For our final Event Pass of this year, we've commissioned community artists for our 2D cosmetics as well as created 5 recolors in the Event Pass that bring some Limited Skins forward with new looks!

• Makilla Makoa (Volcanic)
  
• Shaman Grohk (Chieftan)
  
• Exhortation Fernando (Ultimatum)
  
• Infernal Lord Drogoz (Abyssal Lord)
  
• Coastline Cony Rei (Beach Bunny)

In addition to these skins, there is another recolor of Volcanic Makoa available for Direct Purchase, called Shikoa! In total, there are 6 new skins players can get their hands on right away as a present from us to the community!
As for the 2D cosmetics, there are 6 in total you can earn as part of Ska'drin celebration from 4 different artists from the community!
The Ska’Drin aren’t the only ones celebrating! Merry Mayhem returns as a Special questline for the holidays, allowing players to earn some exclusive rewards as well as Chests and Gold. Here’s the order of things you’ll be asked to complete and the rewards:

• Play 1 Match
  • “Happy Holidays!” Title
• Capture 2 Siege Objectives
  • 750 Gold
• Deal 50,000 Damage in A Match
  • 750 Gold
• Play 3 Arcade Matches
  • 1500 Gold
• Heal for 30,000 Health in A Match
  • 2500 Gold
• Win 2 Matches
  • 50 Crystals
• Earn 20,000 Credits
  • Flair & Style Chest
• Earn 100 Eliminations
  • Golden Cache
• Play 25 Matches
  • Festive Presents Chest
• [REDACTED]
  • Limited “has saved Realm-mas!” Title

Across the game, we’ve added highlights and callouts to various effects and unified how we describe them across all Champions. There are a few new examples as well as changes to existing effects:

• Zhin’s new version of Yomi (spoilers) uses the word Ignite instead of Burn. This is to indicate that the flames he attaches to a target deal no damage & instead act as a damage amp for him.
  
• Displacement effects have been broken up into the following subcategories: Knockback, Knockup, Push, Pull, and Lift. Knock and Push effects are currently countered by Sentinel and Pull and Lift effects by Unbound.
  
• Older instances of phrases that mean the same as an Effect have been replaced by that Effect (e.g “reduces Movement Speed” have been replaced with Slows) for clarity.
  

Crowd Control is a very core part of the Paladins experience, from fueling part of the ability loop to a major frustration point as the tension of between the amount and severity of CC effects evolved over time. This is the first step in a series of changes we hope to make to communicate Crowd Control more clearly, eventually with the goal of updating and improving Crowd Control to be both more robust and less frustrating. This starts with calling out similar effects that players can reliably expect to behave the same and also highlighting specific effects that can act differently based on context. Generic highlights have been given to widespread effects, with certain more niche effects having unique tags. (e.g. Rei’s Spirit Link)

Our vision moving forward is a more dynamic way to interact with these effects beyond the Items currently used to counter them, like Ignite and Burn having interplay where teams can combine them for unique effects, or Allies can stack things like Linked and other defensive buffs to shutdown less-coordinated pushes. Stay tuned for more on this front in Year 8!

• When looking for a match, casual Siege 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.

After testing what this would look like within Onslaught and Arcade, we are now expanding this out to casual Siege to see if it aids issues around party matchmaking and helps prevent unfair matches!

TDM Roulette

• Draft your team carefully in this Gun Game-inspired Throne TDM! Everytime you die, randomly swap to another Champion on your team and quickly adapt to overcome your opponents!

Truly Talented
Champions

• Added Atlas to the Champion Pool.
  • Flashback Fissure: Activating Second Chance leaves behind an unstable fissure that explodes after 3s, dealing 1,000 damage.
• Removed Yagorath from the Champion Pool.

Game Rules

• Starting Credits decreased from 500 ➡️ 400
  
• Credit earn rate from the Objective has been reduced from 4 ➡️ 2

Map List

• Replaced certain maps with their Classic variations
  • Stone Keep
    
  • Warder’s Gate
    
  • Timber Mill
• Removed certain maps released or reworked after Season 2
  • Frozen Guard
    
  • Dawnforge

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where certain Talents were not available for players to select, softlocking them.

