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Thoughts on New Masteries? (Preseason 2017)

Thundermight·10/21/2016, 4:37:07 AM·1 votes·1,659 views
10/20 PBE Update

So if you have read the above pbe link, it seems riot is changing a few masteries for preseason 2017. Figured i would put in some opinions on them, keeping in mind i have not actually used them in game yet to gauge their actual performance.

Ferocity Tree Changes:

Definitely not a fan of the new First Blood (FB hereafter) mastery. Basically, they traded the universal scaling damage (3%) on double edged sword (DES hereafter) for a niche damage proc very similar to hextech gunblade. This should be more impactful in early laning phase, but falls as the game progresses (whereas 3% damage at level 1-4 is kinda pathetic, but as the game progresses and people start doing 1000 dmg per auto/ability it becomes very powerful). And before people start saying "BUT THEY STILL HAVE DES, ITS JUST MOVED TO TIER 4", nope. Before you could take bounty hunter/oppressor AND DES for no lose in damage, now they are all in same tier so effectively some scaling damage is gone. Also, new DES is so bad anyways, not sure why you would take it so its basically gone, see below.

But the main thing that bugs me is the niche of the mastery. Since it only applies to auto attacks, it leaves out one big class of champs in lol: mages (both poke and burst). A.k.a champs that rarely, if at all, auto attack after laning phase. At least most classes of champs that need damage and would spend points into ferocity tree (fighters, adcs, ad assassins) can use this pretty effectively after laning since they auto attack regularly or in their combo, but mages simply have absolutley no use for this after laning. So it seems kinda dumb that when the damage tree loses this big source of universal damage (DES) and gets replaced with damage that everyone BUT one specific class can use. Seems like a blatant nerf to mages to me. If this is not the case, then add to First Blood that it can proc on first auto OR first ability every 6 seconds. See Greenfather's Gift mastery below for an example of how class equality works.

I'm glad oppressor got removed, was extremely niche and even used in its ideal niche it still got outscaled by bounty hunter fairly quickly.

New bounty hunter seems amazing. 7.5% increased damage? Yes plz. Seems it will easily overshadow new DES and even Battle Trance . Though, i can see tanky fighter tops preferring the seemingly niche Battle Trance. Not sure why anyone would take DES anymore. The whole point of it was that you took it when you thought you were gonna stomp, but now.... if you think you are gonna stomp, why not take Bounty Hunter, it's safer and more snowbally too. It might take slightly longer to get going, but the +2.5% dmg from full stacked Hunter compared to +2.5% dmg YOU TAKE from DES? Nah. Bounty Hunter hands down.

Fervor of Battles changes fully expected. Way too op on its few attack speed niche champs. This change will be a big nerf to those niche champs while staying effectively the same for adcs due to the damage being able to crit now. Noone else used it so... yeah. Good change.

Cunning Tree Changes:

Greenfather's gift looks very appealing. Very similar to the new Fresh Blood mastery, with the difference being it scales better and, much more importantly, procs on both auto attacks AND abilities. Now if we could just get Fresh Blood to do the same, we'd be golden. Also it has a slight minigame built into it; besides having a generic cooldown, you also have to step into brush to reset it. Very interesting little touch, and an indirect buff to Ivern. Not sure whether it will be worth it over Dangerous game though, 3% current health isn't very much and only noticable against tanks late game really, but definitely worth trying on some champs and very welcome mastery indeed, definitely my favorite of the bunch.

Resolve Tree Changes:

Seigemaster seems kinda the resolve tree equivolent of feast, and honestly way too similar a role to Tough Skin. You want a safer lane where you expect to be pushed into your tower and this will help you with early trades under that niche circumstance. 8 resists is only noticeable in laning and then will become pretty useless afterwards, especially considering the niche circumstance it applies is very hard to come by consistently after laning. But, if you want something that helps you pretty much only in laning, why not take tough skin? Its damage reduction is effective always, not just when under your tower. Only reason I can think of to take Seigemaster is if you are against an aggressive ad/ap caster early, like pantheon or rumble who do ability dmg and don't auto much. Otherwise it just seems too similar and situational compared to Tough Skin.

Fearless actually looks interesting, but not really sure its good for its intended class (tanks). It's obviously supposed to be an anti burst tool, but the thing is tanks don't really care much about burst. Squishies care about surviving burst, but since this scales with your total resists, its not even super effective for them either. That coupled with the facts its decently far in the resolve tree, squishies wouldn't be taking it anyways. If they added slightly more flat resist (like 3-48 instead of 2-36) and removed the % bonus and stuck this where fresh blood is in the ferocity tree, it would be fantastic. As is, i can only imagine maybe squishier bruisers building it top. I doubt many tanks would use it cause i feel insight is so much more useful for tanks than this.

Onto the biggest mastery change- Courage of the Collossus. Again, first thing to point out... very similar to Fearless. Basically a shield to survive burst, except this one gives temporary hp instead of temporary resists like Fearless, lasts twice as long but has triple the cooldown, and requires you to have hard cc, a.k.a. more situational than Fearless. Again, why would the targeted class of this mastery (tanks?) want a burst shield?.......

