Masteries

I'm a casual LoL player, but I was a hardcore WoW raider, and I'm a bit concerned with the mastery changes and how they've played out thus far. The stated intention of the mastery changes was to give players meaningful choices based on play style. However, with the way masteries are designed, theory crafters can (and do) optimize builds for champions based on roles, which in this iteration means picking thunderlord's for most champs.

Even if you do manage to make the other keystone masteries more attractive, this doesn't mean diversity will change, it just means the optimal mastery build will change for each champ/role, and players can still easily gimp themselves. This was not as big of an issue last season since there was only one bottom talent in each tree, and as long as you took that talent and filled up the tree, you weren't dramatically disadvantaged due to masteries.

Now, with multiple keystones in each tree, it's essential that you pick the correct choice. Picking the wrong keystone is like picking a wrong rune page.

I always believe that while pointing out problems in a game is more helpful to developers, in life, whenever you present a problem, you should also present a solution that can get people thinking on the right track. The problem with masteries is that they deal with damage, and doing more damage is always a good thing and easily quantifiable, leading to the problem of "correct" and "incorrect" masteries. The same problem exists with healing for healing champs.

The other issue with the trees is that in a game with 30 levels, there should at least be 30 mastery points. Leveling a summoner feels off atm.

Here's an example of a mastery system that is very hard to quantify and gives people choices based on playstyle. There's only one tree and each tier deals with a different aspect of the game. It's not as exciting, but would make players think:

Select 5 points in each tier

**Movement Tier **(Increase base movement by 0.3/0.6/0.9/1.2/1.5%, Increase OOC movement speed by 1/2/3/4/5%, Reduce movement slowing effects by 5/10/15/20/25%, Increase speed after killing a monster by 10/20/30/40/50% for 3 seconds, Increase speed by 1/4/3/4/5% while within range of an enemy turret)

Health Tier(Increase health by 0.8/1.6/2.4/3.2/4%, Increase base health by 15/30/45/60/75, Increase max health after killing a large jungle mob by 1/2/3/4/5 to a max 200, Increase max health by killing siege minions by 2/4/6/8/10 to a max 200, increase max health by 5/10/15/20/25% of ability power or 10/20/30/40/50% of AD, whichever is higher)

Sustain Tier (Gain 4/8/12/16/20 Health after killing a minion/monster every 20 seconds, 0.5/1/1.5/2.0/2.5% lifesteal/spellvamp, 0.5/1/1.5/2.0/2.5% mana regeneration, Gain 1/2/3/4/5% health and mana after kill/assist on an enemy champion, 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5% increase to health regeneration)

Defense Tier (Gain 1/2/3/4/5% increased armor/magic resistance, gain 3/6/9/12/15 MR, gain 3/6/9/12/15 armor, gain 5/10/15/20/25 armor/mr after being healed/shielded for 5 seconds, Gain a shield for 0.5/1/1,5/2/2,5% of your health after being ooc for 10 seconds )

**CD Tier **(Increase CD Reduction by 1/2/3/4/5%, Increase CD Reduction Cap by 1/2/3/4/5%, Increase CD Reduction after killing an enemy champion by 2/4/6/8/10% for 15 seconds, Increase CD Reduction after killing a monster by 2/4/6/8/10% for 15 seconds, Increased CD Reduction percentage on items by 6.6/12.2/18.8/25.4/33%)

Damage Tier (Increase Armor penetration by 1/2/3/4/5, Increase Magic Pen by 1/2/3/4/5, Increase Armor Pen. percent on items by 2/4/6/8/10%, increase Magic Pen. percent on items by 2/4/6/8/10%, Increase armor/magic penetration by 0.6/1.2/1.8/2,4/3)

Select One point in the final tier **Master Tier **(Do 3% more damage, Do 3% more healing/shields, Take 3% less damage, Receive 3% more from heals/shields, Do 8% more damage to Monsters, Do 6% more damage to towers)

Now, I don't think is perfect, balanced, or even necessarily good, but it is much harder to optimize than the current mastery system. Like I said, this is just a sample. I think a mastery like this would allow players to have fun putzing around without getting yelled at for not taking the correct masteries. It also would allow for more customization based on a player's preferred playstyle (i.e. ganking, jungle farming, laning, splitpushing, etc.), and more similar masteries could easily be added to diversify playstyles without falling into the optimization trap.