9.18 PBE Cycle

Star Guardian Neeko

Star Guardian Rakan

Star Guardian Xayah

Star Guardian Zoe

TFT Changes

TFT Update: Powerful Punch-Ups 

"Sparring Gloves have magically appeared in the Convergence like mana from heaven (or RNG from minions) to provide you and your team with all of your critical strike and dodging needs. These gloves combine with all existing item components to make eight new items and a reworked Infinity Edge. Sword of the Divine has been removed; its recipe and Infinity Edge's one now create two more new items. They'll all join the roster with patch 9.18. 

TL;DR:

• 1 new item component
• 8 new items made from that component + Infinity Edge
• 1 Sword of the Divine removed
• 2 new items created from old Infinity Edge and Sword of the Divine recipes

Here are the details: 

• Sparring Gloves
• +10% Dodge chance - "Float like a butterfly"
• +10% Crit chance - "Sting like a bee"
• We didn't want to disrupt the balance of offensive and defensive options, so we made Sparring Gloves capable of either: If the finished item is offensive in nature, the statline shifts to +20% Crit, if it is defensive, it shifts to +20% Dodge.

 

• Thief's Gloves
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Sparring Gloves
• A champion holding Thief's Gloves can't hold other items except temporary ones gained by this item. Thief's Gloves cannot be given to a champion that already holds an item. On round start, gain two temporary items. Their quality is based on your player level.
• For those that like items with their items.

 

• Hand of Justice
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Tear of the Goddess
• At the beginning of the planning phase, the wearer randomly gains either 40% increased damage or 40 life on hit until end of round.
• For those that aren't great with decisions.

 

• Infinity Edge
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + BF Sword
• Crits deal 200% more damage.
• When you want to crit, but like....even more so.

 

• Arcane Gauntlet
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Needlessly Large Rod
• Your abilities can critically strike.
• When your ASol dreams of being Draven.

• Quicksilver
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Negatron Cloak
• Prevents the next crowd control effect applied to the wearer. Refreshes every 5 seconds.
• Can’t touch this, ba na na na.

• Iceborne Gauntlet
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Chain Vest
• On dodge, create an expandable 30% attack speed slow zone.
• Just how expandable? No one knows.

• Backhand
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Giant's Belt
• The wearer starts combat with a spell shield. Stun the enemy that breaks the shield for a long time.
• An eye for an eye, in item form.

• Repeating Crossbow
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Recurve Bow
• When the wearer dies, Repeating Crossbow passes to a new ally and they gain an additional 20% Crit chance and 20% Attack Speed. This stacks with each pass of the item.
• YOU get a Repeating Crossbow, YOU get a Repeating Crossbow, YOU get a Repeating Crossbow!!!!!!!!!

• Mittens
• Recipe: Sparring Gloves + Golden Spatula
• Extra 10% Crit chance and 10% Dodge chance. Wearer is also a Yordle
• Tastes purple.

Since Infinity Edge has a new recipe and Sword of the Divine has been removed, we’ve added two more new items in their place: 

 

• Lord's Edge
• Recipe: BF Sword + BF Sword
• A champion holding Lord's Edge can't hold other items except temporary ones gained by this item. Lord's Edge cannot be given to a champion that already holds an item. On takedown, gain a BF Sword for the remainder of the round.
• For those doing the math at home, yes a champion can hold three Lord’s Edges by the end of the round.

• Last Whisper
• Recipe: BF Sword + Recurve Bow
• Attacks can't miss (removed from RFC btw) and deal True Damage equal to 5% of the target's maximum health
• *Cries in Yordle*

Oh, and one other thing: 

Another new item can drop, but this one's a little different. Neeko's Help is a consumable item that you can place on a champion. When you do, Neeko's Help is consumed and a 1 star copy of the champion is instantly made and added to your bench. If your bench is full, Neeko will just pop right back off, so no tricky business! Use Neeko to complete a 3 star champion, or to quickly clone a powerful Legendary champ. The choice is yours!"

"Hey folks, Mort here to talk about an exciting change coming to Teamfight Tactics. The item system is a key part of the game that creates a ton of cool decision points and exciting moments. But we’ve also heard your feedback that how we distribute items over the course of the game is not as good as it could be. In past communications we’ve been clear we’re not going to just give everyone the same amount of items as that leads to a flat and repetitive experience where you know exactly what to expect every game. We want there to be multiple paths to victory in TFT and one of the ways we want to do that is by keeping the item system variable. However, we’ve taken a look at how we can make improvements and have some exciting stuff coming to PBE. 

What is changing? 

First off, you'll notice that instead of just one type of box, there are now Common, Uncommon, and Shiny Rare boxes that can drop, each with their own distinct loot tables. Now when you get a higher quality box, you can get excited about what’s inside, and have a bit more expectations about what outcomes are possible. 

