Revelation VR: 1/29 PBE Update: Swain Login Theme

[WIP!] [STATUS: PBE is up! Working!]

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 8.3 PBE cycle, today's patch includes a new login theme featuring Swain, and more tentative balance changes!

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.)

A new login is now on the PBE, featuring Swain!

[Still Image / Music]

Balance Changes

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

Champions

Jhin

Curtain Call (R) damage increased from 50/115/180 to 50/125/200

Kalista
[Context]

Attack range increased from 500 to 525
- Vs Live: from 550 to 525
Sentinel (W)
- Cooldown increased from 30 at all ranks to 90/80/70/60/50
- [Removed] No longer mentions "Kalista gains a charge of Sentinel every x seconds."

Context & Notes

WIP

1) Phroxz0n provided context on the Kalista changes on the PBE:

"The 0.9 ratio on her autos is so that a larger portion of her damage is in rend stacks vs auto attack damage. (Say, 60/40 rend vs. autos, instead of 40/60 rend vs. autos.) Since we think that Kalista's offensive output being about Rend is good and unique, I prefer this AA structure better.

I believe it has pretty good gameplay, as you can make her kite back, which loses the rend damage on targets in the middle of the teamfight and cashing in rend at the right/wrong time is a good gameplay moment. Given how much players complains about when ADC's are killing people with 2-3 targeted attacks late game, it makes me confused why players want to play against a Kalista that has more of a burst profile due to the structure of ADC itemisation for crit carries.

My thoughts are that this is like Zoe's E sleep CD - its function on first glance is "why does Zoe get to have cooldown back on her sleep when she hits it?". In fact, what this mechanic does is when she misses her sleep, it is on cooldown for longer. It is a lever to gate how often she is fishing with E's. I view Kalista's attack ratio like that. On paper it looks like a regular nerf, but it is actually doing something important for both her itemisation and her gameplay pattern, though admittedly it does look a bit strange and potentially can feel bad (but I think holistically less bad than the alternative).

Why this nerf compared to others? As most have pointed out, Kalista can tend to invalidate melee champions late game. This nerf is intended to create a weakness, such that she has risks to picking her. Shorter range tends to open up poke lanes as counters, she will be more likely to be inside of Maokai's W range, etc. This gives us the space to be able to buff her back up in a sustainable way later (eg. Rend damage increased because it's more difficult to stay in range), which would not be possible with a change like "rend damage level 1 reduced or rend gives less mana when you're using it to 1 reset harrass someone". These are nerfs, but they don't create weaknesses.

Regarding Rend capping on monsters: Obviously, this is a contentious topic. Firstly, I'll tell you that just putting a cap on rend does not solve problems regarding competitive viability. It's just a nice to have on top of the primary reasons to play Kalista. Kalista's strategic niche is that of teamwork/objective control marksman. In my opinion, having rend stack infinitely is firstly more elegant (requires less lines in tooltip, compared to other things which have laundry lists of exclusions and caveats), is more strategically unique and fitting to her niche as well as viscerally satisfying. For this to be removed, I think the gameplay around stacking rends would have to be deemed to be bankrupt as removing the cap is a reduction in gameplay, not a gain (eg. It is impossible to force Kalista away from dragon/baron after she has started it). We've seen that this is not the case with junglers (teams have shown that they are certainly capable of zoning junglers away from objectives or focus firing them in a contest to get rid of a smite).

Agreed that saving support is problematic, I personally don't have a good solution for it. I think potentially adding more power into the offensive use case increases opportunity cost of using it defensively, but at the same the spell is already quite powerful offensively. Many of the "support can't be dragged if CCed/damaged" have weird player feedback implications."

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 !