Truly Talented is receiving yet another sandbox update, this time focused on shifting the LTM from simply about Talents to a different speed of play. As the notes may suggest, we’re pushing this mode to fulfill what many players felt when they initially played it: nostalgia for a prior version of Paladins. Instead of being about emulating exactly what Season 2 was like, Truly Talented provides a heightened version of gameplay that hits that same feeling of basic kits with deeper customization. Initial Credits as well as earn rate are reduced to lean into power plays and thoughtful Item purchasing, and Yagroath has been removed for Atlas to have the roster match the era we’re aiming for. Maps have also been adjusted to reflect this direction while keeping ones players love!

• Refactored various weapons & abilities to properly use the correct damage type between Direct & Area.
  
• Added new callouts on various effects to note when they swap damage type due to Talent selection.
  • Example: Ash’s Slug Shot Talent now informs players it swaps her weapon from Area to Direct damage.
  
• Moved a select number of abilities from one type to another to accommodate new consistency guidelines.
  • Example: Azaan’s Conviction now is classified as Area, Lian’s Valor is now classified as Direct. Our guideline on abilities that hit multiple targets is whether it deals the damage in a single fire (e.g. dashes, Piercing) or if it’s firing multiple smaller attacks for each person (e.g. Valor, shotguns)

When we originally removed Blast Shields, we stated consistency in the Direct & Area systems as our biggest concern. Behind the scenes, we had a lot of abilities that were not categorized at all, under the wrong umbrella, or hybrid damage types on one ability that made readability difficult for the average player. This system was left behind as well, with newer Champions either ignoring or breaking previous conventions due to irrelevancy to the end user. Revisiting this system allowed us to re-conceptualize the divide and do a pass over all the abilities to create new guidelines to make things more predictable and learnable for players as well as easier for us as developers to upkeep. Obviously, these changes mean very little unless…

• Reduce your damage taken from Area of Effect attacks by 6|6%.
  
• Costs 300|300 Credits, replaces Arcane Warding.

• Reduce your damage taken from Direct attacks by 6|6%.
  
• Costs 300|300 Credits, replaces Armor Plating.

The legendary pair return! Haven and Blast Shields both are being brought back and will be able to interact with the expanded Item Store for the first time, allowing for a mix of classic and brand-new builds. Our goal with the reintroduction of the Direct/Area damage system is to offer Champions and loadouts that have lost relevancy since its removal to shine in certain compositions once more (e.g. blasters, damage type swap Talents), as well as reduce the overall amount of effective DR closer to what players were used to in S2/early S3. We expect this change to initially make the overall TTK a bit quicker, but as players adapt and learn it should level out closer to current feels.

• Gain 5|5 ➡️ 7|7 Credits on getting an Elimination.
  
• Now transforms at Level 3 to instead provide 10% Movement, Mount, Cooldown, and Ultimate Charge speed.
  
• Cost increased from 150|300|600 ➡️ 200|400|1750 Credits.

Since its release in 7.1, Hoard has been topic of debate amongst the community. Late game value vs. early game efficiency in a hectic match of Paladins was the original design goal and we felt it hit the mark for the experiment - at first. Once the dust settled the item became much more binary, only really seeing play in the most greedy of builds. This was partially due to the fact that the Item had no payoff, the trade-off of increasing your economy for a dead item slot became too much for most players and Hoard soon fell off the radar for most Champions. With all that said, we’ve given Hoard a bit of an overhaul. Now at max level - which you’ll notice is much more expensive than anything else in the store - Hoard replaces its economy effect with a powerful 10% strength version of all other yellow Items. While the original design heavily valued the dead item slot as part of the trade off, this new version places value in Hoard as a late game item. A gamble to see if you can prolong the game long enough to really ramp up your stats vs other more traditional end-game builds. It still technically has the same trade-off as before, but now rewards making the commitment for sticking through the game as a hoarder instead of punishing you.

• Increased scaling from 7|14|21% to 10|20|30%

In the spirit of popular community requests and leaning into our past, Nimble is also seeing its value brought back up to where it was in the early days of Paladins, but without a price increase. Enjoy the slightly faster pace of play!

