Paladins News

For the special occasion of Street Style as a theme returning, we’re excited to offer 2 Event Passes this update!

The first is OG Street Style, a remake of the original Street Style Event including all the cosmetics earnable from it back in the day. Ying, Maeve, Skye, and Ash have joined back together for a reunion tour to celebrate their impact on the Realm!

The second is Street Style: World Tour, a brand new Event Pass featuring Tyra & Seris! Both Champions are getting a classic Street Style look, but also have recolors giving nods to more modern genres of music and influencers. Fashion is still at the heart of Street Style, so there’s plenty of 2D cosmetics to collect as well!



We’ve also added tech that allows you to preview rewards from the Event Pass in the menu, restoring the ability for people to see all the earnable content in one place. OG Street Style will run until late this year, and Street Style: World Tour will continue on into early 2025!

[h2]Arcade 2.0 & Mode Updates[/h2]
We wrote a Developer Insights blog detailing all of the changes coming to Arcade and Game Modes! To fit all the balance changes in these notes, we ask you read on those changes here: Arcade & Game Mode Adjustments
[h2]New VGS Option: Legacy (Controller)[/h2]
For a long time, players have requested a console/controller version of what PC KBM players have through the Legacy VGS: access to all the voice lines we used to utilize (and still record for most skins) on a controller. This never was an option, even back in VGS 1.0 as the sheer number of button inputs would be quite absurd and difficult to make intuitive. So that’s exactly what we’ve done! Legacy (Controller) will be available on both PC and Console for controller players to have access to a suite of lines comparable to Legacy on KBM. This is because in order to make it possible, we had to break some conventions and muscle memory for VGS on controller. It will take some learning, but power users should be able to find this version offers them more communication tools should they master it. A few lines (~3) are still missing due to redundancy’s sake and to prevent 5-string inputs. As one would say in this new VGS, [➡️, ➡️, ⬆️, ➡️] Good Luck!
[h2]Event Pass Experience[/h2]
With us continuing the 2 Event Pass system forward, we’re going to adjust how Event Pass XP works. Each level of an Event Pass will now require 1,000,000 XP, meaning that it’ll be quicker to work your way through the tiers than it has been the past several passes and be an easier amount of XP for you to keep track of as you complete Quests to earn the latest rewards. This applies to both passes available in Street Style: World Tour, so during this patch you can level each pass side by side at the same rate!
[h2]Account Level Experience[/h2]
Starting this update, Quests will award Account XP alongside Event Pass XP! This will allow those early in their Paladins journey to earn Gold from levels a bit quicker and start unlocking more of the roster by focusing on the Activities tab. This also will apply to the Daily Quest Completion Streak for those looking to optimize their path to Ranked!
[h2]3D Lobby Return[/h2]
After internal testing and adjustments, we’re bringing back the 3D home screen to Paladins! A small but often requested change, this will now allow players to see a glimpse of the Ska’Drin Isles while they await their next match or are looking at whichever skin is featured that week. Over time we’ll investigate bringing back this feature to other menus but for now enjoy the view!

[h2]Dawnforge[/h2]

• (Bugfix) Fixed portal near Forge preventing multiple players from using it in quick succession.
  
• (Design Change) Added a ramp in place of box jumping leading up to the upper floor from the Payload Path in the middle area of the map

[h2]Warder’s Gate[/h2]

• (Bugfix) Fixed portals near the center of map preventing multiple players from using it in quick succession.

[h2]Jaguar Falls[/h2]

• (Bugfix) Fixed weapon collisions around the trees on the Jaguar side of the maps that prevented weapon shots from passing through the empty spaces between branches.

[h2]General[/h2]
[h3]Aim Assist[/h3]

• Reduced maximum general magnetism by 20%.
  
• Reduced Gyro aim assist sensitivity by 20%.
  
• Added general magnetism to the following Champions:
  • Ash
    
  • Bomb King
    
  • Cassie
    
  • Dredge
    
  • Drogoz
    
  • Evie
    
  • Inara
    
  • Maeve
    
  • Makoa
    
  • Mal’Damba
    
  • Pip
    
  • Seris
    
  • Sha Lin
    
  • Vatu
    
  • Vora
    
  • Willo
• Reduced bullet magnetism by 25% on the following Champions:
  • Koga
    
  • Lex
    
  • Talus
    
  • Tyra
    
  • Viktor
    
  • Vivian

In our continued investigation of Aim Assist, we’ve discovered a number of inconsistencies and problems with our current implementation. Back in the Dark Tides update (1.6), we implemented a new (for the time) Aim Assist system that made it easier to customize settings on a Champion-by-Champion basis while standardizing how Champions receive it. However, as the team evolved and changed over time, these specific practices and assumptions about the game became less and less true. One of these core assumptions was that projectile Champions do not benefit from AA, but this isn’t accurate. Characters as old as Grover and as new as Caspian have had Aim Assist magnetism (i.e. a pull towards a character’s center mass when your reticle is very close) while other projectile characters listed above have not. In order to improve on these systems in the future and carry forward that original goal of a standard players can rely on, we’re doing a large reset. All Champions will now have the same benefits from Aim Assist magnetism; however, the maximum strength of Aim Assist magnetism has been reduced by 20% across the board and Gyro is taking an additional 20% reduction to the sensitivity in application. In practice, Paladins will still feel good on controller and these specific Champions should feel better to play on controller.

