Greetings Champions, and welcome to Year 8 of Paladins! We wanted to take a moment before we dive into our first update of the year, Wekono's Wake, to talk about where we are and our direction moving forward. Over the course of Year 7, we focused our small team's efforts more and more on improving the systems and features that make Paladins a standout in the genre: an emphasis on customization through Items, Talents and Cards, updating and deepening Champion kits, and bringing together older concepts and new features to enrich our Realm.

Headed into 2025, we plan to continue these types of efforts while also aiming to shift to smaller, more frequent updates and hotfixes to further improve our ability to adapt development to player feedback while ensuring our team can stay nimble. This will be most evident in our shift in cosmetic additions and a larger effort towards the aforementioned customization and gameplay focus. Without further ado, let's dive into our first update of Year 8: Wekono's Wake!
Throughout the year, we want to test out various ideas we’ve had that are more drastic gameplay shifts than we usually release. These features are meant to be explorations of directions to take Paladins that could lead to new modes or enrichening existing experiences. The first of these we plan to tackle is Subclasses, a role within your class that provides a powerful effect to a specific aspect of your gameplay. You select these prior to selecting your Talent, and their effects stack with other customization options. We’ll be testing these in their own Siege queue for players to compare to normal Siege, as well as considering them for alternative modes like Arcade or Wave Defense. Here’s the list of Subclasses releasing this update:
Predator
On earning an Elimination, reduce the cooldown of your Movement ability by 40%. Imani, Saati, and Strix gain 20 of their resources.
Shock Trooper
While on the Objective, gain 10% Damage Reduction.
Triage
On earning an Elimination, drop a healing deployable at your current location.

Note: Octavia does not select a Subclass, instead opting for her own Commander options.

Duelist
Gain 10% Crowd Control resistance for 3s after dealing 1500 damage.
Rallyman
On earning an Elimination, regenerate involved allies ammo by 10%.
Skirmisher
Heal for 4% every second while on the Objective.
Fireteam Leader
After using your Q ability, provide allies within 50 units 30% Slow resistance and 20% Movement Speed for 2s.
Dug In
While on the Objective, gain 15% Crowd Control resistance.
Wanderer
You exit combat 1.5s faster and have 15% Movement Speed while out of combat.
Rabid
For every 2,000 damage you deal, gain 30% Reload Speed and 10% faster cooldowns for 3s.
Skulker
You exit combat 1.5s faster and your Cooldowns are 10% faster while out of combat.
Spotter
You can no longer apply Anti-Heal, but damaged enemies take 20% more Headshot damage for 1.5s.

Wekono has reawakened as her temple sees growth! This version of the map shares almost identical sightlines and pathing as the version most players are used to, which will remain in game as Serpent Beach (Classic). However, various aspects have been visually updated or adjusted to bring Serpent Beach into the modern era. Decorations have been added to adorn the walls with effigies to Wekono as well as her Champion, Mal'Damba. Sand is more prevalent, with walking trails connecting the temple structures and washing ashore the beaches. Vegetation has been updated to bring out the beach, with palm trees lining the skybox. Looking out into the sea will let players bask in the greatness of a new Serpent, whose body coils around the map to create archways. You'll also catch glimpses of Jaguar Falls and Frog Ilse outside the bounds of play!

In addition to the new vision of this classic, we've also restored details to Serpent Beach (Classic) to truly represent the version a majority of players experienced during the Open Beta. Enjoy the added flora and flames as wind gusts throughout the map!
We’ve slowly been working to improve various aspects of playing Paladins for the first time & to have a place to learn how the game works without frustration. The Newcomer queue is our latest addition to this process, a Siege queue that is available exclusively to accounts below Level 35. This provides those Champions starting out an option to play that gives them a space to discover their favorite characters and understand the game with lower pressure. This does not prevent them from queueing for normal Siege, it’s simply a choice we want to offer to allow people to learn at their own pace. The gameplay of the Newcomer queue is identical to casual Siege so it’s the perfect way to transition from new to dedicated!
We’ve added a few more settings to Custom Matches for those looking to play with a variety of LTM and Experimental features!

