3/23 PBE Update: New Summoner Icons, Frostblade Irelia Splash Tweaks, & More

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 8.7 PBE cycle, today's patch includes new summoner icons, Frostblade Irelia in-game and splash tweaks, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• New Summoner Icons
• Continued Irelia Testing
• Cannon Minion changes targeted for 8.7 
• [PBE] Feature in testing: New banner call outs for objective steals 
• Miscellaneous 
• Balance Changes

New Summoner Icons

Two new summoner icons are now on the PBE! These icons match the names we saw in the loot assets in a previous patch - "Heimerdinger Gear Icon" and "Veigar Crystal Icon":

Continued Irelia Testing

As the Irelia champion update continues testing on the PBE, today's update brings us a few new changes - Frostblade Irelia's splash art has been tweaked:

Frostblade Irelia's in-game appearance has also been changed to match the splash:

Aviator Irelia's hair has also been tweaked after feedback:

Cannon Minion changes targeted for 8.7 

Here's RiotRepertoir with a thread on cannon minion changes coming to the PBE:

"Hi everyone,

We're looking to ship some changes to primarily cannon minions (and a few others for the sake of tuning) for 8.7. The basic outcome of these changes is that cannons will be worth a fair amount more and be a bit tankier, while other minions will be worth slightly less gold.

The idea behind these changes is that increasing the value of cannons will make them more worth fighting over, and that increasing their health will make the waves they're in not quite so easily cleared out. Some of you may recall that this approach is very similar to about half of a larger minion pass that appeared on the PBE for the 8.6 cycle, but we're not currently looking to add those other changes into the mix for now. Below are the tentative cannon minion changes and related tuning changes to the rest of the system:
Cannon Minions

• Base Gold Value :: 45 >>> 60
• Gold Value Growth per 90 seconds (3 waves) :: 0.35 >>> 3
• Base Health :: 828 >>> 900
• Health Growth per 90 seconds (3 waves) :: 23 >>> 50
• Health Growth per 90 seconds (3 waves) beginning at wave 16 :: 32 >>> 60
• Health bar size visually increased

Super Minions

• Base Gold Value :: 45 >>> 60
• Gold Value Growth per 90 seconds (3 waves) :: 0.35 >>> 3

Melee Minions

• Base Gold Value :: 20 >>> 21
• Gold Value Growth per 90 seconds (3 waves) :: 0.125 >>> 0

Caster Minions

• Base Gold Value :: 17 >>> 14
• Gold Value Growth per 90 seconds (3 waves) :: 0.125 >>> 0

One of the first things worth pointing out with these changes is that the total amount of gold acquirable from minions in the system is largely unchanged, with the percent difference in cumulative gold in the system starting around -1.5% and fluctuating between -1% and +1% by 20 minutes into the game.

The major tuning consideration that still needs to be made if we're to go forward with this seems to be what to do about Relic Shield and its upgrades, since at optimal play, this sure results in increased gold generation for its users. As such, if you see an alteration to any of those items hit the PBE soon, that's likely why.

Feedback on this stuff is welcome. If it seems there's something being neglected, please do call that out. Happy cannon hunting!

Repertoir"

[PBE] Feature in testing: New banner call outs for objective steals 

Here's Fearless with details on a new feature in testing on the PBE:

"Hello Friends! 

We have a small feature in testing on the PBE right now, where the game will attempt to recognize when a team “steals” an objective. We’re looking to find ways to recognize more high moments, and big objective steals are some of the biggest turning points that the game currently doesn’t celebrate well. 

We’re currently trying to watch for when both teams end up damaging an objective, and based on how that damage is split up and comes in over time, we recognize the steal and for now, give it a kill banner. If we get the procedural recognition dialed in to a spot that feels accurate, we might look to improve the callouts in game. 

Right now, the most important feedback would be any times that the game calls an objective take a steal, but you feel that was off. We’d also be happy to hear about any situations that you feel should have been a steal, but weren’t called out. 

Quick note that this is only hooked up for Dragon and Baron, it’s a known bug that Rift Herald is currently excluded. 

Thanks Friends!"

