January 25th, Balance Changes

Augments

With patch 12.2 we moved Portable Forge from a Prismatic Augment, where it was fun, yet underpowered, to a Gold Augment, where it’s still fun, yet continues to be overperforming despite several preemptive nerfs.

• Portable Forge option, Infinity Force, All (AD, AP, Armor, AS, Crit. Chance, Health, MR) Stats: 33 ⇒ 30
• Portable Forge option, Death’s Defiance Armor: 40 ⇒ 20
• Portable Forge option, Death’s Defiance Attack Damage: 25 ⇒ 20
• Portable Forge option, Death’s Defiance Attack Speed: 25% ⇒ 20%
• Portable Forge option, Gold Collector Attack Damage: 30 ⇒ 20

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Champions

Our Imperial bug fix brought too much power alongside that didn’t completely compensate for the preemptive Swain and Talon nerfs we shipped, nor the dramatic shift in the meta.

• Cho’Gath Armor & Magic Resist: 55 ⇒ 50
• Cho’Gath Attack Speed: 0.6 ⇒ 0.55
• Swain Death’s Hand Damage: 250/375/525 ⇒ 250/340/480
• Talon Blade’s End Damage: 450/625/950 ⇒ 425/600/900

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Items

Rapidfire Cannon’s niche intentions are being overpowered by the raw power of 60 percent Attack Speed.

• Rapidfire Cannon Attack Speed: 60% ⇒ 55%

Traits

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By bug fixing Imperial, we ended up giving the trait more power than intended. We’re cutting back on the trait’s conquest with reductions especially at it’s Prismatic (5) breakpoint.

• Imperial Tyrant Damage Amp: 80/150% ⇒ 75/135%
• Imperial Imperial Damage Amp: 0/80% ⇒ 0/75%

Gifts of the Golden Lantern event, new Tacticians, mid-set announcement, and what’s that off in the distance!?!?!?!? Okay—this dev drop is hype.

Each year, Tacticians from all over the Convergence come together to celebrate during the Lunar Legend Festival. From this patch to the end of patch 12.3 (Feb 15th), we’re invited to join them in a new TFT Event, Gifts of the Golden Lantern, where we’ll gather the perfect gift for each of our favorite Tacticians, help them solve riddles, and light lanterns—oh, and we’ll also get some gifts for ourselves along the way! Read more about the event here!

For a detailed breakdown of all the new Tacticians (and more), click it here—I mean here—no wait, the first one was right. Actually they both are.

The Lunar Legend Festival party-goers are here, but are you?

Catch the Lunar Legend Festival Duckbill variants below: Most Festive Duckbill, Jade Dragon Duckbill, Lunar Scholar Duckbill, Firecracker Duckbill, and Mischief Maker Duckbill.

You can directly purchase these festive Duckbill(s) from the shop (925 RP), or find them in a Festival Firecracker anytime you wanna Duckbill and chill.

Roll through the new Dango variants hitting the store below: Porcelain Dango, Lucky Lantern Dango, Firecracker Dango, Lion Dancer Dango, and Fiercest Dango!

Dango is available to roll down and around with by direct purchase (925 RP) or as a drop via a Festival Firecracker.

Check out the Dowsie’s festive variants below: Porcelain Dowsie, Fortune Dowsie, Lucky Noodle Dowsie, Extra Spicy Dowsie, and Sweet Petal Dowsie!

Hungry for hot pot? Then go get some, but if you want Dowsie you can find them in a Festival Firecracker or get your favorite via direct purchase (925 RP).

Looking to cause some trouble? Chibi Firecracker Jinx is our first Chibi Champion with a skin, hence her status as a rare drop in any Festival Firecracker (490 RP). We also have two bundles full of Festival Firecrackers and much more that you can read about below. To get her boom, the Super Mega Firecracker boom, you’ll have to opt for the Megabundle that’ll also give you loads more content, including the Golden Tiger Market! But even if you aren’t going to be buying Festival Firecrackers or bundles, you’ll have a chance at getting Chibi Firecracker Jinx just by participating in the Gifts of the Golden Lantern event, which offers a free Festival Firecracker in addition to quite a bit more content.

And now that the Festival’s trouble maker has been introduced, let’s talk about it’s protector, Year of the Tiger Protector. You can recognize Year of the Tiger Protector’s greatness only by obtaining them as a rare drop through the purchase of 2022 Year of the Tiger Eggs (390 RP), of which you can get 31 of in the Year of the Tiger Egg Bundle for the price of 25. Read more about our bundles and reach rewards here.

Finally, the Golden Tiger Market! With its own music, entry animations, custom gold mine, and friendly dragons, Golden Tiger Market is the place to be during the Lunar Legend Festival. I’d say more, but I’d rather just show you.

