Greetings Champions! Here's what happening in the Realm this week:

Support Keywords was one of the most polarizing changes we made in Season 6, so as we release Season 7, we want to address it. Starting with Furia & Grohk in 7.2, we are planning to phase Support Keywords out of the game as feasible. Our goal remains to keep the balance between traditional team composition and double support strategies healthy, however players have given us ample feedback that Keywords did not feel to be the deciding factor in that. We know many players desired their removal quickly, however we wanted to ensure that all 4 Supports affected are still viable and become more interesting due to this transition, so we are focusing on each individual case and taking our time.

For Furia, the 2 significant changes to base kit are restoring Kindle Soul’s base healing value from before Keywords released (900 ➡️ 1000) as well as nerfing Inflame’s charge gain from healing and dealing damage by 15%. These changes alongside the removal of Curative, Remedy, and Surgery ensure that she is still potent as a hybrid healer but her Ultimate requires more thought to utilize best.

As for her Talents, Exterminate will remain as is minus the damage bonus, but both Cherish and Solar Blessing will be receiving small buffs to help them out of Keywords. Cherish’s AoE range will be increased to 50 units, making it a bit better at allowing Furia to pocket while not ignoring the rest of her team. Combined with Cards, this allows her to share some effects wider than a single target like Shielding. Solar Blessing will see its heal increased from 150 ➡️ 175 per tick, meaning that it's actually receiving a healing buff from its Keywords state. This Talent is niche but we want to reward those who spend time mastering the different beam mechanics.

As for Grohk, this opportunity led us to reassess his relationship between his base kit, Talents, and Cards to make him a more compelling choice across the board. At base, we’ve increased the frequency of his Healing Totem’s healing ticks from 6.6 per second to 10 per second, allowing him far more burst healing when committed to a fight. This change is mainly to prevent Grohk from losing all value out of quickly destroyed Totems, but also means he can heal much more effectively when stacking his Totems together.

As for his Talents, we removed Totemic Ward’s bonus to healing as basekit Totems become more potent, shifting its power into the additional charge it can provide. Spirit’s Domain will now also provide a Movement Speed buff to allies it hits to make it a more efficient dive tool and provide Grohk a more utility-centric playstyle outside his Cards. Finally, Maelstrom is receiving a small buff to help it not fall too far from where it was with Keywords.

These changes may be hard to fully understand without playing them, so make sure to test them out heavily when PTS comes later in March. These are just 2 of 24 Champions seeing balance adjustments in 7.2, but we wanted to provide a preview into this topic as we know players have been looking forward to this potential outcome. As we look forward to Season 7, stay tuned for more insights and previews!

Sunny Day Rei

House Aico Visage

Deepening Corruption

Return to the quickest way to play Siege as Swift Siege returns as the LTM. play up to 2 rounds on some of our smallest and most fast-paced maps to enjoy our primary mode in bite-sized matches!

- EvilMojoKryptek

Greetings Champions! Here's what happening in the Realm this week:

Since Ranked became crossplay in Split 2 of Season 6, we've heard feedback from players & watched the performance of various Champions across inputs closely. As we look forward to Season 7, we want to demystify aspects of our Aim Assist as well as adjust it for the future.

Aim Assist is a complex combination of systems designed to help gamepad feel closer in both experience and viability to keyboard & mouse, and we feel that's an important goal as Paladins has a near equal amount of players on both inputs. That being said, we know players have felt pain points around a specific aspect of our Aim Assist.

Bullet magnetism is a common assist in the genre that forgives pinpoint accuracy on critical hits due to the crude nature of joystick aim, specifically on hitscan weapons. Basically: it compensates for the fact that gamepad players can not track and land headshots as easily as a mouse. As players continued to compete in Season 6, this system stuck out as a frustration point among PC players, as those on PC with a gamepad received the benefits of platform & input while also discovering specific Champions where this system was strongly tuned.

In order to address this, we spent months building new tools to measure all our Aim Assist systems as well as track how the current settings fared in actual gameplay. We even made this special reticle for developer testing! The line represents the amount of bullet magnetism the Champion receives relative to their position and reticle location. This video is of Talus in the Wild Hoard Update:


As you can see, he was by far an extreme example of this effect. It still requires good accuracy and tracking, but it felt far from fair due to his fire rate and recoil. This is why after testing across the entire cast, we're planning to reduce the minimum amount of magnetism by 25% universally. That means all Champions will have to be closer to the critical zone to begin receiving headshots.

