OG Street Style & Street Style: World Tour Event Passes

General Updates

Arcade 2.0 & Mode Updates

Quality of Life Updates

New VGS Option: Legacy (Controller)

Event Pass Experience

Account Level Experience

3D Lobby Return

Map Updates

Dawnforge

• (Bugfix) Fixed portal near Forge preventing multiple players from using it in quick succession.
  
• (Design Change) Added a ramp in place of box jumping leading up to the upper floor from the Payload Path in the middle area of the map

Warder’s Gate

• (Bugfix) Fixed portals near the center of map preventing multiple players from using it in quick succession.

Balance Adjustments

General

Aim Assist

• Reduced maximum general magnetism by 20%.
  
• Added general magnetism to the following Champions:
  
  
  • Ash
    
  • Bomb King
    
  • Cassie
    
  • Dredge
    
  • Drogoz
    
  • Evie
    
  • Inara
    
  • Maeve
    
  • Makoa
    
  • Mal’Damba
    
  • Pip
    
  • Seris
    
  • Sha Lin
    
  • Vatu
    
  • Vora
    
  • Willo
  
  
• Reduced bullet magnetism by 25% on the following Champions:
  
  
  • Koga
    
  • Lex
    
  • Talus
    
  • Tyra
    
  • Viktor
    
  • Vivian

In our continued investigation of Aim Assist, we’ve discovered a number of inconsistencies and problems with our current implementation. Back in the Dark Tides update (1.6), we implemented a new (for the time) Aim Assist system that made it easier to customize settings on a Champion-by-Champion basis while standardizing how Champions receive it. However, as the team evolved and changed over time, these specific practices and assumptions about the game became less and less true. One of these core assumptions was that projectile Champions do not benefit from AA, but this isn’t accurate. Characters as old as Grover and as new as Caspian have had Aim Assist magnetism (i.e. a pull towards a character’s center mass when your reticle is very close) while other projectile characters listed above have not. In order to improve on these systems in the future and carry forward that original goal of a standard players can rely on, we’re doing a large reset. All Champions will now have the same benefits from Aim Assist magnetism; however, the maximum strength of Aim Assist magnetism has been reduced by 20% across the board. In practice, Paladins will still feel good on controller and these specific Champions should feel better to play on controller.

Moving forward, our goals will be to measure specific pain point characters and adjust them up or down to provide a comfortable and fair play experience. We’re starting with the select group of Champions that are receiving focused bullet magnetism nerfs (i.e. how generous we are when their reticle is near the head of a target). Outside of these specific adjustments, we’ll continue to watch the ways controllers perform between PC and Console respectively to ensure that crossplay environments like Ranked are given more integrity and even play across the Champion roster. We plan to take a look at Aim Assist tracking next (e.g. how much the reticle follows targets in motion) since we know that has been a source of frustration as well. We’ll keep players updated on our progress!

Champions

Azaan

• Increased health from 4250 ➡️ 4500

• Sanctuary
  
  
  • Reduced cooldown from 13s ➡️ 12s
  
  
• Conviction
  
  
  • Reduced cooldown from 10s ➡️ 9s
  
  
• Reckoning
  
  
  • Reduced cooldown from 10s ➡️ 9s

Azaan has persistently remained in the bottom percentile of our Frontlines, glory days long behind him. We’re giving him some general quality of life improvements to his cooldowns and health to give him a bit of a bump.

Betty La Bomba

• Gotta Bounce
  
  
  • Removed penalty to Movement Speed.

Bomb King

• Poppy Bomb
  
  
  • Reclassified as a Movement Ability, now affected by Cripple.

Caspian

• Updated all Default Decks

• Everywhere at Once
  
  
  • Cooldown: 5s permanently ➡️ 8s affected by CDR.
    
  • Now also gives Caspian 1 additional charge on Deadly Momentum.
    
  • Now also heals Caspian for 200 Health on hitting an enemy with the dash portion of the ability.
    
  • No longer grants Momentum stacks on hit.
  
  
• It's Got Some Heft
  
  
  • Reverted to original release version

Measured Cadence is by far Caspian's highest pick rate and win rate Talent, while his other two Talents share below average rates. So, we’re taking a shot at reverted It's Got Some Heft & improving Everywhere at Once as we continue to work on making our devilish rogue the most devious he can be. Everywhere at Once had a strong upside, permanently setting Deadly Momentum’s cooldown to a low value - but that wasn’t enough to justify the choice. It's difficult to ask Flanks to directly engage enemies with their ability generally saved for retreating, especially when the upside of 1 stack per hit wasn’t valuable enough to expend the cooldown. We’ve taken the Talent and moved some of the values around, keeping its identity relatively similar to previous where it encourages aggressive use of Deadly Momentum. With an additional charge and heal-on-hit, it gives Caspian an aggressive initiation tool without neutering his escape.

Cassie

• Blast Shot
  
  
  • Removed Poison effect.

Corvus

• Entropic Breach
  
  
  • Now also Heals Allies for 15% of maximum Health on initial target and 6.25% every .5s they remain in the area.

Entropic Breach has always been a bit unimpactful outside of the most specific moments, and Corvus often finds himself in a position where his team dies if he tries to properly utilize it. The Abyss has decided to grant him another boon, allowing him to heal his Allies within just as much as he harms his foes. Now, this Ultimate can more easily allow for some saves and pushes from your team and makes its presence on the battlefield more important.

Grover

• Blossom
  
  
  • Increased passive healing from 70 ➡️ 80
    
  • Increased active initial burst heal from 500 ➡️ 700

• Whirlwind
  
  
  • Now also provides 25% Movement Speed for 4s to allies affected.

• NEW: Wisps of Sylvanus
  
  
  • Blossom’s passive aura now also provides 15% Movement Speed.
    
  • Replaces Rampant Blooming.

• New Default Deck for Wisps of Sylvanus
  
• Gentle Breeze now also affects Grover

Grover finds himself at a crossroads, where on one side lies Talents rife with utility and the other lies Rampant Blooming being the only way for him to have impactful healing on his own. After a lot of thought, we wanted to try something new for him. Blossom is being brought back up to its potency felt previously but Rampant Blooming is no more, instead replaced by a Talent all about being an anchor for the team’s buffs. This means Grover’s healing is only augmented by Cards now, allowing us greater control of his output and allowing more room to balance him in a way that allows him to stay relevant across his Talents. Whirlwind is also gaining an even more powerful Movement Speed increase throughout its duration, offering him another reason to utilize his Ultimate in the late game regardless of Anti-Healing.

Kasumi

• Increased base movement speed from 355 ➡️ 370

• Spirit Traps
  
  
  • Reduced initial reveal distance from 100 ➡️ 40 units
    
  • Reduced full reveal distance from 40 ➡️ 20 units
    
  • Increased damage from 100 ➡️ 200
  
  
• Savage Tear
  
  
  • Increased bonus damage per stack of Curse from 20% ➡️ 30%

• Essence Drain
  
  
  • Reduced scaling from 2|2% to 1|1%

Kasumi is slowly sneaking into a place we’re happy with, but she’s still lacking some of the speed and burst many associate with our Flanks. We’ve brought her base movement speed up to the middle of her adoptive class, alongside a buff to Savage Tear to allow it to be weaved better into a combo while adjusting Essence Drain to compensate. The largest changes we are making are to Spirit Traps, increasing their damage and making them much harder to spot before you’re in the effective range. They now share the same detection distance as Stealthed enemies and once you fully see them, that’s a sign you’re in the blast zone!

Kinessa

• Sniper Rifle
  
  
  • Decreased charge time from 1.2s ➡️ 1.1s.

• NEW: Crystalline Battery
  
  
  • Oppressor Mines now target you to supercharge, healing you for 25 every .2s and providing 100% increased Jump Height. Carbine Mode gains 15% damage while supercharged.
    
  • Replaces Octopressor.

• New Default Deck for Crystalline Battery

Kinessa is still performing well above where she had prior to her refresh, but we’d like to continue to iron out pain points players feel as and against her. We’re bringing a little bit of speed back to the Sniper in exchange for removing Octopressor from her Talent lineup, replaced by a complete 180 on her usual gameplan with them. Now, they will empower her with a damage amp on her Carbine Mode, making her able to duel in medium ranges. We’ll continue to look into other changes on her as needed!

Koga

• Stamina
  
  
  • Koga now regains 1 Stamina for every 100 damage his Submachine Guns deal to Health.
    
  • Decreased passive Stamina regen from 9 per second ➡️ 6 per second.

• Hellkite Claws
  
  
  • Each subsequent pierce now deals 30% less damage, minimum of 200.

• Dragon Stance
  
  
  • Removed Movement Speed bonus
    
  • Reduced time to enter Dragon Stance from .425s ➡️ .22s
    
  • Reduced time to exit Dragon Stance from .85s ➡️ .44s

• NEW: Bullet Time
  
  
  • Supercharge your reflexes after using Shadow Step, increasing your fire rate and movement speed by 15% for 2s.
    
  • Replaces Adrenaline Junkie.

• Swift Hands
  
  
  • Reworked to “While in Dragon Stance, gain 4|4% Movement Speed.”
  
  
• Updated Adrenaline Junkie Default Deck
  
  
  • Now called Bullet Time
    
  • Replaced Trespasser 1 ➡️ Something to Prove 1

Koga has been ripping and tearing his way through matches, consistently performing very well compared to other Flanks. We’re tweaking him across the board to give us more design space going forward - as well as to alleviate some pain points when playing as and against him.

We’re moving Adrenaline Junkie into base at a weaker level to smooth out his game flow, since that Talent felt necessary more often than not to facilitate optimum Koga. Hellkite Claws have been a persistent damage tool since its buff, making it frustrating to fight against as Koga cleaves through an entire team. To keep its utility but reel in the obscene DPS it can pump out, each projectile will do less damage per penetrated enemy, making it less oppressive when engaging a group. Finally, we’ve added a new Talent in Bullet Time. This incentivizes aggressive use of Shadow Step during fights to boost your damage, but comes at the cost of a precious resource. Watch your timings and you’ll come out alive, just don’t get greedy!

