League of Legends TFT: Ranking every single trait in Set 2

With League of Legends Patch 9.22 and Rise of the Elements finally live, we’re ranking every trait in the new TFT set!

Out with Set 1, in with Set 2! With League of Legends Patch 9.22 going live today, the new meta of Teamfight Tactics has come to life. Rise of the Elements brings a ton of new content to TFT including a new board, new units, and new traits.

That’s right, Origins are gone along with Set 1 and are replaced by (mostly) new Elements. The Class system has also been overhauled, with all but three Classes from Set 1 also going by the wayside. As a result, it’s best to take a very unscientific look at all of these Elements and Classes in TFT as of Patch 9.22 to see which ones look the strongest. We’ll rank them both separately with some commentary as to why they should be considered strong or weak.

Elements

13. Electric

"Electric champions shock nearby enemies whenever they deal or receive a critical strike."

This synergy is far too niche to be effective. The only way you can reliably get use out of this is to build crit on your champions. An Assassin/Electric champion would be very good (sees Zed and begins to understand), but on its own this Element is subpar.

12. Inferno

"Spells create scorched earth beneath the enemies hit for five seconds, dealing damage."

This synergy seems good on the surface, but it’s a bit too RNG to be reliably built as a core. If you’re not immediately killing the unit that gets scorched and it now takes damage over time, that can be helpful in some cases. However, if the targeted enemy gets hit this trait is worthless unless an enemy unit happens to wander onto the affected Hex.

11. Cloud

"All allies gain dodge chance."

Having a synergy that gives an effect to your entire team, rather than just units with that trait tends to be quite good. However, as we saw in Set 1, RNG-based traits like Yordle or Ranger tend not to be that strong unless the numbers are incredibly over-tuned.

10. Mountain

"At the start of combat, a random ally gains a shield."

Again, this is an RNG trait because you cannot control which ally is going to get the shield or even limit it to a mountain unit so you have a good idea who will get the benefit (like the old Imperial trait). Getting the shield on a useful unit is going to feel great, but getting it on an ancillary unit will feel awful.

9. Woodland

"At the start of combat, clone a random Woodland champion."

So this is a bit like the Elementalist Origin from Set 1, where you’ll get an extra unit on the board for free. The benefit is, here, you don’t just get a random Daisy who can soak damage for your team but another copy of a Woodland champion that could theoretically help carry a fight. Elementalists were fairly underrated in Set 1 and I expect Woodland to be underrated in Set 2.

8. Desert

"Reduces enemy armor by a certain percentage."

This is good on the surface, reducing your enemy’s defenses by a set amount. However, this Element synergy is only going to be beneficial when your main damage dealers are auto-attack based and you need that armor reduction. When paired with ability-based DPS units, this will likely be useless.

7. Ocean

"Every 4 seconds all allies gain mana."

This is going to fluctuate depending on how much mana is restored but, on the surface, this synergy looks pretty good. The problem is the “every four seconds” bit because each PvP round only lasts 40 seconds, meaning you can only get it off 10 times max. And most PvP rounds tend to last less than half of that, meaning that you’re probably only getting this procced like 2-4 times per round.

6. Glacial

"Basic attacks from Glacials have a chance to stun their targets."

Returning from Set 1 in basically the same state, Glacial is probably again going to be one of the strongest/most annoying comps to run. The CC this Element offers will just about always be impactful, especially to round out your comp when you have the core units already on the board.

5. Crystal

"Crystal champions cannot take more than a certain amount of maximum damage from a single hit."

This is very similar to Set 1’s Knight buff, which was incredibly powerful as a front line Origin. Although it’s slightly weaker since it doesn’t apply to all units on the board, it’s always good practice to have a good frontline and Crystal is probably going to be the standard trait for that.

4. Light

"Light champions gain bonus attack speed every time another Light champion dies."

This buff is insane for champions like Vayne and Lux to get off massive DPS in fights. It’s a great come-from-behind mechanic when you’re building a comp with a weak front line, but you kind of need a good number of Light champs to make this effective.

3. Steel

"Gain invulnerability for a few seconds when reduced below 50% health."

The only reason this isn’t higher is that I don’t know if you’re able to attack while invulnerable. If so, this trait is massively busted. If you can just move around and not die, well then you’re basically getting a GA for free (which can be useful on certain champs but not always).

2. Poison

"Poisoned enemies have a 50% increased mana cost."

This trait is going to feel awful to play against, but it’s going to be very powerful into teams that have very ability-reliant comps. Unlike Desert, which will only work when paired with certain types of units, Poison is likely to be effective against most types of units, just not some (e.g. Rangers).

1. Shadow

"Deal increased damage for the first five seconds of combat and after each takedown."

The fact that you get this bonus guaranteed at the start of combat and on takedown is what makes is so powerful. Shadow comps are going to be massively strong until this gets changed.