2/17 PBE Update: Experimental Mandrake Ward, Mordekaiser Changes, Semi-Locked Camera Option, and more

After a long weekend, the PBE has been updated! Today's update includes an experimental new "Mandrake Ward", a new Semi-locked camera option, various kit changes to Mordekaiser, and much more!
Continue reading for more information!

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

Table of Contents


[Experimental WIP - 2/17] Mandrake Ward

[Note: Item currently disabled due to bugs.]

Here's Xypherous with context on the Mandrake Ward, an experimental new item added in today's build:
"Note: The following item is highly experimental and probably won't ship any time soon, if at all. All assets are temporary and are absolutely not final. 
Hey guys.
I'm putting up some experimental content for exploration. 
Mandrake Ward
50G 
Click to Consume: Places an invisible blind sentry in a brush for 5 minutes. The plant will ping the map if a visible or invisible enemy enemy is within 900 range. 
(Counts as a Stealth Ward)
(May only carry 3 Stealth Wards at a time.)
 
This is intended to be an early game ward to protect the lane against the jungle without revealing a jungler's prospective health or directional pathing. It's also an answer to early game stealth for lane protections now that pinks are fairly woefully inequipped at dealing with the task. There's some neat tricks (it can sense over walls) that it has currently - but it still needs a ton of iteration to feel usable personally.  
Will be doing some polish work over the next couple days trying to get it in a cleaner state - last I checked, I missed a file somewhere and it's probably super bugged on PBE - also need to think about ping throttling the thing in terms of sounds and motion. 
Eventually it'll require a custom ping sound and error handling - but for now, everything is highly temp and experimental.
  1. I'm curious to see whether or not people feel like the item's purpose is clear.
  2. The item hopefully doesn't feel like it's worth a slot end-game and make end-game consumable purchase cycles even worse."

"Semi-Locked" Camera Lock Option


The "semi-locked" camera option has been added to the Game Options menu.

 While selected and camera lock enabled (either via the button or holding space), it will let you pan a bit away from your champion but will not let them leave the viewing area.


Here's a brief video showing off the range of the new "semi-locked" option:


[PBE Only] Jungle Data Gathering

[While there were strings added, this is not functional in today's update]

Here's Riot Reinboom with details on a new PBE ONLY buff that will be implemented to better track early game Jungle Data:
"Hey guys, we have a change coming soon to a PBE near you meant to help us improve our understanding of how people jungle (especially early game).
When we tried to poke into some of the responses we got it became very apparent that people address the jungle in very different manners. Lots of small changes add up to huge swings in what champions look like coming out of their first clear.

What this means for us is that it's hard to balance early jungle without some more insight, so we're calling on you guys to help.

We're putting a change that is PBE ONLY to help build this shared understanding of how junglers jungle individually: A set of buffs that track your jungle progress in the first portion of the jungle.

By giving us a direct peak at how you interact with the jungle you give us a chance to improve it. Maybe by making a mechanic more clear, rebalancing a camp, or many other systems. But first this type of information would help us know which systems.

Here's what the buffs look like:
(The primary buff)
(After taking 1 camp. In this case, Krugs)
(After taking 2 camps. Krugs and then Razorbeaks)

It would be super useful to get these value from you guys from champions you expect to play in the jungle. I'm especially interested in the contrast of: 
The results of these after you tried it how you normally play the jungle.
And
The results of these after you tried to  optimize beyond what you normally do (possibly with the help of these buffs).""

Miscellaneous 

DJ Sona's animated splash has been hooked up and can be found on her in-client champion page.

The Summoner's Rift texture tweaks, including the new dragon pit design, have been reverted.

Balance Changes

* Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.

Champions
Janna
  • Tailwind (Passive) now ["Janna's nearby allied champions gain 8% increased Movement Speed when moving towards her."] from ["Janna and her nearby allied champions gain 5% increased Movement Speed."]
  • Zepyhr (W) passive movement speed increased to 9/11/13/15/17 from 4/6/8/10/12

Jarvan IV
  • Base Armor increased to 27  from 24.
  • Demacian Standard (E) no longer increaes Jarvan IV's armor by 10/13/16/19/22

Jinx
  • Switcheroo (Q)'s tooltip now lists "Fishbone, The Rocket Launcher" and "Pow-Pow, The Minigun" instead of just "rocket launcher" and "mini-gun".

