Teamfight Tactics patch 9.16 notes

Riot·Aug 13, 2019·4 votes·111,864 views

Hey Tacticians, welcome to the Teamfight Tactics patch 9.16 notes.

The headliner for this patch is the introduction of the Hextech origin bringing Camille, Jayce, Vi, and Jinx to the Convergence. Building Hextechs into your team composition will provide answers to enemy teams relying on a single champion stacked with items. On the flip side, when playing against Hextechs be prepared to spread your items out between your champions to mitigate their disruption.

In addition to the fun new stuff, we're also making a few less flashy (but hopefully just as satisfying) improvements to a few systems in Teamfight Tactics. The randomized round-by-round matchmaking system will no longer pit you against the same player multiple times in a row. Additionally, we're limiting the number of round ties by adding the whole new URF Overtime buff that activates at the end of long battles. We've been pretty happy with the player damage changes from patch 9.15, but we've added some base player damage to keep close end games from going too long. Last but not least, three new Little Legends and the second beta pass round out the new stuff in this patch.

Take this portal if you're looking for League's patch notes!

Now, let's get into it.

Blake "Riot Beernana" Edwards

Mid-Patch Updates

8/16/19 Noble Balance Change

Noble

We're reverting their buff from this patch.

Bonus Armor and Magic Resist: 75 ⇒ 60

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 ⇒ 75

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: 50 ⇒ 65

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: 20% max health over 5 seconds ⇒ 20% max health over 10 seconds

Red Buff

Burn Damage: 13% max health over 5 seconds ⇒ 20% max health over 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.
Health on resurrection: 800 ⇒ 500

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.

223 Comments

Dexy OwOAug 13, 2019151 votes

That new drop mechanic is unneeded and honestly terrible. It's going to get really frustrating if two components combine into an item I simply don't need

FinalFlareAug 13, 201946 votes

Exactly what i thought, id rather have 2 seperate items than a completed item, which is why I partly hate dragon+ rounds.

Methuselah 969Aug 14, 201920 votes

Totally agree. In many cases during dragon rounds I get a Yuumi or Youmuu's Ghostblade which does not match my team comp and the other team gets a Rageblade or Red Buff. I know it is random, but something like that should not determine the game.

PianoConspiracyAug 14, 20198 votes

That said, Yuumi still grants the sorc bonus of double mana on attack and +40 ap so its pretty good no matter what especially on something like a yasuo, akali, or poppy since their abilities are so impactful

OmnythAug 14, 20196 votes

Don't listen to crossed swords. Sorcs get an innate bonus with or without multiple sorcs. That's why it's INNATE.

JWaughAug 13, 20198 votes

The only positive I can see coming from this change is that people might pivot to different comps early if they get a full strong item. This would diversify the comps being built in a game. I find it too common that everyone is building the same 3 comps and the champ pool is weighted unevenly. If I got a random blademaster (recurve+spach) or comp specific item I might pivot to make that comp because it would be easier. Just a thought.

ĘbbAndƒloweyAug 13, 201931 votes

But from how it's worded, you'd already be somewhat likely to do that. It's kinda vague, but how I see it is that if you get two items from a minion round: it will randomly drop it combined instead of broken apart. So if you get a Giant's Belt and a Tear but had a bf sword and nlr on the bench... Even though you probably want the components so you could make morello and shojin or zekes and ludens, it could randomly just give you redemption. It's added rng that can ONLY be negative. Because if you wanted to combine the items, you will.

Now if it's just a rare chance to drop a combined item period, not "auto combined the items you got" it'd be kinda nice. Too rng heavy (this dude just got an rfc and another recurve off of wolves!? Gg rng,) but kinda nice.

supercow376Aug 13, 20193 votes

It would force certain. Items to be built that aren't normally built (because they aren't one of the few OP items). This is not a guaranteed negative. It forces diversification of stratagy to accommodate uncommon items

ĘbbAndƒloweyAug 13, 201922 votes

No, the combination is only negative. What I mean by that is if you were to combine the item, you'd do it. It takes away the decision to combine it or not. That's negative, no matter if you think items are a problem or not. (item diversity is actually really good right now. It's just that some items are a lot worse than others. It's not that some are better.)

Also keep in mind, items are built to counter certain comps and empower your own. If you're playing gunslingers and are against a healing heavy comp, you neeeeeeeed Red Buff or you lose. So what if you have a chain vest on your bench but it drops a completed redemption? Even though you needed that giants belt and could have made use of the tear later on, you LOSE now because the game decided to combine the items for you. Now say it it drops that Red Buff instead. What do you gain from it? You were going to build it anyways. There is no situation where the item dropping pre-made actually is positive. It's only negative.

Deep Terror NamiAug 13, 201981 votes

I don't like the full item drops off PVE rounds. If you need items because you didn't get any drops earlier, it feels horrible to get a random ass Redemption or Blademaster buff etc. when you need to build something useful for your comp.

