Teamfight Tactics patch 9.14b brings much-needed nerfs to Volibear and Cursed Blade
Teamfight Tactics patch 9.14b is live today, nerfing Volibear and the Cursed Blade while buffing the Sorcerer and Wild trait bonuses.
Teamfight Tactics has received a new update today. Serving as a bridge between the recently released 9.14 patch and upcoming 9.15 patch (due out July 31), the 9.14b patch isn’t as robust as a major update but still contains changes that could impact the strategy and meta of Teamfight Tactics.
According to Riot’s schedule, major patches are slated to release every two weeks. But the developer wants to update Teamfight Tactics, which is still technically in beta, every week. So it’s likely we can expect these sort of mini patches to help bridge the game. And while patch 9.14b may not introduce a new champion or major feature, the impact of the changes will almost certainly be noticeable. As Riot explains in the patch notes, the “B-side” patches are focused more on balancing and bug fixing.
With that said, a major focus of patch 9.14b is toning down the damage of Assassins. In order to accomplish this, Riot made changes to Critical strike damage, which now stacks additively rather than multiplicatively, and nerfed the Assassin trait from 150% critical strike damage to 125%. Additionally, the Infinity Edge has had its critical strike damage increased from 100% to 150%.
"Paired with changes to Assassins and Infinity Edge, also in this patch, Assassins will deal around 25% less damage and IE will come out net neutral."
The Wild trait has been buffed, increasing the attack speed per strike to 10% (up from the 8% it had been buffed to with patch 9.14). Sorcerer has also seen its bonus ability power increased in the first stage from 35 to 45. And once again, the Elementalist trait has been nerfed with the Golem HP reduced from 2,500 to 2,200.
Once again, Riot has ignored the Glacial and Yordle traits, which I, personally, believe are very overpowered at the moment. But maybe I just suck, so let me know if you agree with my assessment.
As far as champion balancing, Volibear received a much-needed nerf. Volibear is considered an incredibly strong champion; with a full three-item build, he’s virtually unkillable and deals a decent amount of damage. Patch 9.14b decreases his armor from 35 to 30 and lowers his attack speed from .65 to .55. This adjustment was a long time coming, so it’ll be interesting to see if he remains as popular.
Akali and Kennen, two other champions considered power, have both been slightly nerfed. Kennen’s attack damage was decreased from 70 to 65, but I don’t see that impacting him much since its his ultimate that makes him so deadly.
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Mordekaiser has had his health increased, but he still seems like a useless champion late-game. Ahri, a personal favorite of mine, has had her ability damage buffed for late-game. Combined with the Wild buff, she could become the next OP champion.
The Cursed Blade and Locket of the Iron Solari have both received much-needed nerfs as well. The Cursed Blade, which has a chance to reduce an enemy’s start level by 1 on attack, has had its trigger effect chance lowered from 25% to 20%. While an adjustment was needed, I don’t think the five percent difference is going to deter anyone away from building this item, especially on a fast attack speed champion.
The Locket of the Iron Solari, which provides a shield to all adjacent allies at the start of combat, has been lowered from 300 to 200. Players had been stacking the item on champions to give crazy survivability, and it was quite annoying.
While these are the highlights, I suggest you check out the full change-log for Teamfight Tactics patch 9.14b.