Our buff to Blue Kayle (Tome of Power) brought her a bit over the line, but when that buff was combined with a newly developed strategy of moving Kayle into the 2nd row to hit the backline, we were forced to act fast to prevent 14.7 from becoming Kayle’s patch. We’re making Kayle’s ability more intuitive by having it stop shortly after hitting its primary target, which will allow us to ship a lighter nerf to the Tome of Power, leaving it in a position where it’s still stronger than it was in patch 14.6.

Even when 14.7 went live, Bard was already falling out of the meta as new comps had arisen. Our nerf to his base attack speed came as too much when taking into account the other nerfs his go-to comp received more indirectly. We’re giving a bit more attack speed back to our favorite caretaker of LP.

Speaking of comps that became prominent on the last days of 14.6… Yone’s success came out of nowhere as players learned to build around him as a solo carry as opposed to a dual carry in an Umbral comp. We’re lowering the rate at which he casts and the shield he gets from each cast to make him vulnerable to burst and punishable by careful positioning (Pro tip: you want your carries to target him early in a fight before he can stack up Titan’s Resolve).

Twin Terror Porcelain comps were strong prior to 14.7, but our much-needed buffs to Lux—who had no comp outside of the Augment—took the comp into a state where balancing it meant making Lux unclickable when you don’t have the Augment. We’ve opted to disable the Augment for the rest of this set but plan on revisiting the concept in the future. P.S. Have you noticed that our Twin Terror comps always have Amumu in them? That might be the reason he has no friends…

Whether they’re being seen too frequently or taking too long, we’re making a few quality-of-life adjustments to some Encounters. For Encounters like Aatrox’s and Tahm Kench’s, pick one of Gold, Component Anvil, or Health, we’re rebalancing the numbers to make each option more situationally appealing. Finally, we’re slightly reducing the impact of some encounters: Teemo's Win/Loss prediction, Alune’s Unit cost buffs, and yes, even the increased Tactician size from Sett.

It’s the dawn of the Sentinels!

Sentinels are sentient, supportive, OR multi-talented creatures. They love long walks on the beach, gaining range from Sniper Emblems, or having a handy shield from a Locket of Iron Solari. They’re not a big fan of being a solo front line to proc the Virtue of the Martyr enhanced healing but they’ll understand if you do so.

Just before Inkborn Fables launched, we introduced our loot system overhaul, which added Prismatic Orbs to ensure all players had equally powerful loot drops. As a reminder, this meant that whenever you hit a Gold or Prismatic Loot Orb, everyone in the lobby hit the same tier, even if the exact contents differed. Now that we’ve had two full patches of this system, we’ve seen that Masterwork Upgrades are a bit more powerful than other drops in the Prismatic Orb options. So for Stage 2, we’re doing away with them entirely, while for Stage 3/4 (when Items are slightly less impactful), we’re just taking away the five gold that came alongside the Masterwork Upgrade.

While a few comps have found success splashing Inkshadow, the trait has suffered when played as a vertical. Part of this is due to the overall power of the items, but another part is the weakness of the greedy stat for the Inkshadow champions. We’re giving both a lift, but the trait will get even more help with our Kai’Sa buff later. Is this enough for Vertical Inkshadow to become the new “Me Ink no Think comp? Find out next time in a game (or tattoo parlor) near you!

Design-your-own-Kayle was a Design-you-own-Red-Kayle for the first patch of Inkborn Fables. We’re pulling back on the Red options for Kayle to open up more designer-hero choices for the clever comp builders out there. We’ve also trimmed some power from Storyweaver 5/7, but only at stage 4.

Just imagine how happy Kobuko will be to hear he’s getting buffed in this patch! Almost as happy as he’d be to hear his friends are being buffed too!

As reroll staples in their own way, Kog’Maw and Yasuo are receiving nerfs to keep them within the confines of a one-cost reroll. Meanwhile, Sivir’s ability duration is receiving a nerf, not just because of her ability to be a successful reroll carry, but also because she’s commonly found associating with backliners who tend to enjoy copious amounts of Attack Speed (cough, Bard) and some newly buffed 4-cost carries.

Overall, we’re looking to buff our most underperforming 2-costs, with one exception. Shen has quietly (and stoically) become a super tank at 3-stars, so while we’re lowering his damage reduction here, we’re also removing the mana lock (a time window that prevents him from gaining mana to cast again) so his hero Augment Ethereal Blades can get a nice boost. The mana-lock primarily impacts builds with Ethereal Blades, where building Attack Speed will significantly boost Shen’s ability to recast.

.05 Attack Speed? First off, yes, second, let’s talk about my nemesis: math. At its face value, .05 AS is about a 6.25% nerf to Bard’s damage, but it’s much more than that due to how Attack Speed scaling works. Lowering Bard’s base AS lessens the multiplicative benefit he gets from AS steroids (like his friend, Sivir, or Items), but it also slows down the rate at which he charges his favorite item (Guinsoo’s Rageblade). So yeah, it is a smol number, but trust, it will have swol consequences.

Part of the reason we’ve seen Fast 9 reign supreme over rolling at 8 is due to the power differential in 4 and 5 costs. We’re giving our 4-cost carries who’ve been slightly under the mark a boost while nerfing our most overperforming 5-cost in the next section. Between these two changes, expect staying at level 8 to hit your desired 4-costs a better option, but you should still expect Fast 9 to be more powerful (as intended) since it requires a bigger (and riskier) commitment.

As a reminder, we nerfed Wukong’s Heavenly bonus in our Traits section, but that will directly impact his individual performance as a 5-cost since the bonus is easy to activate.

Let’s address the dead Augment: At What Cost (Prismatic) proved to be a very powerful Augment early on in our data, but as the meta and player mastery progressed, the Augment dropped off significantly. Unfortunately, we had already submitted a nerf for the Augment, which required a significant text change and thus a longer localization (translation) window. Instead of allowing this Augment to go live to players in an overly-nerfed form, we’re opting to remove it for this patch only. We’re pretty happy with the risk-reward playstyle and the flavor for this one, so we’ll be looking forward to its return next patch.

Hero Augments, Augments that greatly enhance a lower-cost Champion to become much more powerful, are more valuable when offered early in the game, not only because of the instant power they grant then but also because it gives you more time to naturally star up and look for items for your chosen hero. These Augments are a ton of fun, and they open up entirely new playstyles, so we’re giving them a plus version for when you run into them on Stage 3-2. That way, you won’t be at such a disadvantage when you select them later in the game.

Whether it’s Hwei/Morgana slamming Morellonomicon or Galio/Yasuo collecting Gargoyle Stoneplates like they’re sticking them to the end of a bar and racking up the bench press PR, a few of our items were making our Champions a bit too strong for individual unit nerfs to solve.

ICYMI, a popular but niche build utilizing Fine Vintage and Zz’Rot Voidspawns alongside Heavenly, has quickly skyrocketed to one of the most powerful comps in TFT. Even without the ability to stack Support Items, Zz’Rot is one of the most reliable Support Items, but when the powerful stats of the Voidspawn get amped up by Heavenly reroll, we have an even bigger threat to balance on our hands. So we’re spreading some much-needed managed balance throughout the Convergence by lowering the bug’s stats across the board.

Small, like the impact these changes should have on the meta.

The following champions have had their recommended items changed. This not only helps players learn which champion is best for which items, but it also helps our systems, like Lucky Gloves, function more reliably.

Shipping a few structural changes that should make the mode slightly less late-game focused.