With the most bells and whistles (Firecrackers and festivities?) in any arena to date, the Golden Tiger Market is available only through the Lunar Legend Festival 2022 Megabundle. To explore the loads of content to be found at the market and in the Megabundle just keep scrolling.

We’ve got lots of bundles here, so give this one a read for all the details. Seriously, read that article, it will help you become an informed consumer—but if you just want to buy all our bundles because you love cute Tacticians, awesome Arenas, and you like supporting TFT (thanks btw) go for it. Anyways, here’s the Bundle’s TL;DR. All Lunar Legend Festival content will be available for a limited time during patch 12.2 and 12.3.

Bundle	Contents	RP/ TFT Coins (Mobile)
Lunar Legend Firecracker Bundle	Contains 16 Festival Firecrackers, for the price of 14.	6860
Lunar Legend Festival 2022 Megabundle	Contains a total of 31 Festival Firecrackers, Tangerine Boom, Staff Drop Boom, Raging Ox Boom, Firecracker Jinx Boom, and the Golden Tiger Market Arena!	12740
Year of the Tiger Egg Bundle	Contains a total of 31 Year of the Tiger Eggs for the price of 25.	9750
x10 + 1 bonus Year of the Tiger Eggs	Each egg contains a random Little Legend from any set prior to Gizmos & Gadgets, excluding Pass+ Little Legends, Lunar Legend Festival Little Legends, and URF Dowsie.	3900
x5 Year of the Tiger Egg	Each egg contains a random Little Legend from any set prior to Gizmos & Gadgets, excluding Pass+ Little Legends, Lunar Legend Festival Little Legends, and URF Dowsie.	1950
x1 Festival Firecracker	Contains a random Lunar Legend Festival Little Legends from this year or last! Chance to contain Chibi Firecracker Jinx.	490
x1 Year of the Tiger Egg	Contains a random Little Legend from any set prior to Gizmos & Gadgets, excluding Pass+ Little Legends, Lunar Legend Festival Little Legends, and URF Dowsie.	390

5-costs have been strong throughout Gizmos & Gadgets, and they should be, cause they’re Legendary units. But by hitting Level 8, players are able to get a game dominating 2-star 5-cost a bit too often. We’re making it slightly less consistent to hit a 5-cost at Level 8, but adjusting Level 9 to be slightly more consistent. As a general reminder, these percentages are for each individual unit card that appears in your shop, so the total chance of seeing a 5-cost in your shop at level 8 went down from 22.7% to 19.5%, and the total chance of seeing a 5-cost at level 9 went up from 55.7% to 58.2%.

• Level 8: 15/20/35/25/5% ⇒ 16/20/35/25/4%
• Level 9: 10/15/30/30/15% ⇒ 9/15/30/30/16%

Large like my desire for the Golden Tiger Market.

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Augments

We’re still working out the ends of the bell curve when it comes to balancing the recently upgraded trait-linked augments using our balance lever of additional units/income. More trait-linked rebalancing in the Small Changes section as well.

Our Ornn-inspired augment, Portable Forge has been one of our most exciting augments of the set, but much like Ornn in The Call, the augment has struggled to get the screen time it deserves. By bringing it from Prismatic to Gold, and rebalancing some of the high performing options, you should be able call upon the Forge more often to leave your foes beat and broken, lost and forsaken, and about to surrender.

Thrill of the Hunt III's (Prismatic) heal is often wasted due to how high the heal value is, making it one of our worst prismatic augments. It’s in a position where increasing the heal won’t actually help it as it just adds to the useless overhealing. We’re removing Thrill III entirely, but the lower values on Thrill I and II are in a good spot as generic augments that are especially useful in comps that like Assassins or Challengers that like their combat fast and brutal.

• Bodyguard Heart now also grants a Leona ⇒ Blitzcrank
• Protector Heart now also grants a Blitzcrank
• Bodyguard Crest now also grants a Leona ⇒ Darius
• Clockwork Crest now also grants a Zilean
• Clockwork Crest will now be available in the Augment selection menu as intended
• Metabolic Accelerator no longer gives 2 Health after PvE (monsters) rounds
• Item Grab Bag II now also grants a Reforger
• Portable Forge Prismatic ⇒ Gold
• Portable Forge Armory option, Gold Collector chance to drop Gold: 75% ⇒ 50%
• Portable Forge Armory option, Anima Visage Health regen: 8% ⇒ 6%
• Portable Forge Armory option, Death’s Defiance Attack Damage: 30 ⇒ 25
• Portable Forge Armory option, Death’s Defiance Attack Speed: 30% ⇒ 25%
• Portable Forge Armory option, Death’s Defiance Armor: 50 ⇒ 40
• Portable Forge Armory option, Eternal Winter Attack Speed Slow: 35% ⇒ 25%
• Portable Forge Armory option, Manazane Mana: 50 ⇒ 40
• Portable Forge Armory option, Manazane Mana restore: 200 ⇒ 150
• High Roller now also grants 4 gold
• Shrug It Off Gold ⇒ Silver
• Thrill of the Hunt III (Prismatic) has been removed. Thrill I and II are still in the game. See context for details.
• Wise Spending now also grants 4 gold

