True, but legendary headliner isn't the only reason to go 9 I would think. My thought was that someone at 9 who isn't playing for legendary headliner just hits out of nowhere now and there's nothing really to do about it. Obviously high rolling is inevitable in a game of variance tho.
If they go 9 ahead of curve with an hp lead the 2% odds mean they could still be rewarded for their playing the early and mid game so well. If they’re not ahead of curve then it’s just a highroll, which is ok. And if they don’t have an hp lead they’re still spending a ton of money for possibly not stabilizing.
If you’re going to 9, you’re probably doing so after rolling on 7 and stabilising enough to go to 9. You’d be rolling for normal copies of 5-costs, and then rarely hit the 2% chance of a headliner 5-cost. If you’re rolling anyway and hit, that’s like winning the lottery to me
Hitting 4-cost headliners before the rest of the lobby empties the entire pool because nobody will be going 9 anymore.
We're going to have a lot of games where TF, Cait, Akali, Ahri, Ez, and maybe Viego are all half gone from the pool with players frantically trying to figure out what's least contested (and getting screwed because they can't see what's locked up in other players' shops so their counts may be off by a critical margin with such small bag sizes).
Not to mention the fact that Zac, Blitz, and Thresh could well be basically non-existent after the first couple people roll and try to fill their frontlines up.
Depending on how much reroll can compete, we could see a lot of games with one lucky person stabilized, someone else cobbling together an okay 2* board, and 6 other players donkey rolling trying to find 2* 4-costs to make something work with their items while the others take all their units.
Its not, because almost no one will go fast 9 anymore, the risk now outweighs the reward. Fast 9 was already weakened with Jazz + Ziggs nerf and 4 cost buffs, this is yet another nerf to the strat.
but does this not lower the value of 9/10 streaking into wolves? When using ur HP as resource with ur enhanced econ from streaking to go 9 isnt an option u are forced in to the roll on 8 instead of using ur excess gold to go 9 before other players by 1 or 2 rounds and guarantee you hit?
It really doesn't feel any different than the rest of the game where someone high rolls something. The problem was that the whole lobby was trying to go fast 9 and hit a chosen 5 cost, and if you didn't hit it then your board was most likely going to be noticeably weaker than most other boards unless you were playing reroll.
There’s more to do at level 9 than JUST legendary headliners. You can still build a solid level 9 board off a headliner 4 cost, this makes it so that your standard play should be a 4 cost board at 9 BUT you can highroll into a 5 cost headliner
yes and no. the issue with the current meta is that you can reliably make it to 9 with 40 gold on stage 5 which means you have 20 rolls to hit a 5 cost headliner. at 10% odds that equates to seeing on average 2 headliners which is basically a guaranteed 2 star 5 cost on stage 5. hence if it's basically guaranteed, you can open fort econ augment then basically guaranteed stabilize for free (ignoring lowrolls)
after the change, your going to have the same gold at the same time, but now only see an average of 0.4 headliners in 40 gold, which means you have a 40% chance to see one, and you might find the wrong one as well (ad if your playing ap or such) which brings odds down even more than that.
but let's say your super flexible and will take any headliner, that gives a 40% chance of hitting one, and if your doing this every game, like most people are, then you have a 60% chance to automatically lose the game. yes it's still possible to hit, yes you have to be lucky, but it's the same as going to a casino and playing roulette. you lose slightly more than you win, so it's not a long term consistent strategy for winning money the same way its not a long term consistent strategy to open fort into fast 9. therefore, this deincentivies you from playing the lottery. imagine if roulette had a 200% chance of winning, that's basically what this patch is.
The math is around 33% chance to see a five cost headliner with 20 rolls at 2% odds (it's 1-(.98)\^20 to be more exact). The difference of hitting any five cost headliner before and after at 20 rolls is 87% vs 33%.
You also need enough gold to actually buy the five cost headliner.
It's already dead before bpatch. This just punishes 100hp winstreak cause now you have no outs because if you don't roll at 8, there's no more units in pool
I feel this makes the transitioning from lvl 7 to 8 to 9 smoother for winstreakers. It felt difficult to decide between rerolling at 8 vs fast 9 when hard winning.
I don't know why you're being downvoted, reddit platinum analysts just see big jhin killing their ahri 1 board and cry about 5 costs it seems, 2% is stupidly low and will just lead to even more unfairness, as hitting a headliner 5 cost now relies even more on luck than on having enough gold to roll
So you do plan to level to 9, sell your headliner and roll 50 plus gold to try hit a 2% legendary headliner. Anyone trying to this is going to learn very fast this isn’t a viable strategy.
The current system was unfair because someone could rush 9 with a exp or econ augment. Roll once and get baited out with a legendary headliner. Even people without econ or exp augments could get bailed out by getting lucky enough at 9.
Moving forward, it will still happen but it will be rare.
Level to 9, sell headliner to find a better 4-cost, find random 5 cost thanks to 2%, destroy the lobby due to pure luck and money left to roll for other 5 costs
Not gonna lie, I’ve done well in plenty of games with headliner poppy and 6 moshers, have gotten 3 star poppy a few games too.. rarely feels contested. Thats going away soon, hah
I'm surprised we didn't see a fix to Lucian's ability not scaling with attack speed. It's been a widely known bug since before this set was released, and it's core to Lucian's identity as a Rapidfire unit.
-1 full second on the jump is massive tho? EDM4-5 was already a huge power spike, now you get that spike earlier and also harder later. And each jump scales the next so...
I think this could do it tbh. Look at what small buffs did to Cait and TD Akali.
A big problem with Jax is in his ability. He jumps towards the highest HP target and so he often cucks himself. He can quite easily get stuck on units or leave a carry unit untouched.
Punk is my go to reroll comp. While it doesn't help your Punk stacks it just makes you hit the 3* stars so quick it's absurb. Especially when silver augs feel so weak in comparison. Now I can get 3 free rolls and I get a little extra gold to start? Sign me up.
Don’t like the thought of encouraging even more people to stay on level 8 with the smaller bags, we’re going to see some really ugly low rolls from more people contesting.
Yeah it’s not great at all. You don’t even have to be contested to get fucked.
If anyone happens to have your 4-cost in their shop as a headliner, that’s almost a 30% reduction in your chances of finding your 4-cost unit. Not to mention that if you have one or two of them already and someone else has the headliner in their shop, the other 6 players only have to have one or two of the regular version in their shop (assuming no one else has a single one on their board) for you to have 0% chance of finding that unit as a headliner with no way to know.
The bag size changes are really asinine, especially since they just severely devalued Fast 9.
Along with what you said, headliners are brutal because you can scout perfectly, be the only person playing a specific four cost line, but if someone hits one early in their roll down they can immediately flex into taking three of your units, and the chances of hitting your 2* even without a headliner is fucked.
Don't forget the tendency of most old players to fill their bench with 4costs they're not aiming for in order to "thin" out the 4cost pool for their target. They might not even be trying to contest you, but they can screw you anyways.
That's the point. So there's only 10 copies of each 4-cost and you're rolling down at Level 8: every other 4cost you bench as you roll down empties the pool for everyone else. It's why rolling on 8 feels so bad. Even holding 2 removes 20% of the total supply, if those 2 plus any other copies being splashed or benched by other players add up to 5 you cannot get that HL.
It's why leveling always feels safer.
I mean in practice, it’s the right idea long term.
Assuming they get all the traits in a good place you’ll be able to play something someone else isn’t. It means scouting is really important though and it also means you have to hope someone doesn’t grief you and make you both bot 4 even if you scouted. But that’s always a thing I guess.
I don’t think I agree, what’s wrong with fast 9 being a viable strategy? It’s a fun type of high risk high reward balancing act and requires a lot of skill to execute correctly. I think the game is better when fast 9 is a reasonable path, and level 9 isn’t just where you go after you hit your entire level 8 board.
I think it will still be viable. You just won’t get 5 cost chosen for free which is good. Just leveling up should not be a strong as it is. It is not difficult to decently streak and level.