• Enable/Disable Subclasses
  
• Enable/Disable Beyond Store
  
• Override Loadout Card Level
  • This allows people to play Cards to the Max in Customs at any Card level!
• Talent Selection
  • This will allow players to use the Truly Talented selection in Customs. Note: Any Champion who is not in Truly Talented will use their normal Talents.

Welcome to Season 8 of Ranked! Our goals with this Season are to make systemic changes that make the mode more enjoyable to grind as well as easier for players who have historically shied away from the queue to join. It’s some of the largest adjustments to the system we’ve made in recent years, and we’re excited for players to get their hands on it and give us feedback! NOTE: Season 7 Loading Frames will be distributed in our next major update.

• Increased the number of Champions required from 18 ➡️ 24

• The base amount of Tier Points players can move has been increased from 11 ➡️ 15
  
• The maximum amount of points players can move has been increased from 16 ➡️ 23
  
• The maximum amount of points players can lose has been increased from 16 ➡️ 23
  
• The severity of which favored teams lose Tier Points on a loss is decreased by 33%.

• Serpent Beach (Classic) has the same frequency as Serpent Beach in Season 7.
  
• Serpent Beach will have higher frequency during Split 1.

We’ve heard a lot of complaints about the time spent in Ban Phase & its usage across skill levels, so we’re planning to implement a system that dynamically scales the amount of bans based on the skill of the lobby.

• Gold & below lobbies will have 2 bans per side
  
• Platinum will have 3 bans per side
  
• Diamond+ will have 4 bans per side

Our goal is to finetune this system to allow players to slowly learn the priorities of banning as they climb the ranks as well as giving lower skill players faster matches and more Champions to pick from to encourage them to give Ranked a fair shot!
We’ll continue to have expected rewards both for the Season and the Split, provided at the usual milestones.

• Play 100 Matches - Avatar
  
• Win 75 Matches - Subjugator Zhin, a recolor of Conqueror Zhin
  
• Place in a Split - Golden Cache
  
• Play 25 Matches in a Split - Avatar

In addition to the traditional rewards offered via Ranked, we’re now also offering new rewards in addition to what was done prior!

• Reach Masters in Season 8 Ranked to receive a Limited Skin Token
  • We’ve converted the Anniversary Store into the Limited Skin Vault and will be rotating skins in and out of the Vault occasionally so stay tuned!
• COMING SOON: Play 25 Games on a Class to receive their Class Chest
  • If you own all the contents of the Class Chest, you’ll instead receive 100 Crystals.

This update, the Event Pass we're offering has some changes to accommodate our focus on gameplay as well as simplify how we handle Flashbacks.

This pass will be 30 levels of exclusive Titles, currency, and for the first time ever multiple Diamond Troves and several other chests containing cosmetics from across the game. While there aren't many new contents, the value offered in this eclipses Flashback Passes and allows us to focus our time on other aspects of the game.

We did want to offer something new for the players who own almost everything or those looking for a chase, so at the final level of the pass you can earn Loci-Buster Ash, a recolor of Xeno-Buster that sees the fight taken to a more Arctic aesthetic.

• Onslaught removed from the rotation of modes.
  • Moving forward, whenever we swap which mode is featured outside Arcade, that mode will no longer be featured in Arcade.
    
  • Next update, we plan to swap Team Deathmatch and Onslaught so TDM will be featured as the standalone queue.

Jenos

• Illuminated Talent from Reality Warp added.

Maeve

• Swapped Artful Dodger for Street Justice.
  
• Increased execution threshold during Midnight from 40% ➡️ 75%

• Decreased the starting value from 30% ➡️ 25%

After watching our changes to Anti-Healing’s ramp speed from the latter half of Season 7, we saw the desired improvements in the late game distribution of healing. However, the effect on the early & middle game was a bit more heightened than we intended and led to some matches lacking proper pacing. To alleviate this, we’re shifting the starting value for Anti-Heal down a single interval to allow a bit more time in these earlier stages while still keeping the scaling fast.

• Decreased cost from 300/600/900 ➡️ 275/550/825

• Increased scaling from 30/60/90 ➡️ 50/100/150

• Decreased cost from 225/450/675 ➡️ 200/400/600

• Increased scaling from 15/30/45 ➡️ 20/40/60

• Reduce the duration or effectiveness of Crowd Control effects by {25|25}%.
  
• Replaces Unbound

• Increased cost from 200/400/600 ➡️ 225/450/675
  
• Reworked to “Gain a 200|200 Health Shield for 5s after an Elimination.”

• Increased cost from 275/550/825 ➡️ 300/600/900
  
• Increased scaling from 30/60/90 ➡️ 50/100/150

To kick off the Season, we’re bringing a whole host of Item changes with two goals in mind: making Items a more powerful part of our gameplay loop as well as merging together various eras of Items to curate the most diverse offering we could have. The headliner changes are those around Wrecker, Guardian, and Shields. Shields used to be a much more prevalent part of Paladins’ sandbox, with the health values higher and Wrecker more impactful than has been the past few Seasons (circa Season 3 onward). As part of Season 8, we’re returning closer to that style of defensive gameplay, with some new additions as well!

Wrecker is having its price increased slightly, but its scaling nearly doubled to make it the new standout item of the Offense category and a powerful counterplay to Shields. Guardian is also getting a minor bump to still allow it some room to either encourage a Wrecker purchase from your opponents or augment a Shield-heavy composition. Speaking of, Resilience is returning as the premiere CC counter Item! With that change, Sentinel has been adjusted to offer a bit more value on Shielding.

Alongside these larger changes, we’ve also finetuned the pricing of Blast Shields to accommodate its slightly more niche use and Bulldozer is being reverted to its S2 values to encourage its purchase when team composition leans heavy into Deployables.

On various Champions in the balance notes below, you’ll notice a callout to Shock damage. We’ve been working on various ways to expand the way Champions kits interact and ways for them to influence drafting beyond Items or Class. Shock is our first foray into these goals, with select Champions now having a VFX on targets they hit and Kinessa having a Talent that interacts with these jolts similar to Tribunal Upgrades on VII, but with no additional effect at base.

This is a limited implementation that is meant to allow players to test the effect and give feedback on if the direction is something worth expanding or moving away from. Paladins is already an Effect-heavy game on the CC side, but expanding our Effects into more unique damage types and applications could allow for more interesting nuance. As always, community feedback will be key!
Revolver

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1.3s ➡️ 1.2s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Siege Shield

• Increase from 4500 ➡️ 4750

Fortress Breaker

• Increase bonus from 2500 ➡️ 2750

Due to the changes to Wrecker, we'll be adjusting most base Shield abilities slightly upward to compensate for the early game pressure Wrecker may cause. Our goal with the Shielding changes are not to make Shields irrelevant, so we'll be watching closely to make sure the push and pull still remains both with and without Items.

Blunderbuss

• Increased accuracy from .8 ➡️ .85

Barricade

• Increase Shield amount from 4000 ➡️ 4500

Dome Shield

• Increase Shield amount from 10,000 ➡️ 14,000
  
• Increase duration from 6s ➡️ 8s

Accelerator Field

• Increased scaling from 10|10 ➡️ 12|12
  
• Duration increased from 4s ➡️ 5s

Bowling Ball

• Scaling increased from 150|150 ➡️ 175|175

Bunker

• Scaling increased from 200|200 ➡️ 250|250

Combat Repair

• Scaling increased from 90|90 ➡️ 100|100

Double Time

• Scaling increased from 50|50 ➡️ 65|65

Failsafe

• Reworked to "Reset the Cooldown of Rocket Boots when you are at or below 40% Health" ICD 30|-3

Field Deploy

• Scaling increased from 20|20 ➡️ 50|50

Forged Alloy

• Scaling increased from 140|140 ➡️ 150|150

Healing Station

• Scaling increased from 25|25 ➡️ 50|50

Palisade

• Scaling increased from 0.4s|0.4s ➡️ 0.6|0.6s

Barik has slowly slipped from his comfortable spot as a safe Frontline pick to struggle to stay competitive against most compositions. After assessing where the weaknesses in his kit reside, we've decided to amp up his Cards to be more impactful and provide him stronger build options. We also are increasing Dome Shield's efficacy substantially to make it a larger threat to handle for opponents.