Moving forward, our goals will be to measure specific pain point characters and adjust them up or down to provide a comfortable and fair play experience. We’re starting with the select group of Champions that are receiving focused bullet magnetism nerfs (i.e. how generous we are when their reticle is near the head of a target). Outside of these specific adjustments, we’ll continue to watch the ways controllers perform between PC and Console respectively to ensure that crossplay environments like Ranked are given more integrity and even play across the Champion roster. We plan to take a look at Aim Assist tracking next (e.g. how much the reticle follows targets in motion) since we know that has been a source of frustration as well. We’ll keep players updated on our progress!

[h2]Champions[/h2]
[h3]Azaan[/h3]
General

• Increased health from 4250 ➡️ 4500

Abilities

• Sanctuary
  • Reduced cooldown from 13s ➡️ 12s
• Conviction
  • Reduced cooldown from 10s ➡️ 9s
• Reckoning
  • Reduced cooldown from 10s ➡️ 9s

Talents

• Eternal
  • Reworked to: “After you take 2500 damage, Cleanse all Crowd Control from yourself and heal for 800 over 2.5s.”

Azaan has persistently remained in the bottom percentile of our Frontlines, glory days long behind him. We’re giving him some general quality of life improvements to his cooldowns and health, while adjusting Eternal to reinvigorate its atrocious playrate and middling win rate.

[h3]Betty La Bomba[/h3]
Talents

• Gotta Bounce
  • Removed penalty to Movement Speed.

[h3]Bomb King[/h3]
Abilities

• Poppy Bomb
  • Reclassified as a Movement Ability, now affected by Cripple.

[h3]Caspian[/h3]
Cards

• Updated all Default Decks

Talents

• Everywhere at Once
  • Cooldown: 5s permanently ➡️ 8s affected by CDR.
    
  • Now also gives Caspian 1 additional charge on Deadly Momentum.
    
  • Now also heals Caspian for 200 Health on hitting an enemy with the dash portion of the ability.
    
  • No longer grants Momentum stacks on hit.

Let's talk in brief about Caspian’s Talents. Measured Cadence is the elephant in the room, with the highest pick rate and win rate, while his other two Talents share a middling 47%~ win rate and more importantly an abysmal 11%~ pick rate. This illustrates to us that Caspian’s Talent selection just isn’t really engaging or conducive to other playstyles, and that his other playstyles just aren’t as fun. So we’re taking a shot at Everywhere at Once as we continue to work on making our devilish rogue the most devious he can be.

Everywhere at Once had a strong upside, permanently setting Deadly Momentum’s cooldown to a low value - but that wasn’t enough to justify the choice. It's difficult to ask Flanks to directly engage enemies with their ability generally saved for retreating, especially when the upside of 1 stack per hit wasn’t valuable enough to expend the cooldown. We’ve taken the Talent and moved some of the values around, keeping its identity relatively similar to previous where it encourages aggressive use of Deadly Momentum. With an additional charge and heal-on-hit, it gives Caspian an aggressive initiation tool without neutering his escape.

[h3]Cassie[/h3]
Abilities

• Blast Shot
  • Removed Poison effect.

[h3]Corvus[/h3]
Ultimate

• Entropic Breach
  • Now also Heals Allies for 15% of maximum Health on initial target and 6.25% every .5s they remain in the area.

Entropic Breach has always been a bit unimpactful outside of the most specific moments, and Corvus often finds himself in a position where his team dies if he tries to properly utilize it. The Abyss has decided to grant him another boon, allowing him to heal his Allies within just as much as he harms his foes. Now, this Ultimate can more easily allow for some saves and pushes from your team and makes its presence on the battlefield more important.

[h3]Grover[/h3]
Abilities

• Blossom
  • Increased passive healing from 70 ➡️ 80
    
  • Increased active initial burst heal from 500 ➡️ 600

Ultimate

• Whirlwind
  • Now also provides 25% Movement Speed for 4s to allies affected.

Talents

• NEW: Wisps of Sylvanus
  • Blossom’s passive aura now also provides 15% Movement Speed.
    
  • Replaces Rampant Blooming.

Cards

• New Default Deck for Wisps of Sylvanus
  
• Gentle Breeze now also affects Grover

Grover finds himself at a crossroads, where on one side lies Talents rife with utility and the other lies Rampant Blooming being the only way for him to have impactful healing on his own. After a lot of thought, we wanted to try something new for him. Blossom is being brought back up to its potency felt previously but Rampant Blooming is no more, instead replaced by a Talent all about being an anchor for the team’s buffs. This means Grover’s healing is only augmented by Cards now, allowing us greater control of his output and allowing more room to balance him in a way that allows him to stay relevant across his Talents. Whirlwind is also gaining an even more powerful Movement Speed increase throughout its duration, offering him another reason to utilize his Ultimate in the late game regardless of Anti-Healing.

[h3]Kasumi[/h3]
General

• Increased base movement speed from 355 ➡️ 370

Abilities

• Spirit Traps
  • Reduced initial reveal distance from 100 ➡️ 40 units
    
  • Reduced full reveal distance from 40 ➡️ 20 units
    
  • Increased damage from 100 ➡️ 200
• Savage Tear
  • Increased bonus damage per stack of Curse from 20% ➡️ 30%

Kasumi is slowly sneaking into a place we’re happy with, but she’s still lacking some of the speed and burst many associate with our Flanks. We’ve brought her base movement speed up to the middle of her adoptive class, alongside a buff to Savage Tear to allow it to be weaved better into a combo. The largest changes we are making are to Spirit Traps, increasing their damage and making them much harder to spot before you’re in the effective range. They now share the same detection distance as Stealthed enemies and once you fully see them, that’s a sign you’re in the blast zone!

