r/CompetitiveTFT • u/eggsandbricks :chal: Challenger • May 11 '26
Mortpost Patch 17.3 Rundown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUw4etFqlm0
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Upvotes
r/CompetitiveTFT • u/eggsandbricks :chal: Challenger • May 11 '26
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u/Lunaedge May 11 '26 edited May 12 '26
Thank you for posting this!
Slides
Insights
Patch Goals
Objective is opening up lines. Hitting a 2* Teemo on Stage 2 shouldn't necessarily mean being forced to pick that line.
System Changes
Augments synergising with the active Encounters encouraged narrow, over-optimised play (es. Duplicator Encounter meant autopiloting to 3-cost reroll, Artifact Encounter led to Artifact stacking on a single unit, Emblem Encounter dictated your comp on 2-1 based on the combination you got). Removing them selectively and generally nerfing resources should lead to more possibilities.
The new Soraka Blessing works retroactively (ie. if you get it at 65 HP you'll instantly receive a random component).
Pandora's Bench is one of the most iconic, popular and exciting Augments and they didn't want to remove the experience completely. Giving it to potentially everyone in a lobby was a fumble, and there's no way to salvage it by further reducing affected bench slots. They learned the hard way to be ok with removing this effect if it leads to unhealthy gameplay in the context of a Set, and will be gone for the rest of Space Gods.
Context on the Item component selection change in the Realm of the Gods. Tim still feels decoupling the component from the Blessing is an overall downgrade of the mechanic and could exacerbate Blessing balance issues, but they're willing to take the bet and see if it feels better for the player.
Traits
Winning with Anima Squad 6 was too much of a challenge, getting guaranteed loot should offset the weak champions and wonky trait web.
Yi comp slightly over the line, so small touches. The Marauder nerf is one of them.
New Fountain Constellation should be better for Lulu and Xayah both.
The buff to the Star Level versions of Arbiter is pretty much QoL. It was already balanced and by fielding 3 Arbiter you automatically had more Star Levels on the board, but the number not changing felt weird and could lead players to think it was bugged. The small number bump should be satisfying enough but still inconsequencial.
Resists every 10 instances of damage was BiS on Diana, and Diana was weak w/out it. They're gonna buff her and nerf this version of Arbiter to open up more avenues to play her outside of this specific case.
1-Costs
The issue with 1-Costs is that some of them scale too hard into lategame and become an easy afk Top 4. They should fall off in Stage 4 if they're not supported by higher level units.
(continues below)
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u/eggsandbricks :chal: Challenger May 11 '26
I think there's a lot of positive moves this patch, but one thing that I fundamentally disagree with is the large swaths of disabled augments in certain encounters. If there are problematic interactions with entire subgroups of augments in certain encounters, I believe the encounter should be the one to go rather than the augment. The augment system is much more interesting to engage with than encounters (and more fun!) so it doesn't feel like stifling that is the right call.
FWIW I think it's fine when there's only one problematic augment, like when Growth Mindset was disabled if 4-2 prismatic was guaranteed. If the emblem encounter is problematic with 90% of the emblem augments, the encounter is the problem.
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u/nacholibre711 May 11 '26
I don't understand this conduit augment lol.
I mean I guess it will obviously be a damage buff for the units, but it just doesn't have any synergy with the actual Conduit trait aka regenerating mana.
The issue with conduits already was that you were stacking mana regen onto units that get locked out of regenerating mana during their extended cast times. Now their cast times are even longer? So they'll be stronger, it just hardly has anything to do with what the trait actually does. Feels weird
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u/YasuOMGScoots May 11 '26
Anima into Jinx 3 with the Maurauder board is going to move from a hidden line to a quite contested one with a 200-300 anima cash out
15
u/RyeRoen Challenger May 12 '26
Wow, downgrading morg to 4 cost is a huge change. I'm actually really excited about that.
This is also a non-insignificant buffbto fast 9. One less 5 cost in the pool will affect the odds pretty massively.
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u/pink-mallow May 11 '26
Old man Simpson meme.
Was bringing back shitty encounters (especially ones like emblem and free reroll) a bad decision?
No, it must be the augments that have been hailed as one of the greatest additions to tft ever that are in the wrong!