Cluster Grenade

• Now also detonates on contact with enemies or Shields
  
• Decreased secondary detonation timer from 3s ➡️ 2s
  
• Increased initial impact damage from 250 ➡️ 350

Net Shot

• Decreased cooldown from 10s ➡️ 8s

Recovery

• Decreased cooldown from 10s ➡️ 8s.
  
• Decreased channel time from 1.5s ➡️ 1.2s

Bulk Up

• Increased healing from 400 ➡️ 600

Ensnare

• Increased bonus damage from 20% ➡️ 25%

Concussion

• Scaling decreased from 1s ➡️ .6s

Giga Siphon

• Reworked to "Increase your Movement Speed by 8|8% for 3s after using Recovery."

Reconstruction

• Scaling decreased from 1s ➡️ .6s

Buck is a strong yet niche Flank, mostly owing to his heavy reliance on Cards and Talents to cover gaps in his base kit. While this design is enduring and we intend to preserve most aspects of it, it has also led to his popularity and play rate dropping over time. We're shifting some of his cooldown Cards effects slightly into base, giving him a bit more room to create builds that don't spend the majority of points on those options. We've also reverted Bulk Up back to one of its stronger states and partially given Ensnare some damage back to bring back the version of Buck that lives in many veterans memories.

Love & War

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from .8s ➡️ .7s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .3s ➡️ .4s

After the changes we made to Vatu's animation canceling, we wanted to go across the roster and ensure the cancel timings made sense for both animation and gameplay balance. As a part of that investigation, we found several cases where we could make animation canceling better and more fluid for several Champions. Any change you see like this one on Caspian is meant to make timings consistent across the game!

Crossbow

• Decreased reload time from 1.4s ➡️ 1.2s
  
• Decreased time for reload pre-load from 1s ➡️ .8s

Dodge Roll

• Reduced cooldown from 7s ➡️ 6s

Big Game

• Increased Max Health damage percentage from 8% ➡️ 9%

Drain Life

• Scaling increased from 75|75 ➡️ 85|85

Onslaught

• Scaling increased from 75|75 ➡️ 85|85

Intense Training

• Duration increased from 1.5s ➡️ 2s

Incitement

• Scaling reduced from 1s|1s ➡️ 0.8|0.8

Cassie has been in a similar spot to Buck, however her popularity remains higher despite lower efficacy. These changes are meant to buff the playstyles on Cassie that haven't had as much room for success, specifically ones that focus on her sustaining herself and surviving duels. Big Game is also getting a slight increase to also have its value on lower-health targets a bit more competitive with Exaction.

Officer’s Pistol

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from .85s ➡️ .8s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .35s ➡️ .4s

Movement Speed

• Increased from 340 ➡️ 350

Abyssal Reload

• Increased damage from 850 ➡️ 1000

Broadside

• Decreased postfire from 1.2s ➡️ 1s

Scuttle

• Now also reduces Abyssal Reload’s damage to 700

Reworked: Hurl

• Hits with Harpoon refund its Cooldown and generates 50% more Ultimate Charge. Harpoon no longer Slows.

Mortal Skewer

• Scaling increased from 70|70 ➡️ 80|80

Abyss Cannon

• Scaling increased from 1|1 ➡️ 2|2

Gun Deck

• No longer also increases maximum ammo
  
• Scaling increased from 3%|3% ➡️ 4%|4%

Plank Walker

• Scaling increased from 100|100 ➡️ 120|120

Haul on the Bowline

• Scaling increased from 7%|7% ➡️ 8%|8%
  
• Duration increased from 3s ➡️ 4s

Heave Away

• Scaling increased from 0.2|0.2 ➡️ 0.6|0.6

Dredge has been performing well for himself after the return of Blast Shields, however there have been some long-standing areas of tension between his design, his balance, and his fluidity. We want to make Dredge more dynamic to play and also more interesting to fight, as such we're adjusting his Talents to reduce some of the efficacy of Scuttle and turn Hurl into a skill shot reward as opposed to a spammable option. We also are buffing a variety of his Cards to give him alternative build choices and to play around with and potentially surprise opponents with new game plans.

