we're at a point in time where keystone diversity is at its best

Ben Sharpio·Aug 2, 2017·10 votes·654 views

and we're just throwing it away. Can anyone explain why? You see every keystone being used at this point in time.

23 Comments

Variks the LoyalAug 2, 20178 votes

Keystones are basically the only thing from the old system remaining. All the other boring stuff is being culled to make room for more stuff like keystones.

VallalanAug 3, 20171 votes

this is how it should really be looked at. the new runes are going to be way more interesting and create more interesting choices. Right now the masteries have some choices but none of them are interesting, usually its a slight playstyle difference of "sustain and scale vs more damage" which is pretty lame.

the new runes don't all look good (some look pretty awful tbh), but they have potential. And a lot of them look really cool and interesting.

Critmaster GarenAug 2, 20171 votes

because the old split customization system is outdated, and never really made a lot of sense.

runes on their own are way too expensive, and having this stat customization split up in 2 seperate systems also makes it more difficult to make changes on the fly like in champion select.

getting rid of runes and masteries and replacing them with a single customization system also allows to make those new runes a lot more powerful and fun to use.

Ben SharpioAug 2, 20171 votes

so reworking runes ONLY would have been dumb is what youre saying

Critmaster GarenAug 2, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Corsair Sion,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ATUdz0G6,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2017-08-02T19:21:30.295+0000)

so reworking runes ONLY would have been dumb is what youre saying

pretty much, yes. if youre already taking the risk and doing a total rework to runes, might aswell combine masteries into them.

the problem is, since runes are bought with ip and a significant player investment, they were much more difficult to handle than masteries.

riot could rework masteries pretty much freely every season, since theyre free. but completely removing the entire rune system which people dumped insane amounts of time and ip into is a much bigger step.

Kendrick LeemarAug 2, 20172 votes

Only 40% refund too which is bullshit.

KloqdqAug 2, 20171 votes

I mean technically speaking you would have earned that back over time and them giving you any sort of refund is basically coming at charges to them. IP is a free income and to provide that income to players leads to a lost of profits for Riot.

SanKakUAug 2, 20171 votes

Yeah, I can see that. But runes are still so expensive, 40 percent is a slap in the face. I get that between 75 and 100 percent on the other hand would be maybe a little greedy at least for the players to ask for.

KloqdqAug 3, 20171 votes

It's likely to see changes though. Honestly it's not that bad when you consider all the factors.

DJMason88Aug 2, 20171 votes

That was a proposed idea on a survey, it is not final and can change.

SanKakUAug 2, 20171 votes

Yeah, I'm a bit scared that a lot of champs are going to get their flexibility or even raw power nerfed a lot by the rune/mastery changes.

RalanrAug 3, 20171 votes

AP Champions are already basically losing early AP with the loss of runes (unless Riot gives them starting AP).

SanKakUAug 3, 20171 votes

Well, to be fair, they did talk about doing a big sweep to champion's base stats, like giving Ahri AP per level kind of changes, while in the past they've never given someone AP per level for just their base stats. Personally, I've found starting AP to be a bit of a gimmick crutch so I'm not sure if they'll feel like champions need that, I mean in the end they can always buff a champion's spell base damages...in any case, I can understand the wish for player customization on the champions and that is the primary concern here. From their point of view, it wouldn't make sense to give champions starting AP when they could buff spell damage before AP scaling kicks in.

What it seems to me is that Riot is tired of people basically not caring or thinking about runes and masteries and wants to make the average player seem a bit more powerful on average by simplifying the pre-game customization so there's less room for error, less obviously wrong choices that the average player might not necessarily recognize as mistakes.

LadyRenlyAug 2, 20171 votes

im gonna miss stormraiders

stormraiders veigar was my jam

Big LincolnAug 2, 20172 votes

it's staying, but ranged champs don't get the slow resist.

instead of needing to do 30% of someone's HP you just need to hit them with 3 unique attacks

NineTailedMysticAug 3, 20171 votes

Which really sucks for Veigar.

Big LincolnAug 3, 20171 votes

better for the game

RalanrAug 3, 20171 votes

We'll probably see it used more on juggernauts like Garen and Darius now.

AirKingNeoAug 3, 20171 votes

Warlords is pretty overpowered right now. Expecting nerfs and surprised that hasn't happened.

