Teamfight Tactics Sept 18 update: Item system rework fixes RNG problems

The Teamfight Tactics 9.18 patch update on September 10 is going to introduce a major rework to item distributions with Mystery Boxes, higher XP thresholds for leveling and a ton more.

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Riot Games launched their autobattle in late July 2019 and took the genre by storm since the game featured deep mechanics involving popular League of Legends characters. This gave a lot of players a completely new way to interact with the Champs they know and love.

As the devs evolve their game, the devs are ironing out prominent issues in the way a match progress to make sure that RNG doesn’t completely ruin the allure for people trying to learn.

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New Mystery Box System

To combat the RNG of item drops in PvE rounds, the devs are implementing Common, Uncommon, and Rare boxes to the game.

• Read more: Kelsey Moser: Why a rookie jungler substitution worked for iG and not TSM

“We’ve changed how items are distributed in PVE rounds,” the devs said. “The goal is to keep a variety of experiences across many games, but also to make the game more fair over the course of a single game.”

Every player will be getting about the same number of boxes and item components in the game now, as opposed to the previous system that had players questioning the drop rates.

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Neeko’s Help

The devs are including a godsend for every player that has missed out on that last piece to get a three-star champ.

With the new Neeko’s Help item, players will be able to reproduce a 1-star copy of any champion they have, and add it to their bench.

Whether its used to get a quick 2-star champ in the early game, or to help out when players just can’t find that last piece to their fourth 3-star character, Neeko’s Help is a dynamic component in the 9.18 update.

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XP Adjustments

Apparently there’s going to be a lot more gold in player’s pockets with the new loot system. To combat the influx of power that could arise, Riot is going to bump up XP requirements for some levels.

• Read more: Could Lindsey Stirling be working on the LoL Worlds 2019 anthem?

“Due to the slightly inflated gold from the new loot system,” Riot said. “We’ve made some adjustments to how much XP it takes to level.”

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Players will now need 12xp to jump up to level five instead of 10xp. The same 2xp bump can be seen in level six and seven. But for levels eight and nine, it’s going to take 50 xp and 70, before players can advance.

As always the devs included a ton of balances throughout their traits and champs, so check out the full patch notes below.

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New Stuff

Mystery Box System

We’ve changed how items are distributed in PVE rounds. The goal is to keep a variety of experiences across many games, but also to make the game more fair over the course of a single game.

• Common boxes contain: gold, champions, or Neeko’s Help
• Uncommon Boxes contain item components, gold, champions, or Neeko’s Help
• Rare boxes contain: Spatulas, full items, gold, champions, or Neeko’s Help
• Every player gets approximately the same number of boxes across a single game.
• Every player gets approximately the same number of item components across a single game.

Neeko’s Help

• Place on a champion to create a 1-star copy of that champion and add it to your bench. Doing so consumes Neeko’s Help.

Systems

XP Adjustments

Due to the slightly inflated gold from the new loot system, we’ve made some adjustments to how much XP it takes to level.

• Level 5: 10xp ⇒ 12xp
• Level 6: 18xp ⇒ 20xp
• Level 7: 30xp ⇒ 32xp
• Level 8: 46xp ⇒ 50xp
• Level 9: 64xp ⇒ 70xp

Champion Tier Drop Rates

We’ve made some minor adjustments to how likely which tier champions will appear at a few different levels. We’re hoping these make clearer early, mid, and late game phases.

• Level 3 by Tier: 65%/ 30%/ 5%/ 0%/ 0% ⇒
  70%/ 25%/ 5%/ 0%/ 0%
• Level 5 by Tier: 37%/ 35%/ 25%/ 3%/ 0% ⇒
  35%/ 35%/ 25%/ 5%/ 0%
• Level 6 by Tier: 24.5%/ 35%/ 30%/ 10%/ 0.5% ⇒
  25%/ 35%/ 30%/ 10%/ 0%
• Level 9 by Tier: 10%/ 15%/ 35%/ 30%/ 10% ⇒
  10%/ 15%/ 33%/ 30%/ 12%
• All other levels remain the same.

Champion Pool Sizes

It’s proven a bit too consistent to get 2 star tier 3 champions, so we’re shrinking the bag size to reward players who build the path less taken.

