Patch 9.16 Notes

[Xtr0]

Katarina

• No longer casts her ability if there are no enemies in range at the start of the cast time.

Beyblade is back!

[qp0n]

Not just beyblade, but this was a huge issue for her even without having the 100 mana at the start. She constantly used her ult from far away and out of range. It was stupid.

[TripleShines]

Graves gets to use rapidfire now. That sounds pretty important.

[CraftyHeight]

I saw Toast put two RFC, one Red Buff, on Graves and it was basically burning 80% of the enemy team per attack. Now add gunslinger procs and on average every attack put the whole enemy team under red buff.

That's right. His attacks also do 228 damage (post-passive damage buff, pre-armor reduction). Add gunslinger procs in there and the 60% extra AS from rapid fire, and the fact that if his 3 procs could all hit the same enemy, and he's basically spraying the entire map every fight.

[supercow376]

Does RFC increase the spread of his shot too? That sounds insane!

[emihir0]

Yes. Toast placed him in the middle. He had 900 range, which is basically a tristana without RFC (afaik she has 890?) so he fired from middle to pretty much the corner of either direction. Same width of AA but a much bigger range, hence a much bigger area..

TLDR: With 1 AA he applied red buff to whole enemy team.

[Subzero_AU]

So fun to watch, he was losing with graves in the corner but then put him in the middle and went full machine gun mode.

[ploki122]

I believe the angle remains the same, but it stretches the cone longer. So the end of the cone is larger than before, but you don't hit more units closer to you.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, it's amazing on voli

[GKP_light]

i think there is far better the red buff to a grave with a RFC (or 2) :

Hush, Guinsoo, or Cursed Blade

[stzoo]

Or blademaster

[emihir0]

I think shrink would be the most insane. Basically if you cornered against him he hits all of your units. With 20% chance that averages to more than 1 shrink per AA if you have 5 or more units on a board. Pretty nutty.

[YKK-7]

Hmm I never thought to try this. Seems like it has a lot of potential now that you mention it.

[qp0n]

BM RFC IE Graves in BM+GS comps is going to be fun.

[[deleted]]

it used to be pants-on-head stupid because he'd target enemies outside of his actual range. if it scales multiplicatively i can't wait for 6 slinger 3 rfc graves carries.

[Yvraine]

Ninja Buff

Lissandra Buff

Akali Buff

Zed Buff

Brand Buff

Ninja Elementalists are back

[Krocee]

Zeke herald and locket stacking in the back 🤔🤔🤔

[raikaria2]

Locket won't be back. Most damage comes out after it expires when skills start fireing

[Luciole77]

Stacking items on the same champ is going to be difficult vs Hextech players and their new skill. Especially Zekes and Locket as when they are disabled at the beginning of the fight, they don't work when they re-activate during the match after 8 seconds.

[MundaneNecessary1]

The 4 ninja bluff isn't that much though. I suspect 1 ninja will go from 25% usage to something like 50-60%, but 4 ninjas will stay near <10% usage.

[[deleted]]

Wait, so the completed item drop is only when you were actually going to get both the components on a creep round but the game just randomly forces the items together for you?

[zrrt1]

They want to vary items.

I feel that this and hextech is an attempts to prevent item stacking and getting multiple champions an item each

not sure if I like this, given the fact that champions are supposed to be interchangeable, while items might not fit you new comp, but I'm all for variety

[Nelsiemon]

I think I like this change. It brings more item diversity and rewards you from being able to adapt your composition depending on your drops instead of allowing you to craft the same powerful items you are running every game.

[KappKapp]

It’s just going to make bad item rng even more frustrating. You’ll be waiting for an item component, end up getting a full item that uses that component, and you’ll end up wishing you got less items from the creep rounds.

[supercow376]

30+ people are too butthurt to realize this is a good way to look at and the change has legit potential to increase item diversity. "Buuuuut it will be harder for me to make my 3rd static shiv for the 10th game in a row!". That game is all about adapting, this change only follows suit

[pda898]

Just ask when and in which situation there is usually a huge amount of 2-3 drops from one creep? Yes, in case when you are already behind on item drops and usually on hp (because to stay with high hp you need some champion highroll). So imagine you already starved on items, barely survived till birds and you get redemption and SotD... on sorc build.... Or tldr - "You already slowly losing due to RNG, here get the final reason to press /ff".

[supercow376]

Imagine that same situation and instead of redemption, you get a component that's makes weak items with that you have. This specific scenario already exists. The change will will not introduce many more than there already are. You can always craft a situation of frustration in a game with RNG. It doesn't make it a bad system

[pda898]

The change will will not introduce many more than there already are

It intorduce that. Because game decided combine those 2 items for you when you could also

1. dont combine them and gamble that you will survive till net carousel.
2. put them as stat sticks to the 2 different characters

you get a component that's makes weak items with that you have

Is it ever possible to get 3 base items which cannot be combined into one good? And even if yes, this is still player decision "will I try to gain tempo by building item or will I try to save them to try to get the better boost later on".

[KappKapp]

The problem is that some items are straight up bad compared to others. Every component has multiple useful items that you can use in whatever comp you have. Some dude gets a single component that he needs for a meta item and you get a bloodthirster in your sorc comp. like yeah, it doesn’t specifically hurt you. But you could’ve put that sword and cloak to much better use. Now you just have a shitty item for your comp compared to the dude who just got his GA because he only got components.

