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Is deathfire touch a fundamentally flawed keystone?

bleufromage··18 votes·4,728 views

Please feel free to correct me if or give me insight as to why i might be wrong but it seems like deathfire touch is not optimal on any champion in LOL.

The champions i see take it seem to be dot, and aoe, based mages such as brand, cassio, swain etc... . The keystone last 1/4 as long on aoe spells and 1/2 as long for dot spells. To me this seems inefficient, like building too much cdr, stats are being wasted. I get that its for sustained dmg dealers as opposed to burst mages who take thunderlords, but why make the mastery behave the way it does when most sustained dmg dealers have aoes or dots? I know that this keystone is really good on jhin and varus but they seem to be the exceptions (not to mention that they also have aoe abilities). Also the keystone favors ad champs considering it gives 60% of bonus ad over the 25% ap.

I get that the kestone is the way it is to be balanced. Ad champs have to focus more on autos than mages do so that makes sense, but why have the keystone as it exists at all? Or at least there should be an alternative to sustained dmg caster champions than this wonky keystone with limitations on effectiveness. When thunderlords came out it was so good everyone used it because the upfront dmg is good for everyone. I cant think of a single champ where deathfire touch is 100% efficient.

Akali builds ad and ap but she is a burst champ who needs tld Singed would like it but his spells are aoe dots jhin is the best fit but he has an aoe and could just as easily go for a more bursty build with thunderlords Morg could use it but she has such any easy time procing tld with her aoe dot. hell even jax could use it because its not unheard of for him to build a bit of hybrid dmg that would benefit from the ap/ad stats (and his w would pack a wallup) but every other keystone outshines dft on him.

Please let me know where im wrong on this and what you guys think

71 Comments

Escheton6 votes

It basically increases the ad/ap ratio on your spells. Which is nice.

Thunderlords is for laning. Single target burst. Helps kill pressure.

DFT is for teamfights and poke. Does a bit of extra dmg to everyone. Better even for prolonged skirmishes/seiges.

Spoofghoul5 votes

{quoted}

It basically increases the ad/ap ratio on your spells. Which is nice.

this is exactly what i always used it for when i took it

it gives dot's a 15% ad and 7,5% ap ratio per dot tick it gives aoe spells a 30% ad and 15% ap ratio and it gives single target spells 60% ad and 25% ap ratio

it isn't weak it just doesn't necessarily feel powerful

It is really good on a champion like brand or cassiopeia because they can apply aoe effects to alot of people and their aoe's also apply dots

it's strongest on dot effect mostly, if they get at least 4 ticks/4 seconds But it is also very powerful on AD focused champions with a singletarget damage ability especially jhin because he gets such dumb amounts of AD

Battlecast Sona6 votes

I know this is a thing, but it's a fundamentally misunderstood thing so here we go.

You say that Brand/Cassi/etc get reduced duration on the DoT, but you're actually incorrect. Characters with DoT get more out of DFT than any other character in the game.

In order to understand why this works even though DoTs have reduced duration, you have to understand that the DoT applies DFT multiple times.

So Brand gets 1 second of DFT each time his DoT applies it, and it deals damage twice. So each one second application Brand has deals 2 +6.25 per 100 AP. This seems pretty crap compared to the 4 seconds of the base, right?

but then you figure that Brand actually gets about 4 and a half seconds of the DoT every time his passive ticks. Because his passive ticks 4 times, reapplying the DoT each time it runs out automatically, giving you the normal duration of DFT, but you actually get ADDITIONAL DAMAGE because whenever it rolls over it restarts the tick timer (DFT ticks every half second to deal damage).

So even though it seems that champs with single target abilities would benefit the best, it's actually targets who can continually reapply DFT without effort (Brand, Cassi, Swain) that get the most value out of it (with Swain getting some of the most because of Torment ticking more than 4 times). The main reason I feel DFT is lacking atm is just that there aren't many champs who value the additional AP ratio over either extra burst from TLD for kill pressure in lane or other keystones to better synergize with their kits.

bleufromage1 votes

well that makes the keystone seem more useful, I dont know if this information is correct. Do you have any source that shows that this is how DFT works for dot dmg? I would really like to know. I dont understand why riot has to keep all of the math and mechanics hidden so know one really knows how stuff works.