• Various cards that were equivalent to raw damage amplification have been reworked.
  • Betty La Bomba’s Ride the Rocket
    
  • Kasumi’s Essence Drain and Deadly Traps
    
  • Nyx’s Center of Combat
    
  • Omen’s More More More and Void Choke
• Select Champions are receiving focused shifts between their base kit and Cards to rebalance where their strengths come from.
  • Saati
    
  • Rei

Over the years, the design philosophy behind Cards has shifted and evolved alongside the system itself. After our recent efforts on modernize and standardizing other systems has proven fruitful, we’ve been turning our eyes towards more Card reworks and adjustments to slowly shorten the gap between various Champion’s loadouts and improve the overall interest in Cards for both new and experienced players. These changes are first steps into future adjustments spurred by the pain points modern Champions have had with damage amplification Cards as well as Card designs and scaling that didn’t hold up to older Champion options. Over the next several updates, we’ll continue to take a look at specific types of Cards or specific Champions that could see their options improved to fall into our new standards and expectations across the roster.

Talents

• Forgefire
  • Increased single turret damage from 350 ➡️ 400
    
  • Increased double turret, single target damage from 450 ➡️ 666
    
  • Increased range from 22 ➡️ 30 units
    
  • Now is Barik’s Level 8 Talent
• Fortify
  • Now is Barik’s Level 1 Talent

Barik has been struggling slightly the latter half of this year, mainly as the meta shifts around him yet he sits static with some key QoL issues. While this is not as comprehensive as we’d like to give him, it’s a very popular community request to swap these Talent unlocks, and it will push him into a better spot for us to assess the next areas we can tighten up his gameplay loop. Forgefire hasn’t been feeling quite as impactful as we’d like, so we’re also giving it some targeted buffs to up the threat level of his mini–Flame Turrets to add some risk if they are ignored. We’ll continue to keep an eye on his performance into the new year!

Ultimate

• Long Live the Queen
  • Now provides CC Immunity during windup
    
  • Once Betty dismounts, the Rockets speed increases from 80 units/s ➡️ 100 units/s

Cards

• Ride the Rocket
  • Reworked to “Increase the projectile speed of Cluster Bomb by 6|6%”

Betty’s Ultimate has often felt underwhelming compared to her other bombastic peer, and her flight struggles compared to someone like Drogoz due to her windup being so vulnerable. We’ve decided to give her immunity the second she hits her Ultimate so she can try and get the Rocket out before taking lethal damage, as well as having it fly faster after she jumps off to encourage her to use it a bit different than the King himself. Ride the Rocket was also one of the stranger damage amplification cards, which we have reworked to give a beloved older effect to this newer blaster. She also will benefit quite a bit from the return of Haven & Blast Shields if teams do not Itemize around her, so watch out for the Queen!

Talent

• Accelerant
  • Now also deals 200% bonus damage to Shields

Talents

• Snow Globe
  • Decreases Slow on Ice Storm from 60% ➡️ 30%

Cards

• Cold Acclimation
  • Reworked to “While within your Ice Storm, Heal for 32|32 every 1s and gain 10|10% Movement Speed. The Movement Speed lingers for 3s after leaving Ice Storm.”

Snow Globe had some oppressive matchups when fighting Evie - constantly getting bombarded by her powerful CC led to incredibly lopsided matches. We’ve reduced the strength of the Slow on these mini-versions to allow more opportunity for escape. On another Ultimate note - Cold Acclimation as a Card quite literally never saw play, so we’ve taken a big swing at it and made something entirely new. Cold Acclimation facilitates aggressive play within your Ultimate and gives Evie that extra little bit of survivability to outlast a big team fight.

Cards

• Chopper
  • Increased scaling from 50|50 to 100|100

Ultimate

• Begone
  • No longer explodes on walls, instead will continue along wall after dropping targets on collision for a few seconds.

It was incredibly frustrating as Io to launch your Ultimate and have it instantly detonate on errant collision. Begone frustration! Now Io’s Ultimate travels along the surface it hits, leading to sneaky shots that can send people flying and generally more successful Io Ultimates.

Weapon

• Yokai Doll
  • Adjusted targetter to be more precise, allowing aim control in scenarios with multiple targets.
    
  • Decreased effective range from 100 ➡️ 80 units
    
  • Increased max range from 100 ➡️ 120 units
    
  • Reduced overall cone size from 6 ➡️ 1
    • Against most Characters, Kasumi will be required to aim within 1 unit of their body. She’ll maintain a level of forgiveness in close quarters, but at range will ask more to land blows.

Talents

• Haunted Ground
  • Decreased cooldown after activation from 8s ➡️ 6s.

