An idea for the resolve tree.

TL;DR - Bond of Stone -> Tempered Soul - Reaching {x} bonus HP grants {y} armor/magic resist.

Hey boards, I don't post here too often; usually I just comb the front page headlines and look at similar titles to see what the current buzz is. At the moment it seems to be:

Jungle's a mess Bot lane is a clown fiesta Tower 1st blood (exacerbating the whole "bot lane is a clown fiesta" bit) The resolve tree

I can't claim to have an answer for most of these issues, as they seem to be symptoms of a number of systems just failing to do anything near what they're intended to be doing. However, I had an idea for the last one, specifically Bond of Stone.

It seems generally accepted that bond of stone is well...useless, and Grasp is currently underwhelming, but in my opinion that's more a numbers thing. I think Grasp is mostly okay, maybe giving more HP to the user while reducing or scrapping the damage that's applied to the victim will allow for them to fool with some better numbers. I'm not sure, that's for people who are far more into league's numbers than a Normal Draft player like myself, but the point is...

Many people who go into the resolve tree, specifically tanks, feel their only option is currently CotC. Some champions who don't even identify as tanks have taken to going into resolve just to pick up CotC, or at least they used to. It's a bit better now, it still outshines its resolve siblings...but it's better. That in itself seems to be a large issue with the keystones though.

"How do we give the champions who are meant to go into the lesser masteries of this tree meaningful options at the end of it, without making it so that those who are not meant to get to the keystone level of this tree abandon their intended routes just to pick up this broken keystone." Sound familiar?

So I thought of a replacement for Bond of Stone, Tempered Soul (name is just so I don't have to speak in abstract about this and can call it something, it can be changed). The TL;DR pretty much says what I'm thinking it should do "Tempered Soul - Reaching {x} bonus HP grants {y} armor/magic resist." but here's why. When it's in a good spot Grasp of the Undying, to me, seems to be a laning tool. CotC, is something present at all stages of the game. Tempered soul, then, would be something that turns on later in the game. It's purpose is to help tanks, well, tank.

[Rambling, this paragraph can be skipped] Off the top of my head, with the exception of Poppy, being a tank right now just doesn't feel good. It feels like this lonely (speaking mostly on top lane) bitter existence, where any damage applied more often than a Nidalee spear causes you to sit in the corner and sob. I always thought tanks were supposed to be these big, loud entities that are just constantly in the way and swatting at them won't remove the issue. The idea that someone either needs to dedicate themselves to that their removal (adc) or form up in such a way that you can negate the tank, or the tank's team and then deal with one or the other before dealing with the remainder. Might sound like forcing people into molds and in a way it is, but if we're going to keep putting champions in categories and give them "roles" then give them something to do their role!

[Back on track] Obviously exact numbers need to be discussed. My first thoughts were bonus HP amounting to 2k-2.5k would activate the armor and magic resist, but that's as far as I was willing to calculate without another set of eyes. Then I thought that might leave it open for some divers to tap into it, which is its own can of worms but might not be so bad. Or perhaps it needs to be higher to it's actually late game, I haven't done nearly enough studying to know what all of the more sturdy champions have in terms of bonus HP by say 25-30 minutes. Lastly, maybe a mastery that only turns on late game just isn't what people want from their keystones, but I thought it was something different to suggest, so I did.

Thoughts?