Teamfight Tactics is a free-to-play spinoff of (the also free-to-play) League of Legends, taking League's assets to create a multiplayer auto battler. TFT debuted on Jun 25th, 2019 as a playable mode in the League of Legends client.
Inspired by the popular Autochess mod to Dota 2, TFT is an 8-player free-for-all, where players collect and upgrade teams of champions, which then automatically fight against both computer-controlled opponents and other players' teams on a hex-based map. Each champion possesses certain traits in this mode describing their origin or fighting style, and collecting several champions with the same trait drastically improves them or their entire team.
Tropes
- Anti-Debuff: Quicksilver Sash. Olaf became immune to CC after using his ultimate in Sets 2 and 4.5. In Set 5, the Caustic Quicksilver item grants permanent debuff immunity at the cost of maximum health.
- Anti-Magic: Each set has at least one mechanic in this vein.
- All items built from Negatron Cloak technically fit this (with some having magic resistance in their identities more than others, but the Dragon's Claw item gives a massive magic damage reduction boost on top of the baseline magic resistance it provides. Ionic Spark, as the magic resistance/ability power hybrid item, plays with this: it punishes nearby enemies by zapping nearby enemies when they cast a spell, but also reduces their magic resistance.
- Set 1 had the Dragon origin bonus, which granted full immunity to magic damage before being nerfed to 83%.
- Sets 2 and onward have the Mystic trait, which instead grants team wide magic resistance depending on how many you have.
- Downplayed by Set 5’s Refracted Dragon’s Claw, which gives much less magic damage reduction than Dragon’s Claw but also negates bonus damage from critical strikes.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: True damage ignores enemy resistances, and some traits can grant either that or reduce enemy resistances.
- The Void set bonus from Set 1 and Set 3 causes all Void champions to do True damage.
- In set 2, the Desert class reduces enemy team armor by 40 or 100%.
- The Last Whisper item reduces the target's defense by 75% if hit by a critical hit for 3 seconds, while Ionic Spark reduces the magic resistance of nearby enemies by 40%. The burn items (Red Buff/Sunfire Cape and Morellonomicon) apply true damage over time as a burn.
- Urgot in Set 3.5 deals repeated true damage when he manages to reel enemies into his belly, until they die.
- Divine in Set 4 grants bonus true damage on top of the user’s normal damage upon either falling to less than half health or making 6 attacks. Sett’s unique trait in Set 4 is The Boss: after falling to 40% or less health, he leaves combat to do sit-ups, healing up. If he manages to reach full health again, all his attacks become true damage.
- The Berserker: The Berserker class in Set 2. Berserkers start each round by leaping at the closest enemy (as opposed to Assassins, who leap to the back of the enemy team) and have a chance of each of their attack splashing to hit enemies behind their target in a manner similar to Titanic Hydra.
- Black-and-White Morality: The theme of Set 5 is “the battle between good and evil.” Traits are a mix of “good” traits and “bad” ones, with the former being represented by bright-looking traits and the latter represented by dark-looking traits.
- Blade Spam: The Set 1-3 Blademaster synergy grants all their attacks a chance to strike up to four additional times.
- Charged Attack: Unlike in main game, mana meter in TFT is more of a Charge Meter that fills whenever unit deals or takes damage. Their ability fires instantly when the meter is filled, and mana items allow them to start with their meters partially filled.
- Comeback Mechanic:
- During drafts, players with lowest health get to pick their champions first, giving them a chance to pick units or items they need before anyone else can steal them.
- Losing enough fights in a row will provide the same gold bonus you'd get from a win streak.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Zig-zagged - The Ninjas synergy of Sets 1 and 4 requires to use either only one Ninja, or all four of them; however, the 4-Ninja version grants significantly stronger buffs.
- Critical Hit Class: Collecting enough Assassins greatly increases the damage they deal with critical hits, as well as their chance to do such. In Set 4 and onward, all of them gain the innate ability to critically strike with their spells.
- Valkyries in Set 3 (and Executioner units in Set 4) had the ability to get guaranteed critical strikes against enemies below a certain health threshold.
- Cursed with Awesome: Set 5’s Shadow Items have this theme, offering interesting tradeoffs for very powerful effects.
- Equippable Ally: Yuumi was in Set 1, but not as a champion - she was an item made by combining a Spatula with a Needlessly Large Rod that makes the champion that equips her count as a Sorcerer (though she ended up making a proper debut in Set 4). The consumable "Neeko's Help" item is implied to work by having Neeko shapeshift into an extra copy of one of your allies (though Neeko herself also appears in Set 2 and Set 3).
- Gathering Steam: A trait of some characters, items, and traits.
