Surrender at 20: 5.18 PBE Cycle

Welcome to the 5.18 PBE cycle wrap up post!

This mega post was last Updated on 9/10 with the 9/10 PBE Update

( With the release of patch 5.17 to live on September 2nd, we started the 5.18 PBE cycle )

Previous PBE Cycles in 2015

[4.21][5.1] [5.2] [5.3] [5.4] [5.5] [5.6] [5.7] [5.8] [5.9] [5.10] [5.11] [5.12] [5.13] [5.14] [5.15] [5.16] [5.17]

Below you will find a comprehensive list of new content, balance changes, and whatever else is included in the 5.18 PBE cycle Be aware that these changes are extremely tentative, what is included below may not be representative of the final changes that go to live.

(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and iterative - what you see may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers! Manage your expectations accordingly. )

New Skins

Championship Kalista

New Skins

To celebrate the end of the season, we have the upcoming Championship Kalista skin. Championship skins are typically legacy skins to celebrate the end of the season but should not be confused with the Victorious skinline which is a ranked reward.

Championship Kalista

975 RP

Here's KateyKhaos with a bugs & feedback thread for Championship Kalista, as well as a reminder on the differences between the Championship and Victorious skin lines:

"Celebrate the 2015 season with Championship Kalista! She descends upon the Rift and includes -

New model and texture - Regal and armored, ready for battle – including a new spear and sentinel

New Particle effects - Blue particles, iconic of the Championship skins

New recall animation - Kalista rends her podium before claiming her title

Championship Kalista is now available to play on the PBE! Please note that PBE content is still a work in progress! We always find bug reports and feedback super helpful, as well as constructive feedback, so feel free to comment in the thread below! Likewise, if you've got any questions, post 'em here, and we'll do our best to answer them.

Championship v. Victorious Skins

Championship skins are celebration skins for each season. They’re available in the shop for a limited time (they’re legacy) for 975 RP.

Victorious skins are ranked rewards, given to players who achieve at least Gold. They are not sold in the store at any time.

New Ward Skin

To go along with Championship Kalista, we also have the new 2015 Championship Ward skin!

2015 Championship Ward

640 RP

Here's Riot LoveStrut with a bugs & feedback thread for the 2015 Championship Ward:

"IT'S HAPPENING! The World Championships are almost here again! To celebrate, we're happy to announce the 2015 Championship Ward!

The 2015 Championship Ward has...

All new model and textures! (So shiny, so regal!)

New sound effects!

New animations!

This ward will be available for 640 RP for a limited time! (As usual, prices and dates are subject to change.)

If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to leave a comment below! :D We really appreciate your feedback.

<3"

New Summoner Icons

Seventeen new summoner icons have been added, one for the 2015 World Championship logo and 16 for each of the qualified teams across all regions.

Teams: TSM, C9, CLG, SKT, FNATIC, H2K, ORIGEN, KOO, LGD, BKT, ahq, Flash Wolves, EDG, Invictus Gaming, KT Rolster, Pain Gaming

Also added were four icons for each of the jungle camps - Scuttle Crab, Wolves, Raptors and Krugs. No details on availability yet:

World Championship Emblems

To go along with the icons, a set of World Championship team "emblems" have been added this cycle. There is one for each of the 16 qualified teams. These will display in-game on a fancy plaque with the team logo on it. On the PBE, using one of the WC summoner icons makes your in-game mastery emote (Ctrl 6 by default) display the fancy new team emblem.

[NOTE: Currently only the CLG emblem is working on the PBE. Purchase the CLG 2015 WC summoner icon and go into game and you'll be able to trigger the CLG emblem with mastery emote hotkey!]

Here's a few examples:

Unfortunately, no release details yet.

HUD Updates

Several HUD updates are also currently on the PBE, including player names back on scoreboard, and return of ping button on minimap.

[NOTE: Unfortunately, the Mirrored scoreboard option was removed late in the PBE cycle and will not be going out in 5.18. Expect it to return for most resting in 5.19!]

Here's Rayven with a bugs & feedback thread (from 9/4)

"Hey friends, a couple new things in this release we'd like feedback on (and a few bugs we know about):

- Ping button on minimap
- Summoner names on the scoreboard
- Larger and more clear team frame meters
- A mirrored scoreboard layout preference (bugged at the moment - under the interface section of the option menu)
- Ranked team names and tags on the scoreboard
- [BUG] Flipped minimap doesn't appear to be working.

Thanks!"

