4/20 PBE Update: Dark Star Orianna Tweaks & Continued midseason testing

Posted on at 8:59 PM by Moobeat
The PBE has been updated! As we continue the hefty midseason / 7.9 PBE cycle, tonight's update includes tweaks for Dark Star Orianna and more tentative balance changes.
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


Continued Midseason Testing

Friendly reminder that all sorts of midseason content is currently testing on the PBE - Rift Herald Changes, Maokai, Sejuani, and Zac update, new items, and much more! Look for continued polish, tweaks, and changes as the larger than usual cycle continues.

Read up on the latest by browsing our larger 7.9 cycle post or with these context links below:

Dark Star Orianna Tweaks

The upcoming  Dark Star Orianna skin has received W and R tweaks in today's update!

Dark Star Orianna's W now has designs inside the W area of effect:

Dark Star Orianna's R has received color tweaks and the ball now turns into a dark star while pulling in:

Brief preview video of today's W/R changes:

"Hiya, ya'll! 
We've been gathering feedback from you all, and so far we've put in some VFX changes to her W and R. They should be hitting PBE with the next deploy, so we'll be looking for more feedback from you when that hits. :] We're also currently looking into changes for the non-VFX stuff you've posted here as well."

Balance Changes

Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical or experimental changes. Be aware that what you see below may be lacking context or other changes that didn't make it in or were implemented in an earlier patch this cycle! These are not official notes.

Champions
Maokai
[Reminder: Maokai has a larger update currently testing on PBE. Changes are relative to PBE, not live.]
  • Sap Magic (P):
    • Several values adjusted: 
      • Cooldown now: 45/30/25/20 at 1/2/9/15
      • Heal Flat now: 15/40/65/90/115/140/165 at 1/6/9/11/13/15/17
      • Heal Ratio now: 6/7/8/9/10/11/12% at 1/6/9/11/13/15/17
  • Twisted Advance (W) :
    • [reverted back to live speed - src.]
    • Cooldown changed from 16/15/14/13/12 to 13/12/11/10/9
  • Sapling Toss (E):
    • Cooldown lowered from 12  to 11
    • Damage increased from 35/55/75/95/115 to 35/60/85/110/135
  • Nature's Grasp (R):
    • Range increased by 500 - from 2000 to 2500 

Sejuani
[Reminder: Sejuani has a larger update currently testing on PBE. Changes are relative to PBE, not live.]

Items
Essence Reaver
  • Total cost lowered from 3600 to 3400.
Knight's Vow
  • [tracker for damage redirected and healing received added to inventory tooltip.]

Redemption
  • [tracker for healing done and damage dealt added to inventory  tooltip. ]

Ancient Coin line 
(changes only show on inventory tooltip atm. confirmed in game value.)
    • Ancient Coin - Favor gold lowered from 22 to 20
    • Upgraded items - Favor gold lowered from 32 to 30
    • Quest Complete/Emperor's Favor gold lowered from 32 to 30


Context & Notes

(and that is the bottom line cuz stone context wip austin said so.)

1) Here's Meddler with another edition of his quick gameplay thoughts for 4/20:
"Morning all, 
Mid-season work's going through it's final phases at the moment. We've got all the content on the PBE now from memory, though some of it still needs final balancing, bug fixing or asset polish still. 
Rift Herald 
Speaking of ongoing polish there's a lot currently going into the updated Rift Herald. As a heads up there'll likely also be a bit of further polish that comes in 7.10 as well. We've got some finishing touches that probably won't be ready for 7.9, so we'll be looking to get those in quickly after as a result. 
Ivern 
Unless anything significantly changes we'll be doing a balance pass on Ivern in 7.10. As mentioned previously 7.9 won't contain many individual champion balance changes, given both that the systemic changes will affect balance on most champs to some degree and that we're still very focused on finishing mid-season itself. We are starting to line up likely projects for the following patch however. 
Starting Items for Passive Support Playstyles 
One of the concerns we've seen expressed since we revealed the changes to the Ancient Coin line is that it's no longer a good option for a really passive playstyle. In terms of how you get rewards as a support that's very much intended, we want reward to be tied to action with a meaningful difference between good and poor choices, something old Coin didn't have. We certainly do want to ensure Coin feels like a good option on squishier ranged champs though, so will be tuning things like coin drop position and pick up radius to ensure trying to get them isn't suicide for non tanky champs. We'll also be watching champs like Soraka and Janna who often aren't great fits with Spellthief's to ensure they're not just left without a good starting item. 
Non Gameplay Impacting: Feeney Art for Rakan and Xayah 
A while back we put up a dev blog talking about Feeney art (light hearted temporary loading screen art for champions in development). More about it at the link below. Now that they're out we can also share the Feeney art for Rakan and Xayah for anyone interested, which was what we see loading into playtests for many months before the final splash art was done. As with the final splash art for duo the Feeney art was also made as one piece, then cut in half with that intent it would be shown side by side. That had the added little benefit of being a fun way to test that some code changes to ensure Xayah and Rakan were positioned appropriately on the loading screen worked as intended too. 
http://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/2017/02/before-theres-splash-art-theres-feeney-art/ 

2) From Riot Solcrushed in Sejuani PBE feedback thread:
"4/20
Minor changes 
W should be easier to hit, especially in the jungle
Casting E resets autoattack timer 
Things being looked at for hopefully 4/21 
Early jungle clear
W not feeling impactful enough"

3) GreaterBelugaWhale on Maokai W speed revert in today's update -
"It was changed to be slower initially, but with high acceleration. A last second bug fix created another bug, breaking the acceleration. 
Separate of all that, the entire speed change was something we were looking at as a possible cut if we felt he was now too unreliable. Which we do, so now speed is back to live."

4) The PBE Practice Tool bug that thought it would be cool to random you a champion instead of letting you pick has been fixed. everyone celebrate.  
~~~~~~~~~~


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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