Patch 9.17 of Teamfight Tactics has had its share of problems. The ranked servers had to be disabled for close to 24 hours, the mission system was broken, and there were unintended effects of the Void trait. It all made for an interesting patch day. However, now that the patch has been playable for around 12 hours on the ranked servers, one thing is clear. The new champion, Pantheon, is extremely overpowered. Riot Mort announced earlier today that a hotfix patch is coming to Teamfight Tactics later on in the day, mainly targeting Pantheon’s overall strength.
A hotfix for Pantheon
As of now, Pantheon is the single best champion in the game, by far. For those unfamiliar with Pantheon, his ability allows him to jump into the air, then stun all units in his path for 4 to 8 seconds as he comes back down. Using a combination of certain items – such as two Spears of Shojin or other mana-generating items – will allow him to jump again before the stun duration has ended. To combat these changes, the Teamfight Tactics devs have decided to basically kill Pantheon for the remainder of 9.17. They plan to rebalance him in next week’s update.
The hotfix patch will go live later today, Aug 29. Pantheon’s stats across the board will be lowered. On top of this, the Guardian buff, one of Pantheon’s traits, will also lose a significant amount of the bonus armor it provided to nearby allies.
What has actually changed?
The first thing is the aforementioned trait, Guardian. This trait provides all allies that start next to the unit with a bonus 50 armor. This bonus can be stacked if a unit is next to more than one unit with the Guardian trait. With the hotfix patch, this bonus armor amount will be reduced from 50 to 35 armor, though it remains stackable.
Other changes to the base stats include a change in Pantheon’s mana-pool. Pantheon’s starting mana has increased from 100 to 150, and the mana required to cast the ability has increased from 150 to 200. This change aims to affect his ability to cast his ult several times throughout a fight without the enemy being able to fight back. Pantheon’s base armor stat has also dropped from 100 to 80.
The final changes to Pantheon are what really kill all his remaining strengths. His spell ability deals a percentage of the enemy unit’s total health. This percentage has been reduced from 15%/30%/45% – at rank 1/2/3 of Pantheon – to 10%/20%/30%, respectively. Besides the massive reduction in damage in his ultimate, his stun duration has also been hit. Pantheon’s stun used to stun enemies for 4/6/8 seconds. However, this has now been changed to 2 seconds at all ranks.
For more of Teamfight Tactics, be sure to check out our breakdown of the recent 9.17 patch.