Kassadin
  • Riftwalk (R) range reduced to 450 from 700
  • [Note: Here's a comparison of  PBE (450) vs LIVE (700)]
  • Riftwalk (R) mana cost reduced to 60 at all ranks from 75 
  • [Note: Mana cost as he gains stacks now 60/120/240/480/960 from 75/150/300/600/1200.]
Katarina
  • Voracity (Passive) now reads "Katarina's spell cooldowns are reduced by 15 seconds whenever a champion that she has damaged in the last 3 seconds dies." from kills and assists reduce Katarina's cooldowns by 15 seconds.

Mordekaiser
[Note: Many of the Mordekaiser changes from the 2/13 PBE update have been reverted! While he still has the Q/W/R effect changes, the damage / AP ratio changes have been reverted and his health costs have been tweaked again.]

[ Today's changes relative to the 2/13 PBE]
  • Iron Man (Passive) - [Back to live functionality, shield gains removed from individual ability tooltips]
  • Mace of Spades (Q)- Damage reverted back to 80/110/140/170/200 +.4 AP from 80/105/130/155/180 +.3 AP
  • Mace of Spades (Q) - cooldown reverted back to 8/7/6/5/4 from 7/6/5/4/3
  • Mace of Spades (Q) - Health cost changed to 20/25/30/35/40 from [PBE: 12/16/20/24/28] & [LIVE: 25/32/39/46/53]
  • Creeping Death (W) - AP ratio reverted to.2 from .15
  • Creeping Death (W) -  Health cost changed to 20/25/30/35/40 from [PBE: 18/22/26/30/34] & [LIVE: 26/32/38/44/50] 
  • Siphon of Destruction (E) - AP Ratio reverted back to .6 from .5
  • Siphon of Destruction (E)  - Health cost reverted back to 24/36/48/60/72 from 20/24/28/32/36

As this has been a confusing and lengthy set of changes, here is a comparison of PBE Mordekaiser vs Live Mordekaiser after today's batch of changes:

[Change list relative to current Live Values]
  • Base HP Regen per second reduced to .6748 from 1.6748
  • Iron Man (Passive)  - No Change
  • Mace of Spades (Q) 
  • HP Cost lowered to 20/25/30/35/40 from 25/32/39/46/53
  • Now adds 75 range to the Q buffed Melee attack.
  • Creeping Death (W)
  • New Effect: "If cast on an ally, Mordekaiser also gains the effect of Creeping Death. Mordekaiser and his ally will gain 60 bonus Movement Speed towards each other."
  • Health cost lowered to 20/25/30/35/40 from 26/32/38/44/50. 
  • Siphon of Destruction (E) - no changes
  • Children of the Grave (R) 
  • While ghost is enslaved, Mordekaiser gains [30% of target's AP and 25% of Target's bonus HP ] instead of  [20% AP and 20% AD].
  • Ghost gains 25/50/100 bonus AD and 15% of Mordekaiser's Maximum HP

Viktor

Items
Enchant: Warrior
  • Attack damage reduced to 40 from 45

Mandrake Ward - [ New Item ]
  • Total Cost: 50g
  • "Click to Consume:Places an invisible blind sentry in a brush for 5 minutes.  The plant will ping the map if a visible or invisible enemy enemy is within 900 range."


[Potential New Item Data]

[While they are not available in-game or in the item browser, strings for several new items were added in today's files. It is possible these were added in error or not something we'll see fully implemented in this cycle. ]

"Luden's Echo" - [Not in-game yet but this is an upcoming item!context from ricklessabandon available here!]
  • +X Ability Power
  • +% Movement Speed
  • UNIQUE Passive: Gains charges upon moving or casting. At X charges, the next spell hit expends all charges to dealX bonus magic damage to up to X targets on hit.
"Mana Item" - [Not in-game]
  • +X AP, 
  • +X MANA, 
  • +X% CDR
  • UNIQUE Passive - Expanded Mind: Increases maximum Mana by X and generates stacks of Insight when spending mana (X conversion rate) up to X stacks (X of maximum Mana).
  • UNIQUE Active - Mana Burst:Releases a shockwave, consuming all stacks of Insight. Enemies hit by the shockwave are dealtXmagic damage. Allies hit by the shockwave restore X mana.

"Mana Gem" - [Not in-game]
  • + X Mana
  • UNIQUE Passive:X% Cooldown Reduction.

Check out THIS PAGE for a comprehensive list of the new content in this PBE cycle or catch up with the individual update links below !

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