Welcome to Monsters Attack!
Monsters Attack! brings all new units and traits, cosmetics, and mechanic updates with our arrival in Spatulopolis, a city that seems to be constantly under attack. Luckily for city residents, there are heroes of all shapes and sizes ready to be assembled into the hodge-podge hero squad of your liking.
As for these notes, we’re going to start with cosmetics and new stuff at the top, then we’ll work our way through the changing and returning systems near the end.
A quick note! We’re shipping an entire set on the last patch of the year, before many of us go on a Riot-wide Winter break. This means that we will be hands-off for a while after our first week of release. With the size of the Monsters Attack! release, that’s a bit nerve-racking for us. But we’re lucky for having an incredibly active three week PBE period—thanks PBE testers! We’ll also be watching the first week of our release with a closer eye than Vel'Koz on your backline carry.
Okay, we’ve got a ton to get into, so let’s get going!
As we approach our Riot-wide winter break, we’re shipping a larger than usual mid-patch update to keep our first patch of Monsters Attack! running like the denizens of Spatulopolis during a Giant Enemy Crabgot assault—smooth and deliberate!
We’re bringing the Ox Force vertical Attack Speed bonus in line with the power of other raw stat traits.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we’re giving the tiniest love tap from the bottom of our Heart to the trait that has yet to find its match. Speaking of love tap, Recon vertical has also struggled—you may spy a large buff to Recon 4 here, but we may need to do more work on this trait in the future.
Ashe, Renekton, Zed, Viego, and Jaximus Prime have become clear winners during our first week of Monsters Attack! We’re taking the “over” away from “over-performer” in hopes that they will still be able to perform under the right conditions.
While nerfs always take the spotlight in these mid-patch updates, we’ve also shipped some smaller buffs to our most underperforming champs. Of note here is our Aurelion Sol buff that adds a full meteor to his spell, which will hit an extra target before applying (or reapplying) Burn and Wound to that enemy. To compensate for the power and utility of an additional meteor, we’ve brought Aurelion Sol’s damage down a tad, but worry not, he’ll still be doing more total damage with this buff than before.
Syndra is also getting a range buff that will make her easier to play (you can now backline safely, avoiding the potential dangers of AOEs on the third row). Just remember to give her Spear of Shojin to prod more allies off the bench.
Ensuring each champion has a chance to be the hero (via Hero Augments) sometimes means pushing others (via nerfs) into the sidekick position.
The winner of the strongest item comes from one of the most-avoided components on Carousel… it’s Warmog’s!
Before we meet the residents of Spatulopolis make sure to take in the sights with our Monsters Attack! cinematic where Mayor Pengu rewards our heroes for their good* deeds!
If you want to immerse yourself in the lifestyle of a Spatulopolite, then try out the Pass+ to unlock the Threat themed arenas, Little Legends, Star Shards, and the Poro-Ranger Headquarters Tier 3 Arena! The Pass+ can be unlocked for 1295 RP, but you don’t have to decide right away, as you can always upgrade to the Pass+ later, and retroactively receive everything you would have unlocked with the Pass+ active. Check out the below images for a peek at some of the content.
In addition to Poro-Ranger HQ, you'll get three different Threat-inspired arenas, also unlocked on your Pass+ tour of the city! Check out Threat Level: Nom, OK, and Tentacle below!
Now that we’ve seen where you can play, let’s see who you can play as with the Pass+. Meet our most super Sprite yet: Super Squad Sprite! And acquaint yourself with Star Guardian Tocker, whose latest project is figuring out how to save the universe AND have time to help the Star Guardians on homework.
You can get the Everything Goes On arena in the Everything Goes In Here Bag as a rare (2%) drop. Bags without the arena will pop out previously released Little Legends, or Whisker and Grizzle variants. One Everything Goes In Here Bag goes for 390 RP, but they’re also available in bundles (later). The arena also has a pity mechanic, meaning you are guaranteed to open the Mythic Arena on or before the 61st box!
Everything Goes On comes with Big Feels, dynamic board elements, ceremonies, and a complete transition to another dimension as you play. It’s also packed with Star Guardian secrets from past Star Guardian lineups! And yes, an instrumental version of Porter Robinson’s song has a cool feature where the board goes blurry—wait, those were just my tears. Nevermind.