[h3]Kinessa[/h3]
Weapon

• Sniper Rifle
  • Decreased charge time from 1.2s ➡️ 1.1s.

Talents

• NEW: Crystalline Battery
  • Oppressor Mines now target you to supercharge, healing you for 25 every .2s and providing 100% increased Jump Height. Carbine Mode gains 15% damage while supercharged.
    
  • Replaces Octopressor.

Cards

• New Default Deck for Crystalline Battery

Kinessa is still performing well above where she had prior to her refresh, but we’d like to continue to iron out pain points players feel as and against her. We’re bringing a little bit of speed back to the Sniper in exchange for removing Octopressor from her Talent lineup, replaced by a complete 180 on her usual gameplan with them. Now, they will empower her with a damage amp on her Carbine Mode, making her able to duel in medium ranges. We’ll continue to look into other changes on her as needed!

[h3]Koga[/h3]
Passive

• Stamina
  • Koga now regains 1 Stamina for every 100 damage his Submachine Guns deal to Health.
    
  • Decreased passive Stamina regen from 9 per second ➡️ 6 per second.

Weapons

• Hellkite Claws
  • Each subsequent pierce now deals 30% less damage, minimum of 200.

Abilities

• Dragon Stance
  • Removed Movement Speed bonus
    
  • Reduced time to enter Dragon Stance from .425s ➡️ .22s
    
  • Reduced time to exit Dragon Stance from .85s ➡️ .44s

Talents

• NEW: Bullet Time
  • Supercharge your reflexes after using Shadow Step, increasing your fire rate and movement speed by 20% for 2s.
    
  • Replaces Adrenaline Junkie.

Cards

• Swift Hands
  • Reworked to “While in Dragon Stance, gain 3|3% Movement Speed.”
• Updated Adrenaline Junkie Default Deck
  • Now called Bullet Time
    
  • Replaced Trespasser 1 ➡️ Something to Prove 1

Koga has been ripping and tearing his way through matches, consistently performing very well compared to other Flanks. We’re tweaking him across the board to give us more design space going forward - as well as to alleviate some pain points when playing as and against him.

We’re moving Adrenaline Junkie into base at a weaker level to smooth out his game flow, since that Talent felt necessary more often than not to facilitate optimum Koga. Hellkite Claws have been a persistent damage tool since its buff, making it frustrating to fight against as Koga cleaves through an entire team. To keep its utility but reel in the obscene DPS it can pump out, each projectile will do less damage per penetrated enemy, making it less oppressive when engaging a group. Finally, we’ve added a new Talent in Bullet Time. This incentivizes aggressive use of Shadow Step during fights to boost your damage, but comes at the cost of a precious resource. Watch your timings and you’ll come out alive, just don’t get greedy!

[h3]Lillith[/h3]
General

• Increased Blood Health from 2500 ➡️ 2600

Abilities

• Swarm
  • Duration increased from 5.75 ➡️ 6s
    
  • Blood cost reduced from 350/650 ➡️ 325/600
• Death Wings
  • Blood cost reduced from 280 ➡️ 250

Cards

• Reworked Cursed Accord Default Deck

Talent

• Cursed Accord
  • Reworked to: “Blood Hexed allies ignore damage resistance up to 10%. Heal an extra 250 Blood Health when a Blood Hexed ally eliminates an enemy.”
• Maelstrom of Carnage
  • Increased Blood Cost reduction from 25% ➡️ 40%.
    
  • Increased radius bonus from: 30% ➡️ 40%

Since her release, Lillith has had some serious ups and downs. Specifically downs looking at the past couple months, fighting tooth and claw for her current position as second worst support in the roster. Keen to rise from the dead, we’re giving her some love to most of her kit. With Blood cost reductions across the board, on top of a bit of extra Blood Health, Lillith will be able to stay in a fight and do her job for much longer. We’ve also reworked Cursed Accord, this time giving it a powerful effect of damage resistance penetration, turning her into a Champion supercharger that you’ll be smart to focus ASAP.

[h3]Maeve[/h3]
Talent

• Street Justice
  • Now also provides a 20% increased Ultimate charge rate.

[h3]Mal’Damba[/h3]
Abilities

• Mending Spirits
  • Reduced cooldown forgiveness on missed target from 1.75s ➡️ 1.25s

Mal’Damba has been finally performing at a level that feels befitting his reputation as an honest Support…maybe a bit too easily though. This change is aimed at raising the floor higher slightly by being harsher when players miss his heal while not hampering his optimal play.

[h3]Nyx[/h3]
Abilities

• Royal Presence
  • Increased DoT from .175% ➡️ .2% of Max Health
    
  • Removed Poison lingering after targets exit the effect aura

[h3]Octavia[/h3]
Weapon

• Marksman Rifle
  • Increased minimum hip-fire accuracy from .80 ➡️ .85
    
  • Increased maximum hip-fire accuracy from .85 ➡️ .95
    
  • Fixed an issue where Octavia’s fire rate was faster than intended.
    • Increased postfire delay from .15s ➡️ .2s
  • Reduced recoil & screen shake on fire from 3.5 ➡️ 1.0

Abilities

• Commanding Leap
  • Now places a rally point on landing at base, providing 250 instant healing & 25 every .15s to yourself and allies within. Rally point lasts 1.5s.
• Distortion Field
  • Cooldown reduced from 18s ➡️ 16s.
    
