2/24 PBE Update: Elderwood LeBlanc, Hextech Annie, Cho'Gath icons, and ton of tentative balance changes!

Posted on at 11:19 AM by Moobeat
With today's update we kick off the 6.5 PBE cycle! In addition to a slew of tentative balance changes, today's update includes a new Elderwood LeBlanc skin, the crafting system exclusive Hextech Annie skin, new ability icons for Cho'Gath, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and iterative - what you see may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers! Manage your expectations accordingly. )

Table of Contents


New Skins

To kick off the 6.5 PBE cycle we have two new champion skins - Elderwood LeBlanc and the crafting system exclusive Hextech Annie skin!

Elderwood LeBlanc

1350 RP
[R version of abilities] 
Here's Nurse Flan with a Bugs & Feedback thread on Elderwood LeBlanc:
"Elderwood Leblanc has been re-imagined as a trickster fairy! She's a fancy magical forest dweller with a flower/butterly motif! 
As a little aside, internally we call the little blue bird on her horn, Chuchu! haha
  • Completely new model (fairy!)
  • New particles for abilities! (petals and sparkles!)
  • New recall! (she flutters around!)
  • New audio for abilities and recall! (magical!)
  • Some new animations - her wings flutter for her W and R-W, plus her recall!
  • Set to be 1350RP* (pricing always subject to change)
As players who get the first look at this in-progress skin, it would be wonderful to hear your thoughts and feelings on the new Elderwood skin! The feedback and bugs you leave here will help us get a better idea of things we may still have to take a look at. :] 
See you on the Rift!"

Hextech Annie

[Obtainable exclusively thought crafting-  Hextech Annie, crafting and gemstones ]
  

This HEXTECH ANNIE skin is planned to be exclusive to the upcoming HEXTECH CRAFTING system, obtainable by acquiring 10 rare gems through chests!

Once you have the 10 rare gems, you can just right click the rare gem in your Hextech Crafting inventory to make the Hextech Annie skin!
Here's Mirross with more info:
"Hi all! 
Everyone’s favorite combo of sugar, spice, nice, and plenty of burning is getting a new skin as part of hextech crafting and loot. In order to secure appropriate testing for Hextech Annie, we’re putting her and her hextechnically-augmented Tibbers on PBE early, but don’t expect her to debut with the launch of hextech crafting and loot. 
Featuring an all-new model, textures, animations and particle effects as well as new sounds, Hextech Annie is intended to be available exclusively through hextech crafting and the loot system by acquiring 10 gemstones either in normal chests and promotional chests through rare drops or by picking up special promo chest bundles (which’ll guarantee a gemstone drop). Gemstones are rare loot drops that can be crafted into a chest and key bundle or saved to combine to craft Hextech Annie. 
Promo chests will only be available at limited times and may have different content inside compared to normal chests. For testing on the PBE, we’ve unlocked Hextech Promo Chest bundles in the store so players can pick up Hextech Annie as soon as possible. During this test, buying one of the 10-chest bundles guarantees a gemstone in addition to the gemstones you can find in the chests themselves. 
As we mentioned at the beginning, Hextech Annie won’t be available at the launch of hextech crafting and loot. We’ll test her on PBE before testing her release to live servers in Turkey (where we’ve been testing hextech crafting and loot for a little while now). When hextech crafting and loot debut on all live servers, Hextech Annie will follow shortly after. 
Lastly, we’re pretty sure everyone’s used to this by now, but please keep in mind the promo chests have been heavily discounted for testing on PBE, and the drop rates of items in the chests may also change before we go live. 
Leave your feedback on the skin or even the idea of a free, exclusive skin in hextech crafting below, and we’ll see you on the PBE battlefields! 
Mirross"

New Ward Skin

[References to a new Hextech Ward has been added in today's update but unfortunately doesn't look like any in-game assets made it! Check back tomorrow!]

Client Description  for Hextech Ward reads " Hextech Crafting Launch"

New Champion Ability Icons

New ability icons for Cho'Gath have been added!

[Passive, Q, W, E, R]

Miscellaneous 

  • With the Hextech Annie testing, a new "promotion chest" hextech crafting chest is up in the PBE shop. This chest has slightly different loot tables and a new purple look.  

Balance Changes

Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.

