Welcome to our first patch of Runeterra Reforged!
And we’ve got lots going on! Some highlights: the rework for Shurima, some nerfs for our biggest summons (Baron and T-Hex), a few Champion buffs, and a sweeping Augment balance pass! There’s a ton getting reforged in this first patch so let’s dive right in! Do note that patch 13.13 will last a total of three weeks as our team takes time to recharge after the release of our most comprehensive set to date.
After seeing the PBE meta settle on a fast-9 into “grab the expensive units,” we made a few system changes to open up playstyle options. Our first patch has had great pacing so far in terms of viable playstyles thanks to our XP/gold changes, but we’re worried early game pressure will pile on as people learn the set, so we’re undoing the damage change we made during PBE.
Large, like the over 100 Augment changes in this patch…
House Lightshield is one of our highest impact Region Portals, completely reshaping the way you build and position your board with the powerful Crown of Demacia. Being so impactful, the Portal has developed a meta-game in itself, which typically has players placing the Crown of Demacia on backliners because it gives a ton of offensive stats, while allowing them to keep their life-line carry safe. By slowing down the rate at which the item grants stats, but doubling the max Health bonus, we’re evening the playing field for melee and ranged wearers of the Crown. Go ahead and knight that Cho’Gath!
Challenger struggles to be little more than a 2/4 support piece. We’re buffing Challenger 6 a little, which will help you get to the much more powerful Prismatic tier of the trait.
Speaking of traits not worth chasing, Ionia 9 feels like it's on its own little island that no one wants to visit—not even the Noxians. We’re increasing the power of the Ionia bonus each Champion gets, which may look like a small buff, but will be significant since that bonus is doubled when Ionians become enlightened.
Every time we nerf Piltover this set, a part of me dies. I’ve made the balance team aware of this, but it’s still my duty to report the changes and provide the context no matter how disappointing. T-Hex caps out far too hard and is able to carry late game boards without much help. We’re pushing some of her power to the incredibly high-risk 14 loss streak, rather than the more attainable 11-12 loss streak, while also increasing the rate of conversion for gold when you (horrifically) decide to sell her and pivot your comp.
The empire of Shurima will rise—with a rework! Back in PBE we had Shurima 7 Ascending twice, which meant it was a 100% power increase over Shurima 5 (more, actually, because getting the initial Ascension is also more powerful). We took that out just before going live. Now that we can make text changes with a full patch, we're giving 7 Shurima a bit of an extra kick. As for Shurima 9, we’re moving around its power so it doesn’t instantly steamroll opponents upon the first Ascension. We’re doing this by adding a unique effect, a second Ascension that is both super powerful and super cool—as it should be, given how hard the breakpoint is to hit!
We’re increasing the uptime on the bonus damage that Slayers get against low-health targets by raising the threshold of what low-health is (now 75% Health). Slay away!
Targon is almost a non-trait—so much so that I didn’t even bold text the trait name. We’re giving the trait a huge buff, but it may be up for more changes if we can’t make it work here.
Void’s been a lot like how I imagine having children to be. You either get overachieving Baron, or you get Rift Herald, who keeps getting disciplined in art class for eating glue. Anyways, we want all kids to succeed equally in whatever they pursue, and we’re bringing that attitude to balancing our Void summons with a small nerf to the overperforming and a child-proof lid to the glue container nice buff to Shelly’s charge!
We’re giving Kayle a 10% damage buff to make sure she fulfills her design goals of being a viable late game carry at level 6 and 9, despite being a 1-cost.
Orianna is neither a real girl nor a real 3-star champion. Let’s change one of those.
Ashe is currently never worth itemizing. We’re giving her a scaling buff so the next time you have a spare AD item you won’t just give her the cold shoulder.
Slayer Kled is already strong, and it’s going to get stronger with our Slayer buffs. We’re bringing down 4-star Kled’s durability both cause he needs it now, and as a preemptive balance move.
