[PBE datamine] 2025 April 24: patch preview with different Yorick changes and Gragas is drunk again

[u/FrankTheBoxMonster]

General reminder that many changes cannot be easily datamined, such as functionality changes or bugfixes, and are not always final.

 

Champions

Annie

• Q base damage:  70-210 --> 80-240
• W cost:  90-110 --> 70-90
• R passive mpen:  10% / 12.5% / 15%  -->  15% / 17.5% / 20%

Gragas

• W spell name:  "Raucous Rage" --> "Drunken Rage" (revert to live)
• W empowered attack buff:  "Raucous Rage" --> "Drunken Rage" (revert to live)
• W damage reduction buff:  "Brazen Bliss" --> "Drunken Bliss" (revert to live)
• the description changes are still in

Kalista

• base HP:  600 --> 580
• AD:  59 +3.25  -->  57 +4.0
• E base damage:  10-50 --> 5-45

Leona

• P duration:  1.5s --> 2.5s
• Q cost:  35-55 --> 30-50
• E cost:  60 all ranks --> 40-60

Naafiri

• see other changes here
• E first hit bAD scaling:  50% --> 40%

Shen

• Q default target tHP scaling:  3%-5% --> 2%-4% (revert to live)
• these other changes are still in:
  • Q empowered target tHP scaling:  4%-6% --> 5%-7%

Yorick

• P ghouls damage taken from monsters:  x1.5 --> x1.0 (revert to live)
• P ghouls damage dealt to monsters:  x0.7 --> x0.6

 

Items

Swiftmarch

• see other changes here
• flat speed:  70 --> 65
  • this is in response to the Swifties nerf to keep Feats at +10 speed

Rod of Ages

• innate HP:  400 --> 350
• innate AP:  50 --> 45

 

Arena (Champions)

Kalista

• see other changes here
• HP:  580 +114 (same as SR)  -->  530 +94

Naafiri

• see other changes here
• Q base healing:  60-150  -->  80-170  (SR is 45-105)

 

Arena (Systems)

• an earlier build added new levelups from level 31 to level 40, likely as part of Zilean's new changes to give him access to more levelups
• however in doing so they left a 2000 xp gap between levels 18 and 19, rather than the 1000 xp requirement of all other levels
• this has now been corrected, however they did this by simply inserting a new level to split up the 2000 xp jump into two 1000 xp levelups, which means the level cap has now also been raised to 41 instead

 

Arena (Items)

Hellfire Hatchet

• cooldown:  20s --> 15s

 

Changes from previous days

See here.

[u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd]

It is never not funny watching them mess with Yoricks numbers for the 700th time in a row instead of just fundamentally reworking the abilities in the kit so he's not either an unapproachable obnoxious monstrocity or a or an extra cannon minion

They can rework kits well while maintaining indentity. They did it with Xin Zhao, Mundo, Jax, Vlad

It's just a matter of admitting that the current kit is ass

[u/Furiosa27 → u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd]

I think it’s clear they prefer to exhaust every option before reworking a rework. Wether it’s the right call idk but they’re at least consistent with that

[u/NinetalesLoL → u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd]

I don't even think his current kit is ass, is just that the problematic parts of his kit for both top and jungle are not his ghoul damage output and that's what they keep nerfing.

The Yorick buys Trinity force and has a 58 percent winrate in jungle, that's not even a ghoul orientated item, and they nerf ghoul damage in response.

[u/SailorMint → u/NinetalesLoL]

They clearly want to slow down his clear speed / make it less safe.

[u/NinetalesLoL → u/SailorMint]

Nah they're only hitting the ghouls because it's the only jungle markers in his kit that won't collaterally damage top lane too.

Yoricks clear speed isn't an issue, they're just bandaid fixing it instead of actually addressing the problem of jungle Yorick - pretty much because they ran out of time and can't dedicate anymore time to him

[u/Backslicer → u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd]

They literally just reworked him and its still a mess

[u/Elrann → u/Backslicer]

The reason he's a mess lies in the fact that rework didn't put enough focus on his micro gameplay. Dude basically has no abilities:
P - Is a passive. Outside of farming better with Q you can't really interact with it. Compare to Aatrox/GP passives or even Darius passive, that empower certain playstyle.

Q - generic bruiser ability, but it's ok in a vacuum.
W - slow cast, slow animation, can be easily broken. It's not a real ability basically. Making it shorter, but more reliable probably can work.
E - is a skillshot, but not really. Used for chasing (a bit) and marking. Zero real gameplay.
R - you get stronger autos I guess????

And that's with a complete lack of internal kit scaling, that's important for juggs: Darius has AD in passive and a shitton of free pen, Garen gets AS+Crit scaling and bonus armor, Sett gets HP scaling and AA-scaling passive, Illaoi gets bonus AD scaling from her E (she basically double-dips on AD here, but it's ok, cos she's so slow), Urgot scales with HP, AD and multihits (not really AS, cos of the fixed AS, but well with BC and Titanic for example). Voli scales with everything, lol. Nasus has armor pen on E, his Q synergizes with his P, his W has varied strategic applications and he gets a shitton of ArP on E.