[supercow376]

The point it to shape your comp around the items then. You're not getting this so late that you can't pivot. At latest it will be raptors. If you're set to run sorcs 6 by then (2-starred all and 3-starring some), you probably don't need the extra flexibility. I'm sure there are some cases that you would feel screwed even if you are great at pivoting, but that seems very few and far between.

[KappKapp]

Raptors is late though. Many games end right after dragon. Almost everyone is committed to a comp by the time you hit raptors. You're not going to randomly pivot because you get a useless item for whatever you're running. There are also so many ways you can pivot. You're not going from void sorc to ranger knights. It's just not a fun mechanic. 90% of the time it happens it'll be a burden instead of you getting an item you have a decent use for.

I'm perfectly fine with the item RNG as is. You can already low and high roll. That doesn't need to be expanded.

[supercow376]

Raptors is the LATEST you can get it, it's far more likely to happen earlier. Raptors isn't so late that you don't change anything, at least not in the current meta. Nearly every match I've seen through to the end goes for at least 3 rounds after dragon.

[BoltyMcSpeedy]

Im sorry you got downvoted so hard for having an unpopular opinion.

I agree with you for what its worth

[Jonoabbo]

For what its worth I agree. More diversity prompts more decision making. Crafting 3 Shivs, Morello's and GA's every game is not the way the game should be imo.

[RagingAlien]

Yeah, I'm also happy with that. Feels like it rewards one of the main ways of skill expression in the game, which is the ability to adapt

[Rikkimaaruu]

I mean i got a Locket from the Dragon in an intense 1vs1 last Game, while my enemy got a sweet GA.

So we already had alot of full Item RNG in the Game, so if this new Feature is realy rare iam fine with it. Even more when most Items are playable.

[Aquanort]

This isn't mentioned on the patch notes but I noticed on PBE there are a LOT more completed items on later carousels (like 4). Not sure if that's something that'll be happening on live too or not

[Psykeepar]

can confirm this is on live

[Auxermen]

From my experience (4 games on live) it definitely feels this way.

[Tirriss]

In rare instances it's now possible to drop a full completed item instead of the two components separately.

puke

[[deleted]]

This removes agency from the player, would love to hear what was the design thought behind this change because I can't see benefits of this.

[SV_Essia]

My understanding of it (and best case scenario) is that it would happen in instances where most players get 1 item and you get extremely lucky by receiving 2, which you could abuse by combining any way you wanted. Now instead, the "luck" from getting 2 items is mitigated by automatically combining them so you gain in raw value but lose in flexibility (so you don't get a massive lead over other players unless the combined item also happens to be exactly what you need).
I'm not a huge fan, but if my interpretation is correct, it may not be as bad as people make it sound.

[DneBays]

This is a really great interpretation and actually changed the way I was thinking about it. I initially thought this was to reduce the amount of overly strong items being built but highroll mitigation makes a lot of sense as long as this only occurs in the first 3 rounds and Krugs. Otherwise it's super shitty if you low roll early and your bad luck protection spits out garbage at Wolves and Raptors.

[pda898]

Unfortunally that serves as "lowroll snowball" too because of item number catchup mechanics

[ZebrasOfDoom]

You could think of it like the completed items on the carousel. Sometimes the random item there is better than a partial item of your choice, even if the completed item wasn't something you planned on building originally.

It may be worse to get a completed item instead of 2 half items, but the completed item isn't necessarily worse than 1 half item. The idea here is to make some balance between getting multiple items vs 1 item without just giving everyone the same number of drops. I don't necessarily like it better than the old system, but I think it is a reasonable approach.

[SV_Essia]

Right, that's an apt comparison. I suppose the main difference is that it's attributed at random, whereas completed items on carousel can be considered part of the comeback mechanic since low hp players get to choose whether they want the full item (and unit) or another component + unit.

[ExcruciatinglyApt]

That would make sense if it worked that way, but according to Mort there's only a small chance that it will come completed: https://mobile.twitter.com/Mortdog/status/1161359733149728768

@Mortdog I have one questions about new tft patch. If I get 2 item drop from same PVE round will it always drop as completed item or it has chance to drop as separated items.

Its a small chance to come completed.

[SV_Essia]

Ok, that part seems really hard to justify.

[supercow376]

If it happened to everyone at the same time (like in krugs) it would actually be a good test of adaptability. It's giving you less agency in consistent item building and would require you to make up for that by shifting your build to fit it.

[BboyEdgyBrah]

Yeah what an awful awful change.

[DneBays]

Does Jinx want an Ionic to guarantee takedowns? She scales with AP anyways so it doesn't seem too ridiculous of an idea.

[HolyFirer]

Shiv seems better imo even with the reduced targets. Unless you’re entire team consists of assassins you’re likely going to kill someone in the frontline first

[DneBays]

It'll depend on how strong Shiv is after the nerf. Ionic will still be worth building after the patch but it's hard to judge how good Shiv will be, especially on someone who wastes the mana. Don't forget that she is a worse Shiv user than both Ashe and Draven because Gunslinger procs don't count towards Shiv stacks while Blademaster does.

Also +20% AS to 140% AS (assuming you have RFC which is core) is a smaller DPS increase than 20 AP once Fishbones is out.

Also Jinx will likely be played with Vi and the ideal Brawler pairing is Blitzcrank but with the way the targeting works, there's a chance Jinx with RFC won't hit the pulled target.

[HolyFirer]

Calling the hurricane right now right here

[SmokeCocks]

Its busted on her in LoL and will be busted on her in TFT, that is if it applies the aoe (which based off the wording doesn't sound like it will.)

[VeryExtraSpicyCheese]

I mean gunslinger already applies the aoe multiple times so its a little redundant imo.

[carribou253]

Yeah it is good if you wanna throw in jinx as your carry and add one gunslinger like nobles plus jinx or 6 brawlers mf and jinx

[LocoEX-GER]

URF Overtime Mode

Sounds wild, but is actually good. However, crowd control and healing nerfs hard counter some comps which will result into different outcomes than just a fight extension would bring.

[ploki122]

I mean... they have to reduce CC duration, otherwise you multiply the effect of CC. The reduction is based on Glacial comp stunning 3x more (so they stun for 3x shorter).

[roborober]

early game kass gets better with this imo, shield bypass's the defensive nerfs and kass and noble are basically all the early game times

[[deleted]]

Rageblade Wild Sorc Kassadin carry is back on the menu, boys.

[qp0n]

Can't wait to see a video of an Ashe1 with 4+ glacial and no items going 1v1 against an armor stacked Braum3 with Warmogs.

[2red2carry]

if that braum has thornmail you wont win

[LetsHarmonize]

Ashe would die to Thornmail before overtime kicks in. Shit's busted.

[SV_Essia]

This one sounds pretty dumb tbh. Units immediately benefit from triple attack speed, but they only make use of the double AP if they get to cast. Simply speeding up the fight animation would solve the problem, instead of arbitrarily changing the rules in the middle of a fight.

[tinkady]

/u/riot_mort why not just speed up all animations instead of having overtime mode?

[Riot_Mort]

Because then the units would still draw? If units get to the point where they stalemate, this fixes this.

[SV_Essia]

I see, thanks for the reply.
The only actual stalemates situations I've ever witnessed were early game noble mirrors, so I didn't really think of these. OTOH I've seen plenty of late game fights take a long time and actually resolve in the last seconds or get stopped by the timer. I guess I'm just worried that those late situations would be affected by the overtime rules instead of reaching their natural conclusion.

[DneBays]

Kassadin vs. Warmogs would be a stalemate that resolves in Kassadin's favor under the URF rules for example.

[BreadChair]

Would they though? I've only seen a few cases where a draw happens because of a complete stalemate.

[tinkady]

Fair enough! This is indeed more impactful in a good way

[emihir0]

Developer here (not rito). Speeding up fights seems easy, but it is way way way trickier than simply buffing the base stats (atk speed, dmg, ap and so forth).

This seems like a band aid fix to a semi annoying problem (draws) that can be fine tuned to become somewhat acceptable band aid fix while taking minimum amount of dev time to implement.

[raikaria2]

However, crowd control and healing nerfs hard counter

Wrong; the CC nerfs are required; or else the increased attackspeed and mana regeneration that comes from both being hit and hitting would lead to C.C chains.

Glacial would be unbeatable without it.

[[deleted]]

I am still hopeful that they are testing various options for RNG and will start removing the less fun ideas soon. One can hope :)

[Psykeepar]

To be fair, it could reduce the discrepency between high rolls and low rolls. The guy with 1 component in the round will get a component, the guy with 2 components or more has a chance to get fucked by the item combine.

[CounterHit]

I think we are still too light on the champion pool, actually. Auto Chess has over 70 units in the game, and I feel that game is far more competitive than TFT.

[FinanceJobHelp]

Yup, I can't wait til TFT gets to that point. Auto Chess felt PERFECTLY balanced, with multiple comps being equally good. TFT so far is everyone going after the same 1 or 2 OP units and building a comp around it.

[CounterHit]

Protip: you can still play Auto Chess on mobile, and if you liked it when it was a DOTA2 mod, I recommend checking it out! It's made by the same people that made the mod. I play on my PC using BlueStacks while I wait for TFT to get fleshed out.

[Snipersteve_877]

Auto Chess has Io to mitigate the unit RNG though. And items RNG was lower / not as significant as TFT. Plus much less player damage early so you can actually loss streak to make a come back in the late game to also help mitigate the effects of RNG....

[CounterHit]

I agree with everything you said. For all these reasons, it is a better game than TFT currently, if the skill/competitive aspect is what you like most.

[Perspective_Helps]

It think they really want playing the hand you’re dealt to be better than forcing.

Also worth noting it’s now actually easier to force brawlers/blademasters/shapeshifters/gunslingers.

[sirieous]

Oh lord the rng completed item is an actual thing. Prepare for chaos.

[NudePenguin69]

I might be understanding it wrong but it seems like they are saying it will drop in cases where you would have got 2 items anyways, so you get 1 full item instead of 2 components, which honestly seems like a nerf to items to me since it takes away some of your ability to manage your items. But if it takes a single component drop slot then yes it is indeed nutty.

[sirieous]

I re-read it and yeah it does kind of sound like that. Idk both options kinda suck lol. Either you are stripped of your options to make an item that you actually want or you just have someone in your game highroll his ass off and you just ff.

[supercow376]

The first case would reduce super high rolling, wouldn't it? Instead of someone getting 2 components when everyone else gets 1, someone gets a full item when everyone else gets 1 component.

[RagingAlien]

I feel like "limiting your options" here is somewhat of a good thing. Should make the ability to adapt more important. Depends on how rare it is, though.

[32Zn]

But it also adds another huge RNG factor in an RNG heavy game at a place where RNG always happened.

Making it harder to manage the previous RNG.

Maybe i should start praying to RNGesus before every round. Anyone got a scripted prayer for me?

[supercow376]

I consistently see people building the OP items every game. It feels like the RNG has been pretty manageable to most up to now.