Half the movement speed. Make the lifesteal scale up to 40% from 50%.

Legacy HydralphaAug 3, 20171 votes

We've already seen that some current keystone masteries are coming back with some changes, and we're getting more keystones to go with it too. Not only that, but the current runes/masteries system is outdated and by changing it, it will become easier to access and can provide more interesting options. We're not necessarily throwing away the keystone mastery diversity without reason, and hopefully we can reach this diversity again with a better system.

HåppyAug 3, 20171 votes

It's also becoming a whole lot more confusing.

SasogwaAug 3, 20171 votes

It's the same thing every season dude. After a hard year of balance changes, when we finally meet some kind of a balanced spot, we throw everything up and start from scratch again.

SohleksAug 3, 20171 votes

It might be kinda diverse now... but I still feel like the choices are all weak "choices"

Fervor is still IMBA and too game warping in my opinion. This is coming from someone who uses it the most out of all of them (Gnar & Teemo player). I feel like you have to. It simply has the highest potential output by far of any other mastery. I know it's supposed to do that. But unlike any other masteries it starts to feel like its sole own win condition in itself due to stacking a thousand plus gold of AD at indefinite duration. Most other masteries offer a flat limited time cd effect or an extremely small % effect. Many relevant melee fighters stack it very quickly. It's desirable they do to have a fair shot at it. But it feels like it overshadows other choices.

On the other end of the isle you have the tank keystones which all have a little bit of play... But honestly... none of them feel important. Whatsoever. Personally, IMO, courage was overnerfed. Too long a cooldown, for too modest an impact. You still spec it for a tank build... but eh. It was overnerfed because tanks were too strong with it. The problem with tanks though, in my opinion, is the strength of the stats on the items they build. And yeah, them tanks "fall off" (in my opinion tanks should fall off less but build up a bit slower; lower bases, more multipliers like how an adc scales. or just lower % pen in the game (but still good to buy, fine line though)(and you also want tanks to REQUIRE and desire + feel good about gold when they already feel ok with less of it atm))... digressed... Stoneborn Pact is in a nicer spot imo, but it's somewhat niche. Could also stand to be more pronounced visually and effectively. More headroom for tank keystone power could help here. And what about grasp. When was the last time we've even seen anyone use Grasp. It's always fervor or a true tank keystone. Grasp was also overnerfed to too limited output imo.

Ranged AD have a choice between warlords and fervor... its been hard to balance but we're there now. But they ended up just putting a mini stormraider's surge effect on warlords... which is kinda odd if you ask me.. The heal isn't ultra strong anymore. But the synergy with some items is really cool now. All that extra healing in the past proved to be a bit nuts when added on top of the rest of the game's lifesteal. Maybe it wasn't Warlord's fault though. Maybe the amount of lifesteal in the game after putting more delayed burst on assassins was the problem... especially after recently buffing crit so adcs basically feel no risk going straight for their end game components... then again a decreased amount of lifesteal in the game raises the value from lifesteal from warlords.. but if it's competing with Fervor's massive additional sustained damage output it's a fair tradeoff... but I did say fervor was warping the game a bit much earlier...

DFT is... a joke. It does some more damage sometimes... If you have the patience to scale it... you must build mostly straight dmg to keep it competitive... It doesn't output huge dps on a target like fervor does... (fervor is broken). It just is a damage optimization that works very subtlely and is a weaker choice than others a lot of the game. Champs like Cassio gave up on this shit for like stormraiders.

Stormraiders is pretty cool though. It's underused and undertested even by myself. There's a good reason why it's being carried over to the new masteries (even if the tuning they are proposing for the new one looks so insane it'll become league of stormraiders)

TLD is obviously popular. As long as it's easy to apply damage bonus damage for anyone it would be. It's a little bit on the mediocre side IMO because it has to be for being easy extra poke for laning.... If you're a fervor user you go fervor for the "you fought me too long" win condition though. Or the scaling. The one example exception to this who has a good option here is Jax who has a potent poke combo with his R proc. But... that's a niche situation. Fervor is obviously generally better.. all that AD now can give him armor through ult.... stormraider's sounds cheeky too... cheeky... But yeah. Fervor again having such stupid potential effectiveness it's wasteful to not spec it most games even though sometimes you don't always get that maximum effectiveness.

I actually hope fervor doesn't make it in the new mastery system. Without heavy modification at least. It's old