Player Discussion on Preseason Issues

So even though I am writing this as a way to voice my concerns about the current updates for the preseason I would also like it to be a discussion for others opinions as well. I understand that preseason itself is basically just a live server version of pbe testing for the upcoming season; the pbe basically just being used to clear up bugs before the real testing begins.

I have been playing on the pbe for the preseason updates since they day it was released and while at first I was extremely exited for these changes the more I have been playing with them the more I feel like a lot of what has been changed have not been good for the game or the community. I realize that most of this is my opinion and while the only justification for saying that I feel that a lot of the changes aren't good is from my experiences and trying to talk to everyone I can that has been apart of the testing for this preseason. If someone disagrees with me they can talk about it and I will do my best to understand their opinions as well as test any differing theories or ideas.

I am going to focus mainly on the masteries and some items to keep from over writing so people will hopefully read and make comments for discussion. I can make other posts or simply put other issues as a comment later on. I sincerely hope you take the time to read this and that it is of interest. If you don't share my opinions or simply have an idea to share please post a comment and your reason why.

Masteries

This is the first thing on my list for my issues mainly because it is one of the biggest changes for this preseason that I feel is important and to me is the biggest of all the issues I've found. I do not want the masteries to be ignored until next season.

The first thing I would like to say before I make any criticisms is that I really feel like the change in style for masteries is a great idea. I think that being able to change masteries based not only on the champion your playing but also on the players personal preference is a must needed part of the game. That being said I really feel that they only real "choice" is what keystone you want to use. Everything else feels like there is almost no choice in what masteries you pick. Instead of having 4 masteries per tier to choose from and distribute points between you have 2 for every single tier except for the keystones at the end of each section. The masteries themselves below the keystones also feel extremely weak compared to what they were. They were never strong but now they feel almost non existent in use.

I think the best way to "fix" the masteries is to give options back to the earlier choices. I think the best way to allow for this is to change it from having two separate five rank options to having two three rank options with two two rank options to go along side them. This will keep the five points per tier with one upgrade choice per tier the same as it currently is just with more options. I also feel their should be four keystone options instead of three. I realize that part would be hard to balance and would probably take a little time which is fine but I think that they really don't cover enough in terms of champions needs and play styles. They cover a lot and give options to a decent amount but i don't really think they cover enough. I feel like the tank keystones are very average, the ad based ones are extremely powerful and the ap / support ones are extremely weak.

These are the masteries I feel need to be re-added to the game and for each I will explain why.

• Reinforced Armor - Reduces total damage taken from critical strikes by 10 % this mastery is extremely important especially now with all the crit items in the game as well as the numerous characters using them. So far on the pbe the popularity of these items as well as the characters best suited to use them has risen so much to the point that a lot of games theirs usually a second adc as well as a melee ad crit champ as well.

• Hardiness - gives flat armor per rank up to 5 armor at third rank Currently the new masteries only give percent based armor and magic resist unless you take legendary gaurdian which gives you a little flat of each for each nearby enemy champion but your choices are between that and the the new tenacity mastery so it's kinda hard to choose between at that point. With all the new powerful ad items as well as the buffs to a lot of ad champs i feel that this is an important mastery to have especially in the early game where it is most important to help keep from just getting flat out kicked from your lane.

• Resistance - gives flat magic resist per rank up to 5 at max rank

• Evasive - reduces magic damage taken from aoe spells by 4% I put these both together because they mainly serve the same purpose. They help keep you from getting destroyed in lane by random ap casters usually just randomly being taken top lane. Their are some that are simply common to top lane but it is still important to have these to allow some survival in lane.

Not having the option to take flat armor or magic resist really hurts the early game strategy which was a lot of the reason for masteries as well as why you are able to change them during champion select. With the current masteries they're is no counter play for defending against aggressive early game high damage champions for tanks. They simply get destroyed in lane unless their jungler completely camps their lane. This is not fun and is not how the game is meant to be played other wise what reason is their for tanks if full damage champs just become more efficient because tanks cant fight full damage champions early game at all.

• Inspiration - at max rank gives 10 experience every 10 seconds when near a higher level champion this is a really relevant mastery for supports because they rely so heavily on leveling and when they are supposed to be able to start fights, roam, ward, clear wards, and help save allies they have to leave lane quite often. This mastery at least help keep them from falling too far behind in levels.