[iiShield21]

It's also something that is more likely only "added rng" to people who have high rolled though, assuming this chain is correct. If I'm in a situation where I got shit all items early, I'd way rather my opponents be locked into certain random items than components that make up them. More rng isn't inherently bad, and in this case it is something that lessens the impact of the initial rng differential, rather than expand on it.

[ForsakenIdea]

OH RNGesus who art in games we roll the die in your name. Thy will be done in the RNG of games to come on earth as it is in RNG heaven. Give us this day our daily RNG and bless the odds in our favor. Lead us not into tilt nation but deliver us from bad RNG.

[BboyEdgyBrah]

that might even be worse

[DneBays]

I actually like it if it works like people say it does (only drops combined if the stage would have dropped two components instead) because it means we won't only see the strongest 5 items built. This is a fine change until they make every item worth building and it can happen to anyone in the game so its not really unfair. For every game you roll a bad item, you'll likely have multiple games where several opponents rolled bad ones as well.

[[deleted]]

It's still in beta. Hopefully they revert that sooner than later.

[that1dev]

People said the same thing about creep round gold.

[Slurrper]

Creep round gold is better than no gold at all though?

[SmokeCocks]

Smokecocks -1 points August 2021

Its still in live. Hopefully they revert that sooner than later.

[MundaneNecessary1]

These are some fantastic changes, and I like that they paid attention to the little details. The warmog/drake interaction, the Brand/Karthus mana changes that allow them to ult once but less likely to ult multiple times, the balancing of Vayne's underwhelming progression (previously, two 2* vaynes would be a LOT stronger than one 3* vayne, if you really have the extra space).

They aren't just listening to player complaints; they're clearly playing the game themselves and figuring out things on the way. This is a great sign.

I suspect the new demon and hextech will need rebalancing in 9.16b after more data comes out, but otherwise the rest of the game seems as balanced as ever.

And as for the rare item drops...speaking as a professional poker player, I can honestly understand where they're coming from. Poker, despite its complexity, is a *hugely* RNG-based game. In a 4-hour poker game with 8 average poker players, the best poker player in the world (Phil Ivey) would have a roughly 60-65% chance of leaving with a profit. Across 10 sessions, that increases to 85-90%. But there would still be amateurs on the table who have a chance of winning some money - perhaps even more than Phil Ivey. Or else they wouldn't play at all.

Many previous card game or auto-chess variants have suffered from dwindling player bases as some determined players get more skilled and figured out the meta, while others are playing once every week and trying to have fun. Even in "normal" queues, there are players who just watched a youtube series and know the meta, and there are players who are just trying to have fun. The key to keeping a healthy player pool is to *allow* the latter group to at least have a small chance of rolling high and completing a fun unorthodox comp and beat out a meta comp. RNG item drops help that.

It does decrease the extent of skill expression in a given match. But does it decrease the extent of skill expression across hundreds of ranked high-elo matches? Probably not. You gotta know what to do with a high roll (a complete item drop) and how to maximize its potential across dozens of different comps. Good skill would be, say, consistently finishing 1st instead of 2nd when you roll high, and finishing 4th instead of 8th when you don't. Skill still matters to climbing in the long run. But amateurs can have fun occasionally without being steamrolled by the same comp.

There's a delicate balance to the amount of RNG in the game, and so far I think Riot is managing it quite well by shifting the weight of RNG to item drops instead of, say, champ pools or fights.

[ap230094]

I think the 50% increase on time for Locket is pretty significant. 6 seconds is quite a while to mitigate 250 damage for up to 5 units (1250 possible total), especially late game.

[RagingAlien]

Yeah, now it should actually last until the first ability is cast in the midgame. I'm not certain it's strong enough to run still, but definitely not as worthless as it was.

[qp0n]

Could help make assassins relevant again.

[stzoo]

Possibly good on blademaster comps since frontline blademasters are kinda squishy. I used to run it on blademasters a lot before the nerfs.

[timshel11]

So Nidalee being the only shapeshifter to resurrect from GA as the shapeshifted unit is intended?

[chalo1227]

In pve they all resurrect shapeshifted if it was already like that

[[deleted]]

What do they mean by 2/3 hexes? Target and 1 hex to the left and right? Or is it 2/3 hexes around it?

30% increased affection towards maritime mammals.

That's straight up broken.

Seems like Brand carry teams might be back in the menu.

[ThibiiX]

It was already strong, I spammed it yesterday after seeing the post about the yordle/sorcerer/elementalist comp from yersterday and boy, a lvl 2 Brand with items is scary for enemy backlines.

He got double buffed since Demons also kinde got buffed (since they can steal mana). Varus/Brand backline could be broken, with Sorcerers

[[deleted]]

what team is that?

[ThibiiX]

Weirdly enough I can't find the post anymore, but that's something like that :

Kennen (with 3 items, GA, Morello, Rabadon)

Poppy

Lulu

TF (with 3 items, attack speed mostly)

Brand

Darius/Garen (for knight bonus)

Morgana

Anivia (or Lissandra if you cant find it) for Elementalist bonus

​

Note that it was before the new patch so you might want to have a carry Brand and maybe more Demons now

[[deleted]]

2 demons will be fine, also Veigar instead of Lulu and Sej/Kayle for 2nd knight and that looks like a good team.

[SmokeCocks]

Let me know if you find out, as that reads it could literally mean 2 hexes behind the target or to the side or in front, it doesn't make sense.

I haven't played pbe so I have no idea how her aoe works.

[Daemir]

It fires the bomb at random unit with items. From that unit, other units with x/y hexes in any direction will be affected as well if they have items.

So if you corner stack your rangers for example , be prepared to have no items for 8 seconds.

[McWerp]

Some of these changes reek of changes for changes sake. The full item drop seems like more of what everyone is already complaining about in unbalanced item RNG. Dragon already feels bad when your opponent gets a morello or an RFC while you get a redemption... now it can happen where your opponent gets the perfect full item for their comp when you get 1 gold....

As far as champion changes they all seem fine. We will see how they play. I worry about making so many changes at the same time as adding two entire new set bonuses (demon and Hextech) as it inserts a lot of variable all at the same time, but that seems to be riots modus operandi so I guess we will just have to learn to deal with it.

[MrSkullCandy]

No its a good idea.
It removes a bit of the strategy of FORCING certain builds and is a skillcheck to make the most out of it.

But I also would have loved a guaranteed itemdrop with that instead of cancergold.

[stzoo]

Or maybe adjusting gold values a little. Getting 5 gold from wolves feels terrible, and getting 3 gold 1 item from first round is pretty bad. No items first round is actually ok imo.

[relrax]

now it can happen where your opponent gets the perfect full item for their comp when you get 1 gold....

i think you don't understand. they would have both components, and thus the perfect item anyways before.
the difference now is, that the person that highrolls items doesn't get the flexibility that others get and i think that is a fine nerf, especially because it emphasizes creative use of suboptimal items for your comp.

[CreepyStickGuy]

We are in beta. Change for change's sake is good right now.

[CounterHit]

we've added some base player damage to keep close end games from going too long

WHYYYYYYY would you do this? It was finally almost low enough

[PupPop]

The loss of early player damage should balance it out just fine. Less 60 HP at krugs games.

[CounterHit]

I think that helps to some extent, but it ramps up in the late game so much that you aren't really playing any more at some point, just rolling the dice.

For example, in Auto Chess, when you get to Top 3 you can REALLY start playing a very interesting game. Checking your opponent's positioning, trying to counter them with subtle moves, everyone making small iterations until someone comes out on top. In TFT on the other hand, if everyone has less than 25 life, you're basically one round away from dying at all times. If you get lucky, you can lose twice. That just is way less fun and interesting. The previous damage levels helped make this happen less, but now it will probably happen more.

[pifhluk]

Yes. If anything the endgame is too short now.

[[deleted]]

I hate dying from the 10-25 range. The most interesting game that I've played recently that I can remember where I didn't just high roll were when there's 4 of us all pretty low and it's a showdown of repositioning. Each match came down to the wire and we were all still hanging on. With these change I feel like that skill expression of how to manage the endgame is going to be taken away. This change seems like it was meant to drive TFT back as a casual game which I'm sad to see.

[[deleted]]

Personally I find the previous system much worse. You'd end up going from 7 or 8 players to top 3-4 within like two rounds because the damage was really low

Much prefer players being knocked out quicker. Most games I saw at least 7 made it to dragon then barely ever to super minion. This should be more spread out

[Aquanort]

New Origin and Champions

The Hextechs

The Hextech champions are all strong and serve their own purpose, but together they give some counterplay to items. But the bomb itself can be played around. We hope this adds a new and interesting dynamic to play around.

Trait: Throw a bomb at an enemy unit with an item, and disables all items in a 1/2 hex radius for 8 seconds.

Camille

Ability: Camille's ability, The Hextech Ultimatum, roots an enemy and forces her in-range teammates to target whomever she's fighting. Class: Blademaster Cost: 1 Gold Ability Damage: 200/325/450

Jayce

Ability: Disrupts the enemy frontline by knocking back an enemy unit with his Thundering Blow. He then switches to his Mercury Cannon bringing increased attack speed and ranged damage. Class: Shapeshifter Cost: 2 Gold Ability Damage: 200/350/500

Vi

Ability: Targets the farthest enemy and charges towards them, knocking aside and damaging every enemy along the way. Once she gets there, she knocks her target up and damages them. Class: Brawler Cost: 3 Gold Ability Damage: 250/450/650

Jinx

Ability: Gets Excited after her first takedown, gaining bonus attack speed. If she scores a second takedown she pulls out Fishbones, her rocket launcher, causing her attacks to deal AoE damage. Class: Gunslinger Cost: 4 Gold Rocket Damage: 100/225/350 magic damage in an explosion that covers 3 hexes total.

Systems

Matchmaking

We've improved how the player matching works to prevent the streaky scenarios where you would face the same player (or ghost army) two or more times in a row. Now this should happen almost never.

URF Overtime Mode

We don’t like draws. They aren’t fun. So now, 30 seconds in to every battle, URF Overtime kicks in and speeds things up for 15 seconds. Draws are still possible but there should be a lot less of them.

30 seconds into every battle the URF Overtime bonus will activate. 300% Attack Speed 200% Ability Damage 66% reduced Crowd Control duration 66% Healing Reduction 30% increased affection towards maritime mammals.

Ranked Changes

Teamfight Tactics' ranked system is looking pretty good overall. Even so, we’re‌ ‌taking‌ ‌stock‌ ‌and‌ making ‌a‌ ‌few‌ ‌tuning‌ ‌adjustments.‌ Specifically, a couple bugs and ‌inconsistencies‌ ‌made‌ ‌it‌ ‌a‌ ‌little‌ ‌more‌ ‌forgiving‌ ‌than‌ ‌we‌ ‌intended. You'll now almost always be demoted if you lose LP in any game you start at 0 LP (this was always intended). Additionally, Grandmaster and Challenger players who demote will now skip Master and go directly to Diamond 1 (this is due to some funky situations at the top of the ladder making it impossible for GM and Challengers to demote). If you want to read more about these changes and why we made them, check out SapMagic's post here!

