Teamfight Tactics: Item and gold drop rate by PVE round
Official Riot data on the item and gold drop rate during each PVE round in Teamfight Tactics (TFT). Learn what you can find in each round.
Item drop rate by round
Riot Mort, Principal Game Designer at Riot Games, explained how the gold and item drops work in TFT.
The diagram below shows the first three PVE rounds and what they can drop.
TFT’s drop chances by round - Riot Mort
Depending on your luck, there can be different outcomes at the end of the initial PVE rounds. Honestly, receiving 2-3 or more items is a lot more beneficial than starting the match with 1 item and 3 gold.
The 9-gold option is not shabby because combining it with a light loss-streak will give you an economical advantage as you will be able to reach 50 gold faster, and thus build a late game composition with the 5-gold interest.
On the other hand, a player who drops 3 items in the early game can potentially combine them into 2 final items (considering also the drop from the Carousel round), which gives them an remarkable lead and a chance to start a win streak. Maintaining the win streak brings extra gold, so in the end the lucky player might gain even more gold that the one who dropped only gold during the PVE rounds.
The three PVE rounds afterwards (Krugs, Wolves, and Raptors) always drop either 1 or more items or 5 gold.
The late game PVE encounters (Dragon, Rift Herald, and Elder Dragon) always drop items.
PVE round List
1: 2 melee minions
2: 2 melee minions and 1 ranged minion
3: 2 melee minions and 2 ranged minions
9: 3 Krugs
15: 1 Greater Murk Wolf and 4 Murk Wolves
21: 1 Crimson Raptor and 4 Raptors
27: 1 Dragon
33: 1 Rift Herald
39: 1 Elder Dragon
“The number one questions is “Why not just always give an item?”. We want there to be lots of different strategies and experiences so that every game doesn’t feel the same. We believe that is important to the long term health of the game.”
Welcome Aboard, Odyssey Animated Trailer (Malphite) - Riot
RNG protection
Teamfight Tactics is heavily RNG-based, but Riot put in place a system to mitigate your bad or excessively good luck.
If you find no items in the early rounds, there are more chances to find items later on. You need to adapt and play through a weaker early game.
There is an item cap for each round.
If you are very lucky and find 5 items during the first three rounds, this will affect the drop rate, so you will get fewer items in the future.
The inconsistency of the item drop rate
There is not a method to increase your item drop chance, but defeating as many minions as possible is mandatory if you want to find items.
I am aware that many players are not happy about the unpredictability and inconsistency of the item drops as they are very RNG-based, and some even asked to implement an item shop where one can buy items using gold.
In my opinion, the Riot developers might improve the current drop rate by increasing the amount of gold for those who find fewer items. Instead, it is unthinkable to get rid of it because Teamfight Tactics is a RNG-based game.
The champion shop itself is a perfect example: if we had the choice to buy only the units we wanted, everyone would just build the best team compositions in the meta to rank up.
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Header image: Riot
