8/27 PBE Update: Star Guardian Skins, Icons, Emotes & More!

The PBE has been updated! As we start the 9.18 PBE cycle, today's patch includes new Star Guardian skins, summoner icons, a ward skin, emotes, and much more!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Champion Skins
• Star Guardian Neeko
• Star Guardian Neeko Prestige Edition
• Star Guardian Rakan
• Star Guardian Xayah
• Star Guardian Zoe
• New Summoner Icons
• New Ward Skin
• New Emotes
• TFT Update: Powerful Punch-Ups
• Miscellaneous
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

Champion Skins

Five new Star Guardian skins are now on the PBE!

Here's Riot grumbojr with a bugs & feedback thread for Star Guardian Neeko!

"Star Guardian Neeko has descended from the stars to come to the Star Guardians aid! Will she be able to defeat the likes of Star Guardian Zoe? 

Star Guardian Neeko and Towa are chameleoning and hopping (respectively) their way onto the Rift, featuring: 

• New model and texture! - Check out Neeko’s new Star Guardian outfit!
• New particles! - Sparkles and ribbons!
• New SFX! - Lots of bleps from Towa.
• New recall animation! - Watch Neeko’s transformation into a Star Guardian. 

Star Guardian Neeko is live on PBE! If you’ve got feedback, we’d love to hear it. Bugs? Send them our way and we’ll take care of them. We’ll do our best to answer your questions! 

Star Guardian Neeko is set to be 1350 RP.* 

*Prices on PBE are subject to change."

Star Guardian Neeko Prestige Edition

Here's Riot grumbojr with a bugs & feedback thread for Star Guardian Rakan!

"Star Guardian Rakan is here to bring darkness to the Universe. And get some new hair gel! 

Star Guardian Rakan and Riku are dashing their way onto the Rift, featuring: 

• New model and texture! - Check out his dark new look.
• New particles! - Dark and moody, yet also still sparkly.
• New SFX! - Evil never sounded so good.
• New VO! - Rakan is back with lots of sass for the Star Guardians.
• New recall animation! - He’ll be back, don’t you worry.
• New emotes! - Rakan and Riku are working on their communication. 

Star Guardian Rakan is live on PBE! If you’ve got feedback, we’d love to hear it. Bugs? Send them our way and we’ll take care of them. We’ll do our best to answer your questions! 

Star Guardian Rakan is set to be 1820 RP.* 

*Prices on PBE are subject to change."

As Star Guardian Rakan & Xayah are legendary tier skins, they each have new sets of special interactions, as well as shared lines:

Here's Riot LoveStrut with a bugs & feedback thread for Star Guardian Xayah:

"Many years ago, Xayah was destroyed in the fight against Zoe, alongside her lover Rakan. The pair were then resurrected and turned against their allies -- a change Xayah seems almost happy about. Blaming the Star Guardians for abandoning her to die, she has taken a bitter, personal stand against them, even as doubts begin to creep in... 

"The Star Guardians. I was going to deal with them later, but oh well." 

• New model and textures: Star Guardian Xayah dons her new uniform. When she uses her Featherstorm (R), she expels the corruption in her and briefly returns to her original form.
• New VFX: Careful with these stars, they hurt more than they twinkle. The aggression behind using her Deadly Plumage (W) also seems to bring out a darker side to her...
• New SFX and VO lines: What does a vengeful, moody star sound like? I guess something like this.
• New animations and rig: She touches her lover’s gem, which momentarily cleanses herself of Star Guardian Zoe’s corruption during her new Recall (B).

Star Guardian Xayah is slated as a Legendary skin priced at 1820 RP (subject to change) and is now available on PBE! We always love hearing your feedback and feelings! All bug reports and thoughts help us make these skins even more awesome, so please keep 'em coming! 

Thanks, cuties! <3"

Here's Riot LoveStrut with a bugs & feedback thread for Star Guardian Zoe!

"A member of the ancient, first group of Star Guardians, Zoe’s heart desired not love, but chaos -- twisting her newfound power into a malignant expression of cosmic madness. After numberless eons of hunting the First Star’s chosen, she has finally come to Valoran City, hoping to destroy the latest generation of Guardians as she has countless others. 

"Starlight is an expression of something inside bursting to get out!"

• New model and textures: Evil has never worn such an innocent face.
• New VFX: If you enter her Sleepy Trouble Bubble (E), falling asleep is probably the least of your worries.
• New SFX and VO lines: The sweet sound of sinister… and of your doom.
• New animations and rig: Where does she come from? Star Guardian Zoe’s new Recall (B) gives a peek into the darkness in the world between worlds.

Star Guardian Zoe is slated as an Epic skin priced at 1350RP (subject to change) and is now available on PBE! We always love hearing your feedback and feelings! All bug reports and thoughts help us make these skins even more awesome, so please keep 'em coming! 

Thanks, cuties! <3"

New Summoner Icons

Sixteen new summoner icons are now on the PBE:

New Ward Skin

A new ward skin is now on the PBE:

New Emotes

Four new emotes are now on the PBE:

TFT Update: Powerful Punch-Ups 

Here's Tummers and Riot Beernana with details on new TFT Items now testing on the PBE:

"Sparring Gloves have magically appeared in the Convergence like mana from heaven (or RNG from minions) to provide you and your team with all of your critical strike and dodging needs. These gloves combine with all existing item components to make eight new items and a reworked Infinity Edge. Sword of the Divine has been removed; its recipe and Infinity Edge's one now create two more new items. They'll all join the roster with patch 9.18. 