Rocket Launcher

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1.4s ➡️1.2s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .6s

Salvo

• Decreased cooldown from 20s ➡️ 18s

Follow the Scent

• Reworked to “Generate 1|1 Ammo after using Fire Spit.”

Flame Lance

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1.8s ➡️ 1.5s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .7s

Chivalry

• Increase from 3500 ➡️ 4000

Cherish

• Now also heals Furia herself if in range
  
• Cards that affect Kindle Soul targets also work with Cherish

Light Forge

• Increased duration from 1.5s ➡️ 2.s

Lightning Staff

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 2.5s ➡️ 2s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .9s

Spirit’s Domain

• Healing now scales up to 30% increased healing if held on target.

Shock Pulse

• Now applies a Shock effect for 1.5s

Pyromania

• Removed decrease to Pyre Ball’s damage

Affinity

• Reduced ICD from 5s ➡️ 3s

Arcane Ice

• Increased scaling from 15|15 to 25|25

Elemental Barrier

• Reduced ICD from 5s ➡️ 3s

Crag

• Removed ICD

Light Bow

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1.2s ➡️ 1.1s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Star Splitter

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1.2s ➡️ 1.1s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Yokai Doll

• Reverted damage falloff from previous update
  
• Increase bonus damage on Deployables & deployed Shields from 250% ➡️ 400%

Heavy Repeater

• Decreased post-fire from .24s ➡️ .22s

Bulwark

• Increased Shield health from 4400 ➡️ 4500

Overpower

• Reduced pre-pull time from .5s ➡️ .25s

Storm of Bullets

• Reduced bonus firerate from 60% ➡️ 40%

Vortex Grip

• Now also Weakens the target to weapon attacks by 15% for 1.4s.

Shield Wall

• Increased scaling from 200|200 ➡️ 250|250

Khan has been a bit stagnant in his loadout useage with Storm of Bullets providing a significant DPS that outweighed his other benefits. To shift him away from this, we've partially put Storm of Bullets into base kit while reducing its effect to match the Live version. In essence, this is a buff to his other Talents. Vortex Grip is also seeing an additional change, allowing Khan to enable his team to burst a foe he grabs by Weakening them. We've also tightened up his Ultimate pull time to make it feel more consistent on both sides of the cast. P.S. We're keeping an eye on Lian's Shield and still considering directions to take it into the future

Bag Em & Tag Em

• Now applies a Shock to enemies instead of a Mark

Oppressor Mine

• Now classified as Shock damage

NEW: High Voltage

• Carbine Rifle now deals 25% increased damage against Shocked targets.
  
• Replaces Crystalline Battery.

Here we go again. After Crystalline Battery's niche, fun but ultimately ineffective time in Live, we took a step back and considered all the change we've made to her the past few years as well as success we have had with designs elsewhere. This new Talent, High Voltage, gives her a flexible Carbine playstyle that synergizes both with her kit but select Champions across the roster to gain a potent damage buff.

Magnums

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1s ➡️ .9s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Heirloom Rifle

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1.3s ➡️ 1.1s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .6s

Artful Dodger

• Activating Nine Lives interrupts and cleanses all Crowd Control effects. You have an additional midair jump.
  
