Riot's Goals and the New Masteries
So the preason is here once again, and per the usual we have a new mastery system. Riot's plan for the new masteries was to give players the oppertunity to choose based on how they play. Overall I think that this was not achieved, but before I talk about the negatives I like to talk about the positive.
Out of all the new mastery trees I think the Resolve (Tank) tree really hits the mark. It provides tanks some tough choices to make and really is affected by your playstyle. Yet when you look at all of the choices in the tree they all focus on the same base; Defence/Survivability.
This is, in my opinion the key to fixing the new masteries. We need to focus the trees not on specific actions, instead on specific roles/types. Looking back at the Resolve tree every single mastery, except for explorer (insight is debateably both offensive and defensive), helps you survive.
Through this specialization it allows the tree as a whole to be diverse. Just look at the keystones!
Grasp of the Undying gives you survivability in terms of an offensive heal that scales off of a defensive stat; HP
Strength of the Ages gives you flat hp, up to 300, for killing large monsters.
Bond of Stone gives you a % dmg reduction which an ally can benefit from.
Each one is unique in the way it helps tanks, and in my opinion not one is stronger than another as each is useful in specific situations.
When compared to the other keystones it seems like there is usually only one optimal choice for each champion. This is because to many attributes have been crammed into the other individual trees. The Ferosity tree is the best example of this as there are multiple tiers where what your choice is solely based on whether you are AP or AD. This is the problem we have to fix.
The solution is that we NEED more mastery trees. We need at least one more tree so that we can split AP and AD up. Another would be nice, one that could focus on casters as a whole or utility. This will allow trees to be less crammed and allow diversity through specialization.
If you don't really get what I am saying let me try to show you.
The Ferocirty tree is basically the "Damage" tree. Now when the word damage is brought up I think of a few things:
AP, AD, Crit Chance, Crit Damage, AS, CDR, True/Bonus Damage, Armor Pen, Magic Pen.
This is "Damage" to me. This is a lot of stats with a fairly prominent split between what connects with what. And all of it (in relation) is getting shoved into 13 masteries, with a few being very obviously AD vs. AP.
If we were to instead have a tree for AD and one for AP the list is smaller and more focused. (These lists are generalizations, I understand some champions do not follow this)
AD: Attack Damage, Crit Chance, Crit Damage, AS, Armor Pen.
AP: Ability Power, CDR, Mana, Mana Regen, Magic Pen.
These two list are a lot smaller and allow the specialization that the new masteries need. They allow masteries to take varied approches on the base idea and allow fun/different ways to do things.
Something similar could be done with the Cunning tree (Utility and Support) but I won't go into that unless you guys want me to.
By adding a new tree focused on AP and changing the Ferocity tree to reflect that, we can help Mages with more variety and usefulness in masteries. This can help us see if the changes to AP items (Increased costs and a few stat nerfs) were too much and put them in a better place. The specialized trees will also help balancing wise because only specific champions will be using each one.
TL:DR We need more mastery options in the form of additional trees. We need these trees to be specialized to benifit specific types of play style and champions. This way we can directly effect those roles with different apporches to them. The example of this is currently the Resolve (Tank) tree. The Ferosity tree needs to be split and give one tree for AD and one for AP.