“What about Talus, Lex, and Koga? They are the worst offenders!” For Champions that have fast-firing close ranged weapons, we've also reduced the maximum amount of bullet magnetism they receive by 25%. That means that even at higher framerates, with lucky recoil, or any other factors: they benefit less from this system now. Here is footage of Talus in the 7.2 Update:


The system is still there, but is much more normalized and doesn't creep into the red territory of our tool. It also falls off much quicker at a medium distance compared to current values. This is our goal, as we feel this system is important to keeping Paladins a great controller shooter, but want it to have less of a factor in high level players' input choice. These values are still in testing, and will be available for players to experiment with on PTS and give feedback on. We know players have been anxiously awaiting us to act on this front, so we appreciate the patience as we worked on this.

This change – alongside other adjustments we are making in 7.2 – is designed to help improve the game overall, but especially the Ranked queue. Season 7 will be a great time to party up and compete to climb the Tiers, no matter what input or system your friends play Paladins on. 7.2 has plenty more for us to show, so stay tuned as we prepare for the full reveal!

High Priestess of the Moon

Turbo Kitty Maeve

Fallen Willo...w

As voted by the community on Twitter, this weekend's LTM will be Test Maps! Explore the maps that never came to be in this experimental mode. Balance will be wacky, hazards will be plenty, and XP will be triple for Champions across the game!

- EvilMojoKryptek

Greetings Champions! Here's what happening in the Realm this week:


Starting Wednesday, Onslaught will be taking a brief break as King of the Hill returns for the first time on its own in years! We're excited for players to be able to try out all the recent balance changes and Item Shop adjustments made since King of the Hill was last available, and have done some minor changes to the mode to help it. We'll be testing mounted spawns being available to players, helping with point rotations and distant spawns to keep the mode fast & fun!

As for Onslaught, it'll be sitting out while we finish work on some updates it will receive in the near future. As those who played Bizarre Bazaar would know, we've been looking into expanding the map pool of this game mode and have some exciting news to share when next update swings around.

Wednesday morning around 7 AM ET, Paladins will briefly be offline as we update Ranked to be extended until late March when we plan to release Season 7. This will be only a momentary downtime, but Ranked players will have to wait 30 minutes after the game is back online before entering the queue.

We once again appreciate players' patience and support as we continue to work on 7.2 and make sure we start the next season of Ranked off right!

For those who didn't see #ShipTheRealm on Twitter, we once again celebrated ships and fanservice for Valentine's Day. While not all the pieces will be shown here, please do check many of them out there!

Maid-ve

MOJI 💫

Some Kovus for the Occasion

A Rare Pair

The hit sport captured the hearts of the Realm, so much so that even when Imani closed the Arena, rumors spread of underground Roccer rings still playing. Enjoy this variant of Flagball as two teams of Terminus fight for control of the Key Sphere!

- EvilMojoKryptek

NOTE: These balance changes will not be reflected within game descriptions. These will be corrected in a future update.
Heroism

• Removed CC immunity
  
• Reduced damage resistance from 90% ➡️ 40%

Warrant's Out

• Reduced movement speed bonus from 10%|10% ➡️ 8%|8%

Wicked Don't Rest

• Changed effect from reducing by percentage to reducing set time, 5%|5% ➡️ 0.1|0.1s

Heads or Tails

• Reduced Ricochet damage from 300 ➡️ 200

Steady Predictions

• Reduced Ultimate gain from 1|1% ➡️ 0.8|0.8%

Mag Dump

• Reduced effective damage range from 25 ➡️ 15
  
• Reduced maximum damage range from 100 ➡️ 50
  
• Increased damage falloff when out of range from 50% ➡️ 80%

Rapid Response

• Reduced recoil reduction scaling from 10%|10% to 7%|7%

• Increased Wrist Crossbow damage from 115 ➡️ 130

• Increased movement speed from 340 ➡️ 350

• Fixed an issue where Armor Plating was only providing 21% at Tier III instead of 24%.

We're aware of an issue where Armor Plating does not interact with Arcane Warding properly. We have a fix planned for 7.2!