- Units with Guinsoo's Rageblade, the Set 1 Wild synergy buff, or the Set 4 Duelist synergy buff gain extra attack speed with every attack. Wild and Duelist grant more speed per attack, but it's capped to a set number of attacks, while Rageblade starts slower but can scale until the battle ends. Set 3's Chrono bonus granted attack speed over the course of the fight—initially as big “jolts” of attack speed every 4 seconds, before being reworked to grant a small amount of attack speed every X seconds (with X decreasing as you get more Chrono units.)
- Some units have some innate in-fight scaling, whether finite or infinite.
- Sets 3 and 4 play with this trope a bit more. grants all your allies a bigger jolt of bonus attack speed every 4 seconds, making your entire team behave this way. Several champions also behave this way on an individual level—Shyvana in Set 1 gained attack damage and attack range after using her ultimate to transform into a dragon, Jinx in Sets 1 and 3 needs to get two takedowns to reach her full power each fight, Olaf from Set 2 gained attack speed, lifesteal on basic attacks, and immunity to crowd control upon using his ultimate, Syndra and Aurelion Sol from Set 3 gain increasing damage instances with each time they cast their ultimate each fight, and Kayle from Set 3 gains damaging waves of fire on her basic attacks for the rest of the fight after using her ultimate. Somewhat uniquely, Zed from Set 2 had the potential to form armies of copies of himself (since his clones could also make additional clones through their own ultimates), provided he and his clones weren't focused down before that could happen. Set 3.5 Urgot took a different track: his ability WILL kill its target, and reduces its mana cost each time he does so.
- In Set 5: Kayle takes this up to eleven, requiring 20 seconds to reach full steam at 1*. The Skirmisher synergy grants a small amount of additional attack damage each second, with Jax also getting stacking attack speed. Archangel’s Staff increases your ability power whenever the equipped unit casts an ability. Played with by the Set 5 Guinsoo’s Sacrificial Rageblade, which gathers steam much faster than Guinsoo’s proper...at the cost of hurting yourself each autoattack, meaning that without a source of healing the character gathering steam will burn themself out. The Draconic trait does this on a meta level—the trait lets you slowly gain additional copies of Draconic units over time, letting them get to 3* on their own if you leave the trait running long enough.
- I Work Alone: Set 1 and 4 Yasuo's unique "Exile" trait triggers only if he's not adjacent to any ally when battle starts, giving him a shield that essentially doubles his health. Set 4 zigzags this by adding a trait bonus for having 2 Exiles—if you control both Yasuo and his brother Yone, both of them gain bonus lifesteal from the Exile effect as well.
- Mana Burn:
- Set 1 Kassadin's passive skill drains some mana from enemy champion every time he attacks, and turns it into shield for himself. Averted for Set 3 Kassadin, who instead Disarms enemies with a pulse of energy.
- Set 1 Demon synergy grants all Demon attacks a chance to drain opponent's mana pool for themselves.
- Sets 2 and onward averted this for their spell-countering mechanics, instead preferring to stop mana from gaining entirely (Set 2 Hush and Soraka ultimate) or increase the targets' mana costs (Set 2 Poison, Set 3 Mana-Reaver and Shroud of Stillness, Set 4 Sylas, Kayn, and Shroud of Stillness, Set 5 Shroud of Stillness, Soraka, and Dark Shroud of Stillness).
- Money Multiplier: Set 1's Pirate synergy is the only one that doesn't provide in-battle boost; instead, it spawns a treasure chest with some extra gold after every fight with other player. Space Pirates in Set 3 instead grant a 50% chance for Space Pirates to grant 1 gold from champions they kill, with the 4-piece bonus letting them occasionally loot item components instead. Set 4 Fortune grants bonus orbs at the end of a victorious combat, akin to the ones you receive from PvE mobs—the longer you went without a payoff while having the trait, the stronger the orbs you finally get on a victory become. Set 5’s Draconic trait gives Draconic units and gold from eggs that hatch after a delay.
- More Dakka: Set 1 Gunslinger synergy gives their attacks a chance to strike multiple targets at the same time. Set 3 Blaster synergy instead causes every fourth attack to fire multiple bonus targets at once. Set 4 Sharpshooter plays similarly, but is themed differently aside from Jinx.
- Nothing Is The Same Any More: Each new season of the game massively overhauls the roster and mechanics of the game—the core mechanics remain the same, but the rest is subject to change.
- Season 2 of Teamfight Tactics, Rise of the Elements, completely overhauled almost the entire game. All of the origins were replaced with new elemental-themed ones, most of the classes (except Assassin, Blademaster and Ranger) were replaced as well, almost the entire champion lineup was replaced, several of the handful of champions who weren't replaced (such as Rek'Sai, Yasuo, or Volibear) were totally redesigned, and the items were shaken up considerably. Additionally, an extra row was added to the map to make it larger overall, and a new mechanic was added where certain squares on the map would manifest an elemental fountain which could be used to buff any champion placed on them at the start of a round.