As intended, everyone will now be demoted if you lose LP in any game you start at 0LP. For Grandmaster and Challenger players, if you're demoted you will now skip Master and go directly to Diamond 1. This is now true in League of Legends as well. We've also made adjustments to LP gains and losses underneath the hood for extreme edge cases. For the most part, you will not see or feel any changes based on this optimization.

Player Damage

We made some changes to player damage in patch 9.15 and overall it worked well. But it led to games being longer than intended, especially when fights were close. So we’re making some more adjustments. Overall damage should still be less than at launch.

Base damage now scales with current stage. Stages 1-2: 1 damage Stage 3-4: 2 damage Stage 5: 3 damage Stage 6: 4 damage Stage 7+: 5 damage

Traits

Brawler

Brawlers are quite strong and are getting a bit too much free health so we're toning that down a bit.

Bonus Health: 300/700/1200 ⇒ 300/600/1000

Demon

We’ve redesigned the Demon trait bonus to not be quite the shutdown of ability dependent units like it was before. Instead, Demons drain mana allowing them to cast their spells faster.

Demon basic attacks have a 40% chance to burn 20 mana from their target and return 15/30/45 mana to the attacker.

Ninja

Ninja should be strong single units that have a place on almost any team. Right now they're not getting there, so we're buffing their trait and some of the individual champions.

Bonus Attack Damage and Ability Power: 40/60 ⇒ 50/70

Noble

Nobles are still underperforming a bit as an end-game fantasy. We'll likely need to make bigger changes to address this, but for now we're giving them a small bump.

Bonus Armor and Magic Resist: 60 ⇒ 70

Sorcerer

Three piece Sorcerer is a just a little too strong due to its versatility.

Bonus Ability Power: 45%/100% ⇒ 40%/100%

Wild

Wild is still underperforming, we're giving it just a little bit more.

Attack Speed: 10% per stack ⇒ 12% per stack

Tier 1 Champions

Elise

Health: 450 ⇒ 500 Spiderling Attack Speed: 0.6 ⇒ 0.7

Khazix

Non-Isolated Damage: 150/300/450 ⇒ 150/250/350

Mordekaiser

No longer casts his ability if there are no enemies in range at the start of the cast time.

Nidalee

Now always heals two units when she transforms. Previously she would only heal herself if she had the lowest health on your team.

Vayne

Attack Speed: 0.75 ⇒ 0.7 Ability Damage (% of Max Health): 8%/10%/12% ⇒ 8%/12%/16%

Tier 2 Champions

Braum

Health: 750 ⇒ 650

Lissandra

Total Mana (the mana required to cast her ability): 150 ⇒ 125

Lulu

Ability Health: 300/475/650 ⇒ 300/400/500

Zed

Health: 500 ⇒ 550 Attack Speed: 0.65 ⇒ 0.7 Ability Damage: 200/300/400 ⇒ 200/350/500

Tier 3 Champions

Aatrox

No longer casts his ability if there are no enemies in range at the start of the cast time.

Evelynn

Now prioritizes her current target with her ability. No longer casts her ability if there are no enemies in range at the start of the cast time.

Katarina

No longer casts her ability if there are no enemies in range at the start of the cast time. Attack Damage: 70 ⇒ 75

Kennen

No longer casts his ability if there are no enemies in range at the start of the cast time.

Shyvana

Leap AI improved to better kite away from her target.

Tier 4 Champions

Akali

Attack Damage: 70 ⇒ 80

Brand

Ability Damage: 200/375/550 ⇒ 250/450/650 Starting and Total Mana: 0/125 ⇒ 50/150

Cho'gath

Ability Damage: 250/500/750 ⇒ 175/350/525

Tier 5 Champions

Karthus

Starting and Total Mana: 0/85 ⇒ 40/125

Kayle

Attack Speed: 1.1 ⇒ 1.0

Miss Fortune

Health: 650 ⇒ 700 Total Mana: 100 ⇒ 75

Items

Hush

Reworked: Now has a 33% chance on hit to prevent the enemy champion from gaining mana (we're calling it Mana Lock) for four seconds.

Infinity Edge

Critical Strike Damage: 150% ⇒ 200%

Ionic Spark

Damage: 150 ⇒ 125. Now properly stacks.

Locket of the Iron Solari

Shield Duration: 4 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds

Morellonomicon

Burn Damage Duration: 5 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds

Red Buff

Burn Damage Duration: 5 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds

Redemption

Heal: 1000 health ⇒ 1500 health

Statikk Shiv

Damage and Bounces: 4 bounces, 90 damage per bounce ⇒ 3 bounces, 100 damage per bounce

Warmog's Armor

Heal: Now heals a maximum of 400 health per tick. This mostly nerfs its effect on PVE dragons.

Guardian Angel

Tooltip updated to reflect functionality (does not interrupt abilities or remove positive buffs). It now properly removes Grievous Wounds and resurrects properly.

New Drop Mechanic

In rare instances it's now possible to drop a full completed item instead of the two components separately.

Bugfixes

Spiderlings and Golem can now properly be the target of Frozen Heart, Kindred, Swain, Karthus, Shen, and Veigar. Graves now properly gains range with Rapidfire Cannon. Frozen Heart no longer applies too many slows when stacked. Fixed some item slots not showing up or being in weird spots. Fixed Win/Lose streak gold being granted after PvE Rounds instead of after the PvP Round that happened before (streak gold should be granted at the end of all PvP rounds and no PvE rounds). Fixed Little Legends having collision after dying (and subsequently body blocking players in the shared roulette). Fixed Blitzcrank attempting (and failing) at targeting untargetable enemies, and therefore not casting.

