The Lunar Festival continues!
It’s the last patch of our Lunar Festival, which means it’s your last chance to farm XP with Bard in the Set 3.5 Revival and claim any of our Lunar Festival cosmetic content. Speaking of, Chibi Porcelain Lux enters Treasure Realms for just this patch, so get your sparkling, rainbow vomiting, laser blasting Chibi now! But while the Lunar Festival event concludes at the end of this patch, we’re extending the 3.5 Revival game mode for one more patch (ends with the end of 14.4 now). As for the rest of the patch, we’ve got balance changes for more than just Remix Rumble—the 3.5 Revival has its very own balance section! Okay, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one very large system change that you should not miss—we’re evening out our loot distribution. And with that, let’s blast off!
14.3 marks the last patch of our Lunar Festival event, but while the event is leaving, the 3.5 Revival game mode will be staying until the conclusion of patch 14.4! Along with the event's departure, event specific cosmetics will also be leaving. Lunar Festival event cosmetics (e.g. Chibi Porcelain Lux, Golden Dragon Skyscraper, and more) deactivate on Feb 22nd at 11AM PT, just after the conclusion of the event with the end of patch 14.03 (Feb 20th). For more info on our Lunar Festival cosmetics, check out our cosmetics article here.
You may have noticed that we extended the 3.5 Revival game mode by an additional patch. This was unplanned, and you may see artifacts (e.g. old articles) with the old end-date. We’ve seen more interest in the 3.5 Revival game mode than originally expected, and believe that with a balance patch (this one), it can continue being a highlight for players. Lastly, and this just might be my opinion, maybe an extra patch of 3.5 will encourage some players to try something beyond Me Mech.
Lastly, we have a new Chibi available for one patch only, Chibi Porcelain Lux!
Chibi Porcelain Lux enters Treasure Realms this patch and leaves alongside the rest of the Lunar Festival content on the final day of the patch.
We’re lowering item drop variance by ensuring players receive the same number of items at each stage. While variance is key to the replayability of TFT, we’ve got quite a lot of that already, so we’re taking some variance out with the difference in item drop timings. There will still be variance in what items you get—as per usual—but you can officially say farewell to gold openers.
This is a bugfix, but it does impact Headliner Rules, so I’m placing it here as well as in the bugfix section.
Large, like the Stakes I keep raising.
Swapping in Heartsteel during Stage 5 & 6 consistently allows you to pop off without falling hard. This results in seeing a first place too often, too consistently. So instead of praying for the death of a rockstar, we’re acting with a nerf specific to that moment. But don’t worry, we aren’t Heartsteel-hating here, as we’re giving even MORE Hearts to the Prismatic 10 Heartsteel.
You ever natural (natural means hitting your units without rolling) into Olaf 3 and then hit Gargantuan Resolve (the Gold Titan’s Resolve Augment), and then have your power go out? Yeah, me neither—I had to use a lesser duplicator. Olaf’s go-to build has a lot of coincidental Ability Power, making him sustain a bit too hard for a 1-cost.
Senna has been missing since we brought down the power of her friends (Qiyanna, Ekko) and the power of her ability to make friends (True Damage Emblem). We’re increasing Senna’s damage across all levels, but especially at that 3-star carry level, to take the subpar out of her subwoofer.
Brightening up your day at the enemy backliner’s expense with a Lux buff.
Mordekaiser is both highly contested and underappreciated. Our strongest 3-cost 3-star of the patch, Mordekaiser, has uncharacteristically high damage for a tank. We’re maintaining his tankiness, but lowering the temperature on his Face-Melter damage.
A Sett nerf could be interpreted as a Heartsteel loss streak buff if you think about it…
Ever since her time as a favorite holder of True Damage Emblem, Caitlyn’s suffered from a lack of damage, or too slow of a cast. We’re fixing one of those in the hopes that she can hunt more champs, without the need of niche Emblem itemization.
While our recent Karthus rework was a significant stride forward, we've noted that his initial cast remains excessively impactful. We’re continuing to lessen the momentum his team gets from that first cast, while raising the AP he gets after each cast—yes that makes Spear of Shojin an even better item on him.
We were a little too spirited with our Twisted Fate nerf last patch, so we’re giving back some power to this slick card dealer in the hopes that he finds a more balanced middle ground to electric slide into.
Lifting our weakest 5-costs; Jhin becomes a heavyweight in the classical music world, and Sona’s melodies uplift more than just your spirit.
Twin Terror has been tied to Punk and Punk adjacent (Oi, Garage, Glampunk, etc.) comps, allowing them to spike too quickly and too hard.
We’re taking Switching Gears into the Augment shop and oiling the gears for more bang for your swap now that win and loss streaks take more combat to pull off.
Is that a Shock Treatment (Gold Augment) buff I see!?
After lowering the gold per kill last patch, Goldmancer’s Staff could use a bit more kill power.
Small, like the way patch notes were back when 3.5 was live. Don’t believe me? Just search TFT patch 10.18 patch notes…
Do Emo champions get sad when they’re buffed?
Please let Archangel’s Garen be a thing.
Zed’s Headliner bonus was previously not applied to his shadows. We’ve adjusted his bonus to be focused on Zed only, so even though this may read as a nerf, note that it’s simply a 5% AD buff to Headliner Zed.
Creating a more balanced version of Balanced Budget for 4-2 when drip econ has less impact. Now with even more budget!
And buffing the Augment that has cost players more LP than the trait itself—that’s Heartthrobs, if that wasn’t clear.
Hey there space cowboy—we’ve got a new section, for an old set. Our main goals here are to do a series of smaller changes to the biggest outliers. The 3.5 Revival is still a fun mode that should be focused on nostalgia and good times over perfect balance, so while this list of changes may look long, we're not trying to ship a patch that forces you to learn a new meta (or even a new comp). TL;DR you can still ME MECH NO PIVOT, but you can do that with more than just mech… just saying.
We’re taking a pass on lowering Crowd Control and Mana Reave to allow other comps who have been limited by said powers have their galaxy brain moment. Other than that, we’re focused on buffs.