Greetings Champions! Here's what happening in the Realm this week:


After spending some additional time assessing our progress on 7.2 — as well as listening to community concerns and painpoints — we're looking to fast-track some balance changes and a bugfix or two for a hotfix in the coming week. The details we are still working on, but here are a few areas you can expect adjustment:

• VII's Mag Dump ⬇️
  
• Skye's Damage ⬆️
  
• Preliminary Strix Buff
  
• Armor Plating Tier III Bug Fix

We don't want to put too much balance in a fix, as there is some risk to it and we would rather take more time to test things, but we hope this helps players enjoy Wild Hoard more while we keep cooking the next update. Speaking of hoarding...

This weekend, the charts are showing a high likelyhood of a Crystal Storm! For those new to the concept, on a rare occasion we'll have an in-game event that allows players to earn Crystals as a part of their Daily Queue Bonus, and after a long hiatus one is on the horizon!

The length and value of the storm will be shared a bit closer to landfall, but feel free to prepare for an opportunity to earn your way to the next skin or maybe pick up the Event Pass if you haven't already!

Soothing Starlight

Furia, Harbinger of Vengeance

Last Sight, Last Rites

C:

The most famous LTM returns for another weekend of level 7 cards within Siege! Build the most cursed loadout possible and enjoy pushing past the limit of traditional Paladins once more.

- EvilMojoKryptek

Greetings Champions! Here's what happening in the Realm this week:


After watching the Wild Hoard settle and taking time internally to go over the current sandbox, we've decided we want to take a bit more time on releasing Ranked into its next Season. We originally were aiming for middle-late February for its release; but as we've worked to update Commendations as well as other content and balance we'd like to put in the update, we're now aiming for the latter half of March.

We know you all are excited for another chance to climb the ranks and earn a new set of Ranked cosmetics, but we also don't want to push out an update we aren't confident will be in its best form. Our goal in 2023 and carrying into this year are updates that feel more transparent and fun to play, and in order to hit that mark we need some extra time to cook. We'll share more info in the coming weeks but expect a bit of love to be given to Card balance, as well as new and old modes to join the fray.

In the meantime, thank you all for playing & enjoying Wild Hoard!

Never Forget the Classics

Sheriff Thorn

Flex on Them All

Portrait of a Warder

The first of a few experiments with maps being added to Onslaught, Bazaar now invites players to contest the Io statue and fight for control of the market in this test LTM! We'll be watching player feedback on the gameplay & if it's enjoyed, we could see Onslaught gain a map in its main queue!

- EvilMojoKryptek

Greetings Champions! Here's what happening in the Realm this week:

Last week, we kicked off Year 7 with the Wild Hoard update, and players began their journeys through the new Trials systems as well as the revamped Item Shop. There is still much to uncover, as Trials has many more weeks of hubs to unlock and rewards to earn as the meta continues to refine. We're tracking various issues players have caught in the wild & will communicate fixes as they are ready to release!

In the meantime, you all can provide feedback as we've opened up the Wild Hoard feedback form for all your thoughts about the update! Fill it out while you can here!

The Winter Witch

Adorable Androxus

Sneaky Spirit Link

Is the grounding quaking? Are we all in doom? Embrace classic shooter gameplay in Old School, where Abyss is transformed to look like its forebearers, with powerups spawned across map as hot spots for combat encounters!

- EvilMojoKryptek

Greetings Champions, welcome to Year 7 of Paladins! This is a change from our usual Season terminology, but there’s a good reason. We have a LOT coming this update, from the return of Trials to some significant Item Shop changes and the beginnings of a new meta. It's with that all in mind that we are planning to wait to start Season 7 of Ranked until 7.2 in February. This is not a choice we made lightly, but it made sense both to allow us to watch the changes before Season 7, as well as allow Season 6 a full year run. That means the last month of Split 4 of Season 6 will have quite a different experience, but we feel we should let people experiment and test Items without worrying about their brand-new Season rank. So: Year 7 starts with this update, and Season 7 will start with next update, 7.2. With that explanation out of the way, let's hop right into Year 7's first update: Wild Hoard!

Trials has returned after a year on hiatus, now reworked and improved! We appreciate players' patience as the team dug in and pushed to truly define what a modern version of Trials could look like. Let’s get right into the changes:
We’ve revisited the Trials UI to simplify and improve how it interacts with other systems in our game. It will look familiar to many players, but with a lot of new bells and whistles and a few changes.

• Quests are now listed within Trials. This allows our two challenge systems to have one consistent space & visual language. Also, this helps you track both Quests and Trials at once.