Lillith

• Increased Blood Health from 2500 ➡️ 2600

• Swarm
  
  
  • Duration increased from 5.75 ➡️ 6s
    
  • Blood cost reduced from 350/650 ➡️ 325/600
  
  
• Death Wings
  
  
  • Blood cost reduced from 280 ➡️ 250

• Reworked Cursed Accord Default Deck

• Cursed Accord
  
  
  • Reworked to: “Blood Hexed allies ignore damage resistance up to 10%. Heal an extra 250 Blood Health when a Blood Hexed ally eliminates an enemy.”
  
  
• Maelstrom of Carnage
  
  
  • Increased Blood Cost reduction from 25% ➡️ 40%.
    
  • Increased radius bonus from: 30% ➡️ 40%

Since her release, Lillith has had some serious ups and downs. Specifically downs looking at the past couple months, fighting tooth and claw for her current position as second worst support in the roster. Keen to rise from the dead, we’re giving her some love to most of her kit. With Blood cost reductions across the board, on top of a bit of extra Blood Health, Lillith will be able to stay in a fight and do her job for much longer. We’ve also reworked Cursed Accord, this time giving it a powerful effect of damage resistance penetration, turning her into a Champion supercharger that you’ll be smart to focus ASAP.

Maeve

• Street Justice
  
  
  • Now also provides a 20% increased Ultimate charge rate.

Mal’Damba

• Mending Spirits
  
  
  • Reduced cooldown forgiveness on missed target from 1.75s ➡️ 1.25s

Mal’Damba has been finally performing at a level that feels befitting his reputation as an honest Support…maybe a bit too easily though. This change is aimed at raising the floor higher slightly by being harsher when players miss his heal while not hampering his optimal play.

Nyx

• Royal Presence
  
  
  • Increased DoT from .175% ➡️ .2% of Max Health
    
  • Removed Poison lingering after targets exit the effect aura

Octavia

• Marksman Rifle
  
  
  • Increased minimum hip-fire accuracy from .80 ➡️ .85
    
  • Increased maximum hip-fire accuracy from .85 ➡️ .95
    
  • Fixed an issue where Octavia’s fire rate was faster than intended.
    
    
    • Increased postfire delay from .15s ➡️ .2s
    
    
  • Reduced recoil & screen shake on fire from 3.5 ➡️ 1.0

• Commanding Leap
  
  
  • Now places a rally point on landing at base, providing 250 instant healing & 25 every .15s to yourself and allies within. Rally point lasts 1.5s.
  
  
• Distortion Field
  
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 18s ➡️ 16s.
    
  • Allies have 300% increased Jump Height when initiated from within the dome.
    
  • Enemies within also have their air speed reduced by 15%.

• NEW: Got Your Six
  
  
  • Increase the duration of Commanding Leap’s rally point by .25|.25s.
    
  • Replaces Clean Shots.
  
  
• NEW: Forward Operating Base
  
  
  • Allies within your Distortion Field now have 4|4% Crowd Control Reduction.
    
  • Replaces Priority Requisition.

• NEW: Paratrooper
  
  
  • Octavia now can float for 4s, gains 50% air control and deals 10% bonus weapon damage while in Commanding Leap.
    
  • Replaces Hell or High Water.

• New Default Deck for Paratrooper

Octavia misses seeing frequent deploys, so we wanted to revisit her kit and try to inject more fun into the average game for her. She’s by no means weak but generally a lot of players struggle to find something in her kit that excites them enough to play her, so these changes aim to shift her power in ways that allow her more to play with. Firstly, her Marksman Rifle has had a pass on how its gunplay feels. Her hipfire has been retuned to be much more manageable if you pace your shots, allowing more time outside of scope. When in scope, you’ll now suffer from significantly less screen shake & visual recoil which helps her feel like the trained shooter she is. Commanding Leap has Hell or High Water coming into base kit, making one of our simplest abilities into one that has a lot more utility and enhances her hybrid Damage-Support identity. Distortion Field is also finally living up to its name, distorting gravity for those inside. Everyone within will have gravity and jump height distorted, and enemies will suffer their Slow even while in air. Finally, her Cards and Talents have seen some adjustments to allow these additions to shine. Paratrooper turns a weak spot for her into a strength once more, giving a powerful amount of damage output when she leaps into action!

Ruckus

• Advance
  
  
  • Now can be fired while stationary to boost upward.

• Aerial Assault
  
  
  • Altered to “Advance now has 3 charges.”
  
  
• Flux Generator
  
  
  • Decreased bonus Shielding from 1500 ➡️ 1000

Ruckus is performing well at the higher levels of play, but outside of that space he’s struggled to be picked and utilized. Aerial Assault has always been something that makes Bolt feel better to pilot around in, so we’re shifting the best part of it into base to both help how Ruckus feels but also allow for more Talent diversity than he currently sees. Flux Generator, however, feels a bit too potent compared to the others without a nerf to its Shielding bonus so we’re proactively tuning that down as well.

Seris

• Internal Torment
  
  
  • Updated description to state she Reveals the target to her team.
  
  
• Forsake
  
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 3s ➡️ 2.5s

We’re still watching the short and long-term on both of these Talents before we look to shake Seris up again. Internal Torment is having its functionality clarified better (i.e. it already did this teamwide Reveal) and Forsake is receiving a small buff to its cooldown to give it a better chance at keeping up with other burst options across the Support class. We’ve been listening to the discussion around her across social platforms and will continue to iterate without taking away the approachability that has made her Paladins' most played Champion.

Strix

• Talon Rifle
  
  
  • Now ignores up to 10% of targets' damage resistance when fired from stealth.

• Roost
  
  
  • Increased charge rate bonus from 10% ➡️ 30% per level.

• Crack Shot
  
  
  • Pistol no longer fires 40% slower.

Snipers fill an important niche in FPS, serving as counter to aerial superiority and picking off stragglers of poor team coordination. That can be frustrating to fight against however, and so we’ve had to be careful over our patches when altering snipers. We’re taking a pass at Strix to fill out the fantasy of lying in wait and securing a high-value kill, while still keeping him fun to fight against with decent counter play.

Most significant of these changes is firing from Stealth now pierces up to 10% of damage resistance - giving Strix a way to alleviate one of his hardest counters at the cost of using his Stealth. While this may seem extreme, it elevates Veteran as a counter item, since if you don’t have DR, nothing changes in the engagement with Strix. Not to mention he’ll almost be guaranteed out of Stealth energy if he's constantly dipping into it for the piercing, so take that opportunity to sic your Flank on this defenseless fowl.

VII

• Burst Mode
  
  
  • Increased damage from 150 ➡️ 160
    
  • Decreased effective range from 110 ➡️ 100
    
  • Decreased max range from 200 ➡️ 175
    
  • Decreased minimum damage after falloff from 50% ➡️ 40%

• Grappling Hook
  
  
  • Decreased range from 140 ➡️ 110 units
    
  • Decreased cooldown from 14s ➡️ 12s
    
  • Increased pull strength from 1325 ➡️ 1650
  
  
• Explosive Dodge
  
  
  • VII now has .25s of damage immunity when he starts to roll.

• NEW: Execute Article VII
  
  
  • Decree 77 now targets the closest enemy with laser lock-on. After .8s, your eye blasts them and deals 1000 damage in a 20-unit radius. Anyone hit is Executed if below 25% after.
    
  • Replaces Overcharged.

• New Default Deck for Execute Article VII
  
• Terror
  
  
  • Reworked to “Gain a 50|50 Shield for 4s after using Grappling Hook. ICD of 5s.”

Here we go again. VII has been a unique addition to the Flank class, and a perpetual challenge to balance in a way that feels fun for the player and fair for the opponents. We took a longer step back from his kit and are now reapproaching with a different outlook. Our goals with these changes is to simplify VII into the core of his identity: best in class movement, ambush-style engagement, and cooldown management. Burst Mode is being brought up in damage but down in range, bringing him closer to his peers when it comes to effective dueling range. (We’re aware this leaves Automatic in a weird spot, we plan to address this in a subsequent update). We’re also hitting the maximum range on his Grappling Hook, but allowing him more access to it. We’re also standardizing his pull speed at around Terror 3 to start, allowing us more control of how fast his peak movement is. Explosive Dodge is getting a unique effect inspired by Raum’s favorite game genre: immunity for a small window on dodge. This allows VII some neat tricks for those skilled enough to pull off timings.

We also went back to the drawing board on Overcharged, and after weighing the options have reimagined Decree 77 into a new, more thematic Talent. Execute Article VII allows him to access a Tribunal staple Execute via lasering down targets with his eye. Note that this Execute procs after the damage of the blast, meaning it can confirm into itself when used correctly. Terror, meanwhile, is being reworked to give VII some added survivability on hook, allowing him more options on which Cards he wants for sustain.

Talus

• Veracharger
  
  
  • Decreased minimum accuracy from .95 ➡️ .92
    
  • Increased accuracy lost per shot from .02 ➡️ .025
    
  • Reduced number of shots before accuracy decay from 5 ➡️ 3

While Talus remains mainly a Champion whose dominance is most felt on a controller, his weapon has a bit too much forgiveness regardless of input, especially during Overcharge. These changes are designed to ask Talus to be a bit more focused when aiming during the ability as well as spraying for longer durations without pausing. We’ll continue to look into his performance across inputs and platforms for further adjustments!

Vatu

• Kunai
  
  
  • Reduced damage from 310 ➡️ 280
    
  • Increased fire rate from 1s ➡️ .9s
    
  • Reduced time for reload pre-load from .9s ➡️ .6s
    
  • Increased time for reload post-fire from 0 ➡️ .3s

• Dash
  
  
  • Removed DR

• Enveloping Shadows
  
  
  • Shifted to “Reduce the Cooldown of your basic abilities by 3% for each Kunai that hits an enemy.”
    
  • Removed ICD.

