TFT Set 13: How to Play Bruiser

In Teamfight Tactics (TFT) Set 13, the Bruiser trait is a reliable choice for players looking to enhance their team’s survivability. With Bruiser units, your team gains a boost to their maximum Health, with Bruisers themselves receiving even greater bonuses. This trait allows you to stack significant health, making your units tankier and more resilient in combat. Whether you're building a frontline of Bruisers to soak damage or adding them for extra durability, this trait helps ensure that your team can withstand the enemy's attacks and outlast them in prolonged fights.

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1. Bruiser Trait Bonus

Champions: Steb 1g / Trundle 1g / Sett 2g / Nunu & Willump 3g / Renni 3g / Elise 4g

Your team gains 100 max Health. Bruisers gain more.

• (2) 20% Health
• (4) 45% Health
• (6) 70% Health

Bruiser is one of the most common traits across all TFT sets, and it’s making a return to Set 13. There’s always a trait that focuses on buffing Health, and Bruiser is arguably the most iconic.

While the trait is very simple, the champions can have unique parts of their kits that can turn them into carrys or powerful frontline CC units.

2. Bruiser Synergy

Here’s a rundown of the traits you can branch into from Bruiser:

• Steb – Enforcer
• Trundle – Scrap
• Sett – Rebel
• Nunu – Experiment / Visionary
• Renni – Chem-Baron
• Elise – Black Rose / Form Swapper

When it comes to the simple frontline traits (like Bruiser or Sentinel), there generally isn’t too much overlap in traits. This gives you flexibility to use many different Bruiser units depending on the type of team comp you want to build.

Most notably, Nunu and Elise both have 3 traits, meaning it’ll be easier to splash them into more types of team comps. Experiment team comps will likely use Nunu as their frontline, and the same can be said for Black Rose and Elise.

1. Steb Enforcer Bruiser 1g

Steb is a TFT exclusive champion featuring one of the new characters from Arcane season 2. His ability is a simple heal/damage spell, and his passive heals nearby allies for a quarter of the amount. While we don’t know the exact interactions of his passive, we can expect it to work with other sources of heal as well.

If this is the case, stacking up Steb with items like Redemption or Dragon’s Claw can be quite valuable early game. We don’t know if his 3-star upgrade will scale well in the late game, and it’ll depend on whether he has a good enough supporting cast to be part of a reroll team comp.

2. Trundle Scrap Bruiser 1g

Trundle’s ability heals him for a bit and also deals a bit of damage. While this is pretty standard, his heal scales off his AP while his ability damage scales with AD. Because of this, Trundle can be a great item holder early.

His Scrap trait will also randomly upgrade a component into a completed item for the fight. Since his kit utilizes both AP and AD, the random item can be used pretty effectivelt regardless of what he gets.

Lastly, his ability is further scaled up when he’s lower Health. This can make him tough to get rid of in the early game. As with all 1-cost champions, they likely will get replaced later on unless you use both of his traits in a team comp or use him in a reroll team.

3. Sett Rebel Bruiser 2g

Sett’s ability will pull two enemies on opposite sides and slam them together, dealing damage and stunning them. Even if he only grabs one unit, the damage and stun duration will increase. Being a 2-cost unit with CC is quite valuable, and Sett will be a great pickup if your frontline consists of Bruisers.

As a 2-cost unit, he’s not as bad to keep on end game boards, but it’s still not ideal. He likely will be a transition piece until you’re able to find higher cost units to maximize your board strength.

4. Nunu & Willump Experiment Bruiser Visionary 3g

Nunu’s ability makes a large gas cloud that deals damage over time and eventually detonates, dealing damage to enemies within. I don’t expect this damage to completely carry a fight, but his Experiment bonus is the most interesting to me.

The Experiment trait will grant special hexes that buff up your Experiment units. Experiment units on the hex will gain the Experiment bonus of all the special hex Experiments. Nunu’s Experiment bonus will deal max Health bonus magic damage on a 1 second cooldown. With his cloud, he’ll deal even more damage over time, and he will buff the damage of other Experiment units as well.

Lastly, Nunu is a 3-trait unit, meaning he allows you to splash into two other traits if you play him.

5. Renni Chem-Baron Bruiser 3g

Renni is similar to Trundle in that she has a heal that scales with AP while her ability damage will scale with AD. Her ability is single-target, and she will also stun her target during her ability.

While the CC may not win you every fight, it can certainly come in clutch if you nab an enemy carry before they’re able to deal damage.

6. Elise Black Rose Form Swapper Bruiser 4g

Finally, we have Elise who has a premium CC ability. She will jump to a nearby hex, ideally toward enemies, and stun a large AoE, deal AP damage, and heal (also scales with AP). She will be one of the late game pieces you need to activate the Black Rose trait, the Set 13 summon trait.

With Elise and Black Rose, you’ll have quite the tanky frontline, and good CC to boot.

Lastly, her Form Swapper trait allows her to gain Damage Amp when placed in the back, but her ability incentivizes placing her toward the front for her CC. You could decide to place her in the backline in order to delay her stun. This can be an option if you have multiple CC units and don’t want to overlap the CC.

While Elise will attack/gain mana at the same rate, if she’s in the front, she will take damage which will also accelerate her ability cast.

In general, Augments like Crest and Crown will always be good, but there are definitely more notable ones to explore and discover. As we make our way to the PBE, we’ll be sure to test a variety of combinations and update this article with what we find.

The set has yet to even come out on PBE yet, and unfortunately, our team was unable to playtest the Set this time around. While we can’t recommend team comps at the moment, we’ll be sure to come back and update this article once we have a good feel for things.

The Bruiser trait in TFT Set 13 offers a straightforward yet effective way to bolster your team's durability. By increasing maximum health for the entire team and providing even greater health bonuses to Bruisers, this trait helps you build a strong, resilient frontline. As the trait levels up, the health bonuses become more impactful, making Bruisers an essential component for tanking damage and absorbing hits for your damage dealers. Mastering the Bruiser trait can turn your team into a formidable force, capable of enduring the toughest battles and securing victory.

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Good luck to you! – Cheng