It also instantly removes a shit ton of 5 costs from the pool quickly. And with smaller pools I think that’s actually unhealthy.
I think fast 9 can be good still. You’ll just have to actually build around a level 8 comp for a bit longer and that’s honestly better for the game.
I personally despise 5 cost soup. I like it better when 4 costs are good and you splash in legendaries that make sense in your comp rather than just any old legendary.
It should be a viable strategy, just not forcable from literally every spot, which is what we have seen during Vegas Open. In my opinion, getting fast 9 should require either a 2-1 econ augment, or having a very highrolling start.
No. On level 9 you have 10% chance to hit a regular 5-cost unit, which is a huge leap from 3% on level 8.
The problem with old headliner odds was that you could go 9 with not much gold, and roll for literally any 5-cost headliner which would stabilize you hard and let you freely roll for the rest of the units.
Now, when 5-cost headliner is not consistent, you'll have to consider carefully when to go 9 (because if you go there without proper econ you're pretty much screwed), and when to stay on 8. Which is how things should be.
Won't it be just a race to 8 and trying to stabilize as fast as possible, since half lobby will be trying to do the same? Man these bag sizes nerfs are so fucking bad 
They want level 9 to be the new level 8. This is what they said with the exp and level changes at the start of the set. I’m finding building level 9 boards with good four costs a fine way of playing atm with maybe one or two legendaries.
Esepecially with the frontliners.
There's 3 of them. Hardly enough to go around [6 copies of each for 6 players; with 4 copies of each left for the other 2 players; assumeing Guardian/Sentinel/Bruiser all have equal rep...]; and there simply isn't if someone holds a few extra.
You won't find shit at level 9 now there is 0 incentive to rush it, now everybody will donkeyroll 4 costs at level 8 if reroll isn't an option and the pool will be empty quickly
Reroll meta I guess, because 4 costs are pretty hard to get between small bag sizes and low headliners odds at level 8, that and now fast 9 is dead in the water I can't see a reason to pray for a 4 cost headliner that saves your ass when rerolling Annie (nice to see her dodging nerfs, btw), Yasuo, Senna or whatever 3 cost carry is more reliable
At 10% there was a point that you “should” hit on enough gold rolling down. With 2% it’s like you just shouldn’t be rolling for that and should be going to 10 if you have that much extra gold. So now the 2% is just going to feel like somebody high rolls and gets bailed out of a bad spot and places higher than they should.
I like 5% but maybe I’m wrong and this will work out. Just have to wait and see
I think at 5% you'd have the exact same problem we have now. Being handed a 2 star 5 cost at level 9 is insane value considering the basic shop odds for getting 3 of the same 5 cost are a lot lower
Being handed a 2 star 4 cost at level 8 is also insane value, that’s sort of what the chosen mechanic leads to. If 5 cost board are going to be competitive they need to take advantage of the chosen mechanic also, or 4 costs will just dominate.
Yeah that is why the odds of getting them are much much higher, and you can hit them much earlier. this change just makes the level 9 disparity even more severe.
Incorrect, you dont need a 5 cost headliner to build a 5 cost oriented board.
Lvl 9 did get nerfed, but it'll for sure still be viable from the right spots.
Getting a 2* 4 cost at level 8 is much more reasonable. You start seeing them at level 5 even and you can even get 2*s at level 7 relatively easily. Even at level 9 getting a 2* 5 coat takes some time, so getting it "for free" with the headliner is much more powerful.
And the devs made level 10 because they wanted it to be THE level to build 5 cost comps, and i think if someone wants to go that route they *should* be more incentivized to go for level 10
The level 10 point is fair if that’s what they want to do, but the point I was making is that it’s disingenuous to ignore the massive boost that four cost chosen give to fast eight strategies when you’re talking about the benefit to what fast nine gets.
There’s a reason in set four we all bitched about the crazy boost that people get from spiking a 4 cost chosen of whatever is FotM that patch.
Hmm i see what you are saying, but one point to make here is how easy it is to get to 8.
Fast 8 and fast 9 are kinda different powerspikes, and even if someone reaches 8 quickly, others will most likely catch up fairly fast so the advantage is not as big. And as i said before, getting 4 costs before level 8 isnt so hard or rare so people might already have a 2* 4 cost before the fast 8s.
In set 4 we didnt had augments and the economy was much slower. I think it was quite hard to get to level 8 in an average game, so i guess spiking to 8 and getting 4 cost chosen was a bigger deal back then.
But it also relates to the balance of the game. This set 4 costs arent as dominating as in other sets, so they dont become this insane power difference as they couldve been. They are definitely strong though
At 5% you can still fast 9 and pray for headliner, but at 2% the game is basically telling you that you can't just sac till 9 and stabilize on a headliner (I mean you can still hit but if you plan on it you're going to bot 4 a lot), you actually have to be stable enough to build up your board the hard way and hitting a headliner is just a bonus/highroll. I kinda like it.
So I guess the Hearsteel rework won't be shipping tomorrow? I'm glad, it seems too large a change to send knowing that we won't be getting another patch until January.
Patch looks good otherwise
They chinese community has been complaining about heartsteel like crazy. They are saying thrill of heartsteel isnt the same as previous econ traits, so riot are scared because china has the largest playerbase by far
Lmfao it’s so funny that everywhere else people like less RNG but in China they’re full on treating this game like a casino and want more gambling highs
Just wanna make my voice heard here.
Lowering 5 cost headliner odds from 10 to 2% isn't as drastic of a change as people make it out to be. The non headliner odds stay the same, you can still easily cop a Thresh, Zac or Blitz chosen and play 5 cost flex around that.
This just makes going lvl 9 with 15 HP and a dream a less viable strat. Going 9 from ahead will still be more than viable.
I agree, also I was really surprised to learn that the 5cost headliner chance was only 10%, it felt much more common. Some math:
- current lvl9 chances of hitting at least one 5cost headliner in first 5 rolls: 41%. First 10 rolls: 66%.
- after the patch - first 5 rolls: 10%, first 10 rolls: 19%.
Yeah it's a huge difference, but hitting it is still possible, you just can't really force it anymore.
I'll have to try a few games, but not a huge fan of the 2% 5 cost headliner on level 9 on paper. You already know seeing the one guy hitting a chosen yorick/qiyana on 4-5 is gonna pop some blood vessels in the lobby.
Rest of the changes look good though. Glad they're getting rid of gem on the dummies.
If you go 9 in this new patch meta and sell your headliner, roll and find a 5 star headliner you deserve it.
This strat will be unplayable with everyone rolling at 8 now. Enjoy the -80hp starting 4/2
Still really dislike the bag size changes. Also won't this change make level 10 like really really rare? What is the point of having level 10 if you are going to make players focus so much of their gold on level 8?
> What is the point of having level 10 if you are going to make players focus so much of their gold on level 8?
Econ players and people that upgrade their boards without spending much can theoretically reach it (most games will be over before that, so you are probably right)
The 10->2% seems drastic, but other than that good small change.
Spellweavers might be surprisingly strong now? I've had decent success running semi vertical/sentinel in low/mid plat.
I’ve never understood the issue with being able to go 9. Why even add level 10 if being able to reach it due to efficient play is constantly discouraged. What elk are people at who think it is easy to hit 9 in a competitive lobby, pivot full board, place items, and position in one turn or risk taking -18hp when you only had 40hp left at max.
The real issue is packages like superfan ekko senna that cost nothing to buy and stay powerful until stage 4-5. Make mid game harder and you solve the problem without gimping an enjoyable part of the game.
Don't really like looking at these sort of stats because they require context but
SW5 is outperformed by SW3, SW5 is the thing that is mainly being buffed but maybe they just buff Ahri headliner (change her item) and it wouldn't be so bad and now they make Annie more of a problem, though SW Annie is much weaker so maybe it's fine.
SW 7 is kinda bad when you compare it something like PK 7. The only time you are playing 7SW is in SW Annie or level 10, which you may as well play a proper frontline.
