TFT Patch Notes 12.5 Breakdown: Many changes for month long patch

Teamfight Tactics will close the book on its first patch of the Set 6.5 expansion by following it up with the game’s biggest patch of the expansion on Wednesday. TFT Patch 12.5 will last a month due to Riot Games decision to skip a patch cycle so the company can “connect, reflect and discuss company-wide goals.”

As a result, 12.5 will last until Wednesday, March 30. With such a long patch on the horizon, the TFT live balance team said it has been working on fine-tuning things to make this the best patch yet. Here are all the big changes players should be aware of going into TFT Patch 12.5

Champions

In terms of big reworks, there is one coming in TFT Patch 12.5: Rek’Sai is being changed from a damage dealer into a tank.

The patch notes say Rek’Sai is now intended to be “a tanky unit that buys time for her team throughout self-sufficient healing.” To make this possible Rek’Sai will receiving a number of changes.

The first is she no longer scales with AP in terms of her spell base damage, but rather her spell healing. To compensate, the base values for that are lower. Additionally, her spell comes with a new effect where if Rek’Sai has already bitten her target, she will heal more instead.

She is also getting buffed in the tank stat department with an extra five armor and magic resist. This should allow Rek’Sai to be a fine tank addition to match her bruiser persona.

Draven is also getting some changes to make him less reliant on being the VIP in a Debonair comp. Draven now has four hexes of range up from three. He also has innate 25% armor penetration and his AD scaling on his spell is being buffed. To compensate, his base damage is being nerfed and his VIP armor pen bonus is being reduced.

Other big champion changes include a Sivir attack speed buff, a Vi spell damage nerf, an Ahri mana and orb buff and Lucian buffs.

Traits

In the trait department, there are a few notable changes regarding Enchanter, Innovator, Enforcer, Hextech and Bodyguard.

Enforcer has been the most anti-fun trait to play against throughout TFT Set 6 and now 6.5. Riot is recognizing this and nerfing the stun duration from four seconds to three seconds. Enchanters are also getting buffs across the board in hopes of making players lean into the trait more — and Bodyguards are being buffed for similar reasons. Hextech has fallen off hard, too, so the trait is getting a little more power in the survivability department with a shield buff.

Finally, there is Innovator. The trait has been one of the most polarizing ones in the game largely thanks to the seven Innovator interval, which summons a big Hextech Dragon. The dragon has been a near game-ender thanks to its insanely large impact, and that’s not only its big crowd control roar.

The dragon’s real strength lied in its spell’s crit chance buff. The dragon used to give all champions on the board an extra 75% crit strike chance once it cast its spell. This created a problem when it interacted with Infinity Edge. IE states that once the holder gets 100% crit chance, any extra crit percentage would be translated into damage. This essentially meant the Dragon would grant any IE holder an insane amount of damage.

In TFT Patch 12.5, the balance team found a workaround. Now, Dragon states that “units buffed by the roar will always critically strike if able.” That’s effectively the same thing as before but without the language that would make IE broken.

Augments/System Changes

There are also a number of augment changes coming in TFT patch 12.5. The most notable one is the introduction of a new prismatic augment: High Five. This augment existed on the PBE but didn’t make its way to the live server until now. The augment states that players who pick it will receive five random five cost champions. This is a very powerful augment, but the tradeoff is it can only appear as a player’s last augment, in stage four.

Other notable changes include Chemtech Unity becoming a gold augment instead of a silver, Concussive Blows following suit, Four Score granting one additional champion and nerfs to combat augments like Disintegrator and Tri-Force.