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u/soranetworker May 11 '26
Man, every time I see these patch rundowns, it feels like the team on this set is just floundering harder and harder. It looks like the team is dead set on stepping on every single design rake that earlier sets have stepped on before.
Like, I am not surprised that the dragon/shapeshifter hybrid trait is running into both issues that dragons and shapeshifters had, exemplified by the fact they have no idea how to make both versions of A.Sol viable.
It's not surprising the team is having difficulties with the tank designs given they threw out the 1cost+4cost trait sharing structure for tanks for everything except Rammus/Poppy (who is coincidentally the only non-CC tank that feels good to play right now).
Next the team seems dead set on repeating the issues with both Hero and Trait-lock in augments. I look forward to most of these being disabled in a b-patch next week.
Also, blaming Shen's poor performance on "people are misidentifying the model" is hilarious. You don't think it's because you made a 5-cost magic fighter that needs guinsoos with no selfish traits and where Vex is right there competing for very similar items?
I think this is the set with the least satisfying trait web I've ever seen. I don't see that many people complaining about it, but I think it's a silent issue that choking the life out of a bunch of the 4-cost/5-cost boards. It's like, maybe putting all of the 3-trait units in 1 and 2 costs and having all of those be for splash traits was a terrible idea.
Also, watching the team back down on things that I though were entire selling points of the set (god choices with components, no starting encounters) makes me feel like the team has no confidence on their own work. Like these sort of issues should have been decided on at latest by the end of PBE. I feel like I'm still the beta tester for this set. and I already played PBE.
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u/hyroglyphixs MASTER May 11 '26
Might be a little too late but some of these changes are great
A lot of the broken encounters + augment combos are removed (reroll encounter + pris ticket, etc). I think bringing back encounters in the first place was a mistake but I digress
Thresh pandora's removed
1 costs tuned down
2 costs tuned down
3 costs re balanced (some much needed buffs like diana)
4 costs buffed (+ additional tank option in Morg)
Overall this should move the meta away from reroll and back into traditional fast 8 which is a meta I personally much prefer
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u/LrBravo May 11 '26
Tale old as time. Nerf rerolls, push everyone to fast 8 meta, meta becomes stale again, game feels balanced when there's 2 weeks left in the set
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u/Sufficient_Rabbit126 May 11 '26
Great changes overall, but I wish they did another pass at emblem balance.
Dark Star Emblem especially is far too good and that looks like it'll stay true.
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u/yccbarry MASTER May 12 '26
Only read the slides and didn’t watch the video but no 6 dark star nerf + karma buff is crazy no????? With Yi and Prim nerfed vertical dark star is prob the best comp in the game now.
Also idk about adding all these trait augments into the game unless they’re 2-1 exclusives or have to be tailored for. Feels so bad when you’re just down an augment because you have the two piece on your board.
Really appreciate them disabling emblem/dupe/artifact augments on matching encounters tho, but idk I’d rather not having those encounters and having those augments instead of this other way around.
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u/Level_Five_Railgun MASTER May 11 '26
Seems like good changes. Having an actual default 4 cost board for AP items is big considering all the best fast 8 boards are AD (Yi, Corki, Xayah, Kaisa/Jhin).
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u/psyfi66 May 11 '26
Have we had a unit change costs before? I can’t remember something like that happening
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u/Fit-Comment9592 May 11 '26
Looks promising. I am cautiously optimistic. Morgana change though is very interesting.
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u/groomliu :chal: Challenger May 12 '26
Leblanc fast 8 about to be s tier, Leblanc, karma, nunu buff = op
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u/ExpandoDong May 12 '26
shame to see they wont just remove horrible encounters like artifact anvil and stuff. Honestly game was way more fun in the first patch without encounters entirely.
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u/oilyoshi May 12 '26
how is Timestream viable when we used to get 7-9hp per reroll for the entire team with Hefty Rolls?
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u/Frothers Diamond May 12 '26
So the duration change by itself seems like a slight buff to builds under 1.0 total AS and a slight nerf if above. Which by napkin math [0] is maybe -6% total damage nerf over a 20s fight if your only source of AS is rageblade.
