TFT update: It’s going on with many big changes in units, items and traits which are dominant the last patch!
TFT System Changes:
- Players now always take a minimum of 1 player damage when they lose a round
“QoL changes – was confusing to lose to only Galio/Zz’Rot but not lose any HP. This does not mean that Galio/Zz’Rot will actually do 1 damage in normal cases, but just ensures that players will always lose HP when they lose a round.“
- Chosen roll percentages are now displayed in the shop tooltip (hover over Chosen icon to view)
“Chosen roll percentage being visible in game basically just means not needing to find an external source to alt+tab into.“
Traits
- Cultist:
- Chosen Cultists now count as 2 cultists, giving Galio double the stats (e.g. Elise 2* chosen gives Galio 4 star levels of power)
- Keeper:
- Chosen Keepers now count as 2 keepers and grant double the amount of shields
“Cultists/Keepers interacted badly with Chosen mechanic, since playing less units of those synergies essentially makes their effects weaker despite having a higher tier. Note that Spirit was excluded from this change due to there likely being abuse cases (particularly Spirit Ahri providing team with upwards of 150% AS on cast); Spirit chosen units are already performing well.“
- Sharpshooter:
- 65/50/35% → 55/40/45% damage reduction per bounce.
“Sharpshooters – 2/4 Sharpshooters were not performing well, the only way to play the comp seemed to be going all-in with 6. This is intended to make 2/4 more rewarding, and encourage variations on the composition that are not just 5 Sharpshooter units and frontline. More work needs to be done with the individual Sharpshooter units since it is currently just a Jinx-centric comp.“
- Dazzler:
- 50/80% AD reduction, 5/15 → 8 second duration
“Dazzler was commonly splashed as a 2-synergy but 4 was never run. Originally, it was supposed to be balanced around the debuff numbers being identical (clarity concerns – the same debuff icon could mean different things), but there seemed to be no other way to make the enhanced trait appealing. If it ends up being confusing in-game, more visual effects might be added to distinguish between 2/4 synergies.“
- Ninja:
- 50/150 → 50/140 AD & SP
“Ninja – awkward trait to balance considering the awkwardness of playing the 4-synergy (needing to bench units before finding all 4). They like the individual ninja units but the 4 synergy was a little over-buffed.“
Units
1-Costs
- Fiora: 400 HP → 25% mana reduction for Chosen buff
- Lissandra: Spell targets Lissandra’s current target → Spell targets enemy with highest AD
- Vayne: 40/75/125 → 50/90/140 bonus true damage
“Fiora currently only being used as a transition unit, want to improve her late-game potential. Mana reduction has been one of the most powerful Chosen bonuses (think Cassiopeia, Janna).
Lissandra is seeing some play as a Moonlight carry, however otherwise there is not much point in running her. Between Dazzler buffs and targeting change, this should hopefully make her a more effective unit to tech-in as a specific counter vs. AD carries like Zed/Jhin/Talon.“
2-Costs
- Vi: 250/400/600 → 250/400/800 Spell Damage, 6 → 8 second armour shred duration, 400 HP → 25% mana reduction for Chosen buff
“Majorly underperforming as a 3-star unit, buffs are intended to make her more vi-able (Mort’s words, not mine). Note that some work is also being done on Xin Zhao – potential for Warlords to be stronger over the next few patches?“
3-Costs
- Akali: 1 → 1.25 second mana lock after spell cast
- Evelynn: 350/500/900 → 350/500/1400 spell damage
- Nunu: 450/650/1400 → 450/650/1800 spell damage
“Akali was performing well as a standalone unit, extremely scary with a perform build (generally blue/RFC/IE). A general goal for this set was to make champions less item-reliant. Will probably see further adjustments.
Evelynn/Nunu the worst performing 3-star 3-cost units, just receiving generic number buffs to abilities.“
4-Costs
*Ahri: 500/750/3000 → 475/675/3000 spell damage
*Ashe: Bugfix – only first hit of flurry could crit and be dodged
*Morgana: Pure random spell targeting → Controlled random spell targeting
“Ahri definitely too strong/popular after Divine hotfix, overly consistent right now. Hoping to make defensive itemization/mystics more effective with damage nerf.
Many people reported Jax not dodging Ashe autos with flurry active. Turns out he was dodging only the first hit from flurry, and only that hit was being counted by the game as an auto-attack in general (hence not applying crit). IE Ashe now gets 5 crits instead of 1 crit and 4 normal attacks on flurry activation.
Although random targeting is frustrating, for large AoE abilities like Morgana/Ahri, it is considered a necessary part of the game to prevent them from being overly consistent. Morgana now chooses 2 random targets and casts on whoever has more surrounding units.“
5-Costs
- Ezreal: 75/150 → 90/150 mana
- Lee Sin: 3/4/10 → 1.5/2/10 second primary target stun duration, 1.5/1.5/10 → 1.5/2/10 second secondary stun duration
- Lillia: 500/750/1000 → 500/500/500 sleep damage threshold
- Sett: 400 HP → 30% SP for Chosen stat buff, 35/45/400% → 40/60/400% primary spell damage
“Ezreal ability is good, but he is casting too late in fights to be impactful.
Lee Sin is currently highest-performing 5 cost, but the CC is too overwhelming and frequently the unit he targets never gets to contribute to the fight. CC nerf means that they should be able to ult once before being kicked off.
Lillia’s spell has two sets of numbers – the damage bonus on breaking sleep, and the amount of damage required to break the sleep. Damage bonus is remaining untouched but should not be easier to proc. Note that since she is usually run with Dusk active, the damage numbers can be quite significantly higher.
Sett is underperforming after mana cost changes in previous patches. Just touching up numbers to make his casts more effective.“
Items
- Luden’s Echo: Bonus damage to CC’d/shielded champions → Bonus damage to CC’d champions only
- Rabadon’s Deathcap: 40% → 45% additional SP (75% total)
- Runaan’s Hurricane: 75% → 100% of AD
- Statikk Shiv: 75 → 80 base damage, 175 → 240 bonus damage to shields
- Zeke’s Herald: 40% → 35% bonus attack speed
- Zz’Rot Portal: 2 → 1 second taunt duration
“Luden’s/Statikk effects separated, especially considering how prevalent shielding and CC is in this set. Statikk in particular lost its place in the item system post-hotfix.
Rabadon’s/Runaan’s are both just rather unattractive items that are generally built when there is nothing better. Hurricane was also only really doing well with specific synergies (think Zed/Kalista on-hit effects).“
“Zz’Rot nerf should not be very impactful, since the taunt usually means that units that target the Zz’Rot holder are going to be stuck on them for a few seconds anyway. Duration nerf should fix some buggy interactions between melee units and taunt (walking around in circles trying to figure out how to attack the taunting target).“
Bug Fixes
- Divine damage reduction no longer reduces true damage
- Nunu can no longer eat Sett before he does his workout
- Fixed a bug where Statikk Shiv could target champions in GA/Sett doing situps
- Fixed a bug where Zz’Rot Portal taunted mid-combat if equipped
- Fixed a bug where Zz’Rot Portal’s construct had 10 more AD than intended
- Exile will no longer fail to create shield when placed next to Galio summon
- Talon will now run through attack flow when attacking with spell (spell attack triggers Rageblade/Shiv/etc.)
- Taunts will no longer persist if taunter becomes untargetable
Hope with these changes, the TFT arena will be more balanced soon!
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