General Updates
Ska’Drin Celebration Event Pass
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! NOTE: Their final look is not set in stone on PTS, with 2D cosmetics and certain skins actively in progress.
Merry Mayhem Returns!
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
- Limited “Happy Holidays!” Title
Crowd Control, Debuff, and Status Conveyance
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- Older instances of phrases that mean the same as an Effect have been replaced by that Effect (e.g “reduces Movement Speed” have been replaced with Slows) for clarity.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!
Mode Updates
Limited Time Modes
New
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!
Updated
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.
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
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!
Balance
General
Damage Types
- 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.
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…
Items
Returning Item: Blast Shields
- Reduce your damage taken from Area of Effect attacks by 6|6%.
- Costs 300|300 Credits, replaces Arcane Warding.
Returning Item: Haven
- 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.
Hoard
- Gain 10 ➡️ 15 Credits every 15|-5s
- 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|2000 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.
Nimble
- 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!
Cards
- 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
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.
Champions
Barik
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
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!
Betty La Bomba
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!
Bomb King
Talent
- Accelerant
- Now also deals 200% bonus damage to Shields
Evie
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.
Grover
Cards
- Chopper
- Increased scaling from 50|50 to 80|80
Io
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.
Kasumi
Weapon
- Yokai Doll
- Adjusted targetter to be more precise, allowing aim control in scenarios with multiple targets.
- 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.”
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. 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!
Khan
Talents
- Lian’s Shield
- Reworked to “Your Bulwark now regenerates even while active. If your Bulwark breaks from full charge, allies around you gain 35% Movement Speed and 400-Health Shields for 4s.”
Lian's Shield has always had a bit of a tough time on a character like Khan, whose goal is to move between Bulwark and aggressive options frequently as well as Bulwark being quite weak in the late game unless heavily built into, so we're shifting the identity of this Talent to instead be a holdout tool where Khan tries to keep it up to escape or bait the enemy team into breaking it, providing a buff to his allies!
Lex
Weapon
- Magnums
- Reduced camera shake while firing by 65%
Talents
- Heroism
- Reworked to “Gain Crowd Control Immunity during Combat Slide”.
Cards
- Wicked Don’t Rest
- Reworked to “Heal for 60|60 after using Combat Slide”.
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. With this change, we did want to close the frustration loop Wicked Don't Rest causes for good, so the card is being swapped to a heal on use of Combat Slide, giving him a way to spec back into survivability.
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.
Mal’Damba
Cards
- Pungent Gourd
- Increased scaling from 5|5 ➡️ 8|8%
Nyx
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.
Omen
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.”
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.
Rei
Passive
Abilities
- Spirit Link
- Increased time to break from 2.25s ➡️ 3s
Talents
- Focus
- Reduced Link duration from 4s ➡️ 3s.
- Reduced cooldown from 7s ➡️ 6s
Cards
- Arcane Maelstrom
- Increased scaling from 4|4% to 7|7%
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 shifted the potency of effects towards the more unique Jump Height effect. This still leaves her feeling about as fast as prior if players utilize our buffs to Nimble, Threat and Subject, and other sources of Movement Speed.
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%.”
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.
Sha Lin
Talents
- Sand Trap
- Removed cooldown penalty
- No longer Cripples
We want to make a longer visit to Sha Lin's kit and current balance state in the future, but as a part of our CC pass we wanted to tackle this specific pain point for many players fighting Sha Lin and open the door to future changes to the most daring, famous, and handsome adventurer in the Realm.
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.
Talents
- NEW: Volatile Rift
- Dealing damage charges Convergence 50% faster.
- 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 4s, up to 15|15%. 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 Ultimate playstyle and opening up some new tricks for her when it comes to Convergence plays.
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
- Protection
- Reduced Shield amount from 550 ➡️ 500
Cards
- Induction
- Reworked to “Reduce Protection CD by 0.4|0.4s after using Recharge”
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
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 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!
Champions
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.
More from Paladins
Other announcements
Wekono's Wake Hotfix 1Event Pass 2024 chest is now available for purchase! · Fixed an issue where translations for new content were not available in several languages. · Fixed an issue where some font files had corrupted and did not display correct values.Wekono's Wake Update NotesGreetings 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…Wekono's Wake Post-PTS AdjustmentsGreetings, 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 o…