Here's a few screenshots:

Player names are now once again visible on the scoreboard!

A small button for the alert ping has been added back to the HUD near the corner of mini map.

~~Mirror option~~ [Reverted for now]

[PBE ONLY] Report a Bug Page

While not relative to the live patch, you can now click through the PBE client's menu to report bugs! Here's Riot Chesties with more info:

"Testers -

After a few patches to work out some of the kinks to the Player Bug Reporting (PBR) Tool, we are now ready to transition the PBR to be our primary means of processing bugs found on the PBE. We hope that the Bug reporting forum will remain a place where you can discuss the finer points of what may or may not be a bug; however, we will be looking to the PBR to gain detailed repro steps so that issues can be effectively evaluated and prioritized.

You'll be able to find a link to "Report a Bug" via the Client. For a time, we will also have the link in a sticky post across all PBE boards, but for easier access, a permanent link will be added to the navigation panel seen to your left.

Rest assured, we look at every bug that goes into the PBR, and we hope that it continues to contribute to our discovery of nasty bugs in the game.

Thanks,

Riot Chesties"

In your PBE client you'll now see a giant "Click here to report a bug" section.

If you click "click here to report a bug" it redirects you to the Report a bug page.

"They are coming" teaser - Lamb & Wolf Mask

Several more files related to the "They Are Coming" champion teaser have been added! These new files reference "Lamb"& "Wolf" plus several references to death. One of the files also mentions "Kindred" (Kindred_Base_Death_Avatar).

For example, here is a file labelled "TheyAreComing_Base_Promo_Mask", showing a white and purple mask that each have what appears to be half of the "Swirl" seen in the original teaser.

These two masks are observable in-game and seem to appear randomly on death, although they will not appear every time. Here's an example of the white mask:

and here's what they look like without being greyed out by the fog of war on death:

Here's a video of the effect forced to activate in-game, which include various vfx in addition to masks:

[For anyone interested, Iniquitee has posted to dispel the rumor that this is based on a fan concept.]

Recall Animations on ARAM

While you won't actually recall since that is disabled on ARAM, you can now use your recall hotkey to play your recall animation in ARAM!

Here's Griftrix with context on this change:

"Yeah. I had this idea last week. I was in voice chat with some friends, and we went against an arcade Riven. In voice I said "she has one of the best recall ani.... oh... nevermind." That's what inspired me to chase a couple things down, ask the right people, and with a little help (cause I have almost no experience with actually changing spell stuff) I got something working Friday. It's on PBE now. I just checked in a fix 30 min ago to remove the icon for the "recall buff" because you're not actually doing anything. In any case, press B, see animation (if you have one). It will not have the blue beam, or a cast bar, or a channel bar, and it will still be interrupted by damage like other recall, but it will play the animations just fine.

Enjoy!
-Griftrix"

Instant feedback updates land on PBE

Here's NeuroCat with details on the instant feedback updates now on the PBE!

"Hey all,

We’ve shipped out a suite of new features on the PBE. Earlier this year, we tipped our hand on what’s in today’s release, so skim that post for the big ideas. It all boils down to upgrades to instant feedback, League’s automated system for detecting, punishing, and (one day) rewarding certain behaviors in League:

In-client reform cards

Until now, reform cards were sent via email to offending players. Now they’ll appear in-client, delivering context on the punishment and displaying the chat log that triggered the punishment. Pushing reform cards into the client ensures players receive the information they need to understand the punishment and change their behavior for the better. Since the vast majority of you won’t ever receive a reform card, here’s what one looks like:

Chat restrictions

Instant feedback began with two-week and permanent bans because the negative behaviors spurring them (homophobia, racism, sexism, death threats, and excessive verbal abuse) are both overwhelmingly rejected by the community and hard to mistake. After crunching several million games worth of data over the last few months, the instant feedback system’s now ready to help reform more mild, but persistent negative behaviors with chat restrictions.

Intentional feeding bans

Intentional feeders ruin games, so the behavior nets players two-week bans, and can
escalate to permanent bans if it continues. Through a ton of in-game metrics, chat logs, and even historical play patterns, we ensured the system understands the difference between intentional feeding and being crushed by a Riven main in solo queue. You shouldn’t need to worry about just having a bad game.

Like with all new feature launches, the whole player behavior team will hand-review the first few thousand cases to make sure everything’s working right."

Miscellaneous

This cycle also includes new Summoner's Rift terrain featuring the 2015 World Championship logo, which is likely to be shown during the Worlds matches.

