Paladins update adds new Champion Azaan

A major Paladins update has added a new playable Champion to the game’s roster. Azaan, The Eternal is a new frontline character who wields a mighty hammer and is adorned with fiery wings.

He’s the latest tank Champion with a stock of 4,500 hit points and a passive ability that boosts his defence as he gives and receives damage.

Azaan smashes his way into the new Paladins update with powerful melee attacks feeding into his environmental mechanics. This new Champion can hunker down by creating walls, then shove enemies into them for extra damage using his lift abilities. Azaan’s ultimate “Deliverance” has him taking to the skies, throwing down his hammer for massive damage and knockback before teleporting to where it was thrown.

As with all Paladins Champions, Azaan can be customised using a variety of talents, cards, and cosmetic items.

The new Absolution update all brings with it a slew of rewards for other Champions with an Event Pass and new Trials. As for the core game, developer Evil Mojo have rolled out a new wave of hero balances and general improvements while also stamping out some bugs. See below for the full list of changes.

Paladins Absolution Update Patch Notes

General Updates

Developer Commentary:
For this patch, we tried to look at some general quality-of-life features to hopefully make the experience smoother in a variety of ways.

”Brazil” Server Region Renamed to “Latin America South”
This was a community request, and one we agreed with. This server is meant to cater to the entire region, but the name only reflected one part of that.

Trials Progress in EOML
Our UI team has been hard at work to get notifications (or “toasts”) into the end-of-match lobby so you can track your progress on Trials Challenges at the end of your match.

Balance

Haven

• Reduced the scaling {6|12|18}% ➡️ {5.5|11|16.5}%

Developer Commentary:
The relationship between Haven and Veteran was too in favor of Haven after the combination of Haven and Blast Shields. This change and the Veteran change should make Veteran a more attractive option by comparison.

Veteran

• Reduced the cost {250|500|750} ➡️ {200|400|600}

Bomb King

• Abilities
  • Detonate
    • Increased size of explosion 11 units ➡️ 12.5 units

Developer Commentary:
We noticed Bomb King underperforming slightly. This change benefits his base kit and brings additional value to Royal Subjects.

Fernando

• Cards
  • Towering Barrier
    • Added text to clarify that this card provides benefits when using the Aegis talent.

Developer Commentary:
This benefit was already happening, but we wanted to make clear to players that running this card was a valid option when using Aegis.

Grohk

• Talents
  • Spirit’s Domain
    • Increased Healing 700 ➡️ 750
    • NEW: Now also increases max Ammo capacity by 15%.

Developer Commentary:
Grohk is viewed as a Champion whose Healing capabilities still fall short of expectations. Additional Healing and additional base Ammo (and therefore more Healing capability) aim to close that gap between expectation and reality.

Lian

• Abilities
  • Valor
    • Reduced range 500 ➡️ 425
  • Grace
    • Reduced range 500 ➡️ 425
• Cards
  • Inheritance
    • Reduce your active Cooldowns by {10|10}% after earning an Elimination.
      • Now only reduces your Cooldowns after earning a Killing Blow, instead of Elimination.
  • Swift Jade
    • Reduce the Cooldown of Grace by {0.5|0.5}s for each enemy hit with Valor.
      • Now has a 4s internal Cooldown before it can provide its benefits again.

Developer Commentary:
The current overwhelming sentiment is that Alacrity gets too much value for the effort, and is not fun to play against. These nerfs target some of the biggest culprits of that frustration.

Rei

• Abilities
  • Chain Heal
    • Now prioritizes targets based on the target’s percentage of maximum Health, rather than a flat Health value.
  • Vivify
    • Reduced the Healing done 100% ➡️ 75%
• Cards
  • Refreshing Break
    • Grant 0.4|0.4% Ultimate Charge to each player to which Chain Heal bounces.
    • Reduced Ultimate charge gain {0.4|0.4}% ➡️ {0.35|0.35}%
  • Midnight Stroll
    • Reduce the damage done by any enemy you are linked to with Spirit Link by {5|5}%.
    • Reduced scaling {5|5}% ➡️ {4|4}%

Developer Commentary:
Rei’s is a unique Support who brings different tools to the table. Feedback on Chain Heal was that it was meeting expectations for its behavior, which should be helped by the Heal priority change. Vivify is a powerful moment in a Rei’s gameplay, but it was too impactful in some situations. Bringing down its Healing effectiveness is a step towards finding a balance between Rei and her opponents, particularly in 1on1 scenarios. Her card changes address some of the most played and most winning points of frustration in player interactions with her.

Sha Lin

• Abilities
  • Rapid Shot
    • Reduced the Movement Speed penalty 20% ➡️ 10%
    • Increased damage per shot 600 ➡️ 625

Developer Commentary:
Sha Lin has been underperforming across all populations. We’re going to keep an eye on him as we make incremental shifts to bring him closer in line with where we expect him to be.

Vatu

• Abilties
  • Kunai
    • Reduced damage 300 per Kunai ➡️ 280 per Kunai
• Talent
  • Enveloping Shadows
    • Reduced scaling 12% -> 10%

Developer Commentary:
Though Vatu varies in performance in different populations, he is overperforming on average and is one of the most-banned Champions in Ranked. These changes should help bring him more in line with where he ought to be.

Bug Fixes

Recently on October 7th, 2021 the Evil Mojo team released a hotfix addressing issues in the Trickshot Update.

Any of the issues below marked (Hotfix) were what went into that hotfix and are already live.

Champion Bug Fixes

Atlas

• (Hotfix) Fixed an issue with the text display of Atlas’ Unstable Fissure talent.

Dredge

• (Hotfix) Fixed an issue where Bare Bones Dredge had the incorrect weapon inspect animation.

Grover

• (Hotfix) Fixed an issue where Grover’s Crippling Throw ability with the Deep Roots talent equipped was not respecting Immunity to Crowd Control.
• (Hotfix) Fixed an issue where Grover’s Crippling Throw ability was displaying Root VFX on enemies hit with it while the Deep Roots talent was not equipped.

Imani

• (Hotfix) Fixed air control issues with Imani while she was mounted

Makoa

• (Hotfix) Fixed an issue where Makoa’s “Wait” VGS command was playing his “You’re Welcome” voice line

Saati

• (Hotfix) Fixed various issues with Saati’s descriptions being out of date with regards to PTS balance changes.
• (Hotfix) Fixed an issue where players could not equip Saati’s Mastery Title.
• (Hotfix) Fixed a rare crashing issue related to Saati’s Dead Ringer ability with the Improvised talent equipped.

Skye

• (Hotfix) Fixed an issue where the Devilish skin’s Smoke Bomb ability did not display a radius for the ability.

General Bug Fixes

• (Hotfix) Fixed various performance issues on the Stone Keep map to fix issues with crashing, frame rate drops, and visual errors on consoles and lower-end PCs on the reworked Stone Keep (Day) and Stone Keep (Night) maps.
• (Hotfix) Fixed some map collision issues on the Stone Keep (Day) and Stone Keep (Night) maps.
• (Hotfix) Fixed an issue where we called the Haunted Willo avatar “Willow”. We’re sorry, WilloQuarterBot.
• (Hotfix) Fixed various minor description errors in the End of Match Lobby.
• Fixed various map collision issues on the following maps: Brightmarsh, Splitstone Quarry, Jaguar Falls, Ascension Peak, Frozen Guard, Stone Keep (Day) and Stone Keep (Night)

Paladins is completely free to play and available on PC and all current consoles.

Source: Paladins Game