The Runaan’s Hurricane buff in Teamfight Tactics is huge—here’s why

Today’s Teamfight Tactics patch has multiple minor changes on the docket. As developer Blake “Riot Beernana” Edwards put it, Riot “wants to see how the meta naturally changes.”. One of the more notable changes is the massive damage increase on Runaan’s Hurricane.

Runaan’s Hurricane is on the weak side of items in Teamfight Tactics and has been since the game’s release. Built out of a Spatula and a Negatron Cloak, its function is reminiscent of its League of Legends counterpart, as the item directs an extra attack from the champion to an enemy, as well as applying on-hit effects. This inherently seems extremely powerful, but due to the 25 percent damage cap on the extra damage, it hasn’t really found a place in the meta.

The latest change to Runaan’s in today’s 9.15b patch is set to change all that.

The damage from the extra attack has been tripled to 75 percent of the original attack’s damage, and when coupled with the ability to apply on-hit effects, Runaan’s immediately has a place in the rapidly developing Teamfight Tactics meta. In addition to this, the current lack of priority in the Carousel for the Spatula and Negatron Cloak means that it should be relatively easy to put together.

Players currently favor Needlessly Large Rod, Tear of the Goddess, as well as Recurve Bow for the game’s more powerful items, so the components are not hard to come by and also have versatility if another Spatula or Cloak comes along. 

When equipped, however, champions such as Volibear, who already excel at dealing out on-hits, now have the potential to double up on those effects and wreak even more havoc. Statikk Shiv and Cursed Blade, two items that have extremely strong effects, can now be applied by this item without the exchange of having extremely weak damage.

Undoubtedly this item will be placed the most on high-DPS champions who synergize extremely well with Shiv, Blade and other on-hit items, but also could appear on champions like Ashe, whose innate ability to apply stuns is now massively increased. 

With Brawlers and Sorcerers dominating the meta, this now offers an opportunity for other compositions to shine. The Legendary champion Yasuo has a game-changing ability that now can knock up even more enemies. Crowd control is the name of the game in Teamfight Tactics, with Cho’Gath and Pyke’s area-of-effect crowd control skyrocketing them to the top of priority lists. But now counterplay exists in the form of Runaan’s Hurricane.

Expect the item to pop up much more often than it previously did, and chances are a high-level player will find a way to make it a core component of an extremely powerful composition.