  • Allies have 300% increased Jump Height when initiated from within the dome.
    
  • Enemies within also have their air speed reduced by 15%.

Cards

• NEW: Got Your Six
  • Increase the duration of Commanding Leap’s rally point by .25|.25s.
    
  • Replaces Clean Shots.
• NEW: Forward Operating Base
  • Allies within your Distortion Field now have 4|4% Crowd Control Reduction.
    
  • Replaces Priority Requisition.

Talents

• NEW: Paratrooper
  • Octavia now can float for 4s, gains 50% air control and deals 10% bonus weapon damage while in Commanding Leap.
    
  • Replaces Hell or High Water.

Cards

• New Default Deck for Paratrooper

Octavia misses seeing frequent deploys, so we wanted to revisit her kit and try to inject more fun into the average game for her. She’s by no means weak but generally a lot of players struggle to find something in her kit that excites them enough to play her, so these changes aim to shift her power in ways that allow her more to play with. Firstly, her Marksman Rifle has had a pass on how its gunplay feels. Her hipfire has been retuned to be much more manageable if you pace your shots, allowing more time outside of scope. When in scope, you’ll now suffer from significantly less screen shake & visual recoil which helps her feel like the trained shooter she is. Commanding Leap has Hell or High Water coming into base kit, making one of our simplest abilities into one that has a lot more utility and enhances her hybrid Damage-Support identity. Distortion Field is also finally living up to its name, distorting gravity for those inside. Everyone within will have gravity and jump height distorted, and enemies will suffer their Slow even while in air. Finally, her Cards and Talents have seen some adjustments to allow these additions to shine. Paratrooper turns a weak spot for her into a strength once more, giving a powerful amount of damage output when she leaps into action!

[h3]Ruckus[/h3]
Abilities

• Advance
  • Now can be fired while stationary to boost upward.

Talents

• Aerial Assault
  • Altered to “Advance now has 3 charges.”
• Flux Generator
  • Decreased bonus Shielding from 1500 ➡️ 1000

Ruckus is performing well at the higher levels of play, but outside of that space he’s struggled to be picked and utilized. Aerial Assault has always been something that makes Bolt feel better to pilot around in, so we’re shifting the best part of it into base to both help how Ruckus feels but also allow for more Talent diversity than he currently sees. Flux Generator, however, feels a bit too potent compared to the others without a nerf to its Shielding bonus so we’re proactively tuning that down as well.

[h3]Seris[/h3]
Talents

• Internal Torment
  • Updated description to state she Reveals the target to her team.
• Forsake
  • Cooldown reduced from 3s ➡️ 2.5s

We’re still watching the short and long-term on both of these Talents before we look to shake Seris up again. Internal Torment is having its functionality clarified better (i.e. it already did this teamwide Reveal) and Forsake is receiving a small buff to its cooldown to give it a better chance at keeping up with other burst options across the Support class. We’ve been listening to the discussion around her across social platforms and will continue to iterate without taking away the approachability that has made her Paladins' most played Champion.

[h3]Strix[/h3]
Weapon

• Talon Rifle
  • Now ignores up to 10% of targets' damage resistance when fired from stealth.

Cards

• Roost
  • Increased charge rate bonus from 10% ➡️ 30% per level.

Talents

• Crack Shot
  • Pistol no longer fires 40% slower.

Snipers fill an important niche in FPS, serving as counter to aerial superiority and picking off stragglers of poor team coordination. That can be frustrating to fight against however, and so we’ve had to be careful over our patches when altering snipers. We’re taking a pass at Strix to fill out the fantasy of lying in wait and securing a high-value kill, while still keeping him fun to fight against with decent counter play.

Most significant of these changes is firing from Stealth now pierces up to 10% of damage resistance - giving Strix a way to alleviate one of his hardest counters at the cost of using his Stealth. While this may seem extreme, it elevates Veteran as a counter item, since if you don’t have DR, nothing changes in the engagement with Strix. Not to mention he’ll almost be guaranteed out of Stealth energy if he's constantly dipping into it for the piercing, so take that opportunity to sic your Flank on this defenseless fowl.

[h3]VII[/h3]
Weapon

• Burst Mode
  • Increased damage from 150 ➡️ 160
    
  • Decreased effective range from 110 ➡️ 100
    
  • Decreased max range from 200 ➡️ 175
    
  • Decreased minimum damage after falloff from 50% ➡️ 40%

Abilities

• Grappling Hook
  • Decreased range from 140 ➡️ 110 units
    
  • Decreased cooldown from 14s ➡️ 12s
    
  • Increased pull strength from 1325 ➡️ 1650
• Explosive Dodge
  • VII now has .25s of damage immunity when he starts to roll.

Talents

• NEW: Execute Article VII
  • Decree 77 now targets the closest enemy with laser lock-on. After .8s, your eye blasts them and deals 1000 damage in a 20-unit radius. Anyone hit is Executed if below 25% after.
    
  • Replaces Overcharged.

Cards

• New Default Deck for Execute Article VII
  
• Terror
  • Reworked to “Gain a 50|50 Shield for 4s after using Grappling Hook. ICD of 5s.”