• We’ve redone the EOML and Hubs view to more clearly convey all the challenges and rewards available to you, including your progress through each and every match.

• Trials has a total of 8 Hubs, 1 Completionist and 7 Challenge.
  
  • The Completionist Hub is unlocked by completing all the various Challenge Hubs.
    • This Hub rewards unique rewards for those willing to tackle every Trial each refresh.

• Challenge Hubs are sets of challenges players can complete for rewards that unlock weekly.
  • For the first 2 weeks of a Trials update, two Hubs unlock each week.
  • Challenge Hubs contain 9 challenges for players to complete.

• Tickets have been removed & Trials hubs now unlock for all players when the Hub opens!
  
  • You can progress any and all open Trials while you play, no picking and choosing.

• Completionist Hub
  • 3 rewards based on what percentage of Trials you have completed in the active set.
• Challenge Hubs
  • 3 rewards in each Hub, split in groups of 3 challenges.
  • These challenges are much more freeform than the older set, allowing mostly any Champion or Class to complete them!
• Challenger’s Spoils Chest
  • All new cosmetics for the current set of Trials will now be in an exclusive chest.
  • This chest will be available throughout the Hubs, with the number matching the new items available.
  • Every Trials set, you can earn every new item through unlocking these chests.

Development Insight: The original Trials ran off of a system of unique activity goals and loot tables that relied heavily on weekly work in a scheduler. It essentially turns things on and off and sets prices, which is how we controlled the rewards and timers of old Trials. Each schedule had to be entered manually, and anytime something is entered manually there's a chance for human error. The number of schedules Trials required was so intense, it was septuple the amount we did for the rest of a given update combined. This is partially why we’ve shifted to a chest format for Trials rewards, to allow for a more flexible system for us but also you all. Now, you can decide which challenges to do and still have a chance at the cosmetic you want without being forced into a specific challenge set.

• Crystals
  • Trials will now contain 175 Crystals throughout the Hubs! Combined with changes being made to Event Passes & Daily Login, this’ll be the most earnable Crystals we’ve had in a long time!

We’re making some changes to the Event Pass to address player concerns, while also aligning it with Trials to have a consistent stream of earnable content. Here are the highlights:

• Event Passes now have 36 levels & rewards per pass, up from 24/30
  • The price of the Event Pass is staying 400 Crystals.
• Progression through the Event Pass is now on a new XP curve.
  • Early EP levels will be slightly easier to progress than later levels.
  • The goal of this change is to keep a similar amount of grind with levels that feel more equivalent to their rewards.
• Eventful Chests
  • Instead of having cosmetics in a specific order, we're introducing Eventful Chests of each cosmetic type. These chests will contain the new cosmetics added to an Event Pass, but now which you unlock when is up to the rolls.
    • Eventful Skins will contain 4 new skins, 2 versions with 2 color schemes as you’ve come accustomed to!
    • Eventful Avatars will contain all the new EP Avatars
    • Eventful Sprays will contain all the new EP Sprays
    • Eventful Screens will contain all the new EP Loading Screens & Loading Frames
  • This change makes the way you earn new content in Paladins consistent (Chests), helps us manage to add contents in the future, as well as allow more flexibility in how our Event Pass rewards players.
• Updated Reward Offerings
  • We’ve added more of each type of offering beyond new cosmetics to the Event Pass, including Crystals and other important currencies.
    • Crystals from 50 ➡️ 100
    • Gold from 100,000 ➡️ 160,000
    • Boosters from 3 ➡️ 5 per unlock
    • Additional chests to new levels

While Trials was gone, we temporarily increased the amount of Crystals provided by Daily Login. With Trials returning & our changes to the Event Pass, we want to make Daily Login less essential for players looking to optimize their earnings. As such, we’ve reduced the Crystals rewarded back down to the values from September 2022. (50% reduction)
The in-game Item Shop has a polarizing history throughout Paladins, from Burn Card roots to Beyond experiments. As we moved through each of those moments, we received feedback that helped steer us in the next evolution of Item meta and philosophy. We spent most of 2023 away from the Item Shop, listening to player feedback and experimenting with how to both bring back beloved aspects of older Item Shops while making this next era fresh and enjoyable for all players. That journey led us to where we are now, as we’re making the largest Item Shop change since A Tigron’s Tale, by adding 4 additional Item options to the Shop. Players will still be able to purchase up to 4 Items, so this change introduces more decisions and build options while keeping the familiar format players are accustomed to. We also took this opportunity to revisit earlier Item philosophy and engage with new concepts that feel right at home in Paladins. We’ve also made adjustments to existing Items that we will detail in the Balance section, but want to highlight the biggest changes here:

