Hello everyone! Hyjacked back again with another PBE Roundup. This cycle has seen a few balance changes, a couple of cool new skins, and more importantly, a new champion! Gnar has bounced onto the rift and has already made a name for himself.

I really hope he’ll be live during patch 4.14, but he may end up needing some bug fixes, or otherwise unable to be put out. Stay hopeful!

Don’t forget that PBE content is always tentative, so these notes could change by the time the patch hits live servers.

Balance Changes

Champion Balances

New Champion: Gnar

Gnar, the newest champion, has hit the PBE. For those of you who don’t know, he’s an adorable yordle that transforms between a Marksman form and a Fighter form. You can check out Cloth5’s preview as well as the official reveal from Riot or a comprehensive and detailed overview (including pictures and videos) from [email protected]

There’s also a Q&A that the balance team did on the forums, which [email protected] recapped. Check him out!

Kassadin

• Riftwalk (R): Subsequent Riftwalk cost and damage multiplier period increased to 20 seconds from 12

This is an interesting change to Kassadin. It’s sort of a buff and a nerf both in one go. Kassadin’s Ultimate’s mana cost and damage stack up if you use Riftwalk multiple times in succession, and this patch is extending the duration of those stacks. This will help him keep his damage stacked up on his ultimate, but at early parts of the game before building a lot of mana, it will prevent him from spamming it.

Kayle

• Attack Speed per level increased to 2.5% from 2.2%.

Kayle’s attack speed has been buffed a bit. She’s still not quite where Riot wants her to be, but she’s getting close. Small buffs and small nerfs seem pretty common lately, what with patches coming out every two weeks. This change in particular is a reversion of a nerf she got in patch 4.11.

Kog’Maw

• Base Movement Speed decreased to 325 from 330
• Living Artillery (R): Extra % base damage to champions changed to 100% at all ranks from 125% at all ranks.

Kog’maw took some nerfs last patch but he’s still a bit too strong. His movement speed has been decreased to make him more reliant on the team’s peeling abilities, and his ultimate has taken a straight nerf to its damage to champions. As a hyper-carry, Kog’Maw’s always been tricky to balance, so hopefully he’ll be in a good spot by worlds.

Maokai

• Twisted Advance (W): Percent of target’s maximum health as magic damage reduced to 9/10/11/12/13% from 9/10.5/12/13.5/15%
• Twisted Advance (W): AP ratio lowered to .03 from .04
• Vengeful Maelstrom (R): Now has a maximum duration of 10 seconds.

Maokai got a rework a little while ago, but it took a while for people to realize just how strong it was. He hasn’t been seeing a lot more jungle play than usual, but he’s been used to devastating effect in top lane. His top lane damage and utility have been reduced in the form of a damage nerf on his W’s percent-health damage and the introduction of a limit on his Ultimate’s duration.

This will hopefully put the brakes on his top lane play a bit, without hurting his jungle power. Specifically, the Ultimate change will probably have a limited effect on his jungling, as most ganks don’t require using Vengeful Maelstrom for too long. It will, however, give his top-lane opponents more windows of opportunity in which to go in, as he can’t keep his ultimate up for that long anymore.

The changes to Twisted Advance won’t harm his early laning very much, but they will hurt his scaling into late-game and make his pick/peel a bit less punishing to people who have built a lot of HP.

Morgana

• Black Shield (E): Shield absorb strength lowered to 70/140/210/280/350 from 95/160/225/290/355
• Soul Shackles (R): Initial damage and secondary damage lowered to 150/225/300 from 175/250/325 

Morgana’s been powerful in the bottom lane as a support. The combination of Dark Binding and Black Shield make her able to stop her opponents from taking a lot of actions in lane, and she also packs a hell of a wallop with her powerful spells. Her Black Shield’s strength and the damage on her ultimate have both been nerfed, so hopefully she’ll be a bit less dominant. She may need some further nerfs in following patches, but we’ll see.

Rengar

• Thrill of the Hunt (R):  Cooldown increased to 150/110/70 from 120/95/70 seconds

Rengar is extremely powerful at the moment, albeit mostly in Korean circuits. This patch is seeing a nerf to the cooldown on his ultimate, spacing out his ultimate-driven engages early-game.

Orianna

• Base Attack Damage decreased to 38 from 44

Orianna’s always been a very safe pick in the mid lane, and she’s seen a lot more play lately. One strength of Orianna’s has always been her ability to inflict very high damage with auto-attacks due to her passive. This change should tone down that strength a bit.

Item Balances

Head of Kha’Zix (Rengar only)

• Now lists: “Special Bonus: Rengar has increased vision range while in brush.”

For those who don’t know, this item is a prize given to Rengar if he wins the Rengar vs. Kha’zix quest. It gives Rengar all of the benefits that Bonetooth Necklace would have, at maximum stats. Since Rengar’s rework, his Bonetooth Necklace has no longer been able to lose stacks, which used to be one of the advantages to winning the quest. This change will impact a tiny percentage of games, but it makes Rengar’s reward more equal to Kha’Zix’s reward in power.

Entropy (Crystal Scar and Howling Abyss only)

• Active now lists it does damage and slows over 2.5 seconds, up from 2 seconds.

This is a direct reversion of the nerf to Entropy last patch. It’s possible that it was just a tooltip change or a mistake, but Entropy is now back where it was before Patch 4.13.

Sanguine Blade (Twisted Treeline, Crystal Scar and Howling Abyss only)

• Attack Damage increased to 45 from 40
• Lifesteal lowered to 10% from 15
• Unique Passive uptime increased to 8 seconds from 4 seconds

Sanguine Blade experienced some changes earlier in this cycle to make it more like Bloodthirster, giving it the shield overhealing passive that BT has on Summoner’s Rift. However, Riot decided not to go with it, and instead, rebalanced the stats to give it less lifesteal but more AD. The uptime on the stacking AD and Lifesteal buff has also been increased, making it easier to stack and keep up the buff.

Cosmetic Changes

Arcade Miss Fortune

Miss Fortune is the third champion to receive an arcade skin! Now you can have a double-arcade bot lane and poke with pixels to your heart’s content.

Riot Kayle

Riot Kayle has dropped on the PBE as well, completing the Riot squad. This is a pretty awesome skin with some cool animations and sounds. I’m not sure it’ll be up in this patch cycle, but it might be.

Kog’Maw Void Ooze VFX

Kog’Maw’s E, Void Ooze, has received a new animation. It looks a lot more like acid now, and less like chalk vomit.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading, and as always, thanks to Moobeat at [email protected] for his excellent notes and images. See you next time!