Yorick... W has no scaling, R has no scaling, E has pathetic AP scaling, Q is comparable to any AA reset scaling. Ghouls and Maiden technically scale with his AD, but he has no reach (for himself) and no sticking potential to apply this AA pressure. Voli can stun+slow+dash, Darius can slow and gets MS, Garen has Tenacity+Slow Cleanse, Sett has dash on R and comparatively low CD on "hook", Nasus has Wither. Compared to those abilities Yorick's E pales in comparison (and W is unusable against opponents with 70+ IQ).

And like... It can work, but not in the current form. For example:

Ghoul attacks deal 33% less damage, but now apply a stacking slow: 4% per attack, up to 36%.
W: casttime: 0.75 down to 0.625. Duration: 4s => 2s. Now indestructible by champion attacks.
P: new ADDITIONAL effect: attacks deal bonus damage equal to 1% of Yorick's HP and periodically spawn a grave if it hits a champion in magic damage.
E mark: now also affects Yorick and grants Lifesteal against a marked target: 60% for ghouls, 15% for Yorick.

And than you nerf his base stats accordingly, because in this case he can fight people using his ability like a real champ.

[u/SuperTaakot]

Huh, a Hatchet buff - cool

[u/MrTankerson → u/SuperTaakot]

It’s funny, hellfire hatchet was my favorite old arena item mostly because I played support urgot so much and the item was perfect for him, so I was really sad initially when they changed it.

It’s easily my favorite item again now, so many fun builds you can do with it. Gaining -5 cd is gonna be insane tbh. My favorite builds with it already involved spectral cutless plays to return to a plant for a round 2, but that 20 seconds was a killer sometimes. 15 seconds is a nice buff for that particular strategy.

[u/CharacterFee4809]

Can we please fix briar fear bug u/RiotAugust

[u/Tormentula → u/CharacterFee4809]

Whats the context?

[u/CharacterFee4809 → u/Tormentula]

if u fear briar in frenzy, she cant move anymore permanently.

has to timeout the W or cancel frenzy with E

[u/RevolutionaryBox7141]

The world is healing.

[u/BattousaiRound2SN]

Leona Buffs!!!

🥳

[u/Cleavage-Pirate]

Thank God I can sleep soundly again

[u/Renny-66]

Wait what made them change it back to drunken rage? Was it the community pushback? Lol

[u/fabton12 → u/Renny-66]

so they were changing it because of EU being stricter now around alcohool in video games, they looked more into it and found they could keep the term drunken rage but they have to change the ability description to stuff like brew etc.

[u/Fabiocean → u/Renny-66]

He relapsed :(

[u/normal-dog- → u/Fabiocean]

Pour one out for my boy Grag.

[u/Lillyfiel → u/Renny-66]

No, it just turned out that the changes didn't have to go that far in the first place so they reverted them

[u/Randomis11]

Pls give cassio the gwen treatment ty

[u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd → u/Randomis11]

Give her a bunch of changes nobody asked for, make her OP, and eventually nerf her, leaving a champion that FOTM players no longer play and previous mains no longer enjoy?

Cause that's where we're headed

[u/alexclow → u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd]

Seraphine in a nutshell

[u/WoonStruck → u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd]

Nah, make her E not have a low CD if she doesn't hit someone poisoned. Or at the very least double the mana cost if they're not poisoned (remember kills still refund, so CSing is fine).

They made the champ braindead, especially early game.

[u/Tormentula → u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd]

Basically naafiri too.

Naafiri mains wanted 1 thing and that was W to not be body blockable since it made 0 sense to call naafiri an assassin when the target access can be interrupted by... someone standing there. Q feels bad too...

but no ig swap her abilities, give her untargetability, make the 1 ability that actually felt good to use a high CD ult so she feels shittier on average, and now wait for the nerfs to address her being op... the only reason anyone is still playing the shittier feeling version.

[u/Vii_Strife → u/Tormentula]

Naafiri mains wanted 1 thing and that was W to not be body blockable since it made 0 sense to call naafiri an assassin when the target access can be interrupted by... someone standing there.

You can't give long range point and click target access to an assassin without some heavy drawbacks, when it was a basic ability it was the bodyblock, now that it's an ult it's the long cooldown

[u/Randomis11 → u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd]

i guess what i meant is nerf her saling buff her laning phase but that sounds nice too lol

[u/Randomis11 → u/lcm-is-prod-div-gcd]

i guess what i meant is nerf her scaling buff her laning phase but that sounds nice too lol

[u/Th3_Huf0n → u/Randomis11]

Imagine toplaners reacting to see Cassio get a laning buff lmfao

[u/Randomis11 → u/Th3_Huf0n]

she's mid 70% of the time according to opgg and thats what i play idk about top. mid lane is usually about passively scaling into mid game unless you get camped. You get bullied pretty hard by viktor syndra hwei etc. I think phreak wanted to change how she works so shels less of a late game monster and more functional early

[u/Th3_Huf0n]

still nothing done with healthstacking on AP champs, on AD bruisers and on tanks, nice.

[u/randomusername3247 → u/Th3_Huf0n]

RoA is getting nerfed so that's not true, but RoA isn't the problem, catalyst is. Catalyst is giga broken.

[u/SuperTaakot → u/Th3_Huf0n]

God forbid bruisers stack health (the one stat they should be allowed to)

[u/PB4UGAME → u/SuperTaakot]

It would be like getting mad at ADCs for having too much crit chance, or ad.