• Replaces Street Justice

Shell Shield

• Increase from 4000 ➡️ 4500

Ancient Rage

• Reduced prefire from .15s ➡️ .05s
  
• Shifted mesh scaling to Leviathan
  
• Removed headshot damage protection

Half Shell

• Also provides 500 bonus Shield health

Leviathan

• Now also has Makoa grow by 50% and resets Shell Shield’s cooldown as well

Barrier Reef

• Increase trigger threshold from 900 ➡️ 1000

Sparkle

• No longer Self Slows while firing

Magic Shield

• Increase instant Shielding given to allies from 100 ➡️ 200
  
• Moji now will give a total of 600 Shielding to all allies in range
  
• Increase Shields given duration from 4s ➡️ 5s

Jubilation

• Increased maximum stack damage from 350 ➡️ 550 (800 ➡️ 1000)

Morning Breath

• Reworked to “Sparkle regenerates {scale=20|20}% Ammo spent when hitting an enemy."

Shimmering

• Increase duration from 4s ➡️ 5s

Abyssal Fortress

• Increase from 1500|3000|4500 to 2500|3750|5000

Unyielding Advance

• Increase scaling from 200|200 ➡️ 250|250

Potion Launcher

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1.1s ➡️ 1s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Healing Potion

• Increased healing from 1000 ➡️1200

Weightless

• Increased duration from 2.5s ➡️ 3s.
  
• Pip has an additional midair jump during the ability.

Mega Potion

• Healing bonus changed from 100% ➡️ flat 1000 bonus

Hellfire Gatling

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 3s ➡️ 2.75s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from 1s ➡️ 1.25s

Miniguns

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1.1s ➡️ 1s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Emitter

• Increase Shield health from 2000 ➡️ 2500

Heavy SMG

• Standardized reload timing across fire modes
  • Mag Dump’s reload time is decreased from 1.4s ➡️ 1.2s
• Reduced time for reload pre-load from .85s ➡️ .8s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .25s ➡️ .3s

Tribunal Upgrades

• Burst Mode transitioned to Shock damage

Passive

• NEW: Hazy Vision
  
• While Stealthed, Sha Lin has 20% increased Movement Speed.

Longbow

• No longer slows Sha Lin while charging
  
• Increased minimum damage from 30 ➡️ 100

NEW: Desert Shadow

• Eliminations enter you into Stealth for 2s. Shots from Stealth deal 200 increased damage.
  
• Replaces Desert Silence.

Sand Trap

• Removed 1s Cooldown penalty
  
• Reduced effective blast radius from 20 ➡️ 12

Poise

• Reworked to “While in Stealth, gain 40|40 increased Jump Height.”

Tactical Reload

• Reworked to “Increase your maximum Ammo by 2|2.”

Twilight Armor

• Reworked to “Increase your maximum health by 50|50.”

Talon Rifle

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 2s ➡️ 1.6s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .8s

Pistol

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1s ➡️ .9s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Veracharger

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1s ➡️ .9s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Combat Trance

• Reduced prefire from .2s ➡️ .09s

NEW: Borrowed Luck

• Combat Trance now resets your other abilities' cooldowns when activated.
  
• Replaces Predatory Instincts.

Health

• Increase base Health from 2800 ➡️ 3000
  
• Decreased base Shield from 2700 ➡️ 2500

Gauntlet

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1s ➡️ .9s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Nullify

• Now classified as Shock damage

Protection

• Increase duration from 4s ➡️ 5s
  
• Decrease cooldown from 9s ➡️ 8s

Recharge

• Increase from 2700 ➡️ 2750

Hyper Beam

• Torvald now goes CC immune during the windup animation

Cardio

• Now also increases Jump Height by 150% during Hustle

Shrapnel

• Now also deals an additional 150 damage

Light Machine Gun

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 2.6s ➡️ 2s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ 1s

Deflector Shield

• Increase health from 1200 ➡️ 1500

Sentinels

• Now classified as Shock damage

Suspect Everyone

• Removed Shield health bonus
  
• Removed ICD

Wand of Overgrowth

• Reduced time for reload pre-load from 1.3s ➡️ 1.2s
  
• Increased time for reload post-fire from .4s ➡️ .5s

Fauna

• Reworked to “Increase the Knockback you receive from Wand of Overgrowth by 40|40%”

Piercing Quills

• Uses Ammo instead of Cooldown, reloads every .5s.