Cards

• Deadly Traps
  • Reworked to “Increase the duration of Spirit Trap's Crowd Control effects by {0.2|0.2}s.”
• Essence Drain
  • Reworked to “Increase your Movement Speed by {6|6}% for 3s after using Savage Tear.”

Kasumi has been in a much stronger spot since our last set of changes, but there are still lingering issues on both sides of her duels. We're continuing our work on Yokai Doll's behavior, now adjusting the cone at multiple levels to function a bit closer to a hitscan weapon. Kasumi will now have to be much more precise (within a Cassie arrow of her target) as well as have more control on who she is aiming at when enemies are bunched together. This in conjunction with the addition of damage falloff will preserve a bit of her special targeting while not feeling too out of place in a shooter-centric environment. We've also adjusted a few of her Cards to no longer affect the damage output of her abilities but still offer helpful buffs, including rolling old functionality into Haunted Ground! Overall, we think these changes will make Kasumi more consistent and enjoyable but we'll continue to look at feedback on her!

Weapon

• Magnums
  • Reduced camera shake while firing by 65%

Talents

• Heroism
  • Reworked to “Gain Crowd Control Immunity during Combat Slide”.
• Death Hastens
  • Adjusted camera shake to mirror base Magnum changes

Lex has been underperforming ever since Heroism was shifted in the Banners Fall Update to increase the cooldown substantially and Wicked Don't Rest was nerfed. Instead of retreading older ground, we decided to simplify and streamline this playstyle. Heroism now is back to being the CC-immune, on demand parry pick but with no resistance to damage. This also allows us to bring the cooldown back to normal values.

We also finally got to dig deeper into how Lex's recoil and camera works, reducing the amount of shake by 65%. We've left some in for feels and balance implications, but Magnums should now perform similarly to other fast rate of fire weapons in this department. Death Hastens also was finetuned to have recoil that matches stronger handguns like Androxus and Saati, while still having lower camera shake overall.

Cards

• Pungent Gourd
  • Increased scaling from 5|5 ➡️ 8|8%

Cards

• Center of Combat
  • Reworked to “Royal Presence’s Poison now lingers on enemies for 0.8|0.8s”

Back with a vengeance, we’ve given Nyx players the ability to facilitate a Poisonn game plan with this card after removing the functionality at base. Its a cheeky card that lets you sneak in that extra % of Health that could turn a fight in your favor.

Weapon

• Aphotic Reaver
  • Reduced number of shots to enter Anteumbra Mode from 2 ➡️ 1

Cards

• Everlasting Power
  • Reworked to “Whenever you mark an unmarked enemy with Ominous Brand, gain 8|8% Movement Speed for 3s.”
• More, More, More!
  • Reworked to “While at least 2 enemies are marked by Ominous Brand, heal for 60|60 every 1s.”
• Void Choke
  • Reworked to “Increase the lift height of Gravity Vice by 30|30%.”

Omen has been performing relatively well, and so we’ve taken the opportunity to shake up his kit and remove some frustration points when fighting against him. We’ve reduced the ramp time on his weapon to smooth out his game flow, but reworked some of his more problematic cards into mark-focused functionalities. These reworks encourage mark management in a way Omen never really had to do before, rewarding him with powerful effects if the uptime is kept high. This has long been a part of his kit players could ignore, and we’re excited to give Omen more varied playstyles.

Passive

• NEW: Mana Drain
  • Hitting enemies with Sigil reduce the cooldown of your next Chain Heal by .4s. This effect stacks.
  Abilities
  • Spirit Link
    • Increased time to break from 2.25s ➡️ 3s
  • Envelop
    • Removed damage done while close to enemies.
      
    • Increased Jump Height bonus from 50% ➡️ 75%
  Talents
  • Focus
    • Reduced Link duration from 4s ➡️ 3s.
      