Here we go again. VII has been a unique addition to the Flank class, and a perpetual challenge to balance in a way that feels fun for the player and fair for the opponents. We took a longer step back from his kit and are now reapproaching with a different outlook. Our goals with these changes is to simplify VII into the core of his identity: best in class movement, ambush-style engagement, and cooldown management. Burst Mode is being brought up in damage but down in range, bringing him closer to his peers when it comes to effective dueling range. (We’re aware this leaves Automatic in a weird spot, we plan to address this in a subsequent update). We’re also hitting the maximum range on his Grappling Hook, but allowing him more access to it. We’re also standardizing his pull speed at around Terror 3 to start, allowing us more control of how fast his peak movement is. Explosive Dodge is getting a unique effect inspired by Raum’s favorite game genre: immunity for a small window on dodge. This allows VII some neat tricks for those skilled enough to pull off timings.

We also went back to the drawing board on Overcharged, and after weighing the options have reimagined Decree 77 into a new, more thematic Talent. Execute Article VII allows him to access a Tribunal staple Execute via lasering down targets with his eye. Note that this Execute procs after the damage of the blast, meaning it can confirm into itself when used correctly. Terror, meanwhile, is being reworked to give VII some added survivability on hook, allowing him more options on which Cards he wants for sustain.

[h3]Talus[/h3]
Weapon

• Veracharger
  • Decreased minimum accuracy from .95 ➡️ .92
    
  • Increased accuracy lost per shot from .02 ➡️ .025
    
  • Reduced number of shots before accuracy decay from 5 ➡️ 3

While Talus remains mainly a Champion whose dominance is most felt on a controller, his weapon has a bit too much forgiveness regardless of input, especially during Overcharge. These changes are designed to ask Talus to be a bit more focused when aiming during the ability as well as spraying for longer durations without pausing. We’ll continue to look into his performance across inputs and platforms for further adjustments!

[h3]Vatu[/h3]
Weapon

• Kunai
  • Reduced damage from 310 ➡️ 280
    
  • Increased fire rate from 1s ➡️ .9s
    
  • Reduced time for reload pre-load from .9s ➡️ .6s
    
  • Increased time for reload post-fire from 0 ➡️ .3s

Abilities

• Dash
  • Removed DR

Talents

• Enveloping Shadows
  • Shifted to “Reduce the Cooldown of your basic abilities by 3% for each Kunai that hits an enemy.”
    
  • Removed ICD.

We heard loud and clear that the Kunai changes from Tidal Surge simply weren’t it for high level players, so we’re reverting those back to their previous values. As a part of this, we decided to adopt a popular community request for him to aid the fluidity of play: animation canceling his reload. This allows him to now use Shadow Bombs & Dash to finish reloading once he’s passed .6s of his reload time, raising the skill ceiling a little bit more for him. Speaking of raising his skill, we’ve removed the DR from his dash at base to push him to use Cards for his survivability. Finally, Enveloping Shadows is losing its ICD but now requires players to land more Kunai to reap the full reward of his cooldown reduction.

[h3]Viktor[/h3]
Talent

• Burst Mode
  • Decreased hipfire recoil from 1.75 ➡️ 1.25
    
  • Decreased accuracy loss on hipfire from .1 ➡️ .015

Burst Mode has a specific issue when it comes to useability on KB&M, so we’ve adjusting the hip fire to be significantly more controllable and allow those on the input a better experience on this Talent than previous obtainable.

[h3]Vivian[/h3]
Weapon

• Light Machine Gun
  • Removed camera shake while Vivian is using Precision Sights.

The latest innovation in Deepwerks technology allows Vivian to use her optics to focus beyond any felt recoil from her Light Machine Gun, encouraging its use when you need an added bit of control to decimate your opponents.

[h3]Vora[/h3]
Abilities

• Tendril
  • Now has 2 charges at base.
    
  • Increased cooldown from 10s ➡️ 12s

Talents

• NEW: Parasitic Pull
  • Tendril can now target allies. Hitting allies with Tendril provides them your Tendril Card effects. Hitting enemies with Tendril deals 225 damage over 1.25s.
    
  • Replaces Relentless Presence.
• New: Eclipsed Affection
  • Reduce Obliteration's Cooldown by 2s, and by 50% after earning an Elimination. When used at max Darkness stacks, deal an additional 100 bonus damage.
    
  • Replaces Deafening Silence.

Cards

• New Default Decks for Parasitic Pull & Eclipsed Affection

The Maw holds many emotions, and none are quite as potent as jealousy. Watching VII fling himself around has pushed Vora to embrace her corruption further, unlocking new potential. Tendril now will have 2 charges at base, allowing her more mobility at base without relying on her Ultimate. In addition, we’ve taken her two infrequently used Talents and replaced them with devastating new options. Parasitic Pull allows Vora to utilize her unique launch tech on allies as well, providing them small Shields or DR from her Cards before diving onto opponents. Eclipsed Affection, meanwhile, allows Obliteration to chain together combos and Eliminations that will hopefully one day finally let her triumph over Io.

[h3]Willo[/h3]
General

• Passive: Pixie Dust
  • Given a unique name & description
    
  • After 4 seconds of use, Willo’s fall speed reduction decreases from 90% to 75%.

Talents

• Blast Flower
  • Reduced maximum stacks from: 4 ➡️ 3.

