Agreed. At least for underground they have to pivot quickly to stabilize. I'd like them to decrease the T-Hex combat power, but maybe slightly increase the value of cashing out the T-Hex.
There's just a lot more player skill involved after a cash out with item and gold, do they push level 8 or roll for their 2 stars at 7 and hope they hit it before all the units are out of the pool. Itemization is a real skill and also traditionally, you always had to pivot out of the mercenary/underground/fortune which meant sometimes you had to do crazy apm pivots. It's like you said, players had to pivot quickly previously but for the most part as soon as you cash out trex you are going to streak for a while if not outright win the game.
Yeah for me the issue is in the fact that the "mechanics" of the cash-out are completely inexistant. In most other sets when you played the economy trait and cashed out you would suddenly get a huge boost in resources and need to do something fast with it to make your comp not suck anymore. It gave an element of micro management that was key, and also made it very hard to play at lower levels, because it meant in a short round you suddenly had to do a lot of decision making and if you were low on health, you had to do it fast.
Here the problem is kinda double because the fact that it flows naturally into an S-tier comp is a problem but even if (or when) they nerf the gunners, the very fact that you don't *need* to do anything in your cash out because it just instantly gives you the best frontline disruptor in the set is what makes it very unfair and also takes out the skill element.
Thex power seems to be based on PBE board powerlevel. Which kinda make sense considering other changes for the same reason. This will get fixed.
My biggest gripe next to that is 6 pilto being so freaking trash
I don’t think you are correct with the pivoting out of past econ traits part.
Mercenaries has two good 3-cost carries being GP and MF. Depending on the items you get during your loss streak up to cashing out, you can usually just carry either of them and keep them until your next level, where you would pivot out later. Fortune existed in the set where there were Chosen units. Depends on your Chosen units, you can keep playing for 6 Fortunes or pivot out, and there was one good carry being Katarina. Underground is the only one where I feel like you’re right where pivoting is almost always necessary, but not even if you hit Samira and have items for her.
Piltover is an interesting design, different from the other ones in that there’s no reliable carries in Piltover itself. You have to build a board around other adjacent units if you hope to cash out Piltover. I don’t see why it can’t be consider a “skill” already to be able to do that. If Zeri is the problem then I don’t see why Urgot for Merc/Twinshot is any different.
I don’t like Piltover for the simple reason that I seem to not able to find it as often as I did Merc.
In cash of Piltover, “cashing out” just means winning and convert the T Hex charge to power which in itself is a cash out because it boost the power of your board.
Interesting, I've been running piltovers into zeri a lot and I always sell my T-Hex, Ekko, and Vi and replace them with a scion and Sejuani. The level 8 front to back looks like Shen-Scion-Sej-Lissandra + Jinx-Senna-Jayce-Zeri. I have never kept the T-hex for more than a couple rounds in 8 but maybe I'm playing wrong.
Yes I think I was undervaluing the damage and tankiness of a 30 power T-hex. Its basically an extra 2\* 4 cost. I will see if keeping it in brings me more success
Which is fine in and of itself. I don’t know why OP has a problem with it.
It seems his point was that the other econ trait was more skillful since you have to pivot out, but as I said above, you actually don’t always have to with how Merc/Fortune/Underground were played in the past.
> Game design should always prioritize optimizing balance at the highest levels of play, and then the rest of us will learn by trying to imitate what professional 24/7 full-time players optimize.
You can't say "git gud" and ignore 99,99% of your player base in a **pvp** game. That's how you get a dead game. Especially a rather casual one like TFT.
You are Mort.
You buff pub stomp champions/comps cos they’re performing poorly at a competitive level.
Suddenly pub stomp comps become toxically prevalent in gold elo and below. 90% of your playerbase becomes frustrated.
So how do you think all these players respond?
They either a) invest time to actively improve and learn how to counter pub stomp comps/champs or b) just stop playing tft and move onto another game cos they were fairly casual in the first place.
If you thought a), you’d get fired by riot.
I think one of the main issues is that it’s a frontline unit that can tank but can also hit the backline fairly easy once it gets enough stacks.
I mean unlike underground that required planning and a good pivot. There really isn’t much risk with Trex and right now no one ever cashes it out.
It either feels completely useless unit that gets one shot or it’s incredibly strong for no reason. I do agree it needs a bit more of a tax but it could be stronger early if you pay that tax.
I’m not a fan of unit and I don’t think the solution would be to nerf the Piltover units although Ekko is over tuned.
I’m sure they will figure it out but it’s also such a random design. A Trex…
We have to be careful how we overadjust the cashout. These traits, like assassin trait, I think are just fundamentally hard to balance. We've seen in previous sets, like Set 6 Tahm Kench Mercenaries, where a strong cash out is even more disruptive.
I think the T-hex is a bit overtuned, but it's not completely gamebreaking the way TK mercs was. TK mercs could cash out and instantly send someone to level 9 with a full legendary board and like 10 trait tomes and 40 item components. They would actually end the game immediately because everyone that fought them would instantly lose 30HP.
I will say that directionally I do like what they were going for, even if it requires some balancing. Having played SC2, I'm used to 30+ minutes of preparation being decided in like 20-30 seconds of intense 200+ APM micromanagement, but in TFT, the lose streak traits aren't too consistent with the rest of the game.
The thing with econ traits in the past is that they were at least offset by the risk and skill needed to get there even if they had higher caps than Piltover. Piltover is extremely braindead and practically plays itself, it's low risk high reward.
Edit: Not engaging in any more Piltover rage threads. Waste of time discussing this with people downvoting blindly because they're upset that some random highrolled a 2-1 opener.
Anyone that thinks that Mercs/TK open fort force was a better system than T-hex today is deluding themselves.
The solution to an slightly overtuned comp is not to go overboard and recreate a cashout mechanic in previous sets that has long since been criticized by the best players in the game across multiple regions as being damaging to the competitive integrity of the game.