Because its OP AS HELL. I had to take a second glance to make sure i was believing it when i saw these numbers. I mean, 10+10 per level +7% max health? Ok, pretty dang good. On a 4000 hp tank thats 460 shield at lvl 18, basically a barrier summoner every 30 seconds. But wait... IT"S FOR EACH CHAMP NEARBY?!!! So, in a teamfight, you will like be near 4-5 enemy champs assuming you are in the thick of it, as tanks should be. Thats a 1840-2300 hp shield!! Dear lord so basically you are invincible for 4 seconds with this mastery. Strength of Ages was op, so they removed it, yet that only gave 300 effective hp. This give 2000+???? Yup this is gonna be broken as hell. Wouldn't be surprised if any champs with hard cc take this. Jhin with his stun will be taking it lol. Will be nerfed to oblivion very quickly.

TL;DR ( i don't blmae you)

Overall somewhat disappointed in the new masteries, which sucks cause i was looking very forward to them more than the other stuff cause i don't really play assassins or jungle and this was the only aspect of preseason that affects the other roles heavily. The first thing that is obvious is how similar the masteries are to each other. Fresh blood is a lane trading tool just like feast, albeit more offensive and scales slightly better, doesn't matter much which one you pick Seigemaster is a lane trading defensive tool just like tough skin, albeit more effective versus casters yet much more situational, doesn't matter much which one you pick Fearless is an anti-burst temporary shield that pales in comparison to the stupidly op anti-burst temporary shield Courage of the Collossus, Fearless will not be used (insight op), Courage will be picked by nearly everyone that has hard cc and will begin the league of tanks again until riot guts/replace it

Other than that, Battle Trance seems useful in its niche of duke-em-out top laners, but in every other role Bounty Hunter far and away will be picked, Double Edged Sword removed from game(essentially XD), Oppressor removed from game (actually T.T) Battle Fervor nerfed for its op attack speed niche users, effectively similar for everyone else (that actually use it), yet still useful Greenfather's Gift seems interesting and useful for the most part, Ivern indirect buff (will still need more XD), would definitely pick on some champs

If anyone in riot reads this, my one humble request is that maybe consider changing Fresh Blood to proc on attacks AND abilities, like Greenfathers Gift. Ty. I love my mages XD

Note that these are my opinions and these are tentative changes. Thoughts/criticisms?

3 Comments

Jorencice10/21/2016, 4:42:33 AM1 votes

I dont think roots count as hard CC so jhin wouldnt get any benefit from the colossus mastery

Atajo10/21/2016, 5:33:53 AM1 votes

From somewhat limited PBE experience this patch, my responses as follows:

First Blood seems alright to me. Ranged mages can take it for early trades, or stick with Expose Weakness as stronger in later fights. Melee champions in lane will probably want to take Feast or Expose Weakness instead, but that's okay.

Oppressor Removal: Was actually much stronger than Bounty Hunter in higher levels of play, where there tend to be much fewer deaths. Having the 2.5% to start was a strong advantage over Bounty Hunter.

New DES: See above, feels comparable in its tier. Especially now that you get 5% higher burst, which can eliminate the vulnerability.

Greenfather's: Seems fun, mostly on top laners and adcs. Poke/pressure heavy people will love this, Cait/Nami lane can really put a hurt on people. People who can't apply it well will probably get Dangerous Game, or Ferocity people might get Fearless instead.

Siegemaster: Yeah, I don't know about this one. Remains to be seen.

Fearless: seems really, really good. Defends against burst, and helps a ton in short trades too. Resolve isn't only for tanks, I could see shorter ranged carries like Vayne opting into this. Armor+MR runes, maybe a Merc. Scimitar or GA later, and it really helps buy you time to survive long enough to get damage off or get some peel.

Courage: Might be overtuned, might not be. Combines well with Fearless (obviously). The biggest thing I'm reading into this is that engage tanks are expected to survive long enough to get all their spells off before ADC DPS ramps up enough (Fervor stacks) to put them down. Helps divers/fighters like Vi, Wukong, etc., who really want to live past the flash+single skill so they can do some damage.

Champion Skin10/21/2016, 8:00:22 PM1 votes

Definitely not a fan of the new First Blood (FB hereafter) mastery. Basically, they traded the universal scaling damage (3%) on double edged sword (DES hereafter) for a niche damage proc very similar to hextech gunblade. This should be more impactful in early laning phase, but falls as the game progresses (whereas 3% damage at level 1-4 is kinda pathetic, but as the game progresses and people start doing 1000 dmg per auto/ability it becomes very powerful). And before people start saying "BUT THEY STILL HAVE DES, ITS JUST MOVED TO TIER 4", nope. Before you could take bounty hunter/oppressor AND DES for no lose in damage, now they are all in same tier so effectively some scaling damage is gone. Also, new DES is so bad anyways, not sure why you would take it so its basically gone, see below.

But the main thing that bugs me is the niche of the mastery. Since it only applies to auto attacks, it leaves out one big class of champs in lol: mages (both poke and burst). A.k.a champs that rarely, if at all, auto attack after laning phase. At least most classes of champs that need damage and would spend points into ferocity tree (fighters, adcs, ad assassins) can use this pretty effectively after laning since they auto attack regularly or in their combo, but mages simply have absolutley no use for this after laning. So it seems kinda dumb that when the damage tree loses this big source of universal damage (DES) and gets replaced with damage that everyone BUT one specific class can use. Seems like a blatant nerf to mages to me. If this is not the case, then add to First Blood that it can proc on first auto OR first ability every 6 seconds. See Greenfather's Gift mastery below for an example of how class equality works.

It is also rather annoying for melee champions as they are the ones most vulnerable to being constantly harassed with auto attacks... though on the other hand it kind of adds more damage in the melee all in (since it is one proc with a cooldown instead of consistent additional damage which makes it slightly better?)