Willo has experienced a resurgence in popularity (and win rate) now that she can hover above and rain fairy-death on her foes. She's having a little too much fun with this, and fighting her can be a frustrating experience, so we’re adding a caveat to incentivize her touching down every so often and offer an opportunity for counter-play. Similarly Blast Flower has been performing really well, too well, but we like the new popularity it has garnered. We’re giving it a slap on the wrist to bring down the overall power while keeping the playstyle intact.

• The 3D Lobby and the Login menu are currently swapped.
  
• VII and Vora's Talents have an issue in being unlocked for players.
  
• All Street Style: World Tour skins are missing their VFX.
  
• Street Style Seris's 1P arms are utilizing the wrong texture mappings.
  
• Pop Royalty Tyra's Lobby mesh is utilizing the wrong textures.
  
• Both Street Style: World Tour Tyra weapons are disabled due to missing their 1P models.
  
• Skin previews in the Street Style: World Tour Event Pass are using the wrong pose.
  
• Street Style: World Tour Event Pass menu is using the wrong background.

Greetings Champions! In this Developer Insights blog, we're going to be sharing some larger changes coming to various game modes in the Street Style: World Tour update! Oh yeah, if you missed our announcement, Street Style returns with all new skins for Tyra & Seris, adding a few more popular Champions to the Realm's fashion pop group. We also are sharing PTS Notes tomorrow, including a lot of changes to the previously revealed Talents of last Insights blog. All that aside, let's hop into the content of this blog!

Over the past year, we’ve had a difficult time balancing offering all the game modes we’ve wanted to while preserving quick queue times and pushing for improved matchmaking, usually solved by rotating modes in and out of the Core rotation to accommodate all players. In an ideal Realm, we’d be able to offer all of our Core modes in their own queues and allow players to Multi-Queue into whichever they want to most. However, Multi-Queue has a lot of flaws that make this increasingly hard as time has gone on. All non-Siege modes struggle to ever appear if in a Multi-Queue with the mode, leading to most uses of the Mutli-Queue system being “anything but Siege”. This still however leads to issues with splitting players into multiple matchmaking buckets (as each queue still uses its own when in Multi-Queue) and Onslaught often still overpowering the other modes. After running several data tests, we feel the best path forward is making Arcade a permanent queue.
[h2]How will it work?[/h2]
Arcade will feature all of the non-Siege modes that have ever been in our Core Rotation. This includes Onslaught, Team Deathmatch, Payload, King of the Hill, and Survival. We’ve curated the starting Map Pool in order to try and provide the best experiences in each of these modes as well as make it easy for players to not get confused by which mode they are playing on a map. Here’s the starting lineup:
[h3]Onslaught - 30% Odds[/h3]

• Foreman’s Rise
  
• Magistrate’s Archives

[h3]Team Deathmatch - 25% Odds[/h3]

• Abyss
  
• Dragon Arena

[h3]Payload - 20% Odds[/h3]

• Hidden Temple
  
• Frostbite Cavern

[h3]King of the Hill - 15% Odds[/h3]

• Marauder’s Port
  
• Trade District

[h3]Survival - 10% Odds[/h3]

• Primal Court
  
• Snowfall Junction

While we’re testing Arcade with a larger audience, the Onslaught queue will remain available as well! Team Deathmatch will be on hiatus as we want to have the largest number of people possible test out Arcade. Your feedback will help us shape this queue in the future and we want to ensure any changes to the queue brings the benefits players want in matchmaking and queue speed.
[h2]What about Quests and rewards?[/h2]
Starting in this update, Arcade will be compatible with all quests and rewards normally associated with a casual queue! This includes Daily Queue Bonus, Trials of the Realm, and any other places we call out certain game modes other than Siege!
[h2]Will modes within Arcade still see improvements?[/h2]
Yes, our goal with Arcade is to better support and improve all the modes within based on the fact that they will be permanently available, starting with changes to Survival and Payload this update. Speaking of updates to modes...

[h2]Map Pool Additions[/h2]

• Stone Keep (Day)
  

[h2]Map Pool Adjustments[/h2]

• Stone Keep (Classic) odds are normalized now.
  

• When looking for a match, these queues 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.
  
• Arcade and Onslaught now share the same skill rankings for players when searching for a match.
  

We’ve often gotten complaints about how frequently smaller parties would find themselves face-to-face with a full stack of opponents within the Onslaught queue. To help ease these pains, we’re adding some logic behind team sizes in both Onslaught and Arcade that incentivizes teams of similar sizes queueing against each other. This should only slightly affect queue times, mostly for those in a group, but also increase match quality in these faster-paced modes. Alongside this, we wanted Arcade to have a single ranking type to allow the MM to improve over time, so it will leverage player’s Onslaught stats as a baseline to iterate on.

• Now utilizes 2 Checkpoints on each map
  
  • The first attacking team will start with 3 minutes, then gain an additional 2 minutes per checkpoint passed.
    
  • The second attacking team will start with 3 minutes, then gain a scaling amount of time back based on how quickly Team 1 finished their push.
    

Veteran players will remember the earliest iteration of Payload, where Checkpoints were available to increase push timers and help prevent spawn camping behaviors. We’re excited to get this system back up and running for Arcade, allowing Payload to play out at a pace much closer to the other modes within the playlist. However, the Checkpoint and multi-round versions of Payload have never coexisted, so some new mechanics had to be built to facilitate the merging of the two iterations. Checkpoints will provide the first team attacking a static amount of time, and the second team a scaling amount of time to ensure that Team 2 always has less time than Team 1 as the modern Payload functions. This is basically a brand-new iteration of how the mode handles Checkpoints, so please provide feedback as you play!