    • Reduced cooldown from 7s ➡️ 6s
  Cards
  • Arcane Maelstrom
    • Increased scaling from 4|4% to 7|7%
  • Arcane Manipulation
    • Increased scaling from .3|.3s to .8|.8s
  • Desperate Defense
    • Increased scaling from 50|50 to 80|80
  • Enveloping Magic
    • Reworded & shifted to “Decrease the maximum damage taken per instance during Envelop to 255|-20”.
  • Magic in the Blood
    • Reworked to “Increase your Healing received by {5|5}% while at or below 50% Health”.
  • Midnight Stroll
    • Reduced scaling from 4|4 ➡️ 3|3
      • Threat and Subject
        • Increased scaling from 8|8% to 10|10%

      Rei has been performing well in Double Support compositions and certain Solo Support scenarios, however there are some pain points that are felt on both sides of her kit we want to address now that she's in that spot. A combination of several cards having lackluster scaling alongside the dominance of Magic in the Blood has left her choices when buildcrafting a bit more limiting than we'd like. To remedy this, we're moving current Magic in the Blood into base as a new Passive and empowering a wide variety of her Cards to be more enticing options.

      In conjunction with more power going to...all her Envelop cards, we're taking another look at the ability and trying to better balance out the value provided at base with investing in those Cards. We've removed the small damage done near an Enveloped target to add a bit more clarity for opponents, and added potency to the more unique Jump Height effect.

      Finally, Spirit Link and Focus have had a strained relationship where the link operates differently in more ways than listed. To clean up this dilemma, we're buffing the base Link to be more lenient on breaking and shifting Focus where the total duration is equal to the Link's break timer at base. Basically, Focus now breaks whenever the earliest opportunity for Spirit Link at base to break is. We've also reduced to cooldown penalty to accommodate this power shift, as we still want this playstyle to be potent in the right hands while allowing Restraint a lot more room for play.

      Saati
      Abilities
      • Ricochet
        • Reduced number of shots from 4 ➡️ 1
          
        • Increased explosion damage from 550 ➡️ 750
          
        • Decreased explosion radius from 35 ➡️ 25 units
          • The description currently in game that says 10 units is incorrect.
      Talents
      • Spare Change
        • Shifted effect to “Ricochet now costs 2 Pips and earning any Elimination grants you 2 Pips.”
      Cards
      • Costly Physics
        • Reworked to “Increase the damage radius of Ricochet’s explosion by 8|8%.”
      • Steel Coin Purse
        • Increased scaling from 3|3% for 2.5s to 4|4% for 3s.
      • Paper Design
        • Increased scaling from 4|4 ➡️ 8|8

      Saati has also begun to enter a spot across levels we're pleased with, however there is still one community pain point we'd like to address: Ricochet. The identity of a trickshot conflicted heavily with its spamable nature and lack of thought that had to go into positioning and use, so we've flipped the design a bit on its head. It still requires an initial shot to freeze it in the air and hit a trickshot, but then the next shot will immediately detonate it into an explosion. We've adjusted this to feel more impactful and give reason for Saati to quickly throw a coin up & shoot it for some massive Area Damage. We've also updated a lot of her Cards to accommodate this change as well as Spare Change getting a buff to make it still feel impactful with this version of the coin.

      Seris
      Passive
      • Soul Collector
        • Integrated Rend Soul’s healing and the Talent Soul Collector into a unified passive in base.
          
        • Each Soul Orb charge you detonate Heals you for 12% of your maximum Health, as well as increases your maximum Health and weapon damage by 1.5% until you die. Buff effects stack up to 16 times.
          
        • Soul Collector charges now reset whenever a round transitions
      Talents
      • NEW: Resuscitate
        • Increase your Soul Collector Health and Weapon DMG bonus to 2% per charge.
          
        • Replaces Soul Collector
      Cards
      • Bane
        • Adjusted description to accurately describe its effect.
          • Every Soul Orb charge you detonate increases your Movement Speed by 1|1% for 5s, up to 16|16%. Detonating a charge refreshes the timer.

      Seris has seen a lot of changes this year, and with this set we intend to finally bring her design forward into 2025 and beyond. Soul Collector has been the predominant way to play her, adding a minigame to her loop that most players enjoy more than anything else. So, we're bringing that into her core and looking to rebalance her around a basekit version that requires a bit more investment but equal payoff. With the Talent slot empty, we're taking a lesson from our work on Grover and still keeping Seris with a proper Damage Talent, now augmenting her Passive much like her sister has with Exterminate.

      Finally, we've got a design fix to Bane that makes its effect clearer and preps us for future Card adjustments once we've seen how this initial shakeup plays out. Seris is a very popular Champion and performs well in average matches, but has struggled at the high end. These changes should help her there by allowing Forsake & Internal Torment more room, but we'll be keeping a close eye to ensure she doesn't end up descending the Realm into darkness.

