deathfire touch is terrible

Critmaster Garen·Nov 12, 2015·99 votes·13,683 views

it is designed to only be really strong on either hybrid champions or nieche cases of casters like malzahar with single target dots in their kit.

on anyone else, this thing deals like 50 to 70 damage over 1.5 seconds by lategame. its especially terrible on casters with long cooldowns and designed around burst.

how does this even compare to a 20% attack speed buff, and 15% lifesteal on a crit, when crit is thrown around like candy on halloween?

considering that this is the only offensive keystone mastery for casters, this thing needs to get looked at.

138 Comments

AudiomancyNov 12, 201526 votes

Thunderlord's Decree wouldn't be so bad if: A) Its scaling wasn't awful or B) It had no cooldown.

Seriously. Who thought it would be a good idea to put a 30 second static cooldown on that thing when it already requires you to combo attacks first?

DrCyanideNov 12, 201531 votes

Probably someone who played against a Katarina with the no CDR version.

Sneak DogNov 12, 20156 votes

It has a really solid 10~180 base damage though, unlike deathfire touch. It's basically like an improved ludens passive.

30s means you can proc it once each minionwave.

KalarepaNov 12, 20151 votes

Wait what, it has 30sec CD? WTF, why did I take this keystone

ZioviNov 12, 20155 votes

because you don't read carefully

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 20159 votes

imo they should get rid of fervor of battle, change deathfire touch to be good for all ap casters and replace fervour of battle with a mastery aimed at ad casters.

pretty much all of the champs who would take fevor of battle would rather take warlords bloodlust anyways. especially when almost every auto attack item has 20% crit or more anyways. its redundant to add two keystone masteries aimed at auto attackers. one will always be generally better than the other.

Big LincolnNov 12, 201511 votes

no, fervor is good and not every AA champ invests heavily into crit

leave it alone

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 20155 votes

[{quoted}](name=Solomon Money,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AEXT5lVA,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2015-11-12T13:01:40.966+0000)

no, fervor is good and not every AA champ invests heavily into crit

leave it alone

you dont need to invest heavily into crit to make warlords bloodlust good. you just need to crit once every 6 seconds to get the most out of the attack speed buff.

meaning a triforce on jax is all thats needed for example.

with almost every attack speed item in the game having crit added, and zephyr removed, how many champions are buying attack speed without having at least 20% crit?

Big LincolnNov 12, 20156 votes

but what about bruisers I'm not inclined to buy crit on? Shyvana, Nocturne (can sort of use crit), RekSai immediately come to mind that I play

Why not look at dft and thunderlord? cunning tree is much better for a lot if casters but decree is rather lackluster for such a high CD.

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Solomon Money,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AEXT5lVA,comment-id=0004000000000000,timestamp=2015-11-12T13:20:54.678+0000)

but what about bruisers I'm not inclined to buy crit on? Shyvana, Nocturne (can sort of use crit), RekSai immediately come to mind that I play

Why not look at dft and thunderlord? cunning tree is much better for a lot if casters but decree is rather lackluster for such a high CD.

thunderlord is not much better. and if youre going down the cunning tree you miss out on a lot of armor/magic pen.

Big LincolnNov 12, 20152 votes

yes, that's why I said to look at that. get the caster spells improved before taking stuff out for aa-heavy champs

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Solomon Money,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AEXT5lVA,comment-id=000400000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-11-12T13:24:35.582+0000)

yes, that's why I said to look at that. get the caster spells improved before taking stuff out for aa-heavy champs

maybe they should switch fervor of battle with merciless, and change warlords bloodlust to give only an attack speed bonus for auto attacking. honestly warlords bloodlust is op anyways.

something like:

Warlord's Bloodlust Basic attacks increase your attack speed by 10% for 1 second. stacks up to 2 times

and fervor of battle replaced by merciless. the mastery fits better into the offensive tree anyways.

