We now have a much clearer picture of what to expect from the next patch for Teamfight Tactics that officially closes the game’s Beta and usher’s in The Rise of the Elements, thanks to a post from Riot Mort, a lead designer at Teamfight Tactics:
There’s no official date set for the release of Patch 9.22 Rise of the Elements, but for players with access to the Public Beta Environment, RoE has been available since October 22.
From everything we’ve seen and learned so far, throw your favorite meta’s in the trash because RoE is bringing so many new characters, “origins,” and game mechanics that TFT is about to become almost unrecognizable.
The Elements
This season champion’s origins have been replaced by 13 elements. The new elements function under the same rules an origin – deploy multiple champions with the same element to unlock trait bonuses – but, except for Glacial Champions, all of the bonuses are brand new.
Crystal: Grants champions a limit to the amount of damage they can take from a single attack or ability hit.
Desert: Reduces the enemy team’s armor. The reduction increases if more Desert champions are deployed.
Electric: Champions damage adjacent enemies whenever they critically strike or are critically struck.
Glacial: Grants attacks a chance to stun their target, increasing with more Glacials.
Inferno: Abilities temporarily ignite the ground beneath their targets, damaging enemies standing in the fire. Damage increases with more Inferno champions.
Light: Deploying multiple Light champions causes them to, on death, heal other Light champions for a percentage of their max health and grant them attack speed for the remainder of the round (stacking with multiple Light champion deaths). Heal and attack speed increase with more Light champions.
Steel: Briefly become immune to damage when they drop below 50% health.
Mountain: Grants a massive shield to a random ally at the start of combat.
Ocean: Periodically grants allies mana. The amount increases with more Ocean champions.
Poison: Damaging attacks and abilities to increase the mana costs of their targets’ abilities.
Shadow: Shadow champions deal increased damage for the first few seconds of combat, as well as for a few seconds when they score a takedown. Deploying more Shadow champions causes all of them to deal increased damage when any of them score a takedown.
Wind: Grants your team dodge chance.
Woodland: Randomly create a clone of a woodland champion (including items) at the start of combat.
Classes
Patch 9.22 also brings with it nine new classes alongside Blademaster, Ranger, and Assassin which remain unchanged.
Alchemist: Alchemists can move through other units and never stop moving.
Avatar: An Avatar’s element is counted twice for trait bonuses.
Berserker: Deploying multiple Berserkers grants their attacks a chance to deal damage in a cone behind the target. The chance increases with more Berserkers.
Summoner: Deploying multiple Summoners increases the health and duration of their spawned allies, increasing with more Summoners. Summoners’ pets benefit from Element and Class bonuses, but don’t count as additional units toward activating higher levels of those bonuses.
Druid: Deploying two Druids grants all Druids health regeneration.
Mage: Deploying multiple Mages grants them a chance after casting an ability to cast it again. This chance increases with more mages.
Mystic: Deploying multiple Mystics grants all allies magic resist, increasing with more Mystics.
Predator: Deploying multiple Predators causes their attacks and abilities to immediately kill low-health enemies.
Warden: Deploying multiple Wardens grants them armor, increasing with more Wardens.
Let there be Lux
One of the most interesting additions coming in the new patch is the introduction of TFT’s first 7-cost champion, Lux.
Each game of TFT will contain 10 Lux champions, with each copy representing a different one of the 10 elements. Once a player purchases a copy with a specific element, all other copies will appear in your shop as the same element.
Since Lux is the only Avatar class character, meaning Lux counts twice towards elemental bonuses, whichever Lux you do choose can be the all-important difference between six and nine unit bonuses.
The Elementals of TFT 9.22
Each Rise of the Elements game will randomly feature one element, which can be tracked in the center of the carousel:
- Inferno: Gain attack speed for the duration of combat
- Ocean: Start combat with additional mana
- Mountain: Gain permanent health that stacks between rounds and remains even if the champion is moved off the Elemental Hex
- Wind: Gain dodge chance for the duration of combat
At the beginning of the game, one random hex will be imbued with the element of the game on each player’s board, buffing the champion that starts combat on top of it each round. When the game reaches stage 3-1, a second is created.
Quiyana’s element and the Elemental Drake encounter will also be determined by the game’s specific element.
No Ranked for You
Finally, if you were hoping to test your skills with the new sets in ranked matches, Patch 9.22 has bad news for you. Once RoE launches, Ranked will be down until at least the next patch is released.
While this may not be welcome news for everyone, Riot says it made the decision to ensure there are no major bugs or balance issues players could exploit for easy wins and a one-way ticket to finally break out of Gold II.
Fortunately, if everything works smoothly, TFT ranked play will likely return in a month in Patch 9.23. This should give the community plenty of time to figure out the meta and prepare for the ranked grind.