Additionally, there are new drop possibilities. Items and gold can still drop just like before, but we’ve also added Champions and "Neeko's Help" (name pending). Champions that drop from the boxes will be added directly to your bench. (Note: If your bench is full, the units are just directly converted to gold instead. No tricky business with the bench and board!) We’re hoping that getting champs will pull you into unique build paths. And if not, you can simply sell them. Lastly, a new consumable item “Neeko’s Help” can also drop. This item allows you to make a 1 copy of any unit which then consumes the item. This should make your dreams of getting that 3 champion just a little easier. 

Now I already know what you’re thinking. “This sounds like a bunch of RNG!” Well it is and it isn’t. Behind the scenes we’ve done a LOT to control how we distribute the boxes, as well as what’s inside the boxes. Our goal is that games have a lot of variation, but that they also have some degree of fairness to them. So the amount of boxes are much more controlled across the entire game. The difference between the best and worst cases is now much more narrow than before. 

For example, on live after first three PVE rounds you can get 9 gold & 0 items, 3 gold & 1 item, all the way up to 6 items. It’s a pretty wide spread. In the new system, after the first three PVE rounds every player is guaranteed at least 2 Uncommon boxes, then 1-3 additional boxes. In addition, the total number of boxes and items across the entire game is much more controlled. If you start off slow, there are more boxes and items coming. We also prevent the most extreme and wacky cases (no gold boxes before stage 2-6, no more than 3 gold boxes per person max, etc). There are a ton of tuning levers and controls in here to try to keep things fair and competitive, while also being varied and exciting. This also makes it easier for us in the future to make adjustments if our first values aren’t correct. 

Why is it changing? 

Again, we think variety is important to the long term health of the game. One of the things that keeps Teamfight Tactics replayable is that every game is different and you experience new and exciting combinations. That being said, we need to achieve that goal in a way that feels fair and fun for everyone. We’re hoping this is a big step in that direction. With even more possible combinations, the variety should increase. But this way it’s more fair across the length of the game. No more 1 item 3 gold into 5 gold starts while your opponent has 6 items. 

Now you may get 2 items, a Kennen, and a Neeko to start, while your opponent gets 3 items and 2 gold. There are lots of unique possibilities and you can use them to your advantage to succeed. An early 2 star Kennen could for sure outperform 1 more item. The possibilities and paths to victory should be numerous now. We think that’s better for the game, and frankly more fun! 

This is also why we’re talking about it now. If you have a PBE account give it a try, then let us know what you think (I know it’s tempting to assume without trying it). If we're wrong, and it feels worse, then we won’t ship it. We’re committed to making TFT as fun and high quality as possible, and we think this does it, but we’re not too proud to admit if we’re wrong. 

When do we expect the changes to go through? 

If all goes well, and the change is feeling good, we’re hoping to ship it as part of our very large 9.18 patch. It will go out with the new item component, as well as some changes to the XP curve to make up for the slightly inflated rewards. This will be our biggest patch of the set, and should really shake things up for the better. 

Again, looking forward to all your feedback, and I hope you keep enjoying TFT as much as I enjoy working on it."

Star Guardian Little Legends

Hey everyone,

The fourth series of Little Legends are here from the Star Guardian universe! Let's meet them: 

Our Heroes:

• Dango
• Gingersnap Dango
• Lemondrop Dango
• Bubblegum Dango
• Limeberry Dango
• Sugar Crash Dango

• Fuwa
• Last Wish Fuwa
• Lovestruck Fuwa
• Eclipse Fuwa
• Firecracker Fuwa
• Daystar Fuwa

• Shisa
• Heroic Shisa
• Littlest Shisa
• Firecracker Shisa
• Sundrop Shisa
• Corrupted Shisa

Definitely Canon Lore: 

Dango is the hungriest of all the Little Guardians. No one knows the reason for Dango's insatiable appetite, but the Vastaya say that it can eat a cloudfruit three times its size! 

Fuwa longs to someday find the Guardian it's destined for. Whenever it feels lonely, it takes refuge in the warmth of its long ears. 

Shisa burst into the Convergence on a white-hot comet. It aims to protect the Star Guardians and all those in its care. 

The Details: 

These pint-sized army commanding heroes will hit our Public Beta Environment later this week and go to live servers a few days after patch 9.18 launches. The base versions will be available for direct purchase and the variants will come in their own Star Guardian Egg Series. Prices and drop rates are the same as the previous egg series.

            

            

            

Eternals Feedback Thread: Set 1 Uniques 

"Hey folks! I am Xenogenic, the Game Design Lead for the team that makes skins, events, and new content like Eternals. After announcing Eternals a few weeks ago, we’ve been having ongoing conversations with players to gather feedback and make improvements while we continue working on them. 

One of our changes to the feature is to build sets of 3 Eternals that are unique to each champion, capturing things directly related to their specific abilities or gameplay patterns, and not include common stats like Kills, Damage Dealt, etc. 

