6/26 PBE Update: Samsung Galaxy Skins, Hextech Poppy & More

[Added Updated Spellblade VFX on PBE]

The PBE has been updated! As we start the 8.14 PBE cycle, today's patch includes Hextech Poppy, the six Samsung Galaxy skins, and more tentative changes!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• New Skins
• Hextech Poppy
• SSG Ezreal
• SSG Gnar
• SSG Jarvan IV
• SSG Rakan
• SSG Taliyah
• SSG Xayah
• New Ward Skin
• PBE Bugs and Feedback Thread: Stats on PBE! 
• Updated Spellblade VFX on PBE
• Miscellaneous
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes
• Cursor Update on PBE v3 

New Skins

A total of seven new skins are hitting the PBE this cycle, including the gemstone exclusive Hextech Poppy and six new Samsung Galaxy team skins celebrating them as our 2017 Worlds Champions!

Hextech Poppy

Here's Nurse Flan with a bugs & feedback thread for Hextech Poppy:

"Hextech Poppy is the newest addition to the Hextech collection! She is fashioned as an inventor of hextech machinery! 

• New model and textures - She's got a decked out Hextech hammer!
• New VFX for all spells - Hextech-infused magic!
• New SFX for all spells - Fancy and shiny!
• New recall animations - Whoa, the hammer turns into a 'copter!

As players who get the first look at this in-progress skin, it would be wonderful to hear your constructive thoughts and feelings on the new Hextech skin! The feedback and bugs you leave here will help us get a better idea of things we may still have to take a look at. :] 

This skin is intended to be sold for a number of Gemstones. 

Pricing is subject to change 

See you on the Rift!"

Samsung Galaxy World Championship Skins

Also included this cycle are the 2017 Samsung Galaxy World Championship skins skins for Ezreal, Gnar, Jarvan IV, Rakan, Taliyah, and Xayah! Check out their signature recalls [here].

Before we get into the details, here's Riot Stellari with a bugs & feedback thread for the SSG World Championship skins:

"Hi all~ I'm pitch-hitting for Katey while she's on vacation. :) I'm Stellari, the product lead for the SSG skins.  

SSG came out on top as the 2017 World Champions last year. Each of these upcoming skins honors a player from the 2017 SSG roster!  

The skins will be 1350 RP each and include: 

New models and textures - With nods to Korean folklore and mythology, this team rolls out onto the Rift!
New VFX for all spells - Decked out in blues, purples, whites—and, of course—the SSG logo!
New SFX for all spells - Whimsical fantasy magic!
New recall animations - Designed by the players themselves, and brought to life in-game! (Including a duo recall for Rakan and Xayah!) 

SSG Gnar - CuVee
SSG Ezreal - Haru
SSG Jarvan IV - Ambition
SSG Taliyah - Crown
SSG Xayah - Ruler
SSG Rakan - CoreJJ 

As with all World Championship skins, these are also Legacy. 

A quick note about SSG Taliyah. Normally, a champion’s launch skin is left in the store for an extended period of time. However, our World Champion skins are only available for limited periods of time. You’ll be able to get SSG Taliyah now, and again later this year during Worlds. 

These SSG skins are now available to play on PBE. As players who experience this content first hand, your constructive feedback is greatly appreciated!"

SSG Ezreal

SSG Gnar

SSG Jarvan IV

SSG Rakan

SSG Taliyah

SSG Xayah

New Ward Skin

A new ward skin has been added to the PBE - the Rune Ward:

Rune Ward

PBE Bugs and Feedback Thread: Stats on PBE! 

A new Stats tab is now available on the PBE - check it on the Profile page!

Here's Lexical with a thread on a new Stats feature testing on the PBE this cycle, including additional screenshots:

Hihi PBE! Stats is now available on PBE! 

Compare your performance this season by champion or position to other players of equal, higher, or lower skill levels. Designed as performance indicators, Stats lets you dive into your strengths and weaknesses relative to other players.Just head over to the profile tab in the client to get started. 

Under the Stats tab, you will see the overview page. From there you can filter your games queue types, games played etc. You will need at least 5 games played per champion, queue type and role in order to see detailed data. Your scores are broken down into three main categories: Team Play, Income, and Combat. 

To see detailed stats, just click on the champion or lane you wish to see.

