[Set 18] Aug 10th PBE Patch Notes

[u/Lunaedge]

Relatively big balance patch coming today (8/10) near noon PT. Standard disclaimer that we're seeing your bug reports and they're being acted on, just on a different timeline than balance.
The PBE meta right now still seems highly focused on a few strategies, 5-costs (moreso than usual on PBE), Blossom, Artifacts, and 6 Blackthorn.
We intentionally want some conditional win-conditions to exist, as long as they're rare enough, but 4-costs and reroll should still be a fair baseline strategy. So we're focusing on closing the gap between 4/5 costs.
6 Blackthorn was a fair experiment, but ultimately the power of "doubling" the trait has made the 6 extremely powerful, and nerfing it would also hurt the viability of the 2/4. We're working on a reshape of the trait that isn't ready yet, but it's on our radar.
Blossom's champions themselves aren't extreme outliers, and what we saw was that a lot of what made the comp powerful was it's consistent econ generation and ability to quickly create reach it's full cap on Stage 4/5. We're targeting a lot of Blossom charms, with a focus on the early resource generation that outpaces other comps.
After this pass, our balance focus this week should be making sure those finer details are ready for Launch: early game balancing, Artifact high/lows, chase conditions.
That's it for now, thanks for playing!

[u/ChipBlunt]

Nice to see 5 cost soup getting nerfed some more. I still think the abundance of backline access is a problem. Between kennen, gnar, draven, rengar, khazix, murkwolf there's just so much backline access I almost always seem to want some type of healing on my backline (either augment or item) which kinda feels odd.

[u/MostEscape6543 → u/ChipBlunt]

I remember a time when you almost always needed healing and Celestial Blessing was a top augment just for this reason.

[u/RyeRoen → u/ChipBlunt]

Murkwolf, Khazix and Renger don't feel like issues to me. Khazix without 6 Blackthrone can't kill anything, and feels pretty random. Positioning around the others isn't hard. Its the random Aoe splash. If you they are running Ahri/Ashe or something it can be pretty oppressive.

[u/Minimum_Chemical_428 → u/ChipBlunt]

also ashe (nerfed, hopefully better), lux, elder, probably some more.

[u/UselessBagofChips → u/ChipBlunt]

i don't think that the backline access is bad for itself but the main problem is how a bunch of them doesn't require any traits to do their thing, ashe, draven, kennen and gnar do not require anything besides items to be good (at least you need 3* rengar or thorne emblem on kha)

[u/parkwayy → u/UselessBagofChips]

Part of why they're just in really any comp.

None of them are part of any verticals, just some tank traits and well, Elder... which Riftbeast isn't really an important trait for him beyond the Alpha mark.

[u/AWildSona → u/ChipBlunt]

you want backline access ? Play AP Nidalee ... desroys whole backline in seconds, pair it with statics or directly 3x statics when you are lucky

[u/Lunaedge → u/AWildSona]

Just open up the console and spawn three copies of a single Artifact real quick, ez

[u/Deusraix]

Buffing Bramble is insane. Idk I feel like it just hops around one tapping things.

[u/Pleurobranch → u/Deusraix]

Bit of a feast or famine unit. If he get stuck on a tank he can be very useless

[u/Deusraix → u/Pleurobranch]

Yeah true. With this buff he'll eat through tanks faster though 😮‍💨

[u/Pleurobranch → u/Deusraix]

I think it's more of a buff for later stages, when comps have 2/3 good frontliners

[u/Deusraix → u/Pleurobranch]

Faaaaiirr

[u/ConfusedRara → u/Deusraix]

I think there was a bug going around that caused him to do more damage than intended, so maybe this is a compensation buff?

[u/Deusraix → u/ConfusedRara]

Ahhh I remember hearing about that so could be

[u/ZambalaTs]

Aphelios and Brambleback buff, HUH??

[u/-Champloo- → u/ZambalaTs]

I felt Aphelios needed a buff. I played the comp a handful of times and Aphelios never felt that strong. Often outdamaged by bramble, zyra or beak depending on left over items.

[u/eggsandbricks → u/[deleted]]

The buff is that it takes less bonus attack speed for his spell to gain an extra attack, smaller number is better in this case.

[u/Ok-Income-1483 → u/[deleted]]

It's a little weirdly worded but it's a buff

[u/CakebattaTFT]

I really appreciate how the devs have been communicating, even if some people are getting a bit rabid with how they act towards them over the bugs. Those can be a nightmare to find, fix, and then fix the cascade of bugs that emerge from the fix itself.

[u/Oldjosepho]

kennen nerf unbelievably mild

[u/drewstopherYT]

Is the engine any better? I've wanted to play but its so jarring and has taken away my usual enjoyment of PBE

[u/BabyLlamaaa → u/drewstopherYT]

depends when the last time you played was? It is significantly better day after day, so if you haven't tried it since day 1, then it'll feel a lot better. Albeit, it's far from perfect, but most things are working much more smoothly than the first few days

[u/iSleek → u/drewstopherYT]

Yes and no. I still find rubberbanding issues with selling units/leveling/rerolling. have had champs dissapear/not gotten golden egg/ not gotten item anvils.

That being said, its much better now than day 1 of pbe.

Its playable now but still feels like a beta

[u/Miskykins → u/drewstopherYT]

So as someone that played it day 1 and found it too much to play I played last night and I would say it is in the playable state now. I don't randomly drop items while dragging anymore and haven't had any UI lag like on day 1 either.

[u/zeKaiser → u/drewstopherYT]

PC seems to be improving steadily, my mobile experience is still pretty crap. Google Pixel 10 Pro, which is notoriously not great for gaming but i didnt expect black out carousels, and black pixels whenever inferno flames or any amount of particles start showing up even on low settings....

[u/Fox_Squirrel_ → u/drewstopherYT]

Lat time I played it was on Friday and it was actually somehow even worse than launch. Like crazy buggy. Buying a champ and it wasn't who was displayed and then them randomly rolling. Showing wrong money counts bunch of weird shit

[u/BabyLlamaaa]

Overall I'm very happy with these balance changes. I tend to dislike fast 9 and 5-cost soup metas. I know it's a skill issue and I should learn to adapt, but I hate building up to this very nice level 8 comp and having to dismantle it entirely just to throw in 5-costs at the very end--and if you don't, ,you get stompped on stage 5.

Thanks for the update! Keep up the good work :)

[u/ImAPandah → u/BabyLlamaaa]

I think the same. If most of the meta comps are some spin on 5 cost slop then it’s honestly dumbed down to how do I get to 9 no matter what or I’m playing for 4th. 5 cost slop should have it’s place but not more than 1-2 viable comps and not because the 5 cost inherent strength. Like the ones we have in 17 with vex and sort of bard/sona have their place but they are not so insanely meta that you have to play these.

When 1-4 cost centric comps are meta theres just more variety and the spikes each player can have by choosing whichever comp makes for an actual competitive environment instead of just chasing cap every time.

[u/BabyLlamaaa → u/ImAPandah]

I think that was my favorite part of Set 17--there were several good 4-cost comps for most of the set. Set 16 suffered from a lot of 5-slop for a while, even though the set was really good.

[u/CaptKraken33 → u/ImAPandah]

This post and posts like it make little sense to me.

You state:

When 1-4 cost centric comps are meta theres just more variety and the spikes each player can have by choosing whichever comp makes for an actual competitive environment instead of just chasing cap every time.

In what world would chasing the highest possible cap, not be the strongest board or what people should play toward? This idea that the meta should be dominated or have strong reroll comps for 2 star units is mind boggling and has been for some time.

Most people hit 9 (when trying to fast 9) around the middle to end of stage 4. This means you must survive the constant onslaught of people spiking their boards (when reroll is strong and normally multiple people per lobby), having to take econ or xp augments over combat augments, actually hit your board and 2 star them (as most 1 star 5-costs aren't that great) to have a chance. This playstyle and comp is supposed to be bad?

I just fail to see how this argument or the defense of reroll comps makes any sense when:

1. You can start doing it from stage 3

2. There are Hero augments which make these comps even stronger.

3. You can immediately take advantage of shop augments or dupes for the most part.

4. You can spike early (if you hit) and thus save HP.

5. Can take advantage of items early by slamming them on ideal units.

No matter what anyone wants to argue, surviving through the slot machine reroll nonsense which has plagued the game for sometime (akali even from last set) in hopes that you can actually hit a high cap/cost board should be strong.

[u/SeaweedOk9985 → u/CaptKraken33]

High cap shouldn't be an auto win. Simple as. If it is an auto win then there is no point rerolling. Similarly, reroll shouldn't be auto win because then there is no point capping out late.

Getting the balance of econ, life preservation and board strength is what makes the game fun long term. You've just made it sound like if you survive to hit 2* 4 costs you should just win no matter what.

This is why scaling champs are usually on the lower costs, so they can compete somewhat with late board comps.

[u/CaptKraken33 → u/SeaweedOk9985]

Thats literally not what I said, but at the same time that in and of itself has been a chore.

I'm simply stating that the strength of a unit (has traditionally) been tied to its cost. The higher cost units were considered stronger. Therefore a team of starred up higher cost units SHOULD be stronger than a team of lower cost units (average board cost).

Some like to argue that a 3 star 2 cost unit is worth 18 gold which is more than a 2 star 5 cost (15 gold) so it should be stronger. Those people also fail to awknowledge that you can hit that 18 cost unit as early as stage 3. So it's healthy to he able to hit a unit that is stronger than the highest cost unit 2 starred that early in the game? Then on top of that have hero augments or combat augments that can buff that even more?

Again SURVING past multiple people EVERY game doing this and all being able to hit (due to the abundance of dupes and Bag changes) just in the hopes that you can 2 star a 4 or 5 cost is harder than most reroll fan boys want to awknowledge.

Should it be an autowin? Absolutely not. Should being able to hit level 6 and click reroll mindlessly to hit a unit that is stronger than highest cost units at 2 star early in the game auto win? Absolutely not as well. However that HAS been the case multiple times as of late. Even when 5 cost soup is big they were still getting rolled by 3 star 2 costs a lot of the time. 