What we’d like to do now is list our proposals for each champion for the first set so you can give us feedback on what you like or don’t like, as well as make suggestions for ideas for things we should track in the future! 

A couple of quick notes before the list:

• Some players want very skill-expressive trackers, while others want trackers that are more accessible and will grow large over time. So to that end, we’ve tried to include some of both for each champion and will likely continue that trend into the future. Be sure to let us know which type of Eternal you prefer, though.
• This is a rough draft type list, so there is some level of short-hand.
• For example, sometimes we may say “enemies” which really means “enemy champions,” not minions or monsters.
• Multi-hits means 2+ (or more) targets hit in a single cast of a spell.
• “Long range” casts of spells mean more than 75% of their max range, unless otherwise specified.
• Damage dealt, damage absorbed, damage dealt to, etc. refer to damage to/from champions, unless otherwise specified.
• We want Eternals that track high moments and successes without being gameplay warping, by which we mean: Eternals should not be asking you to do things that you don’t want to do or shouldn’t be doing (i.e. kills as support, casting spells specifically on yourself instead of allies or vice versa, etc.). If any of these feel warping to you, please call them out and explain why!
• When Eternals are fully “rekindled,” meaning all 5 milestones they track have been reached, they start tracking your personal best within each game. Keep that in mind for stones that might seem basic on the surface. Many of them become more interesting when tracking the highest/best amount you’ve done in a single game. 

Here are our proposals for Set 1:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c8fLzByerZZrBPJmfRxZD8KgHO2Vn3UV/view"

Balance Changes

• Perfect Execution (R)
• R2 minimum damage lowered from 85/150/215 to 65/140/215
• Cooldown increased from 120/110/100 to 160/130/100
• Microstun removed

Aurelion Sol

[Changelist]

• Base HP increased from 510 to 575

Caitlyn

[Changelist]

• Base AD increased from 60 to 62

Ekko

[Changelist]

• Parallel Convergence (W) 
• Mana cost lowered from 50/55/60/65/70 to 30/35/40/45/50
• Stun duration increased from 1.75 to 2.25

Evelynn

• Attack speed per level increased from 2.9% to 3%
• Perseverance (Passive)
• [Removed] No longer doubles below (25/50%) health
• Cooldown changed from 9/4 to 6 at all ranks
• Changed from  [non-epic monsters don't break passive at level 11] to [non-epic monsters never break it]
• Heal amount changed from [2%/8%] to [2.5/2.75/3/3.25/3.5/3.75/4.5/5.25/6/6.75/7.5/8.25/9/9.25/9.5/9.75/10/10.25%] 

• Courage (W) 
• Resists per stack lowered from .33 to .25
• Resists cap lowered from 50 to 30
• Minion kills to max stacks increased from 150 to 160

• Judgment (E)
• Tick changed from [5+1 per 3 levels (max 10)] to [8+1 per 20% attack speed]
• Base damage changed from 14/18/22/26/30 to 9/15/21/27/33
• AD ratio changed from .36/.37/.38/.39/.4 to .26/.295/.33/.365/.40
• Hits needed to shred armor increased from 4 to 6
• [Removed] No longer deals 33% bonus damage if hitting only one enemy
• [New] now deals 25% bonus damage to nearest enemy

• Demacian Justice (R)
• [Removed] the Villainy passive
• Changed from [deals magic damage] to [always deals True Damage]
• Damage changed from [175/350/525 (+28.6/33.3/40% of missing HP)] to [150/300/450 (+20/25/30% of missing HP)]

Kayle
[Changelist]

• Starfire Spellblade (E) passive damage increased from 10/15/20/25/30 to 15/20/25/30/35

Lee Sin 

[Changelist]

• Make It Rain (E) slow changed from 28/36/44/52/60% to 40/45/50/55/60%

Teemo
[Changelist, including QOL changes]

• Noxious Trap (R) max ammo increased from 3 to 3/4/5

Xayah

TFT

New Items

• Check out this post from Tummers and Riot Beernana!

Knight

• Damage blocked changes:
• 4 Knight bonus increased from 30 to 35
• 6 Knight bonus increased from 55 to 65

Twisted Fate

• Blue card mana restore increased from 20/35/50 to 30/50/70

Akali

• Ability damage increased from 150/275/400 to 200/350/500

Anivia

• Ability duration lowered from 8 seconds to 6 seconds
• Ability max damage increased from 700/950/1200 to 800/1100/1400

Evelynn

• Ability extra damage threshold lowered from 65% to 55%

Patch History for this cycle:

• 8/27 PBE Update
• 8/28 PBE Update
• 8/29 PBE Update
• 8/30 PBE Update
• 9/3 PBE Update
• 9/4 PBE Update
• 9/5 PBE Update