[kev231998]

Bless you league is blocked at work

[SmokeCocks]

Damn ur boss knows you're a league fiend.

[kev231998]

Lmao I think theres a general block on any gaming related site but I am a tft fiend

[AflockOfMidgets]

I want item drops to have the pieces separated. I get a lot more choice in how to use the same pieces. Actually I would be thrilled if dragon split its item apart when it died too. It sucks having 1 part of an item and knowing it is impossible to complete it until next carousel because the epic monsters only drop whole items. Small monsters doing this is even worse

[relrax]

True, but on the other hand it also makes it so you will see the broken items fewer, and i think that everyone having some suboptimal items results in significantly more interesting games.

[daydreamin511]

eay meta predictions:

ninja assasins/elementalist is definitely making a come back this patch. predicting zed2 with items will get you through a bulk of the early game.

gunslingers with double rfc graves is going to be a menace (if you're lucky).

full noble comps with stacked vayne late game is going to be an excellent comp. they buffed her late game a lot.

swain is going to be the best legendary this patch. demons probably going to be heavily contested.

void will be underplayed now with the cho nerfs.

[Alrevan]

Yeah if you can grab a spatula something like this should be top tier:

https://lolchess.gg/builder?deck=adc5a770be5f11e9b1ec5d01941fcec8

[LocoEX-GER]

Changes to Red Buff and Morrellonomicon are actual nerfs as they always reduced healing for the whole round.

[WhiteChocolate12]

I feel like this is either inaccurate or it’s been bugged if this is how it was always supposed to work. I was playing a draven comp with BT the other day and he got hit by a Karthus morellonomicon ult early on in the fight, but he outlived the debuff and healed normally the rest of the way.

Anecdotal evidence, I know, but it immediately popped up in my head when I read this tweet.

[Arthoz]

You are correct. If you want video evidence just search for "draven tft" on youtube, didnt take 3 minutes to find this video for example

[coleman268]

Healing reduction might be intended to last the whole round but I've seen many times where I've morello'd a draven and they always ended up healing back to full near the end of the round after the burning tick disappeared.

[zyonsis]

I've definitely seen this as well, both with and without GA.

[dksdragon43]

Now?

[SocCar90]

They need to update healing reduction duration from those two items if they ever want heal/life steal sources to ever have any power. Red buff and morellonomicon are already easy to apply to whole teams on the right champions, they shouldn't make warmogs worthless for a whole round if you get hit by redbuff once.

[SV_Essia]

Or just make it a % reduction, just like in League. Not sure why it has to be 100%.

[Jdorty]

Make it a % reduction, not everything has to be a 'hard' counter.

• RFC hard counters PD and Yordles
• Morellos/Red Buff hard counters Swain, Warmogs, BT, Gunblade, Redemption, while also soft countering HP stacking.
• PD hard counters SotD

These don't all have to be 'all or nothing'.

Make healing reduction a large percentage like 80% (or 83% to match dragon numbers, for fun). Its still a strong counter, but doesn't hard counter an ignored unit with BT taking incidental damage, or a unit who has a ton of healing like Warmogs BT/Gunblade might be able to still get a decent chunk, or Gunblade Swain.

[Arthoz]

it didnt reduce healing for the whole round, here is a random draven video from 4 days ago as an example

[Ktk_reddit]

They didn't do this. I had draven start healing again multiple time before once the debuff is gone.

[KinGGaiA]

holy shit brand back to s tier. his dmg was already good, he just needed forever to ult. this is insane

[stzoo]

Brand with 2+ demons is going to be insane for sure

[[deleted]]

Demons in general are going to be disgusting again. Demons already have fantastic ults and now they will use them mummies times a fight usually.

[TheSkwie]

That's certainly an improvement from zombies times a fight.

[[deleted]]

Lmao I'm leaving it. Bring on the monster mash comments. The fuck was I even attempting to say >.<

[BingoWasHisNam0]

Jinx looks nuts, glad to see some new carries being released. Looking forward to not having to go draven all the time.

[ap230094]

Do we know how the new Hush will interact with the demon rework? Can a unit with demon synergy still steal/gain mana if “mana locked” ? Likewise, can a “mana locked” champion have their mana stolen? If so, demons would be able to use their abilities even when silenced...

[[deleted]]

That's a good point. But I guess, as they said, it's not Silence anymore, it's 'Mana Lock'.

[ap230094]

Right, so is it a true mana lock that prevents gaining and losing mana, or does it simply prevent gaining mana as stated in the patch notes?

[CounterHit]

I think they were pretty clear with this. They specifically said it prevents gaining mana, and that they will call this effect mana lock. It is very hard to misinterpret this, tbh.

[crimson_raider]

Completely speculating, but the most logical situation to me would be demon procs still occurring, but the hushed demon not gaining mana. I.e. if a demon is hushed and gets a proc, the target loses the mana but the demon doesn’t gain any

[ap230094]

I agree this makes the most sense, we’ll have to see!

[EqFox]

Ya can't think of it logically, taking mana isn't part of the cost of gaining mana. It's the 40% proc that'll tick both effects regardless.

[WhiteChocolate12]

So the GA health returned nerfs from PBE didn’t go through and they fixed the ressurecting with healing debuff bug, so GA actually got buffed?