Champions
Hecarim
  • Devastating Charge (E) 
    • Movement speed back to being multiplicative from additive.
    • knock back distance also now scales based on how far Hecarim has traveled during E. 
      • [NOTE: I believe knock back is 250 to 450 from ~300.]

Jarvan IV
  • [NOTE: ricklessabandon describes these as experimental.]
  • Dragon Strike (Q) mana cost reduced  to 40/45/50/55/60 from 45/50/55/60/65
  • Cataclysm (R)
    • Mana cost reduced to 100 at all ranks from 100/125/150
    • Now does damage to all enemies in the circle instead of only target.
    • Now plants a flag he can Q to in the middle of the circle.

Pantheon
  • Heartseeker Strike (E)
    • Active damage over 3 strikes lowered to 80/130/180/230/280 (+3 bonus AD) from 80/140/220/260/320 (+3.6 bonus AD)
    • [Tooltip has changed. It now lists damage over three strikes vs listing an damage of each strike. Also now lists damage to champions and mentions it does reduced damage to minion/monster rather than damage it does to monster/minion then double to champiions.] 
      • [NOTE: Damage to minions/monsters roughly the same.]
  • Grand Skyfall (R) 
    • Mana cost reduced to 100 at all ranks from 125.
    • No longer refunds (85) mana if R is cancelled.
    • Cooldown when cancelled increased to 30 seconds from 10 seconds. 

Renekton
  • Slice and Dice (E) - both Slice and Dice now generate fury, rather than just Dice
    • E1 (Slice) now generates 2 fury for each non champion hit and 10 fury for each champion hit, up to a maximum of 30 fury.
    • E2 (Dice) fury generation reduced to 2 for non-champion hits down from 2.5
  • Dominus (R) 
    • Health bonus changed to 250/500/750 from 200/400/800
    • Now gains 25 range while R is on (doesn't stack with W)**

Soraka
  • [CHANGES FROM LAST FEW CYCLES HAVE RETURNED! Aside from value differences, Alignment now grants health per second rather than flat health after 3 sec and the movement speed is only granted when not moving towards enemy champions. W also now gives Alignment's effects for 3 seconds rather than transferring the buff off of Soraka and on to target. ]

  • Starcall (Q) -
    • Mana cost reduced to 60 at all ranks from 70/75/80/85/90
    • Cooldown lowered to 5 seconds from 7/6.5/6/5.5/5 seconds.
    • All enemies hit are slowed rather than only those in center.
    • Enemies in center no longer take 50% extra damage.
    • [NEW MECHANIC] "If Starcall damages a champion, Soraka gains Alignment for 4 seconds, which restores up to 10-22 (+10% AP) health per second and grants 15% movement speed when not moving toward enemy champions."
    • Updated tooltip:
"Calls down a star from Soraka to a target location. Enemies standing in the explosion radius take 70/110/150/190/230 (+.35 ) magic damage and are slowed by 30/35/40/45/50% for 2 seconds. 
If Starcall damages a champion Soraka gains Alignment for 4 seconds, which restores 10/13/16/19/22 (+ 10% AP) health per second and grants 15% movement speed when not moving toward enemy champions."
  • Astral Infusion (W) -
    • Heal value lowered to 80/110/140/170/200 from 120/150/180/210/240
    • [REMOVED] No longer heals Soraka on champion Q hit.
    • [NEW MECHANIC] "If cast while affected by Alignment, Soraka will grant her target its benefits for 3 seconds".
    • Updated tooltip:
"Restores 80/110/140/170/200 (+.6 AP ) health to another champion ally. 
If cast while affected by Alignment, Soraka will grant her target its benefits for 3 seconds. 
Cannot be cast if Soraka is below 5% health."

Urgot
  • Base damage increased to 54.05 from 52.05
  • Terror Capacitor (W) 
    • Duration down to 5 seconds from 7 seconds.
Vi
  • Excessive Force (E) mana cost reduced to 40/45/50/55/60 from 60 at all ranks. 
    • [NOTE: Riot Timewizard noted additional change coming tomorrow! 1/2]

Items
Guardian Angel
  • Total cost lowered to 2700g from 2900g.
    • Combine cost reduced to 1180g from 1380g.
  • Now notes restores greater of 700 HP or 30% of maximum health rather than just 30% max hp.

Continued PBE Testing

Reminder that the HEXTECH CRAFTING and CLUBS systems continue their PBE testing in the 6.5 cycle!

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