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Traits

By moving some of Bodyguard’s power from armor into their shield, Bodyguards should be able to stand up a bit longer to magic damage comps and fall a bit quicker to physical damage comps. We are also taking this opportunity to slightly nerf Bodyguard 4, whose overperformance was also addressed with the Bodyguard Heart/Crest nerfs above.

We’ve caught a rare, yet critical bug, impacting Imperial’s lack of success. We’ve noted that bug here, as well as in the Bug Fixes section because of its direct impact on the meta.

• Bodyguard Armor: 100/200/350/500 ⇒ 75/150/250/450
• Bodyguard Shield: 100/300/600/1000 ⇒ 150/350/700/1200
• Imperial bug fix: Imperial 5's damage buff on all Imperial units is no longer removed during some combats in uncommon situations
• Mercenary: removed Neeko’s Help as a 3 and 4 loss streak drop
• Mercenary: 4 loss average value: 6.9g ⇒ 6.4g
• Mercenary: 5 loss average value: 6.9g ⇒ 6.6g
• Mercenary: 6 loss average value: 7.6g ⇒ 7.4g
• Mercenary: 7 loss average value: 8.25g ⇒ 7.9g

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Champions: Tier3

While 3-star Cho’Gath has been performing all right in the data, Cho at 1 and 2 stars continues to result in famine without Feast. With some early base number buffs, we expect stabilizing with Cho to be slightly easier. But don’t get on the Cho’ Cho’ train just yet—you’ll still want to take advantage of his Feast stacks as early as possible to get that health pool up, otherwise your Cho’Gath might have you feeling Cho’Goth.

Despite Heimerdinger’s recent buffs in 12.1, he’s still not up to par. And while Yordle comps can be successful, especially with Tristana carry, Heimerdinger carry is struggling to be one of the premiere 3-cost carries of the Yordle comp, or any comp for that matter. Part of this is due to his reliance on Blue Buff, which requiring two tears can be hard to pull off. By increasing his Attack Speed we open up Spear of the Shojin for him as an alternative so you don’t have to stack Tears IRL if you don’t get enough of them in-game.

• Cho’Gath Armor & Magic Resist: 50 ⇒ 55
• Cho’Gath Feast Damage: 800/900/1000 ⇒ 900/975/1050
• Gangplank Parrrley Damage: 110/135/170 ⇒ 110/150/200
• Heimerdinger Attack Speed: 0.6 ⇒ 0.65
• Heimerdinger Rocket Swarm Damage: 70/95/140 ⇒ 70/100/150

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Champions: Tier 4

Braum and Sion provide so much repeat CC that they’ve become staples in comps regardless of their deep synergies. We’re fine with the timing of their first cast, but if you value that second round of CC you may have to invest more in them.

While our Urgot buffs will help itemless Urgot, Ur gotta invest more in him with items, Augments, and Traits to really access his increased AD scaling. 3-star Urgot might actually feel like a 3-star 4-cost after this one.

• Braum max Mana nerf: 100/180 ⇒ 120/200
• Seraphine Encore Heal: 275/450/1200 ⇒ 250/350/1000
• Sion max Mana nerf: 100/175 ⇒ 125/200
• Urgot Purge Attack Damage Ratio: 25% ⇒ 30%
• Urgot Purge Duration: 5/5/5 ⇒ 5/5/10

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Champions: Tier 5

Rebench the Kench. Inhibit the Ribbit. Clog the pog Frog. Flat squish the catfish.

An early Tahm Kench can provide too much of a scaling threat in the late game for the price of a few Units fed mercilessly from your bench. Speaking of that, Tahm Kench has developed a finer taste for units unscathed by the woes of battle—the catfish demon king will now only dine on the more innocent-tasting benched units to avoid additional reddit clips of accidental feeding frenzies.

• Kai’Sa Attack Speed: 1.2 ⇒ 1.1
• Tahm Kench Devour Damage: 900/1450/30000 ⇒ 850/1350/30000
• Tahm Kench Glutton stats gained from feeding Tahm Kench have been reduced by 10%
• Tahm Kench Glutton User Experience change: To prevent unintentional loss of a champion in play, Tahm Kench will dine only upon champions from the bench.

