Revelation VR: 2/13 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes

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

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 9.4 PBE cycle, today's patch includes more tentative balance changes for Azir, Gnar, 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.)

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

Azir
[Changelist]

Attack speed growth increased from 1.5% to 3%

Gnar
[Changelist]

Mega Gnar
- Armor growth increased from 4.5 to 5.5
- MR growth increased from 2 to 4

Hecarim
[Changelist]

Rampage (Q) mana cost changed from 32/34/36/38/40 to 28/31/34/37/40

Devastating Charge (E) cooldown changed from 24/22/20/18/16 to 20/19/18/17/16

Karthus
[Changelist]

Lay Waste (Q)
- Base damage lowered from 50/70/90/110/130 to 45/65/85/105/125
- Isolated base damage lowered from 100/140/180/220/260 to 90/130/170/210/250

[** Noted on changelist but not in game!] Requiem (R) base damage lowered from 250/400/550 to 200/350/500

Thresh
[Changelist]

Death Sentence (Q)
- Mana cost increased from 60 to 70
- Cooldown increased from 16/15/14/13/12 to 20/18/16/14/12

Trundle
[Changelist]

[** Noted on changelist but not in game!] Frozen Domain (W)
- Mana cost lowered from 60 to 40
- Bonus attack speed changed from 20/35/50/65/80% to 20/40/60/80/100%

Urgot
[Changelist - These changes are relative to LIVE values!]
[Urgot has a slightly different version of these W changes (and others) in testing on the PBE!]

[** Noted on changelist but not in game!] Corrosive Charge (Q) mana cost increased from 60 to 80
[** Noted on changelist but not in game!] Purge (W)
- mana cost changed from 45/50/55/60/65 to 65 at all ranks
- Shield strength changed from [60/90/120/150/180 (+30% bonus HP)] to [30/60/90/120/150 (+15% bonus HP)]

Varus
[Changelist]

Piercing Arrow (Q) damage increase over charge changed from [0 - 50%] to [0 - 75%]
- "this also affects W Active's % Missing HP"

Yasuo
[Changelist]

Base AD lowered from 63 to 60
Steel Tempest (Q) crit damage lowered from 180% to 160%

Context & Notes

WIP!

1) Riot Repertoir provided multiple changelists for champions this cycle:

[1] "Got last minute changes to the Trundle and Urgot lists before we cut the 9.4 patch. We expect Urgot's probably going to be pretty sad for a patch or two, but there's some stuff we're considering to encourage more offensive builds a few patches out if that ends up true."

[2] Tentative Azir. Pretty boring unfortunately, but want to be cautious with this one, as always.

[3] Tentative Gnar

[4] Tentative Hecarim

[5] Karthus

[6] Tentative Thresh

[7] Tentative Varus.

[8] Tentative Yasuo

2) Check out Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for February 13:

"Hi folks,

Usual Disclaimers

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get delayed or even stopped. If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler

Support Item Restrictions

As you might have seen we've just hotfixed some changes to the Ancient Coin and Spellthief's items so that they require a nearby ally to generate gold coins and gold on damage procs respectively. That's in response to rapidly growing use of them in top lane that removes a lot of CSing skill test for the user while offering little counterplay to their opponent. Usually we'd prefer to let emergent strategies play out where we can. Our feeling in this case, as with gold funneling last year, was that the overall result is a less interesting and deep game though, hence the quick response.

Also as per gold funneling we're taking what's admittedly somewhat heavy handed action to quickly fix the problem. Plan is to then look at whether there's a better solution available in the moderate term. With the Monster Hunter debuff for gold funneling for example our initial take was sometimes pretty punishing on junglers who got ahead but didn't want to finish their jungle item. We then made an adjustment later that changed it to account for amount of gold taken from lane minions to target the debuff specifically at problem cases. Goal would be to take a similar approach here if we see unintended issues emerge.

Crit items, their users and marksmen in general post 9.3

We've been watching how things have settled post crit changes in 9.3 for a bit now. Feeling so far is that the changes have landed pretty well overall, without leaving most crit users too strong or too weak. Where we're up to on some specific cases:

Still got Yasuo nerfs planned for 9.4. Current approach is reverting most of the buffs we gave him after midseason's Infinity Edge update since that update's mostly reverted.

We'll also be bringing back the Lucian nerfs we held off on previously while we waited to see where 9.3 landed, in part given he was already strong and crit item buffs are sometimes further power positive for him at 3-4 items.

Unlikely we do anything for Kai'Sa at this point, she seems to be doing pretty well with IE/Hurricane builds. Updating her recommended items so players stop rushing Stormrazor, though.

Want to see where Ezreal sits after some more play before deciding whether he needs nerfs or not.

Looking at a small buff to ER in 9.4, it's in the right ballpark but a bit weak relative to IE.

Spectator Bugs

We'e looking into a couple of categories of spectator bug that have been cropping up a lot recently. Should have more to share on that shortly. 9.4 should have fixes for some issues, still determining whether there's anything not covered by that work though."

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 !