You can compare with different ranks or chose a friend, an expert or another one of your champions in the same role to compare. Clicking a point on the graph will show you a specific game.

Because we’re on PBE most folks will have fewer games, and fewer stats. So you might need to play a few games to get the full experience or just use your imagination until we hit live. 

Please let us know what you think. We would love to hear your feedback, questions and bug reports! :)"

Updated Spellblade VFX on PBE 

Here's Riot King Cobra with the details on updated Spellblade VFX now testing on the PBE:

"Hi everybody! We’re here with a visual update to some of our older item effects in League. 

There are new VFX for the Spellblade passive on Sheen, Iceborn Gauntlet, Trinity Force, and Lich Bane on PBE. We want to maintain the current readability, but get these effects to better match League’s current art style. 

You can check them out in some images below! (Old on left and new on right) 

Sheen / Trinity Force

Lich Bane

Iceborn Gauntlet

Do these still read as the same buffs to you? Are the new buffs as noticeable as the ones on Live? Do they feel cleaner and clearer than the Live versions? We'd love to hear your thoughts!"

Miscellaneous 

• As noted by Reav3 in his recent post, Aatrox's "banner wings" are slowly being implemented! While the banners are not yet showing, Aatrox's back now has spiked supports for them! Look for more as the cycle progesses.

Context & Notes

1) Here's an except from Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts from 6/22, including details on some 8.14 changes:

"Some 8.14 changes 

We've just done some initial planning for patch 8.14. Some of the things we'll be looking at:

• Monitoring how our changes in 8.13 that impact bot lane, gold/xp funneling and snowball have gone, in particular to see if we should go further in 8.14.
• Looking at mage balance, with a focus on mages who've been left in too weak a state after the 8.9 mana changes. We'll be assessing a range of champions for that, with changes expected to some, but not all of them. Some possible candidates include Syndra, Annie, Vel'Koz, Ahri, Cass, Viktor and Ori. Likely that some of those champions don't get buffed and some not on that list do though as we dig into things more.
• Likely a buff to Karma. We're working on some longer term stuff for her, but will likely give her some straight power as well in the short term.
• Potentially a buff to Liandries."

2) When asked about the release of the Icon / Ward collections, Riot Mort noted:

"Icon collection will go live with a few minor bugs in 8.13 I believe. Ward collection should be 8.14"

3) Riot Stellari provided some background on the SSG skins and the Korean references in them:

[1] The players wanted Korean culture represented for the 2017 SSG World Champ skins. Here's a few of the inspirations: Xayah & Rakan reference the Korean magpie. Xayah's flower is the national flower and Rakan's recall hat is a traditional hat for passing government tests (1/3)

[2] Ezreal is inspired by the Korean hwarang (flower knights)--ancient elite warrior youth who are often depicted with long hair. J4 has a lot of references to Ambition that are obvious, but also refereenced the famous Admiral Yi Sun Shin for his facial hair and ulti. (2/3)

[3] Taliyah is inspired by a Hong Gildong-type (a Robin Hood-type) who weaves the kind of marble you'd see in ancient palaces. Gnar is a white tiger which holds a lot of cultural significance in Korean culture. For SSG fans, there's a number of references to the players too :D (3/3)

Cursor Update on PBE v3 

Below is Fearless with the latest PBE boards post on the Cursor update that's been testing on the PBE for a few cycles now.

Cursor Update on PBE v3 (Posted 6/20/2018)

"Hey all, here’s one more iteration during this PBE cycle. In this round, we’ve been focusing on the following areas: 

Enemy Hover (Sword) Iterations - shape, size, and color
Pass on visuals to feel closer to League style (WIP) 

For this round we focused on updating the render quality of our assets to feel a bit more like League but still contrast the colors and vfx that happen in game so you don’t lose track of the cursor. The renders are not final, and if we move forward with these designs, they will still need some polishing. 

We have also heard a good amount of feedback on the sword feeling small or the shape change not giving enough feedback on when you’re hovering an enemy. So in this iteration, we are adding color combined with the shape shift to a bigger sword to give you that quick feedback when you need it. 

Color can be tricky - the legacy cursor often had problems with losing a red sword in a red wave of minions. To solve that, we’re trying out a red sword but with a brighter white edge and tip to help stand out against all the red in the game. 

These visuals are still a work-in-progress and we’d love to get your feedback. Thanks!"