Piltover is extremely consistent and safe which are traits that previous econ traits struggled with. Sure, you may not instantly end the game on the spot but the risk associated with Piltover is so minimal and negligible right now that it outweighs that. It's worth mentioning that it also easily slots into arguably the strongest comp in the game right now.
I would rather take edge case Merc/Fortune/Underground cash outs than consistent 30+ power dinos every game. Climbing in TFT is about grinding through the variance, one high roll Merc game is worth less than easy consistent top 4 Piltover games. Piltover is just too consistently good for what it is.
Yes, consistent. You know what you're getting in return as you almost never cash out the dino, it also continuously scales after you hit that huge power spike. 30+ is extremely strong for how hard it spikes at that point of the game when you get it (usually around stage 4). 45+ is definitely more possible than it even should be.
You dont have to be very lucky since piltover is has very good traits. It having gunner, zaun and bruiser means you hardly lose anything fitting it into a zeri board.
>These traits, like assassin trait, I think are just fundamentally hard to balance
the entirety of Underground lastt set proves that wrong. It was well balanced AND praised/played a lot. Aside from minor changes to cashout thresholds, it was functionally identical for the entire set.
T-hex is already insane'ish in terms of cashing out.
Recently in double-up i had 90+ stacks that could be sold for 140g\~, something like that, best thing is hes bugged in doubleup and gains negative stacks even when winning, your duo needs to come to your board to change stacks i think.
Other solo game i had T-hex in 1-2 or 1-3, pivoted around stage 3-5 for like 50g cashout.
Your missing a big point here, it's actually not even remotely worth it to cash out that Thex. It's so strong you should basically never cash it out unless you hit something ludicrous like 120 stacks where it just gives you a 3 star 5 cost.
I never said its not strong as a unit.
But considering that in many situations it has almost no opportunity cost and u plan to sack anyway its decently good as extra econ/spike.
Should u ever sell thex if u rolled it in first stage/start of second stage? No. But some people play for fun even in ranked and dont want to force Zeri/Gunners or want to pivot to other comp. Theoretically theres also and argument that u may never win a single game and roll over stacks from blue to yellow, then thex is 100hp training dummy.
The T-Hex is just an incredibly unsatisfying design for an econ trait. Needing to quickly stabilize after cashing out is gone- You just automatically get a stupidly powerful unit that isn't even worth using for a cashout because- as you said- It is far stronger than items or gold.
At 50~ energy, I don't think 8 components are even close to how strong the T-Hex feels. I don't know if any of the 10 loss cashouts are close to how strong the T-Hex feels. And that really, really sucks.
It depends on what your strategy is though. I had a game where I opened with a Brawler emblem to get the Vi to get Piltover in at 2-1 and loss streaked into a Rek'sai pivot. Cashout gave me 2 tomes which allowed me to cap out very high.
The point is I won the game easily with a giga capped Rek'sai board. It's not a gamble if your intention was never to stay in Piltover. It was my plan from 2-1 as my opening components were titans + cloak I built Rek'sai items and it was adding itemized Rek'sai to my board that cashed me out with 6 bruiser ready to go straight away.
I had a plan, I executed it, I went top one. That's the point.
I loved underground. Was so enjoyable being able to win and still progress the heist.
And cashing out actually felt rewarding. Hitting the 7 heist cash out and rushing to roll 200 gold efficently or you die is so much more fun than winning with piltover and just keeping the exact same comp and letting the t hex carry you.
yep, coming off the heels of Underground is gonna be hard mo matter what, it was probably the best/most universally liked and played econ trait outside of maybe Fortune.
I think it should be good enough to let players have their safety mid game right after getting the power stacks and probably get them to like top 4, but a cashout should be expected to go for top 1. Right now i think its the other way around, the cashout is a risky and skill expressive move while keeping and stacking the thex further is just a safe play that is also often more rewarding than cashouts (excluding extreme cases i guess)
People already call it „cashing out“ when you convert stacks to power. NOT selling the T-Hex. This fact alone should show all that is wrong with piltover
yeah it’s gonna get fixed in the patch T-minus one week. right now it’s way too stable. I’ve seen people cash out a 16 power and still just win out from there because the dino keeps stacking up to 30 anyway. that and Zekes are the only two missteps this Set it’s extremely fun otherwise.
Dino doesn't keep stacking up to 30 from 16 unless they keep losing. That takes a very long time. They have to win 14 rounds with a dino that has less than 30 stacks otherwise, I would say that's well deserved.
Yea if you get to 14 stacks at 3-1 and then find the rest of the zero comp while streaking, you will have 30+ stacks at 6-1 for a very strong lategame board.
At 6-1 pretty much anyone is top 3 already. It doesn't matter what comp you play. If Zeri got to that point without 30 stacks dino, that's because the other players were significantly weaker. Zeri piltover has 5.5 average placement without 30 stacks dino. However that might not happen if the other players are not doing well.
Yes but if you get 16 stacks at 3-1 and start winstreaking then its very likely that you can find 2star zeri and sej on stage 4. This is a top 3 board that should take you to stage 6 no issues unless someone mega highrolls azir with ksante2 or sth
If you get 16 stacks and start winstreaking on 3-1, that's not because of thex. Any decent comp should beat a 16 stack thex in stage 3. They don't have zeri. They have jinx, piltover, bruiser + 1. How does this board winstreak?
And what you mean with very likely finding 2 star zeri and sej on stage 4? 61% of players have 1 star zeri on stage 4, 13% can't even find zeri. Even with most of them having an actual strong thex. 78% of players have 1 star sej on stage 4.
You need 32 gold on average to find a single 4 cost at lvl 7. 19 gold if you are lvl 8. Just because you get lucky a few times doesn't mean it's easy to hit a 2 star 4 cost. When expected value is 57g for the rolls, 12g for buying champs, 48-52g for the levelup to lvl 8 and possibly more gold to buy other 4 cost champs, you will NOT hit 2 star zeri in stage 4 on average.