• Item Shop selections increased from 16 ➡️ 20
  • 1 per each of the Item types

• Haven is split into two damage reduction Items
  • Armor Plating: Reduce the Damage you take from In-hand weapons by 8|8%
  • Arcane Warding: Reduce the Damage you take from Abilities by 12|12%
    • Veteran players will remember the Haven/Blast Shields era well, and we wanted to reintroduce that level of counterplay while changing it to be a more consistent expectation. Any primary weapon (e.g Tyra Auto Rifle) will be reduced by Armor Plating while any ability damage (e.g. Tyra Nade Launcher, Fire Bomb) is reduced by Arcane Warding.

 

• Resilience is split into two crowd control reduction Items
  • Sentinel: Gain a {150} health Shield for 5s on Elimination. Reduce the effectiveness of Slows, Knockups, and Knockbacks by 25|25%.
  • Unbound: Reduce the duration of Crowd Control effects by 25|25%. Does not include Slows, Knockups, and Knockbacks.
    • Resilience has been one of the strongest buys in Paladins for a long while now, as CC is both a frustrating effect to be under and the roster has expanded to include more varieties of it. We want to still allow players to counter these moments, but also saw an opportunity to allow for more nuance and counterplay based on team compositions.

• New Item: Hoard
  • Gain 10 Credits every {15|-5}s. Gain {5} Credits on getting an Elimination.
• The Utility category is filled with staples of “thing happen faster”, so we felt the only fitting Item was one that makes Items go faster! On paper this may seem simple, but this was by far the hardest Item to test as it has a lot of complexity to it. It takes up an Item slot so it falls off harshly in the late game when others hit their 4th Item, but if bought the right moment, it can help swing the economy in your favor. It also can be a solid catchup mechanic if bought early in a losing battle. We’re excited to see players experiment and find the best scenarios for this Item!

• New Item: Meditation
  • Heal for an additional 2.5|2.5% of your max health every 0.25s when out of combat.
• This Item is a call back to an older version of Veteran but puts a new spin on it that makes it a bit more compelling than its predecessor. You gain health a lot quicker than you did prior, with smaller ticks that add up to a greater amount so every millisecond can count as you briefly exit combat to prepare for the next threat. We’re excited to see how this Item plays out, as it's also the cheapest option in the Healing category.

• New Item: Trigger Scent
  • Increase your damage dealt by 5|5% for 5s after getting an Elimination.
• This item revisits the concept of an increased damage Item by allowing Killstreaks to be charged with an effect designed to punish teams that aren't careful about positioning & gives the owner a set amount of time to capitalize on the effect. Damage amps are always a bit controversial, but we feel this one fits the niche of the Offense category and adds more interesting options to Champions with brutal breakpoints in DPS.

One of our most chaotic maps has recently laid back on their pruning, as Primal Court sees all of its trees regrow onto the map! Enjoy an enhanced ambiance as the skybox is filled to remind you of the jungles surrounding this secluded battleground.

Some may have noticed us making changes to the Loadout screens over the past few updates, and now you get to know one of the reasons why! Paladins is all about its customization and for a long while we had heard players wanted to be able to bring more builds into games, so while this isn't a long patch note, it's impactful.

• Increased the number of Card Loadouts per Champion from 6 ➡️ 9

The Dragrin rise from the unknown and enter the Realm! Explore the new Trials as Grovos Grover, a young yet passionate adventurer looking to learn as much as he can, or plunder bounties as Flameborne Jace, a mercenary with an attitude but a kind heart. Both these skins, their recolors, and tons of additional cosmetics are available in this 36-level Event Pass!
 

Due to the return of Trials, we want to ensure that you're always able to complete your challenges while still offering a variety of modes to our players. All Trials that progress for certain non-Siege modes will be in pairs of Onslaught & King of the Hill or Payload & Team Deathmatch. This means we have to always keep 2 of these modes in at a time, so for this update we'll be bringing back Payload and TDM will sit out. Our goal is to rotate monthly, so in February Onslaught will leave for King of The Hill, then in March TDM will return and Payload will leave. We'll stay tuned to community feedback as we continue to rotate modes more frequently and ensure there's always something fresh to play!