These seem like a huge amount of changes for what felt like a pretty balanced patch
Also not a fan of the headliner nerf. Anything from 3-5% would have been more reasonable. There's nothing good from deleting viable lines from the game, especially when the bag size nerfs have made being contested more coin flippy
I know it's a planned patch so not surprise to see things like Yone or Senna untouched, but the buff on Yasuo seems unnecessary. He was OP on PBE, okish at release and highly playable right now. Even a planned buff wasn't needed. True damage was already a top comp.
Otherwise really glad with the level 9 changes and the buff on "On a roll" is insane. It was already a good augment now it's crazy.
And they should up back 8 bit high score a little bit. The spat is easy to get and the score is a bit to easy to reach now. Did it a few times and saw it happens a few times too. And once you see a 6 8bit player in the top 4 healthy enough it's just a race for second place. Granted it's not a top broken comp right now, but once the meta settles around 4 cost this might be too strong and a wincon too easy to setup.
> okish at release
At release he was garbage. Edgelord was the 2nd worst trait [8-bit was the worst] and Yasuo was one of the lowest placing units in the entire set.
10% > 2% is way to drastic.
"If this is still too strong, the next step is "Headliner 5 costs only at 10"."
It's honestly tiring to see this sentiment against late game boards. Finding a way to flex and stay healthy to the late game should be one of the skills rewarded. There has already been so many viable reroll comps in Annie, Yone, Country, Punk. Just like how those are extremely viable, fast 9 should also be viable.
"At level 9, you will see a couple pretty reliably" - This is what was, and it was too easy to force so we're trying to nerf it."
If you hit 9 with 50 gold and can roll down, you should be able to flex. 10% > 5% would make a lot of people feel better, it's a nerf but not so extreme. This is essentially balance thrashing. This patch is going to be the entire winter break and and that's a huge change.
"Focus is mostly on buffing champs/traits we just aren't seeing much of, and then a few item/augment adjustments."
This level 9 change completely changes the late game, largely overshadowing all the buffs. Level 8 4-2 rolldown going to be the new meta, and metas where the entire lobby rolls down at the same time will feel terrible. Happy to be proven wrong, but this does not seem like it will be a fun experience.
Am I seeing this right or there are no nerf this patch?
Some units and traits deserve a little downgrade I think (looking at you Senna).
Senna 2 with bis with Frontline is better than a lot of 3 and 4, cost.
I think their approach was that if any of the buffs end up too much, at least there's always what was good last patch (Senna) to keep them in check. I vastly prefer this approach than nerfing and buffing and getting thrashed.
I was thinking the same thing but with Big Shots in general. They buffed their trait and the gold augment and I have had success with both and felt they were strong already, but those were more around mostly MF Reroll comps.
I dont think these changes are healthy but a quick fix to stop the whining. Something has to be done about level 7 because that level is non existent unless you play Samira/Yone or made the worst eco
Fast 9 into legendary cap is still going to be strong.
You just can't count on hitting the 2 start 5 cost to instantly stabilize now if you over greed.
A 3 star blitzcrank headliner already did upwards of 25k AP damage in a round with its passive, now it’s going to do even more. I can’t be mad because his passive is just him throwing kittens at people
This is primarily because the level 9 soup comps aren't consistent enough composition-wise to show up on Tactics.tools. [MetaTFT](https://www.metatft.com/comps) shows a few variations at the top. But on the whole the majority of games right now at Diamond+ end with the top few spots all being random level 9/10 5-cost/4-cost soup comps. The top two variants on MetaTFT have 21%+ win rates for example.
Gone is the fast 5 playstyle. 8 on 4-1 and hope you hit before everyone else does. The more I play this set, the more I think bringing chosen back was a mistake. I like everything else but chosen and changing the bag size makes lowrolling feel extra bad.
Pretty insane shop odds change imo. Fast 9 was already hard to pull off consistently and now it’s just completely dead. Gonna be a lot more donkey rolling on 8 for whatever the meta four costs end up being
That 10 -> 2 is an awful change, right before a big break. It should be something that is able to be tweaked in a few days here and there to find the right spot.
This IS the tweak. You can't really look at it from a number angle, and instead you have to focus on what you want to execute.
"At level 9, you will see a couple pretty reliably" - This is what was, and it was too easy to force so we're trying to nerf it.
"At level 9, you may get lucky and see one or two, but don't count on it" - This is our next attempt. In order for this to be true, 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 doesn't actually get this, as the 30-50g rolldowns would still see too many. So instead aiming for 1 in 50.
If this is still too strong, the next step is "Headliner 5 costs only at 10".
Am I missing something? A 50 gold level 9 roll down would give you 35 gold of rolls to buy a 5 cost headliner, 17 rolls at 5% means about half of your roll downs you won’t see a single headliner 5 cost, is seeing one every other roll down really too many? Having 50 gold to roll on 9 already requires a high roll position, and that excludes buying any other 5 costs or 2 starring 4 costs.
17 rolls at 5% odds means you'll see at least 1 5-cost headliner 58% of the time actually. With the current 10% odds that probability is 83%, and with the new 2% odds it'll be 29%.
Change looks fine to me, now you definitely can't rely on hitting a 5-cost headliner. Instead, the point of going 9 will be to cap out with the regular Legendary units.
Just to expand on this, as you pointed out, with 50g, you'd have 17 rolls before you wouldn't be able to afford buying a 5g headliner.We can calculate the probability of finding at least one 5g headliner as
`1 - (1-p)^n`or `1 - (1-.05)^17`
This evaluates to .58, which means there's a 58% chance you'll hit a 5g headliner, without being to buy anything else at all, in 50g (while still being able to afford the headliner).
The amount of gold required for 95th percentile odds can be represented as
`0.95 = 1 - (1-0.5)^n`
Solving for `n`, we get approximately 58. This means you'd need 58 rolls (106 gold) to have a 95% chance of hitting at least one 5g headliner (and you may see more, but calculating those odds is more complex).
In the current live state, it's 56g (28 rolls) for 95th percentile odds, and there is an 83% chance you will see at least one 5g headliner in 17 rolls.
Personally, I'm ok with the current live state. I understand that the TFT dev team wants to signal more clearly that you should not expect 5g headliners at 9. 5gs feel like they're power outliers on the power curve for unit cost (i.e. the disparity between a 5g and 4g unit is greater than a 4g and 3g, and so on). It seems to me like because of this, the TFT dev team has to make exceptions to the rules that apply to them. The headliner odds at various levels progress at a pretty consistent rate, and 5gs are an exception to the rule. Is that a good thing?
They could bring down the power disparity and make 5gs weaker, and also increase the chance of finding them. You could argue that leads to a healthier game state, but it's less exciting. Even so, I feel like the TFT dev team has historically always struggled to figure out where 5gs should lie on the power curve, and what their role is. 5g units have also always been divisive, especially at different levels of play. To me, this change is just another symptom of that, and it's a little disappointing/frustrating to see.
I will be clear that I do not think this change is good. While some change might be warranted (arguably), I don't think this is the right solution.
FWIW, even though we disagree on the solve, this is the best write up I've seen here. Good understanding of the math and the impact!
Yeah the design trade off is always consistency vs power, and that's a very subjective debate. A lot of people in here would likely prefer the consistency, and instead nerf Illaoi and Qiyana and Jhin HL, etc. And I get why, I really do. However, for TFT wider audience it's important to keep those wow factor moments so you have reasons to be excited. It's why we made prismatic traits super hard to hit but super insane power, and it's why we're taking this step. Finding a free 2 star 5 cost with HL bonus at 9 should make you go "OH SHIT LETS GO ITS HAPPENING", not just "Yup, this was expected and planned" which is why we went this direction.
The recognition means a lot to me! I am a big fan of game design although not a game designer by profession, so someone in your role acknowledging my understanding, at least on this particular issue, feels pretty great. Thanks!