Merciless Deal 5% increased damage to Champions below 40% Health.

i think the cunning tree should mainly offer utility over damage. even for damage oriented champions. more akin to stormraiders surge, which is a good mastery for assassins to get out after theyve killed their target.

or dangerous game.

pretty much masteries that dont make you deal more damage, but are still good for damage dealing champions and assassins.

Big LincolnNov 12, 20155 votes

again, removing things completely isn't gonna happen. Switching them would just make masteries awkward because those champs don't want to invest in cunning outside of fervor and mages who want merciless would lose a lot to get it

I think it makes sense in the cunning tree. there aren't a ton of damage masteries in it, so it gives you a choice of what you want over the CDR.

the main issue is really that the AA ones are explicitly better than the ones geared towards casters.

The Yetii RiderNov 12, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AEXT5lVA,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-11-12T12:49:20.936+0000)

imo they should get rid of fervor of battle, change deathfire touch to be good for all ap casters and replace fervour of battle with a mastery aimed at ad casters.

pretty much all of the champs who would take fevor of battle would rather take warlords bloodlust anyways. especially when almost every auto attack item has 20% crit or more anyways. its redundant to add two keystone masteries aimed at auto attackers. one will always be generally better than the other.

Fervor of Battle is for AD champs without crit like Jax, Irelia, Renekton, Riven, Darius and Garen.

It's an option for them to not go full tank.

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Fervor of Battle is for AD champs without crit like Jax, Irelia, Renekton, Riven, Darius and Garen.

It's an option for them to not go full tank.

fevor of battle is shit on pretty much all of them. you need 10 spells/auto attacks to stack it up and its only an ad bonus on auto attacks.

so riven, darius, and garen cant use the mastery fort shit. they take forever to get the 10 stacks. (you only get 1 stack per ability)

jax and irelia build triforce. since warlords bloodlust grants 20% attack speed for 4 seconds and triforce has 20% crit now, its better on them than fervour of battle.

20% attack speed after up to 5 auto attacks is much superior on them over a 10 on hit bonus that theyve built up by the time the fight is already over.

The Evil SpleenNov 12, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AEXT5lVA,comment-id=000400010002,timestamp=2015-11-12T20:27:15.940+0000)

fevor of battle is shit on pretty much all of them. you need 10 spells/auto attacks to stack it up and its only an ad bonus on auto attacks.

so riven, darius, and garen cant use the mastery fort shit. they take forever to get the 10 stacks. (you only get 1 stack per ability)

jax and irelia build triforce. since warlords bloodlust grants 20% attack speed for 4 seconds and triforce has 20% crit now, its better on them than fervour of battle.

20% attack speed after up to 5 auto attacks is much superior on them over a 10 on hit bonus that theyve built up by the time the fight is already over.

Have you played new guinsoo's with Jax and had fervor of battle? It is fucking hilarious.

My Waifu VanillaNov 12, 20153 votes

I don't even buy tri on him or irelia now (I get iceborn for sheen on irelia if I need it since it gives 20% cdr now). Rageblade went from being least bought item to being the best item in the game in a single patch.

RalanrNov 12, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AEXT5lVA,comment-id=000400010002,timestamp=2015-11-12T20:27:15.940+0000)

fevor of battle is shit on pretty much all of them. you need 10 spells/auto attacks to stack it up and its only an ad bonus on auto attacks.

so riven, darius, and garen cant use the mastery fort shit. they take forever to get the 10 stacks. (you only get 1 stack per ability)

jax and irelia build triforce. since warlords bloodlust grants 20% attack speed for 4 seconds and triforce has 20% crit now, its better on them than fervour of battle.

20% attack speed after up to 5 auto attacks is much superior on them over a 10 on hit bonus that theyve built up by the time the fight is already over.

... Riven

http://i.imgur.com/67sbpMt.png

NarsicusNov 12, 20158 votes

The thing with DFT is that the damage is weak, but it is always there. It essentially boosts the damage of every single one of your abilities at all times.