Devour

• No longer refunds 30% energy if the target takes 1000 damage and is dropped due to collision
  
• No longer has Critical Hit spots on her Tail
  
• Modified how Yagorath checks for sight on targets to not allow her to Ultimate people through walls

Unnatural Persistence

• Reworked to "While in Hardening, receive 50% increased healing from others."
  • Out of Time considers this an effect of Hardening, reducing the effect to 25% but allows it to linger.

Sight Begets Strength

• Increase Shield health from 90 ➡️ 100
  
• Increase duration from 4s ➡️ 5s

Ephemeral

• Reworked to “Reduce the cooldown of Dimensional Link by .5|.5% for each hit with your weapon.”

• Fixed an issue where some Card decks were misnamed or poorly ordered after recent balance adjustments.

• Fixed various instances of effects not being highlighted in our recent update to Status Effect indication.

• Fixed an issue where Shikoa Makoa’s hook chain was not textured as intended. This skin has had its visual textures and colors updated slightly.
  
• Fixed an issue where Street Style: World Tour and Ska’drin Celebration skins had temporary or blurry Loading Art

• Fixed an issue where Fire Spit erroneously stated that its Weaken was to all attacks, it is only to weapon attacks.

• Fixed an issue where Blood Hex’s damage was not scaling down properly after targets began to lose health.
  • We’ve heard some player feedback that enjoyed this accidental change to Lillith. We’ll be investigating ways to allow her Hex to be a more aggressive option in her kit in a future update

Greetings, Champions! First off, we want to thank everyone who played or watched the PTS and gave us feedback on the upcoming Wekono's Wake update. It's been a wild rush to get to the start of Year 8 and hearing everyone's excitement and concerns gave us even more motivation to deliver it all to you all best we can. However, we have a set of adjustments and reversions we'd like to share ahead of the update's release next week, starting with Serpent Beach & Serpent Beach (Classic).

• Reverted baseability change to waterfall-side high ground near objective to prevent new, excessive sightlines
  
• Restored missing rock on Taskforce 2 payload path
  
• Restored baseability on rocks in the water to maintain parity to Serpent Beach Classic
  
• Updated several collision volumes to fix an issue with heavy walls.
  • The walls outside of the double door side of both spawn rooms.
    
  • The walls on the Jag Falls side of the map as you drop down from high ground moving towards the wood ramp on either side.
• Filled some visible seams outside of playable game space when looking through scaffolding on the Jag Falls side of map.
  
• Blocked off a baseable spot on the back of both spawn rooms that let players see into mid.
  
• Investigating collision around mid to prevent players from clipping their heads through it. This issue is also present in some areas on Serpent Beach (Classic).

As a part of these improvements and our dedication into ensuring Serpent Beach's refresh is the best it can be, Serpent Beach (Classic) will be the only version of the map within Ranked in Split 1. Serpent Beach in its new form will still be available in all other Siege queues!

• Updated several collision volumes to fix an issue with heavy walls.
  • The walls outside of the double door side of both spawn rooms.
    
  • The walls on the Jag Falls side of the map as you drop down from high ground moving towards the wood ramp either side.

We're continuing to look into other reports and potential improvement areas on the map, but these are what we are confident will be reflected in the version going live in Wekono's Wake. We also are planning in future hotfixes and updates to revisit the map as needed. Now, let's dive into balance!

• Removed reload speed cap changes at Level 3
  
• Decreased price from 225|450|675 ➡️ 200|400|600

This concept proved a bit too overwhelming in testing, so instead we want to make Deft Hands more enticing as an Item by dropping its price a bit to allow earlier purchasing in conjunction with other Items.

• Reverting to Live version

There was a lot of interesting discussion around Overhealing as a concept and we may find ways to revisit the design in the future, however the consensus has landed on current Rejuvenate being healthier and closer to the ideal solution. We still hold some concerns for Support Itemization but will take more time to gather feedback and try other paths to resolve the pain point.