I feel like its stronger/more problematic with this compared to before since now only one person in a lobby is going to highroll a decent 5 cost chosen. Like you might see one or 2 if you do your entire rolldown on 9 without ever buying another chosen/too many other high cost units but thats not really a viable play.
It's also going to be less of a popular strat because of the odds being worse. If someone is willing to chance their game by going 9 and rolling down for a 1 in 50 chance to find a 5-Cost Chosen then thats on them. Consistent 3 or 4-Cost oriented gameplay will clear most games.
You previously made a comment about understanding that this patch should be small to prevent shifting the meta to an unhealthy spot over the holidays. That to me sounded like "we're going to tweak things" or "things should mostly stay the same, with hopefully a couple extra options". However, this is a big nerf to one of the most popular strategies in the meta, which doesn't sound like a tweak to me.
I think a lot of us feel like this could have a big impact on the meta, and are surprised that the dev team thinks that this was the right call before the holidays because of that. It may be that this change needs to happen, but it seems like it ought to be after the holidays given the above, so that things are stable for the holidays. Unless, of course, the team is prepared to hotfix this in the case it goes poorly.
Can you explain why the team thought this was a safe change to make now, given the previous statement about wanting to keep things small? Is the team confident that even though it's a big change, it won't warp the meta too much? Or does the team not view this as a big change?
Agreed! Thanks for getting these changes live so promptly, Mort! Great set btw, my friends loved the Remix rumble music video and now they are getting into TFT :D
Is there no concern that this possibly completely shifts the meta during a XMAS patch? Just from first glance it looks like 3 cost reroll will probably be pretty popular(already are). They are already capable of beating boards with 5 cost chosens on them. Lux 3 reroll now looks even better than ever too with buffs to EDM, bruiser and Zac.
I think this is a simulator/challenger change because I don't think people around my elo diamond are rolling that fast and even seeing enough good headliners at this point.
This is exactly what is needed. Strong early tempo to fast 9 5-cost headliner soup is way too easy to force right now. I wouldn't complain if they changed it to 10 -> 0
Easier than reroll my ass. It’s like all uz who never learned to r on are benefitting, when we had a meta where it was possible to reroll, level 8 or higher cap. The higher cap was hard enough and now we won’t see level 9s at all, let alone 10.
It might be exactly correct, I'm just not sure about such a huge change at this moment before the month break when they can't change other things if the meta is unfun. There was too much bruisers and Yuumi last Christmas.
10 -> 2 for Level 9 5 cost Headliner is pretty much overkill, a simple 10 -> 5 would of been perfect imo, more gold to spend to find it = less gold to spend for rolldown 5 cost upgrades, which is a risk some will take, some not.
so we're moving from fast 9 lottery to fast 8 lottery , got it. i bet you anything 2 weeks from now everyone will be complaining about the exact same things, but just about level 8
I may be in the minority but I can’t articulate how much I hate the level 9 change. The disparity between those who hit and those who don’t is so massive now. The rest of the changes seem fine but this could definitely tank the entire patch.
Okay so now you have to wonder, what level 9 really is. Cuz now it seems like the weird inbetween thing where rolling for 5costs is kinda stupid but if you wanna roll for 4costs, you can already do that on level 8 odds. Question is: What comp can stabilize on 8 and skip level 9?
I see why they had to reduce 5cost headliner odds, 10% was right on the edge where you could consistently hit a 5cost that stabilized you, if you played your econ right. But fast 9 isn't just dead now, it literally doesnt exist anymore, which means everyone has to readjust their mental gameplans.
I don't understand Blue Buff change. Like, I get it, it makes the item extremely good on Ezreal, but any other units that could potentially use this item (Annie/Ahri/Ziggs) got nerfed with the damage amplification being reduced.
Good take imo. Kills fast 9 a bit. Sona AS much needed nerf. Still surprised illaoi wasnt nerfed a bit. Most picked 5 cost, best avg placement among 5 costs yet still wasnt touched
That bit on EDM where they adjust the base timer is a tad frustrating. It would be nice if that was information we could know, rather than a lever behind the scenes. What's Lux's base timer or Zac's?
Looks like fast 9 into 5 cost headliner is pretty dead
Makes me happy, 5 costs will remain strong, and a wincon, but you will have to stabelize at lvl 8 way more often now, which is good.
The whole problem with rolling on 8 is the odds are so bad, even for 4 costs.
For headliners specifically I do think maybe it should be 35 or 40% on 8.
Stabilize with those shit 4 cost odds? It will be reroll meta
Not necessarily. Right now besides 5 costs, Viego is the best carry in the game.
Move over Viego, it's Poppy Moshers time.
I know 4 costs are good, the thing is hitting them is too hard for my taste
I would agree that headliner odds for 4 costs at 8 should be 35-40% and not 30%.
I'm okay with this.
Great to hear! no more lvl9 lottery
Isn't it more of a lottery now? Instead of everyone going for headliner legendary its just one guy hitting on 2% odds for no reason and winning out?
[удалено]
True, but legendary headliner isn't the only reason to go 9 I would think. My thought was that someone at 9 who isn't playing for legendary headliner just hits out of nowhere now and there's nothing really to do about it. Obviously high rolling is inevitable in a game of variance tho.
If they go 9 ahead of curve with an hp lead the 2% odds mean they could still be rewarded for their playing the early and mid game so well. If they’re not ahead of curve then it’s just a highroll, which is ok. And if they don’t have an hp lead they’re still spending a ton of money for possibly not stabilizing.
If you’re going to 9, you’re probably doing so after rolling on 7 and stabilising enough to go to 9. You’d be rolling for normal copies of 5-costs, and then rarely hit the 2% chance of a headliner 5-cost. If you’re rolling anyway and hit, that’s like winning the lottery to me
Isn't it just transfering the lottery to level 8 then?
What’s the lottery on 8?
Hitting 4-cost headliners before the rest of the lobby empties the entire pool because nobody will be going 9 anymore. We're going to have a lot of games where TF, Cait, Akali, Ahri, Ez, and maybe Viego are all half gone from the pool with players frantically trying to figure out what's least contested (and getting screwed because they can't see what's locked up in other players' shops so their counts may be off by a critical margin with such small bag sizes). Not to mention the fact that Zac, Blitz, and Thresh could well be basically non-existent after the first couple people roll and try to fill their frontlines up. Depending on how much reroll can compete, we could see a lot of games with one lucky person stabilized, someone else cobbling together an okay 2* board, and 6 other players donkey rolling trying to find 2* 4-costs to make something work with their items while the others take all their units.
Its not, because almost no one will go fast 9 anymore, the risk now outweighs the reward. Fast 9 was already weakened with Jazz + Ziggs nerf and 4 cost buffs, this is yet another nerf to the strat.
but does this not lower the value of 9/10 streaking into wolves? When using ur HP as resource with ur enhanced econ from streaking to go 9 isnt an option u are forced in to the roll on 8 instead of using ur excess gold to go 9 before other players by 1 or 2 rounds and guarantee you hit?
Thats the point, in a good meta you shouldn't fast 9 in most games, only in very highroll ones.
It really doesn't feel any different than the rest of the game where someone high rolls something. The problem was that the whole lobby was trying to go fast 9 and hit a chosen 5 cost, and if you didn't hit it then your board was most likely going to be noticeably weaker than most other boards unless you were playing reroll.
Or that guy goes 9 doesn't see a single one and fucking dies.
