This speedster has been zipping around competitive queues like she owns the place, and players are breathing a sigh of relief now that Riot Games has decided to rein her in a bit. With pro players voicing their frustrations, this patch couldn’t come soon enough.
The most significant change? Neon’s slide ability is getting some much-needed adjustments. Previously, with her High Gear sprint active, she could right-click to slide at breakneck speeds while maintaining pinpoint accuracy. But with Patch 9.11, she’s down to one Slide charge instead of two. Goodbye, free kills!
You might remember when Neon got those shiny buffs in June 2024, her Slide was practically an unstoppable force on maps like Sunset and Haven. Now, though? Those days are over! Her movement accuracy while sliding is now akin to crouch-walking, and there are no more sniping opponents from across the map while doing the cha-cha.
AGENT UPDATES
ALL PLATFORMS
- Neon
- We’re reducing the power of Neon’s High Gear and Overdrive. These changes are intended to require Neon to play more intentionally as Neon’s abilities are highly reactive and impactful and should require more strategic use than they currently do.
- High Gear
- We believe Neon’s slide is correctly positioned as an aggressive combat tool, but making a call around when to cast should be more important than it is currently, and that she should pay more of a cost when she slides.
- Additionally, we want to sharpen the slide as a close-quarters combat tool to reward Neon for sprinting up to her opponents rather than consistently beaming opponents at long ranges.
- Slides 2 >>> 1
- Accuracy during slide
- Full accuracy >>> Crouch-walking accuracy
- We believe Neon’s slide is correctly positioned as an aggressive combat tool, but making a call around when to cast should be more important than it is currently, and that she should pay more of a cost when she slides.
- OVERDRIVE
- We want to increase counterplay for Overdrive—giving opponents a potential window to stall Neon out or disengage. The amount of average round impact with her ultimate also justifies an 8 point cost.
- Duration of ultimate: 20s >>> 10s
- Ultimate points 7 >>> 8
- We want to increase counterplay for Overdrive—giving opponents a potential window to stall Neon out or disengage. The amount of average round impact with her ultimate also justifies an 8 point cost.
- Vyse
- Razorvine
- We want to increase Razorvine’s ability to hold space as well as clean up some unclear gameplay situations where Razorvines that land on high objects could affect opponents with poor visual feedback.
- Damage per tick of moving through Razorvine: 6 >>> 10
- Vertical drop spawn height: 450 >>> 300
- This means Razorvine will no longer affect players as far under it when spawning high up on objects/level geometry
- Now slows enemy dashes similar to Sage’s Slowing Orb and concusses.
- Arc Rose
- Arc Rose is getting some minor quality of life updates that should make aggressing off its initial placement easier.
- Equip speed after cast
- Normal >>> Fast
- Razorvine
CLIENT UPDATES
ALL PLATFORMS
- You can now upgrade your weapon skins in 5 seconds instead of 5 hours (lol)
- Added the ability to unlock multiple available skin levels in a single transaction.
- Variants will require a separate unlock.
GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS UPDATES
ALL PLATFORMS
- Ping System
- The in-game ping system was created with the simple goal of allowing players to communicate with one another without using their mic. Over the years, unintended use cases of the ping system have emerged that give players in-the-moment combat advantages that go beyond the intended use of the system.
- With that in mind, we’re making two changes to the ping system.
- Smokes will block your in-world pings from traveling through them and instead land on the smoke.
- Pings made on your map will no longer appear in the world and only display on the minimap.
- To help you differentiate these ping behaviors in game we’re introducing new ping visuals and new ping sound for pings made on the map.
- We’ll introduce a cheat function for allowing map pings to show in-world during custom games to aid labbing and lineups, but this will come in a future patch.
Before Ping Update
After Ping Update
MODES UPDATES
ALL PLATFORMS
- Team Deathmatch
- The Regen Shield has been added to Team Deathmatch in Stage 1. When using the Classic in Stage 1 you will now have the Regen Shield instead of Light Armor.>
- Stage 1 Classic
- Light Armor >>> Regen Shield
- Stage 1 Classic
- The Regen Shield has been added to Team Deathmatch in Stage 1. When using the Classic in Stage 1 you will now have the Regen Shield instead of Light Armor.>
SOCIAL UPDATES
PC ONLY
- Updated the color of Party chat messages from Team chat messages.
- Updated the appearance of Party flags in the Social Panel.
BUG FIXES
- Progression
- ALL PLATFORMS
- Fixed a bug that incorrectly required 100 matches played to complete the Play A Match weekly mission.
- ALL PLATFORMS
This nerf serves two purposes: first, it curbs Neon’s ability to slide in for a kill and skate away unscathed; second, it makes long-range duels much less favorable for her sliding antics. Sure, she’s still a threat up close, but no longer can she dominate from afar without consequence.
But wait! There’s more! Neon’s ultimate ability, Overdrive, also takes a hit, now lasting only 10 seconds instead of 20 seconds. To add insult to injury (for Neon mains), players need to earn an extra eighth ultimate point before they can unleash that deadly lightning beam.
On top of all that chaos, Patch 9.11 introduces some minor buffs for Vyse, the newest agent, and tweaks to the pinging system that will have you thinking twice before calling out enemy positions through smokes.