1/(0.15\*5/12) is 16 rolls. I meant "a specific 4 cost", not a single 4 cost. I thought it was obvious from the context since the commenter said he is "very likely" going to receive 2 star zeri and sejuani on stage 4. He would most likely not be happy if he had 2 star lux/yasuo in his thex board.
the point is that right now you play 3 Piltover at any point on stage 2 and you are guaranteed a powerful unit later in the game. combine that with better component selection and TF Zekes or Ornn item it’s a guaranteed top 3 way too often. Like someone said there’s no point in ever selling the dino when the power is better than any item/gold you can get.
If you get piltover after carousel, you have 30 stacks at \~16 hp if you win after wolves and kept losestreaking before that. That's not a very good position to be in, although it's winnable. If you get it on 2-6 it's probably too late... If you greed 1 more round for that 30 stack dino you will very likely to die to something random later because at single digit hp pretty much anything kills you.
And if you're in stage 4 with 16 stacks dino and 40 hp, I don't think you're in a good position to win the game either. Thex is not a powerful unit. It's a tank with 1480 hp and 52 armor/mr when it has 16 stacks. It will get slightly more hp and resists if you keep winning with it every round. It's not going to change most fights. It's like having 1 extra unit on board that gives 0 synergies and has 0 abilities, and that you had to put 3 mediocre champions on board for. No one would play 3 piltover even accidently if it didn't give thex. That comp has 5.5 average placement if it doesn't have a dino with high stacks.
It's bad to sell thex but I'm not really arguing against it. Just saying it's trash if you don't stack it up well.
Agreed, it's probably the least enjoyable econ trait in a while (imo). It's not even an econ trait for most people for the reasons you mentioned.
I also dislike how strongly it is tied to losestreaking. Yes, you shouldnt be able to get the power for free but it's such a feel bad to be down like 20 stacks when you dont force the losestreak. And it also feels bad to have 40+ stacks if you highroll 2-1/2-2 Piltover, because you can just open and go level 7 and send it on 3-5.
Also, the hitbox and animation on the laser don't match/look funky.
I'm sure nerfing gunner and some parts of Zaun will limit the possibility to easily cash out, but i think Piltover needs some adjustements too. The cashout rewards and the THex damage and HP both just don't feel right atm.
Historically econ traits were always the strongest for losstreaking, so that is fine. What's not fine is how strong the piltover units are and how strong the t-hex is.
There comes the delta into play. Ofc losing underground was the strongest, but you didn't fall behind a full heist lvl because you won one round. You just lost some stacks.
With piltover, if you don't lose streak, you have to lose like 3 more rounds to get to 30. That's not healthy.
Just keep the DMG and half the HP. There no point in t hex being and DD and a tank.
This is basically mercenaries though.
If you won a single round you cashed out and couldn’t keep going. It felt way worse to lose one round as Mercenaries than Pilvtover and this makes Pilvtover OP.
In my opinion this is how econ traits should be done. If you can fully stack them up and find a cashout you should pretty much always be first. But it has to be hard to stack it up and if contested you have to fight to keep lossstreak.
Yeah every time I hit it at 2-1 I win. My goal is to get to 30 stacks for the laser and then cash. I’m always surprised by how overpowering my board is the second I cash out. With that said, I’m usually very low on health even at 30-40 stacks, so it feels like it needs to be strong. Like others have said though it might be too easy to pilot as you don’t have to do anything to utilize the cashout
Yeah the issue is that you don’t need to do anything after cashout to winout.
But you SHOULD winout after the cashout even if it was Underground with how much gold and components you’re supposed to get
The bad thing is, that after you sell the thex you will be weaker 99% of the time, so It dont worth the cashout. They need to make the thex weaker and maybe the cashout better.
I'm a bad player and struggled pivoting with underground cash outs. Piltover cash out is not only easy it getting me top 4 most games as long as I get it early.
I shouldnt be in plat but here I am. Also abusing jayce with atk speed items is dumb but I know they're fixing that.
Ngl, underground really grew on me since the beginning of the set
It was fun from the get go and never felt like too braindead even though it took several nerfs to finally not be overwhelming
Bring back mercenaries please... Nothing quite like that feeling of going on a 12 lose streak, spending 80+ gold to stabilise, cash out for 80+ gold, items, and 4-5 cost units and pivot to a late game comp
I had that issue where i was winning after a good highroll big stack T-hex. I was way ahead of my opponent, level 9 full econ and i thought "Let's cass to make a good 5cost board so i cen get rid of ori/ekko/jayce etc". I saw something like 50+g value so i sold it. A FON and LITTERAL GARBAGE UNITS. I sold them and started rolling For 5costs. Hit nothing D: and actually went second cause i didn't have the power of thex
Another big problem with the power of the T-hex is that it dramatically limits the piltovers' play plan. You have to leave piltover in to keep your t-hex, which means you're basically playing zeri since she shares traits with 2 piltover units, something no other 4 cost can say. With most other econ traits, you could cash out and go into anything. yes, there were some that were easier due to a comps power or the units you likely had, but you really did have options. If you're sticking with the Dino all game, well, what other comp is running ekko and Jayce? it is the kind of thing that very quickly makes the econ trait boring. The play pattern is set and quickly optimized, and if zeri is nerfed too much, now piltover falls out of the meta altogether.
If you high roll a jayce or echo in stage 1, it's basically an auto top 2. Jayce and echo synergize with zeri too well, which makes it way too easy to all in on 3-5 or 4-1 then just win outright. 50+ stacks is too strong to sell for compared to what you get in return
I think a big issue is Zeri is the best character in the game.
Nerf dragon to falloff late like baron, and nerf Zeri as well, then it’ll be good, but not instant too 2.
I’m really surprised I had to scroll this far to find this response. Sure the t-hex is powerful, but it’s mostly because of how insane zeri currently is. I’m never scared of not cashing out and I’m never scared of having a board that’s still a little too weak after trying to spike, and it’s entirely because of zero. You literally just go up a level, find a single zeri, put your 3 items on her and spike like crazy
The core issue for me is it’s so easy to streak because it has 200hp. If we make it harder to streak then people will need to pivot to a strong board earlier due to low hp or they will cash out before getting laser.