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Items

Can’t wait to see who figures out the new Spirit Sharpshooters (a comp from Fates that used Locket stacking instead of running a frontline) of Gizmos & Gadgets.

• Locket of the Iron Solari Shield Duration: 8 ⇒ 15 seconds

Small like the chance I don’t excessively ping my Golden Tiger Market arena as a big flex.

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Augments

Continued trait-linked Augment balancing, a UX buff for Sniper’s Nest, and is that a Bodyguard 8 super buff!?!?

• Academy Crest now also grants a Garen
• Mutant Crest now also grants a Kassadin
• Protector Crest now also grants a Garen
• Mercenary Crest now also grants 3 Gold
• Mercenary Heart now also grants 1 Gold
• Socialite Heart now also grants 1 Gold
• Sniper’s Nest now has visual indicators for the amount of stacks a unit has
• Stand Behind Me now additionally increases the Bodyguard Armor bonus by 25%

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Traits

Bringing Syndicate 3 and 5 down, but ensuring Syndicate 7 isn’t hit too hard.

• Scrap Shield per Component: 20/35/60 ⇒ 20/40/60
• Socialite (3) Omnivamp: 30% ⇒ 33%
• Syndicate Armor/Magic Resist: 60 ⇒ 55
• Syndicate (7) Bonus: 50% ⇒ 60%

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Champions: Tier 1

• Ziggs Mini Inferno Bomb damage: 325/425/525 ⇒ 300/400/550

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Champions: Tier 2

• Katarina Health: 650 ⇒ 700
• Swain max Mana nerf: 40/75 ⇒ 40/80
• Talon Attack Speed: 0.75 ⇒ 0.7
• Zyra Grasping Spines Damage: 350/450/650 ⇒ 325/450/675

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Champions: Tier 3

1-star Vex is stabilizing comps a bit too early than we’d like for a unit tied to an econ trait.

• Miss Fortune Make It Rain Damage: 275/375/550 ⇒ 275/375/600
• Shaco Attack Damage: 85 ⇒ 80
• Vex Personal Space Shield: 550/675/850 ⇒ 525/675/850

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Champions: Tier 4

Lux will feel slightly better with Spear of Shojin after this one. While Jhin and Orianna are receiving quite small nerfs here, it’s worth pointing out that the comps they are finding their success in are reliant on other units who’ve also been nerfed this patch.

• Lux Attack Speed: 0.7 ⇒ 0.75
• Jhin Curtain Call Damage: 150/200/344% ⇒ 150/200/300%
• Orianna Command: Shockwave shield amount: 100/160/400 ⇒ 100/150/400
• Yone Soul Unbound Duration: 4/5/20 ⇒ 4/5/15

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Champions: Tier 5

Some smaller buffs to our struggling 5-costs should be enough to level the playing field without any of them shooting through Sky.

• Jayce Melee form Shield: 350/500/3000 ⇒ 375/550/3000
• Jinx Super Mega Death Rocket, rocket launcher Attack Damage scaling: 190/200/888% ⇒ 200/210/888%
• Viktor Chaos Rays Damage: 325/425/1500 ⇒ 360/420/1500

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Items

It turns out everyone’s favorite ice cream cone (Chalice of Power) is really good for going for fast 9 with AP comps. So we’re reverting our buff to it in 12.1, especially now that Level 9 gives slightly more Legendary (5-cost) units.

As our most versatile item, Hand of Justice should never be our strongest item, but its sheer underperformance made it worthy of a helping (and just) hand.

• Chalice of Power Ability Power: 35 ⇒ 30
• Hand of Justice one buff each round is increased to: 30(%) ⇒ 33(%)

• Is the Clock Working: Clockwork Crest will now be available in the Augment selection menu as intended
• Imperial bug fix: Imperial 5's damage buff on all Imperial units is no longer removed during some combats in uncommon situations
• More excellent shot: Caitlyn’s Ability can no longer hit invulnerable and untargetable objects (Hexcore, Guardian Angel stasis, etc.)
• Fiora’s Ability no longer fizzles if her target dies as she begins her cast
• 1-Star Illaoi’s Harsh Lessons Magic Damage is now the intended 200 rather than 175
• Units that are sold with Sniper Emblem no longer retain their bonus +1 Attack Range
• Dragon’s Claw no longer triggers against some physical Abilities
• Runaan’s Hurricane no longer applies Viktor’s Armor shred
• Fixed an issue where Crown augments would still appear when players had previously taken the Built Different augment. Soul augments that benefit the entire team are still allowed to appear (e.g. Enforcer Soul, Arcanist Soul)
• Not exZactly as planned: Zac will no longer sometimes target the same enemy twice with his Ability
• Fixed a rare issue where Zac would deal double damage to one of the targets he was yoinking