• Tier 3 champions in pool: 21 ⇒ 18

Item Stacking and Clarity

We took a pass at all the items to ensure that they stack in a sensible way, and that we’re informing you when they don’t. Adding copies of items that do not stack will now cause them to bounce off any champion they are placed on. Unique items will be labelled as such in their tooltips. All items listed below are not intended to stack.

• Youmuu’s Ghostblade
• Knight’s Vow
• Frozen Mallet
• Yuumi
• Blade of the Ruined King
• Darkin
• Phantom Dancer
• Morellonomicon
• Red Buff

Traits

New Nine Piece Bonuses

We’re adding new nine piece chase options for some of the traits that can be completed with Spatula items. These are not teasers for new champs this time! But we like the high end chase options so we wanted to explore a few more.

• Assassin 9 piece: Grants 225% crit damage and 40% crit chance
• Sorcerer 9 piece: Grants 175% spell power

Wild

We’ve added some extra power to four piece wild so that the four wild units actually get a benefit from four wild. We think it’s going to be wild.

• Wild (4): All your allies gain 12% AS per attack (up to 5 stacks) AND their basic attacks can’t miss.

General Trait Adjustments

• Elementalist Golem’s Armor: 20 ⇒ 40
• Knight Damage Reduction: 15/30/55 ⇒ 15/35/65
• Assassin jump delay: 0.325sec ⇒ 0.395sec

Champions

Tier 1

• Camille Attack Damage: 50 ⇒ 55
• Elise Spiderling Attack Damage: 50 ⇒ 60
• Graves Armor: 20 ⇒ 30
• Kassadin Attack Damage: 55 ⇒ 50
• Kha’zix Starting/Total Mana: 0/50 ⇒ 0/65

Tier 2

• Pyke Starting Mana: 75 ⇒ 50
• Twisted Fate Health: 450 ⇒ 500
• Twisted Fate Blue Card Mana: 20/35/50 ⇒ 30/50/70

Tier 3

• Evelynn execute threshold: 65% ⇒ 50%
• Evelynn execute multiplier: 3/5/7 ⇒ 3/4/5
• Katarina Mana: 0/100 ⇒ 0/85

Tier 4

• Akali Ability Damage: 150/275/400 ⇒ 200/350/500

Tier 5

• Anivia Ability Duration: 800 damage over 8sec ⇒ 800 damage over 6sec
• Pantheon Health: 1000 ⇒ 850
• Pantheon Attack Damage: 80 ⇒ 75

Items

• BF Sword Attack Damage: 20 ⇒ 15
• Frozen Heart debuff duration: 2.875sec ⇒ 4sec
• Locket of the Iron Solari shield amount: 250 for 6 seconds ⇒ 300 for 7 seconds
• Swordbreaker chance to disarm: 25% chance to disarm for 4 seconds ⇒ 33% chance to disarm for 3 seconds
• Zephyr banish duration: 5 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds

Bugfixes

• Morgana’s ability will now work consistently on isolated summoned minions and neutral monsters.
• Zeke’s Herald and Locket of the Iron Solari will no longer give their buffs to enemy team units if re-enabled after Hextech.
• Khazix’s ability now always deals true damage if 3 Void is active.
• Luden’s Echo now properly hits the main target of an ability.
• Camille Ability: Evelynn will no longer be able to escape the root using her ability.
• Camille Ability: Shyvana will now dash in place rather than lose all of her mana without transforming.
• Camille Ability: Pantheon and Vi will not cast their abilities while rooted.
• Frozen Mallet’s tooltip now properly reflects the extra health it grants.
• Darkin’s tooltip now properly reflects the extra mana it grants.
• Grievous Wounds tooltips now properly state that they reduce healing by 80% rather than 100%.
• Demons will not gain mana through their trait if mana locked.
• Brand’s ability was bouncing two more times than intended. It now bounces the appropriate amount of times.
• Fixed a bug where Rek’Sai was healing for half the intended amount.

Music

New Soundtrack

Teamfight Tactic’s new music will change based on what phase of the game you’re in. For instance, during shopping phase the music is calmer and less busy, but as battle phase starts the music transitions into a more energetic combat driven style. There are also 3 different “chapters” of music: the first chapter goes from the beginning of the game to when first player is knocked out. The second is from that point until there are only 3 players left. Then the final chapter brings us home.