We heard loud and clear that the Kunai changes from Tidal Surge simply weren’t it for high level players, so we’re reverting those back to their previous values. As a part of this, we decided to adopt a popular community request for him to aid the fluidity of play: animation canceling his reload. This allows him to now use Shadow Bombs & Dash to finish reloading once he’s passed .6s of his reload time, raising the skill ceiling a little bit more for him. Speaking of raising his skill, we’ve removed the DR from his dash at base to push him to use Cards for his survivability. Finally, Enveloping Shadows is losing its ICD but now requires players to land more Kunai to reap the full reward of his cooldown reduction.

Viktor

• Burst Mode
  
  
  • Decreased hipfire recoil from 1.75 ➡️ 1.25
    
  • Decreased accuracy loss on hipfire from .1 ➡️ .015

Burst Mode has a specific issue when it comes to useability on KB&M, so we’ve adjusting the hip fire to be significantly more controllable and allow those on the input a better experience on this Talent than previous obtainable.

Vivian

• Light Machine Gun
  
  
  • Removed camera shake while Vivian is using Precision Sights.

The latest innovation in Deepwerks technology allows Vivian to use her optics to focus beyond any felt recoil from her Light Machine Gun, encouraging its use when you need an added bit of control to decimate your opponents.

Vora

• Tendril
  
  
  • Now has 2 charges at base.
    
  • Increased cooldown from 10s ➡️ 12s

• NEW: Parasitic Pull
  
  
  • Tendril can now target allies. Hitting allies with Tendril provides them double your Tendril Card effects. Hitting enemies with Tendril deals 225 damage over 1.25s.
    
  • Replaces Relentless Presence.
  
  
• New: Eclipsed Affection
  
  
  • Reduce Obliteration's Cooldown by 2s, and by 50% after earning an Elimination. When used at max Darkness stacks, deal an additional 100 bonus damage.
    
  • Replaces Deafening Silence.

• New Default Decks for Parasitic Pull & Eclipsed Affection

The Maw holds many emotions, and none are quite as potent as jealousy. Watching VII fling himself around has pushed Vora to embrace her corruption further, unlocking new potential. Tendril now will have 2 charges at base, allowing her more mobility at base without relying on her Ultimate. In addition, we’ve taken her two infrequently used Talents and replaced them with devastating new options. Parasitic Pull allows Vora to utilize her unique launch tech on allies as well, providing them strong Shields or DR from her Cards before diving onto opponents. Eclipsed Affection, meanwhile, allows Obliteration to chain together combos and Eliminations that will hopefully one day finally let her triumph over Io.

Willo

• Passive: Pixie Dust
  
  
  • Given a unique name & description
    
  • After 4 seconds of use, Willo’s fall speed reduction decreases from 90% to 75%.

• Blast Flower
  
  
  • Reduced maximum stacks from: 4 ➡️ 3.

Willo has experienced a resurgence in popularity (and win rate) now that she can hover above and rain fairy-death on her foes. She's having a little too much fun with this, and fighting her can be a frustrating experience, so we’re adding a caveat to incentivize her touching down every so often and offer an opportunity for counter-play. Similarly Blast Flower has been performing really well, too well, but we like the new popularity it has garnered. We’re giving it a slap on the wrist to bring down the overall power while keeping the playstyle intact.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the Aim Assist Strength setting didn't affect tracking.
  

Known Issues

• Event Pass timers are currently stuck at 0. OG Street Style ends December 11th and Street Style: World Tour ends February 5th.
  
• The new skins A-pose when previewed in the Event Pass screen.
  
• The Event Pass panel in the Store is using the wrong art.
  

General

• Reverted changes to Gyro Aim Sensitivity.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Street Style: World Tour Event Pass is using the wrong backer.
  
• Fixed an issue where Vora & VII's new Talents were not available in instance.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Login and Main Lobby menus were swapped.
  
• Fixed an issue where Dawnforge's staircases railings had improper collision and were not lit.
  

Balance

Azaan

• Eternal reverted to current Live balance state.

Caspian

• Fixed an issue where Everywhere At Once was not providing the proper cooldown reduction.
  
• It's Got Some Heft functionality and description restored to pre-Wild Hoard state.
  
  
  • Increases War's damage by 50
    
  • Increases War's range by 20%
    
  • Decreases War's firerate by 20%
    
  • Deals 20% more damage per target hit by same attack.

Corvus

• Fixed an issue where Corvus wasn't being healed by his Entropic Breach.

Grover

• Increased Blossom's activated heal from 600 ➡️ 700

Kasumi

• Reduced Essense Drain's scaling from 2|2% ➡️ 1|1%

In a future update, we plan to remove/rework Cards that amount to a damage amp. This nerf is meant to allow Kasumi more flexibility in buildcrafting until then, while preserving her upcoming buffs.

Koga

• Increased scaling of Swift Hands from 3|3% ➡️ 4|4%
  
• Decreased bonus from Bullet Time from 20% ➡️ 15%

Nyx

• Fixed an issue where Royal Prescence wasn't doing Poison damage while enemies were within.

Vora

• Parasitic Pull now provides double Vora's Tendril Card effects.
  

Internal Testing

Private PTS & Partner Playtests

Public PTS & Feedback

Final Build

Until Next PTS

OG Street Style & Street Style: World Tour Event Passes

General Updates

Arcade 2.0 & Mode Updates

Quality of Life Updates

New VGS Option: Legacy (Controller)

Event Pass Experience

Account Level Experience

3D Lobby Return

Map Updates

Dawnforge

• (Bugfix) Fixed portal near Forge preventing multiple players from using it in quick succession.
  
• (Design Change) Added a ramp in place of box jumping leading up to the upper floor from the Payload Path in the middle area of the map

Warder’s Gate

• (Bugfix) Fixed portals near the center of map preventing multiple players from using it in quick succession.

Jaguar Falls

• (Bugfix) Fixed weapon collisions around the trees on the Jaguar side of the maps that prevented weapon shots from passing through the empty spaces between branches.

Balance Adjustments

General

Aim Assist

• Reduced maximum general magnetism by 20%.
  
• Reduced Gyro aim assist sensitivity by 20%.
  
• Added general magnetism to the following Champions:
  
  
  • Ash
    
  • Bomb King
    
  • Cassie
    
  • Dredge
    
  • Drogoz
    
  • Evie
    
  • Inara
    
  • Maeve
    
  • Makoa
    
  • Mal’Damba
    
  • Pip
    
  • Seris
    
  • Sha Lin
    
  • Vatu
    
  • Vora
    
  • Willo
  
  
• Reduced bullet magnetism by 25% on the following Champions:
  
  
  • Koga
    
  • Lex
    
  • Talus
    
  • Tyra
    
  • Viktor
    
  • Vivian

In our continued investigation of Aim Assist, we’ve discovered a number of inconsistencies and problems with our current implementation. Back in the Dark Tides update (1.6), we implemented a new (for the time) Aim Assist system that made it easier to customize settings on a Champion-by-Champion basis while standardizing how Champions receive it. However, as the team evolved and changed over time, these specific practices and assumptions about the game became less and less true. One of these core assumptions was that projectile Champions do not benefit from AA, but this isn’t accurate. Characters as old as Grover and as new as Caspian have had Aim Assist magnetism (i.e. a pull towards a character’s center mass when your reticle is very close) while other projectile characters listed above have not. In order to improve on these systems in the future and carry forward that original goal of a standard players can rely on, we’re doing a large reset. All Champions will now have the same benefits from Aim Assist magnetism; however, the maximum strength of Aim Assist magnetism has been reduced by 20% across the board and Gyro is taking an additional 20% reduction to the sensitivity in application. In practice, Paladins will still feel good on controller and these specific Champions should feel better to play on controller.

Moving forward, our goals will be to measure specific pain point characters and adjust them up or down to provide a comfortable and fair play experience. We’re starting with the select group of Champions that are receiving focused bullet magnetism nerfs (i.e. how generous we are when their reticle is near the head of a target). Outside of these specific adjustments, we’ll continue to watch the ways controllers perform between PC and Console respectively to ensure that crossplay environments like Ranked are given more integrity and even play across the Champion roster. We plan to take a look at Aim Assist tracking next (e.g. how much the reticle follows targets in motion) since we know that has been a source of frustration as well. We’ll keep players updated on our progress!

Champions

Azaan

• Increased health from 4250 ➡️ 4500

• Sanctuary
  
  
  • Reduced cooldown from 13s ➡️ 12s
  
  
• Conviction
  
  
  • Reduced cooldown from 10s ➡️ 9s
  
  
• Reckoning
  
  
  • Reduced cooldown from 10s ➡️ 9s

• Eternal
  
  
  • Reworked to: “After you take 2500 damage, Cleanse all Crowd Control from yourself and heal for 800 over 2.5s.”

Azaan has persistently remained in the bottom percentile of our Frontlines, glory days long behind him. We’re giving him some general quality of life improvements to his cooldowns and health, while adjusting Eternal to reinvigorate its atrocious playrate and middling win rate.

Betty La Bomba

• Gotta Bounce
  
  
  • Removed penalty to Movement Speed.

Bomb King

• Poppy Bomb
  
  
  • Reclassified as a Movement Ability, now affected by Cripple.

Caspian

• Updated all Default Decks

• Everywhere at Once
  
  
  • Cooldown: 5s permanently ➡️ 8s affected by CDR.
    
  • Now also gives Caspian 1 additional charge on Deadly Momentum.
    
  • Now also heals Caspian for 200 Health on hitting an enemy with the dash portion of the ability.
    
  • No longer grants Momentum stacks on hit.

Let's talk in brief about Caspian’s Talents. Measured Cadence is the elephant in the room, with the highest pick rate and win rate, while his other two Talents share a middling 47%~ win rate and more importantly an abysmal 11%~ pick rate. This illustrates to us that Caspian’s Talent selection just isn’t really engaging or conducive to other playstyles, and that his other playstyles just aren’t as fun. So we’re taking a shot at Everywhere at Once as we continue to work on making our devilish rogue the most devious he can be.