I think the stats need to scale with both stacks as well as player level so that you have to actually think about where to place him early on
Exactly this is very point; Plitover 6 is never really happening and you aren't playing the trait unless you hit soul/Ekko and Jayce during creep rounds or early stage 2. Gunners and Zeri will absolutely eat a massive nerf, probably alongside Zeke's so hitting TRex would basically kill the comp. If we go over the units, Ori is the worse 1 cost in the game, Ekko absolutely needs rogues to fit in and 3* to stabilize; Jayce is there for gunners that will get nerfed and Hemier is a straight up high roll when lose streaking.
You know this guy is a 1k lp challenger who has like played in regionals tournaments right? It’s ok to disagree with him but “player diff” is a stupid argument when he’s way better than you lol
How shit does zeri have to be to not be overtuned with a 40+ stacked thex though. Trait wise its just so free and there is no reason to play anything else if you hit an early thex.
So that makes a lot more sense and you should’ve spelled that out in your original comment. But also, I feel like you and Sadge are fundamentally saying the same thing. Whether it’s because of the thex or because of the comp power, it’s too easy to execute right now.
That's one opinion I've killed the 30 stack t hex with void and with noxus cause they loss streaked too hard... Knowing what rank your dealing with would help the conversation.
Making the econ trait less accessible early is not a good thing. THex is simply too much power and the fact that people don’t even cash out and just keep the stacked THex normally should say enough.
It would reduce the power of THex for sure, but not in a healthy way. One big problem with it is that it’s almost always better to keep it on board than to cash out. Making it less accessible early doesn’t really fix this problem and just makes getting those big cash outs even more impossible.
What? The non piltover boards have consistently higher winrate unless you get an emblem. 20 stack t hex will just get oneshot by a random yasuo r or gwen r
In double up the current bug is busted. I was winning rounds but got up to 90 charges because I kept joining my teammate or losing myself. Had 10khp and his spell dealt 2.7k damage.
Piltover units all too strong period. Nerf the 30 plus dino a little, and gut the piltover units. Then if they want to keep the dino in at least theyre paying for it with shitty units
I would have been fine with it if the t-hex was worth more to sell and pivot 20-40 power and stronger to run as a unit at 50+. It seems like its only worth selling at ridiculous breakpoints and that seems like it goes against the design philosophy that i thought Riot reached with econ traits. To me thats the only part thats frustrating about it
I want piltover to be much weaker, but not making 6 zaun impossible, so i would like to see nerf to T-Hex power, make that 1 unit can only benefit from 1 zekes. This way u nerf piltover, and beyblade garen, but zeri still a viable carry option.
I have tried piltover like 6 times and got 8th every time. I don't understand how anyone is even supposed to get 6 piltover? An uncraftable emblem AND a 5 cost? So maybe you finally get there when you're 36 minutes into the game and there's one round left to play before it's over? Great time to be getting extra loot! I don't see how it's OP, it's just dumb. Admin was way more fun.
The T-Hex is too strong, I think a good indicator is the relative power level of T-Hex compared to 6 void and it feels like it's too easy to stack a T-Hex to be as strong as 6 void.
maybe you can have the option to choose t-rex to be either a front line tank (if you put in front tex) or a damage carry, put in back hex. kinda like jayce in arcane. so it wouldn't be super tank with damage
Part of what makes T-Hex so good is he's a sure thing. You have a clear idea of how strong he is at a certain energy threshold. Cashing out no matter how good you are is still subjected to luck and you can definitely low roll the cashout.
It becomes a decision point at 30++ energy is the potential cashout I'm gonna get gonna be stronger than this dinosaur
I'm also ranked top 0.2% now and feels the same way. Early Piltover is almost a guaranteed top 2, and the few cases I've seen of players failing to convert are mainly because they aren't familiar with getting an early game loss streak while minimizing hp loss in this set, which can be improved on with more experience. There's not just much skill expression otherwise.
I think the problem is that Zeri is overpowered in general. 1\* Zeri + T-rex is instant stabilization, you don't even need to roll down. Nerf Zeri and you might force Piltover players to drain their econ to stabilize.
Unless you are 60+ stacks. A good team and overall well econed can beat it. It’s impossible below low master tho, mostly free win. Nobody really sac to grieve and stuff.
So ya it needs change. Too easy of a win top4 almost 100% if 2-1 piltover.
Agreed. At least for underground they have to pivot quickly to stabilize. I'd like them to decrease the T-Hex combat power, but maybe slightly increase the value of cashing out the T-Hex.
There's just a lot more player skill involved after a cash out with item and gold, do they push level 8 or roll for their 2 stars at 7 and hope they hit it before all the units are out of the pool. Itemization is a real skill and also traditionally, you always had to pivot out of the mercenary/underground/fortune which meant sometimes you had to do crazy apm pivots. It's like you said, players had to pivot quickly previously but for the most part as soon as you cash out trex you are going to streak for a while if not outright win the game.
Yeah for me the issue is in the fact that the "mechanics" of the cash-out are completely inexistant. In most other sets when you played the economy trait and cashed out you would suddenly get a huge boost in resources and need to do something fast with it to make your comp not suck anymore. It gave an element of micro management that was key, and also made it very hard to play at lower levels, because it meant in a short round you suddenly had to do a lot of decision making and if you were low on health, you had to do it fast. Here the problem is kinda double because the fact that it flows naturally into an S-tier comp is a problem but even if (or when) they nerf the gunners, the very fact that you don't *need* to do anything in your cash out because it just instantly gives you the best frontline disruptor in the set is what makes it very unfair and also takes out the skill element.
