6/25 PBE Update: Nexus Blitz Up for Testing & Tentative TFT Balance Changes

Posted on at 1:53 PM by Aznbeat
The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 10.14 PBE cycle, today's patch includes Nexus Blitz up for testing, tentative TFT balance changes, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and subject to change - what you see below may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers at the end of the cycle! Manage your expectations accordingly.)

Table of Contents


Nexus Blitz up for testing

Nexus Blitz is now back on the PBE and enabled for testing! The returning mode is supporting new map visuals set in Ionian Forest!

Read more on the return of Nexus Blitz - including returning and new events & rewards - in [THIS /DEV ARTICLE]. Nexus Blitz is here for "an extended  PBE run" then will hit live as part of an upcoming summer event!


Here on over to the LeaguePBE subreddit to drop off feedback at the PBE Bugs & Feedback Thread: Nexus Blitz!
"Hi everybody! Nexus Blitz is back! 
You can check out a full description of the changes here: https://eune.leagueoflegends.com/en-pl/news/dev/dev-return-of-nexus-blitz/ 
Enjoy, and as always, let us know what you think."

Here's a short gallery of shots in-game and moving through the queue process:
(Minions gathered around during a prize fight event)
 (King Poro as one of the event ewards)


Miscellaneous 

  • Skin bio added:
    • Arcanist Zoe Prestige Edition: "Having temporarily outsmarted the mad arcanist Shaco and absconded with his precious tome of magic, Zoe's power has been elevated beyond even some of her instructors. Her instructors are extremely worried about this. Most people are extremely worried about this."
  • Mission client asset added: "SpiritBlossomPrologue_MissionThumbnail.jpg"

Balance Changes

* NOTE*: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, & potentially experimental changes. Be aware that what you see below may be relative to other changes from earlier this cycle! These are not official notes and may be incomplete.

Champions
Karthus
  • Wall of Pain (W)

Items
Warding Totem (Trinket)
  • ***Charge storing time listed on tooltip lowered from 240-120s to 175-120s 
    • ***NOTE: More to this change and it's complicated - here's GreaterBelugaWhale with additional context on this change and how it would play out in game:
"Clarification on the trinket change.

Trinkets conserve the cooldown you've earned when you swap them (ie: swapping from Yellow trinket with 0 ammo, but 30s into the ammo recharge to Red Trinket will give you 30s into Red Trinket's CD), but do not let you overcap on CD (ie: swapping from Yellow trinket with 2 ammo to Red won't let you cast Red Trinket multiple times back to back).

This is not changing. What is changing is that on LIVE at the start of the game, we credit you one Yellow Trinket's worth of CD (240s). Now we are crediting you one Red Trinket's worth of CD, but loaning you the remaining CD needed to cast a Yellow Trinket from your NEXT trinket usage so that you can still start the game with a ward.

This means if you start yellow, you'll get your first ammo but your next one will come in ((175 - 90) + 175) = 260s, rather than just 175s. 175 was chosen here to keep to rough number of wards you would get from yellow trinket the same as Live.

The effect of this change is that if you start Yellow and stay with Yellow, or start Red and stay with Red, you won't notice much of a difference. But if you start Yellow, place a ward and swap to red before minions spawn, you are no longer getting a significant advantage."

TFT Changes
Sniper
  • 2 unit damage per hex increased from 10% to 12%
  • 4 unit damage per hex increased from 18% to 20%

Celestial
  • 2 unit healing increased from 15% to 20%
  • 4 unit healing increased from 40% to 50%
  • 6 unit healing increased from 99% to 150%

Cybernetic
  • 3 unit AD lowered from 40 to 35
  • 6 unit AD lowered from 75 to 70

Sorcerer
  • 4 unit spell power lowered from 45% to 40%
  • 6 unit spell power lowered from 75% to 70%

Jhin
  • Attack speed increased from .85/.9/1.1 to .9/.95/1.2

Jarvan IV
  • Attack speed increased from 65/75/85% to 75/85/95%

Karma
  • Shield value increased from 250/400/800 to 300/450/900
  • Attack speed increased from 50/75/125% to 70/90/150%

Aurelion Sol
  • Mana drained lowered from 15/25/50 to 10/20/50

Urgot
[Context / Changelist]
  • Spell Targeting changed from Farthest in Attack Range to Farthest
    • Spell now hits the first enemy it collides with instead of always hitting the intended target.
  • Attack Range changed from 660 (3 Hexes) to 420 (2 Hexes)
  • Execute is now preventable with Guardian's Angel.
  • Time to reel in enemy now scales with Star Level. 1.5 sec to 3/2/1 sec.
  • Mana changed from 40/90 to 50/100
  • Mana Reduction Per Cast changed from 10/20/90 to 20/30/100

Context & Notes

1) Riot Scruffy provided a look at some upcoming projects on the PBE:
The team has a few different small champion mechanics projects being worked on. The hope is to ship them over the next few patches. Anything you see on PBE is WIP but we appreciate the feedback.  
Here are the current goals:
2) RiotWittrock commented on the /r/CompetitiveTFT subreddit a more complete list of Star Guardian changes in the works. These changes are still tentative!
"These are not the full changes. Our goal with the Star Guardian changes that we're testing is to keep the Star Guardian comp at a similar power level, but pull power out of the Trait and put it back into the Champions, so that they can succeed in other compositions.
Full changes (subject to change before they go Live): 
Star Guardian Mana Restore: 25/40/55 >>> 15/25/40 
Zoe Mana: 70/100 >>> 40/80 
Poppy Mana: 60/100 >>> 50/90 
Syndra
  • Mana: 0/60 >>> 0/40
  • Spell Damage: 100/125/200 >>> 75/100/175
Neeko Mana: 75/150 >>> 50/120 
Soraka Mana: 50/125 >>> 50/120 
Janna Mana: 50/130 >>> 50/120"
3) Riot Mort posted about Urgot changes coming to TFT soon - "Let's Talk about Urgot on PBE for 10.14"
Hello folks. I wanted to take some time to talk about Urgot, some of the feedback, where we see him, and what changes we're going to make. 
First, let's discuss the intended power of Urgot. He is a 5 cost champ, and as we've learned from Galaxies Stage 1, we want 5 costs to be something you're excited to consider in your comp even if you don't have the traits to match. If a champ like Urgot is only playable in Battlecast or Protector comps, we have failed. So his output should be exciting and useful enough that you consider him. We've decided that output is a powerful single target destroy spell, that can be useful if the opponent has a smaller army with some very tanky hard to kill enemies. (The Mech, 3-Star Xin, Candyland Poppy, etc.) He should be less useful against a multi-threat composition, where you might prefer the AOE damage of a GP, Ekko, or ASol. 
So where has he landed? From a balance perspective (and yes, I know a lot of you are going to meme me here) not bad actually. At 1-star, he is currently above GP1 and Xerath1, but weaker than the rest. (High elo he's tied for the worst with GP1.) 2-star, he is actually the lowest ranked 5 cost at high elo and all elos, not by a wide margin or anything, but just a little worse. As a Thresh target he is for sure one of the best, right along side all the other 5 costs though so this makes sense. 
From a FEELS perspective though, this is where he is currently missing the mark. We think there are two things that are quite off. First, his targeting isn't random, but it FEELS random. The Yasuo/Rakan style targeting he has doesn't leave a lot of room for skillful positioning outplays, and due to everything moving around, ends up feeling out of your control. The second, is that the power of 1-star compared to 2-star and 3-star is too flat. There isn't enough incentive to level up your Urgots. 
Because of this, we're going to make the following changes. Again, if your expectation is that he shouldn't be able to 1-shot things, this isn't going to be what you want. That is his purpose. Our goal here is to make it feel more fair, and feel like you can do more against him. So here are the changes: 
  • Spell Targeting: Farthest in Attack Range >>> Farthest
  • Spell now hits the first enemy it collides with instead of always hitting the intended target.
Urgot spell now works exactly like a Caitlyn ult. This should make it feel more predictable, allowing you to position in a way that you are already used to to try to counter position.
  • Attack Range: 660 (3 Hexes) >>> 420 (2 Hexes)
This should make Urgot have to take a bit more risk and get into the fights in order to cast his spell. He isn't meant to be a ranged carry unless you RFC him. 
  • Execute is now preventable with Guardian's Angel.
We agree this rule exception hasn't felt good. While the original intent was to counter GA, having an item hard countered like this felt pretty bad. This should allow you to try to keep a key unit alive more with a defensive item, which should be ok.
  • Time to reel in enemy now scales with Star Level. 1.5 sec >>> 3/2/1 sec.
This makes the small urgot feel like he is really struggling to pull people in, while leveling him up makes him feel stronger and gets to pull in quick. This also has added some great tension to fights where Urgot is pulling something in, but there is hope if you can kill the Urgot to save your ally. 1.5 seconds wasn't enough time for that tension to be realized.
  • Mana 40/90 >>> 50/100
  • Mana Reduction Per Cast: 10/20/90 >>> 20/30/100
And finally some slight mana adjustments. Goal is just slightly clearer windows of power. 
These should all be on PBE today or tomorrow, so please check them out. We'll be around reading the feedback. After these changes we think Urgot might be a bit on the weak side, but if so we can rebuff through other means such as base stats and defenses. Take a look, and good luck in TFT."

3) As for Nexus Blitz specific balance changes, itsLowbo noted on twitter:
[1] "No, we're starting fresh and will do new balance changes with the new system. Old system was a lot of base stat changes, the new ones will be with the same system we use for ARAM, URF, etc."
(when asked if PBE is mostly a free slate atm)
[2] "Mostly, there are a couple changes that we did to make sure the system works (and to champions that felt OP in playtests)"

[3] "Right now just: Sett: -5% Damage Dealt & +5% Damage Taken
Teemo: R +50% CD" 

4) On the topic of Conqueror Nautilus feedback, Riot MoreChrono tweeted:
[1] "Thanks for the feedback! The team went back and took a look at adding in some more crystal elements, especially to the E, but we feel like it made the skin feel a little too noisy so we have decided to keep it the way it is."

[2] "Also, we hear you about the splash, we wanted to keep Nautilus true to the deep sea, we feel the underwater setting speaks to that. That said, the big boy did seem a little bright so we have toned him down a slightly.
This update should be on PBE soon!"


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 !

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