3/6 PBE Update: Gun Goddess Miss Fortune, New Emotes, and More

[WIP!] [STATUS: PBE is currently offline.]

The PBE has been updated! As we kick off the 8.6 PBE cycle, today's massive patch includes the newest ultimate skin Gun Goddess Miss Fortune and much 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

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New Champion Skin

The 8.6 cycle is set to include our next ultimate skin Gun Goddess Miss Fortune!

Gun Goddess Miss Fortune

[Ultimate skin - 2775 RP + Bundles on Launch]

[more previews inc, waiting on PBE]

New Summoner Icons

A total of five new Gun Goddess Miss Fortune summoner icons are now on the PBE, one for each of her suits included with skin purchase and one portrait icon included in her premium bundle. More info here.

   

New Emotes

Six new emotes have appeared in today's PBE Update:

Miscellaneous 

• Two small images have been spotted in the Missions assets.

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

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LeBlanc
[Context/Changelist]

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Rengar
[Changelist]

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Items

Shurelya's Reverie
[!]

• [Item should be back! New icon added!]

Runes

Context & Notes

WIP

1) When asked if we'll see skins other than GGMF this cycle, Stellari mentioned:

"There's actually a couple more this patch too :)"

2) Here's AzuBK with a context thread for the LeBlanc changes in today's update - LeBlanc Mini-Revert Context:

"Hi folks, I’m AzuBK, a designer on the Live Gameplay team, and I’m here to deliver some context and goals for the LeBlanc work on PBE. 

Thoughts on the Assassin Update 

We made a slew of changes to LeBlanc’s kit in the Assassin update in the name of slowing down her time to kill, allowing her to be more tricky at the expense of burst damage. Looking back a year later, these changes ended up being a mixed bag. Some of the changes still make sense in retrospect, like removing E’s slow to give opponents a real chance to break tether range. Others began with an honorable goal but suffered in execution. Her new passive mark, for instance, was meant to backload her damage but made one of the core values of her kit—order of spellcasts—much less important ("spell order doesn’t matter, just wait for the mark"). 

Mini-revert goals 

Enough looking back, though—let’s talk about our direction and goals with this project and how you can help. Our primary goals are to restore as much of pre-rework LeBlanc as possible while taking another stab at the assassin update’s goals of reducing frustration when playing against her. Like with any similar project, we won’t be able to give everyone what they want, but we’ve been testing and exploring internally for the last few weeks and have come up with a direction that we think we can all be happier with going forward. 

Starting with the fun (and important) stuff:

• Passive mark is gone and the old Sigil of Malice is back. We still believe that pre-rework LeBlanc's instant, ranged burst was too high, but making you stand around waiting for a mark isn’t a reasonable ask for players. We’re instead looking at more smoothly backloading her damage by emphasizing RQ and the second half of E/RE.
• The old Mimic cast paradigm is back. Pressing two buttons to Mimic a spell introduced a painful delay, especially for a combo caster like LeBlanc. The pre-rework cast paradigm is also healthier for the game, as LeBlanc exposes herself to more risk by not having access to RW escapes regardless of her spell sequencing, so this is a win all around.
• Feelings have been mixed on the global R-R clone. While it holds potential for some tricky outplays, the clone’s most effective uses are scouting and blocking skillshots, which don’t fit with the deceptive illusionist fantasy. So we're reverting the clone changes and bringing back Mirror Image. Mirror Image triggers at a moment that’s tense for both players involved (LeBlanc is about to die, and her opponent is about to land a kill), and provides both some guaranteed value and an opportunity to deceive and outplay. 

