6/21 PBE Update: Tentative Balance Changes

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 8.13 PBE cycle, today's patch includes continued Aatrox champion update testing and tentative balance changes for Fizz and Pyke!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Continued Aatrox Champion Update Testing
• Miscellaneous
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes
• Cursor Update on PBE V3

Miscellaneous 

• Lion Ward spotlight from Skin Spotlights:

Fizz
[Changelist/Context - Note: Not going live in 8.13!]

• Seastone Trident (W)
• Mana refund on kill with W changed from [10/14/18/22/26] to [15/20/25/30/35]
• W2 Damage changed from [35/50/65/80/95 + 50% AP (+0-100% increased damage based on enemy % health missing)] to [35/50/65/80/95 + 90% AP]

Context & Notes

1) Here's Riot NeuroCat with an update for Fizz's changes testing on the PBE this cycle:

"6/21/18 Update 

First, I want to thank you all for the feedback, especially for you who have had a chance to try him out on the PBE. I'm trying to read it all, even if I don't have time to respond to it all. 

I'm going to try to summarize the broad themes of feedback I'm hearing from you all, and my brief thoughts: 

• "Revert Fizz's W to pre-Assassin Rework"
• We aren't planning on doing this, since we believe that this model isn't particularly healthy, especially with a high AP assassin. While I agree that the deceptive damage and 'whittling-you-down' feeling around the empowered bleed do feel "tricky" and playing into Fizz's nature, we ultimately want to make Fizz's windows of power and burst more clear and consistent to Fizz players and opponents.
• "Make Melee Range Shark Viable/Revert the Shark changes"
• We aren't bringing back the old R, but we intend to make your melee range ult a bit more effective with these changes. In the case where you do land a melee range ult, you can unload your W burst immediately, which should make this case feel more powerful/give you more options.
• "Will this change make Tank or On-Hit Fizz crowd out AP Assassin Fizz?"
• We will be trying to make sure we aren't shifting too much power away from AP Assassin Fizz. You'll notice in some of the changes below we're shifting more power into his AP ratios.
• "His Damage Seems Low"
• From the PBE testing we've seen, we think his damage numbers are around where we intended, but it doesn't feel as impactful, due to the missing health execute damage on the second W. I'm trying an iteration below where we remove this in favor of just flatter damage on his second W.
• "Without the W reset on kill, his laning/farming under turret is going to be terrible"
• We tried some iterations of the new W with this, but they either had really unintuitive interactions or gave him a lot of strong wave-clearing power with no real downtime for his opponents to play around. So we aren't currently planning on adding this back, but want to make sure his laning phase and ability to farm still holds up without it (even if it might be less safe to just farm with it under turret). Below I'm increasing the mana refund on his W, and I'll be looking for other ways to increase his farming ability if we find it insufficient - keep in mind, the second cast is free, so this change will effectively make it mana neutral for him to last hit with it.

Here are some changes that will land on PBE today or tomorrow:

• Mana refund on kill with W: 10/14/18/22/26 >>> 15/20/25/30/35
• W2 Damage: 35/50/65/80/95 + 50% AP (+0-100% increased damage based on enemy % health missing) >>> 35/50/65/80/95 + 90% AP 

Thank you again for your feedback so far. Over the weekend, please give it a shot on the PBE and let me know how it feels. I'll likely have another update like this sometime next week."

Cursor Update on PBE v3 

Here's Fearless with a new iteration on the cursor update that should be coming to the PBE this cycle:

"Hey all, here’s one more iteration during this PBE cycle. In this round, we’ve been focusing on the following areas: 

Enemy Hover (Sword) Iterations - shape, size, and color
Pass on visuals to feel closer to League style (WIP) 

For this round we focused on updating the render quality of our assets to feel a bit more like League but still contrast the colors and vfx that happen in game so you don’t lose track of the cursor. The renders are not final, and if we move forward with these designs, they will still need some polishing. 

We have also heard a good amount of feedback on the sword feeling small or the shape change not giving enough feedback on when you’re hovering an enemy. So in this iteration, we are adding color combined with the shape shift to a bigger sword to give you that quick feedback when you need it. 

Color can be tricky - the legacy cursor often had problems with losing a red sword in a red wave of minions. To solve that, we’re trying out a red sword but with a brighter white edge and tip to help stand out against all the red in the game. 

These visuals are still a work-in-progress and we’d love to get your feedback. Thanks!"

Check out [THIS PAGE] for 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 !

• 6/12 PBE Update: Aatrox Champion Update, God-King Darius and Garen, new icons, & more!
• 6/13 PBE Update: Lion & Wolf Ward Skins, New Icon, & More
• 6/14 PBE Update: New Emotes, Rift Rivals 2018 Login Theme, and more!
• 6/18 PBE Update: Dark Star Cho'Gath splash, New Summoner Icons, Loading Screen Borders, and more!
• 6/19 PBE Update: Aatrox Login Theme & Base/Skin Tweaks
• 6/20 PBE Update: New & Tweaked Summoner Icons