• Reverting to close-to-Live version
  • Increase Shield on Elimination from 150 ➡️ 200
    
  • Increase price from 200|400|600 ➡️ 225|450|675

The core design of new Sentinel clashed too much with the heavy prevalence of CC within Paladins and even with adjustments would lead to cases where the enemy would be discouraged from engaging at all due to the potency of the Shield. We're reverting this Item but with a slight buff to compensate for the loss of CC interaction, and will watch how it performs in Wekono's Wake.

• Decreased buffed scaling from 60|120|180 ➡️ 50|100|150

The concerns raised around the Wrecker changes are valid and something we plan to continue to keep our eyes on (i.e. Paladins' TTK with and without Shields is part of what makes it unique, we don't want to introduce another "must buy" Item like Cauterize), we still feel the buffs it is receiving make sense at a reduced value. We will continue to watch how these changes shape Season 8's meta and will respond quickly if any issues arise.

Accelerator Field

• Increase scaling from 10|10 ➡️ 12|12

Field Deploy

• Increase buff to scaling to 50|50

Healing Station

• Increase buff to scaling to 50|50

Barik's Cards are already receiving a lot of love this update, but we heard some discussion of how we could push them further without disrupting the balance state. Specifically, his Cards that interact with his Deployables reinforce his identity and should provide proper reward for him investing his time into protecting them.

Abyssal Reload

• Increase the damage (non-Scuttle) from 850 ➡️ 1000

Hurl

• Now procs cooldown restore on hitting absorption effects like Terminus Siphon
  
• Restored removal of Slow

Hurl's rework has some pain points both on the user and receiver side we didn't intend as part of its new design, so we're being more forgiving on what it considers a valid hit as well as removing the Slow to match current Hurl. We've also looked back at previous Dredge balance states and are bumping his Abyssal Reload at base up more to encourage non-Scuttle players to still utilize it. Scuttle's damage will remain at 700, but we will revisit if this divide ends up being too vast.

Luminary

• Reverted nerf to healing values

We intend to take a better look at Jenos and his kit design in our next update. Luminary has a >85% pickrate at all levels of play and gives him the highest average healing of any Support the past few updates, so we expect to make some change on his Talent front to provide more variety and less reliance on Luminary. This will not involve basekitting the effects of the Talent, and instead will most likely take form as a base kit increase and a Talent rework in order to preserve his identity as the aggressive pocket or team trickle heal option.

• Reverted change to cone size this update
  
• Reverting damage falloff addition from previous patch
  
• Increasing bonus damage against Deployables and deployed Shields from 250% ➡️ 400%

Instead of adjusting Kasumi's cone once more, we've decided it makes more sense to revert her falloff changes from a previous patch while keeping the accurate cone size. This allows her to regain some lost range and consistency without loosening her need to aim. We also are buffing her passive damage increase to deployed structures to match the changes to Bulldozer and Wrecker.

Morning Breath

• Looking into making this Card restore X% amount of Sparkle on enemy hit instead of % chance, function will be near identical but more consistent.

This Card's general identity was pretty popular, especially among the Flank Moji contingent, however the way we implemented and designed it left it a bit less consistent than any of us would like. We're currently working to make it use a simpler method of resource management to improve the reliability of this Card. In the future, we still plan to make additional changes to refine the Support aspects of Moji as well as harken back to her original design.

Deflector Shield

• Increase health from 1200 ➡️ 1500

One basekit Shield almost went this update without a buff, however after watching Vivian's performance on PTS we felt she needed the bump up as well. With Suspect Everyone now focused on uptime, this buff is meant to simply provide more value to all the Shields she pops and give her a bit more room in buildcrafting if she doesn't need to bolster her Deflector up all the way.

Piercing Quills

• Reverted cooldown nerf
  
• Transitioned from using cooldown back to Ammo system.

Our intent with the change on PTS was to make it weaker into the new interaction it had with cooldown reduction, however after experimenting with ways to preserve the current firerate we decided to transition the ability back to using an Ammo system, but in a way that does not affect how players interact with the ability. In practice, Quills will feel exactly how they do in Live except they will no longer scale their cooldown with any reduction effects