Everywhere at Once had a strong upside, permanently setting Deadly Momentum’s cooldown to a low value - but that wasn’t enough to justify the choice. It's difficult to ask Flanks to directly engage enemies with their ability generally saved for retreating, especially when the upside of 1 stack per hit wasn’t valuable enough to expend the cooldown. We’ve taken the Talent and moved some of the values around, keeping its identity relatively similar to previous where it encourages aggressive use of Deadly Momentum. With an additional charge and heal-on-hit, it gives Caspian an aggressive initiation tool without neutering his escape.

Cassie

• Blast Shot
  
  
  • Removed Poison effect.

Corvus

• Entropic Breach
  
  
  • Now also Heals Allies for 15% of maximum Health on initial target and 6.25% every .5s they remain in the area.

Entropic Breach has always been a bit unimpactful outside of the most specific moments, and Corvus often finds himself in a position where his team dies if he tries to properly utilize it. The Abyss has decided to grant him another boon, allowing him to heal his Allies within just as much as he harms his foes. Now, this Ultimate can more easily allow for some saves and pushes from your team and makes its presence on the battlefield more important.

Grover

• Blossom
  
  
  • Increased passive healing from 70 ➡️ 80
    
  • Increased active initial burst heal from 500 ➡️ 600

• Whirlwind
  
  
  • Now also provides 25% Movement Speed for 4s to allies affected.

• NEW: Wisps of Sylvanus
  
  
  • Blossom’s passive aura now also provides 15% Movement Speed.
    
  • Replaces Rampant Blooming.

• New Default Deck for Wisps of Sylvanus
  
• Gentle Breeze now also affects Grover

Grover finds himself at a crossroads, where on one side lies Talents rife with utility and the other lies Rampant Blooming being the only way for him to have impactful healing on his own. After a lot of thought, we wanted to try something new for him. Blossom is being brought back up to its potency felt previously but Rampant Blooming is no more, instead replaced by a Talent all about being an anchor for the team’s buffs. This means Grover’s healing is only augmented by Cards now, allowing us greater control of his output and allowing more room to balance him in a way that allows him to stay relevant across his Talents. Whirlwind is also gaining an even more powerful Movement Speed increase throughout its duration, offering him another reason to utilize his Ultimate in the late game regardless of Anti-Healing.

Kasumi

• Increased base movement speed from 355 ➡️ 370

• Spirit Traps
  
  
  • Reduced initial reveal distance from 100 ➡️ 40 units
    
  • Reduced full reveal distance from 40 ➡️ 20 units
    
  • Increased damage from 100 ➡️ 200
  
  
• Savage Tear
  
  
  • Increased bonus damage per stack of Curse from 20% ➡️ 30%

Kasumi is slowly sneaking into a place we’re happy with, but she’s still lacking some of the speed and burst many associate with our Flanks. We’ve brought her base movement speed up to the middle of her adoptive class, alongside a buff to Savage Tear to allow it to be weaved better into a combo. The largest changes we are making are to Spirit Traps, increasing their damage and making them much harder to spot before you’re in the effective range. They now share the same detection distance as Stealthed enemies and once you fully see them, that’s a sign you’re in the blast zone!

Kinessa

• Sniper Rifle
  
  
  • Decreased charge time from 1.2s ➡️ 1.1s.

• NEW: Crystalline Battery
  
  
  • Oppressor Mines now target you to supercharge, healing you for 25 every .2s and providing 100% increased Jump Height. Carbine Mode gains 15% damage while supercharged.
    
  • Replaces Octopressor.

• New Default Deck for Crystalline Battery

Kinessa is still performing well above where she had prior to her refresh, but we’d like to continue to iron out pain points players feel as and against her. We’re bringing a little bit of speed back to the Sniper in exchange for removing Octopressor from her Talent lineup, replaced by a complete 180 on her usual gameplan with them. Now, they will empower her with a damage amp on her Carbine Mode, making her able to duel in medium ranges. We’ll continue to look into other changes on her as needed!

Koga

• Stamina
  
  
  • Koga now regains 1 Stamina for every 100 damage his Submachine Guns deal to Health.
    
  • Decreased passive Stamina regen from 9 per second ➡️ 6 per second.

• Hellkite Claws
  
  
  • Each subsequent pierce now deals 30% less damage, minimum of 200.

• Dragon Stance
  
  
  • Removed Movement Speed bonus
    
  • Reduced time to enter Dragon Stance from .425s ➡️ .22s
    
  • Reduced time to exit Dragon Stance from .85s ➡️ .44s

• NEW: Bullet Time
  
  
  • Supercharge your reflexes after using Shadow Step, increasing your fire rate and movement speed by 20% for 2s.
    
  • Replaces Adrenaline Junkie.

• Swift Hands
  
  
  • Reworked to “While in Dragon Stance, gain 3|3% Movement Speed.”
  
  
• Updated Adrenaline Junkie Default Deck
  
  
  • Now called Bullet Time
    
  • Replaced Trespasser 1 ➡️ Something to Prove 1

Koga has been ripping and tearing his way through matches, consistently performing very well compared to other Flanks. We’re tweaking him across the board to give us more design space going forward - as well as to alleviate some pain points when playing as and against him.

We’re moving Adrenaline Junkie into base at a weaker level to smooth out his game flow, since that Talent felt necessary more often than not to facilitate optimum Koga. Hellkite Claws have been a persistent damage tool since its buff, making it frustrating to fight against as Koga cleaves through an entire team. To keep its utility but reel in the obscene DPS it can pump out, each projectile will do less damage per penetrated enemy, making it less oppressive when engaging a group. Finally, we’ve added a new Talent in Bullet Time. This incentivizes aggressive use of Shadow Step during fights to boost your damage, but comes at the cost of a precious resource. Watch your timings and you’ll come out alive, just don’t get greedy!

Lillith

• Increased Blood Health from 2500 ➡️ 2600

• Swarm
  
  
  • Duration increased from 5.75 ➡️ 6s
    
  • Blood cost reduced from 350/650 ➡️ 325/600
  
  
• Death Wings
  
  
  • Blood cost reduced from 280 ➡️ 250

• Reworked Cursed Accord Default Deck

• Cursed Accord
  
  
  • Reworked to: “Blood Hexed allies ignore damage resistance up to 10%. Heal an extra 250 Blood Health when a Blood Hexed ally eliminates an enemy.”
  
  
• Maelstrom of Carnage
  
  
  • Increased Blood Cost reduction from 25% ➡️ 40%.
    
  • Increased radius bonus from: 30% ➡️ 40%

Since her release, Lillith has had some serious ups and downs. Specifically downs looking at the past couple months, fighting tooth and claw for her current position as second worst support in the roster. Keen to rise from the dead, we’re giving her some love to most of her kit. With Blood cost reductions across the board, on top of a bit of extra Blood Health, Lillith will be able to stay in a fight and do her job for much longer. We’ve also reworked Cursed Accord, this time giving it a powerful effect of damage resistance penetration, turning her into a Champion supercharger that you’ll be smart to focus ASAP.

Maeve

• Street Justice
  
  
  • Now also provides a 20% increased Ultimate charge rate.

Mal’Damba

• Mending Spirits
  
  
  • Reduced cooldown forgiveness on missed target from 1.75s ➡️ 1.25s

Mal’Damba has been finally performing at a level that feels befitting his reputation as an honest Support…maybe a bit too easily though. This change is aimed at raising the floor higher slightly by being harsher when players miss his heal while not hampering his optimal play.

Nyx

• Royal Presence
  
  
  • Increased DoT from .175% ➡️ .2% of Max Health
    
  • Removed Poison lingering after targets exit the effect aura

Octavia

• Marksman Rifle
  
  
  • Increased minimum hip-fire accuracy from .80 ➡️ .85
    
  • Increased maximum hip-fire accuracy from .85 ➡️ .95
    
  • Fixed an issue where Octavia’s fire rate was faster than intended.
    
    
    • Increased postfire delay from .15s ➡️ .2s
    
    
  • Reduced recoil & screen shake on fire from 3.5 ➡️ 1.0

• Commanding Leap
  
  
  • Now places a rally point on landing at base, providing 250 instant healing & 25 every .15s to yourself and allies within. Rally point lasts 1.5s.
  
  
• Distortion Field
  
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 18s ➡️ 16s.
    
  • Allies have 300% increased Jump Height when initiated from within the dome.
    
  • Enemies within also have their air speed reduced by 15%.

• NEW: Got Your Six
  
  
  • Increase the duration of Commanding Leap’s rally point by .25|.25s.
    
  • Replaces Clean Shots.
  
  
• NEW: Forward Operating Base
  
  
  • Allies within your Distortion Field now have 4|4% Crowd Control Reduction.
    
  • Replaces Priority Requisition.

• NEW: Paratrooper
  
  
  • Octavia now can float for 4s, gains 50% air control and deals 10% bonus weapon damage while in Commanding Leap.
    
  • Replaces Hell or High Water.

• New Default Deck for Paratrooper

Octavia misses seeing frequent deploys, so we wanted to revisit her kit and try to inject more fun into the average game for her. She’s by no means weak but generally a lot of players struggle to find something in her kit that excites them enough to play her, so these changes aim to shift her power in ways that allow her more to play with. Firstly, her Marksman Rifle has had a pass on how its gunplay feels. Her hipfire has been retuned to be much more manageable if you pace your shots, allowing more time outside of scope. When in scope, you’ll now suffer from significantly less screen shake & visual recoil which helps her feel like the trained shooter she is. Commanding Leap has Hell or High Water coming into base kit, making one of our simplest abilities into one that has a lot more utility and enhances her hybrid Damage-Support identity. Distortion Field is also finally living up to its name, distorting gravity for those inside. Everyone within will have gravity and jump height distorted, and enemies will suffer their Slow even while in air. Finally, her Cards and Talents have seen some adjustments to allow these additions to shine. Paratrooper turns a weak spot for her into a strength once more, giving a powerful amount of damage output when she leaps into action!

Ruckus

• Advance
  
  
  • Now can be fired while stationary to boost upward.

• Aerial Assault
  
  
  • Altered to “Advance now has 3 charges.”
  