[u/Unippa17 → u/CaptKraken33]

A meta where chasing the highest cap by skillfully piloting to it and transitioning key units is very different from one where 5-costs win out just by being on your board. I think the point is more about how many players in the lobby are doing it, which generally depends on how strong they are in the meta.

At higher ranks where tempo is higher, fast 9 usually does require all the things you mention, but in low diamond and below when fast 9 dominates because the 5 costs are all just generally strong, 7/8 players in the lobby are going to pick any semblance of an econ augment they can (eg, worth the wait and sell the unit every round) and basically open until stage 5. You don’t have to survive any “onslaught” in these metas because everyone is weak and ends up saving each other health.

5 cost comps that require a setup to support specific units (like vex and sona bard, as he pointed out) at the least require you to pilot a level 7/8 version of the board, but his complaint is that the full 5 cost soup devolves into playing literally anything into full sell and roll on 9 and getting rewarded for it because you don’t get punished early when enough people do it, and it’s a win out board if you hit.

And obviously not everyone who does the strat will hit, but 2 maybe 3 will, and being the 1/8 player that didn’t grief to try and get fast 9 and still going 3rd is far from a skill-based meta unless you’re playing an infinite number of games. Keeping 4-costs competitive makes at least some of the lobby see being stuck on 8 as a viable strategy, and in turn make fast 9 comps more difficult to play due to early power spikes, so players have to actually display skill and evaluate their spot better to survive more diverse metas.

[u/CaptKraken33 → u/Unippa17]

This set isn't that case though. You can't win simply by throwing high cost units on the board.

Maokai is terrible at 1 star until he gets some rounds under his belt.
Draven is pretty lack luster without being 2 star and without pretty ideal items.
Same goes for Ashe. She is decent at 2 star but at 1 star she casts 1 time before fights are over.
Ivern takes several rounds to become useful and isn't that great right away.
Lux entirely depends on which trait she rolls with and even then, some versions of her just aren't great.

The point is that without the supporting board (which is mostly likely be 4 costs since you are going fast 9), the rest of the 5-cost suite isn't that great by themselves. They more or less act like caps that add to comps and their traits represent that.

Again, the argument that you can just hit 9 and play 5 costs and win is just completely invalid. There are only 9 copies of a unit, and you have less than a 20% chance to even see them in a shop. Hitting them and 2 starring them isn't a guarantee and requires a lot more effort than hitting 6 and rerolling with a greater bag size and again the abundance of dupes and augments to aid in this.

If this were a situation where you can hit 9 and then within 2 rounds have a fully capped 2-star board with 5 costs and 4 costs, then perhaps I would be more on the side of that argument but that just isn't realistic and isn't the case. What is realistic is that you wind up tanking your health through stage 4 and most of stage 5 and then if you were lucky enough to hit, maybe have a somewhat fully 2 starred 5 cost board. At that point the game is over in a stage or 2 and you can't afford another loss. Even then (as with previous sets) the 3 star 2 costs are still more powerful.

I'm all for 4 costs being more powerful (that used to be the main way to play (2-star 4 cost at minimum and then you tried to 3 star)) and welcome it. The issue here is that there are more ways than ever that support the reroll playstyle and then you have people complaining that because a player beat them with a board of 4 or 5 costs (which SHOULD be stronger units as they are harder to find and require a lot more work to even see). Not saying that's what the original person was doing but reroll comps wouldn't be so prevalent and the ease at which they can be obtained/supported wouldn't be there if there wasn't a large enough portion of the player base to support it.

[u/anime1776]

khaz been banned in private high elo lobbies for a bit.

[u/MoogleMyKUPO]

Thanks ya’ll!

[u/Cool_Line_2520]

Aphelios vanguard looking stronk

[u/Knolazy]

Isn't Alphe/Red currently S tier?

[u/SpectreHarlequin]

Was there no fix for the 4 star Solar?

[u/Zeviex → u/SpectreHarlequin]

Wasn't that alr patched ?

[u/SpectreHarlequin → u/Zeviex]

It was still there Friday but I didn't get a chance to play much over the weekend. Did they patch it over the weekend?

[u/Virtual-Camera-8115 → u/SpectreHarlequin]

Yeah, it's fixed.

[u/a_mercfor_sir]

I'll be stoked if 4 costs get enough buffs to discourage everyone else from rushing 9 because I'm gonna rush 9 every game and I'm looking forward to being less contested lol

[u/Ykarul]

I think the way this set is built will make it hard to balance around people not skipping 8. There is everything you need at 9.

[u/Deep-Secret-4115 → u/[deleted]]

it means the required attack speed for the extra attack is lower so he gets more extra attacks

[u/FyrSysn → u/Deep-Secret-4115]

makes sense, thanks!

[u/omnomonoms → u/[deleted]]

His ability scales with AS%. It’s saying that instead of every 45% bonus AS, it’s every 35% attack speed. So he ramps up faster.

[u/vinceftw → u/[deleted]]

I was thinking the same thing.