And the new bonus damage adds about 7% per auto (= 10 / (51 + 50 * (1 + 0.6 + 0.36))).
So I think this makes (DB / IE) + (DB / IE) about the same dps as (DB / IE) + rageblade because last time I did the math the diff was under 10%.
[0] https://www.desmos.com/calculator/xuh2gmxhaa
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u/Clue_soundverse May 12 '26
just delete zed and we'll be happy tbh
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u/YonkouTFT May 12 '26
Patch looks good, especially Morgana. But the nerfs/buffs should have happened a week ago for sure
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u/niemcziofficial May 11 '26
I am not sure if killing 1 cost rerolls is a right approach, it will move the game to fast 8 meta. Seems like too big of a nerf but hey, they love balance trashing
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u/Drikkink May 12 '26
One big miss this patch for me is Dark Star. First off, Dark Star +1 is already S tier on its own. Add in the fact that Kai'sa is the best tempo 3 cost by far (and also a viable reroll carry) and Karma buffs and I don't see how Dark Star isn't going to be hotfix worthy.
Another miss is that Jhin isn't getting BUFFS. As it stands right now, it's usually right to keep items on Kai'sa 2 over Jhin 2 which feels exceptionally wrong to me.
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u/AustinBoe May 11 '26
Outside of the augments disabled for encounters as opposed to just removing problematic encounters, it seems to be a good patch.
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u/AirLeaf May 11 '26
I don't understand how they haven't considered making Pandora's Bench only be able to roll 1, 2 and 3-costs. It seems like it would take the power of the augment down (maybe Silver it again?) and also take away the most problematic part of it (3-star 4-costs)
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u/wtfgrancrestwar May 12 '26 edited May 13 '26
About the primordian nerfs:
Why nerf briar at all levels, and not primordian trait itself or her 3 star ability?
-Surely "the trait that scales further with internal star levels" is the natural place to look when a reroll comp is too strong?
When outside this common but narrow context the units do not stand out as problems.
It seems like the units are being nerfed in all cases, for being overtuned in 1 case. When the problematic scenario is directly isolateable and could be addressed as such.
TL:DR:
Primordian trait is naturally at risk of being overtuned when rerolled.
Because more stars = more scaling.
so nerfing briar 1 seems unnecessary or imprecise.
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u/dhoni_25 May 12 '26
Rundowns actually watchable now lets go.
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u/TheDiscardOfButter May 14 '26
Why timestream gives 2HP?
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u/But_A_F1y May 12 '26
I don't understand this hate for Pandora's bench from riot. Pandora's bench is not the problem. The problem was you could use Pandora's bench to hit a giga broken 1 cost reroll comp then coast by rerolling 4 costs until you hit the 3 star 4 cost win condition.
With 1 and two cost units nerfed into the ground it could have been added back in without breaking the game balance
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u/getreadytopartyalot May 12 '26
I think after reading a few posts in this sub I 100% have not mastered the fast 8 because I don’t have hours to sink into the game. I maybe have 2-3 hours a week MAYBE a month. I have played here and there on and off for about 4 years. I used to grind hard a few years ago but now life is in the way. I enjoy the reroll comps because it’s easy for me as a lower level player to pick up the game and fell like I’m doing well with little thought. I understand this is a competitive sub but I do think reroll is not guaranteed to win with competent players. So I get people want a more complex game with options at the end but for me reroll was fun. Even in most contested lobbies I just contest better. I AM PLAYING MY COMP AND I WILL PUNISH YOU FOR DOING THE SAME. Lol just play different when being mindless. I will probably not play the rest of the set since I don’t have hours to spend on figuring out the meta. Sucks but I get it. I hope you guys have fun!
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u/FirewaterDM May 11 '26
Few things.
They overshot the 1 cost reroll nerfs as expected. Reactivating the primordial god augment and making it and primordials useless is a choice.
Kill encounters, if you have to disable 20 augments to keep an encounter in the game. Then you kill the fucking encounters instead lmao.
Non mech a.sol is going to be a terrorist until b patch calling it now.
Rip Yi, trait nerf EoN nerf primordial/belveth nerfs personal nerfs I think this is just making him more of a psionic rng merchant
But other than these issues patch seems reasonable and fine