TL;DR:

• 1 new item component
• 8 new items made from that component + Infinity Edge
• 1 Sword of the Divine removed
• 2 new items created from old Infinity Edge and Sword of the Divine recipes

Here are the details: 

• Sparring Gloves
• +10% Dodge chance - "Float like a butterfly"
• +10% Crit chance - "Sting like a bee"
• We didn't want to disrupt the balance of offensive and defensive options, so we made Sparring Gloves capable of either: If the finished item is offensive in nature, the statline shifts to +20% Crit, if it is defensive, it shifts to +20% Dodge.

• Thief's Gloves
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Sparring Gloves
• A champion holding Thief's Gloves can't hold other items except temporary ones gained by this item. Thief's Gloves cannot be given to a champion that already holds an item. On round start, gain two temporary items. Their quality is based on your player level.
• For those that like items with their items.

• Hand of Justice
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Tear of the Goddess
• At the beginning of the planning phase, the wearer randomly gains either 40% increased damage or 40 life on hit until end of round.
• For those that aren't great with decisions.

• Infinity Edge
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + BF Sword
• Crits deal 200% more damage.
• When you want to crit, but like....even more so.

• Arcane Gauntlet
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Needlessly Large Rod
• Your abilities can critically strike.
• When your ASol dreams of being Draven.

• Quicksilver
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Negatron Cloak
• Prevents the next crowd control effect applied to the wearer. Refreshes every 5 seconds.
• Can’t touch this, ba na na na.

• Iceborne Gauntlet
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Chain Vest
• On dodge, create an expandable 30% attack speed slow zone.
• Just how expandable? No one knows.

• Backhand
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Giant's Belt
• The wearer starts combat with a spell shield. Stun the enemy that breaks the shield for a long time.
• An eye for an eye, in item form.

• Repeating Crossbow
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Recurve Bow
• When the wearer dies, Repeating Crossbow passes to a new ally and they gain an additional 20% Crit chance and 20% Attack Speed. This stacks with each pass of the item.
• YOU get a Repeating Crossbow, YOU get a Repeating Crossbow, YOU get a Repeating Crossbow!!!!!!!!!

• Mittens
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Golden Spatula
• Extra 10% Crit chance and 10% Dodge chance. Wearer is also a Yordle
• Tastes purple.

Since Infinity Edge has a new recipe and Sword of the Divine has been removed, we’ve added two more new items in their place: 

• Lord's Edge
• Recipe: BF Sword + BF Sword
• A champion holding Lord's Edge can't hold other items except temporary ones gained by this item. Lord's Edge cannot be given to a champion that already holds an item. On takedown, gain a BF Sword for the remainder of the round.
• For those doing the math at home, yes a champion can hold three Lord’s Edges by the end of the round.

• Last Whisper
• Recipe: BF Sword + Recurve Bow
• Attacks can't miss (removed from RFC btw) and deal True Damage equal to 5% of the target's maximum health
• *Cries in Yordle*

Oh, and one other thing: 

Another new item can drop, but this one's a little different. Neeko's Help is a consumable item that you can place on a champion. When you do, Neeko's Help is consumed and a 1 star copy of the champion is instantly made and added to your bench. If your bench is full, Neeko will just pop right back off, so no tricky business! Use Neeko to complete a 3 star champion, or to quickly clone a powerful Legendary champ. The choice is yours!"

Miscellaneous 

• ARURF Available for Testing! - Fearless

"Hello Friends! 

We’re going to be enabling ARURF on the PBE for testing, starting very shortly. Up front: ARURF is not coming back in 9.18. We are planning to bring it back later in the year, though, and since we're in a calmer testing window to ensure things are stable for Worlds, figured now would be a great time to get well ahead of any possible issues. 

In terms of what's new, we’ve made a few small tuning changes to address issues we saw in the last run, as well as a few tweaks under the hood to how we balance champions. We want your help to make sure everything is working as intended and to watch for any new outliers that might need some help, so that when we bring the mode back later this year, we’ll be in great shape. 

In addition to the below, we're also holding onto the changes from the last round of ARURF (cannon, super drakes, etc): 

Champs

• Pyke’s healing reduced (100% >>> 80%)
• Pyke‘s damage reduced (100% >>> 95%)
• Sona’s healing reduced (100% >>> 82%)

Systems

• Elder Dragon now spawns at 8 minutes, rather than 5 minutes.
• Elder Dragon buff reduced at base and empowered. We think the cannon dramatically increases the amount of time buff holders actually use the buff in fights (versus rotating around the map), and don’t want securing Elder buff to be the only strategy teams can win with.
• Base duration 150 seconds >>> 120 seconds
• Empowered 300 seconds >>> 180 seconds
• Turret plating now has a range of health values, skewing easier to take the first few plates
• Each turret plate 1k health >>> 500 -1500 health based on the plate
• Turret plates value have increased to greater reward early lane aggression compared to map objectives.
• 160 gold (660 for all 4) >>> 300 gold

Runes

• Transcendence
• Bonus CDR activation level: 10 >>> 15
• Adaptive Force for over capped CDR: 2 >>> 0.5
• Gathering Storm
• Increment interval: 4.5 >>> 6 

We think there’s likely plenty of other champions and runes that could use a look that might be more apparent with a few of the most obvious issues addressed. We hope to see you in a few test games, and we’ll be watching this thread for questions and concerns. 

Thanks!"

Annie
[Changelist]

• Molten Shield (E)
• [New] "Annie now gains 50% bonus movement speed that depreciates quickly over 1.5 seconds."
• Damage reduction lowered from 16/22/28/34/40 to 8/11/14/17/20
• Cooldown increased from 10s to 15s
• Mana cost increased from 20 to 40

Context & Notes

1) Here's Riot Scruffy with a changelist for Annie, now testing on the PBE:

"Annie update from @Damascus_Glenn after feedback: Removal of Tibbers enrage micro was a big enough loss that we pulled that section of the changes to focus on E only."

He also provided a look at upcoming changes for Aatrox and Akali: