Season 2022 is in bloom!
We've carefully plucked a delicate bouquet for you this patch, including several champion nerfs and a significant update to the fighter item system. This is also our first patch reacting to Pro play on the preseason meta, so there's a lot of focus on balancing that skill bracket this week. Ahri's champion refresh is another part of the floral mix and, last but not leaf, the rest of the Crystal Rose and Withered Rose skins will be available soon. ❀
Allergies acting up with all this flowery language? Head on over to the pollen-free TFT patch notes here!
Janna's 12.2 changes swept Summoner's Rift by storm, making her one of the strongest and most popular supports. However, it wasn't clear just how strong of a nerf she needed last patch due to a Glacial Augment bug that interacted with her Q and R a little too well. Even after the hotfix, Janna remains very strong with Glacial and other runes, so we're lowering her early roaming power and her enhanced heal and shield window.
These changes are not intended to address her (and other enchanters') recent top lane strategy. We're working on a separate solution for that and will update as soon as we have an accurate forecast.
Champion refreshed. Base stats and all skills updated.
Ahri's unique identity as a highly-mobile mage assassin has eroded over the years. Instead of a being flighty terror dashing across a teamfight, she's limited to a single attempt at an exciting play with her R, then fishing with her E from safety for the rest of the fight. To address this, we're refreshing her passive to offer a partial ultimate reset upon takedowns so a well-played Ahri can capitalize on favorable situations to hunt down the entire enemy team. We've also redistributed her abilities’ mana costs and early damage so each spell feels rewarding. To balance things out, we're slightly nerfing her burst damage and defensive stats. (As an aside, these changes are unrelated to Ahri’s upcoming ASU.)
Passive damage decreased.
Akshan's been quite strong everywhere (especially in top lane), so we're hitting his early passive power to make his harass on melee enemies a bit less dirty.
Base armor decreased. E passive's damage reduction now capped per instance.
Amumu has been too strong in Average play ever since he got a ton of new items this season. And although flat damage reduction is supposed to shine against champions like Zeri, completely negating certain attacks or abilities is a bit much—especially for an always-on passive—so we're adjusting his E to match similar abilities.
QoL changes on passive and R.
We're firing up a couple of quality of life changes to make Brand's passive a little more intuitive, while also optimizing the bounces on his ult.
AD growth decreased. Q damage reduced.
Caitlyn is getting banned really often in Pro play lately, likely because of her ability to shut down many popular late-scaling marksmen. Instead of curtailing her early lane bullying strengths, we're getting on the case by nerfing her wave control and scaling instead.
First package delayed and restock cooldown increased.
Corki's been taking over Pro play. We're making his lane a bit less safe and lowering his impact on the first dragon and Rift Herald fights by delaying his first package, which used to let him secure a return to combat at the speed of heat. They'll also get restocked at a slower rate so that he can't make special deliveries to every dragon spawn.
W damage decreased late.
LeBlanc has been too stranc for too lanc, especially in Pro where she's been popular for a while now. We're tapping down her first-maxed skill to curb her early burst and waveclear.
R sleep duration increased early.
We're making Lillia’s lullaby last a little longer so she can follow up with her spells and help her teammates more consistently at early levels. Sweet dreams~ ♪
Passive initial bonus move speed increased and now decays over duration. E on-hit base damage reduced.
It's high tide for a Nami adjustment! This should make the move speed boost on her passive much more noticeable, so you can stop taking your enchanter supports for granted. (Just kidding. Maybe.) She's already pretty strong, so we're balancing out this slight buff with a small nerf to her E.
W passive attack speed bonus increased early. R damage ratio increased.
Although Quinn is technically flying fine, her impact has descended a bit across all skill brackets due to various system changes recently. Since she's ended up with some headroom, we're taking this opportunity to improve her gameplay satisfaction.
Passive soul drop rate for Senna's farm reduced.
The buff to Senna's Q last patch did make her support stronger as intended, but it also overwhelmingly increased her ADC winrate. Our goal isn't to make ADC Senna weak, but instead to bring her two roles closer together in strength. (Before you grab a calculator, this rounds out to approximately one soul for every six minion waves.)
Q damage ratio increased; base damage decreased late. E bonus attack speed decreased early.
Twisted Fate seems to always have the right cards in Pro play with his global power and consistent CC. We're cutting into his abilities' base stats so he has to buy more AP to dish out big damage instead of opting for his usual utility builds.
Base move speed reduced. Fully charged basic attack damage decreased. R chain lightning damage decreased and can now critically strike.
Zeri's Trinity Force build has ended up being much stronger than expected, skyrocketing her winrate once players swapped over from crit. We're targeting these nerfs to ideally hit her Tri Force build more than her crit ones, but because there's some overlap, we're compensating the latter with a bit more zap on her ult.
We're making changes to the fighter system to re-establish the differences between nimbler, more fragile fighters like Fiora and less agile but beefier picks like Darius. Previously, most items were accessible to most fighters thanks to the built-in health. While this made big health-stackers happy, when lighter fighters used these generic items, it would wash out their weaknesses, making them durable yet still high-damage and high-mobility (contrary to their subclass characteristics).
Ideally with these changes, each subclass will feel like they have items tailored just for them. For more context, check out our Quick Gameplay Thoughts article about it here. Lastly, we're aware this is a pretty big shift and will be keeping a very close eye on things and almost certainly following up.
For fighter Mythics, we're shifting a couple of items from high health, all-in-one purchases into more unique and offensive options. Not all fighters should be tanky and durable, and those who should—like juggernauts—can lean on specific Legendaries for that.
Trinity Force is the exception here. We're bumping up its health to make it match the other options in exchange for a small reduction in stacking AD. This way, the amount of health you get won't be the main reason why you choose (or don't choose) a certain Mythic; rather, each Mythic should have its own unique benefits to make that decision clearer and fairer.
Our approach to fighter Legendaries is similar: Shift health into AD across select items. Another top priority is to move Sterak's Gage out of being a go-to default option for all fighters. Lighter fighters should now be more intrigued by this reworked Death's Dance, which will scale with your other AD purchases and sustain tools. It also requires fighters to be constantly active in a fight to be effective, which is something we believe is important for systemic lighter fighter survivability.
We're also adjusting a few somewhat underpowered Legendaries that should support lighter fighters (like Maw and Ravenous Hydra). These items need to be powerful enough for lighter fighters to consider purchasing them over other options. And finally, a few component items have also been updated to round everything out.
Our changes to Turbo Chemtank in patch 12.2 were a bandaid to bring the item back in line on dash-y champs (like Akali and Irelia) while we looked for better solutions. We're further adjusting its stacking mechanics to make Turbo Chemtank better suited for "tanking" rather than for "turbo charging" at enemies. Emphasis on the tank, not the turbo. (These changes also apply to its Ornn Masterwork item, Turbocharged Hexperiment.)
This update should make Vel'Koz's VFX more Void-y and his hitbox indicators more accurate.
The following skins will be released in this patch:
The following chromas will be released this patch: