7/6 PBE Update: New Summoner Icons, Emotes & More Tentative Balance Changes

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 8.14 PBE cycle, today's patch includes new summoner icons, three new emotes, as well as more tentative balance changes!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• New Summoner Icons
• New Emotes
• Miscellaneous
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes
• Update on Updated Spellblade VFX!

New Summoner Icons

Six new summoner icons are now on the PBE! These icons mention the release of the Runeterra Map, as well as a Ryze short coming sometime in the future! No other details at the moment.

New Emotes

Three new emotes were added in today's update: "Now See Here", "Are You Serious" and "Squee"

Miscellaneous

• A small handful of skins bios were added this cycle! Here's El Leon Gnar's for an example:

"He's big. He's small. He's throwing pieces of the ring around like it's made of pixie dust and unicorn whispers. He's El Leon, the eighth wonder of the world, and he's here to say to his opponents: "Gnar!""

Fizz
[Context]

• Urchin Strike (Q)
• [Removed] "Seastone Trident is applied to all enemy units Fizz passes through during his dash."
• "Removed the bleeds on non-primary targets of Urchin Strike (Q) and all targets of Chum the Waters (R)"

• Seastone Trident (W)
• Active Bonus Damage increased from [20/30/40/50/60 + 40% AP] to [40/50/60/70/80 + 40% AP]

• Chum the Waters (R)
• [Removed] "Seastone Trident applies to the champion the fish attaches to and targets hit by the shark."

• [Bugfix] "Also, we fixed some bugs where his W active duration before hitting a target was 2s instead of 4s and his on-hit damage was higher than intended."

Context & Notes

1) Here's Riot NeuroCat with an update on the Fizz W changes in testing on the PBE:

"Hi folks, quick update. 

Based on feedback and further testing, we're adding a bit more power to his W early. Plus, we're stripping out the bleeds that Q and R add to further streamline his kit and free up some situational power. 

Changes 

• Removed the bleeds on non-primary targets of Urchin Strike (Q) and all targets of Chum the Waters (R)
• W Active Bonus Damage: 20/30/40/50/60 + 40% AP >>> 40/50/60/70/80 + 40% AP

Also, we fixed some bugs where his W active duration before hitting a target was 2s instead of 4s and his on-hit damage was higher than intended."

2) ricklessabandon provided a changelist and context on some Karma changes that should be coming in the 8.14 cycle:

"putting together some karma buffs for 8.14 and still kind of figuring out what makes the most sense for right now (given that we'd still like to do a small update for her in the future) 

currently considering things like this:"

He also noted some tentative Ahri changes coming next week:

"going to try to get some ahri changes out to the pbe in the next update (early next week)  

here's an early preview (subject to change)"

3) Meddler provided context on the Teleport changes that went to the PBE in the 7/5 PBE update:

"Quote:

the TP nerfs hit PBE yesterday. Those are big nerfs. Do you have some context? :) 

TP's been something we've been concerned about for quite a few months, as some folks might recall from discussion earlier this year. At the time we held off on changes because, while it was having some negative effects (too hard to win lane against it, teams piling on into bot lane etc) top lane wasn't in the best of places and would be the primary lane affected. At this point it's both much wider spread and top's in a better state, so we're looking at changes again. What's on the PBE isn't necessarily final, still talking about what approach makes the most sense. Removing the refund for cancellation's looking like a pretty good approach though, given it doesn't penalize the 'get back to lane to try and catch up' safety net and it targets some of the least interesting uses of TP (the zoning TP you start to ward off aggression from the enemy team, then cancel, resulting in nothing actually happening and no real commitment)."

4) Here's Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for 7/6, including details on the impact of the 8.13b balance patch,  a look at a new passive for Lissandra still in internal testing, more 8.14 changes planned, 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 

Impact of 8.13b 

We've been looking at the impact of the mini patch from earlier this week (8.13b). Looking reasonable so far, with moderate amounts of power as hoped added to Trist, Cait and Varus. We're keeping an eye on Aatrox, since we're starting to see some really strong performances from him on players who've got passed the initial learning curve. Also watching a couple of ADCs who were doing well before the changes who've benefited a bit from the Stormrazor change (e.g. Draven). No immediate plans to make changes to them, but want to make sure we haven't over buffed. 

Lissandra 

As mentioned previously we've been testing a new Lissandra passive internally for a couple of weeks. It's been going fairly well, so figured I'd share a look at it as a result, despite some risk it still might not work out. Given this is still earlier in testing I've also omitted some numbers and those that are listed are more to give an example of how it works than because they're necessarily what could ship. 

"Iceborn
When a champion Lissandra has damaged within the last 3 seconds dies they become a Frozen Statue. Frozen Statues slow nearby enemies by 30%. After 2.5 seconds Frozen Statues shatter, dealing X (+Y AP ratio) magic damage to nearby enemies." 

Intent is to help Lissandra's contributions to multi enemy fights after she's used her initial CDs. Use cases include getting a zone of control after diving in and killing a backline target and helping zone enemies after killing enemy divers or other front line. Doesn't have as much impact early game, but has proven useful in some early 2v2s when both junglers show up and early objective fights. If going ahead with it would be paired with some mana cost reductions to her kit. Statues also count as terrain, so they'll both block pathing slightly and can be combo'd with things like Gnar ult, Poppy E etc. 

In terms of time frame, we'll probably have a clear enough read on whether the gameplay's solid pretty soon, so will likely make a call on whether or not to go ahead within a week or two. One of the downsides of changing abilities like this however is that, where it's a big departure from previous functionality, there's a need for a bunch of art and audio work. Not sure yet what the likely timeframe on that would be, would take a while though. 

More 8.14 changes to hit the PBE today/next week 

For anyone wondering why the PBE's been pretty quiet and where followup changes to various mages stuff's still coming. Should be some more balance changes to champions getting into the patch today and in the first half of next week. Since 8.13-8.14 is a 3 week patch we've been taking some time earlier in the cycle to work on other things, champ changes still coming though." 

Update on Updated Spellblade VFX

Here's Riot King Cobra with an update on the spellblade VFX in testing on the PBE:

Hey everyone! I posted here a couple of weeks ago asking for feedback about updated Spellblade VFX that the Game Systems team was working on. We read through what you had to say and made some slight iterations that I'd like to share with you! The changes aren't too big - we primarily tried to address concerns over clarity by adding some white glow to the center of the VFX and brightened them a bit (The Iceborn Gauntlet screengrab doesn't convey this too great...my bad...). That said, we're particularly interested in what you guys think about the new differentiation between Sheen and Trinity Force. 

We're feeling pretty good about moving forward with these, but would like to give you guys an opportunity to provide your thoughts. See them below! 

Sheen/Trinity Force

Trinity Force In Action

Lich Bane

Iceborn Gauntlet

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 !

• 6/26 PBE Update: Samsung Galaxy Skins, Hextech Poppy & More
• 6/27 PBE Update: Ward Skin Tweaks
• 6/28 PBE Update: SSG Taliyah Tweaks, Fizz W Changes & more!
• 6/29 PBE Update: Aatrox Model Tweaks
• 6/29 PBE Update #2: Samsung Galaxy Splash Art, Loading Screens, & Summoner icons
• 7/2 PBE Update: Aatrox Wings Toggle + Tweaks and Tentative Balance Changes
• 7/3 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes
• 7/5 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes