8.19 PBE Cycle

(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 Kha'Zix
• Hextech Malzahar
• New Chroma
• New Esports Icons & Emotes
• New Summoner Icons
• New Emote
• New Ward Skins & Emote
• Worlds 2018 Login Theme
• Worlds 2018 Loot Assets
• Visual Effect and Sound Effect updates to Jarvan, Lee Sin, Veigar and Vi
• We're starting to test positional matchmaking on PBE
• Miscellaneous
• Balance Changes
• Patch History

New Skins

Two new skins are headed our way in the 8.19 PBE cycle - Championship Kha'Zix and Hextech Malzahar!

Championship Kha'Zix

Here's Riot KiWiKiD with a bugs & feedback thread for Championship Kha'zix:

"Championship Kha’Zix leaps onto the Rift with the following features: 

• New model and textures: Sleek blue and silver metals shimmering all over.
• New VFX for all spells: Celebrate worlds with gorgeous--yet fierce--metallic effects.
• New SFX for all spells: Your enemy won’t forget the sharp sounds of a champion.
• New recall animation: Secret fireworks hidden away for the right time! 

Championship Kha’Zix is now available to play on PBE! As players who experience this content firsthand, your constructive feedback is appreciated. If you have any questions, do drop them below and I’ll do my best to answer them. 

Championship Kha’Zix is set to be 1350 RP. 

Prices are subject to change"

Hextech Malzahar

New Chroma

Championship Zed

Championship Thresh

Championship Kalista

New Esports Icons & Emotes

Each of the teams participating in Worlds 2018 have had new summoner icons and emotes added to the PBE! Here's an example of each of the summoner icons and matching emotes. Not all of the teams will make it to Worlds, and only the qualifying teams icons/emote sets will make it to live.
Each team qualified for Worlds will also have a Championship Kha'zix chroma and matching icon! Here is a look at the icon:

New Summoner Icons

A handful of new summoner icons are now on the PBE:

New Emote

A new "World Championship 2018" emote is now on the PBE! This matches the Worlds Icon 2018:

New Ward Skins & Emote

Two new Championship ward skins and matching emotes are now on the PBE!

Visual Effect and Sound Effect updates to Jarvan, Lee Sin, Veigar and Vi

Here's Beardilocks with details on some VFX and SFX changes testing on the PBE:

"Summoners! 

On the PBE for testing this patch are updates to the visual effects (VFX) and sound effects (SFX) of four champions—Jarvan IV, Lee Sin, Veigar and Vi. 

These older champions have great character art or fun gameplay, but they were developed before we established guidelines for how effects should appear in the game. 

These guidelines include things like: making sure an ability's visual or audio representation matches its power relative to other spells, or using elements that clearly show the hitbox for a spell. You can read more about our guidelines for visual effects in our Visual Effects Style Guide. 

Older champions whose effects don't meet these standards can be confusing in a teamfight or harder to learn to play. Champions like J4, Lee Sin, Veigar, and Vi are prime candidates for VFX and SFX updates because their effects aren’t up to today’s standards, but they also aren't high-priority for full VGUs. We can update their VFX and SFX in a significantly shorter time than it would take to do a full VGU, which allows us to deliver this kind of update much faster. 

Here’s a breakdown of the updates you can expect to see on the PBE: 

Veigar
Full upgrade of visual and sound FX.
Q - Baleful Strike now clearly indicates the hitbox
W - Dark Matter now feels appropriately like dark matter; explosion is 100% more satisfying
E - Event Horizon walls now more accurately show the hitbox
R - Primordial Burst is 200% more evil and burns the ground with its dark energy 

All Veigar skins that previously used base VFX have been updated to use the new ones
Bad Santa Veigar and Leprechaun Veigar have also received an update to their unique VFX

Lee Sin
Full upgrade of visual and sound FX.
Q - Sonic Wave’s VFX look less flickery; audio and visual FX are now more like a sonic wave
W - Safeguard shield actually looks like a shield; scrolls received a visual upgrade
E - Tempest now clearly indicates the hitbox
R - Dragon's Rage has improved hit FX and leaves a fiery trail

All Lee Sin skins that previously used base VFX have been updated to use the new ones
Knockout Lee Sin's shield has been updated
Pool Party Lee Sin's Q mark has been updated
God Fist Lee Sin's E - Tempest now clearly indicates the hitbox 

Jarvan
Full upgrade of visual and sound FX.
Auto attacks - Jarvan's auto attacks should look and sound more powerful, particularly his Martial Cadence
Q - Dragon Strike now clearly indicates the hitbox and looks suitably powerful
W - Golden Aegis VFX are cleaner; the shield is more golden and glowy
E - Demacian Standard's impact and glow effects have been upgraded
R - Cataclysm has improved visuals that reduce noise; looks 100% less like poop on destruction

All Jarvan skins that previously used base VFX have been updated to use the new ones 

Vi
Visual effects cleanup and optimization—she should run much smoother on slower machines. Sound FX unaltered.
W - Denting Blows’ shield icon has been reduced to an appropriate size for the importance of the armor shred debuff 

We’ve playtested these updates internally, and now we need your help—especially if you main one of these champions. Please try them out on the PBE and leave us your feedback here. There are a number of other champs whose VFX and SFX we’d like to update if these changes are well-received, so please help us to make these a success!"

Riot Sirhaian also provided an extra comparison shot for Veigar's R:

"For those wondering, here's the difference between early and late game Veigar's ult missile. It scales up like on Live~ 

Let us know how you feel about this!"

 Sirhaian noted some continued changes for Veigar's VFX:

"Heyo! Made a little update for Veigar's ultimate (and a few small qol changes here and there), after reading tons of amazing feedback for his VFX update! Here's what it looks like now on PBE~! (Impact VFX reflects the changes too!)"

Here's a video showing off the changes for each champion (and skins if changed):

We're starting to test positional matchmaking on PBE

Here's Riot SapMagic with details on positional matchmaking testing on the PBE:

"Hello summoners! 

Back in April, we talked about our changes to Ranked for 2019. As part of those changes, we talked about how we had noticed player skill varies a lot by position, leading to unfair matchmaking and bad feels when you get your secondary position or get autofilled. 

One way we're planning to address this is positional matchmaking, where we track your skill for each position and matchmake you based on that. This is a relatively large change, so we're going to be testing it starting in Patch 8.19 in all regions with Normal Draft. To kick off that process, we're turning it on for PBE. 

Here's what you should expect to see later today when you play on PBE:

The Details 

• Everything should continue to work as normal in terms of queue times and position assignment
• At the end of the game you'll see an indicator of the position we're updating the skill rating for
• If we think you swapped positions, you'll see that too 

Note: Matchmaking should feel roughly the same on PBE, not better, since it's a more experimental environment with fewer consistent players. 

Try it out when you get a chance and give us feedback on how position detection feels. Thanks for all the help, and we'll see you on the Rift! 

-Sap"

Miscellaneous 

• A new layout on the Profile page is now testing on the PBE! Here's Aotus with a bug thread for the new player profile screen in the client - New Player Profile Overview Bug Thread

"Hey all! 

We've revamped the Player Profile Overview tab in preparation for Ranked 2019 and Clash! 

There's already been some discussion around including clash emblems in the overview tab, so I wanted to add a note from our product lead for some additional context: 

"Hey guys, I'm the product manager for the team working on these profile changes. The current screen you're seeing on PBE doesn't quite have all the elements we've planned yet (though it does have the majority). One big note is that we've increased the size and amount of information in some of the hover states (ranked and champ mastery noticeably).
I feel you on the pain of having those empty icons right now. Ultimately what we're trying to do with these changes is mostly set-up for the future - when we bring Clash back and also for the ranked changes that are planned for 2019. That means that right now they're going to be a little more empty, but that should change soon. 

While the main purpose of this thread is to track bugs, I welcome any feedback you have as well so we can keep making improvements!" 

• All of the Odyssey content that is rolling out is patch 8.18 has also been added to the PBE!

Darius

• Crippling Strike (W) bonus physical damage increased from 40/45/50/55/60% to 50/55/60/65/70%

• Apprehend (E) armor penetration increased from 10/15/20/25/30% to 15/20/25/30/35%

Elise

• Rappel (Spider E) Cooldown lowered from 26/24/22/20/18 to 22/21/20/19/18

Fiora
[Changelist]

• Duelist's Dance (Passive) healing increased from [30-115] to [40-125]

Janna
[Changelist]

• Tailwind (Passive) Bonus movespeed conversion to damage changed from [15/25/35% at levels 1/7/13] to [25/35% at levels 1/10]

Jarvan IV
[Changelist]

• Martial Cadence (Passive) cooldown per target changed from [10/8/6 at levels 1/7/13] to [6 at all levels]

Kha'Zix

• Void Spike (W)
• Evolved Spike Racks slow potency increased from 40% to 60%
• Isolated target slow potency increased from 80% to 90%

Kog'Maw

Nunu & Willump
[Context / Changelist shipping to live per Maple Nectar]

• Consume (Q) 
• Monster and minions AP ratio increased from 50% to 70%
• Champion healing AP ratio lowered from 50% to 35%

• Snowball Barrage (E) 
• Snowball AP ratio increased from 5% to 6%
• Willump's Turn AP ratio increased from 50% to 80%

Patch History for this cycle:

• 9/11 PBE Update
• 9/12 PBE Update
• 9/13 PBE Update
• 9/14 PBE Update
• 9/17 PBE Update
• 9/18 PBE Update
• 9/19 PBE Update
• 9/20 PBE Update

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