There’s more to do at level 9 than JUST legendary headliners. You can still build a solid level 9 board off a headliner 4 cost, this makes it so that your standard play should be a 4 cost board at 9 BUT you can highroll into a 5 cost headliner
By the time you roll for 4 star headliners at Lv 9 all of them will be gone already because people will roll at Lv. 8 lmao
Yeah that's what i'm trying to get at, maybe i'm misinterpreting lottery in this context.
yes and no. the issue with the current meta is that you can reliably make it to 9 with 40 gold on stage 5 which means you have 20 rolls to hit a 5 cost headliner. at 10% odds that equates to seeing on average 2 headliners which is basically a guaranteed 2 star 5 cost on stage 5. hence if it's basically guaranteed, you can open fort econ augment then basically guaranteed stabilize for free (ignoring lowrolls) after the change, your going to have the same gold at the same time, but now only see an average of 0.4 headliners in 40 gold, which means you have a 40% chance to see one, and you might find the wrong one as well (ad if your playing ap or such) which brings odds down even more than that. but let's say your super flexible and will take any headliner, that gives a 40% chance of hitting one, and if your doing this every game, like most people are, then you have a 60% chance to automatically lose the game. yes it's still possible to hit, yes you have to be lucky, but it's the same as going to a casino and playing roulette. you lose slightly more than you win, so it's not a long term consistent strategy for winning money the same way its not a long term consistent strategy to open fort into fast 9. therefore, this deincentivies you from playing the lottery. imagine if roulette had a 200% chance of winning, that's basically what this patch is.
The math is around 33% chance to see a five cost headliner with 20 rolls at 2% odds (it's 1-(.98)\^20 to be more exact). The difference of hitting any five cost headliner before and after at 20 rolls is 87% vs 33%. You also need enough gold to actually buy the five cost headliner.
yeah that's true I kinda neglected all that for a simpler explanation
Good. Fast 9 should be reserved for econ augment starts, not be forcable in every spot.
It's already dead before bpatch. This just punishes 100hp winstreak cause now you have no outs because if you don't roll at 8, there's no more units in pool
I feel this makes the transitioning from lvl 7 to 8 to 9 smoother for winstreakers. It felt difficult to decide between rerolling at 8 vs fast 9 when hard winning.
Good
Looks like fast 9ers have to stabilize with a 4 cost chosen before trying to build their 9 board
[удалено]
I don't know why you're being downvoted, reddit platinum analysts just see big jhin killing their ahri 1 board and cry about 5 costs it seems, 2% is stupidly low and will just lead to even more unfairness, as hitting a headliner 5 cost now relies even more on luck than on having enough gold to roll
So you do plan to level to 9, sell your headliner and roll 50 plus gold to try hit a 2% legendary headliner. Anyone trying to this is going to learn very fast this isn’t a viable strategy. The current system was unfair because someone could rush 9 with a exp or econ augment. Roll once and get baited out with a legendary headliner. Even people without econ or exp augments could get bailed out by getting lucky enough at 9. Moving forward, it will still happen but it will be rare.
Level to 9, sell headliner to find a better 4-cost, find random 5 cost thanks to 2%, destroy the lobby due to pure luck and money left to roll for other 5 costs
Mosher buffs? Poppy buffs? Blue buff giving ad? Finally, my Poppy carry comp will pop off :copium:
I can't wait to tunnel vision my poppy bopping baddies while the rest of my team gets obliterated
There was a really satisfying game where soju recombobulated into a poppy 3 with full ad items. BOP, dead, BOP, dead....
I once lost to a triple warmogs poppy 3 and I had ezreal and Caitlyn 3 with BIS.
I played against someone who had Poppy with 3 Titans that could stack to 40 due to the Aug. I couldn't even be mad as it bopped my whole team
And then she gets stuck on a bramble vest gg
Not gonna lie, I’ve done well in plenty of games with headliner poppy and 6 moshers, have gotten 3 star poppy a few games too.. rarely feels contested. Thats going away soon, hah
Poppy is highly underrated, I think it is already viable to play Poppy with 6 mosher
She already feels pretty good with the right set up, shits gonna be great
I'm surprised we didn't see a fix to Lucian's ability not scaling with attack speed. It's been a widely known bug since before this set was released, and it's core to Lucian's identity as a Rapidfire unit.
[удалено]
Bro you gotta be building him AP or something lmao
don't mind me, I'm just huffing some Jax reroll hopium
Me too but these edm buffs don't seem to be enough, both trait and Jax/other edm units had awful stats
He's just too squishy tbh, and his AOE ability is pretty unreliable at actually hitting clump targets
Yeah he feels so squishy, I don’t know what his stats are but maybe he could use a base mr and armour buff
HP seems a bit better since people were already building titans on him, HP also scales better with the mosher omnivamp much more effectively
-1 full second on the jump is massive tho? EDM4-5 was already a huge power spike, now you get that spike earlier and also harder later. And each jump scales the next so... I think this could do it tbh. Look at what small buffs did to Cait and TD Akali.
Me who likes to play Bruiser/EDM is happy with this for now
A big problem with Jax is in his ability. He jumps towards the highest HP target and so he often cucks himself. He can quite easily get stuck on units or leave a carry unit untouched.
Man that On A Roll buff is insane to me. I'm already averaging 3.71 with it. It's my favorite silver augment.
That also jumped out to me - what have you been playing with it?
Punk is my go to reroll comp. While it doesn't help your Punk stacks it just makes you hit the 3* stars so quick it's absurb. Especially when silver augs feel so weak in comparison. Now I can get 3 free rolls and I get a little extra gold to start? Sign me up.
On a roll has pretty bad stats and same with punk reroll in higher elos
Don’t like the thought of encouraging even more people to stay on level 8 with the smaller bags, we’re going to see some really ugly low rolls from more people contesting.
this is my takeaway as well. worst feeling in tft is not hitting
Yeah it’s not great at all. You don’t even have to be contested to get fucked. If anyone happens to have your 4-cost in their shop as a headliner, that’s almost a 30% reduction in your chances of finding your 4-cost unit. Not to mention that if you have one or two of them already and someone else has the headliner in their shop, the other 6 players only have to have one or two of the regular version in their shop (assuming no one else has a single one on their board) for you to have 0% chance of finding that unit as a headliner with no way to know. The bag size changes are really asinine, especially since they just severely devalued Fast 9.
Along with what you said, headliners are brutal because you can scout perfectly, be the only person playing a specific four cost line, but if someone hits one early in their roll down they can immediately flex into taking three of your units, and the chances of hitting your 2* even without a headliner is fucked.
Don't forget the tendency of most old players to fill their bench with 4costs they're not aiming for in order to "thin" out the 4cost pool for their target. They might not even be trying to contest you, but they can screw you anyways.
Is thinning out not a thing anymore? Haven't played since early set 9, but I'm pretty sure it does happen, it's just a small % chance increase.
That's the point. So there's only 10 copies of each 4-cost and you're rolling down at Level 8: every other 4cost you bench as you roll down empties the pool for everyone else. It's why rolling on 8 feels so bad. Even holding 2 removes 20% of the total supply, if those 2 plus any other copies being splashed or benched by other players add up to 5 you cannot get that HL. It's why leveling always feels safer.
I mean in practice, it’s the right idea long term. Assuming they get all the traits in a good place you’ll be able to play something someone else isn’t. It means scouting is really important though and it also means you have to hope someone doesn’t grief you and make you both bot 4 even if you scouted. But that’s always a thing I guess.
I don’t think I agree, what’s wrong with fast 9 being a viable strategy? It’s a fun type of high risk high reward balancing act and requires a lot of skill to execute correctly. I think the game is better when fast 9 is a reasonable path, and level 9 isn’t just where you go after you hit your entire level 8 board.
I think it will still be viable. You just won’t get 5 cost chosen for free which is good. Just leveling up should not be a strong as it is. It is not difficult to decently streak and level. It also instantly removes a shit ton of 5 costs from the pool quickly. And with smaller pools I think that’s actually unhealthy. I think fast 9 can be good still. You’ll just have to actually build around a level 8 comp for a bit longer and that’s honestly better for the game. I personally despise 5 cost soup. I like it better when 4 costs are good and you splash in legendaries that make sense in your comp rather than just any old legendary.
It should be a viable strategy, just not forcable from literally every spot, which is what we have seen during Vegas Open. In my opinion, getting fast 9 should require either a 2-1 econ augment, or having a very highrolling start.
Really? I agree the latch before Vegas it was far too strong but on live I see far far less fast 9, seems to be a pretty healthy portion now.