NastyLemonsAug 13, 201923 votes

i feel the same way, i dont like this idea at all

RéígnAug 13, 20196 votes

Well the game is all about adaptation so as bad as this can be the game is still testing how well you adapt to the present situation.

ĘbbAndƒloweyAug 13, 201917 votes

How does being given random full items make you have to adapt. Components let you make decisions and help you adapt. Being given a full item gives you no decisions on that front.

Unreal EdAug 13, 201973 votes

We REALLY need a Tab menu that shows each player's composition and the champions they have on their bench, similar to regular LoL's Tab menu.

Currently, to get a sense of what we should build, we have to go through every player one by one and memorize, for each champion (!), who has how many of them, which is incredibly tedious. Strength of memory is NOT one of the core pillars of TFT and so having to check players one by one, as we currently have to, is a detriment to playing the game around its core pillars.

Visually, I would picture it similar to how the end-game screen looks, with the champion icon with stars above them all in a row, for each player. The only thing I would add is having a 2nd row that represents what you have on your bench. Having an icon we could hover that shows you which Trait bonuses that player has would also be very nice, but I could see counterarguments to having that as a feature.

running wheelAug 13, 20192 votes

But u can scroll to the other player’s screens to see what they have I’m pretty sure that’s the equivalent of the tab screen, and I’m pretty sure it’s intentional to make the game harder

Yuumi OwUAug 13, 201941 votes

It's not really harder in a skillful way It's just harder in a pain in the ass way

Reiterpallasch19Aug 14, 20197 votes

Found myself thinking this today. In the post-game lobby, we're able to see what champions people had and what rank they were at - it shouldn't be difficult to be able to replicate this exact information into a screen when we press and hold tab, no? I don't think there'd be a decent way to show anything more (positioning, items) apart from perhaps income level (0-5) and win/lose streak.

But holy heck, consolidation of a lot of information would streamline a lot of play at all tiers, not to mention make the game easier to follow and teach.

To reiterate; please create a window when we hold tab to show the champions of each player, and perhaps their income level and win/lose streak as well.

Atomic ShamanAug 14, 201914 votes

I don't mean to hijack this thread. The TAB menu is a great idea(by the OP.) I would like to see this feature for the added benefit of being able to mute individual players w/o having to mute all chat (same as SR tab menu.) Having one obnoxious player spamming toxic garbage can really ruin the flow of an otherwise great new game.

NastyLemonsAug 13, 201963 votes

yo the new drop mechanic is whack, its feels like im losing control over what items i make.

sixthsAug 14, 201910 votes

That's literally what it is. Instead of dropping a tear and a rod, you're forced a redemption... Yaaaay!

Even if the items were all so balanced that no item was "bad", there is already forced adaptation in the RNG of item drops (and champ pools) as it is, adding more on top of that is just silly.

Notorious GnomeAug 13, 201942 votes

The autocombine is a step on the wrong direction imo. It takes power and decision making away from the player in one of the most meaningful tactical decisions in the game (item combination) considering items can win or lose you the game... The existing Item drop RNG is enough.

Killerjaw2Aug 13, 20193 votes

It's not an autocombine, it just adds a chance for completed items to drop from minions.

SakaruAug 13, 201912 votes

That's not the case. It specifically says it'll drop a completed item instead of 2 separate pieces.

That means if you were going to get, say.. A Recurve Bow and a Giant's Belt in the same round, there's a chance you will instead get a Titanic Hydra.

It automatically combines the 2 items you would have gotten, rather than giving you the 2 items separately.

Killerjaw2Aug 14, 20194 votes

By saying auto combine you implying that it is guaranteed that they will combine, which is not what they said. They said that sometimes instead of getting the components to make the item they will just drop the item. It doesn't say they will just automatically combine all items to make it so you can't get the components no matter what. That would essentially make it impossible to build items.

sixthsAug 14, 20199 votes

So instead of "automatically does something bad" it should be read "has a chance to automatically do something bad"...

Either way, still bad.

RiverSpiritNamiAug 13, 201923 votes

Is nobody gonna say anything about FIXING AFK CHAMPIONS in game??

Unreal EdAug 13, 201922 votes

PLEASE change the shape around the traits so that they're different between Origins and Classes. For example, Origins would have a hexagon, while classes would have a square, pentagon, or circle around them. It would make it so much faster to differentiate them on the left side of the screen when playing!

Also, it would be great if we could click or hover a Trait in-game and have it highlight the champions affected by the trait. it would let us quickly see which champs are getting the bonus or which ones you can't remove from your lineup when changing team comp.