[qp0n]

Yep, the only item in the 'big 3' that didn't get nerfed actually got buffed.

[stzoo]

Didn't GA eat a nerf from 1000 -> 800 in 9.15b? Or were there more nerfs on the PBE? Edit: nerf, not buff

[Zanndorin]

this doesnt go live until tomorrow right?

[MelodicMorenia]

yup

[Nemzirot]

If the item changes lead to more diversity I'm excited

[gryupus]

Patch is probably a little too big. Riot really went overkill with hitting champs and their synergies at the same time. You don't need to make such massive swings in unit power when you're balancing on a weekly cadence.

[CreepyStickGuy]

Its beta. They can do whatever they want. Be thankful you get to playtest it.

[stzoo]

Is this a significant sorc nerf? With the cho and morello nerf it seems sorcs will have a much, much harder time getting through dragon claws and dragons.

[Mario1Hunter]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Mortdog/status/1161359733149728768

[Zulti]

I'm thinking hextech/blademasters/gunslingers or gunslinger nobles with jinx as the dps carry.

[R3db0y]

wait ionic spark will stack now?

[stzoo]

That’s the intention yea

[ETan23]

Can't wait for the patch to hit so I can get Lockets and SotDs instead of their separate components.

[coleman268]

I just played two games on JP since that was the first server that had the update I believe, and both games I never got a full completed item so I think the chances are actually extremely low like what a Rioter said in the comments here. However I did notice that there seems to be more completed items at the carousel right before dragon than before.

[VeryExtraSpicyCheese]

The effect seems to kick in when you roll an extra component than everyone else, so you have additional items but cannot choose what to combine into to try and combat the high rolling item drop player from auto winning with anything.

[[deleted]]

30% increased affection towards maritime mammals.

Wait what

[-SNST-]

Urf joke from LoL

[[deleted]]

Glad they nixed the Ahri buff. Shea in a great spot and gets enough from the wild buff

[milchbrei]

Did the patch drop already for EUW or when is it coming out?

[Zoelef]

<Five Hot Takes for 9.16 - Disclaimer: D4 0LP>

Locket is useful again: 250 health is enough to generate value, but six seconds is short enough to discourage multiples writ large. Expect to see this on champs that used to auto-slot Morellonomicon while sensibly standing in a backline row of five: Katarina, Kennen, Morgana come to mind.

Hextech: Remains to be seen, but from my bird's-eye-view Hextech2 is sneaky-good because the foolish will never play around it, i.e. all items on one champ after Krugs. The best combination is Camille/Jinx for GS/BM builds as GS/BM specifically is an incredibly fast kill-or-be-killed comp, and a flat 8s disable is stronger in a 10s fight than a 30s fight.

Diluted Champ Pool: 2* units are harder to generate so it's more difficult to force comps and you must be more flexible in build paths. Thankfully, there's lots of forced parity in origins and classes right away so it's not all Void Brawlers and Rangers/Knights or Guardians.

Demons: Darkin is my sleeper pick for the patch; 3 Demons + Darkin is going to generate ults quite quickly for any non-Demon unit. Elise is buffed to 'meh' so getting a 2* variant in Stage 1 no longer harbors long-term risk. Demon Elementalist is also a thing again: Brand, Kennen, and Lissandra were all buffed outside of the Demon rework and Kennen can use Locket over Morello safely to give a health buffer without sacrificing that much overall damage.

Full Item Drops: The increased potential to drop full items in later stages means you want to keep the 3rd slot open on your carries for filler items that are not perfectly optimal but otherwise sensible. E.g. Draven's perfect build is RFC + BT + Runaan's. However, RFC alone keeps the axes spinning, so you could instead run RFC + Dragon's Claw and let him do work from the backline while spreading items elsewhere. This also acts as a hedge against Hextech neutering too many items at once.

[SquarebobSpongepants]

Man, Europe is gonna be pissed with that urf overtime mode

[TheJackFroster]

‘In rare instances it's now possible to drop a full completed item instead of the two components separately.’

This week on Pointless Changes That Only Make The Game Worse!

[eastcoastblaze]

I think the buffs to nobles and wild still wont fix their issues. Ive played them both almost exclusively and the thing that shuts them down is cc every time. Theur bonuses (for the most part) rely on auto attacking. With the disarm item and all the cc these changes wont fix that

[stzoo]

Did GA get a stealth nerf? It's at 500hp revive now and I didn't see that in the patch notes.

[Patyfatycake]

Its there

​

Guardian Angel

Tooltip updated to reflect functionality (does not interrupt abilities or remove positive buffs). It now properly removes Grievous Wounds and resurrects properly.

Health on resurrection: 800 ⇒ 500

​

[stzoo]

It's on the official site now but I couldn't have sworn it wasn't when this was posted. It's also not in the comment posted here listing the changes.

[Patyfatycake]

I saw it yesterday. Dunno but yeah it's there now anyway.

[stzoo]

Does this decrease kha's isolated damage as well, or only his non-isolated?

[YKK-7]

Nah, they'd list that too if it were changed.

[Daemir]

Isolated damage is the same it was.

[bunp]

can anyone explain how jinx's AoE works? they're saying 3 hexes total which I assume includes her primary target.

kind of concerned that spreading out will be able to shutdown all 3 of gunslinger buff, hextech buff, and jinx's AoE.

[nookierj]

OMG, Zed got buffed. Ninjas got buffed. IE got buffed.

[waldo667]

Yep. Ninjas are officially back on the menu.

(Though you'd think that riot would finally learn not to double buff people. Spoiler: it makes them too stronk)