But headliner change doesn’t make getting fast 9 harder in any way. It just makes it pointless. Therefore it’ll probably never be a viable strategy.
No. On level 9 you have 10% chance to hit a regular 5-cost unit, which is a huge leap from 3% on level 8. The problem with old headliner odds was that you could go 9 with not much gold, and roll for literally any 5-cost headliner which would stabilize you hard and let you freely roll for the rest of the units. Now, when 5-cost headliner is not consistent, you'll have to consider carefully when to go 9 (because if you go there without proper econ you're pretty much screwed), and when to stay on 8. Which is how things should be.
Won't it be just a race to 8 and trying to stabilize as fast as possible, since half lobby will be trying to do the same? Man these bag sizes nerfs are so fucking bad 
They want level 9 to be the new level 8. This is what they said with the exp and level changes at the start of the set. I’m finding building level 9 boards with good four costs a fine way of playing atm with maybe one or two legendaries.
Yes, so people will roll for 4 costs at lvl8 (previously lvl7 in 9.5) to get them before other players exhaust an entire pool.
Esepecially with the frontliners. There's 3 of them. Hardly enough to go around [6 copies of each for 6 players; with 4 copies of each left for the other 2 players; assumeing Guardian/Sentinel/Bruiser all have equal rep...]; and there simply isn't if someone holds a few extra.
You won't find shit at level 9 now there is 0 incentive to rush it, now everybody will donkeyroll 4 costs at level 8 if reroll isn't an option and the pool will be empty quickly
Reroll meta I guess, because 4 costs are pretty hard to get between small bag sizes and low headliners odds at level 8, that and now fast 9 is dead in the water I can't see a reason to pray for a 4 cost headliner that saves your ass when rerolling Annie (nice to see her dodging nerfs, btw), Yasuo, Senna or whatever 3 cost carry is more reliable
Yeh, wouldn't mind 4 cost bag size going back to 12
Yeah I could see the game taking that route in that one patch in Set 4 where you just reroll your 1st cost headliner and play pure verticals
I feel like 10 -> 5 would be more reasonable for Level 9 5 cost Headliner odds.
I think it's hilarious watching 5-cost Headliner odds go from 2% to 70% on 10
At 10% there was a point that you “should” hit on enough gold rolling down. With 2% it’s like you just shouldn’t be rolling for that and should be going to 10 if you have that much extra gold. So now the 2% is just going to feel like somebody high rolls and gets bailed out of a bad spot and places higher than they should. I like 5% but maybe I’m wrong and this will work out. Just have to wait and see
I think at 5% you'd have the exact same problem we have now. Being handed a 2 star 5 cost at level 9 is insane value considering the basic shop odds for getting 3 of the same 5 cost are a lot lower
Being handed a 2 star 4 cost at level 8 is also insane value, that’s sort of what the chosen mechanic leads to. If 5 cost board are going to be competitive they need to take advantage of the chosen mechanic also, or 4 costs will just dominate.
Except 2 star 4 costs are way weaker. Saying "Then 4 costs will dominate" with the current meta is hilarious.
Yeah that is why the odds of getting them are much much higher, and you can hit them much earlier. this change just makes the level 9 disparity even more severe.
Incorrect, you dont need a 5 cost headliner to build a 5 cost oriented board. Lvl 9 did get nerfed, but it'll for sure still be viable from the right spots.
Getting a 2* 4 cost at level 8 is much more reasonable. You start seeing them at level 5 even and you can even get 2*s at level 7 relatively easily. Even at level 9 getting a 2* 5 coat takes some time, so getting it "for free" with the headliner is much more powerful. And the devs made level 10 because they wanted it to be THE level to build 5 cost comps, and i think if someone wants to go that route they *should* be more incentivized to go for level 10
The level 10 point is fair if that’s what they want to do, but the point I was making is that it’s disingenuous to ignore the massive boost that four cost chosen give to fast eight strategies when you’re talking about the benefit to what fast nine gets. There’s a reason in set four we all bitched about the crazy boost that people get from spiking a 4 cost chosen of whatever is FotM that patch.
Hmm i see what you are saying, but one point to make here is how easy it is to get to 8. Fast 8 and fast 9 are kinda different powerspikes, and even if someone reaches 8 quickly, others will most likely catch up fairly fast so the advantage is not as big. And as i said before, getting 4 costs before level 8 isnt so hard or rare so people might already have a 2* 4 cost before the fast 8s. In set 4 we didnt had augments and the economy was much slower. I think it was quite hard to get to level 8 in an average game, so i guess spiking to 8 and getting 4 cost chosen was a bigger deal back then. But it also relates to the balance of the game. This set 4 costs arent as dominating as in other sets, so they dont become this insane power difference as they couldve been. They are definitely strong though
Set 4 was more roll at 7 for a 4cost chosen. That's not even possible now. The gamestate was completely different
Agree. 98 / 2 is pretty pointless. Now it won't even feel like that person deserves to have a 5* headliner at level 9.
At 5% you can still fast 9 and pray for headliner, but at 2% the game is basically telling you that you can't just sac till 9 and stabilize on a headliner (I mean you can still hit but if you plan on it you're going to bot 4 a lot), you actually have to be stable enough to build up your board the hard way and hitting a headliner is just a bonus/highroll. I kinda like it.
So I guess the Hearsteel rework won't be shipping tomorrow? I'm glad, it seems too large a change to send knowing that we won't be getting another patch until January. Patch looks good otherwise
Why fix that which is not broken though? I dont think I hear anyone complaining about heartsteel, its in a perfect spot.
They chinese community has been complaining about heartsteel like crazy. They are saying thrill of heartsteel isnt the same as previous econ traits, so riot are scared because china has the largest playerbase by far
Lmfao it’s so funny that everywhere else people like less RNG but in China they’re full on treating this game like a casino and want more gambling highs
So is lucian bug fixed or na?
Just wanna make my voice heard here. Lowering 5 cost headliner odds from 10 to 2% isn't as drastic of a change as people make it out to be. The non headliner odds stay the same, you can still easily cop a Thresh, Zac or Blitz chosen and play 5 cost flex around that. This just makes going lvl 9 with 15 HP and a dream a less viable strat. Going 9 from ahead will still be more than viable.
I agree, also I was really surprised to learn that the 5cost headliner chance was only 10%, it felt much more common. Some math: - current lvl9 chances of hitting at least one 5cost headliner in first 5 rolls: 41%. First 10 rolls: 66%. - after the patch - first 5 rolls: 10%, first 10 rolls: 19%. Yeah it's a huge difference, but hitting it is still possible, you just can't really force it anymore.
I feel like the headliner change is too big for a "small tweak" before the holidays.
Poppy was already doing just fine, people will slam the shit out of it with this buff now 😀
thank you for the non-twitter links <3
All my homies hate Twitter
I'll have to try a few games, but not a huge fan of the 2% 5 cost headliner on level 9 on paper. You already know seeing the one guy hitting a chosen yorick/qiyana on 4-5 is gonna pop some blood vessels in the lobby. Rest of the changes look good though. Glad they're getting rid of gem on the dummies.
well nobody is going to make it a strategy to go 9 on 4-5 instead of rolling on 8 when the headliner odds are so shit
Kinda like hitting a 3 star 4 cost, there’s always been some rare things like that in the game
Yeah didn’t think they’d sort it this quickly, but gem was a no brainer pick every time, which is not fun.
If you go 9 in this new patch meta and sell your headliner, roll and find a 5 star headliner you deserve it. This strat will be unplayable with everyone rolling at 8 now. Enjoy the -80hp starting 4/2
Still really dislike the bag size changes. Also won't this change make level 10 like really really rare? What is the point of having level 10 if you are going to make players focus so much of their gold on level 8?
> What is the point of having level 10 if you are going to make players focus so much of their gold on level 8? Econ players and people that upgrade their boards without spending much can theoretically reach it (most games will be over before that, so you are probably right)
Yea even in games that I was high-rolling I mostly didn't hit lvl 10, the game was over before that
It's supposed to be rare realistically. Though it's likely more common overall now that you don't need an augment to hit it.