Tahm Kench's Grey Health (E) bar's colorblind mode display has been updated.

Check out these tweets from ZenonTheStoic for more - [1], [2], [3], [4]

[Left = Standard // Right = Colorblind Mode]

Azir's R indicator has been updated on the PBE, functionality remains the same.

Summoner's Rift banners for each of the 16 World Championship teams have been added. These banners display in the base and are enabled during esports broadcasts such as the LCS.

Balance Changes

* Remember *: Due to how data mining and collections works with the PBE, what you see below may not be representative of the final 5.18 changelist. Often times subtle changes or bugfixes are difficult to suss out!

Champions

Anivia

Frostbite (E) can now deal double damage to dragon/baron after hitting them with Q or R.

Braum

Winter's Bite (Q) mana cost increased to 55/60/65/70/75 from 45/50/55/60/65

Caitlyn

Yordle Snap Trap (W) mana cost lowered to 30 from 50
Yordle Snap Trap (W) cooldown lowered to 16/14/12/10/8 from 20/17/14/11/8

Darius

Decimate (Q) heal per champion hit reduced to 12% from 15%
Decimate (Q) [Maximum heal increased to 36% from 30%]
Decimate (Q) mana cost increased to 30/35/40/45/50 from 30 at all ranks

Elise

Human Form / Spider Form (R)

Spiderling damage reduced to 10/15/20/25 from 10/20/30/40
Spiderlings reduced damage from multi target abilities increased to 25% from 20%

Evelynn

[Reverted] ~~Ravage (E)~~ ~~damage lowered to 50/90/130/170/210 from 70/110/150/190/230~~

Ezreal

Arcane Shift (E) new effect: now has a .5 bonus AD ratio

Fiora

Base HP lowered to 550 from 570
Base armor reduced to 24 from 27
HP per level reduced to 85 from 92

Gangplank

Powder Keg (E) bonus physical damage to champions lowered to 60/90/120/150/180 from 80/110/140/170/200
Powder Keg (E) armor ignore lowered to 40% from 50%

Garen

[Killing Garen will no longer make you the villain - source.]

Jarvan IV

Base armor increased to 29 from 27

Lulu

HP per level reduced to 74 from 82
Pix, Faerie Companion (Passive) can now trigger Tribute (Spellthief line passive) once per lulu basic attack**

Mordekaiser

Armor per level increased to 3.75 from 3.5
Base armor reduced to 20 from 24.88
Harvesters of Sorrow (W) has several changes:

W can now be self cast

[Will not do the "when they touch" damage but will do the reactivate damage.]

[W's damage zones can no longer overlap for double damage - source.]
Movement speed noted as "up to" 75 instead of just 75
Health cost increased to 25/35/45/55/65 from 0
AP Ratio on "when they touch" damage increased to .9 from .6
Reactivation damage increased to 70/95/120/145/170 from 50/70/90/110/130
% heal on minions lowered to 25% from 33%
Max number of units drained reduced to 2 from 3

Morgana

Dark Binding (Q) mana cost reduced to 50/55/60/65/70 from 50/60/70/80/90

Skarner

Fracture (E) slow reduced to 30/35/40/45/50% from 45/50/55/60/65%

Syndra

Mana per level increased to 63 from 50.

Twitch

Ambush (Q) [time before stealthing while taking damage lowered to 4.5 from 6]

Veigar

Baleful Strike (Q) now gives AP on champion kills AND assists instead of only champion kills.

Dark Matter (W) [now starts at beginning of cast time instead of at end**]

[NOTE: Video of this change on live vs pbe can be found here. Try slowing it down if you are having trouble seeing the change. The 1.2 second delay and vfx now start before the cast time rather than after.]

Zyra

Zyra's plant AI has been improved and they should now be much more reliable when targeting enemies. Check this post for more information.

Items

Dead Man's Plate

Tooltip no longer mentions momentum decay while under effects of silence & blind.

Enchantment: Devourer

Damage on hit per stack lowered to .67 from 1

Enchantment: Sated Devourer

Magic damage on hit lowered to 50 from 60.

Enchantment: Warrior

AD increased to 45 from 40

Sterak's Gage

Tooltip now notes exactly how much damage must be taken at current level to proc Sterak's Fury.

Zeke's Harbinger

Armor reduced to 30 from 35

Removed Content

In the 9/1 PBE Update, a reference to "Ironside Malphite" was added to the PBE but no assets were available to preview Malphite's 7th skin. These have since been removed.

Patch History for this cycle:

9/1 PBE Update