Is Thunderlord's Decree currently outscaled by other keystones at mid/late game?

YumaS2Astral·Dec 26, 2015·2 votes·1,320 views

Most people take Thunderlord's Decree mainly because it is the only keystone that is good during the early game. It ensures that you can win lanes and trades.

Thunderlord's Decree obviously falls off if you don't build full AD or full AP (and that's why I don't like taking it on bruisers/tanks even when Thunderlord's Decree offers a far better early game potential). But how much it falls off when compared to other offensive keystones like Fervor of Battle, Warlord's Bloodlust, or Deathfire Touch?

8 Comments

VesarixxDec 26, 20151 votes

I've started taking Fervor on Kalista, just due to how she scales

VarnocDec 26, 20151 votes

You are correct, from a numeric standpoint other masteries scale far better than Thunderlords right now, however, there are a few things to keep in mind"

The damage is AoE, this is the only keystone that possesses this trait naturally, so the damage is comparable if you time it right, though most people don't care.
It's generally better to win the early game than bank on the late in this meta
It's FOTM at the moment, so people see others taking it and don't really put thought into it, but do well so they don't question it.

I suspect that if we were to see an increase in game time, where winning lane and snowballing the game wasn't so common, other masteries would come into effect more often than we see them now, and when Thunderlords is tuned a little bit more it will fall out of popularity a bit more.

Maximum MordeDec 26, 20151 votes

The AOE is tiny and very rarely hits more than the initial target.

Other than that I agree, but you could also win early game trades with Grasp of the undying because the damage on early game TL is pathetic. Hurts less than an auto attack. People are taking TL not because TL itself is good, but because the cunning tree is very good and the other keystones in cunning suck. So unless they make other keystones so much stronger they overshadow the entire cunning tree or nerf cunning, I don't think you'll see a shift.

disregardableDec 26, 20151 votes

There is no mastery called Gravelord. Also, literally none of the keystones are worth more than an auto-attack.

Maximum MordeDec 26, 20151 votes

Yeah, fixed now ty.

JbelsDec 26, 20151 votes

{quoted}

You are correct, from a numeric standpoint other masteries scale far better than Thunderlords right now, however, there are a few things to keep in mind"

The damage is AoE, this is the only keystone that possesses this trait naturally, so the damage is comparable if you time it right, though most people don't care.

It's generally better to win the early game than bank on the late in this meta

It's FOTM at the moment, so people see others taking it and don't really put thought into it, but do well so they don't question it.

I suspect that if we were to see an increase in game time, where winning lane and snowballing the game wasn't so common, other masteries would come into effect more often than we see them now, and when Thunderlords is tuned a little bit more it will fall out of popularity a bit more.

I didn't even know the damage was actually AOE. I mean, it said so, but I never really saw it in action until an ARAM where I accidentally got an instant double kill because of it, and I was just like "dafuq?"

ScramrailDec 26, 20151 votes

In low Elo (imo, gold down) taking Thunderlords isn't necessary. The idea behind Thunderlords being so fantastic is that it lets you dominate in lane and in theory translate that lane dominance into a win during the mid game because of the lead you acquire.

The reason this is almost irrelevant in lower elo is because people don't know how to properly close out a game and the potential for come back wins is always prevalent. In the mid and especially late game, Thunderlords is outclassed by at the very least Warlords Bloodlust on high crit champs (pretty much all ADCs atm, as well as Yas and Tryn) and potentially even Fervor of Battle (though im less sure on this one). Deathfire Touch is pretty much always better than Thunderlords on DoT based champions such as Malz/Brand as well.

The current obsession with Thunderlords is because that's what high elo people think/do, and as a result low elo people are following suit without realizing that just because something works in high elo doesn't mean its going to be as great in low elo.

Personally, ive tried using Thunderlords on ADCs (Lucian) and was very unimpressed with it. I find I get far better results with Warlords Bloodlust due to its incredible survivability late game.