How to make Killing Sprees/Assist Sprees More Impactful
So i was playing a game and was 4-1. While this has happened tons of times before, I happened to have a mejai's this game, which was very unusual. I usually skip this item, even when ahead, since it still costs a decent chunk of gold that is usually better spend on other items. Even late game when gold isn't an issue, I would rather have a ludens anyways.
So anyways, I just got my mejai's to around 15 stacks, and I noticed that I played slightly differently than I normally do, as do my enemies, because of the item. I cared about my stacks, and therefore really cared about not dying, so I was playing more defensive; my enemy, on the otherhand, was playing more aggressive in order to kill me. Pretty soon afterwards they 5-manned me mid to kill me, bringing me to 4-2.
It was important because it was exhilarating having that many stacks and knowing that my killing spree actually mattered to me AND my enemies. Usually whenever you hear the announcer say "X is on a killing spree, unstoppable , legendary,etc. you know they are fed, but it barely affects the way anyone actually plays the game around the fed person. The person on a spree doesn't care at all about being shut down and remains playing super aggressive to snowball further with gold. The enemies don't really care much about shutting the person down, because its only a few hundred gold MAX split between the teams.
The point is, barely anyone EVER really looks/care at the bounty spree icons next to a champ health bar. To decide your general strength in a fight, they will look at your level, current health + mana/resource, and your kda/gold (basically power from items). Killing spree is not really a factor at all, and I think this is sad.
I want to propose a change that will make killing/assists sprees in general more impactful/meaningful, making those killing spree icons something to take into account for EVERYONE on the rift.
CHANGES: New Bounty/Killing Spree System Renamed to Mastery Streaks
Now has 18 Tiers instead of 5 (or whatever the current Bounty streak has)
EFFECT: Gain your pre-picked "mastery streak" masteries based on mastery streak tier level. Killing an enemy champion, enemy tower, or epic monster grants 3 tiers to your mastery streak; assists on enemy champions, enemy towers or epic monsters grant 1 tier. Dying decreases your tier by 10.
In the mastery page (out of game), in additional to picking regular masteries, you also have a page where you pick your "mastery spree" masteries. This page is identical to the regular (base) masteries page, except the masteries you have picked in your base masteries page will be CROSSED OUT (unpickable). You still have to start out at the bottom of each tree and can only get the higher tier masteries once you have picked ones below them, exactly the same as your base mastery tree functionality. A.k.a, you are on tier 6 mastery streak, you can gain 5 points into tier 1 "Fury" and 1 point into tier 2 "Expose weakness", assuming you haven't taken them in your regular masteries already and have them picked in your MSM ("mastery spree" masteries) page. Being on a tier 18 mastery streak (max), you can gain 5 points into tier 1 "Recovery", 1 point into tier 2 "explorer", 5 points into tier 3 "runic armor", 1 point into tier 4 "insight", 5 points into "legendary guardian", and 1 point into "grasp of undying". Assuming you haven't taken any of these masteries in your base mastery page and have them picked in your MSM page.
This will give everyone much more incentive to not die when racking up a lot of kills/assists/objectives and on a mastery streak. It will give you that same exhilarating feeling as having a 25 stacked mejais when you are a 18 tier mastery streak and have a SECOND KEYSTONE MASTERY, but will be as USEFUL to ALL CLASSES/CHAMPS, not just ap mages. You also won't have to sacrifice 1400 gold either (but neither will your enemy), so if you lose your mastery streak, it won't be as heartbreaking as dying with a fully stacked mejai's.
And, it wouldn't be super game breaking because honestly, masteries are not that strong (And actually pretty weak/useless later in the game). They are barely strong enough to think twice about whether you want to die or not. The only major difference you could tell probably is when you are on a max kill streak and have a second keystone, and EVEN THEN it still wouldn't be super game-changing.
tier 3 - mastery spree tier 6 - rampage tier 9 - dominating tier 12 - unstoppable tier 15 - godlike tier 18 - legendary
Obviously, bounty kill gold would also be changed to mastery streak shutdown gold, gaining more each tier, same as current bounty kill gold.
Seems like a good idea to make killing/assists sprees more meaningful and downright fun besides hearing the announcer say "legendary" over and over.
Thoughts?