You can pick up Chibi Lux directly from the shop for 1900 RP and she’ll come with her signature boom, Final Spark, that you could equip to other Tacticians too if they’ve packed the necessary sunblock.
You can get Chibi Star Guardian Lux as a rare drop (2%) from Lux’s Radiant Chalice (390 RP/TC), also available in bundles (of joy). Chalices that do not contain the uncontainably positive Star Guardian will be full of previously released Little Legends, including our newest troublemakers, Whisker and Grizzle.
Baron comes fully-evolved (no need for Star Shards here) and can be purchased directly for 2500 RP. Baron has 6 variants to choose from: Baron, Super Squad Baron, Cosmic Scourge Baron, Odyssey Baron, Star Nemesis Baron, and Star Guardian Baron.
If you pick up the Batch of Barons bundle from the store you’ll get each of Baron’s variants alongside the chance to Smite back with the Smiteback boom—the only Smite that never misses.
Whisker just wants what every cat wants: food, a loving home, and total world domination. Whisker and their variants are available for direct purchase for 750 RP (rare) and 925 RP for their epic variants. Check out their variants below: Whisker (Base), Star Guardian Whisker, Super Squad Whisker, Stitched Whisker (Epic), Star Nemesis Whisker (Epic), Dark Star Whisker (Legendary).
To avoid long bouts of rage, please feed Grizzle at regular 13 minute intervals, but never after midnight. Grizzle and their variants are available for direct purchase for 750 RP (rare) and 925 RP for their epic variants. Check out Grizzle’s variants below, now with even more rage: Grizzle (Base), Super Squad Grizzle, Groovy Grizzle, Star Guardian Grizzle (Epic), Dark Star Grizzle (Epic), Star Nemesis Grizzle (Legendary).
Bundle | Contents | Price |
Chalice of the First Star Bundle | TFT Monsters Attack! Pass+ Chibi Lux 31 Lux's Radiant Chalices |
13245 RP/TC |
Everything Goes On Bundle | Includes TFT Monsters Attack! Pass+ 27 Everything Goes In Here Bags |
11825 RP/TC |
Batch of Barons | Includes base Baron, all Baron variants as well as the Smiteback Boom | 10000 RP/TC |
With Dragonlands over, I’m willing to bet you're ready to spread your wings and fly to the next set. But let’s briefly acknowledge your successes! We’ve got a whole host of ranked rewards to distribute throughout patch 12.23, the release patch of Monsters Attack!
First off, if you placed Gold or higher in Uncharted Realms (the second half of Dragonlands) then you’ll get a celebratory emote to represent your rank!
If you placed Gold or higher at any stage of the set, then you’ll get the Victorious Craggle Little Legend. And if you manage to get Gold or higher during both halves of the set, you’ll get Triumphant Craggle as well!
And for those of you starring up Dragons as a team, if you obtained Double Up rank Gold or higher, then you’ll get the following emotes to celebrate with your partner(s)!
If you finish Blue, Purple, or Hyper tier in Hyper Roll, then you’ll get another emote to flex with! Now that’s hype.
New set, new systems and a chance to update existing ones!
Hero Augments allow you to choose one of three options to empower a champion as the leader of the super squad you assemble.
For more information on Hero Augments you can visit any of our 3rd party friends above, or check out our mechanics article.
Dragonland’s Treasure Dragon was a huge improvement over Raptors, which had the chance to offer random items that weren’t useful for a comp you’d already committed to, but alas, we must depart the Dragonlands for more charted (by urban planners) realms. That being said, we all greatly appreciated the increased control over finalizing our builds with the Treasure Dragon, so in Monsters Attack! we’re introducing the Item Anvil to provide a similar opportunity.
The nuance between Magic and Physical spells created more confusion than value. We’re using the new set to simplify rules that even the best of us struggled to remember at times.
We’re also lowering the impact of Grievous wounds so the status effect is less of a hard counter than it has been in the past. As such, healing sources have also been slightly reduced in power.
Abilities and Items are getting new debuff Keywords to help us simplify tooltips and conversations. Check out the new and existing keywords below!