Irelia is currently a better tank than Sett , which is especially concerning given their traits and cost. You could say that we better nerf Irelia here, but I would remind you that this is TFT, and Irelia isn’t overperforming, so instead, we’re giving Sett some love by increasing his Ionia Health bonus.
Taliyah and Teemo have become quite the team, but last I checked it was lichen, not mushrooms that grows on rocks, so we’re going to ship medium sized nerfs to the both of them since they're capping off a bit too hard.
Ekko is one of the most deceptively tanky frontliners that can be slammed into many comps at just about any stage. If you’ve been seeing a ton of Ekko in your games, maybe it’s because you’ve been playing CONV/RGENCE, but it could also be from playing TFT. We’re reducing Ekko’s healing to prevent situations where he can perma-tank, so be sure to make use of rewind when you inevitably jump into a spiky caterpillar.
Sona should not be doing more damage than Vel'Koz, but with good positioning she has been. We’re moving some of her power around to not only solidify her identity amongst the Multicasters, but also open up some Attack Speed buff techs that may be less obvious.
We’re giving Taric a light Mana buff here, but predict he’ll feel the buff that we shipped to Targon as well.
Gwen couldn’t even beat Paper, let alone Rock. She’s the worst performing 4-cost at the moment, so we’re taking the safety off her snippers and giving her the survivability to be able to run with them.
Sejuani and Shen are mostly alright at one and two stars, so our buff here is focused on making their 3-star investment worth the difficulty of hitting.
Zeri the scary carry has made her way over from Summoner’s Rift to terrify Tacticians across the Convergence. We’ve got some big nerfs here to her free backline access damage, gating her Overcharge time by removing the reset aspect of it.
Bel’Veth has one job and it’s granting me access to Baron. You never want to hear about a 5-cost being a trait bot, but we’re finally able to budget more power for Queen herself, especially with our nerfs to Baron.
We’ve got over 100 Augment changes in total. As for this section we’re simply buffing/nerfing the most under/overperforming Legend options. We are taking extra care with the Legend Augments to make sure every playstyle that Legends provide is a viable route.
The age of best in slot (bis) Zeke’s Herald from Teaming Up has come to an end—the age of having to adapt to random completed items from two of the same components has begun! Teaming Up was a source of consistent access to bis builds that allowed some scary carries to become even scarier. With less of a guarantee to a staple item, it will be significantly harder to force cookie cutter comps that utilize said item.
Endless Hordes is here! As one of our most experimental Augments, we weren’t able to ship it during our first patch—it was incredibly overpowered during our PBE testing. We’re now shipping it after much more simming (testing ideal comps against each other using the Augment) and a few additional balance levers, like reduced max Health, and additional gold.
As for the rest of our Augments, there’s a lot here, so fix yourself a cup of tea and dive in.
A new set means a balance pass on our core items as new champions are able to maximize certain ones more or less effectively than champions of sets past.
Of note here is the transition of Chalice of Power to a more effective defensive item, shifting some of its AP into MR and Mana. Maybe frontliners will finally get a taste of the magical ice cream cone?
We’re also tightening the power floor and ceiling of Guinsoo’s Rageblade to widen its use cases and make it slightly better on champions that may not survive the whole fight, but slightly worse on last-carry-standing users.
Attack Speed has proven to be a very powerful stat in Runeterra Reforged. We’re adjusting Zeke’s Herald so that it’s a bit greedier for equipped champion which should result in less one-Zeri-army situations even when that Zeri is a different three item stacked champion (note: Garen was quite powerful doing this as well).
As above, so below. Changing core items usually results in changing the associated Radiant item, but now that Runeterra Reforged has been live for a patch, we’ve also gone through and done a more detailed pass on balance of both Radiant and Forge items.
Look out for the Radiant Locket of the Iron Solari plus Targon combo next patch—it may be rare, but strong.
Small, like Azir is now!
The last Bastion of beauty, no doubt!
Power is one way we size up our champions, but actual size is too.