• Scout - increases the range of trinkets by 15% This is makes warding over dragon wall or baron wall into tri bush possible, losing this actually hurts not only supports as well as it was an early rank utility mastery letting almost anyone take it. This made keeping vision for objectives much easier simply because it helped keep people from being forced too far away from their team just to place one ward. You could argue that not having that allows teams more opportunitys to make plays but it also takes away the same amount of opportunity. Not being able to scout early is a big deal especially in competitive league.

• Arcane Mastery - grants 6 flat ap

• Martial Mastery - gives 4 flat ad These aren't very important but having some bonus flat ad or ap early game was very helpful. Now we only have scaling that gives u a little of both ad and ap but not much without the flat bonus to help out. This hurts junlgers a bit as well as ao mid early game.

The rest of these are from the current preseason masteries that I feel should be buffed or changed

• Feast - Killing a unit grants 20 health with a 20 second cd Why was the mana bonus from this taken away? Mana potions were removed and we were told that in doing so champs that needed the extra mana would be given alternative ways to get that mana. Adding 10 mana to this with the same cool down would really help those champions. It would be effectively the same as before just with more at once and then a cool down.

• Natural Talent - At max rank grants 10 ad and 15 ad at level 18 Without the flat ad or ap from the two mastery masteries this feels extremely weak. Why not just add a little bit of each flat to make this mastery actually worth picking over Vampirism?

• Tough skin - reduces damage from monster and champion attacks by 2 This is incredibly weak. In all the other seasons it would be up to 6 from champions and 5 from monsters. With no flat armor mastery this should be double or even triple this value. Junglers need it very badly and a lot of supports need it too. It would also give a bit of early defense for tank top laners. I also think that this shouldnt be one of the lower tier keystones and if the system I suggested gets used i think it should be a regular tier one mastery.

• Runic Armor - Increases heals and shields by 8% at max rank I like this mastery and the only thing I don't like is that it is put in an almost impossible spot on the masteries to choose between. Most champions that would go down the defense tree would want both the increase in healing and the increase in health. I feel this should be swapped with Perseverance. The same should be said about Swiftness and Legendary Gaurdian. Why would you force tanks to choose between these two?

Items

I will be brief since I spent a lot on the masteries. These are just minor issues that hopefully would be fixed on their own given time.

• Mercury's Treads Reducing the tenacity on this items so much makes tenacity not even feel worth building. Originally was 35% and when combined with the mastery was at 42% (because they stacked multiplicative), now its 20% and when combined with the mastery it is at 32%. That's less then the original value by itself and is does almost nothing for any champion building this unless the champion has some tenacity bonus of its own. Also almost all of the tier two boots feel a little expensive but that's not much of an issue.

• Sword of the Occult Why was this item removed and yet Mejai's Soul Stealer was made more cost efficient and easier to build? Casual players love this item and while maybe that would be an argument to remove it, that argument is made irrelevant when you do the opposite with Mejai's Soul Stealer. If your going to allow one allow the other their shouldn't be a double standard for this.

• Guisino's Rageblade I really like how this item was changed and I really like what people found out they could do with the new version of this item. My only issue is that this may need to be fixed if it continues to run rampant with devourer enchantment.

• Yellow Trinket With the removal of regular wards from the shop this item becomes the most common way to ward. The only problem is that it feels like it doesn't allow players to ward often enough and the wards don't last very long either. Yes effectively its longer before you hit level 9 but most players would then upgrade it to get much better warding capabilities. Now it just feels like a very situational sight stone since most of the time you don't have the ward available when you need it. I think it allowed a lot more skill in the game allowing players to buy wards. I think that if you just reduced the cost to 50 gold and only allowed players to carry two just like the vision wards it would be a lot better. Since you can only have one vision ward out at a time it doesn't really feel like its enough even when combined with the free trinket.

• Rangers trailblazer While I sort of understand why poacher's knife was removed and I might be able to understand why this was removed with the new hunters potion I still feel like it was an effective clearing method with slower junglers. Even if just the aoe smite was put back on the warding jungle item it would be good.

There are a few minor other things but for the most part I think this covers what really concerns me. The champion based issues will probably be fixed on their own and a lot of the items will probably also be fixed. So if there is anything you don't agree with or anything you feel you can add to this please post a comment for discussion.

Thank you