League of Legends: Teamfight Tactics Patch 9.17 breakdown – Pantheon man drops onto the Arena

With Patch 9.17 hitting League of Legends and Pantheon being introduced as a new unit to Teamfight Tactics, how will the meta shift?

Just one patch after the Hextech Origin entered the Teamfight Tactics Arena, the newest League of Legends patch brings a brand new unit into the mode. How is Pantheon going to impact Teamfight Tactics once he makes his grand (skyfall) entrance? We’ll examine all the changes coming to Teamfight Tactics in Patch 9.17 to find out!

New Champion – Pantheon

"Cost: 5 Gold Origin: Dragon Class: Guardian Ability: Grand Starfall – Pantheon leaps in the air, crashing down towards the farthest enemy, stunning them for 4/6/8 seconds. Enemies in Pantheon’s path take 15%/30%/45% of their Maximum Health as Magic Damage. They then burn for an additional 20% of their Maximum Health as True Damage over 10 seconds. Applies Grievous Wounds. Note: the in-game tooltip is lagging behind and will be updated to reflect this in patch 9.18."

First of all, thematically I don’t understand why they would classify Pantheon as a Dragon or a Guardian. Based on how the champion plays in League of Legends proper, I’d put him much more in the Blademaster/Brawler Class and maybe Noble Origin. However, it looks like they’re using the Dragonslayer Pantheon skin to shoehorn him into that Origin.

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That said, Pantheon will add another unit to two synergies that have limited combinations, as there are currently only two Dragons (Shyvana and Aurelion Sol) and two Guardians (Leona and Braum) in the game. Both of those synergies are incredibly strong, so Pantheon could easily bridge the gap between the two.

In addition, Pantheon’s ultimate is insane. He does AoE damage, stunning the target, does max health damage, and they have healing prevention. Knowing nothing else, I can confidently say that Pantheon is going to be one of the strongest units in Teamfight Tactics until he gets nerfed/hotfixed.

System changes

Healing changes

"Grievous Wounds Healing Reduction: 100% ⇒ 80% The Bloodthirster Healing: 50% of Damage ⇒ 40% of Damage Hextech Gunblade Healing: 33% of Damage ⇒ 25% of Damage Swain Demonflare Healing: 50/90/130 ⇒ 40/70/100 Redemption Healing: 1500 ⇒ 1200"

So this is a lot of information, but it all boils down to one thing: Grievous Wounds are getting nerfed. Since Grievous Wounds aren’t as strong as before, healing is getting tuned back a bit as well. Overall, this should all stabilize, but we’ll have to see how everything plays out. It’s possible Riot didn’t nerf the healing quite enough.

General changes

"The first carousel now has all 2 cost units."

This is one of those changes that Riot makes and you wonder “why wasn’t it that way before?” Now it won’t feel quite as bad when you load into game with a potato computer and all the 2g units are gone.

"Ghost armies now benefit from Trait bonuses. They’re actually spooky now!"

Not sure why this wasn’t the case before, but no longer will the person playing a ghost army just get a free win.

"Attack Speed cap has been increased from 2.5 to 5.0. So fast."

This really benefits attack speed champions like Gunslingers and Rangers. It also potentially makes Guinsoo’s Rageblade a more appealing item for champs you can keep alive for a while (with GA and Redemption for example).

"Tooltips have been updated to be more clear, and numbers scale with Ability Power."

Just a tooltip change. And a reminder that building damage in Teamfight Tactics doesn’t help your abilities, it just makes your basic attacks hit harder.