9/18 PBE Update: Beekeeper Singed Splash Art and Summoner Icon and More Tentative Balance Changes

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 7.19 PBE cycle, today's patch includes the splash art for Beekeeper Singed, a new summoner icon, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Beekeeper Singed Splash Art
• New Summoner Icon
• Miscellaneous
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

Beekeeper Singed Splash Art

Buzz Buzz! Splash art for Beekeeper Singed now on PBE!

Summoner Icon

An adora-bee new summoner icon to go along with Singed's new skin:

• Warring Kingdoms Xin Zhao and Secret Agent Xin Zhao's VFX were updated per Riot Xenogenic on Twitter:

More tornado-y

Briefcase is back!

Brand
[Note: Brand has W changes already testing on PBE!]
[Meddler noted that Brand's changes would be reverted soon and will come back for more testing in a later patch.]

• Pillar of Flame (W)
• Mana gain changed from [6/8/10/12/14 mana for each unit killed by this ability] to [20/25/30/35/40 mana if this ability kills a unit].

Caitlyn
[Note: Caitlyn has extensive changes already testing on PBE!]

• Yordle Snap Trap (W)
• Recharge time changed from 30/22/16/12/10 to 30/24/19/15/12
• Mana cost reverted from 30 at all ranks to 20 at all ranks
• Trap ground duration changed from 30/40/50/60/70 seconds to 30/35/40/45/50 seconds

Context & Notes

1) Make sure to check out Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for September 15th, covering preseason PBE timing, runes, Galio, Orianna, and more!

2) Meddler on Brand's changes being reverted, but will be back for testing in a later patch:

"Brief bit of passing context on those changes - expect them to vanish from the PBE this week (probably tomorrow) and then return in a modified form the patch after. We're at the point where we need to lock down the patch and that Brand stuff needs a bit more work."

3 ) Full context on Azir's 7.19 changes available via Tough Design Decisions made for Azir in 7.19

Hi everyone! 

We’ll be doing a larger context piece for Azir’s 7.19 changes in the near future but I just wanted to touch on some of our major design decisions ahead of that post. 

Recap of our goals with this Azir project:

• Increase Azir’s live performance (buff his win rate)
• Preserve his core play pattern of summoning Sand Soldiers and using them as his auto-attacks
• Increase opponents’ options playing against Azir 

Highlighted buffs: 

Base Stats

• Base Movement Speed :: Increased from 325 >>> 335

Arise! (W)

• When Azir has 3 soldiers out, he doubles his passive attack speed from Arise for 5 seconds.
• Command Soldier Attack Cast Time :: Reduced from 0.5s >>> 0.35s

Emperor’s Divide (R)

• Cooldown :: Reduced from 140/120/100 >>> 120/105/90 per rank
• Wall Size :: Increased from 4/5/6 >>> 5/6/7 Soldiers per rank

Highlighted nerfs: 

Arise! (W)

• Soldier command range :: Reduced from 800 >>> 660

Emperor’s Divide (R)

• No longer continues to knock back dashes over it after the initial movement of the Shield Soldiers.

Overall, we expect Azir to be buffed from the full suite of changes in 7.19 and still fulfill the same fantasy and epic gameplay. These highlighted nerfs are likely to be more contentious and so I wanted to dive in a little bit more on our reasoning for them: 

Why did we choose to nerf Azir’s range? 

It goes without saying, but this decision was very tough to make. Many aspects of a champion make up their identity and ranges are definitely very influential in that equation. We used some survey tools to get a better image of what aspects of Azir that his current players attached to. It turns out that when a champion has so many powerful and unique aspects, players will attach to all of them pretty equally. It was apparent that removing any one of his unique interactions would come at a huge cost for Azir players. 

Ultimately, the results helped us realize that the core parts we needed to preserve were his signature Shurima Shuffle and his fine control over Sand Soldiers to do his bidding. Given these requirements, reducing his ranges felt like the most reasonable way to deliver a middle ground that kept the core skill tests of Azir intact. Azir’s theme and mechanics definitely don’t support a short-range champion, but the notion to challenge here was: Is artillery-tier range the crux of the Shuriman emperor’s gameplay fantasy? 

The answers to this question range with personal taste, but throughout internal testing with a shorter ranged Azir, it didn’t feel like we were losing too much of what made him special. Furthermore, challenging the perception that Azir had to out-range 90% of the cast of League of Legends was getting us a lot of immediate benefits in terms of counter-play and agency for the opponent. 

Updated Azir is by no means a short-range champion. His functional max auto-attack range is still around 900+ units (that’s a lot of Teemos) and though he can’t out-range his nemesis Xerath as easily, his range is still worthy of an emperor commanding a battlefield. The benefits we gained from this direction also meant that we could keep room for the Shurima Shuffle. 

The key goal that range nerfs benefitted was increasing opponent options against Azir. By nerfing ranges, we found that a significantly larger set of champions in League could actually reasonably interact with him both in and out of lane. If there are more potential answers to Azir in the wider game, the likelihood of him becoming a meta-warping presence diminishes and the pressure to keep him generically under-tuned lessens a lot. 

Why did we remove Emperor’s Divide’s unique bounce house interaction? 

This was also done to help us succeed at increasing opponent options against Azir. We nerfed Azir’s ranges, but we felt it wasn’t enough to ensure he would not conquer the meta-game. I think this distinction sums it up nicely: the range nerfs tackle the oppressive nature of old Azir’s general gameplay, while the removal of bounce house creates an exploitable weakness in Azir’s gameplay when the meta-game calls for it. We can now rely on champions like Kha’Zix, Kayn, or Ahri to be clearer counter-picks into Azir that make it hard for him to dominate all levels of play. Of course, removing this mechanic also gave us much more room to buff other things about Azir that help his general performance in the hands of an average player. Things like higher base health, higher base movement speed and a lower cooldown ultimate were all afforded in part by the removal of this mechanic. 

Wrap up 

Hopefully our design reasoning resonates a bit with you and Azir can now find a healthier home on the Rift. We’re committed to making him feel like a champion you can feel good about mastering, so you can expect us to keep an eye on him and respond accordingly in the patches following 7.19."