  
• Flux Generator
  
  
  • Decreased bonus Shielding from 1500 ➡️ 1000

Ruckus is performing well at the higher levels of play, but outside of that space he’s struggled to be picked and utilized. Aerial Assault has always been something that makes Bolt feel better to pilot around in, so we’re shifting the best part of it into base to both help how Ruckus feels but also allow for more Talent diversity than he currently sees. Flux Generator, however, feels a bit too potent compared to the others without a nerf to its Shielding bonus so we’re proactively tuning that down as well.

Seris

• Internal Torment
  
  
  • Updated description to state she Reveals the target to her team.
  
  
• Forsake
  
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 3s ➡️ 2.5s

We’re still watching the short and long-term on both of these Talents before we look to shake Seris up again. Internal Torment is having its functionality clarified better (i.e. it already did this teamwide Reveal) and Forsake is receiving a small buff to its cooldown to give it a better chance at keeping up with other burst options across the Support class. We’ve been listening to the discussion around her across social platforms and will continue to iterate without taking away the approachability that has made her Paladins' most played Champion.

Strix

• Talon Rifle
  
  
  • Now ignores up to 10% of targets' damage resistance when fired from stealth.

• Roost
  
  
  • Increased charge rate bonus from 10% ➡️ 30% per level.

• Crack Shot
  
  
  • Pistol no longer fires 40% slower.

Snipers fill an important niche in FPS, serving as counter to aerial superiority and picking off stragglers of poor team coordination. That can be frustrating to fight against however, and so we’ve had to be careful over our patches when altering snipers. We’re taking a pass at Strix to fill out the fantasy of lying in wait and securing a high-value kill, while still keeping him fun to fight against with decent counter play.

Most significant of these changes is firing from Stealth now pierces up to 10% of damage resistance - giving Strix a way to alleviate one of his hardest counters at the cost of using his Stealth. While this may seem extreme, it elevates Veteran as a counter item, since if you don’t have DR, nothing changes in the engagement with Strix. Not to mention he’ll almost be guaranteed out of Stealth energy if he's constantly dipping into it for the piercing, so take that opportunity to sic your Flank on this defenseless fowl.

VII

• Burst Mode
  
  
  • Increased damage from 150 ➡️ 160
    
  • Decreased effective range from 110 ➡️ 100
    
  • Decreased max range from 200 ➡️ 175
    
  • Decreased minimum damage after falloff from 50% ➡️ 40%

• Grappling Hook
  
  
  • Decreased range from 140 ➡️ 110 units
    
  • Decreased cooldown from 14s ➡️ 12s
    
  • Increased pull strength from 1325 ➡️ 1650
  
  
• Explosive Dodge
  
  
  • VII now has .25s of damage immunity when he starts to roll.

• NEW: Execute Article VII
  
  
  • Decree 77 now targets the closest enemy with laser lock-on. After .8s, your eye blasts them and deals 1000 damage in a 20-unit radius. Anyone hit is Executed if below 25% after.
    
  • Replaces Overcharged.

• New Default Deck for Execute Article VII
  
• Terror
  
  
  • Reworked to “Gain a 50|50 Shield for 4s after using Grappling Hook. ICD of 5s.”

Here we go again. VII has been a unique addition to the Flank class, and a perpetual challenge to balance in a way that feels fun for the player and fair for the opponents. We took a longer step back from his kit and are now reapproaching with a different outlook. Our goals with these changes is to simplify VII into the core of his identity: best in class movement, ambush-style engagement, and cooldown management. Burst Mode is being brought up in damage but down in range, bringing him closer to his peers when it comes to effective dueling range. (We’re aware this leaves Automatic in a weird spot, we plan to address this in a subsequent update). We’re also hitting the maximum range on his Grappling Hook, but allowing him more access to it. We’re also standardizing his pull speed at around Terror 3 to start, allowing us more control of how fast his peak movement is. Explosive Dodge is getting a unique effect inspired by Raum’s favorite game genre: immunity for a small window on dodge. This allows VII some neat tricks for those skilled enough to pull off timings.

We also went back to the drawing board on Overcharged, and after weighing the options have reimagined Decree 77 into a new, more thematic Talent. Execute Article VII allows him to access a Tribunal staple Execute via lasering down targets with his eye. Note that this Execute procs after the damage of the blast, meaning it can confirm into itself when used correctly. Terror, meanwhile, is being reworked to give VII some added survivability on hook, allowing him more options on which Cards he wants for sustain.

Talus

• Veracharger
  
  
  • Decreased minimum accuracy from .95 ➡️ .92
    
  • Increased accuracy lost per shot from .02 ➡️ .025
    
  • Reduced number of shots before accuracy decay from 5 ➡️ 3

While Talus remains mainly a Champion whose dominance is most felt on a controller, his weapon has a bit too much forgiveness regardless of input, especially during Overcharge. These changes are designed to ask Talus to be a bit more focused when aiming during the ability as well as spraying for longer durations without pausing. We’ll continue to look into his performance across inputs and platforms for further adjustments!

Vatu

• Kunai
  
  
  • Reduced damage from 310 ➡️ 280
    
  • Increased fire rate from 1s ➡️ .9s
    
  • Reduced time for reload pre-load from .9s ➡️ .6s
    
  • Increased time for reload post-fire from 0 ➡️ .3s

• Dash
  
  
  • Removed DR

• Enveloping Shadows
  
  
  • Shifted to “Reduce the Cooldown of your basic abilities by 3% for each Kunai that hits an enemy.”
    
  • Removed ICD.

We heard loud and clear that the Kunai changes from Tidal Surge simply weren’t it for high level players, so we’re reverting those back to their previous values. As a part of this, we decided to adopt a popular community request for him to aid the fluidity of play: animation canceling his reload. This allows him to now use Shadow Bombs & Dash to finish reloading once he’s passed .6s of his reload time, raising the skill ceiling a little bit more for him. Speaking of raising his skill, we’ve removed the DR from his dash at base to push him to use Cards for his survivability. Finally, Enveloping Shadows is losing its ICD but now requires players to land more Kunai to reap the full reward of his cooldown reduction.

Viktor

• Burst Mode
  
  
  • Decreased hipfire recoil from 1.75 ➡️ 1.25
    
  • Decreased accuracy loss on hipfire from .1 ➡️ .015

Burst Mode has a specific issue when it comes to useability on KB&M, so we’ve adjusting the hip fire to be significantly more controllable and allow those on the input a better experience on this Talent than previous obtainable.

Vivian

• Light Machine Gun
  
  
  • Removed camera shake while Vivian is using Precision Sights.

The latest innovation in Deepwerks technology allows Vivian to use her optics to focus beyond any felt recoil from her Light Machine Gun, encouraging its use when you need an added bit of control to decimate your opponents.

Vora

• Tendril
  
  
  • Now has 2 charges at base.
    
  • Increased cooldown from 10s ➡️ 12s

• NEW: Parasitic Pull
  
  
  • Tendril can now target allies. Hitting allies with Tendril provides them your Tendril Card effects. Hitting enemies with Tendril deals 225 damage over 1.25s.
    
  • Replaces Relentless Presence.
  
  
• New: Eclipsed Affection
  
  
  • Reduce Obliteration's Cooldown by 2s, and by 50% after earning an Elimination. When used at max Darkness stacks, deal an additional 100 bonus damage.
    
  • Replaces Deafening Silence.

• New Default Decks for Parasitic Pull & Eclipsed Affection

The Maw holds many emotions, and none are quite as potent as jealousy. Watching VII fling himself around has pushed Vora to embrace her corruption further, unlocking new potential. Tendril now will have 2 charges at base, allowing her more mobility at base without relying on her Ultimate. In addition, we’ve taken her two infrequently used Talents and replaced them with devastating new options. Parasitic Pull allows Vora to utilize her unique launch tech on allies as well, providing them small Shields or DR from her Cards before diving onto opponents. Eclipsed Affection, meanwhile, allows Obliteration to chain together combos and Eliminations that will hopefully one day finally let her triumph over Io.

Willo

• Passive: Pixie Dust
  
  
  • Given a unique name & description
    
  • After 4 seconds of use, Willo’s fall speed reduction decreases from 90% to 75%.

• Blast Flower
  
  
  • Reduced maximum stacks from: 4 ➡️ 3.

Willo has experienced a resurgence in popularity (and win rate) now that she can hover above and rain fairy-death on her foes. She's having a little too much fun with this, and fighting her can be a frustrating experience, so we’re adding a caveat to incentivize her touching down every so often and offer an opportunity for counter-play. Similarly Blast Flower has been performing really well, too well, but we like the new popularity it has garnered. We’re giving it a slap on the wrist to bring down the overall power while keeping the playstyle intact.

Known Issues

• The 3D Lobby and the Login menu are currently swapped.
  
• VII and Vora's Talents have an issue in being unlocked for players.
  
• All Street Style: World Tour skins are missing their VFX.
  
• Street Style Seris's 1P arms are utilizing the wrong texture mappings.
  
• Pop Royalty Tyra's Lobby mesh is utilizing the wrong textures.
  
• Both Street Style: World Tour Tyra weapons are disabled due to missing their 1P models.
  
• Skin previews in the Street Style: World Tour Event Pass are using the wrong pose.
  
• Street Style: World Tour Event Pass menu is using the wrong background.

Arcade 2.0

How will it work?

Onslaught - 30% Odds

• Foreman’s Rise
  
• Magistrate’s Archives

Team Deathmatch - 25% Odds

• Abyss
  
• Dragon Arena

Payload - 20% Odds

• Hidden Temple
  
• Frostbite Cavern

King of the Hill - 15% Odds

• Marauder’s Port
  
• Trade District

Survival - 10% Odds

• Primal Court
  
• Snowfall Junction

What about Quests and rewards?

Will modes within Arcade still see improvements?

Siege

Map Pool Additions

• Stone Keep (Day)
  

Map Pool Adjustments

• Stone Keep (Classic) odds are normalized now.
  