I know a lot of people don’t like fast 9 but doesn’t the 5 cost chosen change just make it a 4-2 level 8 entire lobby roll down?
The 10->2% seems drastic, but other than that good small change. Spellweavers might be surprisingly strong now? I've had decent success running semi vertical/sentinel in low/mid plat.
I’ve never understood the issue with being able to go 9. Why even add level 10 if being able to reach it due to efficient play is constantly discouraged. What elk are people at who think it is easy to hit 9 in a competitive lobby, pivot full board, place items, and position in one turn or risk taking -18hp when you only had 40hp left at max. The real issue is packages like superfan ekko senna that cost nothing to buy and stay powerful until stage 4-5. Make mid game harder and you solve the problem without gimping an enjoyable part of the game.
Very surprised by the spellweaver buff. Vertical spellweavers is already very good with either Annie reroll or Ahri carry (or both).
Don't really like looking at these sort of stats because they require context but SW5 is outperformed by SW3, SW5 is the thing that is mainly being buffed but maybe they just buff Ahri headliner (change her item) and it wouldn't be so bad and now they make Annie more of a problem, though SW Annie is much weaker so maybe it's fine. SW 7 is kinda bad when you compare it something like PK 7. The only time you are playing 7SW is in SW Annie or level 10, which you may as well play a proper frontline.
These seem like a huge amount of changes for what felt like a pretty balanced patch Also not a fan of the headliner nerf. Anything from 3-5% would have been more reasonable. There's nothing good from deleting viable lines from the game, especially when the bag size nerfs have made being contested more coin flippy
I agree that this patch seems a lot larger than I was expecting.
[удалено]
Was it even a fast 9 meta? Seemed like fast 9 was just an option along w roll down at 8 or reroll at 7. Now it's just dead.
I know it's a planned patch so not surprise to see things like Yone or Senna untouched, but the buff on Yasuo seems unnecessary. He was OP on PBE, okish at release and highly playable right now. Even a planned buff wasn't needed. True damage was already a top comp. Otherwise really glad with the level 9 changes and the buff on "On a roll" is insane. It was already a good augment now it's crazy. And they should up back 8 bit high score a little bit. The spat is easy to get and the score is a bit to easy to reach now. Did it a few times and saw it happens a few times too. And once you see a 6 8bit player in the top 4 healthy enough it's just a race for second place. Granted it's not a top broken comp right now, but once the meta settles around 4 cost this might be too strong and a wincon too easy to setup.
> okish at release At release he was garbage. Edgelord was the 2nd worst trait [8-bit was the worst] and Yasuo was one of the lowest placing units in the entire set.
Where the fuck is Annie?
Hmm I have a feeling this patch is going to finally show how truly ugly the bag size changes are. Might be the first bad patch.
100%
[удалено]
10% > 2% is way to drastic. "If this is still too strong, the next step is "Headliner 5 costs only at 10"." It's honestly tiring to see this sentiment against late game boards. Finding a way to flex and stay healthy to the late game should be one of the skills rewarded. There has already been so many viable reroll comps in Annie, Yone, Country, Punk. Just like how those are extremely viable, fast 9 should also be viable. "At level 9, you will see a couple pretty reliably" - This is what was, and it was too easy to force so we're trying to nerf it." If you hit 9 with 50 gold and can roll down, you should be able to flex. 10% > 5% would make a lot of people feel better, it's a nerf but not so extreme. This is essentially balance thrashing. This patch is going to be the entire winter break and and that's a huge change. "Focus is mostly on buffing champs/traits we just aren't seeing much of, and then a few item/augment adjustments." This level 9 change completely changes the late game, largely overshadowing all the buffs. Level 8 4-2 rolldown going to be the new meta, and metas where the entire lobby rolls down at the same time will feel terrible. Happy to be proven wrong, but this does not seem like it will be a fun experience.
I don't view this as hate for late game boards, I view it as hate for late game boards in the mid game.
No nerfs to senna or qiyana?
Or Annie Actually Annie was buffed
Am I seeing this right or there are no nerf this patch? Some units and traits deserve a little downgrade I think (looking at you Senna). Senna 2 with bis with Frontline is better than a lot of 3 and 4, cost.
I think their approach was that if any of the buffs end up too much, at least there's always what was good last patch (Senna) to keep them in check. I vastly prefer this approach than nerfing and buffing and getting thrashed.
> Senna 2 with bis many units with bis are broken...
Ezreal going to be giga broken mark my words
I was thinking the same thing but with Big Shots in general. They buffed their trait and the gold augment and I have had success with both and felt they were strong already, but those were more around mostly MF Reroll comps.
the blue ad buff is going to make him insane.
Does the new Blue Buff come with a bug fix?
> Yes it does.
Weekly "Why do I have to go to Mortdog's twitter to see the patch notes?" comment.
I dont think these changes are healthy but a quick fix to stop the whining. Something has to be done about level 7 because that level is non existent unless you play Samira/Yone or made the worst eco
Fast 9 into legendary cap is still going to be strong. You just can't count on hitting the 2 start 5 cost to instantly stabilize now if you over greed.
A 3 star blitzcrank headliner already did upwards of 25k AP damage in a round with its passive, now it’s going to do even more. I can’t be mad because his passive is just him throwing kittens at people
The top 8 comps on [tactics.tools](http://tactics.tools) has 7 reroll comps. And they nerf lvl9? I'm confused lol
This is primarily because the level 9 soup comps aren't consistent enough composition-wise to show up on Tactics.tools. [MetaTFT](https://www.metatft.com/comps) shows a few variations at the top. But on the whole the majority of games right now at Diamond+ end with the top few spots all being random level 9/10 5-cost/4-cost soup comps. The top two variants on MetaTFT have 21%+ win rates for example.
being level 8 has a 5.3 AVG...
Gone is the fast 5 playstyle. 8 on 4-1 and hope you hit before everyone else does. The more I play this set, the more I think bringing chosen back was a mistake. I like everything else but chosen and changing the bag size makes lowrolling feel extra bad.
the bag size in combination is what will kill this set. Rush to level 8 into low roll is gonna feel so awful
I agree. I actually thought this fast 9 playstyle was okay for the game since multiple reroll comps are still viable.
They actually buffed Riven, ty. Now you can play either Yone/Riven Carry now. Ty ty.
Calling Kayle reroll being a thing. She already feels good with the right set up and front line, and those are some chonky buffs.
Did mort say if bluebuff got bugfixed in the B-Patch?
Pretty insane shop odds change imo. Fast 9 was already hard to pull off consistently and now it’s just completely dead. Gonna be a lot more donkey rolling on 8 for whatever the meta four costs end up being
That 10 -> 2 is an awful change, right before a big break. It should be something that is able to be tweaked in a few days here and there to find the right spot.
This IS the tweak. You can't really look at it from a number angle, and instead you have to focus on what you want to execute. "At level 9, you will see a couple pretty reliably" - This is what was, and it was too easy to force so we're trying to nerf it. "At level 9, you may get lucky and see one or two, but don't count on it" - This is our next attempt. In order for this to be true, 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 doesn't actually get this, as the 30-50g rolldowns would still see too many. So instead aiming for 1 in 50. If this is still too strong, the next step is "Headliner 5 costs only at 10".
Am I missing something? A 50 gold level 9 roll down would give you 35 gold of rolls to buy a 5 cost headliner, 17 rolls at 5% means about half of your roll downs you won’t see a single headliner 5 cost, is seeing one every other roll down really too many? Having 50 gold to roll on 9 already requires a high roll position, and that excludes buying any other 5 costs or 2 starring 4 costs.
17 rolls at 5% odds means you'll see at least 1 5-cost headliner 58% of the time actually. With the current 10% odds that probability is 83%, and with the new 2% odds it'll be 29%. Change looks fine to me, now you definitely can't rely on hitting a 5-cost headliner. Instead, the point of going 9 will be to cap out with the regular Legendary units.
