Full notes
Full Paladins® update
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Repeated intro
Greetings Champions, and welcome back to another series of Developer Insight blogs! In this series, we’ll explore various aspects of the October Update, including adjustments and additions to features and maps and several sandbox changes. To kick off this update, we wanted to sit down and chat about several of the new Talents coming when we release this patch and share our general philosophy for creating new playstyles in 2024. Without further ado, let’s dive right in!
What changed
- Maps
- Gameplay
- Balance
NOTE: All the values shown below are test values from Dev. The exact effects and numerical choices will change based on testing and feedback from players.
Azaan
Azaan as of late has been struggling - consistently in the bottom two of Frontlines - while our other Frontlines are performing quite well. To help him rise above again we’re giving him some general buffs, but we also wanted to take the opportunity to spice up his Persistence Talent. Persistence in of itself isn’t a bad Talent, it has a fairly healthy win rate with an above-average pick rate, but we felt it lacked the “oomph” that Talents can bring to a Champion and spice up their gameplay.
In essence, it behaves similarly to old Persistence, giving Azaan health sustain throughout the match, but it additionally now Cleanses him after he takes enough damage. This provides the Talent with more late-game power and lets Azaan play around the trigger to facilitate daring escapes or aggressive dives. It remains a solid selfish Talent, but we’re excited for everyone to try this change out and see the combos that can be done with your team when this Talent triggers!
Caspian
Never one to miss a party, but seemingly one to miss out on good Talents, Caspian has been struggling with his Talents as of late. All of his Talents have below-average or mediocre win rates, and all but Measured Cadence have horrendous pick rates - with It’s Got Some Heft even being a single digit! We wanted to give Caspian more variety in his playstyle, so we took two of his Talents back to the lab and concocted some more, let's say devious, abilities.
While Everywhere At Once has remained mainly the same, it has received some buffs to make it more utilitarian. We’ll let you think on what those possibilities could be as we go into It’s Got Some Heft, since its new form is the first iteration of its ability in Paladins. Choosing this Talent now gives Caspian flat bonus damage when backstabbing an opponent (triggering within a roughly 120-degree cone) with either of his weapons, while most importantly draining 2% of their Ultimate charge! This gives Caspian a really unique and powerful reward while flanking, potentially turning off key Ultimates in important team fights. We wanted to facilitate a play style for Caspian where he sticks to the shadows and steals what his opponents value most, leaning into his thief origins.
Grover
Our resident tree has had a tumultuous past few years, from the various Deep Roots iterations to Keywords and Rampant Blooming dominance. When looking at his current position in the meta (or lack thereof), we reflected back on his various tribulations in the sandbox to forge a new path forward for him. Alongside some healing buffs we’ll detail in PTS notes, Rampant Blooming is being retired and a new Talent emphasizing him as an anchor for his team.
Wisps of Sylvanus takes Blossom’s passive aura and imbues it with small Movement Speed and Crowd Control Reduction buffs that give his team a bit
Source
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