History has become kinder to Season 5's Siege: Beyond, and we felt it about time to revisit the mode in a manner players may enjoy. Instead of being an experimental Siege, it now will live as an LTM of its own!In order to help it with the transition, we’ve renamed it to simply Beyond and made some changes to accommodate:

• Many old & new Items have entered the Beyond shop to bring it up to speed with the times.
  • Long time players may recognize new versions of old Items like Gather joining the fray!
• Descriptions & the Shop UI have been made more compact and quicker to parse.
• Both Schisms 1 & 2 are active within the LTM version. Having both a unique Shop & Cart makes Beyond feel distinctly its own experience.

We hope players give it another chance as we continue to embrace all of Paladins' history & improve older modes!
Abyss has always felt like a map out of an older shooter, so let’s embrace that! This LTM places powerups all along the TDM map Abyss & allows players to harness powerful effects that make for a truly classic arena shooter experience.

• Powerup Types
  • Credits
  • Jump Height
  • Movement Speed
  • Cooldown Reduction
  • Damage Reduction
  • Double Weapon Damage
  • Infinite Ammo
  • Ultimate (we've updated the visuals of this powerup game wide as well!)

Earlier in Paladins history, we had a tendency to port older maps to newer modes with varying success. It's been a long while and we've heard players want more map variety, specifically within Onslaught. So, this LTM serves to try something new out! Play Bazaar as an Onslaught map in this test LTM & let us know what you think!
Cards to the Max | February 16th - 19th 

• Removed
  • Haven
  • Illuminate
  • Resilience
  • Kill to Heal
• Added
  • Arcane Warding
    • Reduces damage taken from abilities by 12|24|36%
    • Price: 250
  • Armor Plating
    • Reduces damage taken from weapons by 8|16|24%
    • Price: 275
  • Blood Bath
    • Kills heal you and Eliminations heal you and the ally who got the kill for 300|600|900
    • Price: 300
  • Hoard
    • Gain 10 Credits every 15|10|5s
    • Gain 5|10|15 Credits on Elimination
    • Price: 150
  • Meditation
    • Heal for 2.5|5|7.5% of your max health every 0.25s when out of combat
    • Price: 175
  • Sentinel
    • Reduces effectiveness of Slows, Knockups, and Knockbacks by 25|50|75%. On Elimination, gain a 150|300|450 health Shield for 5s, stacks up to 3 times.
    • Price: 225
  • Trigger Scent
    • Increases damage dealt by 5|10|15% for 5s after getting an Elimination.
    • Price: 250
  • Unbound
    • Reduces the duration of all Crowd Control except for Slows, Knockups, and Knockbacks by 25%.
    • Price: 200
• Adjusted
  • Deft Hands
    • Price: 250 ➡️ 225
  • Guardian
    • Increased scaling from 10|20|30% ➡️ 15|30|45%
    • Price decreased from 300 ➡️ 250
    • Now effects all Shields
  • Lethality
    • Price: 250 ➡️ 200
  • Life Rip
    • Heal increased from 10|20|30% ➡️ 20|40|60% of damage dealt
    • Price increased from 200 ➡️ 225
  • Master Riding
    • Price reduced from 250 ➡️ 225
  • Nimble
    • Price reduced from 150 ➡️ 125
  • Rejuvenate
    • Price: 200 ➡️ 250
  • Veteran
    • Bonus health increased from 5.5% ➡️ 7%
    • Price decreased from 300 ➡️ 275
  • Wrecker
    • Price: 300 ➡️ 275