Large, like the Monsters Attack! PBE wait times. Can y’all chill a second so I can get a game!?
This is a long one, so I’m going to rely on our 3rd party friends to provide more detailed information on the specific traits, champions, and Augments coming with Monsters Attack!
With the return of Star Guardians heralding a new era of spell spamming through their multiplicative Mana generation, we’ve had to preemptively cut many Mana generating Augments to keep this trait from leaving the balance atmosphere and entering the upper regions of the OP-sphere.
Other Augments have been cut due to their low pick rate and win rate, where they simply did not reach the expected power level (or fun level) of other Prismatic Augments.
In addition to the 118 new Hero Augments, we are bringing back over 100 Augments from Dragonlands and Gizmos & Gadgets, as well as 63 Heart, Crown, Crest, and Soul Augments for our new traits. As for this section, we’re just going to go over what returning Augments are changing now that they’ve made their way into Monsters Attack!
While we have been pretty hands-off with the return of our non-Hero Augments (most of our resources went into Hero Augments this set), you will notice rebalancing of many returning Augments to meet the new needs of Monsters Attack! For instance, since we have less crowd control this set, we’ve given Verdant Veil more Attack Speed to ensure it is in line with other Prismatic Augments. It’s also easier to craft Built Different comps this set, so in turn we have slightly lowered the bonuses that the Augment provides.
TL;DR: Dodge is gone, crit is stronger (and more intuitive), and Items that grant flat AD now give a percentage of base AD as bonus AD.
With dodge gone, Sparring Gloves’ power has been transferred entirely to its Critical Strike Chance. With this change and a change to Infinity Edge, we’ve been able to give out more crit making for more fun (big numbers = fun), while also removing the least fun (randomly avoiding big number ? fun) defensive stat.
Items that offer flat Attack Damage now grant a percentage of bonus Attack Damage based upon the champions’ base AD. Before this change, many AD champions didn’t benefit from additional Attack Damage, but with this change champions with high AD values should more intuitively benefit from items that build out of B.F. Sword.
Champion base power has gone up across the board, while item power has gone down. This means the difference between a 3 item champion and a 0 item champion will not be as drastic. See the item changes for an exact list.
Guardbreaker is our replacement for Banshee’s Claw that is great for champions who need Attack Damage and Ability Power. Its passive allows the wearer to gain increased damage after attacking a shielded enemy, making this a great slot as a counter to shields, but also a great combo piece with other crit items such as Infinity Edge or Jeweled Gauntlet. Guardbreaker will also allow players to finally be able to build an offensive item out of a Giant’s Belt.
Blue Buff is still great for champions with small Mana pools, but it will now grant a bit of Ability Power that will help the equipped champion get takedowns that add 10 Mana to the user. This change allows the item to continue to fulfill the spam cast fantasy, while not leaving certain champions (e.g. Ezreal, Karma, Sohm) dependent on its warping power.
Protector’s Vow no longer buffs your team, but instead buffs the wearer more! It's a solid slam on tanks that need to reach their first cast. Definitely use this on Sejuani!
Infinity Edge now allows damage from abilities to critical strike, making it a great slam on AD casters. This also means you’ve gotta rid yourself of the IE/Jeweled Gauntlet combo habit.
As mentioned earlier, we’ve reduced the healing reduction of wounds to make abilities and items that apply them less of a hard counter. In doing so, we’ve had to reduce healing like the Omnivamp in Celestial Blessing and the items below to prevent Monsters Attack! from becoming Monsters Sustain!
For our Double Up section, I’ve brought in the lead designer of the mode, Llord Llama, to go over our extensive changes to the new Gift Armory. Take it away, my Llord.
With Monsters Attack!, we're making a big change to the Assist Armory in Double Up. Instead of taking turns selecting roughly equal boosts for one another, players in Double Up will now face a choice of gifts with different gold prices that they can buy for their partners. This will allow Double Up pairs to help one another out even more, and lets them pay to get the perfect power boost into their partner's hands. There'll always be a free option, though, in case you're caught short when the new Gift Armory shows up. The rewards range from consumables and item components on the low end all the way to Radiant items on the high end.
Enjoy an increased level of strategic cooperation!
--Llord Llama