It reminds me a lot of a certain talent Death Knights had in WoW where their death coils would do 10% bonus damage to the enemy over 10 seconds. It is truly a 10% damage boost on one of their most used abilities, for a single point! But because each tick did only 1% of the original coil damage it was often considered by newer DK players to be useless, what good is an ability that ticks for 10 damage when the original shot did 1000? Ignoring the fact that the constant burn adds up to a significant amount over the course of any fight.

So, is DFT necessarily good? I don't know, I don't know if it will end up being worth it as compared to the mobility and utility of other keystones. But don't overlook it because the individual numbers are small, they add up.

AbyssphereNov 12, 20157 votes

I don't know why what is basically a Liandry's passive was even considered the best thing to give mages. Liandry's is a super niche item solely because its passive's strength varies wildly based on the kit of the champion in question. Why is that considered a good thing to make the only option for the mage class as a whole when it so clearly benefits a small amount of champions much more than the rest?

I mean I guess standard burst mages can go for Thunderlord's Decree but that thing is a weirdly conditional Luden's with a massive cooldown.

KalarepaNov 12, 20152 votes

Maybe Riot added more dots for #lcsbigplays. So when a player has 100 HP and some dot on himself, the casters can go "OOOOH WILL HE DIE OR LIVE"

KICK OUT AT 2Nov 12, 20156 votes

What champions are you trying to use it on?

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 20157 votes

{quoted}

What champions are you trying to use it on?

wrong question.

the better question is, what keystone mastery am i supposed to use on casters with aoe or burst? because on hit damage and warlords bloodlust sure as hell wont do it.

and this kind of caster makes up a large amount of the champion pool.

KICK OUT AT 2Nov 12, 20156 votes

Casters that burst you down quickly can benefit from thunderlord's decree to add even more burst or stormraiders surge to speed away after their combo. Saying it should be good on every caster in the game would be both boring and ignorant.

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Casters that burst you down quickly can benefit from thunderlord's decree to add even more burst or stormraiders surge to speed away after their combo. Saying it should be good on every caster in the game would be both boring and ignorant.

is the bonus damage applied to all champions that get hit?

otherwise it seems pretty bad for aoe casters, as the champion that gets hit by the extra damage is too random.

KICK OUT AT 2Nov 12, 20152 votes

Think of it like Ryze's ult, it does the damage to everything in the area.

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Think of it like Ryze's ult, it does the damage to everything in the area.

yes, but you dont have much control over which champion gets hit by the effect, if you hit multiple targets, or do you?

KICK OUT AT 2Nov 12, 20153 votes

You do the area damage around the champion you hit with the ability that would proc it.

doombotMECHANov 12, 20157 votes

EXACTLY. stormraider's surge is AMAZING on ap bursty casters, letting them do driveby ganks for any lane they visit, meaning that early game assassins like LB can gank, fail to get a kill, and keep moving, or letting less mobile champions chase down a slippery target.

AbyssphereNov 12, 20154 votes

{quoted}

Casters that burst you down quickly can benefit from thunderlord's decree to add even more burst or stormraiders surge to speed away after their combo. Saying it should be good on every caster in the game would be both boring and ignorant.

Why should the caster masteries not be able to cover every caster between them? Every auto based champion gets a massive sustain and DPS amp in their keystone but mages aren't allowed to have a generally good option?

Why should we have to make do with "Well, the running away thing is kinda useful!" when ADCs get something that is completely perfect for them?

KICK OUT AT 2Nov 12, 20153 votes

Because the mage role is much, much more diverse than the marksman role. On one side of the spectrum you have diana, a melee burst mage. On the other side, you have karthus, a typical caster mage. Somewhere in the middle there is azir on a level of his own.

Marksmen auto attack. Some weave spells in between their autos. That's it.

You would need ~10 keystones specifically for mages for there to be something that could satisfy them all.