      Torvald
      General
      • Health
        • Decreased base Health from 3000 ➡️ 2800
          
        • Increased base Shield from 2500 ➡️ 2700
      Abilties
      • Recharge
        • Increased Shields provided from 2500 ➡️ 2700
      • Protection
        • Reduced Shield amount from 550 ➡️ 500
      Cards
      • Induction
        • Reworked to “Reduce Protection CD by 0.4|0.4s after using Recharge”
      • Infusion
        • Reworked to “Heals for 30|30 every 0.5s while channeling Nullify”

      Grandpa is on the loose again, crushing it in both high and low skill lobbies and generally being a nuisance. We’re shifting around his overall bulk to make him more susceptible to Wrecker, and reducing the effectiveness of Protection to alleviate the steam rolling a pocketed Champion can do. Finally we’re toying around with Induction and Infusion - two very unpopular cards - to breathe some new life into drafting a Torvald Loadout.

      Willo
      Talents
      • Nightshade
        • Now also refund 25% of the cooldown on hit
      • Scorn
        • Now also states “Secondary Seedlings now deal 1500 damage over 2s to any deployable shield hit.”

      After bringing down Blastflower, we want to give WIllo a bit more options across her Talents and loadouts to still feel rewarding no matter which playstyle you're looking for. Nightshade now will fuel itself a bit better, encouraging using it in burst combos and to shutdown plays more frequently, while Scorn is taking some inspiration from her Scorched Earth past and will give Shield busting capabilities back to her.

      Ying
      Cards
      • Shuffle
        • Increased scaling from 10|10% ➡️ 20|20%
      Zhin
      Talents
      • Guillotine
        • Now refunds 20% Ult Charge if used as a Killing Blow.
      • Yomi
        • Reworked to “Whirl now Ignites enemies for 3s. Your Inferno Blade deals 20% bonus damage to targets who are Burning or Ignited.”

      Yomi has long been Zhin’s most dominant option and a reoccurring meme of overly simplistic Talent designs. While basic Talents do have a place, Yomi offered so much value with no investment or change in play from the player. So, we’ve reworked it to instead offer a brand-new way to play with Whirl, turning it into a powerful combo starter that even synergizes if your team knows you are selecting it. This is something quite new for Paladins in how it functions so we’d like to give an example: If your ally Fernando is actively fighting someone with his Flame Lance, his Burn will allow your Inferno Blade to gain this damage buff! If you don’t draft into this synergy, the Talent is still strong with your own Whirl but to fully invest in the fantasy you should coordinate with allies. Meanwhile, Guillotine has lost a lot of its identity ever since we took away its faster regeneration rate. Considering it’s all about securing kills, we’ve added an additional effect where you are refunded some cost if you finish them and survive!

      Bug Fixes
      General
      Cosmetics
      • Fixed an issue where Defragged Inara wasn’t using the proper weapon death FX.
        • We’ve also granted Salt Io access to these death effects!
      • Fixed an issue where Vanquisher’s Lance had constant loop & overly loud audio while firing.
      Champions
      Caspian
      • Fixed an unintended issue where It's Got Some Heft would apply its bonus damage om the first target hit.
      Drogoz
      • Updated W.Y.R.M Jets description to properly convey how it augments Booster.
      Grover
      • Wisps of Sylvanus now properly provides a Movement Speed increase to both Grover and his allies.
      Maps
      Dawnforge
      • Fixed an issue where Dawnforge would not play mode-specific music, only ambient audio.
      Known Issues
      • The new skins added this update are using the original skins icons. This will be fixed in a subsequent update.
        
      • Trials is still showing and rewarding the previous set of challenges' Title. This will be fixed in a subsequent update & players who earn past this point will be granted the new Title.
        
      • Coastline Cony Rei has remnants of the original skin's grooves on her legs. This will be fixed in a subsequent update.
      
      

Greetings Champions! Ahead of Wednesday’s release of the Ska’drin Celebration Update, we wanted to sit down and talk about some of the feedback we received during the recent PTS cycle and what we’ve adjusted based on the testing you all took part in! Let’s hop right in:

• Cost at Level 3 reduced from 2000 ➡️ 1750
  
• Passive earn amount reduced from 15 ➡️ 10

The ideas we’re exploring with this update to Hoard seemed to be something a majority of PTS players were intrigued by, but the balance state wasn’t in a place where the value of the Item would be worth the wait. To help ease this, we have brought down the final tier price to be a bit earlier in the match at the cost of the passive earn buff we were going to do. This is to incentivize a very conscious playstyle with Hoard: you’re behind on Items compared to your foes but with aggressive play will be rewarded. This type of asymmetrical Item design is a brand new idea and one we will be watching quite closely to see if it has a place in Paladins!