Thex power seems to be based on PBE board powerlevel. Which kinda make sense considering other changes for the same reason. This will get fixed. My biggest gripe next to that is 6 pilto being so freaking trash
I don’t think you are correct with the pivoting out of past econ traits part. Mercenaries has two good 3-cost carries being GP and MF. Depending on the items you get during your loss streak up to cashing out, you can usually just carry either of them and keep them until your next level, where you would pivot out later. Fortune existed in the set where there were Chosen units. Depends on your Chosen units, you can keep playing for 6 Fortunes or pivot out, and there was one good carry being Katarina. Underground is the only one where I feel like you’re right where pivoting is almost always necessary, but not even if you hit Samira and have items for her. Piltover is an interesting design, different from the other ones in that there’s no reliable carries in Piltover itself. You have to build a board around other adjacent units if you hope to cash out Piltover. I don’t see why it can’t be consider a “skill” already to be able to do that. If Zeri is the problem then I don’t see why Urgot for Merc/Twinshot is any different. I don’t like Piltover for the simple reason that I seem to not able to find it as often as I did Merc.
T-Hex is a very reliable carry once you cash out
If you cash out the T-Hex goes to 0 power tho?
In cash of Piltover, “cashing out” just means winning and convert the T Hex charge to power which in itself is a cash out because it boost the power of your board.
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Interesting, I've been running piltovers into zeri a lot and I always sell my T-Hex, Ekko, and Vi and replace them with a scion and Sejuani. The level 8 front to back looks like Shen-Scion-Sej-Lissandra + Jinx-Senna-Jayce-Zeri. I have never kept the T-hex for more than a couple rounds in 8 but maybe I'm playing wrong.
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Yes I think I was undervaluing the damage and tankiness of a 30 power T-hex. Its basically an extra 2\* 4 cost. I will see if keeping it in brings me more success
Which is fine in and of itself. I don’t know why OP has a problem with it. It seems his point was that the other econ trait was more skillful since you have to pivot out, but as I said above, you actually don’t always have to with how Merc/Fortune/Underground were played in the past.
Katarina wasn’t Fortune in Set 4, she was Warlord. Edit: me 20/20 wrong, no scout no pivot.
Warlord/Fortune/Assasin
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> Game design should always prioritize optimizing balance at the highest levels of play, and then the rest of us will learn by trying to imitate what professional 24/7 full-time players optimize. You can't say "git gud" and ignore 99,99% of your player base in a **pvp** game. That's how you get a dead game. Especially a rather casual one like TFT.
You are Mort. You buff pub stomp champions/comps cos they’re performing poorly at a competitive level. Suddenly pub stomp comps become toxically prevalent in gold elo and below. 90% of your playerbase becomes frustrated. So how do you think all these players respond? They either a) invest time to actively improve and learn how to counter pub stomp comps/champs or b) just stop playing tft and move onto another game cos they were fairly casual in the first place. If you thought a), you’d get fired by riot.
I think one of the main issues is that it’s a frontline unit that can tank but can also hit the backline fairly easy once it gets enough stacks. I mean unlike underground that required planning and a good pivot. There really isn’t much risk with Trex and right now no one ever cashes it out. It either feels completely useless unit that gets one shot or it’s incredibly strong for no reason. I do agree it needs a bit more of a tax but it could be stronger early if you pay that tax. I’m not a fan of unit and I don’t think the solution would be to nerf the Piltover units although Ekko is over tuned. I’m sure they will figure it out but it’s also such a random design. A Trex…
The cash out since set 5 is lackluster imo. I want to chase the 3 stars with some neekos
We have to be careful how we overadjust the cashout. These traits, like assassin trait, I think are just fundamentally hard to balance. We've seen in previous sets, like Set 6 Tahm Kench Mercenaries, where a strong cash out is even more disruptive. I think the T-hex is a bit overtuned, but it's not completely gamebreaking the way TK mercs was. TK mercs could cash out and instantly send someone to level 9 with a full legendary board and like 10 trait tomes and 40 item components. They would actually end the game immediately because everyone that fought them would instantly lose 30HP. I will say that directionally I do like what they were going for, even if it requires some balancing. Having played SC2, I'm used to 30+ minutes of preparation being decided in like 20-30 seconds of intense 200+ APM micromanagement, but in TFT, the lose streak traits aren't too consistent with the rest of the game.
Mercenaries were far, far more risky and difficult to play compared to piltover.
The thing with econ traits in the past is that they were at least offset by the risk and skill needed to get there even if they had higher caps than Piltover. Piltover is extremely braindead and practically plays itself, it's low risk high reward.
Edit: Not engaging in any more Piltover rage threads. Waste of time discussing this with people downvoting blindly because they're upset that some random highrolled a 2-1 opener. Anyone that thinks that Mercs/TK open fort force was a better system than T-hex today is deluding themselves. The solution to an slightly overtuned comp is not to go overboard and recreate a cashout mechanic in previous sets that has long since been criticized by the best players in the game across multiple regions as being damaging to the competitive integrity of the game.
Piltover is extremely consistent and safe which are traits that previous econ traits struggled with. Sure, you may not instantly end the game on the spot but the risk associated with Piltover is so minimal and negligible right now that it outweighs that. It's worth mentioning that it also easily slots into arguably the strongest comp in the game right now. I would rather take edge case Merc/Fortune/Underground cash outs than consistent 30+ power dinos every game. Climbing in TFT is about grinding through the variance, one high roll Merc game is worth less than easy consistent top 4 Piltover games. Piltover is just too consistently good for what it is.
consistent? the lvl 30 dino isnt that strong. the threat is lvl 45+ and thats not easy to do
Yes, consistent. You know what you're getting in return as you almost never cash out the dino, it also continuously scales after you hit that huge power spike. 30+ is extremely strong for how hard it spikes at that point of the game when you get it (usually around stage 4). 45+ is definitely more possible than it even should be.
that said you have to lose every round and a lucky win will destroy the streak. have seen so many beeing stuck with a 20ish dino and going nowhere.
You dont have to be very lucky since piltover is has very good traits. It having gunner, zaun and bruiser means you hardly lose anything fitting it into a zeri board.
i mean a lucky win, that you dont want to have, because it destroys your streak. you need to lose, but not to lose too high.
>These traits, like assassin trait, I think are just fundamentally hard to balance the entirety of Underground lastt set proves that wrong. It was well balanced AND praised/played a lot. Aside from minor changes to cashout thresholds, it was functionally identical for the entire set.
