4/19 PBE Update: Even More Tentative Balance Changes

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 9.9 PBE cycle, today's patch includes even more tentative balance changes for Aatrox, Tahm Kench, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

Aatrox
[Context / Changelist - These changes are relative to LIVE!]
[** Marked changes are present on changelist but not yet on PBE!]

• Movement Speed lowered from 345 to 335
• HP5 lowered from 8 to 5
• Deathbringer Stance (Passive)
• [Removed] Reduces healing and shielding on champions
• [New] Heals Aatrox for the bonus damage dealt
• Bonus damage lowered from [8-16%] to [6-15%]
• Cooldown lowered from 25 to 15
• Cooldown reducing effect changed from [2 seconds per spellcast + 2 for hitting champions with sweetspots] to [2 seconds per damaging attack or spell on enemy champions + 2 on sweetspot hit]
• Attack frame adjusted to more closely match other basic attacks

• The Darkin Blade (Q)
• Damage increased from 10/25/40/55/70 to 10/30/50/70/90
• ** Cooldown changed from 16/15/14/13/12 to 18/16/14/12/10
• Max time between casts lowered from 4 to 3

• Infernal Chains (W)
• Slow changed from 15/20/25/30/35% to 25%
• Cooldown increased from 18/17/16/15/14 to 22/20/18/16/14

• Umbral Dash (E)
• [Removed] Grants attack damage for 1.5 seconds
• Passive healing source changed from [physical champion damage] to [non-periodic champion damage of any type]
• Cooldown lowered from 9/8/7/6/5 to 8/7/6/5/4

• World Ender (R)
• [Removed] Revive as a baseline World Ender effect
• [Removed] Bonus movement speed on cast and while out of combat with champions
• [Removed] Allied minion fear
• [New] Aatrox gains 60/80/100% Movement Speed decaying over World Ender's duration
• [New] Aatrox receives 50/75/100% increased healing during World Ender
• [New] On takedown, extend World Ender by 5 seconds, refresh the Movement Speed, and Revive upon taking lethal damage
• Cooldown lowered from 160/140/120 to 140/120/100
• Cast time lowered from .5s to .25s
• Revive self slow increased from 25% to 99%
• Revive heal changed from [10-50% Max HP] to [30% max HP]

Rakan
[Context]

• The Quickness (R)
• "I put in a buffering system for the R > W that should make things feel a lot more fluid. If you press W while in the R cast time it should buffer like a normal spell combo."

Tahm Kench
[Changelist]
[** Marked changes are present on changelist but not yet on PBE!]

• Tongue Lash (Q)
• Slow duration increased from 1.5s to 2s
• Cooldown changed from [5] to [8/7/6/5/4]
• Missile range increased from 800 to 850
• Slow changed from 30/40/50/60/70% to 50/55/60/65/70%

• Devour (W)
• [New] TK is now slowed and grounded similarly to when he devours an enemy champion when devouring an allied champion. (95%)
• Mana cost increased from 60 to 100
• [New]Additionally refunds 50% of its mana cost on devouring an enemy
• **Base minion spit damage lowered from 100/150/200/250/300 to 100/135/170/205/240
• **Devour damage changed from [ 20/24/28/32/36% max hp damage] to [100/135/170/205/240 + (5/7/9/11/13% max HP)]

• Thick Skin (E)
• Percent of grey health converted into healing increased from 15/20/25/30/35% to 20/25/30/35/40%
• Damage converted into grey health increased from 70/75/80/85/90% to 80/85/90/95/100%
• Mana cost lowered from [50] to [0]

• Abyssal Voyage (R)
• Range changed from [4500/5500/6500] to [2500/5500/8500]
• Cooldown increased from 120/110/100 to 140/130/120

Context & Notes

1) Squad5 noted some further changes for Rakan:

"Other than the W speed thing, a thing that will be on PBE for Rakan today - I put in a buffering system for the R > W that should make things feel a lot more fluid. If you press W while in the R cast time it should buffer like a normal spell combo."

2) Riot Repertoir provided an updated changelist for Aatrox in today's PBE Update:

Another Aatrox list for tomorrow. Here's what's going on:
Fixed some bugs
Did some tuning
Reduced Q's CD
Removed R's Q reset
Buffed Q Damage
Removed E AD
Added Healing Amp to R
Changed R Movement Speed model to fit better with the changed R

3) Riot Jatt gave some context on jungle changes he is testing out on the PBE:

"YO, So i'm working on this change. Couple things I want to point out:

• The goal of this change is to reduce the frustration that's caused by the super early dependency that junglers have on laners for scuttle crab help (this gets worse the higher elo you go.) But it's often creating forced conflict when most players are lvl 2, or even lvl 1.
• This is likely putting some pretty harsh pressures on the meta. It's putting an extremely strong emphasis on how powerful a jungle kit is at lvl 2, and it's putting huge value on lvl 1/lvl 2 lane priority for solo lanes.
• Additionally, it's often making it optimal for a jungler to attempt lvl 2 ganks -- since even a failed gank creates lane priority for scuttle control. This makes lvl 2 ganks far less risky.
• It's not meant to be a nerf to jungle XP, and in most cases isn't. There's PLENTY of camps to farm at the start of the game, and almost no champs can farm all 6 jungle camps before scuttle crab spawns. Also, Crab spawns are based on the average lvl of the game, so the Crabs that spawn at 3:15 will usually be lvl 3, and therefore worth more XP than the crabs that normally spawn at 2:00. FWIW I've been higher lvl in almost all of my games that I've played with delayed scuttle spawns, since the time I spend pathing towards Crab is diminished and i'm getting more XP by efficiently farming my base jungle camps.
• Both junglers should be lvl 3 by 3:15, and hopefully be more equipped to make an informed decision around scuttle crab (Where is the other jungler? Should I full-clear and shop? and hope to grab the scuttle that the other jungler didn't take?). The decision tree that junglers have is the hardest thing to validate with limited internal testing, but early tests have been fairly promising (that it's not super formulaic)

Anyways, this is a tentative change, I've tried 1 scuttle only at 5:00, two scuttles at 3:30, and most recently two scuttles at 3:15. Looking for a sweetspot where junglers and laners aren't forced into early lvl 1/2 conflict on the regular, but also maintain some of the interesting gameplay that comes from an early contestable camp in the river. 

Wanted to jump in and give that additional context!"

Check out [THIS PAGE] for a comprehensive list of the new content & changes currently on the PBE as a part of this cycle or catch up with the individual update links below !

• 4/16 PBE Update: Trials Summoner Icons, Emotes & More
• 4/17 PBE Update: Tentative Balance Changes
• 4/18 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes