7/25 PBE Update: Battle Boss Brand, Malzahar, & Ziggs, Pentakill Kayle, Lancer Zero Hecarim, Arcade SR, & more!

The PBE has been updated! As we press start on the 7.16 PBE cycle, today's PBE update kicks off with new Battle Boss skins for Brand, Malzahar, and Ziggs, Pentakill Kayle, the latest loot exclusive Lancer Zero Hercarim, Arcade themed map accents for Summoner's Rift, "Enemy Has Vision Here" Ping up for testing, the addition of in-game skin portraits, and more!
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Table of Contents

• New Champion Skins
• Battle Boss Brand
• Battle Boss Malzahar
• Battle Boss Ziggs
• Pentakill Kayle
• Lancer Zero Hecarim
• New Ward Skin
• Pentakill Ward
• Arcade Poro Ward
• New Chroma
• Arcade Corki
• Battle Boss Blitzcrank
• Arcade Map Accent
• New Summoner Icons
• Skin Tweaks
• In Game Skin Portraits
• "Enemy Has Vision Here" Ping
• Miscellaneous
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

New Champion Skins

Here's a small note about Pentakill Kayle's missing sfx:

[1] "Heads up, Pentakill Kayle's SFX will be coming in a bit later this #PBE patch, so don't worry if you don't hear anything for now! :)"

Here's Riot KateyKhaos with a bugs & feedback thread for Pentakill Kayle:

"Pentakill Kayle is headlining [PBE] at 1350 RP*. Bring weaker warriors to their knees with relentless waves of operatic fury! 

This rockstar gives her all on stage, and on the Rift, including: 

• New model and textures - From angel to hellion-valkyrie; she's ready to rock!
• New particles - Through the fire and flames to carry games!
• New sound effects - Leave 'em wanting more with a Pentakill-inspired riff during her recall!
• New recall animation - Did you really think she'd leave without an encore?

July 25th - Known Issues: Recall SFX, SFX for her (E) Righteous Fury and (R) Intervention are not in just yet. These will be coming a tad later in the cycle! 

Pentakill Kayle is now available to rock out with on PBE! As players who experience this content firsthand, your constructive feedback is appreciated. Feel free to leave it in the comments below! If you have any questions, you can also drop them below and I'll do my best to answer them! ^-^ 

* Prices are subject to change."

Lancer Zero Hecarim

Here's Riot LoveStrut with a bugs & feedback thread for Lancer Zero Hecarim:

""I do not rest." 

Ever on guard, Lancer Zero Hecarim gallantly steps up to any threat. Enemies beware, lest they be trampled into the dust. 

Defender of Details

• All new model! (Armored up and wielding a mighty lance.)
• All new animations! (Takes a knee as the heavens shine upon him.)
• All new VFX! (Blue and golds fitting for a mecha paladin.)
• All new SFX! (Mecha-magical audio.)
• Loot-exclusive!  

We always love hearing your feedback and feelings! All bug reports and thoughts help us make these skins even more awesome, so please keep 'em coming! 

Thanks, cuties! <3" 

Arcade Map Accent 

[Note: Everything but Arcade minions are now enabled on the PBE!]
An Arcade Map accent for Summoner's Rift is now on the PBE for testing! This Arcade themed Summoner's Rift includes a new look for the turrets, nexus, home platform, as well as arcade minions (minions are not yet enabled)!

Here's Riot Stephiroth with more information via the PBE boards:

"Ahoy there \o 

In Maps and Modes land, we have been cooking up some new fun goodies for you guys! We have created what we call a Map Accent, somewhere between a full Map Skin and a flavor piece (see: Mid Season Invitational, Worlds). 

As part of this Map Accent, we've got:

• Arcade themed Turret, Inhibitor and Nexus skins!
• Arcade Props, including the ever adorable Pixel Poros. :D
• Top, Mid and Bottom Lane center decals!
• Arcade Minion Skins!
• Custom level-up and last hit sounds!
• Arcade themed music!
• And moreeee!

One thing we've implemented for this Map Accent, that we haven't done before is a Disable Toggle for the map accent! So if you decide that you want to opt out of this experience, you can do so via the Video Options menu! 

This is one of our first times doing a map experience of this size, so let us know what you think! Drop feedback in the comments below! 

If you run into any issues, please report is via the Report A Bug Tool!"

First up, here is the full loading screen background:

As stated above, you can toggle these accents on and off in the options menu. There will also be chat message to let you know about this option.

Gallery:

Arcade Minions:
Also includes Arcade themed Summoner's Rift music:

New Ward Skin

Feast your eyes on two new ward skins in today's update - Pentakill ward and Arcade Poro Ward!

Arcade Poro Ward

New Chroma

New chroma sets added for Arcade Corki and Battle Boss Blitzcrank. Each set has 8 total chroma:

Arcade Corki

Battle Boss Blitzcrank

Here's Riot Orphyre with a bugs & feedback thread for the Arcade Chromas:

"Ready to get retro? Get your Player 2 in the game...hell, get your Player 3, 4, and 5 in there too! 

Arcade Corki Chromas - 290 RP each, 3460 RP for the bundle (1320 RP if you already own the champion and skin!) 

• New textures - Do a barrel roll!
• Pearl - Back to the old school
• Ruby - Player 2? Is that you!?!
• Turquoise - My red moustache oughta stick out on this teal ship!
• Citrine - My hearts’ll protect me~
• Sapphire - No one’s faster than me, just look at these flames!
• Obsidian - The stealthiest of stealth jets
• Catseye - I’m mellow and yellow, until I get my care package!
• Rose Quartz - Pink. Need I say more?

Battle Boss Blitzcrank Chromas - 290 RP each, 3460 RP for the bundle (1320 RP if you already own the champion and skin!) 

• New textures - The big, buff baddie is back! Are you ready!?!
• Catseye - Watch out for these yellow claws!
• Rainbow - Bzzt… chromatization… capacity… at 100 percent
• Citrine - These green energy cells oughta give that fist a boost!
• Rose Quartz - Flower Magnetization Mode: Activated
• Ruby - Nothing says Big Baddie like red
• Sapphire - Those teeth look dangerous; don’t get chomped!
• Pearl - Clean and sleek, make sure I’m shiny
• Turquoise - I’m a big, green, pulling machine

Note: The images for Battle Boss Blitzcrank Rainbow and Sapphire are slightly off--the brain colors will not be purple / red in-game 

The Chroma sets are now available on PBE! We hope you all will enjoy the new sets, but we’re also looking forward to hearing what you really think and feel, and any other constructive feedback. I’ll do my best to answer all questions, and reply to all of your feedback! 

Thanks!
Riot Orphyre"

New Summoner Icons

Four new Arcade themed icons are now on the PBE! As usual, no details on availability yet.

Pentakill Skin Tweaks

This cycle bring Pentakill skin texture updates for borh Pentakill Sona and Pentakill Mordekaiser. This follows Pentakill Olaf's texture tweaks from the 7.15 PBE cycle.

Pentakill Mordekaiser

Pentakill Sona

In-Game Skin Portraits

As mentioned in the thread below from Ququroon yesterday, the in game portraits of each skin now show the skin splash. Note that this only effects the small circle portrait on the in-game HUD:
Here's Ququroon with more on adding skin portraits to all skins:

"Hail, summoners! 

Let's talk about in-game splashes! 

Splashes, those awesome images I could never hope to draw, appear in several different places once you’re in the game itself. Many splash elements, such as the minimap, kill callouts, and scoreboard- need to remain as the base splash for gameplay clarity, quicker reads, and so on. 

However, the big circle next to your abilities doesn’t serve any significant gameplay purpose. Sooooo- it’s time for another wide-sweeping change! 

Voila! You’ll notice that Arcade Ahri now has her respective skin splash as her portrait, as opposed to Base Ahri, as it is on Live. 

On PBE tomorrow(ish), every single skin will now show its respective splash in this slot (and only this slot). 

And that’s it- short and sweet. Hit me with any questions and/or feedback you have! You're all great, and I hope you have a nice day. 

FAQ! 

Shouldn't this have been in five years ago or so?

Yeah, probably! :D

Isn't this a feature on ultimate skins?

Yeah. We’re sensitive to removing that as a unique feature on ultimate skins, but ~800 skins stand to benefit from this.

What if I think the minimap icons suck too?

Well, you’re kinda right. They aren’t made for that particular space, instead they’re teeny crops of huge assets, that are further downscaled. While skins will never have a place on the minimap (see the above reasons), there are changes we’re looking at to improve the standard iconography."

He also posted a pbe boards bugs thread for any issues you may see:

"Hello friends! 

Skin Portraits should be on PBE soon, and there will be bugs. So, this is a nice handy thread to contain them! 

Reminder: The correct behavior on this project is that it ONLY affects the circle to the left of your QWER. No other assets should change. 

Currently, the following bugs are known and will be fixed up shortly: 

• Some transforming characters revert back to base when transforming (Elise, Nidalee, Shyvana)
• Some more recent skins (and some older ones) aren't hooked up yet, or are marked placeholder 

I'll be monitoring this thread throughout the PBE cycle, so please let me know if you encounter any issues with the Portraits. 

Thank you!"

"Enemy Has Vision Here" Ping

The previously mentioned "Enemy Has Vision Here" / "Area is Warded" ping is now on the PBE for testing!
Please note This will need to be bound to a hotkey before it is usable. This alerts your team that an area is warded. and places a message in chat. You can find this option in Hotkeys > Communication and it is labelled "Area is Warded Ping".

ARURF Back on PBE for Testing 

Here's Riot Stephiroth with details on what is new via the PBE boards::

"Hello Summoners! 

AR URF is back! Yay! There haven't been many changes since URF came, mostly bug fixing and updating new champions/reworks to be compatible with the mode! :) 

As a reminder, in URF you have: 

• Increased level cap! (How many of you can hit level 30?)
• Increased CDR cap! (80% CDR)
• No mana costs! (spamspamspam)
• Many more awesome buffs of awesomeness 

And here's some of the champions that have come out since the last time we did URF! 

• Xayah
• Rakan 

And here's some of the reworks you can be excited to see! 

• Maokai
• Zac
• Sejuani
• Urgot 

There's probably some more I'm forgetting, but that should be the gist! 

As always, if you find bugs feel free to drop them here, or report them via the Report A Bug Tool! Drop any feedback you have here! :) 

Happy hunting!"

Miscellaneous

• An "Emotes" tab was added to the PBE store late in 7.15 cycle. It was unusable, and has been removed as of 7/25.

Brand

• Conflagration (E)
• Mana cost lowered from 70/75/80/85/90 to 40/50/60/70/80
• AP Ratio increased from 35% to 40%
• Damage lowered from 70/90/110/130/150 to 60/85/110/135/160
• [New Effect] "If cast on a minion or monster that is not ablaze, Conflagration's cooldown is reduced to 3 seconds."

Context & Notes

wip a mudhole and context it dry.

1) Here's Meddler with his quick gameplay thoughts for 7/25, including 7.16 balance changes, skin portraits, and more:

"Hi folks, 

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 

7.16 Balance Changes 

A couple more things that should be hitting PBE soon, or are being worked on for 7.16: 

• Fiora - Hit too hard. Giving her some of the movement speed we took off her passive back (ult still doesn't grant movement speed just for being near an ulted target however).n
• Yasuo - Exploring weaker shield and more frequent windwalls early game. Goal there is to test shifting defensive power so he's similar or slightly stronger against ranged match ups and weaker against melee, making it clearer how to deal with him if he gets picked/give him situations where he's a better choice without just being a better generalist. We're still looking to do larger work on him at some point too, this is initial investigation, not a comprehensive set of long term changes. 

Udyr and other smaller updates 

Context for anyone wondering why Udyr changes keep getting onto the PBE and then never making it into a patch. At this point we'll be holding off on any updates, such as Udyr's, until after 7.18. Some of that's a desire to keep the next few patches more stable, a lot of it's also that people who are working on Udyr, LB, Azir etc are also generally on a fair bit of other work as well during these patches, so development and testing time's limited. 7.19 onwards we'll get more focus back on those, likely release order is probably Udyr, then Azir, then LB. 

Skin Specific HUD Portraits 

For anyone that hasn't seen it, Ququroon put up some details yesterday about how we'll be doing skin specific portraits on the in game HUD. At present you'll see a picture of the base champion there when using a skin, which can sometimes feel pretty weird (e.g. I'm Zombie Brand, why am I seeing fire dude instead?). After this change that portrait should reflect the skin's loading screen art instead. Important to note that this is only the HUD portrait that no other players see. Tab Screen, Minimap etc will still use the default icon (really important those are obvious at a glance). 

Thread with more details:
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/AEAHb3XZ-adding-skin-portraits-to-all-skins 

Personality Types and New Champs 

We see a lot of discussion around new appearances, powers, weapons, backstories etc for new champs people are interested in. Personality tends to get less of a focus though. Would love to hear what you folks would like to see that we haven't done in that regard yet (e.g. Draven as the self obsessed, fourth wall breaking showman, Tahm Kench as the smooth talking manipulative glutton etc). Anything particularly come to mind as missing, or that you've always wanted to see?"

2) NoopMoney on enemy vision ping:

"The "enemy has vision here" ping will also be on PBE this cycle"