• Added support for Anti-Healing scaling throughout the match.
  • Scales 5% every 20s.
• Decreased timer of subsequent rounds from 30s ➡️ 15s
  
• Decreased timer for initial fog spawn from 15s ➡️ 10s
  
• Increased fog speed on Snowfall Junction from 125 ➡️ 150
  
• Decreased fog starting distance from 7000 ➡️ 5000

Survival hasn’t seen significant changes since its return earlier this year, but now that it’s joining as the most infrequent mode within Arcade, we want to start looking to modernize the mode in a way that makes it feel distinct and enjoyable to more players. We’re increasing the speed of the fog and round wait times to get players right back into what makes the mode unique faster.

[h2]Requirements[/h2]
We toyed around with it in waves and did some testing internally, but we’re now comfortable raising the Ranked level requirement from 20 to 35. This is a large shift in who is able to utilize the queue and will have impacts on matchmaking speed and quality. However, we’ve heard calls from the community to make this experience require more from players to achieve it so we’re giving it a proper shot!
[h2]Map Pool[/h2]
[h3]High Frequency Maps[/h3]

• Serpent Beach
  
• Stone Keep (Classic)
  
• Stone Keep (Night)
  

[h3]Normal Frequency Maps[/h3]

• Ascension Peak
  
• Bazaar
  
• Brightmarsh
  
• Frog Isle
  
• Jaguar Falls
  
• Ice Mines
  
• Splitstone Quarry
  
• Warder’s Gate
  

After positive feedback and player interest in Siege, Stone Keep (Classic) is replacing Stone Keep (Day) in the Ranked queue to provide the competitive experience with a version that has cleaner visibility.

We've still got some optimization work we need to do on the mode & a few bugs that have to be resolved (We're looking into Champion Difficulty not providing the Quest reward) but with Arcade's permanent status we have room to also offer Wave Defense Public Beta on a 24/7 cadence as well! In the future, we still want to make this mode run better and improve the core experience, and hopefully expand it once those goals are met.

All in all, this update introduces the largest support to existing game modes we have done in years, allowing for the most varied ways to play Paladins ever in a single update. Arcade allows us to invest and explore modes that have been neglected in the past. Survival and Payload are being modernized and made to fit Paladins as it is today & accommodate expansion in the future. Wave Defense returns to continue to offer a place for build crafting and low-stakes fun. This is a large shakeup to the game, so feedback will be key to both improving all the modes offered as well as making sure players can play what they want when they want.

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!

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.

[h2]Azaan[/h2]
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!
[h2]Caspian[/h2]
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.
[h2]Grover[/h2]
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 of a boost when fighting around him. This also means that Grover no longer has a strictly Healing talent, now instead offering 3 different tools that augment him beyond his heal output. This is something fairly new to the Support class, but the experiment allows him to return to his place as either a synergy-based solo healer or a complement to a main healer in dual Support compositions.
[h2]Kinessa[/h2]
Kinessa has always had an issue when it comes to her Oppressor Mines and their Talents. The ability has a ton of utility and can be quite frustrating if used with an ideal loadout, so we wanted to take one last swing at a Mine Talent by completely inverting her normal relationship with them.



Crystalline Battery turns an offensive tool into a personal stim machine, giving Kinessa increased fire rate and damage by charging her Carbine Rifle with the energy from her Mines. This buff only affects the Carbine Mode, keeping Steady Aim as the distinct Sniper option but giving her a unique way to become a proper threat to other rifle characters in the midrange. This does come at the cost of damaging herself, meaning it should be used in duels where Kinessa is confident she can keep the advantage.
[h2]Koga[/h2]
With the inclusion of a bit of Adrenaline Junkie into base kit (spoilers), Koga needed something new for his Default Talent. We wanted to encourage an aggressive use of Shadow Step, one of Koga’s more notorious abilities, since his survivability was so high and bring about a more life-and-death playstyle.



Initiating with Shadow Step now gives Koga some strong buffs to bring his opponents down quicker, but putting him in a precarious position by spending Stamina. Balancing playstyles is an important aspect to us when it comes to Talent creation, we want all to be enjoyable and viable while offering different boons to the Champion. So when we see an almost always picked Talent (aka Adrenaline Junkie) we see that as a fault in the gameplay loop of the Champion and work to remove the stranglehold it has on the other Talents. Oftentimes this means giving a version of it in base to shore up the weaknesses of the Champion and make them more engaging by giving them a new tool to replace it. It's a delicate game of push and pull, but giving Champions more toys in the box gives players more expression and more importantly, more opportunities for fun.
[h2]Lillith[/h2]
Lillith has been struggling a bit more recently, performing poorly regardless of Talent. We’re giving her some buffs to help her rise to power once again, but we’re also reworking Cursed Accord to give her a unique niche amongst her Support kin.



Giving her marked allies bonus Ultimate charge generation and healing her for more Blood Health when they get an Elimination, this Talent is focused on keeping her team marked and aggressively pushing. Uniquely it also gives them Damage Resistance penetration, ignoring up to a set amount completely and reducing anything past that by that amount. This lets Lillith keep her team on pace with overly defensive Champions and push through those tough-nut-to-crack Frontlines.

