PBE Balance Changes

Summoners! Today we're posting a collection of changes and PBE small updates so you can get a better idea of what could possibly come in terms of changes with the next patch and better adapt to the change.

Read bellow for champion buffs/nerfs, Xelnath on the 25/11 Relic Shield hotfix, new Anivia textures, Yasuo and other things:

PBE Balance Changes

(remember that these changes are not necessarily final)

Lee Sin

• Safeguard ( W ) tooltip now reads "Safeguard: Lee Sin rushes towards a target ally, shielding himself from damage. If the ally is a champion, they are also shielded." instead of "Lee Sin rushes towards a target ally, shielding them both from damage. "

Lulu

• Help Pix ( E ) shield increased to 80/120/160/200/240 from 60/105/150/195/240
• Wild Growth ( R ) mana cost decreased to 100 at all ranks from 150

Sivir

• Spell Shield ( E ) duration down to 1.5 seconds from 3 seconds
• On The Hunt ( R ) cooldown increased to 120/100/80 from 120/90/60
• On The Hunt ( R ) duration for allies reduced to 8 seconds from 10 seconds
• On The Hunt ( R ) Initial movement speed duration lowered to 2/3/4 seconds from 4 seconds at all ranks

Skarner

• Q attack speed increased to 8/10/12/14/16% per stack from 4/5/6/7/8%. [ See this post for more information on this change ]

Soraka

• Base armor increased to 11.4 from 9.4

 

Taric

• Shatter ( W ) damage ratio reduced to .2 from .3

Yasuo

•  Base damage increased to 50 from 49
• Steel Tempest ( Q ) damage increased to 20/40/60/80/100 from 10/30/50/70/90
• Sweeping Blade ( E ) AP ratio reduced to .6 from 1.0
•  

Items

Spirit of the Ancient Golem, Spirit of Elder Lizard, Spirit Stone

• Unique Passive: Entrap renamed to Spirit Drain

Spirit of Spectral Wraith

• No longer grants 10 magic pen
• Now has "Unique Passive: Gain 100 movement speed and ignore unit collision for 3 seconds upon killing a unit"
• Unique passive: Entrap renamed to Spirit Drain

Other

Giant Wolf

• Base gold value  decreased to 40 from 48

Golem

• Base damage increased to 60 from 55

Wight

• Base damage increased to 75 from 70

Wolf

• Base Gold value increased to 8 from 5

Young Lizard

• Base Gold value reduced to 7 from 10

25/11 Hotfix and Relic Shield

So as most of you has noticed, six days ago all servers experienced a downtime where Relic Shield was changed so that only melee auto-attacks could perform the minion execute and an increased charge CD of 60 seconds. Xelnath spoke of this on the forums:

"Hey guys, 

Just wanted to close the loop on this, by mentioning that today's hotfix has applied the nerfs to Relic Shield - reducing the recharge rate to 60 seconds and making it so only melee attacks can proc the execute.

Ranged characters who want to use Relic Shield are expected to stack auto-attacks and spells to proc the effect, avoiding the frustratingly high-pressure situation where double relic shield shoves under the tower. 

This was the change we could apply on short notice, and will keep an eye on the new Relic Shield. If Relic Shield stacking is still an issue, we'll address it again.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-314-notes#11-25-hotfix

The 11/25 hotfix was delayed due to other service impairing issues in multiple regions which needed to be handled first. 

Thanks :) 

-Xelnath
Bringer of Chaos"

 We might  still not have heard the last of fixing Tragon's Brace (particularly because it seems to be partially bugged currently), but the emergency of reducing it's power has been assisted.

Anivia Texture Update

(note: all images belong to Surrender@20)

 Although a relatively small change, Anivia's texture update is quite noticeable at higher resolutions.

Yasuo Feedback Collection

For those curious about how Yasuo has been faring on the Beta Environment but are unnable to check by themselves, here are some tidbits on League's next champion:

CertainlyT:

"Yasuo reflects my feeling that you are giving up on the "all in" class to easily. He is able to stay more in his team's back line, isolate enemy divers using wind wall, hack them to pieces, then dive into the enemy back line once their major cooldowns have been spent. This is fundamentally different from a Fiora who has to choose between non-participation in a fight and rushing headlong into the enemy's entire zone of threat."

(About his R being smartcast, and the chance of not being so):

"Hey Schroeder, Unfortunately, the ability is almost unusable for its intended combat purpose when not smartcast. I know that makes Yasuo tough to adjust to for some folks (Cassiopeia, Karthus, Zyra, etc. garner the same reaction from some). However, I had to make the tough call that the alternative was just worse for everyone. 

That being said, I'm going to push a version of the ability to PBE next patch that allows the Q3 Whirlwind to be non-quick cast. That spell is one you can reasonably want to spend more time setting up as a player."