EndlessSorcererNov 12, 20154 votes

The Cunning Tree is oriented towards burst damage. Burst mages typically want Thunderlord's Decree.

The Ferocity Tree is oriented more towards consistent damage.

ComannderShepardNov 12, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AEXT5lVA,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-11-12T12:35:39.487+0000)

wrong question.

the better question is, what keystone mastery am i supposed to use on casters with aoe or burst? because on hit damage and warlords bloodlust sure as hell wont do it.

and this kind of caster makes up a large amount of the champion pool.

What about the one down the cunning tree that gives you movement speed if you chunk 30% of an enemy's hp?

KorilloNov 12, 20156 votes

I agree, I play a lot of Vladimir and this is the only viable keystone option for Vlad. However, it's incredibly underwhelming. Even at 600 AP, this only does 120 damage over 3 seconds on single target (so if I hit my Q), or 60 damage over 1.5 seconds on my aoe abilities. And this would be late, late game. It's very rare that I would ever get that much AP in a game if at all.

So even in the best case scenario, this is a minor tickle against my opponent while they have options to increase attack speed off crits (along with a 15% heal to go with it).

There are SO MANY AD Keystones - yet AP champions have 1 option, it's incredibly disheartening.

RalanrNov 12, 20151 votes

Wait...why not use Grasp of the Undying from the resolve tree?

KorilloNov 12, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Wait...why not use Grasp of the Undying from the resolve tree?

You'd have to put 18 points into the resolve tree, which means missing out on the 7% magic pen from tier 5 of the ferocity tree. Since I go CDR boots on Vlad the 7% magic pen is pretty important, as I don't really get any magic pen until late game when I can pick up a void staff
It's pretty rare in top lane trades to stay in combat for 4 seconds with an enemy champion. It's mostly trades consisting of me getting a Q in, possibly an E. Depends who I am against but they are quick trades almost always.
Even in team fights when I will likely be in combat longer than 4 seconds so this keystone may be used, it will only apply to 1 enemy. Deathfire touch may be bad, but at least it will do some damage to all enemies when I use my aoe.
As Vlad, depending on your build, your hp is going to be hovering from 3k-3.6k most likely. 3% of 3k is 90, at 108 if you get your hp to 3.6k. Meanwhile, depending on your AP, Deathfire touch will likely be doing ~ 110-120 damage over 3 seconds per single target (So your Q) and 55-60dmg over 1.5 seconds for your aoe (W, E, R). There also appears to be no cooldown on Deathfire touch, so it definitely does more damage than Grasp of the Undying.
With the lifesteal/spellvamp already available to Vlad, the 3% Lifesteal isn't all that great or necessary, and as shown previously, does less damage than Deathfire Touch.

If I were going to look at the Resolve Tree, I might look at the Strength of Ages keystone. But that would only provide 300 HP (Which would give Vlad 7.5AP). 7.5AP wouldn't outdamage either Deathfire Touch or Grasp of the Undying, but at least add a little extra health with some extra damage.

Still, I feel Deathfire Touch is the best option - but compared to keystones available for other champions - it feels incredibly underwhelming.

Titanium70Nov 12, 20156 votes

[...]terrible on casters with long cooldowns and designed around burst.

So than.. how about NOT taking the DoT-Mastery on Burst-Champs? x'D

RozairNov 12, 20155 votes

Have you tried the cunning tree. It's actually a better fit for ap casters than the furiocity tree.

P1LLOWHUMP3RNov 12, 20154 votes

Try it on brand

Speaking of which, the new masteries have broken him, not Graves type broken. But when 1 ability chunks 25% of hp plus dot. Yeah that's broken.

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 201517 votes

{quoted}

Try it on brand

Speaking of which, the new masteries have broken him, not Graves type broken. But when 1 ability chunks 25% of hp plus dot. Yeah that's broken.

