Alongside game balancing, the goal of the Teamfight Tactics development team is to promote diverse gameplay with many strong team compositions available for use. Therefore, each time a new patch is released, they buff certain champions and underutilized compositions to encourage players to explore new strategies.
However, in the case of patch 12.12, it seems that Riot has overbuffed two already powerful champions, Volibear and Daeja. The result is that immediately after the 12.12 patch was released, team compositions revolving around these two pieces became incredibly dominant. Even the top player on the Korean server, Bebe872, stated in his latest video that the trend in the new patch is that whoever possesses the Bear (Volibear) or Dragon (Daeja) strongest is the one who wins.
Clearly, this goes completely against Riot’s intentions, so shortly after, they had to release a patch to nerf these two champions. For Daeja, this champion’s base attack damage has been reduced from 40 to 20, and the damage of the skill has been decreased from 55/85/300 to 30/45/200.
Volibear: The amount of health gained when using the skill has been reduced from 550/1000/1800 to 375/650/1200, and the damage of the skill has been decreased from 170/180/190 to 160/175/190.
Legendary Trait: The skill damage increase for Legendary champions has been reduced from 50% to 40%.
In fact, the Legendary composition was already a relatively stable team in patch 12.11 when Volibear and Anivia were both strong carry champions if equipped with sufficient items. Riot’s buff to these champions and the Legendary trait in patch 12.12 inadvertently pushed their power level too high, leading to an uncontrollable situation. Fortunately for Vietnamese players, our server updates slower than Riot’s server, so we didn’t have to experience this frustrating gameplay.
The question that arises here is, after Volibear and Daeja have been nerfed like this, which team compositions will be worth using? According to statistical sites, three strong compositions after the above nerf are Olaf – Diana, Marksman, and Cannoneer. Perhaps with an extremely strong skill set and a build path with less downtime, the Olaf – Diana and Marksman compositions remain good choices despite the nerf. Meanwhile, the Cannoneer team is showing great strength thanks to comprehensive buffs.