Pretty small update coming to the PBE this time, we have some substantial adjustments to Ryze. We will also be looking at the new batch of Chroma Packs, these are yet to be in game but there are some shop images available, Garen Blitzcrank and Pool Party Leona will be getting 3 new recolours each.

Ryze Rework

Ryze has been reworked slightly with his abilities getting updated with new icons, new particles and some changes to their mechanics, the changes are as follows:

Passive (Arcane Master): This change isn't too substantial in terms of gameplay changes but instead of getting pasive Cooldown Reduction(CDR) from the passive you now gain stacks per spell cast, once you get 5 stacks Ryze gains a mana shield and goes into "Hyper Cooldown Mode" where spell cooldowns are reduced by the cooldown of overload. Other than that no much else has changed, Ryze still scales with maximum mana. It's said that the reasoning behind this change was to give Ryze an up time, down time mechanic, like Mega Gnar for example. In this case when you enter the Hyper Cooldown Mode you become really strong in lane. I personally find this change pretty interesting, Ryze was always known as a powerful lane bully and saw a brief period of Pick/Ban popularity in competitive play recently.

Q (Overload): This is the biggest change in my opinion. Overload is now a skillshot ability, still boasting the damage that allowed him to dominate the lane, Ryze has seen a combat range increase with this change while also allowing the opponent to minise the damage taken from Ryze without having to outrange or just out farm him to gain an advantage in trades. This is the kicker for me with the new Ryze changes, for so long he was a lane bully that was difficult to trade with because all of his abilities were point and click, now Ryze will have to place his skillshots around minions in order to deal damage to his laning opponent. Ryze has recieved a range increase to balance the change.

W (Rune Prison): This ability is pretty much the same excluding the new particles, one of Ryze's key features in team fights was his ability to lock down mobile champions. Rune Prison also deals decent damage when cast on an opponent making it difficult to counter. I like that this hasn't changes, I always picked Ryze into hight mobility lanes because of his ability to stop my opponent aggressing or retreating in a way I didn't want them to.

E (Spell Flux): Not so much a change than a buff, Spell Flux has always been a wild card in Ryze's kit with it being a super useful Magic Resist shredder and its bouncing mechanic. However it was always so random and difficult to utilise well consistently, so now Riot has tweaked it to be a little bit more consistent in where it bounces to.

R (Desperate Power): This hasn't been changed pretty much at all, they have added some CDR to it however (10% per level). Other than that it remains the same.

Overall I am pretty excited to try out Ryze more, his abilities look really cool now and his changes add a more mechanical play style, which I prefer to play, rather than a point and click laning phase. It will be interesting to see just how much these changes really affect his play style, if the window of opportunity style passive is good or bad or if his laning counters and champs he counters change.

New Chroma Packs

Finally on the list of changes we have more Chroma packs coming into the PBE, last update we saw Lucian and Dragonfist Lee Sin getting some awesome recolours, now we have Garen, Blitzcrank and Pool Party Leona.

Pool Party Leona

(Image Courtesy of Surrender@20)

Pool Party Leona is getting a chroma pack in this update. I personally would have preferred it to be her normal skin, but if I had to pick a skin that wasn't standard this would have been it, the recolours suit her nicely and overall I would say this is a pretty cool addition.

Blitzcrank

(Image Courtesy of Surrender@20)

Seeing Blitz get a chroma pack wasn't something I had thought would happen straight away but at the same time I am not suprised that he is getting one this early.

Garen

(Image Courtesy of Surrender@20)

The final chroma pack being released in this update is Garen, not a massive fan of the pallete used in this pack, the left and middle images look a little but washed out.

Overall I am really liking the chroma packs, with Garen being the only one I can find issues with, and they're more just personal taste issues, Riot really seems to have the right idea on how to approach how they're releasing the packs and who they are releasing them for. One thing I will say is that I don't know how I feel about each pack being 590RP along with potentially needing to buy the skin as well as the pack. That could add up pretty quickly.

So that's all for this update, really excited with the new Ryze and pretty happy with the chroma packs. Stay tuned for the next one. Thanks for reading.