Onslaught & Arcade

• When looking for a match, these queues will now prioritize matching parties of 3 or less with each other. Parties of 4 or 5 will be prioritized towards other larger parties. After a significant time in the queue, this restriction will be dropped.
  
• Arcade and Onslaught now share the same skill rankings for players when searching for a match.
  

We’ve often gotten complaints about how frequently smaller parties would find themselves face-to-face with a full stack of opponents within the Onslaught queue. To help ease these pains, we’re adding some logic behind team sizes in both Onslaught and Arcade that incentivizes teams of similar sizes queueing against each other. This should only slightly affect queue times, mostly for those in a group, but also increase match quality in these faster-paced modes. Alongside this, we wanted Arcade to have a single ranking type to allow the MM to improve over time, so it will leverage player’s Onslaught stats as a baseline to iterate on.

Payload

• Now utilizes 2 Checkpoints on each map
  
  
  
  • The first attacking team will start with 3 minutes, then gain an additional 2 minutes per checkpoint passed.
    
  • The second attacking team will start with 3 minutes, then gain a scaling amount of time back based on how quickly Team 1 finished their push.
    

Veteran players will remember the earliest iteration of Payload, where Checkpoints were available to increase push timers and help prevent spawn camping behaviors. We’re excited to get this system back up and running for Arcade, allowing Payload to play out at a pace much closer to the other modes within the playlist. However, the Checkpoint and multi-round versions of Payload have never coexisted, so some new mechanics had to be built to facilitate the merging of the two iterations. Checkpoints will provide the first team attacking a static amount of time, and the second team a scaling amount of time to ensure that Team 2 always has less time than Team 1 as the modern Payload functions. This is basically a brand-new iteration of how the mode handles Checkpoints, so please provide feedback as you play!

Survival

• Added support for Anti-Healing scaling throughout the match.
  
  
  • Scales 5% every 20s.
  
  
• Decreased timer of subsequent rounds from 30s ➡️ 15s
  
• Decreased timer for initial fog spawn from 15s ➡️ 10s
  
• Increased fog speed on Snowfall Junction from 125 ➡️ 150
  
• Decreased fog starting distance from 7000 ➡️ 5000

Survival hasn’t seen significant changes since its return earlier this year, but now that it’s joining as the most infrequent mode within Arcade, we want to start looking to modernize the mode in a way that makes it feel distinct and enjoyable to more players. We’re increasing the speed of the fog and round wait times to get players right back into what makes the mode unique faster.

Ranked

Requirements

Map Pool

High Frequency Maps

• Serpent Beach
  
• Stone Keep (Classic)
  
• Stone Keep (Night)
  

Normal Frequency Maps

• Ascension Peak
  
• Bazaar
  
• Brightmarsh
  
• Frog Isle
  
• Jaguar Falls
  
• Ice Mines
  
• Splitstone Quarry
  
• Warder’s Gate
  

After positive feedback and player interest in Siege, Stone Keep (Classic) is replacing Stone Keep (Day) in the Ranked queue to provide the competitive experience with a version that has cleaner visibility.

Wave Defense

Summary

NOTE: All the values shown below are test values from Dev. The exact effects and numerical choices will change based on testing and feedback from players.

Azaan

Caspian

Grover

Kinessa

Koga

Lillith

Octavia

VII

NOTE: This will still be his Level 2 Talent. We just thought he needed more sevens for this blog.

Vora

Balance

Io

Talents

• When activated, the 50% Health back Io receives is now True Healing.
  

This was something that has felt true for a while due to how the Talent functions, but recent Anti-Heal changes showed that Io can indeed get hit during this transition. We've made this now a proper True Heal so the Talent's text remains accurate.

Seris

Cards

• Increased scaling from 2|2 ➡️ 6|6
  

We were overly cautious in how the transition in functionality would benefit Seris, leading to this card becoming too weak for lower-level use case. We're buffing it back to a place where it functions very similar to the previous version of the Card, providing 2|2 Ammo every .5s over the 1.5s period.

Yagorath

General

• Yagorath's Tail Crit Spot is now only active during her Ultimate.
  

Abilities

• Adjusted speed curve, starts at 100% speed instantly then waits .5s to reach 200%.
  

Yagorath's changes mostly put her in a spot we and the community were happy with, except for some pain point areas. Her Crit Spots made her more vulnerable than expected and led to her struggling to stay alive even in situations she deserved to, so we've now limited them to only being available during her Ultimate. This keeps the design fantasy (and helps counter her pull speed buff) while not impacting her neutral game nearly as much. As for Acceleration, players noticed an issue where Yagorath would slow slightly during the launch if she was already in movement. We've removed that so now she can continue to make jumps and feel fluid when using the ability, while still preserving a window for counterplay.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Dredge would crash player clients when selected.
  
  
  • Dredge is reenabled across the game.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where Unauthorized Use wasn't applying a damage bonus & was still Revealing targets.
  
• Fixed an issue where Jubilation was not applying its bonus damage to marked targets.
  
• Fixed an issue where various added text was not translated into supported languages.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Trials reset Timer was incorrect.
  
• Fixed an issue where the shiver me timbers Title was not visible & unequippable.
  
• Fixed an issue where Octavia's Maverick Rifle was unequippable.
  
• Fixed an issue where Reality Warp was not showing up in Match History.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Damage Chest was giving Aki Oni Tiberius instead of Aoi Oni Tiberius.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Support Chest was giving Pirate's Treasure Io instead of Eight Oceans Io.
  
• Fixed an issue where bot Maeve would not select a Talent.
  
• Fixed an issue where Wave Defense Private Beta wasn't always available to players.
  

Hotfixing Reality

Io

Talents

• When activated, the 50% Health back Io receives is now True Healing.
  

This was something that has felt true for a while due to how the Talent functions, but recent Anti-Heal changes showed that Io can indeed get hit during this transition. We've made this now a proper True Heal so the Talent's text remains accurate.

Seris

Cards

• Increased scaling from 2|2 ➡️ 6|6
  

We were overly cautious in how the transition in functionality would benefit Seris, leading to this card becoming too weak for lower-level use case. We're buffing it back to a place where it functions very similar to the previous version of the Card, providing 2|2 Ammo every .5s over the 1.5s period.

Yagorath

General

• Yagorath's Tail Crit Spot is now only active during her Ultimate.
  

Abilities

• Adjusted speed curve, starts at 100% speed instantly then waits .5s to reach 200%.
  

Yagorath's changes mostly put her in a spot we and the community were happy with, except for some pain point areas. Her Crit Spots made her more vulnerable than expected and led to her struggling to stay alive even in situations she deserved to, so we've now limited them to only being available during her Ultimate. This keeps the design fantasy (and helps counter her pull speed buff) while not impacting her neutral game nearly as much. As for Acceleration, players noticed an issue where Yagorath would slow slightly during the launch if she was already in movement. We've removed that so now she can continue to make jumps and feel fluid when using the ability, while still preserving a window for counterplay.

This Week's Community Creations

Artist: Mashtyx

Artist: H_LILAS415

Artist: Paulo Munir Uequed

Weekend LTM: Dark Tides: Champion Difficulty

General Updates

Special Quests

New Chest: Voices of the Realm

MVP Sale

• Legendary MVPs will cost 100 crystals
  
• All other MVPs will cost 75 crystals
  

• Legendaries will cost 75 crystals
  
• All other MVPs will cost 50 crystals
  

Event Pass Changes

• We’ve brought back the Feudal Fables Pass for a limited time so players have the chance to complete it.
  
• We’ve extended the Buried Treasure Pass by 6 levels, including the following new rewards:
  
  
  • 1 additional Avatar
    
  • 1 additional Death Stamp
    
  • 1 additional Spray
    
  • 5 Skin Boosters
    
  • 40K Gold
    
  • 1 Paladin’s Accord Chest - this contains the items from the Abyss’s Destruction, Magistrate’s Resolve, & Resistance’s Daring Chests, as well as the following:
    
    
    
    • Screech Androxus
      
    • Dasher's Antlers Androxus
      
    • Cangaceiro Androxus
      
    • Old Glory Fernando
      
    • Tough Cookie Fernando
      
    • Parasite Seris
      
    • Frosty Foliage Grover
      
    • Ghoulish Goalie Jenos
      
    • Resplendent Jenos

New Trials Rewards

• New "Shiver Me Timber" Limited Title
  
• Sunset Avatar
  
• Fearless Leader Spray
  
• Pirateer Avatar
  
• First Mate Announcer

Event Mode: Reality Warp

Rules

• All Card Levels are set to 5
  
• This LTM has a Talent pool mixing the current sandbox with select fan favorite (or infamous) options from the past & recent Truly Talented alumni.
  
  
  • Alternating Current Torvald (replaces Thanks, Grandpa)
    
  • Architectonics Barik (replaces Forgefire)
    
  • Artful Dodger Maeve (replaces Street Justice)
    
  • Bucking Madness Buck (replaces Bulk Up)
    
  • Celerity Furia (replaces Cherish)
    
  • Defensive Curl Yagorath (replaces Unnatural Persistence)
    
  • Efflorescence Grover (replaces Rampant Blooming)
    
  • Firefight Viktor (replaces Burst Mode)
    
  • Firing Line Khan (replaces Vortex Grip)
    
  • Heads or Tails Saati (replaces Spare Change)
    
  • Illuminated Jenos (replaces Luminary)
    
  • This Talent is a recreation of original Luminary: Allies affected by your Astral Mark deal 15% increased weapon damage.
    