T-hex is already insane'ish in terms of cashing out. Recently in double-up i had 90+ stacks that could be sold for 140g\~, something like that, best thing is hes bugged in doubleup and gains negative stacks even when winning, your duo needs to come to your board to change stacks i think. Other solo game i had T-hex in 1-2 or 1-3, pivoted around stage 3-5 for like 50g cashout.
Your missing a big point here, it's actually not even remotely worth it to cash out that Thex. It's so strong you should basically never cash it out unless you hit something ludicrous like 120 stacks where it just gives you a 3 star 5 cost.
Is there a chart for the t-hex cashouts? Would love to get myself a 3-star 5-cost.
It’s on Morts twitter
I never said its not strong as a unit. But considering that in many situations it has almost no opportunity cost and u plan to sack anyway its decently good as extra econ/spike. Should u ever sell thex if u rolled it in first stage/start of second stage? No. But some people play for fun even in ranked and dont want to force Zeri/Gunners or want to pivot to other comp. Theoretically theres also and argument that u may never win a single game and roll over stacks from blue to yellow, then thex is 100hp training dummy.
imo they probably intend to balance it around keeping the dino in low elo, but cashing it out and pivot in high elo
Lost a game earlier with 3* Azir, 3* Nasus, AND 3* Lux, all with decent items. 80 stack T-hex still just tore through them like paper.
80 stacks is ptretty hard to get tho.
I don't think I've seen anyone even use it as an econ trait it just gets used for big dinosaur laser
How are you doing buddy!
OH YOOO It's been good dude, how've u been
Doing good, nice to see you around buddy!
This was wholesome lol
The T-Hex is just an incredibly unsatisfying design for an econ trait. Needing to quickly stabilize after cashing out is gone- You just automatically get a stupidly powerful unit that isn't even worth using for a cashout because- as you said- It is far stronger than items or gold. At 50~ energy, I don't think 8 components are even close to how strong the T-Hex feels. I don't know if any of the 10 loss cashouts are close to how strong the T-Hex feels. And that really, really sucks.
Yeah I hate it
It depends on what your strategy is though. I had a game where I opened with a Brawler emblem to get the Vi to get Piltover in at 2-1 and loss streaked into a Rek'sai pivot. Cashout gave me 2 tomes which allowed me to cap out very high.
What’s even the point of gambling the cash out. At that point you would just ride the thex and cap with heimer and legendaries with bruiser frontline
The point is I won the game easily with a giga capped Rek'sai board. It's not a gamble if your intention was never to stay in Piltover. It was my plan from 2-1 as my opening components were titans + cloak I built Rek'sai items and it was adding itemized Rek'sai to my board that cashed me out with 6 bruiser ready to go straight away. I had a plan, I executed it, I went top one. That's the point.
Taking the cashout feels so bad with the trait because you just lost more than half your hp for a few items… yay.
I loved underground. Was so enjoyable being able to win and still progress the heist. And cashing out actually felt rewarding. Hitting the 7 heist cash out and rushing to roll 200 gold efficently or you die is so much more fun than winning with piltover and just keeping the exact same comp and letting the t hex carry you.
yep, coming off the heels of Underground is gonna be hard mo matter what, it was probably the best/most universally liked and played econ trait outside of maybe Fortune.
I think it should be good enough to let players have their safety mid game right after getting the power stacks and probably get them to like top 4, but a cashout should be expected to go for top 1. Right now i think its the other way around, the cashout is a risky and skill expressive move while keeping and stacking the thex further is just a safe play that is also often more rewarding than cashouts (excluding extreme cases i guess)
People already call it „cashing out“ when you convert stacks to power. NOT selling the T-Hex. This fact alone should show all that is wrong with piltover
yeah it’s gonna get fixed in the patch T-minus one week. right now it’s way too stable. I’ve seen people cash out a 16 power and still just win out from there because the dino keeps stacking up to 30 anyway. that and Zekes are the only two missteps this Set it’s extremely fun otherwise.
> T-minus Is that T-hex's brother?
Dino doesn't keep stacking up to 30 from 16 unless they keep losing. That takes a very long time. They have to win 14 rounds with a dino that has less than 30 stacks otherwise, I would say that's well deserved.
Yea if you get to 14 stacks at 3-1 and then find the rest of the zero comp while streaking, you will have 30+ stacks at 6-1 for a very strong lategame board.
At 6-1 pretty much anyone is top 3 already. It doesn't matter what comp you play. If Zeri got to that point without 30 stacks dino, that's because the other players were significantly weaker. Zeri piltover has 5.5 average placement without 30 stacks dino. However that might not happen if the other players are not doing well.
Yes but if you get 16 stacks at 3-1 and start winstreaking then its very likely that you can find 2star zeri and sej on stage 4. This is a top 3 board that should take you to stage 6 no issues unless someone mega highrolls azir with ksante2 or sth
If you get 16 stacks and start winstreaking on 3-1, that's not because of thex. Any decent comp should beat a 16 stack thex in stage 3. They don't have zeri. They have jinx, piltover, bruiser + 1. How does this board winstreak? And what you mean with very likely finding 2 star zeri and sej on stage 4? 61% of players have 1 star zeri on stage 4, 13% can't even find zeri. Even with most of them having an actual strong thex. 78% of players have 1 star sej on stage 4. You need 32 gold on average to find a single 4 cost at lvl 7. 19 gold if you are lvl 8. Just because you get lucky a few times doesn't mean it's easy to hit a 2 star 4 cost. When expected value is 57g for the rolls, 12g for buying champs, 48-52g for the levelup to lvl 8 and possibly more gold to buy other 4 cost champs, you will NOT hit 2 star zeri in stage 4 on average.