Ackelope3 votes

you could probably hop into a game with a friend and check that way, just get a champ with a dot ability and a test dummy, then apply the dot, and check their debuff bar to see if the duration of dft is being reset.

ChaddyFantome5 votes

The reason it has a higher AD scaling is because there is less AD in the game than AP.

Mages typically get upwards of 600-900 AP and beyond. Getting 500 AD at all is crazy for most AD champs.

Ok sure but why1 votes

Jhin

ChaddyFantome2 votes

[{quoted}](name=JZ Jora,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gh1lGVmj,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2016-11-30T06:09:39.171+0000)

Jhin

I guess the part where i said "most AD champs" must have magically slipped your view.

YumaS2Astral11 votes

Most AP champions currently have difficulty getting more than 500 AP currently, and because Rylai and the blue buff are getting nerfed (respectively, it has less AP, and it no longer increases your AP by 15%) it will be even harder to get more AP.

PermabannedGaren5 votes

{quoted}

Most AP champions currently have difficulty getting more than 500 AP currently, and because Rylai and the blue buff are getting nerfed (respectively, it has less AP, and it no longer increases your AP by 15%) it will be even harder to get more AP.

item 3165 item 3135 item 3089 item 3157

Not even a particularly AP heavy combination of four items, and this still breaks 500 AP (it's 540) with standard AP runes and masteries.

Adding the nerfed Rylai's brings the value to 634.5.

It is very possible to achieve higher values than this. And keep in mind we were talking about into the very late game.

Seenan3 votes

{quoted}

item 3165 item 3135 item 3089 item 3157

Not even a particularly AP heavy combination of four items, and this still breaks 500 AP (it's 540) with standard AP runes and masteries.

Adding the nerfed Rylai's brings the value to 634.5.

It is very possible to achieve higher values than this. And keep in mind we were talking about into the very late game.

No it doesn't. 370x1.35 = 499.5. Phony!

XeroKimo9 votes

{quoted}

Not even a particularly AP heavy combination of four items, and this still breaks 500 AP (it's 540) with standard AP runes and masteries.

ChaddyFantome2 votes

{quoted}

Most AP champions currently have difficulty getting more than 500 AP currently, and because Rylai and the blue buff are getting nerfed (respectively, it has less AP, and it no longer increases your AP by 15%) it will be even harder to get more AP.

No. PLAYERS are having "difficulty" reaching that much AP because no one wants to buy fucking item 3089 because "muh instant gratification"

YumaS2Astral3 votes

{quoted}

No. PLAYERS are having "difficulty" reaching that much AP because no one wants to buy fucking item 3089 because "muh instant gratification"

Rabadon is a very expensive item with an awful build path, that is only really efficient when you have a decent amount of AP. It gives only pure AP and doesn't have the utility that other items give. Even Void Staff is a better early/mid game item for damage, since it has magic penetration (negates the enemy magic resistance, and works with the base damage of spells). That's why the majority of people don't buy it until late game. Which makes you not have a lot of AP until late game, which was different from what used to happen in the past. Keep in mind that back then, not only Rabadon was cheaper, but other AP items used to have more AP.

SteelMankind5 votes

Not quite. Rab becomes gold efficient at only 36 AP. It's efficiency increases by 20% for every 100 AP you get from other sources (before the rabadons multiplier is applied).

It does still have a bad build path and is OUTDAMAGED by void staff against targets with >~50 MR (depending on ratios/base damages).

YumaS2Astral2 votes

{quoted}

Not quite. Rab becomes gold efficient at only 36 AP. It's efficiency increases by 20% for every 100 AP you get from other sources (before the rabadons multiplier is applied).

While that is true, in the end, Rabadon still isn't a slot efficient item to buy early. There are other, more important stats to build before you try build pure AP. For example: Most mana based champions want to rush a item 3165 so that their mana issues are solved (and this item also gives cooldown reduction which is an important stat to have as a caster). Champions like Brand, Mordekaiser, or Vladimir, should get an early item 3116 because this item synergizes so well with their kits. Champions like Karthus or AP Kog'Maw want to buy an early item 3070 and charge it as soon as possible. Some assassins want to build item 3001 against enemy mages to better survive the lane phase and mid game.

