A LOT of things happened in Teamfight Tactics lately. Following the 07/01 Patch and Twisted Fate announcement, the 07/03 Patch just has been released on the PBE. However, it seems that Riot Devs did not communicate on all the changes they have been made.
Find all the changes brought by this patch, but also all the new features and contents that we discovered!
Item drop changes
The loot system has also made a lot of noise in the last few days, with some players having 4 or 5 items while some had only 1 or even 0. And given the firepower it brings, the difference becomes abyssal after a few rounds. On the PBE, several changes have been made so far:
- New waves of creeps are available: Gromps joined Teamfight Tactics, and will now terrorize the Round 2! One of them will have a "?" under its life bar and is GUARANTEED to drop one random item (see screenshot below). If you can't kill him, that's your loss. If you kill him, you'll have to pick up the item yourself. This item can be a basic one but is likely to already be a crafted item (Guinsoo's Rageblade, Runaan, etc...). Before the first PvP confrontation, you will now be 100% certain to have at least one item before the Carousel.
- Every PvE encounter from the Gromp is now including a GUARANTEED item drop from the strongest monster.
- The Dragon and the ancestral Dragon will always give a crafted item that you can see under their life bar. Kill the beast and it will be yours!
Item changes
We're fixing a bug that was causing Spear to still grant 20% mana on-hit.
• Mana on-hit reduced from 20 to 15%
• Attack Speed debuff increased from 20 to 25%
• Healing increased from 25 to 33%
• [NEW] Red Buff and Morellonomicon were both changed and are now two sides (physical damage or magical damage) of the same coin - they do 13% of the target's maximum health as damage over 5 seconds, and COMPLETELY PREVENTS healing.
• [NEW] Summons a spirit who mirrors your attacks, dealing 25% damage.
• Zeke's Convergence received a tool tip update. Additionally, all adjacent item effects now have a clear indicator in-game at the start of the match.
Champions & Traits changes: Pyke's reign is over!
• Stun duration reduced from 2.5/3/3.5 to 2/2.5/3
• Dodge Chance increased from 20/50% to 25/60%
Ranked Mode
(source)
We remember quite well that Hafu reached 2466 MMR points during the initial release of TFT, but this ranking was honestly useless. The game wasn't balanced and is still in the early stages of its development. However, today is a great day, because TFT's ranked mode is now available on the PBE. It does not matter that much, as you won't gain anything except fame from being a PBE Challenger, but still: get ready to climb the ladder!
Currently, you only need 5 promos before you are placed in an ELO. It seems that you will gain LP according to your final ranking, meaning a Top 1 would provide more points than a Top 4.
- You’ll gain a lot more LP when you finish a TFT game in first place, since you’re basically beating seven other players in that game. You’ll typically gain some LP if you finish 4th or higher, and lose some LP if you finish 5th or lower, but spots in the middle will have fairly small changes for most games.
- There are no promotion series in TFT. As soon as you hit 100 LP, you’ll promote and carry over any extra LP with you.
- Since there isn’t a single winner or loser in TFT, promotion series don’t translate very well.
- Since there are no promotion series, there’s less protection and it’s easier to demote. You’ll still only demote if you lose while at 0 LP.
- Your rank will feel like it moves a bit faster in TFT. Removing promo series and decreasing demotion protection means that your rank can jump more rapidly, and you’ll gain (and lose) more LP per game when things go really well (or poorly).
- Premade Ranked restrictions are a bit different for TFT. You can queue with up to five friends if you’re all Gold or lower. If anyone is Platinum or above, you’ll only be able to queue up as three. Check out the image below for the complete breakdown of who can queue with whom.
Ranked Rewards
"We will be giving out some sweet ranked rewards for TFT, but…we haven’t finalized them yet. We’ll probably reward them based on your end-of-season rank, and they’ll most likely be different from the Summoner’s Rift ranked rewards. Nothing is final for now, so please stay tuned for more info!"
TFT Beta Pass
"We want you to feel like you’re making progress toward something meaningful with every game of TFT, which is why we’re testing out a new system we call the TFT Beta Pass. With the pass, you can earn rewards by completing various weekly challenges. This is a new system for us, and there’s a lot about the pass that may change in the future. We may even decide to do something completely different based on your experiences and feedback.
Teamfight Tactics is very different from traditional modes like Summoner’s Rift, and we aren’t currently planning on giving out XP or Blue Essence for TFT games. We want to be thoughtful about whether and how we integrate TFT with systems like leveling and Blue Essence, and we want our solution to serve both players who play traditional modes and TFT as well as those who main one mode or the other. We may consider XP and Blue Essence rewards in the future, once the mode has had some time to settle in."
Seasons
"We believe TFT is at its most fun when you’re discovering, theory crafting, and adapting. To support that, we’re going to be a lot more open to making bigger changes between seasons than we are for Summoner’s Rift. We’ll be experimenting with new batches of champions, new items, and system changes to give each season its own unique flavor and make sure you always feel challenged.
Right now, we’re planning to start a new season of TFT every few months, maybe even alongside our traditional Ranked splits, which means there could be three to four seasons of TFT each year. As with everything else, this could change, particularly if we feel like that’s too much time—or too little—time between major content drops. Between seasons, you’ll be demoted by several divisions since we expect new seasons to meaningfully shake up the meta.
We’re excited to get all this out to you and hear what you think about progression, Ranked, and every other aspect of Teamfight Tactics. On behalf of the team, thanks for working with us to make this mode awesome."
Praise RNGesus
In a recent stream, Riot August revealed that placing in the top 4 on average is considered a "victory" and increases your MMR.
Currently, the game features the top three players at the end of the game. We thought obvious that you had to finish in the top 3 for your MMR to rise, but according to August Browning: "The way the MMR works on Teamfight Tactics is that if you finish in the top 4 on average, your MMR will rise."
The RNG has always been frustrating in all games. However, it's precisely RNG that drives the Auto-Battler genre. More specifically, the competition between players lies in their ability to adapt themselves to all the RNG factors that swarm these games.
Of course, we'll always be a little bit disgusted to see the first player with a full optimized composition with only good items while we stammered the whole game to get out a suitable mix and hook the top 3. But that's how it is, RNG is omnipresent in the game and that's why Riot encourages players to develop strategies and make the most of what the game has to offer, rather than fight against RNG. Riot August explains that "ideally, players should think about placing in the top four and should not expect to finish first in each game because of the RNG."
There will always be some games you will finish last, unable to properly build your lineup. Because of bad luck, you will often find yourself struggling to reach the top. However, now that the game has clearly been balanced — or at least it's on the verge of being done — reaching the top 4 is not an impossible feat at all.
So, if you want to climb the ranked mode (which should be available with the 9.14 Patch), keep in mind that you only need to join the Top 4 to get ranking points! Of course, you'll gain fewer points, but at least you won't lose any.
Hosted by Twitch Rivals and Riot Games, the first official Teamfight Tactics tournament is now over! JoshOG wins the final stage and pockets 8,375$.