  • Just Breathe Cassie (replaces Impulse)
    
  • Lingering Curse Androxus (replaces Defiant Fist)
    
  • Reign of Terror Drogoz (replaces Combustable)
    
  • Retaliation Zhin (replaces Yomi)
    
  • Sapper Rounds Vivian (replaces Suspect Everyone)
    
  • Scorched Earth Willo (replaces Nightshade)
    
  • Super Smash Ash (replaces Battering Ram)
    
  • Suppression Kinessa (replaces Octopressor)
    
  • The Law Won Lex (replaces Discovery)
    
  • The Void Protects Seris (replaces Infernal Torment)
    
  • Wekono’s Curse Mal’Damba (replaces Wekono’s Wrath)
    
  • Wrath of the Stagalla Inara (replaces Tremors)
    

Map Pool

• Temple Ruins
  
• Enchanted Forest
  
• Serpent Beach
  
• Stone Keep (Classic)
  
• Brightmarsh
  
• Splitstone Quarry
  

Dark Tides: Champion Difficulty

New TDM Map: Dragon’s Call

Returning Map: Trade District (Classic)

Map Updates: Frog Isle and Stone Keep

Stone Keep (Day + Night)

• Cleaned up collision around lampposts. This includes slightly reworking the collision volumes around the lampposts as well as lowering the player-blocking volumes above the lampposts to allow for more fluid navigation.
  
• Removed a heavy wall on the sides of the Cathedral near the second-floor bridge.
  
• Removed player collision on several fish downspouts around the map to reduce frustration with getting stuck on them while navigating around the map.
  
• Removed tall invisible collision on top of the wall in the back alley at Curve. This wall is now considered valid, base-able ground.
  

Frog Isle

• Added small steps behind the Frogs on the Payload push path. This prevents players from getting stuck under the Frogs in multiple circumstances, and allows for players to get on top of the Frogs more easily.
  
• Removed heavy walls on the broken pillars near the drop-down towards the mid-point. These pillars are now considered valid, base-able ground, sharing that property with the walls next to them.
  

Daily Quest Completion Streak

• Increased 7 Day Rewards
  
  
  • 20,835 ➡️ 120,000 Event Pass XP
    
  • 145 Gold ➡️ 750 Gold
  
  
• Increased 14 Day Rewards
  
  
  • 41,670 ➡️ 240,000 Event Pass XP
    
  • 290 Gold ➡️ 1500 Gold
  
  
• Increased 21 Day Rewards
  
  
  • 62,505 ➡️ 360,000 Event Pass XP
    
  • 435 Gold ➡️ 2250 Gold
    

New Mastery Titles

• Ash
  
  
  • Slayer of the Fallen
  
  
• Furia
  
  
  • Archangel of Reprisal
  
  
• Jenos
  
  
  • Demigod of Tau-Kor
  
  
• Kinessa
  
  
  • Self-Sure Shot
  
  
• Khan
  
  
  • Commander of House Aico
  
  
• Koga
  
  
  • Agent of Liberation
  
  
• Lian
  
  
  • Princess of House Aico
  
  
• Maeve
  
  
  • Purrveyor of Shiny Objects
  
  
• Makoa
  
  
  • Protector of the Ska’Drin
  
  
• Ruckus
  
  
  • & Bolt
  
  
• Seris
  
  
  • Foreseer of the Unknown
  
  
• Skye
  
  
  • Triple Agent
  
  
• Tyra
  
  
  • Spark of Wildfire
  
  
• Viktor
  
  
  • Leader of the Wolfpack
  
  
• Vora
  
  
  • Betrayer of the Moon
  
  
• Ying
  
  
  • Master of Illusions
    

Map Pool Rotations

Casual Map Pool

• Siege
  
  
  • Stone Keep (Day) has been replaced by Stone Keep (Classic). Its rate of appearance has been increased.
  
  
• TDM
  
  
  • Trade District has been replaced by Trade District (Classic). Its rate of appearance has been slightly increased.
    

Ranked Map Pool

High Frequency Maps

• Brightmarsh
  
• Jaguar Falls
  
• Splitstone Quarry
  

Normal Frequency Maps

• Ascension Peak
  
• Bazaar
  
• Frog Isle
  
• Ice Mines
  
• Serpent Beach
  
• Stone Keep
  
  
  • Night has double the odds of Day, but both combined is equal to one of the other maps.
  
  
• Warder’s Gate

Limited Time Modes

• Reality Warp (September 6th - September 9th)
  
• Wave Defense: Champion Difficulty (September 13th - September 16th)
  
• King of the Hill (September 20th - September 23rd)
  
• Reality Warp (September 27th - September 30th)
  
• Capture the Flag (October 4th - October 7th)
  
• Wave Defense: Champion Difficulty (October 11th - 14th)
  
• Reality Warp (October 18th - 21st)
  

Balance

General

Anti Healing

• Increased scaling speed in Siege from 50s to 40s.
  
• Increased scaling speed in Onslaught from 40s to 30s.
  
• Increased scaling speed in KOTH from 45s to 30s.
  
• Increased scaling speed in TDM from 30s to 25s.
  

Anti-Healing Scaling has long been a point of feedback from experienced players as something that should be quickened in order to reduce frustrations around healing in the early & mid-game. These changes are directly aimed at that feedback; however we’re closely watching the effects on the average lobby and players less intensely focused on this mechanic.

Bot Behavior

• All bots in the game now utilize more logic, with bots replacing players who have disconnected given additional difficulty.
  
  
  • This includes a tendency to stick with their teammates, reposition when low health, and chase low-health targets.
    

We’ve been investigating how to improve our bot’s behavior and logic in various scenarios, this specific update is aimed to ease frustrations around when a player leaves the match & a bot takes over their place. As a reminder, please report any malicious AFK behavior at the end of the match to help us cut down on rampant leavers, but this change should help along the way!

Champions

Cassie

• Blast Shot
  
  
  • Poison duration reduced from 3s ➡️ 2s
    
  • Poison strength reduced from 10 ➡️ 8%
    

The original buff to Blast Shot overperformed, so we’re bringing it down a bit in both strength and duration. We’re keen on Cassie keeping this additional utility to enhance her moment-to-moment decision making during a match, but we’ll continue to keep a watchful eye on her power level.

Jenos

• Astral Mark
  
  
  • Duration increased from 12s ➡️ 13s
    
  • Cooldown reduced from 6s ➡️ 5s
    

Jenos has been lagging behind other Supports for a minute now, so we want to give him some basic but effective buffs to Astral Mark to help boost him back up. This also has the side effect of buffing his Astral Mark Cards, so its a win-win for our resident ascended monk.

Kinessa

• Carbine Rifle
  
  
  • Damage reduced from 215 ➡️ 200
    
  • Fire rate increased from .19s ➡️ .17s

• Oppressor Mine
  
  
  • Decreased Slow strength from 15% ➡️ 12.5%
  
  
• Sniper Mode
  
  
  • Decreased charge rate from 1s ➡️ 1.2s

While Kinessa’s refresh hit a lot of notes we were hoping for, her strength and utility has come in a bit more overtuned than we intended. We want to take a look at a few more problematic chunks of her kit (e.g. Oppressor Mines & moving away from a Talent for them) so these changes are intended as a continued effort of adjusting her to keep a lot of what players have loved about her changes while ensuring the frustration currently felt is lessened over time.

Lex

• Heroism
  
  
  • Decreased Combat Slide cooldown from 8s ➡️ 7s

Heroism has been left in a weakened state for a while, and we want to slowly bring it back to relevancy without trivializing Lex’s other options. Shaving a second off the cooldown penalty feels right as a first step to letting the Hand of Justice improve at his duty.

Makoa

• Ancient Rage
  
  
  • Collision growth reduced from 50 ➡️ 25%

• Barrier Reef
  
  
  • Trigger value reduced from 1000 ➡️ 900 damage
  
  
• Determination
  
  
  • Trigger value reduced from 50➡️ 60% Health
  
  
• Ebb and Flow
  
  
  • Reworked to instead fully refresh Shell Spin cooldown
    
  • Levels reduce Card’s Cooldown
  
  
• Harden
  
  
  • Now activates when Dredge Anchor is used
  
  
• Rampage
  
  
  • Increased duration from 4s ➡️ 5s
  
  
• Sea Legs
  
  
  • Now activates when Dredge Anchor is used
  
  
• Surf
  
  
  • Increased scaling from 10% ➡️ 12%
  
  
• Tidal Grace
  
  
  • Increased healing from 55 ➡️ 60
  
  
• Tsunami
  
  
  • increased duration from 3s ➡️ 4s

Similarly to Jenos, Makoa has been struggling in his category to make a splash, but we’re trying something a little different for him. Before we get to the buffs though, we’re currently still investigating Ancient Rage’s collision issues. The theming behind it is strong enough to us that we feel its worth to keep for now, but we’re reducing the total size growth of his collision to prevent some instances of the stuck-in-place bug. We’ll be continuing to investigate this and searching for a fix.

That being said, buffs! Makoa’s been on the weaker side of Frontlines lately (consistently in the bottom 3 in terms of winrate) so we took the kitchen sink approach for him today as we continue to work on his core issues. We’ve buffed a majority of his cards to give him more freedom of loadout while also increasing his overall loadout power to give players more options to optimize their turtle power. Most significantly, we’ve adjusted Sea Legs and Harden to always activate even if Dredge Anchor misses, greatly boosting Makoa’s average durability. Even if his durability is challenged, the reworked Ebb and Flow means Makoa can always try spinning to solve his problems and get out of sticky situations (or initiate some crazy dives if he’s got Ancient Rage), either way Makoa will be able to duke it out in the frontlines much more effectively.

Moji

• Spit
  
  
  • Now heals allies for 300 HP on hit at base
  
  
• Magic Mark
  
  
  • Area of effect reduced from 75 ➡️ 50 units
  
  
• Sparkle
  
  
  • Reduced Healing per hit from 75 ➡️ 50

• Spit Shine
  
  
  • Reworked to grant 10% bonus move speed to all allies in range of a max Magic Mark detonation. Lasts 4s, stacking 3 times, with each stack falling off individually.

We’ve been hearing frustrations surrounding Moji - and her data supports it - so we’re knocking some of her stats down as well as giving her a little quality of life change. We’re moving Spit Shine’s Healing into base as a reduced value so that Jubilation / Realm Runner can have more space to shine at Talent Selection, since Mojis tended to overwhelmingly lean towards Spit Shine to support their team while staying safe. To compensate for this increased consistency, as well as to bring her stats more in line with what we’re comfortable with, we’re reducing the size of Magic Mark and the Healing from Sparkle. With these changes Moji will have to be more aware of her team at any given moment to maximize her Magic Mark’s value, while also requiring more situational awareness to maximize her reduced healing against Anti-Healing. Finally, with Spit Shine moving into base, we’re revamping it to instead give allies movement speed on mark detonation. This’ll let Moji facilitate aggressive team wide pushes or escape from danger if she’s able to properly manage the marks range.

