Lead TFT dev Mortdog discussed the state of balance for Set 6.5, preluding a set of balance changes and bug fixes that dropped earlier today. Mortdog posted a Twitter thread talking about the difficulty of balancing this set, alongside the team’s reasoning for certain nerfs and buffs.
Mortdog discussed that balancing TFT is a challenge between balancing things quickly when it’s too out of hand, or waiting for players to find counters to overpowered compositions. He said this issue is exaggerated even further at tournaments, where players should be rewarded for finding counters.
Mortdog also discussed how bugs can impact balance changes. For example, Socialite was bugged in that Socialite 2 and 3 would grant up to 50% extra damage, when all levels of Socialite should only grant 15% bonus damage. This bug likely gave rise to one of the top meta comps at the moment, Irelia Socialite, and discussions were made on whether or not this bug should be fixed before a major tournament.
Finally, Mortdog ended the thread with an apology, stating, “lastly, as the Design Director, please accept my humble apologies. It’s because of all of you that TFT continues to thrive, so thank you for playing and enjoying the game. We will continue to improve to avoid this in the future. Thank you, and good luck to all.”