- Season 3, Galaxies (starting in March 2020), does the same, completely upsetting the champion lineup to a new set themed around the sci-fi Alternate Universe skin lines (Odyssey, Star Guardian, Dark Star etc). It also replaces the elemental hexes with variant modes called Galaxies that appear in some games.
- Averted with Season 3.5, which merely replaced some champions and traits with others while reworking a few other traits.
- Season 4, Fates (starting in September 2020), replaces the sci-fi look with a spiritual one, with the Chosen mechanic (2* champions in the shop that have bonus stats and one double trait bonus) replacing Galaxies.
- Again averted with Season 4.5, with a similar scope of changes to Season 3.5 (albeit introducing a few new mechanics as well.)
- Set 5 is themed after the battle between good and evil. It replaces the Chosen mechanic with a “Shadow Items” mechanic, offering power at a price.
- One-Hit Kill
- Set 1 and 2 Veigar's Primordial Burst instantly kills its target if they're at lower star level than Veigar, unless they're protected by Kayle's Divine Judgement or Kindred's Lamb's Respite.
- In season 2, if you could get a copy of Lux to 3 stars, her Final Spark would do 99999 damage to all enemies hit, which is a guaranteed kill (and Kayle was removed, while Kindred uses a different ability for their spell this time around). Fortunately, this is really just in the game for laughs/bragging rights as it's (almost) completely impossible to get a 3-star version of Lux, who is Tier SEVEN
- Many Set 3 4-cost and 5-cost champions approach this when three-starred—every fourth basic attack from a 3 star Jhin deals 4444% damage every fourth basic attack he makes, Cho'gath can deal 2000*AP magic damage that can become true damage with a set bonus, a 3 star Miss Fortune deals 999% max HP as magic damage over its duration, a 3 star Ekko deals 2000*AP magic damage to ALL enemies during his timestop, and Gangplank's ultimate deals 9001 damage in a very wide area he can make bigger with certain shop upgrades. (Other 4-costs and 5-costs tend to lean more towards much higher sustained damage or absurd utility effects.)
- Set 3.5 Urgot’s spell did this innately (once the ability is cast, the unit dies unless Urgot is killed by another unit first), albeit over a few seconds.
- Set 4 Lee Sin did this in a somewhat unique way: if he hits a unit at the edge of the board with his spell, he kicked them off the map entirely.
- Set 5 Teemo will do this if only he and one enemy are left standing at the end of a fight.
- Percent Damage Attack:
- Sets 1 and 2 Vayne's Silver Bolts work just like in the main game, dealing true damage based on her target's max health on every third attack.
- Red Buff, Morellonomicon (and in Set 5, Mor-Evil-lonomicon), and Sunfire Cape (and in Set 5, Eclipse Cape) all apply "burn" status on opponents hit basic attacks, hit with spells, or simply being near the champion, respectively, causing them to take percent-based damage over time and reducing their healing. Set 1 Pantheon's Grand Starfall behaved similarly, dealing percent max HP magic damage and applying a healing-reducing percent-based burn. Set 3 Miss Fortune deals (rather high) AoEpercent magic damage with her ultimate, while Set 3.5 Viktor deals percent magic damage on the first hit of his ultimate. Set 4 Kalista and Sett also have percent magic damage on their ultimates.
- The Giant Slayer item caused your basic attacks to deal an extra 12% of the target's remaining health on hit. It formerly dealt 5% max HP true damage on hit. At present it averts the trope, though it still fills a similar role as an anti-HP item.
- A number of Set 5 Shadow Items instead invert this, inflicting this on the user as a cost—e.g. Eclipse Cape burns the user for 4% max HP each second as well as other targets, Sacrifical Gauntlet deals 15% max HP damage to the user each time they cast their ability, etc.
- Power at a Price: The theme of most of Set 5’s Shadow Items, “evil” doppelgängers of regular items. Some offer power at a cost relative to the original item’s stats and abilities, while others inflict a max health debuff or cause you to bleed health over time. A few avert this, offering a different but related type of power than the original item did (e.g. Archdemon’s Staff of Immortality offers health/healing each cast instead of AP)
- Set 5 Teemo must be bought with Little Legend health.
- Power Creep, Power Seep: Champions that appear in multiple sets are not guaranteed to have the same abilities between them, meaning some can become higher tier and some can become lower tier.