• Nothing new…yet

We’ve heard loud and clear that people want QoL buffs for our beloved dwarf! He’s been slowly slipping from his staple safe meta status and his painpoints are becoming more prevalent with age, so we plan to take a look at the various Cards and other buff areas suggested to us in Discord and across socials. However, this update was already quite heavy on balance and with our time before the holidays, we wanted to focus on improvements to existing PTS changes. We will come back early next year with him at the top of our list!

• Chopper scaling increased from 80 ➡️ 100

We know, we know. This Card sees near nonexistent play and wouldn’t be on most player’s radar for a buff. However, we’ve been making it a slow and steady goal to revisit unimpactful Cards across the game and give them a bit more oomph. This one was an old nerf that in the modern game makes little sense to preserve and perhaps can be an interesting filler in a few loadouts.

• Improved Begone collision changes to restore floor grind tech

For those worried we’d be taking away a very niche yet beloved aspect of Begone, no worries! After PTS we went back into the changes we were making and adjusted the threshold that her Ultimate would break to allow her to floor grind once more. For those out of the loop, Begone has a unique interaction when aimed directly at the ground, where its speed is significantly slower and it travels less distance. This is something we slot into the Vine Tech category of “original unintentional, but now adopted into design” so enjoy it! Just know Begone will always self-detonate after 4s.

• Yokai Doll now has damage falloff, starting at 80 units linear until 120 units at 40% DMG
  
• Reworked Essence Drain to instead provide 6|6 Movement Speed for 3s after Savage Tear

We’ve accelerated some of our work on Kasumi’ Yokai Doll based on continued feedback around her weapon. We want to directly address the common point around making her weapon a hitscan first: A large amount of how Kasumi functions is intrinsically tied to her targetter (e.g. Savage Tear and Bitter Betrayal cannot function without it) and the work to reconfigure her to move that tech elsewhere isn’t practical or even necessary for what most players actually desire (fair aiming & consistent conveyance of her threat levels). So, that takes us to the addition of damage falloff to Kasumi’s kit. This change is designed to bring her even more in line with other Flanks with similar threat ranges and allow her some more poke at the cost of reduced effective range. Combined with the targetter adjustments we’ve made on her, this will be the most precise Kasumi has ever been asked to be. On top of that, we heard feedback around Curse and DR feeling too oppressive when able to be stacked so easily, so Essence Drain has been shifted over to Movement Speed to allow a bit more mobility in her customization.

• Reverted changes to Lian's Shield

This concept simply missed the mark on how Khan currently plays and what players feel he needs to be viable off of Storm of Bullets. Similar to previous PTS reverts in the past few updates (e.g. VII), we’re gonna take some additional time to iterate on changes to his Talents that better match what players want to see on him.

• Reverted changes to Wicked Don’t Rest

With the removal of DR and cooldown penalty on Heroism, this change felt a bit too harsh and impacted many more playstyles than we intended with the alteration. Lex is someone we’d like to revisit next year after we see the changes to Magnum’s recoil and screen shake in Live for a bit, mainly as he has lacked a healthy variety of Talent selection no matter which is predominant in a given period while also being one of the weaker Flanks in the current meta.

• Reverted Envelop Movement Speed nerf

Historically, we’ve always been very wary of Envelop buffs as the ability can be quite potent when used in the best case as well as provides a lot of effects through Spirit Link. However, this nerf in particular felt unnecessary after watching PTS and hearing the feels issues it caused on the character. We’ll still be watching Rei closely to ensure that the Card pass she has received doesn’t shift too much power into Envelop overall.

• Reverted Steady Predictions nerf

Hitting the Ricochet explosion proved a bit harder than we expected for most players on PTS, so this nerf to Ult generation feels less necessary than we anticipated. It’s worth calling out the way this card interacts with the explosion is it procs for every enemy within the blast, so the newer Cards will synergize well with this and the frequent Wallbang playstyle will be alive and well, just with a bit more skill required.