Pip

• Combat Medic
  
  
  • Increased fire rate bonus from 10% ➡️ 15%

Combat Medic has slipped behind Pip’s other Talents in selection and viability, mainly due to being in a tough spot compared to the flexibility of Mega Potion and Catalyst. We’re giving Combat Medic’s fire rate increase a bit more strength to make it feel a bit more compelling and give Pip more DPS/HPS potential when using Potion Launcher.

Seris

• Blood Pact
  
  
  • Reworked to “Heal for 105|105 over 1.5s after casting Restore Soul”
  
  
• Spirit Leech
  
  
  • Reworked to “Regenerate 2|2 Ammo over 1.5s after casting Restore Soul”

Similar to Mal’Damba’s changes to his cards to accommodate his burst healing, we’re adjusting Seris' two channeled heal cards to now work with Forsake. Blood Pact is staying similar in power level and function, while Spirit Leech is seeing its numbers brought down slightly to leave a bit more value in putting the card at a higher level. We plan to continue to watch Forsake and Internal Torment’s performance to look for improvements, while keeping in mind the benefits of the older Talent set and considering them as needed.

Strix

• Pistol
  
  
  • Now generates 3 stealth energy per hit

• Stealth
  
  
  • Now grants 20% movement speed bonus while in stealth
    
  • Stealth energy cost per second reduced from 12 ➡️ 8
  
  
• Flare
  
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 12s ➡️ 10s
    
  • Area of effect Reveal increased from 45 ➡️ 55 units

• Flashbang
  
  
  • Now turns players' screens a dark grey instead of bright white.

• Stalker
  
  
  • Reworked to instead heal for 15|15 every 1s while in stealth
  
  
• Roost
  
  
  • Reworked to increase stealth energy charge rate by 10|10% for 2s after a Talon Rifle hit
  
  
• Guerrilla Tactics
  
  
  • Reduced stealth energy generation from 15|15 ➡️ 12|12%

• Crack Shot
  
  
  • Increased Talon Rifle damage from 900 ➡️ 950
    
  • Removed Burn effect
    
  • Pistol now gains perfect accuracy
    
  • Now reduces Pistol's fire rate by 40%
    
    
    • .15s ➡️ .21s
  
  
• Nocturnal
  
  
  • Reworked to grant indefinite stealth while standing still
  
  
• Unauthorized Use
  
  
  • Reduced direct hit damage bonus from 250% ➡️ 200%
    
  • Now directly hit targets take 20% more inhand from all sources for 2s
    
  • Reduces cooldown reduction from 10s ➡️ 8s

Hot off the heels of Kinessa, we wanted to take a shot at one of our other notorious snipers. Strix faced a fair amount of issues, and with these changes we’ve tackled quite a few of his pain points while we continue to work on making Strix the best (and still enjoyable to fight) sniper he can be. We’ve added stealth energy generation into his pistol at base, giving more merit to swapping weapons to keep invisibility available. This will probably be one of the biggest changes feel-wise, since getting caught doesn’t mean there isn’t a chance anymore - landing enough shots opens up a chance to sneak away just in time. Speaking of stealth, we’ve incorporated a bit of Nocturnal into base, making stealth overall better for all Talents on Strix, since Nocturnal had a strangle hold on his selection rates. Now Nocturnal allows Strix to stay in stealth indefinitely as long as is standing still, letting him line up the perfect shot or narrowly dodge a scouting Flanker.

The stranglehold wasn’t just apparent in his Talent selection, Guerrilla Tactics also had a lion’s share of his loadout points on average. We’ve spread the power out a bit not only through his pistol change but by also updating Roost into an energy generation supplement while taking some of that generation away from Guerrilla Tactics. This requires the card to have more investment to get the same bang for your buck as before, but still keeping it in a powerful place with how much energy you get out of it. With more opportunities for stealth through duration and generation, we wanted to give all of Strix’s Talents some love to utilize said stealth. We’ve shifted Unauthorized Use into a more utility role, retaining its damage identity but also providing a powerful debuff that Strix and his team can capitalize on for aggressive plays. We’ve also moved Crack Shot’s stats around, giving his pistol perfect accuracy at the cost of fire rate, putting both his weapons into a new playstyle with one Talent selection and pushing Strix into a much more skirmisher oriented role.

There are a lot of game-feel changes to Strix that we can’t wait for you all to experiment with as we continue to work on our notorious snipers. Don’t worry though, all the extra Strixs running around doesn’t mean you’ll need to turn down your brightness. Flashbang now turns your screen gray instead of white. Hurray for eye health (remember to blink often)!

Yagorath

• Added new Crit Spots to Yagorath on her Tail.
  
  
  • Her default skins shows these Crit spots glowing alongside her mouth.
  
  
• Critical multiplier reduced from 1.3 to 1.
  
  
  • This means Yagorath’s critical damage is now double the damage she takes in areas where her DR is active, not 2.6x.
  
  
• Increased curves on lateral & diagonal movement while in Travel Form
  
  
  • She now acts and reacts slightly quicker when moving diagonally.
  
  
• Increased stopping friction when pulling back & losing momentum in Travel Form
  
  
  • Yagorath now can come to a full stop in Travel Form.

• Acceleration
  
  
  • Removed initial wait time for momentum, added a staggered speed curve
    
    
    • Yagorath will go from 0 to 100% speed over .5s, then reach 200% after another .5s
    
    
  • Increased max speed from 1270 ➡️ 1300
    
  • Reduced cooldown from 14s ➡️ 12s
  
  
• Hardening
  
  
  • Now places an Acid pool on the ground across Talents instead of just on Corrosive Acid
    
  • Acid Pool provides allies with 50% of bonus DR provided by Hardening
    
    
    • Base value of 12.5%, with the card End of an Era adding an additional 2.5|2.5%
  
  
• Piercing Quills
  
  
  • Damage increased from 170 direct / 50 area ➡️ 200/75
    
  • Removed charges requirement, ability now has a universal .5s cooldown

• Devour
  
  
  • Increased pull speed from 350 ➡️ 390

• Ancient Wounds
  
  
  • Reduced scaling from 2|2% ➡️ 1.5|1.5%
  
  
• Deadly Predator
  
  
  • Reduced scaling from 8|8% ➡️ 7|7%
  
  
• Dreadful Compact
  
  
  • Reduced scaling from .3|.3s ➡️ .25|.25s
  
  
• Futile Efforts
  
  
  • Reworked to “Increase the radius of Piercing Quills' detonation by 10|10%”

Yagorath has continued to be one of the most polarizing designs and disruptors of game flow, and the team has taken many swings at trying to balance her viability with her enjoyment to play and fight against. The goal of these changes is simple on paper but difficult to deliver: shift Yagorath to feel more engrained with traditional Paladins gameplay. This starts with how she feels to play, from her movement to her vulnerabilities. We’ve smoothed her movement in Travel Form to make her feel more responsive and fun to roll around as, while also slightly reducing the penalty for hitting her Crit Spots. We say Crit Spots because we’ve also brought back a discarded idea from her original design: multiple Crit Spots! Now, if you shoot Yagorath in her tail, it will also count as a Critical hit and deal double damage. This was done in order to allow more counterplay between her and opponents, as well as reinforce her fantasy of being a boss-style character by asking players to do something unique to counter her.

Meanwhile, Acceleration has acted as a major crutch when it comes to her ability to poke and relocate from backlines to her team, so with the base improvements to her movement we wanted to shift this ability to a more skillful tool. On activation, she now reaches her base speed over .5s before rolling out at the abilities' enhanced pace. This is intended to allow players to punish her for using it as an escape in moments where she's not careful, so we’ve given it small buff to make it feel better to use frequently and to get from spawn to objective. Hardening also leans into the idea of Yagorath playing around her team more, with the Acid Pool she gains on Corrosive Acid now base kit with an added new effect: providing DR to teammates standing within her pool. Yagorath’s design lacks a lot of tools for her to maintain point presence, but now she has some tricks to help her team survive by her side and make a play for control.

Piercing Quills and Caustic Acid have always had a strained relationship, both being limited resource abilities that players tend to spam. We wanted to help make Quills in particular feel a bit more distinct, so we’re removing all the resource capping and instead giving it a simple cooldown between shots. This allows players to focus on Acid management better as well as makes for a more engaging tool to use at range, especially if done to help hold an objective or finish off an escaping kill in off-lanes. These changes also meant we had to adjust various Yagorath cards slightly down to account for the increased uptime, including a rework to Futile Efforts. Devour is also seeing a speed buff on how quickly she pulls people close to compensate for the changes to her survivability. All in all, these adjustments to her kit are meant to make her feel more fun to play as well as more manageable to fight against.

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed an issue where some Talents were not available to all players in Truly Talented.
  
• Fixed an issue where some skins were improperly ordered due to mismatching exclusivity and rarity settings.
  
  
  • This involved raising the rarity of various skins to match their Limited, Unlimited, or quality statuses.
  
  
• Updated various descriptions of skins and weapons to more accurately convey their acquisition methods.
  
• Fixed an issue where certain Trials were resetting progress even after completion.
  
  
  • This issue’s persistence is due to the sheer number of Trials challenges; however, we have done a more in-depth pass this time to resolve this.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where the Classic Maps and Siege Alpha maps did not have proper loading screens.
  
• Updated KOTH to have a unique loading tip description instead of sharing one with Onslaught.
  
• Fixed an issue where XP screens within the EOML didn’t hide the backlash when hovered.
  
• Fixed an issue where “Next Reward” was not shown in the EOML for newer Event Passes.
  
• Fixed an issue where Rejuvenate was not increasing the Healing of Pets or Illusions.