New Masteries - A Rant

So, let me start off by saying that I've been out of the game for about 3 months and just came back.

The new mastery system is an absolute joke.

Let me explain...

How ridiculous is it that I cannot put more than 18 points in one tree? Let's say I want to build an ultra tank. Maybe I'm playing Garen, or Mundo. Traditionally, should I want to play an ultra tank, I would put 30 points in the defensive tree. Maybe, I might go 0/25/5 for a little movement speed buff. Now, to build an ultra tank, I only get 18 points?!? What the hell? And then, lets say I am playing Mundo, where should I put those extra points? It's not like he's a champ you rely on for damage so your not going to throw those over into the damage tree? Should I get a biscut? Well they are kinda pointless considering he's mana-less... Oh I know, I'll make jungle buffs last a bit longer! Wait, I'm not the jungler so I really won't be having jungle buffs.... Give me a break? Really? These are my options?

Okay... So I realize that maybe that seems a little one sided and short-sighted of me. So I start playing around with other builds and masteries. Support masteries, I run into the same issue... get me maximum of 18 points in the cunning tree, sweet, that seems like a strong support... but wait... where do I put my other 12 points? Hmmm, ohhh look there's some AP in the Ferocity page... sweet! That's going to make my Janna/Zyra/Karma happy... but... well, lets see, taking Double Edge sword seems like a bad idea for a support... and if I'm support I shouldn't be killing minions so Feast is pointless... well I guess that leaves the Resolve tree... now don't get me wrong extra health/defenses are always nice but if I want the AP I only get 7 points for that tree which doesn't get me very far and if I'm going to put 12 points there then I'm just left feeling severly disappointed that I can't have more utility.

Well, now I'm frustrated cuz I can't build a tank well or a support well. Maybe these new masteries are god-like for hybrids. I could get down on some Corki/Ez hybrid action. OMG, Deathfire Touch over in the ferocity tree is a hybrid's wet dream. But... in order to get there, I am forced to either focus on AP or AD or split the points leaving him weak... something that could easily be solved if I could put more than 18 damn points into one tree!

Ok, so maybe I'm just building these things wrong, so I come on and I start looking at the forums for some more understanding and I do a search of topics in the last week on masteries. I found a grand total of.... drumroll please... 2 positive posts about these masteries. Well at least I know it's not just me.

I have went through my entire champion pool trying to figure out how I could build an effective mastery tree for eachchamp. I've played several games trying to see how these works and while the masteries seem to work okay for an assassin style jungler or a burst mage that needs to not be so glass-canon-ey, all I was left with was an overwhelming feeling of disappointment.

One of the things that made League of Legends a great game was the diversity in character building. It was the ability for 2 people of similar skills playing the exact same champ but having a slightly different build that highlighted their play-style perfectly. There is no longer the wonderful diversity in the mastery trees that were where games could be won or lost. Now I'm just bored by my options. League used to embrace the diversity of the mastery trees, encouraging their users to create plans that suited their particular playstyle for any particular champ. Now, all I see is a cookie-cutter solution to what was never a problem to begin with.

Sure, some of the masteries could have used some work. But that's the nature of a game like League, it's always going to need some work. However, having just come back to find that the diversity I so loved is now gone, I think I'm just going to go back to staying gone. I'd rather have the ability to customize over so-called "ease of use." I sincerely hope that Riot hears how upset their community is over these changes and stops catering to people who want an easy-cookie-cutter game and goes back to allowing the rich diversity in builds that made this game a unique experience.