Mastery levels: What they should be and why

Potato Doc··3 votes·514 views

I have thought quite a bit about champion mastery and I feel like the points system only shows the amount of times played, not actual skill level on champions. It doesnt even ensure a person knows the basic tricks on a champion. Plus lets get real you can play like a total boss and still score an A-, or play like a total chump and still score a B+, ive seen it several times already.

Dont get me wrong, of course time spent on a champion does have some correlation to skill with that champion, but time spent definitely does not equal the same skill level for each player.

I feel the more correct way of doing champion mastery would have been an achievement system

The achievements wouldn't be far fetched like to stretch you to the extreme (aka support needs a penta kill for mastery level), but would be placed to help players better understand the importance of skills, their role in the team, and how to better work with team mates. Also that map control is a huge thing, Examples would be like

         For blitzcrank: Pull an champion with an active AoE ultimate away from your team mates (kennen, morgana, ect...)(Level 5 Mastery achievement) (the pull must stop damage or debuff from occuring on ally champions) (this would not include champions like vlad where you cant save them from the ult once active)

          For Darius: Proc noxian might on an entire team before the duration finishes (Level 3 Mastery achievement)

          For XinZhao: Use Audacious charge to run in front of an enemy, then use crecent sweep to ult them back into your team for a kill (passive cannot be procced on target before ult is used)(Level 3 Mastery achievement)

          For Malz: Have your space aids hit 3 minions then affect an enemy champion (Level 1 Mastery achievement)

          For MF: Get hit by an enemy attack, then immediately use impure shots to gain your strut back to ensure a kill ( cannot have strut deactivated again before kill)(Level 3 Mastery achievement)

For Irelia: Use blade surge to a minion, then stun an opponent (Level 1 Mastery achievement)

The obvious reason for the achievements wouldn't be to show off to your friends that you got a penta kill, but that you at least pulled off certain tricks at least once, to show that you understand the basics of the champions, or that you understand the champion you are playing. So your allies can have more confidence in the champions you are playing. Lets assume level 1 mastery achievements are something you would see even people in bronze doing often, where as a level 3 mastery achievement would be something you see someone in plat pulling more regularly. The end result would be more people playing at higher tiers of game play... in theory anyways. obviously theory isnt actuality but this isnt meant to be a fix all.

Mastery achievements would be a mix of champion specific ones like noted above, and achievements based on primary and secondary roles the champion is assigned through the riots logic, examples below.

For all classes: Placed more then x wards in a match and win (Levels 1-5 achievement) (amount of wards would increase with each achievement level)( if not obtained on a regular basis (aka once a week) champion mastery will drop 1 level (requisite to gain a new mastery level or maintain that mastery level)

For all classes: Flash backwards towards the enemy team, and successfully recall without being re-engaged upon. (level 5 mastery achievement) (recall must be engaged within 500 units of enemy and within 5 seconds as well)

           For tanks: engage a team fight and escape with less then 10% health while netting at least 3 assists(level 2 mastery achievement)

           For supports with heal or shield: Save an ally from certain death (zed ult, karth ult, ignite ect, right before cho/garen ult) (level 2 mastery achievement)

          For ADC: Take less then 15% of your max health in a fight, and have your team score an ace (level 5 mastery achievement)

          For Assassins: Kill an opponent (level 0 mastery achievement), kill an opponent without them being able to attack (level 3 mastery achievement)

                For Fighters: Kill an opponent under their tower, then take the tower (must deal at least 500 damage to turret, and must attack turret within 10 second of getting kill, and continuously attack turret till it is dead)  (level 2 mastery achievement)

                  In the opposite: Kill an opponent under your tower as they tower dive you, when you have less then 20% health, letting the tower do 300 or more damage and escape with your life (level 1 mastery achievement) (must live another 15 seconds or successfully recall to base)

Each mastery level would require a certain amount of achievements met, like 10 out of 15, just as an example to be able to advance to the next achievement, all the way up to level 5 mastery, THEN there is a special icon or what not that you get for getting 200% achievement rating (basically after you reach 100% then all achievements reset for you to do it again however champion master level remains at 5) The icon would just help to emphasise that you are well versed on your champion.

Achievements would be only obtainable in normals or ranked to avoid abuse, also games with afk's or leavers before the 5 min mark that dont return are considered null and void for achievements. (if you can do it in a 4v5 match you can do it in a 5v5 match. Again these achievements are meant to show skill, not a once in your life time miracle)

The achievements could also be required to be done a certain amount of times to show thoroughness. Looking back towards the top, the darius, irelia, and malz achievement examples that I gave are great examples of where this could be implemented. Simple enough to execute but repetition brings mastery.

Obviously these are all just examples and don't have to be the actual mastery achievements, but I feel like its better then just seeing someone run around with a level 5 mastery that flashes it now and then, but its easy to tell they really have no idea what they are doing on that champion.

This could also be coupled with the new player experience, it would help introduce new players to the many cool tricks the champions can pull of, it gets them thinking what else they can do with their champions. It would also be able to teach them how to better use the map around them and the tools they have at their disposal. Partly because my brother is new to league, hes trying to get better, I try to help him, but it would be nice to get some re-enforcement from the game to support my claims.

Comments and discussion would be much appreciated. Im hoping this will help polish the mastery system further into something that really helps this game shine, give a great new player experience, and prove that the player is good with their champion, not just played enough time.

TL:DR The current mastery system isnt what the mastery system could be.

2 Comments

Toastey1 votes

This is a fantastic idea, but I doubt Riot has the code or the willingness to implement it. I do have a bit of a reshaping suggestion to your system, though.

Instead of using individual tricks of varying difficulty to gate mastery levels, I think that all tricks should be performed a certain number of times to even reach any rank of mastery. That is, to achieve even rank 1 mastery, you should have performed all a champion's available mechanical tricks once. For rank 5 mastery, you'll have to repeatedly perform these mechanical combos over many games. That seems more in line with mechanical mastery of a champion than just gating mastery ranks with individual fire-and-forget tricks.

Potato Doc1 votes

Well obviously some of the tricks or achievements would be harder to do more so then others, such as the example I gave of the blitz pulling a kennen with ult up. You cant do it every game since not every game would have a champion that fits the requirement, but it gets people starting to do these sort of tricks.

But you do bring up a valid point. However not all of a champions mechanical tricks are simple enough, that why I suggest spacing it out between the mastery levels, the easier the trick the lower the mastery tier

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