Riot Games has today revealed the details of Patch 5.07, which is set to go live tomorrow. As expected, the update brings a major overhaul to Fracture, rebalancing several of the map’s chokepoints. Elsewhere, there are big changes to the way the flashes of several notable Agents work, including KAY/O, Skye, Yoru, and Reyna.
All the changes have been trialed on the game’s public beta environment (PBE) server over the past week, and Twinfinite has already discussed how the Agent changes are likely to impact the meta in a detailed feature.
Let’s check out the confirmed patch notes in full below:
AGENT UPDATES
Dan “penguin” Hardison, designer at Riot Games explains that the changes are intended to rebalance the Agents according to better fit their roles as initiators and duelists:
We believe that Initiators should still be able to make solo plays, but they should ideally be weaker than their Duelist counterparts in these scenarios“
Skye
Guiding Light’s destructibility didn’t feel like meaningful counterplay, instead overtly punishing when Skye tried to throw them at a longer range. By increasing the top-end output and rewarding Skye for bending her birds into the right spots, we intend to foster more teamwork and differentiate her Guiding Light from other flashes in the game—especially when compared to Duelists.
- GUIDING LIGHT (E) flashbang scaling paradigm changed
- The max flash duration of Skye’s Guiding Light now scales from 1s to 2.25s over a .75s charge up after being cast
- Guiding Light can no longer be shot and destroyed
- New VFX, UI, and sounds added to communicate new gameplay intent
- Unequip Delay out of Guiding Light increased .75s >>> .85s
KAY/O
- FLASH/DRIVE (Q)Underhand (right-click) flashbang max duration decreased 2s>>>1.25s
- Overhand (left-click) flashbang max duration increased 2s>>>2.25s
- Unequip Delay out of both flashes increased .6s >>> .85s
Reyna
Reyna’s flash underperforms as a selfish entry-tool, especially at higher skill levels. This set of changes is intended to give Reyna more agency around how she decides to peek after casting Leer. Also, it should sharpen Leer as a powerful angle-breaking tool against Operators on maps with longer sightlines.
We’ve also felt like individual casts of the eye remain in the world for too long when the eye isn’t destroyed. If Reyna is now able to make more selfish plays off her Leer, we then wanted to reduce some of the value it has when thrown for teammates.
- LEER (C)Wind-up of nearsight effect decreased .6s >>> .4s
- Range Restriction on Leer removed
- Nearsight unequip delay decreased: .7 >>> .5
- Duration decreased 2.6s >>> 2.0s
Yoru
Yoru is a tricky agent, as we need to balance him around his capability to throw flashes during his ultimate. We opted to go with a simple duration increase for Blindside as we feel maintaining the turning counterplay around his flash and clone is important to avoid excessively frustrating situations.
- BLINDSIDE (Q) duration increased 1.5s >>>1.75s
- Flash Visual Updates3 – P visuals for flashed enemies and allies now render behind the player’s head the moment that the flash starts to fade. This should give a clearer indication if players are full flashed or if the flash has started to fade.
- 1P visuals when fully flashed now shrink overtime to give a better indication of when the full flash will end and the flash fading out will begin.
- Increased the window for awarding assists on flashes, nearsights and concusses from 1 >>> 3 seconds after the debuff starts to fade.
We felt the assist window on these debuffs didn’t reflect their actual duration of impact, and want to make sure the supportive players are more often recognized and rewarded for setting up situations their teammates capitalize on.
MAP UPDATES
Fracture
Fracture is receiving quite a few quality-of-life changes alongside some larger updates to Dish/A Drop and A Ropes. Going to go in the order of minor to major changes.
- Arcade – Opened a cubby here to make it easier for Attacking side to hold against Defender aggression from both directions.
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- B Site – “Jump” up has been changed to a ramp directly onto the site platform, which should make moving around that space more straightforward.
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- B Generator – Space here tightened slightly to make smoking this spot easier. A small corner has also been removed to simplify attempts to re-clear the site.
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- Defender Spawn – Removed a small cubby to slightly simplify those retakes.
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