This will put a mark on your back as the supercharger Support, so make sure to play it safe and stick to your team! Supports usually rely on Healing to be the main way they support their team, so we wanted to experiment with ways to facilitate off-support playstyles and less healing-centric game plans.
[h2]Octavia[/h2]
Octavia is receiving a lot of changes aimed around her fun factor next update, but one that has larger implications is the basekiting of Hell or High Water. There will be more details on that in the PTS notes, but here we want to talk about the replacement starter Talent for her!



Paratrooper takes what was once a weak spot for Octavia and makes it into a strength, allowing her to float for longer and deal more damage after using Commanding Leap. Damage amps are a quite potent effect, especially on a character with as much potential as Octavia, but this is balanced by asking her to put herself in a vulnerable position to utilize it. We think it can lead to a lot of powerful plays through smart positioning.
[h2]VII[/h2]
After several refreshes and reworks to his Talents, we’re taking Overcharged around one more time. The effect is so hit or miss (literally) and boasts one of the lowest pick rates in the game, so it’s sitting out on the sidelines while we continue to improve VII’s neutral game. In its place, a new vision of an original option joins.

NOTE: This will still be his Level 2 Talent. We just thought he needed more sevens for this blog.

Execute Article VII brings back the eye laser Ultimate many early VII players may remember, with new potency added to make it a more compelling option than prior iterations. Now, the laser blasts in a 20-unit area for 1000 damage after lock-on, however, anyone left below 25% Health after that blast is Executed. It’s a unique version of an Execute, one that thematically fits the assassin of Corvus and offers him a strong burst-down option.
[h2]Vora[/h2]
Finally, not to be outdone, Vora is receiving two new Talents next update! The first is replacing Relentless Presence as its effect enters Vora’s basekit. However, we still wanted to offer Tendril something to build into, and were inspired by other Flank’s options.



Parasitic Pull allows Tendril to attach itself to allies, meaning Vora can catch a lift from a Drogoz or Octavia launching into battle. When she does grapple an ally, she shares her Tendril Card effects with the target as a special thanks for the support. If you happen to Tendril an enemy, you apply a small damage over time to them as a way to kickstart a combo to Elimination.

Meanwhile, Deafening Silence hasn’t really made sense as an Obliteration Talent and never saw widespread play. Similarly inspired by other Flanks and effects that haven’t been available to Vora, we went back to the drawing board of her inspirations and narrative.



Eclipsed Affection allows Vora to chain Obliteration casts together more effectively, giving her 2 seconds off cooldown passively and 50% of the cooldown whenever she gets an Elimination. On top of this, if she uses it with max Darkness stacks, the Slow applied is much more effective. Her feelings may be doomed, but so are any foes that dare try and survive her flurry of attacks with this Talent.

Street Style Maeve has surprised the Realm with a block party! 😼

Cards to the Max is active as this weekend's LTM, raising the roof on everyone's Card levels.

In addition, Event Pass XP is doubled this weekend as the party gets started!

[h2]Io[/h2]
[h3]Talents[/h3]
Sacrifice

• When activated, the 50% Health back Io receives is now True Healing.
  

This was something that has felt true for a while due to how the Talent functions, but recent Anti-Heal changes showed that Io can indeed get hit during this transition. We've made this now a proper True Heal so the Talent's text remains accurate.

[h2]Seris[/h2]
[h3]Cards[/h3]
Spirit Leech

• Increased scaling from 2|2 ➡️ 6|6
  

We were overly cautious in how the transition in functionality would benefit Seris, leading to this card becoming too weak for lower-level use case. We're buffing it back to a place where it functions very similar to the previous version of the Card, providing 2|2 Ammo every .5s over the 1.5s period.

[h2]Yagorath[/h2]
[h3]General[/h3]

• Yagorath's Tail Crit Spot is now only active during her Ultimate.
  

[h3]Abilities[/h3]
Acceleration

• Adjusted speed curve, starts at 100% speed instantly then waits .5s to reach 200%.
  

Yagorath's changes mostly put her in a spot we and the community were happy with, except for some pain point areas. Her Crit Spots made her more vulnerable than expected and led to her struggling to stay alive even in situations she deserved to, so we've now limited them to only being available during her Ultimate. This keeps the design fantasy (and helps counter her pull speed buff) while not impacting her neutral game nearly as much. As for Acceleration, players noticed an issue where Yagorath would slow slightly during the launch if she was already in movement. We've removed that so now she can continue to make jumps and feel fluid when using the ability, while still preserving a window for counterplay.

• Fixed an issue where Dredge would crash player clients when selected.
  • Dredge is reenabled across the game.
• Fixed an issue where Unauthorized Use wasn't applying a damage bonus & was still Revealing targets.
  
• Fixed an issue where Jubilation was not applying its bonus damage to marked targets.
  
• Fixed an issue where various added text was not translated into supported languages.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Trials reset Timer was incorrect.
  
• Fixed an issue where the shiver me timbers Title was not visible & unequippable.
  
• Fixed an issue where Octavia's Maverick Rifle was unequippable.
  
• Fixed an issue where Reality Warp was not showing up in Match History.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Damage Chest was giving Aki Oni Tiberius instead of Aoi Oni Tiberius.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Support Chest was giving Pirate's Treasure Io instead of Eight Oceans Io.
  
• Fixed an issue where bot Maeve would not select a Talent.
  
• Fixed an issue where Wave Defense Private Beta wasn't always available to players.