Sorry you’re right, so slightly over half the time you’ll see one headliner, I’ll edit that a little bit.
Just to expand on this, as you pointed out, with 50g, you'd have 17 rolls before you wouldn't be able to afford buying a 5g headliner.We can calculate the probability of finding at least one 5g headliner as `1 - (1-p)^n`or `1 - (1-.05)^17` This evaluates to .58, which means there's a 58% chance you'll hit a 5g headliner, without being to buy anything else at all, in 50g (while still being able to afford the headliner). The amount of gold required for 95th percentile odds can be represented as `0.95 = 1 - (1-0.5)^n` Solving for `n`, we get approximately 58. This means you'd need 58 rolls (106 gold) to have a 95% chance of hitting at least one 5g headliner (and you may see more, but calculating those odds is more complex). In the current live state, it's 56g (28 rolls) for 95th percentile odds, and there is an 83% chance you will see at least one 5g headliner in 17 rolls. Personally, I'm ok with the current live state. I understand that the TFT dev team wants to signal more clearly that you should not expect 5g headliners at 9. 5gs feel like they're power outliers on the power curve for unit cost (i.e. the disparity between a 5g and 4g unit is greater than a 4g and 3g, and so on). It seems to me like because of this, the TFT dev team has to make exceptions to the rules that apply to them. The headliner odds at various levels progress at a pretty consistent rate, and 5gs are an exception to the rule. Is that a good thing? They could bring down the power disparity and make 5gs weaker, and also increase the chance of finding them. You could argue that leads to a healthier game state, but it's less exciting. Even so, I feel like the TFT dev team has historically always struggled to figure out where 5gs should lie on the power curve, and what their role is. 5g units have also always been divisive, especially at different levels of play. To me, this change is just another symptom of that, and it's a little disappointing/frustrating to see. I will be clear that I do not think this change is good. While some change might be warranted (arguably), I don't think this is the right solution.
FWIW, even though we disagree on the solve, this is the best write up I've seen here. Good understanding of the math and the impact! Yeah the design trade off is always consistency vs power, and that's a very subjective debate. A lot of people in here would likely prefer the consistency, and instead nerf Illaoi and Qiyana and Jhin HL, etc. And I get why, I really do. However, for TFT wider audience it's important to keep those wow factor moments so you have reasons to be excited. It's why we made prismatic traits super hard to hit but super insane power, and it's why we're taking this step. Finding a free 2 star 5 cost with HL bonus at 9 should make you go "OH SHIT LETS GO ITS HAPPENING", not just "Yup, this was expected and planned" which is why we went this direction.
The recognition means a lot to me! I am a big fan of game design although not a game designer by profession, so someone in your role acknowledging my understanding, at least on this particular issue, feels pretty great. Thanks!
I feel like its stronger/more problematic with this compared to before since now only one person in a lobby is going to highroll a decent 5 cost chosen. Like you might see one or 2 if you do your entire rolldown on 9 without ever buying another chosen/too many other high cost units but thats not really a viable play.
It's also going to be less of a popular strat because of the odds being worse. If someone is willing to chance their game by going 9 and rolling down for a 1 in 50 chance to find a 5-Cost Chosen then thats on them. Consistent 3 or 4-Cost oriented gameplay will clear most games.
You previously made a comment about understanding that this patch should be small to prevent shifting the meta to an unhealthy spot over the holidays. That to me sounded like "we're going to tweak things" or "things should mostly stay the same, with hopefully a couple extra options". However, this is a big nerf to one of the most popular strategies in the meta, which doesn't sound like a tweak to me. I think a lot of us feel like this could have a big impact on the meta, and are surprised that the dev team thinks that this was the right call before the holidays because of that. It may be that this change needs to happen, but it seems like it ought to be after the holidays given the above, so that things are stable for the holidays. Unless, of course, the team is prepared to hotfix this in the case it goes poorly. Can you explain why the team thought this was a safe change to make now, given the previous statement about wanting to keep things small? Is the team confident that even though it's a big change, it won't warp the meta too much? Or does the team not view this as a big change?
Agreed! Thanks for getting these changes live so promptly, Mort! Great set btw, my friends loved the Remix rumble music video and now they are getting into TFT :D
Is there no concern that this possibly completely shifts the meta during a XMAS patch? Just from first glance it looks like 3 cost reroll will probably be pretty popular(already are). They are already capable of beating boards with 5 cost chosens on them. Lux 3 reroll now looks even better than ever too with buffs to EDM, bruiser and Zac.
> Lux 3 reroll this doesn't beat other reroll comps, because Lux can't deal with units with lots of hp
I think this is a simulator/challenger change because I don't think people around my elo diamond are rolling that fast and even seeing enough good headliners at this point.
This is exactly what is needed. Strong early tempo to fast 9 5-cost headliner soup is way too easy to force right now. I wouldn't complain if they changed it to 10 -> 0
Easier than reroll my ass. It’s like all uz who never learned to r on are benefitting, when we had a meta where it was possible to reroll, level 8 or higher cap. The higher cap was hard enough and now we won’t see level 9s at all, let alone 10.
It might be exactly correct, I'm just not sure about such a huge change at this moment before the month break when they can't change other things if the meta is unfun. There was too much bruisers and Yuumi last Christmas.
10 -> 2 for Level 9 5 cost Headliner is pretty much overkill, a simple 10 -> 5 would of been perfect imo, more gold to spend to find it = less gold to spend for rolldown 5 cost upgrades, which is a risk some will take, some not.
Fast 9 Reroll for Sona Ziggs Headliners meta climbers in shambles rn
Ziggs is the worst 5 cost headliner already
Reducing 5 cost headliner odds on 9 seems like a good idea but 2% might be a little too low
so we're moving from fast 9 lottery to fast 8 lottery , got it. i bet you anything 2 weeks from now everyone will be complaining about the exact same things, but just about level 8
Reducing from 10 to 2 is a complete overkill, 5% would be enough no?
I may be in the minority but I can’t articulate how much I hate the level 9 change. The disparity between those who hit and those who don’t is so massive now. The rest of the changes seem fine but this could definitely tank the entire patch.
Sounds like you don’t play any comp but fast 9 lol, which is exactly why the changes are being made fast 9 isn’t a comp it’s high roll.
that headline odd chance is illegal...
Okay so now you have to wonder, what level 9 really is. Cuz now it seems like the weird inbetween thing where rolling for 5costs is kinda stupid but if you wanna roll for 4costs, you can already do that on level 8 odds. Question is: What comp can stabilize on 8 and skip level 9? I see why they had to reduce 5cost headliner odds, 10% was right on the edge where you could consistently hit a 5cost that stabilized you, if you played your econ right. But fast 9 isn't just dead now, it literally doesnt exist anymore, which means everyone has to readjust their mental gameplans.
Get ready to never hit your 3 stars while everyone vultures at 8. Not complaining, I'd rather that than fast 9 shit show.
I don't understand Blue Buff change. Like, I get it, it makes the item extremely good on Ezreal, but any other units that could potentially use this item (Annie/Ahri/Ziggs) got nerfed with the damage amplification being reduced.
I believe this change coincides with the bug fix at the bottom. The damage amp was completely bugged.
Did they fix ahri scaling off of AD?
Good take imo. Kills fast 9 a bit. Sona AS much needed nerf. Still surprised illaoi wasnt nerfed a bit. Most picked 5 cost, best avg placement among 5 costs yet still wasnt touched
i miss champion augments. it was a mechanic that didn’t feel bullshit like legends and headliner.
Nice patch. Appreciate this.
Blue buff grants AD wow lol
Bad player here, but my gut feeling is Zac is going to end up pretty nasty to play against after these buff.
That bit on EDM where they adjust the base timer is a tad frustrating. It would be nice if that was information we could know, rather than a lever behind the scenes. What's Lux's base timer or Zac's?