Rabadon's Deathcap is not efficient early or even mid game not even because it is outdamaged by Void Staff. It is because pure AP is not an stat you want to have, until late game. Early, it is better to focus on items that will give you utility or solve issues with your kit, such as mana issues, or in case of Mordekaiser for example, he wants to build Rylai early because without the slow he simply doesn't work as a champion.

This is the reason why I don't like to purchase Mejai's Soulstealer on champions. It is another item that gives only pure AP (and some MS if you manage to mantain it stacked, but you need to not die). It is even worse than Rabadon since it requires you to not die to mantain the AP. It is a lot cheaper, but in the end, Rabadon is still more efficient as a whole. Still, Rabadon should only be purchased at late game, where you already solved all the issues with your build and all you need is a way to increase your damage significantly. And for that role, Rabadon is a nice purchase.

deadlychuck2 votes

That's just not really even true anymore. On top of that, they already have a 100% scaling advantage with auto attacks.

Rengar also gets bonus AD atm, though with his burst already so high, there's no real reason to take the mastery.

Sire Hippington1 votes

It also has a higher ad ratios cause it's magic damage, and APs usually get magic pen while ADs don't.

ChaddyFantome1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Don Cingulum,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gh1lGVmj,comment-id=00000003,timestamp=2016-12-01T01:51:27.712+0000)

It also has a higher ad ratios cause it's magic damage, and APs usually get magic pen while ADs don't.

Unless you are Corki ofc.

Escheton2 votes

item 3027 item 3040 item 3165 item 3089 =100+80+100+125=405 AP before passives. Now, lets assume a meager 1000 mana champ. Thats 400+1000+400 extra mana from items. So...3% of 2800 mana. 84 extra ap. 489 AP before Rabadons. 660 afterwards. With 4 items and no runes or masteries. Stop complaining about a lack of AP.

Seenan8 votes

{quoted}

item 3027 item 3040 item 3165 item 3089 =100+80+100+125=405 AP before passives. Now, lets assume a meager 1000 mana champ. Thats 400+1000+400 extra mana from items. So...3% of 2800 mana. 84 extra ap. 489 AP before Rabadons. 660 afterwards. With 4 items and no runes or masteries. Stop complaining about a lack of AP.

Not every champ is gonna build ROA/morello and/or seraph's.

Escheton2 votes

{quoted}

Not every champ is gonna build ROA/morello and/or seraph's.

I figure just those with high AP ratios. Yeah. But the point remains, you could build for AP just fine.

Partholonian1 votes

Luden's has the same AP as morello or a fully stacked ROA.

Although not much else approaches the raw AP of Seraph's. Most people who would consider building it at all will probably have at least 1000 base mana by the time they finish stacking, plus 1000 more from the Seraph's itself, putting it at 140 before counting any other mana items (or a higher base mana pool, which IIRC, some mages have).

Anyway, the point is, you're supposed to be sacrificing some AP for the unique powers of things like Protobelt or Zhonya's. Riot is now deciding Rylai's belongs in that category too (and I think rightly so).

Is the slow more important to you than more AP? It's good for the right answer to this question to be "Maybe" or "Sometimes".

Catastrop2 votes

DFT has no CD and is more of a mid-late game teamfight mastery. It's perfectly fine in my opinion because on champions with lots of AoE, it can easily outdamaged TLD in pretty much any scenario aside from brief skirmishes, which is what TLD is for anyway.

bleufromage1 votes

it has a cooldown... i dont think people realize it applies to your spells which every spell in the game has a cooldown

Partholonian1 votes

Well, most of them do. Singed Q and Swain R can just keep reapplying it until they run OOM. (Edit: And Karthus, and Amumu, and Aurelion Sol...)

I forget if Teemo gets to apply it along with his on-hit poison... although I suppose there you could say his autoattack timer is a cooldown, if you really wanted to.

