A day after Patch 13.9 for Teamfight Tactics changed the meta and made units like Gnar and traits like Duelist skyrocket into popularity, Riot Games is adding a quick B-patch to adjust and course-correct for the near future. Lead designer of TFT Stephen “Mortdog” Mortimer revealed this patch on Twitter today, with the update going live about an hour after the tweet on May 4.
A quick rundown of the B-patch shows two hero changes and one trait change. The two champions receiving changes are Gnar and Kayle, while the Duelist trait is getting a needed nerf after climbing to a top-tier comp as Patch 13.9 came along.
Related: TFT Patch 13.9 notes: Portals, Kai’Sa nerf, Aatrox buff, and more
Gnar changes balance him once again
Gnar has been a strong unit in Set 8.5, but his usability has always been dependent on how useful the Gadgeteen trait is. After fixing some bugs heading into Patch 13.9, Mortdog was quick to notice how strong Gnar and the updated Gadgeteen comp were with Ekko, Morgana, and other strong mid-to-late game units.
Today’s changes to Gnar include lowered base armor and magic resist, from 50 to 35, lower ability damage scaling, from 110 to 100 percent, and lower ability main target damage scaling, from 300 to 250 percent. Essentially, he’s a weaker frontliner now, in both the tank and damage departments.
Mortdog explained how Gnar is “getting a decent sized nerf to ensure that the comp is weaker in the mid-game and doesn’t cap out quite as high.”
Kayle and Duelists quickly brought back down to earth
The other key issue from Patch 13.9 was the Duelist trait since it got a significant buff. Not only did the trait get a damage resistance buff at the six and eight Duelist marks, but a bug fix led to their attack speeds getting out of control.
Long story short, high attack speeds weren’t actually hitting as fast as they should have in the past. When the team finally fixed that issue, a lot of items or builds that focused on attack speed got immense buffs, with the attack speeds finally working as originally intended.
“Items like Guinsoo’s being a clear one, but the biggest winner was 6 and 8 duelists,” Mortdog said. “When testing it yesterday, these comps got anywhere from a 3% to 12% buff in damage output, and if you’ve been paying attention to TFT for a while, a 12% buff is MASSIVE in terms of swinging power. So for now, we disabled the fix again and will ship this fix with the next set, so we can balance around those high attack speeds working properly.”
Alongside removing that fix that turned into a buff, Kayle is also getting a small nerf to make sure the Duelist comp isn’t still overpowered after the Gangplank and Kayle buffs. The only change Kayle is getting is that her ability has lower damage scaling, from 175 to 155 percent.
The latest TFT B-patch and these changes should now be live for players to test out.
Published: May 4, 2023 03:12 pm