Welcome Soul Brawlers!
It’s the last patch of Soul Brawl and the Choncc Dome, and we’ve turned to lighter balance changes, two heavier reworks (Piltover, Shifting Sands), and a new Region Portal replacing Lavender Sea!
Let’s get into it!
As a reminder, the Soul Brawl mode, the Choncc Dome Event, and Soul Fighter themed cosmetics are live from July 19th (afternoon PT) to August 15th (afternoon PT). Read more about the game mode, event, and cosmetics here.
We’re shifting item distribution to prevent situations where you have a major item disparity (despite being up in gold) prior to Raptors. The change here ensures everyone in the lobby has more of their components earlier so it's easier to commit to a direction, and also makes Raptors less hectic (5 components is too much to think about in one turn).
With some of our lowest pick rates, Lavender Sea and Shifting Sands are being replaced completely and reworked respectively.
The Hall Of The Nine may lie in the eastern Freljord, below the Frostguard Citadel, but its location is that of a material gateway to unknown horrors… well, for us they are known, ‘cause they’re the Void. This new Region Portal grants players the same loot selected from a highly varied pool at the start of each stage.
Shifting Sands is shifting to grant all players Pandora’s Bench—which means the actual Pandora’s Bench Augment won’t be available on this Portal.
Large, like my love for T-Hex.
Bastion had its moment earlier in the set as a stall tactic for Rageblade stacking Kayle, but now neither of those are what they used to be. We’re giving a small amount of early resists to the lower levels of Bastion to nudge the trait into a playable state.
Noxus is extremely reliant on players activating it early to gain stacks, which eventually turns into snowballing the game. Starting Noxus late makes it difficult to play the comp. We're shifting some power away from the stacks and into the base so that it's easier to get started with Noxus. Stacking is still vital for the trait, but the ceiling is reduced so that the comp snowballs a little less obNoxusly.
Even with our substantial Rogue buffs in 13.14, Rogue struggles to seal the deal after diving into the backline like a seal into the lap of a polar bear. We’re both increasing their bleed damage AND targeting after diving to prevent further arctic simile use.
Making a choice between T-Hex and loot is a difficult one that often leads to regret when you feel you made the wrong choice, and shame for selling your beloved robo-dinosaur friend.
No one wants to recreate the Chicxulub disaster (the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs), even when selling T-Hex for parts is the right call, and when T-Hex is too powerful, the trait suffers from being too low risk. We’re adjusting the trait so you will keep your T-Hex power AND get a large set of loot upon cashing out (winning), and in doing so we’re preventing TFT’s Chicxulub disaster entirely—phew! We’ve had to make some adjustments to the loot tables and T-Hex power to accommodate this change, but in general, expect 20% of the cashout power to be in T-Hex and 80% in your big ol’ loot cashout!
Void is a terror in the early game, but falls off as the game goes on. We’re making the scaling smoother for the summons to ensure it’s neither too dominant early, nor too weak late.
We’re shipping some Quality of Life (QoL) buffs for Zaun. The mod categorization changes should make Zaun 2 less painful to play (No longer will you get Hextech Exoskeleton when you have Zeri+Jinx), and the mod removals should make the comp easier to play since you don't have to constantly replace your units.
Our change to Cassiopeia should be noticeable when she has high Attack Speed from things like Shurima’s Ascension, or if you are (for some reason) playing AS Cassiopeia.
Demacia 3 might be the worst opening board in the game. We’re giving some love to the core 1-costs (Kayle and Poppy) of the trio in hopes that they can live up to the Elite title.
Malzahar’s shield-busting utility and strong early game damage have made him something of a menace. We’re shipping a small nerf to him, mostly to compensate for the buffs to his friend (Swain), but also to account for an improvement in his targeting.
Kassadin has become the quiet powerhouse of the 2-costs, dishing out excess damage in addition to providing tankiness and utility. We’re happy with the tankiness and utility, but we see a damage nerf as unaVoidable.
With our nerf for Soraka’s healing in our mid-patch update for 13.14, we’re looking to continue down the road of reducing her healing while also opening up the potential for her as a viable supportive carry—emphasis on the carry part.
Teemo is REALLY weak until he reaches four stars, where he becomes swole teemo and blows up entire boards. We’re giving him some additional help across all star levels, but especially early.
Even though it is by a thin margin,Akshan still reigns as the strongest 3-cost. We’re trimming down on his AD in hopes that he can still be a viable carry, but maybe you’ll want to use your AD items on your Aphelios instead.
The only thing Jayce can reliably bring to a comp is Piltover, and a nice buff to your other Gunners. Unreliable carries like Jayce are often avoided because losing rounds due to missing a high cost ability is frustrating. With this quality of life change we’re increasing his reliability a lot, making him much better for holding items and adding ambient damage when he is used for his vital traits.
Rek’Sai is the definition of a thresholdy unit, where if she can get to a strong enough point (three stars with perfect items), she can take over a fight. We’re trying to make her a little more consistent to play at 1 and 2-stars so the path to her final form is less painful.
Kai’Sa can still find success in Challenger comps with Spear of Shojin, but without those stars aligning, she fails to make Icathian Rain more than a drizzle. With a Mana buff, we’re hoping she may still be usable without the Challenger/Spear of Shojin combo, but you’re still going to want Spear of Shojin on her.
Last patch we buffed Gwen and adjusted her AI to allow her to stick to her target more easily, but we did her wrong: sticking to her target meant she missed out on the AOE part of her spell. We’re updating her decision making again to improve her consistency.
Our Urgot adjustments increase his reliability as a carry via meaningful QoL improvements. The faster procs mean faster Mana generation (since his procs count as attacks) so we're slightly nerfing his Mana to compensate.
There is a lot of Ryze in this section, as we’re taking a very heavy balance pass on all 10 versions of him (Yes, Ryze is 10 different 5-costs in our game—wild). We’re generally flattening the power level across the different regions, but also making some regions like Bandle City and Shadow Isles more user friendly.
We’re adding an additional balance lever for On a Roll which suffered after our nerf to the max free rerolls the Augment provides in a round.
Risky Moves is almost always the right move. We’re rolling back some on the gold the Augment grants to make you question your risk/reward decision making.
A Cut Above is especially powerful with its ability to grant a full item AND kickstart your economy. We’re nerfing the consistency at which it does kickstart your econ, since accessing a small amount of gold early game can have a large impact on your cumulative interest!
Despite Sett being strong, his carry Augment, The Boss, is on the weaker side. Currently, the best use of this Augment is to use Sett as a tank and tempo to fast 9, but with these changes he will be able to go do sit-ups earlier in the fight, and then reenter the fray as a fully shredded carry ready to do even more shredding…of enemy carries. These buffs may look exceptionally strong—they are, but part of that reason is because we are nerfing Sett as a unit (see Tier 2).
We’re taking a large balance pass on our Crown Augments, with larger nerfs to both Noxus Crown and Shadow Isles, while making more power neutral adjustments to the rest of them to grant you more usable items for your crown comps. For our adjusted Crown Augments, you should feel good about slamming these items right away, as well as have a late game option to use the items. These aren’t necessarily buffs for the Augments, but they’ll definitely make them more intuitive and easy to use.
With our Morellonomicon change, expect it to be a viable item on Ashe or even Senna for the big AOE applications.
Bringing the bottom up and the top down for our Shimmerscale and Ornn Items. Of note is a considerable buff to our weakest Ornn item, Hullbreaker, which should now be more than viable, especially early game!
Our adjustments for Deathfire Grasp are aimed to shift the item away from blowing up an individual unit instantly to instead becoming a more consistent damage amplifier.
Small, like the chances of getting a three star 4-cost!
We’re focusing on adjusting our three star 4-costs here to ensure no one is significantly better/worse than the other. Three cost 4-stars should all be possible win conditions, but still not completely guaranteed.
Gwen is adjusted in the above Large changes section, but the changes here are specifically targeted at her three star balance. Additionally it’s worth mentioning that we significantly buffed Azir at three stars in addition to a smaller buff to his one star version in the large changes. Finally, Urgot is being buffed as well through the lockout cadence adjusted earlier, which will have a significant impact on his strength at three stars.
By adding a Magnetic Remover to our Augments that grant items, you can instantly slam those items and immediately benefit from the full power of the Prismatic Augment, without having to sell your slammed unit when you hit your desired carry. You’ll also be able to better optimize your carry’s items if they already have their slots filled—just pop that remover and slam away!