In any case, even when it technically does have a cooldown, it has a MUCH shorter cooldown than TLD, which is an advantage even when it isn't literally no cooldown.

L0ve Is Blue2 votes

It's amazing...

For the 3 champions that actualy use it

Cassiopeia Brand Jhin

Z Statistic3 votes

Singed Anivia Teemo

Singed probably gets the most benefit out of it because his Q ticks 4 times per second.

SweedishGunner2 votes

Malzahar

Talisid2 votes

you forgot Swain Illaoi Xerath and Zyra (for the few rare people who still play Zyra mid)

Hyperiön2 votes

DFT is meant for DOT champions, or champions with very high AD, such as Jhin.

SwordOfWar2 votes

Dft is good on ad lethality builds

Kilanost1 votes

Death fire doesn't have a cool down. That's what makes it more useful on some than tld. If I'm taking death fire I'm thinking about team fights more than I am my lane superiority early.

bleufromage1 votes

idk how many times im gonna type this on this thread. It has a cooldown because it applies to your abilities which all have a cooldowns.

GigaPube1 votes

i feel like you couldve said more, or built a better argument, maybe you didnt get your biggest turnoff about it across properly. theres a lot more champs that should build this than you think. if theres 9 keystones, on average 15 champs should take each keystone, so if 10 - 15 champs are happy DFT users, thats fine. DFT is for long-term greater damage output while thunderlords is for burst and kill potential

bleufromage1 votes

I wasnt making a case of why i hated the keystone i clearly asked for clarification if anyone else had more insight than me (which I really dont have at all) and you cant avarage out keystones and number of champs you have to look at their specific kits.

Weasel Kensei1 votes

Try playing Swain with it. It essentially adds 6.25 AP scaling per second to his ult and Q.

FYI, the reason it last less time on DoT abilities is because the dots often have larger than average ratios, and if you got the full 4 seconds, you would get say: 3 seconds of dot + constant refresh on DFT, which would refresh on the last bit of the dot for 7 seconds of DoT. On a champ like Singed if the DoT/AoE reduction wasnt in you would suffer more than 35% AP ratio. 25% of that from the last tick of the posion, plus all the DFT procs during the first 2 seconds of ticks.

AoE spells have reduction because if a champ like Ziggs got full DFT on something like his ult, it would just straight up increase his ult AP scale by 25% and that would be sick, it would make his Q spam durring team fights just horrific.

I love DFT on Brand. Got his passive burning them, DFT burning them, Liandrys burning them. They have 3 different dots on them. His passive goes off and it refreshes DFT on those around them.

AoE and DoT get reduced time (and thereby damage) because thats where DFT would be the strongest if not reduced.

I actually liked building glass cannon Rengar pre rework with DFT. The good part was jumping out with a combo, and hitting E/Q as they were running and since those are single target they inflicted the max time burn. People hate running from Rengar only to die to a dot. TLD was/is supperior, but DFT was functional.

Aurellion Sol can make use of it, and many Morgana mids use it because it just straight adds to the scaling of their Q/W damage. A Q hit by itself gets a full 25% AP scaling buff. Thats significant. W like Swain ult gets a 6.25% AP per second damage increase. Morgs Q has 90% ratio so adding 25% makes it 115% of her AP with DFT. Her W last 5 seconds so if you nail a team fight with the whole duration, thats 32.5% more AP scaling. You see TLD on Morg more often cause shes usually support and its easy to proc TLD on W and TLD scales with level as well as AP. Mid though you will probably see DFT.

When chosing to use DFT on a champ, its a choice of how much do you use abilities (AP or AD caster) and how much time do you put into the kill, or how much do you have to poke before you go all in. The longer your kill time is, the more you want DFT. The shorter it is, the more you want TLD.

bleufromage1 votes

I understand that it cant last the full four seconds and i even said that it needs to be this way for balance reasons. My point is it does not make sense to have a keystone that is always gated on champs that were meant to use it in the first place. just rework it into two keystones one for dot/aoe champs and one for spell slingers.