RazasinAug 14, 20197 votes

Curious to know - would knowing the difference between origins and classes affect gameplay? Like if I had a noble knight synergy, would it matter knowing that Noble is an origin and Knight is a class? If so, why?

nutsquirrelAug 15, 20196 votes

I had the same question, I don't think it matters at all

Nicolas CageAug 13, 201921 votes

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

This seems worded weirdly. Does this mean that if, for example, Murk Wolves dropped Spatula/Recurve, it's possible that instead of dropping both, the game rolls another roll on top of that and decides to only drop the completed BotRK? Could see this being a potential Quality of Life nerf, as the player may need one of the decombined items to instead give themselves an item they actually want, although of course, maybe you high roll BotRK when you need your 9th blademaster.

Or does it mean that in the hypothetical Spat/RB situation you could get Spat/BotRK, or BotRK/RB?

Thank you for any clarification.

vmostAug 13, 20193 votes

I think in cases when one minion would drop two or more items, the system will auto combine as many as possible before boxing.

JadekickAug 13, 20196 votes

I think it works like in the carousel rounds, where you can sometimes get a full item on a champion, there will just be a possible chance of getting a random full item from PvE rounds.

omg CherAug 14, 201918 votes

Players: "Not getting any items when others do feels really bad, please make everyone get the same number of items"

Riot: "We're now going to randomly drop fully completed items for even less choice"

halfbr33dAug 13, 201916 votes

So items that were not fixed:

characters simply vanishing at full health without anyone attacking
using 2 gold to roll a new champion selection and finding only 4 characters available and not 5
characters standing and not attacking although they are ranged and are within range of other characters
random characters not appearing in rolls for anyone except once
buying a character that never appears in your line up nor is the gold ever returned.

[slayer-jinx-unamused]

SakaruAug 14, 20193 votes

Don't forget not having your champion pool reroll at the start of a round. I.E. You buy 2 units from 1 pool and have say.. Warwick, Nidalee and Kennen left in it one round.

Next round starts, you still have Nidalee, Warwick and Kennen and 2 empty slots, instead of 5 random champs.

We Need DadAug 14, 20198 votes

You sure you didn't tap the lock button on accident?

NereideAug 14, 20197 votes

Omg with your comment I JUST realized what the lock button does. it locks the options you have for the next round in case you can't afford it??? FML I missed on so much and sold stuff for no reason. RIP.

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

DivinepoopAug 14, 201910 votes

Please remove this new "New Drop Mechanic" INSTANTLY Seems very unnecessary, its gonna be difficult af now to customize or adapt items to champs...

jeremywightAug 14, 201910 votes

I just want my square in the bottom right highlighted so during carousel I don't have to click them all to find me. I know you all do the same thing!

RazasinAug 14, 20198 votes

spacebar should show your bench wherever you are honestly

Tommy NobleAug 13, 20196 votes

Morellonomicon Burn Damage Duration: 5 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds Red Buff Burn Damage Duration: 5 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds

Cool patch, but this is pretty strange to me. Can anyone explain this? These are two of the strongest and most frequently built items in the game already, and they are straight up buffed to last TWICE as long? 200%?

Yu IshigamiAug 13, 201917 votes

The way I'm thinking it works is not the way you think. If I recall, let's take Red Buff for example. It does, what 13% max hp over a set interval, previously 5 seconds. The nerf now is that it takes twice as long to deal the percent damage. In other words, it will generally take twice as long to do the total damage. So instead of doing about 2.6% max hp per second for 5 seconds, it does 1.3% max hp per second for 10 seconds.

I presume this is a good nerf.

Mr WedgeAug 13, 201915 votes

More of a power adjustment than a nerf. Slower burn, but they'll block healing for a long ass time.

FusionPhDAug 13, 20194 votes

Yeah, it really puts them as an anti-heal item rather than a damage item, which is what I think they should be. Their damage should still be decent, and it is more punishing to use them on single target units.

MyGfHateLoLAug 14, 20196 votes

can you guys fix where the game crashes at start and it says game still in progress when we try to reconnect???

EliFTWAug 14, 20196 votes

Not complaining here, just noting that I don't care for how strong hextech is already. I lose early to get a better draft pick for items to build around, but now that's completely pointless if late game BOOM, no items for half the round? Completely broken in OP in my opinion.

shot040Aug 13, 20193 votes

I do not see the beta pass. It is still greyed out. Is this wrong?

SlNATRAZAug 13, 20196 votes

Patch is tomorrow so it will probably be up at the same time.

RevFrenchieAug 14, 2019

Can someone explain to me why we can't move items off of champions or move them to other champions once they've been placed? I feel like we should be able to do that, but there might be a reason why that I'm just missing...

sixthsAug 14, 20196 votes

1 reason: you could switch items as a unit was dying. Another: forcing a player to sell the champ to get the items makes for more strategy, as you can't simply move items around willy nilly. So you have to decide if it is worth building that item now, saving it for a different champ, or saving the components for a different item.