Hello everyone, and welcome back to another PBE roundup! This patch isn’t looking too huge, at least not from what we can tell on the PBE, but there’s some very cool aesthetic stuff on its way! Let’s take a look. Remember that this is PBE content, and therefore all changes are tentative.

Balance Changes

Champion Balance

Gragas

Body Slam ( E ) cooldown reduced to 12 at all ranks from 16/15/14/13/12.

Gragas’ recent rework left a lot to be desired in terms of champion power. Hopefully, the cooldown reduction on his E will give him a bit more of that tanky utility that they wanted to go for with the rework. I think a few more changes might be necessary, though. The fat man doesn’t seem like he’s in a great spot right now.

Kassadin

Mana per level increased to 70 from 45

Base movement speed increased to 350 from 340

Null Sphere ( Q ) shield increased to 40/80/120/160/200 (+.8 AP) from 40/70/100/130/160 ( +.6 AP)

Nether Blade ( W ) damage increased to 40/75/110/145/180 ( + .7 AP) from 45/65/90/115/140 ( +.6 AP)

Kassadin also got hit pretty hard by his rework, though not quite as hard as Gragas. The movement speed change and the buff to his magic damage shield on his Q should help his utility, where the extra mana per level and W buffs should help his damage. Hopefully we’ll see him get a little stronger.

Rengar

Savagery ( Q ) bonus flat physical damage increased to 30/60/90/120/150 from 20/40/60/80/100

Thrill of the Hunt ( R ) indicator “will not alert enemies if you wouldn’t be visible to them outside of stealth.” Rengar’s rework has been a little harder for me to gauge. He’s always been a niche pick, so the impact of his rework has been tougher to detect. This change is a buff to the damage on his Q and to the ganking possibilities on his ultimate. To explain the ultimate change in a bit more detail: Previously, if Rengar was within a certain range, it would show an icon warning people that he’s stalking them down. Now, the icon doesn’t appear unless Rengar is within normal vision range for his targets. Hopefully this will make him more easily able to get the drop on people.

Rumble

Scrap Shield (W ) Danger Zone bonus increased to 50% from 25%

Electro Harpoon ( E ) Danger Zone bonus increased to 50% from 25%

Rumble got an awesome legendary skin recently, but unfortunately, Rumble isn’t in a great spot right now, so not a whole lot of people have been playing it. Rumble has shown some serious overdominance in the past, which is probably why Riot’s being so careful about buffing him back up, but they do realise that the little guy needs a bit of help fitting into his big shoes. These buffs might be a good step towards making that happen.

Ziggs

Base armor increased to 16 from 12

This is nothing shocking; Ziggs didn’t get the armour buff that all champions received last patch, so this is just correcting for that.

Item Balance

Scrying Orb, Farsight Orb, Greater Orb

Reveal duration increased to 2 seconds from 1 second.

It wouldn’t be a real patch without a buff to blue trinket. Once again, this item is cool but just not strong enough to warrant buying. We can keep trying, though.

Twin Shadows

Active “hunt” duration increased to 6 seconds from 5 seconds.

Twin Shadows is still a seldom-bought item. It’s a niche build choice, so that’s not really a problem, but this buff should hopefully make it stronger in its niche.

Wriggle’s Lantern

Feral Flare transformation now at 30 instead of 25 large monster kills

Feral Flare was a really cool item and made Wriggle’s Lantern so much more worth it than it’s ever been before. However, the recent buffs to Heal and Exhaust have made games go on about ten minutes longer on average than they used to, making Feral Flare a lot stronger than anticipated, since it’s made to get stronger the longer the game goes on. This change doesn’t nerf the item itself, but delays the transformation from Wriggle’s to FF, making it so that you need to farm for a little bit longer before you can start building those pony-devouring stacks. I love Feral Flare, but even I have to admit that it’s a little broken right now. I hope that Riot can manage to reduce its power without kicking Wriggle’s back into the useless zone.

New Item: Soul Anchor (Dominion Only)

Active: Consumes a charge to instantly revive at your Summoner Platform and grants 125% Movement Speed that decays over 12 seconds. Additional charges are gained at levels 9 and 14 (Max: 2 charges)

Who put a trinket in my Dominion? Soul Anchor is a cool little gadget that basically gives you summoner Revive in your inventory. Revive is extremely dominant in the Dominion metagame right now, so it limits summoner spell choices a little bit. Since this trinket is available to everyone, it’ll hopefully free people up to have a bit more choice in their summoner spells. My guess is that Riot might be thinking of removing Revive from Dominion as well, given that it’s already been taken out of the other maps.

Blackfire Torch

No longer grants 5% movement speed

Blackfire Torch is a really strong item, so this is presumably aimed at reducing its dominance in the Twisted Treeline.

Hextech Sweeper

Total cost increased to 2130 from 2000

Now builds out of Glacial Shroud + Kindle Gem instead of Fiendish Codex + Kindlegem

No longer grants 40 AP

Now grants 250 Mana and 25 Armor

Hextech Sweeper has always been a weird item. It’s somehow straddling the line between a tank item and a damage item, which is rarely seen on an AP item, since AP bruisers aren’t very common. This change seems to be aimed at solidifying its role as a tank utility item, and putting Glacial Shroud in the build path is a pretty good idea.

Other Balance

Heal

Health restore tooltip changed to 95 – 475 from 90 – 495

Once again, Heal applies a debuff that reduces effectiveness of multiple casts of the summoner spell by 50%.

Summoner Heal’s buffs last patch made it quickly secure a position as the most effective summoner choice for the bottom lane. This change nerfs the late-game heal by a tiny amount, but more importantly vastly reduces the power of stacking heals. This change will make it be once again silly to take multiple heals in bottom lane, and hopefully free up players to take their old favourites of Ignite and Exhaust into consideration as well as Heal. Perfect balance is hard to achieve, but this change should make it so that Heal doesn’t crowd out other choices quite as harshly.

Cosmetic Changes

Twitch Visual Update

The Plague Rat has a brand new coat and a set of impressive new animations to boot. His VU is looking fantastic, check it out in more detail over at [email protected]. He also has new icons for his skills, two of which have been renamed. His E, formerly called Expunge, is now called “Contaminate.” His R, formerly called Spray and Pray, is now called “Rat-ta-tat-tat.”

SKT T1 Skins

A new five-pack of skins is dropping to commemorate SKT T1’s victory at the World Championship for season 3. The skins are for Jax, Lee Sin, Zed, Zyra and Vayne. There’s also a ward skin to go along with the pack. Check them out here.

Atlantean Syndra

Atlantean Syndra is back up on the PBE. Check her out a bit further down this page.

Kog’Maw’s Q

Kog’Maw’s Q now has a shattered-shield icon to indicate the MR and Armour shred.

Singed’s W

Singed’s W now has a ring around it to better indicate the affected area. As a side note, “Singed’s” might be the hardest word to pronounce in the English language.

That’s all for this week. Thanks for checking in, and as always, thanks to Moobeat at Surrender at 20 for patch notes and screenshots!