Reign of Gaming

Hey guys - I'm going to make a context thread on the stuff in PBE and what we're going for this patch - this will be accurate as of the *next* PBE push - but I'll also talk about some of the things you've seen or was on the docket that we're pushing back.

Jarvan

• Golden Aegis
  • Shield amount per nearby enemy champion increased to 20/30/40/50/60 from 20/25/30/35/40
  • Mana cost reduced to 45/50/55/60/65 from 6
• Demacian Standard
  • Active no longer grants bonus Armor

We're trying to consolidate Jarvan's power into Jarvan IV himself - rather than having a large bulk of invisible power simply aura out from Jarvan.

It would be kind of a shame to make any of Jarvan's individual characteristics any worse - simply because as a character, he tends to be manageable in a lot of ways - However, the invisible power to his team is skewing Jarvan to be overpowered in a lot of ways.

Leblanc

* No changes for the following patch

There's a couple goals with Mimic right now - but mostly, Leblanc's ultimate is heavily dependent on which spell she levels first - severely diminishing her overall effectiveness outside of her primary spell.

While this serves to allow Leblanc's skill choices to be meaningful - it constricts her ultimate to being additional power that she often didn't need to be that strong. If Leblanc could use her Mimic to compensate for the weaknesses in her current level up path - her overall progression would be far smoother.

That said, there isn't any changes in the current build on Leblanc (however, most of you are probably experiencing the 3/05/2013 PBE patch.)

Janna

Howling Gale

• Fixed a bug where the knockup duration was not increasing based on charge time
• Knockup duration when fully charged increased to 1 second from 0.75 seconds

Janna's empowered Q should actually be worth it to empower - right now, currently, it isn't - which makes the quick-shot Q the superior choice almost always. Planning to use the Q pre-emptively should give greater payoff than reactively tapping the button - so we're increasing some of the high-end power of the skill when charged.

Taric

Nerfs!

We wanted to accomplish a few things with changing Taric: Giving more power to the Taric player to contribute meaningfully in a sort of Paladin-Support role, rather than a back-line support stun role.

The second goal we wanted to accomplish with Taric is actually reducing his overall power level because Taric was far more powerful than is normally healthy for that role. While we feel like Taric's playstyle is significantly improved - we haven't achieved the second goal - and we'll keep tuning until we feel like his power level is in line.

As an aside, we've noted that while Taric's playstyle has shifted to be more active - his power level hasn't actually changed much at all - hence the additional need for changes.

Aegis of the Legion / Runic Bulwark

* 50% increased effect of minions.

The items are great all-purpose team centric items - but should also allow teams to concentrate their pushing power. These items already worked on minions previously but the amount of wave-clear and pushing potential was still overcoming any effect these items could have.

We couldn't find a value that seemed to give the additional pushing power we'd like to minions while having the same value on champions - so we opted to increase the overall power the aura had on minions.

The only aura item that doesn't currently effect minion is Zeke's Herald- because +12 damage on 7 minions is insane. Also Lifesteal on minions tends to cause last-hitting to be nightmarish.

Locket / Bulwark cost / health adjustments

Locket cost reduced by 150.
Bulwark cost reduced by 250.
Locket loses 100 health.
Bulwark loses 100 health.
Bulwark aura MR reduced to 25 from 30.

In the current environment - the jungler or support is frequently picking up these items to provide team fight presence in a cool defensive way.

However, what we found was that the price point and power level of these items frequently meant that these characters were often the poorest characters on their team - and that the gold cost was significantly constraining their builds when they chose to do so.

We still want the Locket or the Bulwark purchase to feel great as a supportive character - we just don't want it to completely set your build back by being such required pickups.

Hurricane

Secondary Target Seek Range 300 --> 375

So Hurricane is kind of a scary item - but we've discovered that it tends to be self-balancing a lot of the time. If Teemo is in range to hit three champions with Hurricane - it means there are three champions that have an extreme incentive to jump on Teemo and make him non-Teemo.

While we could certainly make the item more efficient in terms of statistics - we found that in most cases, the Hurricane AoE range was too small to actually be a meaningful AoE - similar to the old Tiamat case. We're thus going to adjust the AoE up so that Hurricane actually works in a team-fight scenario, rather than simply against clusters of minions (though the pushing case is pretty cool.)

Sheen

Combine cost decreased by 60 - Total cost 1200.

The cost of AD went up - but Sheen's passive was still priced the same.

This cost reduction is basically recognizing the fact that Sheen's passive should be cheaper simply because the value of raw physical damage is cheaper.

Lich Bane / Iceborne Gauntlet's total cost will be unaffected - Lich Bane does magic damage, Iceborne Gauntlet has been compensated in other ways.

Trinity Force will have its cost reduced due to Sheen being cheaper.

Iceborne Gauntlet

AP 40 --> 30
Armor 60 --> 70

Iceborne Gauntlet is getting a bit more armor this patch and less ability power to better fit the needs of the characters who would pick it up. While the additional ability power definitely helps melee tank burst damage - but that's not the primary reason anyone is picking the item up, especially if they have a Glacial Shroud.

I prefer mispelling the item. I don't know why - I feel like that's cooler - It's also why I continuously call Mercury Treads, Mercury Threads instead.

Warden's Mail / Randuin's Omen

Passive AS Slow 20% --> 15%.

We're happy with what these items are accomplishing in the game - being a strong pick against champions highly reliant on auto-attacks.

However, the actual power level of these items seems a little high - they work - but they're probably working a little too well - hence the adjustment.

Frozen Heart will be unaffected in these attack speed slow changes - because we feel like it's a nice trade-off for you to make after you have Warden's Mail. Either continue to Frozen Heart and gain further armor/attack speed reduction - or shift to Randuin's Omen and get some much needed movement speed reduction.

Zephyr

Recipe Change: Stinger + Pickaxe + 725 Gold = 2850 Gold.

When you can purchase Zephyr - it feels great.

However, the 1200 combine cost makes the build-path to Zephyr unnecessarily punishing - so we've decided to simply smooth out the path a little to more manageable components.

Instead of having one huge 1200 gold jump, you know have two smaller 800~ jumps.

Philsopher's Stone / Shurelya's Reverie

*No Changes*

So a lot of you probably noticed the Transcend passive on these two items, which granted permanent HP/5 the longer you held onto the item. This was originally intended to be a piece of the regeneration pie intended for characters like Leona or Jungle Tanks that would've opted into initiation statistics.

We're pulling this passive for now because while it does help the situation some - we'd like to both have some additional testing time on this and work on the other pieces of the regeneration solution as well.