One of the driving philosophies for this update has been to give players more choice in their itemization during a match. Specific Champions, certain maps, team compositions, and even game modes influence what you should purchase with every match being unique. With every category getting a fifth item, and almost all items getting updated, you’ll have more choice than ever before to impact your game. Are you greedy and seek out the most damage output possible, more reserved and focused on holding down the choke, or sneaky and vicious - striking from the shadows before quickly retreating back to the darkness? Items have a massive impact on your play style, activating certain Champion rotations and strengths or letting you shutdown an oppressive enemy. With new items though and more choices comes more consequences, as Credits aren’t the only cost to Items. Space in your loadout is just as if not more costly. Purchasing your comfort Items may lead to disaster if an enemy itemizes for optimizing their Shields and none one on your team bought Wrecker. Counter items are just as important as items, and figuring out who on your team should buy what is just another step in making sure your team is working efficiently and optimizing into each Champion's specific role. There is a lot to cover about these items, more than we have space for in this dev comment block, but we wanted to share some thoughts on it to showcase our thought process. With these changes you’ll be able to really showcase and focus on how you like to play. What you buy can greatly impact a match, and the choice is yours on how you want to shake up the game. Look at what the enemy is purchasing and respond appropriately - become what they fear and look for around corners near the point. You have control over how you play and that matters to us at Evil Mojo. Talents and Cards are just one part of that equation - Items are making a more impactful splash than ever with this update and will influence every match you have. Go and experiment, but most importantly have fun! Itemize and terrorize!

• Starting Credit amount increased from 400 ➡️ 500

Developer Commentary: With the addition of new Items, we wanted to encourage players to really think about what to buy in any given match by giving you all more money! With this increased starting values, new round start combinations of Items are possible and experimentation with the new Items is encouraged. Go out there and theorycraft, Champions!

• Increased Range you see targets in Stealth from 15 ➡️ 40

We’ve removed Illuminate and, as compensation, increased the base Stealth detection range. This is the equivalent of slightly above Illuminate level 1 across the board - making detecting Stealth champions easier, but not a full counter like with level 3 Illuminate. There were a few reasons for this, but some of the main one was the difficulty of keeping Stealth Champions in a healthy state due to the independent variable Illuminate was. With the removal of Illuminate we’re normalizing Stealth detection, and from this new baseline we can balance Stealth more efficiently and without an extreme number of edge cases throwing wrenches into the plan.

For full update notes including Champion balance changes and bug fixes, visit our website here

Greetings Champions! Here's what happening in the Realm this week:

We are less than 24 hours away from the launch of the Wild Hoard update, which not only kicks off the seventh year of Paladins but also brings with it major changes to the Item Shop, overhauled features like Trials of the Realm 2.0, but also a return to a familiar and cozy fantasy theme. Catch up on the patch notes here, now with all the changes we've made since PTS added.

We're so excited for players to get their hands on this update. We haven't kicked off a year without a new Champion in a long time (arguably ever), but we felt strongly that the changes we focused on in this release make the day-to-day Paladins experience more enjoyable for every player. We'll be intently listening to feedback once it's live & reacting to any issues, a huge thanks to everyone who played on PTS!

This fanart feature marks the last before a new Title is added to the game: Featured Fanartist. Moving forward, I'll be reaching out to the artists featured & offering them an in-game title for their efforts! In order to keep things fair, anyone already featured in the 2024 will receive this in the coming weeks, and no worries if you happened before or missed out; I'll be focusing on new entrants as much as I can!

Without further ado, let's dig in!

Luna's New Year

Argh-sert Dominance

Handcrafted Yagorath

Redrawn Raum

More Than Meets Zig's Eyes

After 2 years on ice & a polarizing legacy, Beyond returns in a new light, with an updated Item Shop selection that is faster to read & progress through. The Schism 2 Cart also joins to offer players a chaotic and unique experience compared to the Siege this mode breaks off from. Enjoy some unexpected strategies and diverse gameplay opportunities as the mode returns this weekend!

Enjoy the Wild Hoard & provide feedback when the form goes live later this week!

- EvilMojoKryptek

Greetings Champions! Here's what happening in the Realm this week:

The beginning of Year 7 has finally been revealed in Wild Hoard, an update coming later this month to the Realm! From the beginning of Trials to a whole suite of the Item Shop, there is so much to be explored when the Dragrin arrive. For a glimpse of future content, watch the Developer Update:



The Update Notes were available here however our website is experiencing some larger-scale issues we're working through. We'll make sure to let players know when things are back online!

Speaking of Wild Hoard, our PTS is now LIVE for players to try out some of the content and changes headed to the game soon. This PTS is even more important than most as we really need feedback on Trials functionality and Item balance. We'll be actively monitoring and collecting as much as we can to make sure Year 7 starts off as amazing as it should, so download & play now!

Vampire's Mirror Image

Paint Me Like One of Your Treasures

VIIs, We're so Buck

Maeves, It's so Grover

Partners in Flank Buffs

See you all soon in PTS!

- EvilMojoKryptek