We’ve also got a number of other tuning and mechanics changes, including:

• RQ’s damage is more tilted towards the mark than the initial hit, whereas the base Q cast is evenly split. Q+R poke (inasmuch as that amount of damage can be called poke) was a constant problem before the rework, and we aren’t eager to jump back into the world where LeBlanc chunks opponents out without putting herself in danger. E and RE’s damage are similarly backloaded.
• E tether is slightly easier to break. This change is aimed squarely at the playing against case—we want to give players a more realistic shot at breaking the tether, which frequently feels unfair on live (though again, to a lesser extent than when E used to slow). It’s especially important that this moment is reasonable for both sides given our intent to put more power into the root damage.
• The lockout before snapping back with W is reduced. We aren’t planning to fully revert/remove the lockout for a few reasons listed below, but the delay doesn’t have to be as long as live in order to achieve our goals. We’re also going to count the delay from when the dash ends, rather than starts, so short dashes aren't as punished as they are on live (creating some of the standout worst-feeling cases.)
• • The main reason for the lockout lies in how opposing players are supposed to respond to Distortion. With its speed and lack of landing-position telegraphing, it’s not a skillshot that players are expected to dodge, and we're not trying to change that. The play is in whether LeBlanc is going to snap back and when, and we need time for that play to be meaningful. Opponents need a brief moment to recognize that she has arrived and take part in the mind game—it doesn’t need to be a long time—but that moment has to exist.
  • The no-lockout model biases toward pro play and low-ping environments. Even with no lockout, many players used the pre-rework W as if it had a short delay, because it had no buffering. Like other highly-ping-sensitive mechanics, perfect snap-back timing isn’t a LeBlanc skill we think is good for normal-vs-pro balance, so we’ll be investigating whether some gentle buffering makes sense here in order to even out that disparity.
  • • On a simpler note—instant snapback, when executed very well, just isn’t readable for opponents or spectators. Lack of visual gameplay clarity isn’t the sort of deception we’re looking for. 

Stay tuned for additional changes on the PBE as well. LeBlanc could ship as early as 8.6 if everything looks good, but might live on the PBE for a few cycles if she needs longer to get to a good spot. Feedback, especially on whether we’ve brought the fun parts of LeBlanc back or not, is welcome and appreciated. I can’t promise that everything will make it in, but, as always, your feedback will help guide the project moving forward."

3) Here's Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for March 2nd, including tweaking CSing under towers, and whats coming balance-wise for 8.6 (shortened):

"Some possible 8.6 changes 

We've just finished working on 8.5 and are mapping out things we'll be looking at for 8.6. Some of our current thinking below, as usual stuff will get added or removed as patch development goes on. 

Items:

• Jungle items - Two potential changes. First is changing sustain so it's more missing health/mana based. Goal there is to make early ganks a bit riskier like they used to be a couple of seasons back (not ganking at or close to full health, so more chance of a turn around). Would also potentially help out those unable to clear at present because they're so mana limited. Second change is lowering early clear speed a bit as well, push first gank times back a bit later in the game again.
• Abyssal Mask - Potentially pushing it more towards just tankier users. Magic damage dealers taking it to both nullify opponent lane damage and still get sufficient personal damage hasn't generally created good gameplay.
• Duskblade - Nerfing it.
• Locket - Some investigations into ways to make Locket less consistent and less universal a purchase. More exploratory, so possible nothing ships in 8.6.
• Rageblade - Looking to make it more accessible to melee, potentially also less of a first item power spike and more tied to other item power. 

Champions:

• Rakan - Looking to buff. We're also fixing a bug between him and Xayah that leads to his performance with Xayah being much, much better than with anyone else. After that bug fix he'll be weaker when paired with Xayah, so a buff even in that case should be good too.
• Rumble - Some form of buff, details TBD.
• Lee Sin - Got hit a bit by Tracker's removal and had already been a bit weak before that. Buffing, details unsure.
• LeBlanc - Changes will be on PBE during the 8.6 cycle from day 1, probably ship in a later patch though. Changes revert the majority of the previous update.
• Ahri - Might have changes in 8.6 (testing, but not certain to ship). Still looking for ways to make her highs higher and her lows lower (does more when ahead, does less when behind)
• Some Duskblade Users - We'll have some buffs to a number of champs who are pretty dependent on Duskblade at present and we expect will be too weak post Duskblade nerf. 

Runes: 

• Manaflow Band - Nerfing, details TBD.
• Presence of Mind - Looking to change it so it's a reasonable choice on a wider number of champions. Then probably nerfing it for its current best case users, on whom its very strong already."

4) For more on GGMF and upcoming skins, see this recent skins dev diary from Supercakes. 

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from
http://www.surrenderat20.net/2018/03/36-pbe-update.html