP) to 70/100/130 (35% AP) 

Irelia

Context & Notes

1) Riot August with details on upcoming Lux and Gragas changes:

[1] "Some PBE buffs we're testing for Gragas' AP scalings. May end up reverting, but wanted to see what a stronger AP build looks like 

Explosive Cask (Q) 

AP ratio:: .6 >>> .7 

Drunken Rage (W) 

AP Ratio:: .3 >>> .5 

DR is now increased by an additional 8% for every 100 AP."

[2] "Lux buff going to PBE tomorrow for testing. Wondering if we can make the reset mechanic on the R feel like it works better with how the kit plays. 

Final Spark (R) 

Reset % on Kill:: 10/30/50% >>> 30/40/50% 

Now triggers on enemy champs who die within 2 seconds of being hit by R."

2) ricklessabandon tweeted a changelist and context for the tentative Ahri changes testing this cycle:

[1] "changes are on the pbe. should be very similar to last time with a few differences: 

1. her healing passive has been moved to a mechanic on her Q (cast 2 Qs to prime a healing Q) 

2. her new passive is a pretty simple mana restoration mechanic 

3. fox-fire has new targeting rules"

[2] "targets rules for fox-fire adjust based on how long the flames have been out: 

0 to 0.4 - valid targets: none 

0.4 to 2 - valid targets: champions that have her charm dmg amp, or that she launches a basic attack against 

2 to 5 - valid targets: same as live"

[3] "and since we're back to doing more exploration and iteration, please note that none of this is guaranteed to ship (i.e., it's all subject to change) 

this version is particularly experimental, so expect things to change day-to-day"

[4] "issues i'm thinking about with the current iteration: 

W loses its ability to be a responsive last hitting tool — what (if anything) should be done regarding that 

passive doesn't really inspire any gameplay as is, so thinking about various things to do with that slot"

[5] "and that's on top of all the fine tuning that would need to happen, of course 

also, the changes don't have to ship in any particular patch. getting them done sooner would be great of course, but no need to rush in this case"

2) Squad5 noted some Daisy changes behind the scenes in today's PBE update:

"Put in some fixes for Ivern's Daisy's logic. Should be on PBE tomorrow if anyone wants to see if they can feel the difference. Also probably gonna look at some more QOL stuff/buffs for my boy hopefully soon. Can't share any specifics though."

3)  SpaceNorth has posted on the Irelia subreddit regarding feedback on her update, hair, and new skins:

"Hey all! I'm SpaceNorth, the PO for Irelia's update. 

We’ve been reviewing all the PBE feedback that we’ve gotten on Irelia and her skins over the last 24 hours. Before we get into specifics, I also just wanna take a sec to say thank you for the outpouring of both excitement and critical feedback. Even the negative reactions have included a lot of constructive, helpful notes - to be frank, it means a lot to us to have this kind of dialog with everyone. We aren’t going to be able to address everything, but here are some notes on what we’re looking to improve. 

Hair 

Hair is so damn difficult (Zoe’s hair was a beautiful nightmare to work on, and took a ridiculous amount of time). We’ve heard the feedback on Irelia’s hair looking like a flat cape on some skins, or being positioned far away from her body. This is something that we’ve iterated on a dozen times internally, and competing with blade readability and clipping has been a challenge. We’re going to taking another pass focusing mostly on base and Aviator, trying to add a little volume and tweak positions so her hair falls a little closer to her for some animations. 

Lotus 

Small tweaks to splash - mostly around face. 

Frostblade 

Let’s jump right in. Some people are missing the cyber aspect of the original, or wondering why we decided to double down on frost. Our goal was to make a more cohesive skin by focusing on one thematic and fleshing it out, especially in thinking about how we could find good particle and audio opportunities with the rework. We’re seeing some negative response to this decision, but we still believe that making her this frozen warrior slashing with giant ice shards will be an awesome skin for her. I think changes we make at this point to bring the futuristic theme back are going to feel shallow, and we don’t want to just put a band-aid on it. 

Outside of the theme notes, we also saw a lot of great feedback on other parts of the skin that we want to respond to. First, we’re changing hair color to bring it more blue (more ice read, closer to original - less gem/crystalline look). We added some reflective material to make it feel more like ice, but then the excessive purple got in the way of that read anyway... We’re also going to take a big pass at the fur collar, and see how we can make her more sleek. For splash, we’re changing face and expression to get it feeling less evil, and more like Irelia (and matching in-game changes). 

Thanks again for all the feedback - please keep checking PBE as these changes go up."

4) Make sure to check out the 3/21 Quick Gameplay Thoughts for more from Meddler on upcoming changes!

Check out [THIS PAGE] for a comprehensive list of the new content & changes currently on the PBE as a part of this cycle or catch up with the individual update links below !

• 3/20 PBE Update: Irelia Champion Update, Lancer Stratus Wukong, Badlands Baron Rumble & More
• 3/21 PBE Update: Irelia Tweaks, New Emotes, & More