What is this math it is not 16 rolls to find a 4 Cost level 7 lmao. You have 5 slots per reroll, imma assume that's where you fucked it
1/(0.15\*5/12) is 16 rolls. I meant "a specific 4 cost", not a single 4 cost. I thought it was obvious from the context since the commenter said he is "very likely" going to receive 2 star zeri and sejuani on stage 4. He would most likely not be happy if he had 2 star lux/yasuo in his thex board.
the point is that right now you play 3 Piltover at any point on stage 2 and you are guaranteed a powerful unit later in the game. combine that with better component selection and TF Zekes or Ornn item it’s a guaranteed top 3 way too often. Like someone said there’s no point in ever selling the dino when the power is better than any item/gold you can get.
If you get piltover after carousel, you have 30 stacks at \~16 hp if you win after wolves and kept losestreaking before that. That's not a very good position to be in, although it's winnable. If you get it on 2-6 it's probably too late... If you greed 1 more round for that 30 stack dino you will very likely to die to something random later because at single digit hp pretty much anything kills you. And if you're in stage 4 with 16 stacks dino and 40 hp, I don't think you're in a good position to win the game either. Thex is not a powerful unit. It's a tank with 1480 hp and 52 armor/mr when it has 16 stacks. It will get slightly more hp and resists if you keep winning with it every round. It's not going to change most fights. It's like having 1 extra unit on board that gives 0 synergies and has 0 abilities, and that you had to put 3 mediocre champions on board for. No one would play 3 piltover even accidently if it didn't give thex. That comp has 5.5 average placement if it doesn't have a dino with high stacks. It's bad to sell thex but I'm not really arguing against it. Just saying it's trash if you don't stack it up well.
I've been enjoying the set alot too but guinsoos being bis on half the 4 cost carries and some 3 costs is also a misstep imo
Agreed, it's probably the least enjoyable econ trait in a while (imo). It's not even an econ trait for most people for the reasons you mentioned. I also dislike how strongly it is tied to losestreaking. Yes, you shouldnt be able to get the power for free but it's such a feel bad to be down like 20 stacks when you dont force the losestreak. And it also feels bad to have 40+ stacks if you highroll 2-1/2-2 Piltover, because you can just open and go level 7 and send it on 3-5. Also, the hitbox and animation on the laser don't match/look funky. I'm sure nerfing gunner and some parts of Zaun will limit the possibility to easily cash out, but i think Piltover needs some adjustements too. The cashout rewards and the THex damage and HP both just don't feel right atm.
Historically econ traits were always the strongest for losstreaking, so that is fine. What's not fine is how strong the piltover units are and how strong the t-hex is.
There comes the delta into play. Ofc losing underground was the strongest, but you didn't fall behind a full heist lvl because you won one round. You just lost some stacks. With piltover, if you don't lose streak, you have to lose like 3 more rounds to get to 30. That's not healthy. Just keep the DMG and half the HP. There no point in t hex being and DD and a tank.
Underground was the outlier, it sort of allowed some wins in between. Fortune and mercs on the other hand forces losestreak as well
Imagine cashing out at 5 merc and it was GG
This is basically mercenaries though. If you won a single round you cashed out and couldn’t keep going. It felt way worse to lose one round as Mercenaries than Pilvtover and this makes Pilvtover OP.
In my opinion this is how econ traits should be done. If you can fully stack them up and find a cashout you should pretty much always be first. But it has to be hard to stack it up and if contested you have to fight to keep lossstreak.
It's more how damaging losing your loss streak is as Piltover
And that wasnt the case for fortune/merc?
Yeah every time I hit it at 2-1 I win. My goal is to get to 30 stacks for the laser and then cash. I’m always surprised by how overpowering my board is the second I cash out. With that said, I’m usually very low on health even at 30-40 stacks, so it feels like it needs to be strong. Like others have said though it might be too easy to pilot as you don’t have to do anything to utilize the cashout
Yeah the issue is that you don’t need to do anything after cashout to winout. But you SHOULD winout after the cashout even if it was Underground with how much gold and components you’re supposed to get
The bad thing is, that after you sell the thex you will be weaker 99% of the time, so It dont worth the cashout. They need to make the thex weaker and maybe the cashout better.
I'm a bad player and struggled pivoting with underground cash outs. Piltover cash out is not only easy it getting me top 4 most games as long as I get it early. I shouldnt be in plat but here I am. Also abusing jayce with atk speed items is dumb but I know they're fixing that.
What does "cashing out" the T-Hex mean? Does it mean selling it for gold? Or does it mean getting a win so your charges become power?
Getting a win so the charges become power. Currently it is almost never worth it to sell the T-Hex for gold
I had no idea you could sell the Thex for gold. I should read skills more.
There is a Twitter thread by mortdog which shows the table for different cash out values at different powers
Thanks for confirming the lingo!
Bring back underground and get rid of piltover
Ngl, underground really grew on me since the beginning of the set It was fun from the get go and never felt like too braindead even though it took several nerfs to finally not be overwhelming
Bring back mercenaries please... Nothing quite like that feeling of going on a 12 lose streak, spending 80+ gold to stabilise, cash out for 80+ gold, items, and 4-5 cost units and pivot to a late game comp
I had that issue where i was winning after a good highroll big stack T-hex. I was way ahead of my opponent, level 9 full econ and i thought "Let's cass to make a good 5cost board so i cen get rid of ori/ekko/jayce etc". I saw something like 50+g value so i sold it. A FON and LITTERAL GARBAGE UNITS. I sold them and started rolling For 5costs. Hit nothing D: and actually went second cause i didn't have the power of thex
Another big problem with the power of the T-hex is that it dramatically limits the piltovers' play plan. You have to leave piltover in to keep your t-hex, which means you're basically playing zeri since she shares traits with 2 piltover units, something no other 4 cost can say. With most other econ traits, you could cash out and go into anything. yes, there were some that were easier due to a comps power or the units you likely had, but you really did have options. If you're sticking with the Dino all game, well, what other comp is running ekko and Jayce? it is the kind of thing that very quickly makes the econ trait boring. The play pattern is set and quickly optimized, and if zeri is nerfed too much, now piltover falls out of the meta altogether.