Miscellaneous 

• Another small round of skin bios were added to the client, here is Lancer Stratus Wukong's bio:

"Another of the ancient, mechanized Lancer units, Wukong arises from his dusty slumber in times of extreme danger, protecting the outland city-states from dire threats. Once these foes are eliminated he returns to the earth, an enigma older than recorded history."

Gragas
[Context]

• Barrel Roll (Q) 
• AP ratio increased from 60% to 70% 

• Drunken Rage (W) 
• AP Ratio increased from 30% to 50% 
• [New Effect] damage reduction is now increased by an additional 8% for every 100 AP.

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) Squad5 provided a changelist for Ivern changes coming to the PBE soon:

[1] "These are the Ivern buffs I put in (disclaimer: potentially none of this ships etc.) 

P: Timer reduced by 10s at lvl 6 and 11 (After 11 duration is 1s flat) Health cost reduced 25% > 20% 

Q: Should fail much less often jumping over walls using monsters 

W: Cast range 800 > 1100"

[2] "R: AI fixes I mentioned before 

Daisy AOE damage reduction now also applies on damage from Epic Monsters toward her"

3) Here's Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for March 23, noting attack move cursor changes:

"Hey all, 

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 

Attack Move Changes on PBE 

We're testing out some tweaks to how attack move works when you're using the attack closest to cursor setting (the default). Core of those changes is that we're increasing the distance around the cursor where targets will be checked for substantially before the game then checks for targets near your champion instead (500, instead of 250). There are also some secondary tweaks to how in-range targets will/won't be prioritized over out of range targets (avoiding mention of the details here to see what does or doesn’t get noticed on the PBE). We've been testing those adjustments internally for a while, and playtesters haven't been reporting noticeable differences. That's mainly a good sign (suggests things are just working well behind the scenes). Thoughts from anyone playing on PBE also much appreciated over the next week or so. Changes seem to be working overall, but want to double check that and if nothing else see if there's room for further polish. 

Balancing some champs for organized teams 

We've had long running difficulties with some champs who perform dramatically better for organized teams (pro teams, premade 5s, Clash soon etc) than they do for matchmade solo queue teams. Azir, Kalista and Ryze are the strongest example of that, where their performance for the average player trying them will often look pretty weak if they're in a balanced state for organized teams. One of our goals with champion balance is to ensure they're good choices in a wide range of contexts, so that's not ideal. At the same time though they're still situationally very strong even in solo queue sometimes. 

We've also put a lot of time into trying to close that gap on those three over the years, with mixed success, given some parts of those champions core identities are tied to the very elements that give them that variance in power by context. For a while, quite possibly a long while at that, we're going to be prioritizing most other champion work over closing that gap as a result. That means Azir, Kalista and Ryze will be balanced for their strong cases (organized play primarily), even if that leaves them quite weak in other contexts (exception: a bit of Ryze work that's already underway and might or might not ship). It's not that we think that's the perfect solution, but that we think the time's better spent on other champions who haven't got that same degree of attention over the years and would benefit a lot from it. 

If you're someone who likes those champs, but feels you shouldn't play them in solo queue, our apologies. I expect that feels pretty rough and that even if these champs are strong in the right circumstances that doesn't help if those circumstances aren't ones you personally experience. Completely agree there are downsides to this approach, we do think it's the best available trade off for LoL players as a whole though. 

Midseason 

A few more midseason bits and pieces worth mentioning:

• We've been testing various jungle power level changes and recently concluded that we were better off putting them in midseason, both to take more time to get them right and since they're the sort of wider systemic change that's often better bundled into midseasons or preseasons, especially as we get to the otherwise lower change parts of the year.
• It's likely we do some set up changes for midseason in 8.8 to help validate that they do what we think they do before we pair other changes with them. In particular we're looking at mage mana pools and regen in the first few levels, and how much we might need to increase their early ability to cast more spells to make them better duo laners. That’ll look like changes to base mana and regen, probably paired with a nerf to Doran’s Ring. Nothing too major by itself, but useful to understand what impact it has while we’re still working on other stuff."

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
• 3/22 PBE Update: Tentative Balance Changes