• Replaced Volatile Rift with a new Talent, Resuscitate
  • "Increase your Soul Collector Health and Weapon DMG bonus to 2% per charge."
• Buffed Bane from 4s ➡️ 5s, can now stack 16 times.

At various points throughout the year, multiple corners of the community have described our recent balance style as “tons of cooking, but sometimes things get burnt”. In this case, we could tell aspects of Seris came in burnt onto PTS. Basekitting Soul Collector was a step too far to some, and Volatile Rift as a concept simply was too much power into an Ultimate talent (the opposite of the problem we normally have with those designs), as well as a catalyst for a long discussion on Discord and socials about basekitting Talents and the effects it has had over the years.

After talking amongst ourselves as well as weighing all the critiques and feedback, we had both a solution for this instance and a goal moving forward. We often have leaned on basekitting Talents for a few reasons, from not wanting to nerf/remove playstyles that players really enjoy but trivialize choice in customization (Soul Collector, Aegis, Adrenaline Junkie, etc.) or taking particularly underwhelming gameplay loops and providing them with more options (Hell or High Water, Life Link, etc.). Seris has had potentially more basekitted Talents than any other Champion, a problem that stems from a meeting of those two painpoints. She often finds herself either reliant on 1 Talent over all others or requiring shifts into base to make up for aspects of her design that are limiting in the modern game (i.e. channeled healing).

We’re still going forward with our basekitting of Soul Collector, with a very different perspective on basekitting Talents as well as renewed goals for her moving forward. While we could attempt to buff or design even more Talents to rival it, Seris has had 3 different Talent reworks this year alone taking a stab at that exact issue. Meanwhile, Soul Collector not only remained the best (though Forsake has rivaled it in niche scenarios) but also the most fun pick for Seris every time we reference surveys. At base, the character’s loop just lacks that level of engagement due to her very passive style of heal and escape tools, so we stand by this being the better move for her into the future. However, we also are instead giving Seris a Talent that once again mirrors Furia, with Resuscitate being her version of a Passive Talent ala Exterminate. This will restore Soul Collector to its strongest form by augmenting her % per stack back to current Live values while also allowing 16 stacks.

That said, we want to move away from basekitting Talent unless there is a clear design issue that it resolves better than alternative solutions. Recently, we simply removed Rampant Blooming from Grover for this exact reason. We explored all options (including basekit) but deemed it unnecessary due to both the playstyle it would encourage at base as well as overtuned Healing output. We love that the community is so engaged not only with the surface level “X Champion is getting stronger” but are concerned about concepts like kit bloat and technical debt. It's something we plan to continue to work on with you all!

• Reverted Sand Trap nerf

While we have still seen a lot of feedback of this Talent being too frustrating to fight against, this was not the time to take a swing at it as Sha Lin is underperforming by most metrics and players utilizing this Talent are fighting an uphill battle more often than not. We want to take a more holistic look at Sha Lin in the future as our previous Dev Notes commented on, so expect an update on his status in the future!

• Buffed Recharge from 2500 ➡️ 2700 to match Base Shield shift

Torvald has been one of if not the most dominant off-tank Frontline for a long while now statistically, even when his pickrate fluctuates or Champions like Terminus and Yagorath rival him in some situations. That said, our goals were not to make him feel worse to play but to lean him further into Itemization and customization. So, Recharge is being adjusted to still provide his full Shield back to allow those smooth recoveries while preserving our want to make him more susceptible to Wrecker. Seriously, buy Wrecker against him. Please?

• Buffed Yomi scaling from 15% ➡️ 20%
  
• Now shows Critical Hit UI when active

This Talent is us experimenting early with ideas we have for 2025, similar to Hoard, but we heard players concerned its bonus was a little too weak for how situational it could be and the investment of spending your movement to engage. We’ve given it a slight bump to change some breakpoints into Zhin’s favor as well as indicate to the user when the bonus is active. One last reminder: With Haven & Blast Shields coming back, Zhin has a very mixed amount of damage output. Buying either one will weaken about half of this combo (Haven for the two weaker swings, Blast for the Whirl and heavy swing) so Zhin players will want to keep that in mind when deciding their targets.

And that's all! There are some additional bug fixes that we've made as well as some minor known issues headed into update day, but we'll make sure to communicate those to you all as we work to end off the year best we can! Thanks for reading and your support! 💚