(About his early game power/lack of):

"We've had more success with Yasuo early game than most PBE players. A few observations: Doran's Shield is a very underbought item that can buy you a ton of room early; Yasuo is hard to play and most people I watch on PBE are not yet familiar with him; While Yasuo does not duel particularly well, he has good clear power and can make action happen in the jungle and other lanes. 

All that said though, I'm aware that he scales very hard and pays a price in early game effectiveness for that. I think some smoothing would be helpful, since he's fun to duel opponents with and you can't very well do that when they just straight kill you whenever you engage."

   (On AP Yasuo)

"My biggest concerns with AP Yasuo are: 

1. Access to substantial spell vamp off minions. Combined with his passive shield, this could lead to less interesting laning phases.
2. Lack of integration with the full kit -- Intent is literally unused without crit, and Last Breath's bonus armor pen doesn't matter to AP Yasuo.
3. Sweeping Blade is exceptionally reliable. Part of Yasuo's feel is supposed to be the unreliability of his combos and the enemy's feeling that they can play the same elusive dodging game as does Yasuo. So while you may enjoy the build, I as a designer have to think about all parties to the game when deciding what to incentive and what to discourage.
4. Samurai + Deathcap is dissonant. If I were new to the game and was laning against Yasuo, there's no chance I would think to stack MR. As a teammate of Yasuo, I am unlikely to presume him to be a magic damage dealer at champion select and so may select a suboptimal champion to fight alongside him as. Of course player communication can mitigate this, but design is a practical exercise, and perfect communication is not something that can simply be assumed.

The AP ratio on E was meant to make certain off build items like Triforce feel fairly effective. I had hoped that the cooldown would keep AP Yasuo non-viable. At present, it remains to be seen whether the build truly has merit, but I am inclined to lower the ratio on E if it does prove viable outside of casual games. 

I know you and others enjoying AP Yasuo will probably find that statement frustrating -- as a player who enjoys "off" builds myself, I can sympathize -- but these decisions require"

(About his overall balance: Resolve and a breakable Wind Wall)

"Resolve charges by percentage, so it is no harder to charge later than it is early. In fact, if you buy MS items or put more points into W, it becomes easier! 

A few additional points: 

SmashGizmo, Statikk and I agree that Yasuo is scaling a bit too hard at the moment, which is forcing us to make his early game really poor. Yasuo shouldn't be a lane bully, but he should be a threat. Similarly, Yasuo should be an imposing late game force, but he shouldn't leave the enemy team without a feeling that they have any plays the can make against him. 

Letting Yasuo dash to the same target twice is out of the question. He's a totally different champion at that point. I really like the model that Yasuo can effectively get two dashes onto someone by using the environment (minions and other enemies). that's something that savvy enemies can play around through careful positioning. 

We toyed with a breakable Wind Wall, but it always posed a problem: The counterplay of waiting out or moving around/through the wall is clear and compelling. The counterplay of shooting a ton of spells intentionally into the Wind Wall to break it is not; I generally dislike designs where the best response is the worst response repeated several times."

(About criticism to his ultimate, Last Breath)

"Thanks for the feedback. As for your crticism of Last Breath -- the unreliability is a big part of the skill's design. I'm aware it will turn some players off, but am comfortable with that. Let's think about melee carries for a bit. I find that Tryndamere too frequently is either a monster that kills everyone or kind of useless. So he's an unreliable teammate and pick. But that unreliability doesn't lead to a lot of fair fights. Yasuo by contrast is designed to be strong when he and his teammates execute a plan better than their opponents can disrupt the plan. The result, I hope, is enjoyable moment to moment gameplay."

(About Q being auto-smartcast, instead of normal cast, the same way Cassiopeia's and Karthus' Q are)

"*As far as auto-smartcast, we've tested it the other way. The ability is non-functional when not smartcast. I would love for smartcast with indicators to work on these abilities and will look into getting that for you all. Hopefully that is a good compromise. 

*As to the Q casting immediately during your dash, I'm sure that would feel awesome. However, it denies the enemy counterplay. Yasuo's Q has a 0.4 second cast time and a small area. Yasuo's EQ hits a bigger area but requires you to telegraph where you are going to EQ 0.55 seconds prior to it happening (the dash's total travel time). This is the approximate delay time I find allows the enemy a chance at dodging (I use 0.5 seconds as a handy rule of thumb for reaction time+latency+time to act). Hope that clarifies."

(About overall design)

"Intuitive design is not my strong suit. It's an important value for a design, but not the only one. Yasuo is about many things as a design, but one of them is exploring the notion that we can dispense with cooldowns if we make skills situationally powerful and situationally weak. This puts a burden on the player to think before they act. That sounds condescending, but it's actually the opposite -- it's really hard to retain a clear head during a fast paced fight. Mastering that is a big part of the fun of Yasuo."