Challengers have 10/10 thunderlords per game. Ritos logic is buff it. Lol. They wasted all the time reworking masteries and all the new items to make every game feel unique. They did a good job. Sarcasm
Warlord: nerfed Deathfire : nerfed Fervor : nerfed Bond of Stone: nerfed Thunderlord: buffed !
So it doesn't take a genius to know which keystone is strong now ;-)
it's not thunder lords.
it's precision or whatever the hybrid pen mastery before thunder lords
not to say thunder lords isn't good, but wouldn't be mandatory without the mastery preceding it.
edit: Also, precision is getting nerfed on PBE. next patch should see tlords fall out of favor a bit
The issue arises from Precision's strength, and how most other masteries were nerfed. Precision is so strong right now on anyone with either damage type (let alone anyone with hybrid damage) that it is just the go to mastery for damage amplification overall over the %pen masteries. Add in the fact that Thunderlords then scales on it indirectly, and it's fairly obvious what everyone would want.
And 20 seconds between trades? Hell, naturally you don't want to trade until all of your abilities are up, so this limits trades to at least every 10 seconds on most champs. And obviously you are not trading on CD, you go oom way too fast unless you are dominating. This means that waiting for a 20 second mark for Thunderlords, which rewards the quick "burst them and fall back before they can retaliate" trading pattern 90% of champs prefer for trading, is even better rewarded. How often are you going to keep a Deathfire Charge on someone for 6+ seconds? This is what it takes for it to be stronger than Thunderlords, just assuming level 1 trading. TL's base damage scaling (which no other mastery has a base damage scaling per level, only scaling damage if only in the form of max hp or ratios), means it naturally has an advantage. Honestly, unless they change Thunderlords to not proc on Auto attacks (or for an auto attack to only apply 1 stack, and abilities two, and then TL be changed to apply at 6 stacks), it will be pretty hard for Thunderlords to ever be fully removed from the choice, just because for some champs/abilities, it just wins hard. Example, MF can proc it with just her E, and loves Precision for the early game penetration for her E's good base damages. She then proceeds to build heavy AD, giving Thunderlord the 30% bonus AD scaling to run off of. Guess what? She wins out on damage hard with a solid E poke doing so much.
Combo this with how some champs have a natural "I can apply the entirity of Thunderlords with literally one ability/auto attack!" thing going for them, Thunderlords just wins compared to Deathfire Touch.
If Deathfire was changed to have it's AoE scaling be only if the AoE hits multiple targets, it probably would be more worth it, but as is most AoEs only hit a single target anyway if not an ult, just because of size. Meanwhile, change Thunderlords to have less damage, but the AoE size to actually have a pretty large AoE. Now it's intended purpose of being the AoE wombo combo mastery is in, and it's less of a "Oh, I just get an automatic 10-180 + 30% Bonus AD and 10% AP on all fights upfront" mastery. Perhaps make it so that the mastery can be applied once per champion every 30 seconds, with faintly lower damage, rather than having a global 20 second CD before you can apply it to any champion. Combo that with it having a larger AoE size, it would solidify it as the AoE wombo mastery, and remove it from the "General all purpose damage increase" mastery. Lets pretend we halve its damage, but AoE is nearly a lane in width. Very large, low damage proc. If you proc it on 2 champions, it matches it's old damage to a single champion, but it has had the potential to apply it overall twice. If you AoE wombo it, you can get up to 2.5x damage of the old Thunderlords, but it requires proccing 3 hits on ALL 5 enemy champions. Combo with a change so each cast of an ability can only proc one hit for the purposes of Thunderlords once per champion to prevent people with multi hit AoEs just instantly applying it to an entire team, and it's a much better balanced mastery, with clear strengths and weaknesses.
For me, its like, why would I want anything else?
No matter what masteries I'm offered, I will always choose the one that increases my damage, unless I'm playing certain Supports. Add to this, Cunning is the ONLY tree that gives CDR and there is hardly a reason to choose anything else. Sure, the mobility from Stormraider's is good, but if I'm playing an assassin like Zed or Fizz I already have a lot of mobility. I'm going to choose more damage ALL the time. Having more damage is never a bad thing. But losing out on a kill by 5hp because I took Warlords instead of Thunderlord's could cost me the game.
Didnt they buff all the other keystones in PBE?
its made for people who combo fast like kass or lb not every on emakes the most use out of it and it has a cd and your sacrficing things to get it
League of Warmogs League of Cleavers League of Assassins League of Tanks And Now Ladies and Mentlegens I present to you League of Thunderlords
Thunderlords Decree is a burst keystone. This meta is all about who can burst who the fastest it seems to me.
Even after precision gets nerfed it will still be better than battering blows. Everyone will still get thunderlord's.
And lmao at that guy who said armor is nerfed this season. Last Whisper got HARD NERFED this preseason, plus all the other AD items got nerfed too.
The problem is it shouldn't multi proc from auto enhancers or DoTs
Riot is buffing the other keystones. Calm yo' tits.
Are we ready to revert back to the old masteries yet? These keystones have been problematic since their announcement...
thresh in my last game has it
Slow clap Congratulations. You managed to miss something that was common knowledge on these boards not three days ago.
Thunderlords is a common pick because it's the least niche keystone to pick up. The other keystone masteries each fit a niche and each one fulfills it with significant gusto.
I think if DFT would have a higher DoT duration, for example 5-6 seconds (while maintaining the current number of damage instances) and upping the AP ratio to 30-35%, while Thunderlords would deal more base damage (20~ per level) while losing its ratios all together, the spells could each have an identity and a pro/con of taking each of them.
Other masteries does not suit most champions. DFT Is only good on strong dps mages, the crit mastery kinda got nerfed hard (but it's getting buffed too i heard? not sure) Stormraiders was like... never used before lol. The buffs to the other masteries will make them now much more viable. And honestly, Thunderlords was never broken, the other masteries were just too weak.
It gets to the point where I see Jinx players and Blitz players using it...
I went up against a Renekton with it. He didn't have a Red or Green Keystone; he had Thunderlord's.