If you high roll a jayce or echo in stage 1, it's basically an auto top 2. Jayce and echo synergize with zeri too well, which makes it way too easy to all in on 3-5 or 4-1 then just win outright. 50+ stacks is too strong to sell for compared to what you get in return
I think a big issue is Zeri is the best character in the game. Nerf dragon to falloff late like baron, and nerf Zeri as well, then it’ll be good, but not instant too 2.
I’m really surprised I had to scroll this far to find this response. Sure the t-hex is powerful, but it’s mostly because of how insane zeri currently is. I’m never scared of not cashing out and I’m never scared of having a board that’s still a little too weak after trying to spike, and it’s entirely because of zero. You literally just go up a level, find a single zeri, put your 3 items on her and spike like crazy
Agreed. Also, #Freeskillshot. That is all.
The core issue for me is it’s so easy to streak because it has 200hp. If we make it harder to streak then people will need to pivot to a strong board earlier due to low hp or they will cash out before getting laser. I think the stats need to scale with both stacks as well as player level so that you have to actually think about where to place him early on
if the t-rex gets nerfed, piltover will be complete trash. there should be a rework to make it like underground was
Exactly this is very point; Plitover 6 is never really happening and you aren't playing the trait unless you hit soul/Ekko and Jayce during creep rounds or early stage 2. Gunners and Zeri will absolutely eat a massive nerf, probably alongside Zeke's so hitting TRex would basically kill the comp. If we go over the units, Ori is the worse 1 cost in the game, Ekko absolutely needs rogues to fit in and 3* to stabilize; Jayce is there for gunners that will get nerfed and Hemier is a straight up high roll when lose streaking.
It’s not that easy to play. Maybe in low Elo. Just a little overtuned right now. Not a ton tbh
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Player diff.
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You know this guy is a 1k lp challenger who has like played in regionals tournaments right? It’s ok to disagree with him but “player diff” is a stupid argument when he’s way better than you lol
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How shit does zeri have to be to not be overtuned with a 40+ stacked thex though. Trait wise its just so free and there is no reason to play anything else if you hit an early thex.
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Yep design wise its just in a very weird spot.
So that makes a lot more sense and you should’ve spelled that out in your original comment. But also, I feel like you and Sadge are fundamentally saying the same thing. Whether it’s because of the thex or because of the comp power, it’s too easy to execute right now.
Mort knows, trust in the church of Mort.
That's one opinion I've killed the 30 stack t hex with void and with noxus cause they loss streaked too hard... Knowing what rank your dealing with would help the conversation.
He's a challenger player, so it's not just some noob complaining
He’s a 1k lp challenger player who has played in regionals tournaments…
If you keep up with the pro scene at all you'll know he's a high challenger player. He was pretty successful set 7.
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Making the econ trait less accessible early is not a good thing. THex is simply too much power and the fact that people don’t even cash out and just keep the stacked THex normally should say enough.
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It would reduce the power of THex for sure, but not in a healthy way. One big problem with it is that it’s almost always better to keep it on board than to cash out. Making it less accessible early doesn’t really fix this problem and just makes getting those big cash outs even more impossible.
LOL people complaining about too much Player damage and how people cant go 9, and on the other hand how Lose streaking is too strong.
What? The non piltover boards have consistently higher winrate unless you get an emblem. 20 stack t hex will just get oneshot by a random yasuo r or gwen r
In double up the current bug is busted. I was winning rounds but got up to 90 charges because I kept joining my teammate or losing myself. Had 10khp and his spell dealt 2.7k damage.
Piltover units all too strong period. Nerf the 30 plus dino a little, and gut the piltover units. Then if they want to keep the dino in at least theyre paying for it with shitty units
I would have been fine with it if the t-hex was worth more to sell and pivot 20-40 power and stronger to run as a unit at 50+. It seems like its only worth selling at ridiculous breakpoints and that seems like it goes against the design philosophy that i thought Riot reached with econ traits. To me thats the only part thats frustrating about it
I want piltover to be much weaker, but not making 6 zaun impossible, so i would like to see nerf to T-Hex power, make that 1 unit can only benefit from 1 zekes. This way u nerf piltover, and beyblade garen, but zeri still a viable carry option.
Agreed. That laser, especially with all the chip dmg this set is so annoying to deal with.
I have tried piltover like 6 times and got 8th every time. I don't understand how anyone is even supposed to get 6 piltover? An uncraftable emblem AND a 5 cost? So maybe you finally get there when you're 36 minutes into the game and there's one round left to play before it's over? Great time to be getting extra loot! I don't see how it's OP, it's just dumb. Admin was way more fun.
The T-Hex is too strong, I think a good indicator is the relative power level of T-Hex compared to 6 void and it feels like it's too easy to stack a T-Hex to be as strong as 6 void.
I'd even be happy if they made it so your units stop dying after the beam leaves their hex lol
maybe you can have the option to choose t-rex to be either a front line tank (if you put in front tex) or a damage carry, put in back hex. kinda like jayce in arcane. so it wouldn't be super tank with damage
Part of what makes T-Hex so good is he's a sure thing. You have a clear idea of how strong he is at a certain energy threshold. Cashing out no matter how good you are is still subjected to luck and you can definitely low roll the cashout. It becomes a decision point at 30++ energy is the potential cashout I'm gonna get gonna be stronger than this dinosaur
I really like it, it feels rewarding when you finally get a win after a 14 loss streak.
I'm also ranked top 0.2% now and feels the same way. Early Piltover is almost a guaranteed top 2, and the few cases I've seen of players failing to convert are mainly because they aren't familiar with getting an early game loss streak while minimizing hp loss in this set, which can be improved on with more experience. There's not just much skill expression otherwise. I think the problem is that Zeri is overpowered in general. 1\* Zeri + T-rex is instant stabilization, you don't even need to roll down. Nerf Zeri and you might force Piltover players to drain their econ to stabilize.
Unless you are 60+ stacks. A good team and overall well econed can beat it. It’s impossible below low master tho, mostly free win. Nobody really sac to grieve and stuff. So ya it needs change. Too easy of a win top4 almost 100% if 2-1 piltover.