- A couple of champions who made the transition from Set 1 to Set 2 were remade to be more powerful than before-Kha'Zix was promoted from Tier 1 to Tier 4 and Zed was promoted from Tier 2 to Tier 5. Possibly subverted with Ashe who, despite being promoted from Tier 3 to Tier 4, was made arguably weaker by her origin changing from the overpowered Glacial to the initially underpowered Crystal and her ability changed from her ultimate, Enchanted Crystal Arrow, to her basic steroid, Ranger's Focus. Some champions saw this inverted—Yasuo went from Tier 5 to Tier 2, for example.
- Some champions from Sets 1 and 2 saw similar changes in Set 3 incarnations, whether playing it straight or inverting it. Malphite went from a 4-cost using his ultimate to a 1-cost that gets his passive, while Kassadin went from a 1-cost unit to a 3-cost one. Thresh went from a 2-cost unit that granted an AoE shield to a 5-cost that can pull allies 'from your bench', while Lux went from being a 7-cost god capable of giving incredible damage and synergy bonuses to a 3-cost regular Sorcerer with an AoE, damaging stun ability. Miss Fortune is a unique case—while she remains a 5-cost in Set 3, she deals %max HP magic damage instead of flat damage this time, and has much more synergistic set bonuses than her Pirate synergy in set one.
- Set 4 sees even more—Yasuo becomes a 1-cost unit, Aatrox and Ahri are promoted to 4-cost, Azir is promoted to 5-cost, Vi is demoted to 2-cost...
- Ditto Set 5. Yasuo becomes a 3-cost unit, Garen rises all the way to a 5-cost unit, Sett is demoted to 2-cost, Kindred return with their Set 1 design as a 5-cost...
- Power Equals Rarity: Higher-tier champions only start appearing in mid-to-late game and almost always have higher stats than their low-tier counterparts, but they're also much harder to upgrade.
- Chosen in Set 4 are rare, snap picks that you can obtain that come as two stars, get bonus stats, and have one of their trait bonuses count double.
- Purposefully Overpowered: In Season 3, tier 5 units have their abilities spike to impossible levels of power if you can get them to 3 stars, such as Xerath's Abyssal Bombardment going from a duration of 8 seconds and a damage of 440 to a duration of 45 seconds (longer than an entire round) and a damage of 2500 (before AP scaling), or Thresh pulling your entire bench onto the battlefield to join your forces. This is because getting a tier 5 unit to 3 stars is basically completely impossible.
- Rare Random Drop: The Spatula is an item that has a small chance of dropping during PvE rounds and sometimes on special carousels. On its own, it does nothing, but it can be combined with another item to create unique equipments that grant additional traits to champions wielding them, mirror their attacks against another target, or allow them to bypass the unit limit.
- Ring Out: Set 4 Lee Sin’s ability kicks enemies across the map. If they’re at the map’s edge, he instead kicks them off the map outright.
- Set Bonus: One of the core concepts of this mode. Each champion possesses two or three traits, describing their race or origin (Demon, Noble, Yordle, etc) and their gameplay role (Assassin, Guardian, Sorcerer etc). Deploying several champions sharing a trait grants a unique bonus that can apply to either one of them, all of them, or the entire team (even champions without said trait).
- There are two Set 1 origins that each only appear on a single unit and are therefore effectively extra passive abilities for them: Robot (Blitzcrank, gives him full mana at the start of the battle to let him open up by using Rocket Grab) and Exile (Yasuo, which gives him a shield equal to his HP if he starts the battle not adjacent to any ally).
- In Set 2 there is one single-unit classnote - Alchemist, which appears only on Singed and causes him to play like he does on Summoner's Rift, running around blindly spreading poison gas over everyone instead of attacking.
- Set 3 Starship works like Singed's passive, but with a different AI (and mana gained over time that Aurelion Sol uses to launch a fleet of warships in a manner vaguely resembling a Protoss Carrier.) Additionally, Gangplank and Miss Fortune had the unique Mercenary class (which allows you to spend 8 gold to upgrade their abilities, similar to how you can spend Gangplank’s Silver Serpents on Summoner's Rift), while Janna has the unique Paragon class, which does nothing for her directly, but instead enhances her entire team to cause Star Guardians to deal true damage with their basic attacks and all other allies to deal magic damage instead.
- Set 4 has a number of unique traits at Tier 5–Sett’s The Boss, Azir’s Emperor, and Kayn’s Tormented, with Yone having a pseudo-unique he shares only with his low-cost brother Yasuo. It also features the Chosen mechanic, which allows Lux-style super versions of a trait by letting you occasionally find stronger versions of a champion with a double trait.
- Set 5 continues the trend, with Teemo’s Cruel, Heimerdinger’s Caretaker, Darius and Garen’s God-King (which works only if you have one of the two and works differently for each), and Kindred’s Eternal.