Lucian Waifu1 votes

The reason it designed to be weaker for AoE and DoT spells even though those champions are the ones who use it the most is because it would be vastly overpowered if it wasn't. Currently DFT has No Cooldown unlike TL. If it didn't have the diminishing returns, all the AoE and DoT champions, that usually can't proc TL as easily anyways, would have a massive amount of bonus damage that would make every other Keystone weak.

bleufromage1 votes

I already stated that i understand that it is the way it is for balance reasons, the problem is why have a keystone that is gate based off balance rather than based on function. And it most certainly does have A Cooldown because it applies to your spells which all have cool downs. My point was why does the keystone exist as it does. there are better ways to make a keystone for sustained damage dealers.

Lucian Waifu3 votes

{quoted}

I already stated that i understand that it is the way it is for balance reasons, the problem is why have a keystone that is gate based off balance rather than based on function. And it most certainly does have A Cooldown because it applies to your spells which all have cool downs. My point was why does the keystone exist as it does. there are better ways to make a keystone for sustained damage dealers.

Well TL was based off of function first and then it had to be nerfed to become balanced. Also saying that DFT has a cooldown is ignoring the other keystones that have their own internal cooldown. You could proc TL, CotC, or Stormraider's at multiple times without their internal cooldowns. DFT has no internal cooldown so there is no upper limit on it's damage other than your own spells cooldown.

The reason it is balanced the way it is, from my best guess, is that Riot initially intended DFT to be used by mages that would rather have extra total damage over the burst of TL. After testing they decided on lowering the duration for AoEs and DoTs because with certain champions you could keep DFT up indefinitely because it has no internal CD. DFT turned into a keystone that DoT mages used and that is probably the reason why Riot has kept it because there is no other keystone that comes close to the effectiveness of DFT for those champions.

bleufromage1 votes

I think we are agreeing here, my point is why has riot left it this way. I believe it should be split into two new keystones. One that fits dot style champs and one that fits caster style champions.

Lucian Waifu2 votes

Probably because it is in a "good place" as is in terms of how Riot wants it to be used and from their point of view there is no need to fix something that isn't broke, even though it looks weird.

dunkeroni1 votes

Veigar

Meep Man1 votes

I use it on: Brand Fizz Jhin Karthus Swain

Saianna1 votes

I could never see any difference with DFT on or not (unless i played Jhin).

While TLD was visible as fk. Sudden lightning and enemy lost 10-15% of their hp.

AcidTheWarlock1 votes

I always took TLD on Rumble since I could proc it by poking people through the minion wave but it's so weak on him since I normally rush either Giant's Belt (defensive) or Haunting Guise (standard) and at times Seeker's (losing lane to AD) or Negatron (losing lane to AP).

None of which give you massive AP.

DFT is better since you can constantly apply it with Q spam, and since I'll normally poke with harpoons instead of farming, it gives a full single-target burn, easily refreshed.

bleufromage1 votes

im not asking for who people take this keystone on, i could easily look that up. what im asking is why does the keystone exist as it does because it does not truly fit what the champions who take it want in a keystone. they take it because the other ones do not fit, so its a default keystone not a meaningful choice.

AcidTheWarlock1 votes

I'm just saying why I take it and the benefits.

Since keystones are really balanced around the champions that are supposed to take them, there are some who will want the extra DPS.

DFT really works with Swain, Jhin, Rumble, Illaoi, and others because they either do not build much AD/AP besides 1 or 2 damage items, or have high delayed burst and need DPS.

I know some it doesn't fit, but there are some it works well for.

I would like to see it become more interesting (honestly I want masteries and runes removed, since it gives new players massive disadvantages and needless complexity) but I think it can work in it's current state.

Bond of Stone, however, now that thing's a real piece of work

Sire Hippington1 votes

I don't think it's fundamentaly flawed, but it should get tuned a bit different. The way it is now, it's not very good if you don't have dots or low cd singletarget.(or extremely spamable aoe) Another issue imo is that it has next to no base damage but and is all scaleings, which makes it only good for glasscannons.

If it would get some basedamage/level and therefor lower ratios, aswell as finally lasting 3sec on aoe, it would be usable by a wider range of champions if they wan't to increase their dps/poke.

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