FFS

brand, malzahar and cass are like the only nieche cases. and the 2 or 3 hybrid champs in this game. thats the entire problem with this mastery. its the only mastery for casters and its designed to be good on a handfull of champions.

thats the entire problem with this thing.

doombotMECHANov 12, 20154 votes

niche cases? NICHE CASES? Rumble Urgot Karthus Elise all love this as a straight-up ratio boost. urgot hits a 1.35 AD ratio on his q! rumble already has this mastery as a passive on one of his core items!

I hav no idea what you're on about.

Critmaster GarenNov 12, 20156 votes

{quoted}

niche cases? NICHE CASES? all love this as a straight-up ratio boost. urgot hits a 1.35 AD ratio on his q! rumble already has this mastery as a passive on one of his core items!

I hav no idea what you're on about.

urgot deals physical damage. the thing deals magic damage.

how much magic pen are you buying on urgot? how much ap are you stacking on rumble?

maybe its just warlords bloodlust being straight op, but even on these champs its difficult to compare that with a 20% attack speed bonus and 15% lifesteal on crits.

AnidanNov 12, 20158 votes

In fairness, in some camps they say having the damage be split like that in the case of Urgot is a mixed blessing. On one hand, the damage source won't usually be amplified by much, but on the other hand that source of damage likely won't be built against anyway until they start building against it by proxy when they build against other members of your team. It's actually not as bad as it sounds on Urgot, despite being a different damage type.

Not like you have many other real options to go off of for him anyway. And Warlord's is blatantly OP, I probably wouldn't compare anything reasonable to that keystone. While Deathfire Touch is A Tier, Warlord's is sitting above S tier in the realm of God Tier.

HoodwinkNov 12, 20153 votes

Swain

TotalisNov 13, 20154 votes

it's a really awful mastery. its op as fuck on brand and malz (brand especially, he's honestly op af), while shit on so many other casters who don't have DoTs

UltîmaNov 12, 20153 votes

Absolutely agree. With that in mind, Riot already said they were looking at a possible hotfix to Warlord's because it's giving way too much power compared to the other masteries but I agree; it's unfair that AD characters get perfect synergy with their masteries through crit while casters don't have a dedicated AP-scaling keystone. These new masteries benefit AD characters way too much, and far too little to other classes.

Widder88Nov 12, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AEXT5lVA,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-11-12T12:32:49.960+0000) on anyone else, this thing deals like 50 to 70 damage over 1.5 seconds by lategame.

It has no cooldown. It is for poke champions, while Thunderloards Degree is for assassins/burster. More damage but on high CD and you have to hit 3 spells/attacks.

LeonerdoNov 13, 20153 votes

Deathfire's Touch and Thunderlord's Decree need to take a hint from each other. Deathfire's Touch needs per-level scaling (for the champs who don't build much AP/AD), and Thunderlord's Decree need a shorter cooldown (or it needs to be really worth only getting one proc in a fight).

Krys StarNov 12, 20152 votes

Riot hates AP champions, in case you were wondering. :P They nerfed mana regen hard last year, when season 5 started. Then they remove mana pots, nerf the stats of AP items, along with giving them dramatic gold increase compared to ad and tank item. ( +500 for Hourglass is insane ).

Zair UmbrasNov 13, 20153 votes

And +500g to BT isn't the equivalent..? 0.o or 200g to BotRK while BotRK is being nerfed by 2% per hit? lol. Come on now. Prices were all very balanced. Only thing that's anti-mage this season is the lack of good keystones, though on malz, Brand, Cass, Morg(Adds quite a lot of unavoidable damage when that Q lands, guaranteed 20% for the Q and another 10% from the W underneath them on top of her huge ratios), and Swain (His E empowers it). 4s of DoT is the equivalent of about 11/30 of your AP, which is about 36.67% of your AP. Swain gets to boost that by 20% with his E to make it into about 44%. His E does 282+96% of his AP at max level E and now you're throwing an extra 44% onto that. With a 500 AP build, that's an extra 220 damage.

DoT mages are happy with this and Zyra can put it to use pretty well with her plants.