11/22 PBE Update: New Summoner Icons, In-Client Bio Updates & More

[Snow Battle ARURF is now available for testing!]

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 7.24 PBE cycle, this patch includes new Snowdown themed summoner icons, in-client bio updates, & more!
Continue reading for more information!

(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and subject to change - what you see below may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers at the end of the cycle! Manage your expectations accordingly.)

Table of Contents


New Summoner Icons

A handful of new Snowdown themed summoner icons are now on the PBE!




In- Client Bio Updates

More champions have had their in-client bios updated in today's update, check them all out here:

[Updated In-Client Bios - Patch 7.24]


Here's L J Goulding with more on the already released bio updated in patch 7.23:
"IT HAS BEGUN... 
As of patch 7.23 (released today) the #LeagueOfLegends game client is rolling out new Narrative short bios for every champion, with the rest of their story still on the Universe website https://universe.leagueoflegends.com 
Has your favourite champ been updated yet?"

Miscellaneous 

"Currently a bug with the champion pool. Non-Snowdown champs that shouldn't be available are available. Working on triage."
  • Santa Draven now has a homeguard animation! Here's Riot LoveStrut with more:
"On another note, we did manage to get in a little homeguard animation for Santa Draven! Unfortunately, it's a little limited because we have to preserve the clarity of his spinning axes, but we thought it would be nice to add. :)"

Balance Changes

NOTE*: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, & experimental changes. Be aware that what you see below may be relative to other changes earlier this cycle! These are not official notes.

Champions
Aurelion Sol
  • Voice of Light (R) cooldown lowered from 120/100/80 to 110/90/70

Bard
  • Caretaker's Shrine (W) 
    • shrines active at once reverted from 2/3/4/5/6 to 3 at all ranks
    • Range reverted from 900 to 800

Cassiopeia
  • Twin Fang (E) mana cost lowered from 40/50/60/70/80 to 40/47/54/61/68

Ezreal
  • Mystic Shot (Q) AD ratio lowered from 125% to 110%

Jarvan IV 
  • Dragon Strike (Q) damage lowered from 80/125/170/215/260 to 80/120/160/200/240

Jhin
  • Deadly Flourish (W) damage increased from 50/85/120/155/190 to 60/95/130/165/200
  • Curtain Call (R)
    • AD reverted from 30% to 20%
    • Slow Duration reverted from 0.75 to 0.5 seconds
    • Minimum Delay Between Shots reverted from 1.25 to 1 seconds

Karthus
  • Requiem (R) AP ratio increased from 60% to 75%

Leona
  • Eclipse (W) damage lowered from 60/100/140/180/220 to 40/80/120/160/200

Malzahar
  • Nether Grasp (R) 
    • damage lowered from 125/225/325 to 125/200/275
    • AP ratio lowered from 110% to 80%

Maokai
  • Bramble Smash (Q) damage lowered from 70/115/160/205/250 to 55/100/145/190/235

Xin Zhao
  • Base HP lowered from 600 to 550
  • Wind Becomes Lightning (W) 
    • Thrust damage AD lowered from 85% to 75%

Yorick
  • Base AD lowered from 65 to 62

Zyra
[Note: Zyra has a large amount of changes already in testing on the PBE!]
  • Rampant Growth (W) 
    • "W effect now also works on champion assists" - Context
  • Grasping Roots (E) damage increased from 60/95/130/165/200 to 60/105/150/195/240
  • Stranglethorns (R)
    • [New Effect] Garden of Thorns now resets plant duration and they gain 50% health.


Items
Bramble Vest
  • Unique Passive - Thorns
    • Damage reflect changed from [15 damage] to [damage equal to 10% of your bonus Armor]


Sunfire Cape
  • Unique Passive - Immolate
    • damage increased from 11 to 20
    • bonus damage to minions and monsters lowered from 200% to 100%

Runes
Mirror Shell (R3)
  • MR increased from 5 to 6

Eyeball Collection (D3)
  • Completed collection AD bonus increased from 3 to 6
  • Completed collection AP bonus increased from 5 to 10
  • Tooltip now notes assists give 1 eyeball

Context & Notes


1) Here's Meddler with his quick gameplay thoughts for 11/22, including 7.24 being the last patch of the year, when it's appropriate to micropatch, and more:
"Morning all, 
Usual Disclaimers 
These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get put delayed or even stopped. 
If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler 
7.24 is the last standard patch of the year 
7.24, the patch currently on PBE, will be the last standard patch of the year as we get close to the end of year holiday period. All going according to plan, it'll go out around the 5th of December. That still leaves quite a bit of time during December where we'll be working on stuff though with a while until the first patch of next year (8.1) in early January. We're planning to do at least a few balance adjustments via micro patch in mid December as a result for anything that's ready to go and safe to do via micro patch. 
When is it appropriate to micro patch? 
Micro patches involve changes to game logic. They don't allow us to add completely new things to the game though, especially not where those things would need new art/sound etc (e.g. skins, new features, champs, items etc). The biggest thing that impacts whether we micro patch a particular change or not is how easy it is to assess the possible impact of it:
  • Game code changes tend to higher risk changes, so we're more hesitant to micro patch them. Game code here refers to the core functionality of the game, stuff like how units move around, how fog of war works, that health exists as a concept etc. For many changes, even if they look pretty simple, they can impact so many different things it's not appropriate to micropatch them (micro patches have really limited testing compared to normal changes)
  • Game script changes range in risk from high to low. Game script (Lua in our case) controls things like how specific champion abilities function, or how items work. Some changes are easy to assess and therefore safe to change (e.g. changing 'If X>0.1' to 'If X>0.01), especially given worst case scenario is normally that you just mess up one champion ability or whatever. Other changes by contrast tend to cross the risk threshold if they involve changing a lot of logic throughout the script (e.g. rewriting how Pix follows Lulu/people she's E'd for example are much more complex).
  • Raw numbers changes. These are normally safest of all, changing something like a spell's damage, a champion's base HP etc. A few of them still have notable risk, in particular if a champion's scripts are really dependent on them (e.g. spell cast ranges or timings). Generally we can change these pretty safely provided there's a strong enough need. It's still better to get a full cycle of testing in, both from a bug and balance perspective, unless the need is urgent though. 
Morg and Zyra changes 
We've got some Morg and Zyra changes in 7.24 aimed at helping them perform better outside of support. Goal there's not to push them out of support though, so if their duo lane performance ends up struggling we'll do some follow up work to get them to a reasonable spot there, possibly in the micro patch mid December. We think the current changes should be ok for support as well, but the amount of testing we get internally's tiny relative to the number of games that get played after a patch goes out. 
No Posts until late next week 
As a quick heads up there won't be another of these posts until late next week. It's the Thanksgiving break here in the US so I'm taking the opportunity to head home (New Zealand) for a week. That means it's also likely I won't be able to respond to this post much either, apologies (I'm writing it at work, but will be posting it while traveling)."


Check out [THIS PAGEfor a comprehensive list of the new content & changes currently on the PBE as a part of this cycle or catch up with the individual update links below !

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